Did you know mangoes belong to the same plant family as poison ivy and that the skin of a mango can give you that same great contact dermatitis as if you played with poison ivy, poison oak, or poison sumac? I did not know that. That is a factoid that (thankfully) I did not learn as a result of personal experience. I was seeking the chemical structure for
urushiol to add it to my
indirect poison ivy blog post and I
read that if you have contact dermatitis from poison ivy or one of the other urushiol-containing plants, exposure to the cut skin of a mango can be a highly unpleasant experience. From there, I found a nice list of
Contact-Poisonous Plants of the World that you can peruse for education and entertainment.
Obviously people eat mangoes all the time. The edible portion isn't going to cause you problems. However, the vine of a mango contains sufficient urushiol to cause a reaction that rivals or exceeds that from poison ivy. The skin of the mango contains enough urushiol that if you are already sensitized to it, you will probably get contact dermatitis from exposure, usually on your hands, since most people don't bite into mangoes.
Comments
I lived for 2 years in Paraguay and ate mangoes by the bucketful during the summer (and any other time that I could find them). Often I would handle them and also eat the skin. Not to mention that when I ate them I almost constantly left my lips in contact with the cut skin. I’ve never had a rash of any kind from it. Am I some sort of anomaly? Do many people have no reaction to poison ivy or sumac?
Many people are not allergic to Poison Ivy. I am extremely allergic, however no one else in my family is. I am also extremely allergic to Mango, and I didn’t learn until recently that there was a strong connection between them. Also, cashew shells have the same toxin, but I’ve never had an allergic reaction to cashews.
Many years ago I moved to Florida and the house we rented had several Mango trees. I had both Poison Ivy and Poison Oak as a child. I carried some of the fruit in my arm. I noticed spots that were itchy. I ate a little bit of the inner fruit but did not like it. The next day my face was swollen up terribly. Some people saw it and said I had Mango Poisoning. I went to a Dr. and he told me Mangos were a relative to Poison Ivy and some people can’t even walk by the trees. Now Mango is in so many things I am really watching what I eat. It makes me wonder how many people might have this poisoning and would not know what it was from.
I’m very allergic to poison ivy and I eat mango skin all the time. It is chewy and delicious! I have never broken out from contact with the skin.
Same here. I have horrible reactions to poison ivy but eat mangos like apples. Strange.
I lived in Ghana as a child and would get a rash if I came in contact with the tree. It’s the only thing I am allergic to, although I guess it’s not an allergy. Years later I was cutting a mango and touched my skin before washing my hands and also got a rash and then learned it was related to poison ivy.
EUREKA. As I sit here, trying to figure out what has caused this terrible itchy, swollen, blistering facial rash, I believe I have found the answer!!!! I have never been allergic to anything, including poison ivy but I had surgery and they removed my spleen. Last year, I came in contact with poison ivy and was covered with a horrid rash. Just ate a mango a few days ago and my entire area around my face it DRIVING MR CRAZY. Now I know why
Is there a solution to this poison mango after your face is all swollen up? My lips are swollen and I would like to know how to rid of it. Thanks
Matthew, I hope you are fine now, but if it happens again, I would take some benadryl or some other allergy med.
I grew up in Miami and there are many, many , different species of mangos there. Some are Haden and some are turpentine . The haden is found in the grocery stores; whereas the turpentine is much smaller and not sold in stores. I grew up eating them all and never had any kind of rashes etc. Some people are not effected by the mango.
Matthew! I have the answer for a fast cure of a mango out brreak around the mouth. its this skin protectant called GLYCERN its a Pure Natural skin softener. its an oil based product in a clear bottel with pink blue and white label. I got it from walmart. It started to clear up within a few hours.I was sooo amazed.
3 or 4 days ago I peeled and ate a mango that was slightly unripe and within a few hours my lips started burning and developing a rash. It stayed that way for the next couple of days and then suddenly last night I got hives all around my face and neck. This morning I woke up with my left eye swollen shut. I remember noticing some clear fluid oozing from the fruit at the stem, which I guess is the poisonous sap. Anyway, it’s strange but I’ve eaten mangos a handful of times in my life without getting anything, but I think that someone else has usually peeled it for me. I read that the reaction can be worse if the mango didn’t fully ripen on the tree. I am also highly sensitive to poison ivy and this is the exact same kind of reaction. And as far as I know, there is really no good cure, calamine lotion and oatmeal help a tiny bit but really you just have to tough it out.
