pinkfloydpuffer

So, on my bottle of freeze-dried bloodworms that I just got it warns that you should never touch them, and if you accidentally do that you should vigorously wash with soap and water. What is the reason for this? Are the bloodworms dangerous?

Angelika

oh! I touch mine all the time... now you have me worried.

pinkfloydpuffer

I dunno, I just read what it said on the bottle...

morganrules

i touch them to and sometimes my fingertips get a little itch but i really havent noticed anything bad at all so it seems to be ok

pinkfloydpuffer

Ok, I just don't wanna end up with some freakish disease or bugs growing inside me or something...
I just think too much about this sorta thing.

Dino

Some people have a strong allergic reaction to blood worms.
Bad enough to send you to the hospital.

pinkfloydpuffer

Ah, that explains the warning.

Lucy

I never touch the blood worms, as it says right on there that people could have a reaction.
We had a member have a reaction to them a while back.

Allie

Bottle? We only get frozen blood worms here. Our fish don't like the freeze dried stuff.

pinkfloydpuffer

I'm scared of getting parasites and whatnot in the frozen ones. The freeze-dried say that those aren't present in theirs, but who knows...

mrsmuffin

I handle my freeze-dried bloodworms (although I have mostly switched to frozen) and have never had a problem. I do always wash my hands afterwards though.

Chief_waterchanger

It is just as with any other allergy; Some people will have a reaction but others will not. I've never had a reaction to handling frozen or freeze dried bloodworms, but by the same token anyone in the fishhouse that is going to handle them we have them have minor exposure first to see if a reaction is going to occur.

sirdarksol

There is always the potential for a developed reaction. My wife developed a latex allergy over her first two years as a nurse.
I am developing a growing wasp allergy. Each time I'm stung, I am affected more and the reaction spreads further up the limb. I am now afraid that, if I am stung again, the reaction will reach my throat.

Chief_waterchanger

An Epi-pen is definately a good thing to have on hand if you can get one prescribed.

Butterfly

I'm right there with her. I am in gloves all day and have to wear Vinyl gloves, even the nitrile gloves don't work for me

Carol

sirdarksol

I've thought about it, and could probably get one, but it's not like I get stung often, and my reactions are never really severe. It would be unpleasant, but I doubt it would be deadly.

Chief_waterchanger

Dino keeps one because his bee allergy is severe, but we actually used it on my little brother when he got a VERY severe reaction to an unknown allergen. He began breaking out in splotches the size of my head, all over his body.

But as far as the bloodworm thing goes, I would suggest taking a very tiny amount (about a drop) of the juice and putting it on the underside of your wrist. If you develop a rash then you know. (The only problem with that is that a % of people will develop a rash just out of the mind over matter side of things. )

Pandora

I know my allergy developped over time... I started out being fine touching and handling any kinds of bloodworms, then started sneezing, having itchy eyes, etc. after using freeze dried, and now I can't touch either freeze dried or frozen or my fingers kinda swell and get really itchy and a bit red. It's far from life threatening, so I go on blissfully feeding bloodworms to the fishies because they love them so, but I do try to not directly touch them.
As far as parasites, most of the frozen bloodworms are sterilized in oen way or another too, so it's not too likely they'll have any as long as they've been handled correctly and kept frozen up until you thaw to feed em. I go through more than I like to think about, and the only time I've had anything resembling internal parasites was when a bunch of rainbowfish I got brought in camallanus worms... nothing to do with food!

okaydar

New female betta I brought home didn't eat for 5 days. I tried the usual betta pellets, but she just ignored them. 5th day I went to pet store where they gave me a sample of frozen blood worms. Now my fish is so happy and active! Never will go back to betta pellets again.

emilai333

I haven't had any problems with bloodworms but have recently started to get more concerned about developing allergies - when I was little I was allergic to nickel (the metal, not the coin) and nothing else. Even poison ivy never made me break out. My brother was allergic ONLY to poison ivy. We joke that if we talk too loud about it around him, he'll get a rash. I have since slowly developed an allergy to cats (I love cats but now have to wear long sleeves around them and probably soon won't be able to be around them at all) and am developing an allergy to latex... my brother has developed a severe allergy to fish (can't even handle them while fishing, and like me with cats... he loves fishing and used to love to eat fish. He wears gloves fishing.)

Angelika

Yeah I blow up when I touch and open a baked bean can.... and I get an itchy mouth when I eat more than 3 strawberries....... allegies, the way of life!

COBettaCouple

Both of us have slightly allergic reaction to the freeze-dried bloodworms, but not to thawed frozen bloodworms.

Angela_96

I haven't had any reaction to the bloodworms but we keep a bottle of epi at the house (my husband is a paramedic and I am a resp therapist both of us are qualified to draw it up and give the epi if need be)
Our 3 year old son was born w/ severe food allergies, so we keep it on hand for anything that may come up (especially since he has never been stung by a bee and that is one allergy that my mother and all of her family w/ the exception of myself has)

So if that happend w/ the bloodworms, we are prepared.

Over time I have developed 2 allergies, one is a food allergy to mushrooms and the other to laundry detergents, I can use a certain type of tide w/o any rashes luckily I found a tide that had some type of freshener in it (I was getting sick of buying that dreft stuff)


I think the growing bee, wasp allergies w/ people has to do w/ the bees themselves we have had 3 people in the past year die in our little and I do mean little community from bee stings that were never allergic before to bees from bee stings. They didn't expect it, therefore it was too late by the time they called 911. One guy had a bee farm.
My reaction to a bee sting went from not being able to tell where I was stung to it looked like a baseball under my skin, w/ no other reaction (but for me to have that happen its saying something about the bees). I think its a hybrid bee. (sorry of topic here)


The bloodworms should be ok to handle, I would after handling anything w/ the fishtanks wash my hands just because of all the bacteria, etc that is involved w/ the fish. (i.e. salmonella from fishtanks, and other goodies...)

Sabi

Been handling both, freeze dried and frozen bloodworms, without a problem.

sallers

Used to alot of fishing myself and often used "fresh" live bloodworm then without a problem, also use frozen bloodworm in my tanks without any kind of reaction