Mother Issues Warning After Lime Juice Reportedly Leaves Son's Hands Covered in Burns
With the weather warming up, children’s lemonade stands are popping up for the season, giving eager kids the opportunity to learn a little bit about small business management, have some fun, and maybe even earn a few bucks.
Katherine Thompson, from Bryan, Texas, decided to help her kids set up a cold drink stand of their own, which included fresh, delicious cherry limeades.
Her 7-year-old son, Bently, had a blast at the limeade stand, proudly doing his job of squeezing lime juice to help make the perfect chilled drink.
But the following morning, Thompson said Bently woke up with painful blisters on his hands, leaving the mother concerned.
At first, she suspected that Bently’s hands might just be sunburned after a day spent outside working.
“Then he had a blister on one of his knuckles, so we knew it was something more than that,” Thompson told KBTX.
Unsure of what was happening, Thompson took Bently to three different doctors before he was reportedly diagnosed with Phytophotodermatitis, a skin disease that can happen when certain plant chemicals, combined with sunlight, cause inflammation in the skin.
According to Medical News Today, Phytophotodermatitis symptoms include skin inflammation, itching, and blistering. Symptoms often do not present until 24 hours after exposure and are most noticeable within 48-72 hours.
According to Thompson, Bently’s reaction was severe, and caused second-degree burns on his fingers.
“They told us he had second-degree burns on his hands, and they wrapped each of his fingers up individually,” she said.
TONIGHT AT 10: A day of selling cherry limeade to the community landed this 7-year-old boy in the hospital with second-degree chemical burns. https://t.co/kmxbBSKlXu
— KBTX News (@KBTXNews) May 16, 2019
Learning to cope with fully-wrapped hands has made life more complicated for Bently, though he is expected to make a full recovery.
Thompson said doctors told her it was a good thing she had sought medical treatment for her son right away.
“They told us that if he didn’t continue to use his hands and if we hadn’t gone to the hospital and had them wrap it up and fix everything, there could have been some really bad scarring that could’ve limited his finger movements and his hand movements,” she said.
As Bently recovers, his mother hopes to create awareness of the rare skin disease, which might prevent other kids from walking down a similar road.
“We just want to educate people because we would hate to see other kids who do lemonade day have something like this happen to them,” Thompson said.
Medical News Today advises frequent hand washing and wearing gloves as the best preventative measures for the skin disease.
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