Holy Crap!I’m going through this as I type. I ate a mango just the other day and woke up the next day with what I thought was poison ivy. I thought this because I too am very alergic to poison ivy. So, I go to the doctor’s and he tells me that it looks like a allergic reaction to something. After trying to figure out what it could be, I just so happen to mention to him that my brother has a serious allergy to mangoes and latex. Which in turn he asks me if I have ever had poison ivy. I say yes and he tells me that the mango tree and the poison ivy plant are somehow related. He gave me some strong steroids and told me that they would help. We will see!
Whenever I eat green mangoes, my lips always get sore and painful. I wonder if the whole poison ivy thing is the reason for it. Or maybe because it’s very sour and acidic when raw. I can’t say for sure.
i eat mango skins. like literally i will bite into a mango and eat the skin with the fruit. with no side affects. it taste pretty good. my dad and sister do this too, also with no side affects. (my mum hates mangos)
i am wondering if i am immune to poison ivy. i have never had poison ivy before, neither has anyone in my immediate family, and we love the outdoors and hiking and camping. i’m actually thinking to purposely try to get poison ivy to find out. obviously carefully, i’d rather have the itchy rash somewhere other than my hands.
my boyfriend is allergic to mangos. every time he tries to eat one, he gets sore, swollen lips.
Mango-yum-a gift from a friend=AGONY
I peeled a large mango, sucked on the pit which had residual fruit…12hours later…rash on my neck, right below my chin. It has been itching for 4 two days now. I’ve been using cortizone and today it seems to have spread down to the area below my neck. It is most unpleasant.
Just in case you’re searching, as I was, to figure out how long you’ll be suffering with a blistered mouth from your mango skin encounter, Here’s my experience:
3 Days before Day 1: Ate a Mango, including getting the flesh out of the skin with my teeth after lunch. Did not wash face until that night.
Day 1: Noticed a couple little bumps on lips, and thought they were really chapped. Applied regular lip gloss (Carmex) as usual.
Day 2: Woke up with swollen, inflamed, blistery, painful, itchy lips. They looked and felt AWFUL.
: Applied vaseline and scoured the internet to figure out what was going on.
: Figured out it was a mango allergy, but wasn’t sure what to do for it. Stopped applying vaseline because some said it might be bad for poison ivy types of reactions because it keeps blisters from drying out.
: Took an Alavert-24 hour to try to help with the allergic reaction
: Bought Ivarest Poison Ivy Itch Relief Cream and Benadryl Itch Stopping Cream.
: Took an advil and applied the Ivarest at 6pm to my lips and surrounding skin area, and the Benadryl cream that night after washing my face, before bed.
– Incidentally, both are SUPER painful – burning, drying, etc. on your lips.
Day 3: Woke up and lips looked only slightly better – the blisters were drying up a bit from the creams.
: Took an advil, and applied Ivarest at 9:30am
: Took an Alavert-24 hour to try to help with the allergic reaction
: Applied Benadryl cream at 2pm and again at 5:30pm
: Applied Ivarest before bed
Day 4: Woke up and lips looked better – good enough that I was only somewhat mortified to have to go out of the house that day
: While outside the house, I removed the Ivarest/Benadryl and applied Lip Clear Lysine+ (a cold sore treatment) because it also claimed to dry out blisters (albiet of a different kind), is fairly clear, and is safe for use on your mouth (The others probably aren’t ideal for use on your mouth)
: Applied Ivarest at night
Day 5, 6, 7: Each night I applied Ivarest (again it is SUPER PAINFUL – burning, etc.), and during the day I used Lysine. Each day my lips looked progressively better.
: My lips and the area around them were peeling constantly from Days 4-8 – the nasty blistered skin was flaking off. It was gross, but I tried not to mess with it and just let it come off naturally.
