Boff Hoff to Sugarloaf

[whitebark]

Did you see the cowboy camp with the old stove? That is a neat spot.

[Terawanderer]

If you leave the cactus spine under your skin.....your body will form a small pocket around it and dissolve it over time. It will take up to six months for this to happen. One of my friends still has a little bit left from his "cholla encounter" over 8 months ago.

[Carl F]

Just to set the record straight. Not a good idea to let a foreign body reside in your body. Just because someone got away with this tactic does not make it good practice, from a medical standpoint. Bad things can happen.

[KathyW]

One time I went into the doctor for a checkup and I happened to be covered with tiny cacti spines. I wasn't there because of the spines, but my doctor got upset and started pulling them out. She gave up when she realized what a massive job it would be to remove them all, and they were small spines that didn't bother me much. She told me the little ones I was covered with were probably not a problem, but there had been cases of spines, like ones from Cholla, that had traveled through their bloodstream and caused major damage.

[Sally]

Yikes, Kathy, I've heard that they can enter a blood vessel but I thought that maybe it was an old wives' tale! I guess I'll call my doctor today.

My daughter got the tip of a palm frond stuck in her hand and it developed some kind of calcified pocket around it. She eventually had it surgically removed because it was in a muscle and was causing problems.

Hi Lermo, the frozen waterfall was at about 4000 to 4500 feet.

[Terawanderer]

Carl F..just to set the record straight...... my friend went to the doctor....... from a medical standpoint the doctor said to leave it in and charged $80 for pretty much nothing. Personally I would remove it if it had been in my leg.

[KathyW]

[quote="Sally"]Yikes, Kathy, I've heard that they can enter a blood vessel but I thought that maybe it was an old wives' tale! I guess I'll call my doctor today.

My daughter got the tip of a palm frond stuck in her hand and it developed some kind of calcified pocket around it. She eventually had it surgically removed because it was in a muscle and was causing problems.

Hi Lermo, the frozen waterfall was at about 4000 to 4500 feet.[/quote]


A spine going into a blood vessel does sound unrealisitic to me, but I think my doctor was being serious and not playing with me.

[Terawanderer]

Hi Kathy ....

[Ellen]

One time I went into the doctor for a checkup and I happened to be covered with tiny cacti spines.

Ouch! I'm glad to know that I'm not the only person who has been assulted by cacti. I'm still pulling out tiny spines from when I rolled into the cactus several months ago. My left hip has scars that look like the measles.

Miles of smiles,
Ellen

[Sally]

Well, I called my doctor and he told me to go to urgent care, which I did. While waiting for the doctor in the examination room the nurse brought in a set of instruments that looked like one of those cases of instruments that they use to torture people in the movies.

After much digging around, the doc finally found the end of the spine, which had burrowed rather deeply into my thigh. Then he started pulling at it, but his torture instrument couldn't keep a grip of it. When I suggested pliers he didn't answer me. He was determined (ouch), and eventually got it out (I hope.) He had to cauterize it (double ouch) to make it stop bleeding, and sent me on my way with a prescription for antibiotics.

Oh yeah, and when I asked him about cactus spines getting into the bloodstream, he said it doesn't happen. Which just goes to prove that doctors don't agree on everything.