I have a bit of an odd story; a couple of months ago I went to home depot and decided to buy some tomatoes. I saw that they had San Marzano Tomatoes and given that I love to cook with them, I happily bought the San Marzanos. Well, its really odd but every time I handle my tomato plants I get horribly sick. I'm talking shock to my system; cloudy vision, wracking pain in my head, spine, and neck, tremors, full on dementia. It feels like I literally go insane and it takes about two weeks for me to start feeling normal again. A month after my last experience I still have lots of tension in my back and the back of my neck and I just don't feel right.

At first I equated it to someone maybe poisoning me, I wasn't sure what the hell was happening but yesterday I cut about 2 ft off of them and trimmed them up quite a bit and those crazy feelings and pains came back. I started feeling faint and dizzy, the pungent smell of the tomato plant lingered on my hands for what seemed to be the entire day. I eventually went to bed early and slept quite a bit. Today I flushed out my body with lots of water and I'm starting to feel somewhat normal again, however; I'm likely going to have the headaches and back/neck pain for another week or so.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can someone tell what's going on with me? I eat tomatoes every week, I know I'm not allergic to them, however, when handling my tomato plant I get horridly ill. NO this is not a joke, no, I'm not trolling anyone. I'm actually seeking information or help.


Thanks,
SanDiego-an


PS I tired to post pictures of my tomato plants but the website says, "In an effort to control spam, new members are not allowed to post links to other websites. Please remove the links from your post before you submit it. (This restriction will be removed from your membership within a few days."

Welcome to NGA, SanDiegoan!
No idea what's wrong but it is a shame that the tomatoes are giving you such problems.

Obviously, ditch the tomato plants. Then, you may try to find out where your box store got their plants and what poisons the grower (and or the box store) may have applied to them. You will likely not get anywhere with that, but it is at least worth an effort. In the future, I would only buy organic plants from a reputable local nursery who can verify that no chemicals were used. Sounds like you may be sensitive to one or more of them.

Sorry you are unable to post pictures quite yet (new development to this site) but do your plants look noticeably ill as well?

Bonehead said:Obviously, ditch the tomato plants. Then, you may try to find out where your box store got their plants and what poisons the grower (and or the box store) may have applied to them. You will likely not get anywhere with that, but it is at least worth an effort. In the future, I would only buy organic plants from a reputable local nursery who can verify that no chemicals were used. Sounds like you may be sensitive to one or more of them.

Sorry you are unable to post pictures quite yet (new development to this site) but do your plants look noticeably ill as well?

I got them when they were about 6 inches tall and now they're 6ft. Would whatever pesticides they sprayed on my plants still effect me months later??

I think you should be able to upload photos if it is from your computer (no links involved).

I have no clue - I am firmly entrenched on Team Organic and have never used any poisons so have no experience with them. That just seems the logical correlation. If you remove the plants and still experience similar effects, then you will need to look elsewhere for your culprit. Have the tomatoes themselves caused a reaction? Or is it just the foliage?

Well, tomatoes are in the nightshade family, so maybe you are actually allergic to the plants themselves... ??

I'm going to suggest moving this thread to "All Things Gardening," as more members are likely to see it there than here in "Site Talk."

Tried to upload the pictures and failed again, both times from my downloads folder. Yeah, I dunno, I can eat tomatoes until the cows come home but whenever I touch the plants it makes me terribly ill.

what allergies do you have if any? Please list all that you know of.

SanDiegoan said:Tried to upload the pictures and failed again, both times from my downloads folder. Yeah, I dunno, I can eat tomatoes until the cows come home but whenever I touch the plants it makes me terribly ill.

Different parts of plants can contain different levels of metabolites. Example: From personal experience ripe Solanum nigrum berries can be eaten in reasonable amounts without harm, but eating the leaves without correct processing will give most people GI upset.

I think that you're probably right about it not being any pesticides applied to the seedling before you bought it, since touching and eating the tomato fruit itself doesn't give you a reaction.

This is a guess or suggestion.

I found out many years ago that you can be allergic to x, y or z and not have any response large enough to really know until for what ever reason you subject yourself to multiple allergy items all at once and then misery starts.

I found out that being allergic to sweet clover, shell fish and chocolate in a combined dose, even a small amount of some, big of others, is not a good idea.

It happened to me so it is just a thought.

Welcome to NGA, SanDiegoan!

I wonder if you can mostly avoid touching foliage, until you get your harvest? Can someone else help with "touching" chores?

I've also found that allergies seem to be cumulative for me.
I lived in a moldy basement for a while, and it didn't bother me noticeably.
I had a cat, and the cat didn't and doesn't cause any allergic symptoms that I notice.

But, together, they gave me congestion and sandy eyes.

And now, on a high-pollen day, I may wake up with allergy symptoms in my cat-saturated home.
But I know that the allergy will go away once I get out of the house.
And on low-pollen days, the house does not cause any allergy symptoms.

Say, do you have any neighbors with tomato plants, that are NOT San Marzanos? If you're willing to give yourself more symptoms "for science", you might be able to figure out whether it is just SOME varieties of tomato plants, or all of them.

Try using gloves when harvesting and tending your plants.

ediblelandscapingsc said:Try using gloves when harvesting and tending your plants.

Good suggestion; also a long-sleeve shirt!

SanDiegoan said:
At first I equated it to someone maybe poisoning me, I wasn't sure what the hell was happening

I sure hope that's not the case but you should go see a doctor just in case. This is a crazy world we live in these days and if you have reason to even think such a thing you should get some blood work done.

ediblelandscapingsc said:

I sure hope that's not the case but you should go see a doctor just in case. This is a crazy world we live in these days and if you have reason to even think such a thing you should get some blood work done.

I think you're right, I'm on for blood work Monday. I'm starting to think tomato plant situation will turn out to be completely coincidental. I've never had allergies to anything, and there's no way a tomato plant could evoke meningitis like symptoms.

Attempt three at uploading pictures.

Try to stay calm and only eat out for the time being. Also fix your own drinks, better yet only drink water out of the tap. If it turns out you are being poisoned don't go seeking revenge the best thing for you would be to contact the proper officials and distance yourself from that person from here on out. Sorry to hear you are going through all this and I hope it gets better for you soon.

Good luck, SanDiegoan! Please let us know the results.

Whatever the cause is -- and hopefully it's some sort of "natural cause" -- I hope the blood work helps get to the bottom of it so you can feel better!