Day 8: The last night I used Ivarest
By Day 9, my lips look almost completely better. There were few spots on the skin around my lips that didn’t start to get red or inflamed until around Days 4-6, and those are still a bit red, but my lips are pretty much back to normal.
Day 10 and 11, I’m just using regular Burts Bees Honey lip balm, and trying to get my mouth back to it’s non-dryed out state. But aside from dry skin around my mouth, everything looks pretty much normal.
I don’t know if the methods I used were ideal to treat this, but I figured I’d at least pass them along so you’d have the type of info I looked for when I first figured out what was wrong – and an idea of how long your lips would look so gross and be so painful!
Hang in there. You’ll survive.
Unripe/artificially ripened mangoes are the worst for this – pften a problem in India when the mangoes are late ripening, and the monsoon is on it’s way. The growers often harvest them unripe then use artificial means to ripen them – resulting in a lot of very strong allergic reactions.
I just cut into an unripe mango, and I was scraping the flesh off of the skin with my teeth, as it was so hard. By the next morning I had developed small pustules, sort of yellow in color, on either corner of my mouth, sensitive and raised. I remembered that someone had told me you could get poison ivy from mangoes, so I googled it, and here I am! I am just trying to keep from picking at the areas, and it doesn’t itch but is oozy and yucky.
omg. im miserable! i have a mango tree in the back yard and ive NEVER had any interest in the fruit. this year i decided to surprise my co workers and bring a bunch to work. my husband got me a new picker and i was off! about seventy-five mangos later, i have the rash not only on my face, but my stomach, groin, legs, arms,neck and chest. eye swollen shut (thats gotten better but now my face has this awful peeling, hanging skin! i called my m.d. he gave me steriod shot and oral prednisone. im using benedryl cream ( two tubes so far) and i still have hives all over. this happened on the 6th and today is the 15th. its really horrible. help!!
when i was kid, every time i ate a mango, my lips got all these tiny little blisters on them. someone told me they were related to poison ivy, and since i am sensitive to poison ivy, i knew mango was the culprit. 20 years later, i tried to eat a mango again, just to see if maybe i’ve “outgrown” the allergy. NOT! i not only got the little blisters on my lips, but a little blister patch on my eye! it’s itching like crazy!! guess i won’t be eating them anymore.
I’ve been allergic to Mango for years! Not sure if anyone else has the same issue, but I’m extremely allergic that I cant use any products that contain Mango what so ever. Never fails i try based on the information I read and I break out (No where near as bad as when I ate mango years ago – with horrible reaction!) just a tip
Poison oak or urushiol reactions is something ive become an expert on having had contact with so many times. The best way to avoid the misery is to avoid at all costs. But if you find yourself coming in contact as soon as possible wash the affected area immediately. Use a commercially available soap that can break down the urushiol oils. Fels naptha was one of the first one used or now technu works well. Use cool water initially and be very thorough. Try to not overly irritate the skin. Very important to wash everything you or the source came in contact with as urushiol oils dont breakdown (other than in extended sunlight). If its a mild exposure than many over the counter lotions and benadryl concoctions may give relief. Affected individuals who have acute contact or have ingested must seek a physician immediately. As for mild cases its really just a tough it out approach. I found that really slathering on(use alot its cheap) calamine lotion everywhere(even unaffected areas helps with discomfort and its spreading-drys out skin). The itch mechanism is caused by the fluids moving outward and by the sensitive nerve endings of the affected skin. calamine lotion help to dry the skin. Another approach after your in full outbreak is to right before bed time take a very hot shower(hot as you can stand) which kicks the fluid production into high gear (during the shower) so subsequently after the shower itch causing fluid production subsides for a time allowing you to sleep. I know it sucks to have this and I totally feel for you. Hope this helps
I ate a mango last night and ended up in the ER at 2 o’clock this morning. I had a severe reaction to the mango. I almost went into anaphylactic shock. Luckily I made it to the hospital before that happened. The dr treated me via IV, with benadryl, pepcid, and prednisone. It started to get better before they released me at 5 a.m. He sent me home with scripts for all 3 medications and it seems to be getting better by the hour. I first noticed it at midnight and by 2 I knew somethin was really wrong. My right eye was almost swollen shut, all of my face was swollen as well as my neck. even my ears were swollen on the inside and out. I never would’ve guessed that he would use pepcid to treat me, but apparently its an H2 histamine that really helps severe allergy attacks. It was very scary and absolutley painful!!! I wont be eating mangoes anymore! If it happens to u, dont wait it out. Go to your nearest hospital and get treated ASAP.
I have had a toxic reaction from eating too much mango fruit…my face looked like Charlie Brown…round,round,round and puffy. It took several months (luckily my kidneys survived).
This is what works for me:
There is nothing in this world I enjoy eating more than a mango. However, I am highly allergic to poison ivy. So if you don’t want to stop eating mangoes, this is what you can do: I have a mango tree in my yard in Miami. When I pick the mangoes, I carry a bag in one hand and only touch the mangoes with my other hand. I make sure that the mangoes nor the tree ever touch any other part of my body. When I am finished picking. I wash my hands and arms 3 times with warm water and Seventh Generation dish soap. This prevents me from breaking out (I’ve broken out before when I didn’t wash my hands…or when I let a mango touch a part of my body that I didn’t wash afterwards). When it’s time to eat them I peel the mango over the garbage can. Then I put the peeled mango down and wash my hands with the dish soap again. Then I hold the mango over the sink and munch on it sloppy style. This will work for those of you who are not allergic to the actual pulp. Now, for buying mangoes in the store, I’ve been told by the people in my local store that mangoes sold in grocery stores have typically been boiled which gets rid of the allergen. Not sure if this is universally the case.
I learned this the hard way. I prepared my first fresh cut mango from a farmers market (mind you, I’ve spent years eating already prepared mango from stores and in foods with no problem). When I cut the fruit from the skin I noticed a good amount was left behind, so I folded the skin inside out and nibbled the mango from it. The next morning I had a red rash around my lips which, by noon, spread into tiny clustered clear pus filled blisters (about the size of a pin head) that went down my neck, behind my ears, up my nose, on my eyelids, and into my scalp. It had completely taken over my lips. It itched terribly, and burned when I itched it. I tried mass doses of Benadryl (the most my pharmacist would allow me to take) before going to the doctor who scripted me Methylprednisolone. The swelling, itching, and blisters went away within 8 hours from starting the steroid. The dry skin and redness remained for a week. I still eat mango, but never fresh prepared again, even the knife cutting the skin and then into the fruit drags the chemical with it and causes a reaction for me! I’m mildly allergic to poison ivy and sumac, no reaction to poison oak. My advice to you: at the very start of these symptoms go get a steroid asap!
Son is allergic to poison ivy and just now learned that the reason he had his last two bouts with it is because he ate mangos and was scraping the skin to get all the pulp. The doctors didn’t even ask why on the mouth..you’d think they’d know this…they will the next time I have to take him to get some steriods…..I was shocked to learn this so I feel I need to share with the smart doctors.
You must have the wrong plant Mangos grow on trees, and dont cause rashes unless you are allergic>
I have a question, I bought a mango, and cut it up into slices, I left the skin on, and placed the peices in my water jug with cucumber, about an hour or more later, I started breaking out in this rash of little red bumps, itches terrably, and feels like I have rolled around in fiberglass. could leaving the skin on have caused this?
While visiting Florida a few weeks ago, I picked some mangos from a tree. I was warned that they carry the same chemical as poison ivy. Although I am extremely allergic to pison ivy, I disregarded the comment as I’ve been eating mangoes all my life. I remember being intrigued by the amount of sap coming out of the branches as I picked four mangoes to take home with me. Several days later, bumps began to form on one arm, then another, then on my chest and, basically, everywhere my hands touched skin on my body. Two weeks later, I have been given a cortisone shot and taking oral prednisone, along with corisone cream. It’s still itchy, red, swollen and painful.. .the symptoms do not disappear. Nothing seems to help, just have to let it run its course I guess. Safe to say, I don’t think I will ever touch a mango again. I’m sticking to melons.