Bad reaction to being stuck by a thorn at Charlie's

We've got lot's of health professionals, woodsmen, and other knowledgeable people here at Knight Realms, so I wanted to pose a question about something that happened to me at the Festival.

Pretty early in the day, I was stabbed very deeply in the achilles tendon (that's the one right above your heel, right?) by a VERY large thorn (I will grant you that not wearing my boots was not my brightest moment). I pulled the entire piece out, made sure there wasn't any debris left behind, and went on with my day.

Within a few minutes, a dull ache started to spread up my calf: It almost felt like it was cramping up. I figured it was just a side effect of getting stuck so deeply through the tendon, but I basically ignored it. As the day wore on though, it started to hurt more and more, and the ache spread. By the end of the day, it was starting to hurt so much, I decided to head home a little early.

On the drive home, it really started to throb and burn. By the time I got in the door, the entire back of my lower leg from my heel to the top of my calf had become visibly swollen, and was cramping so badly I couldn't bend my right foot. This lasted the entire night through to when I went to sleep 5 hours later.

When I woke up in the morning, the swelling had gone down, and the leg had finally uncramped, with only a little pain at the actual stab point, which finally disappeared completely around noon. By the middle of the day, it was like nothing had happened.

Does anybody have any idea what the heck could have happened to me? My mother was worried I could have been poisoned somehow, but I was thinking it was just some sort of reaction to getting stuck through the tendon. Either way, it was really frightening: I've never experienced anything like that before, and I was really close to calling an ambulance. If the pain had persisted into the morning, I absolutely would have, it was that bad.

If anybody has any theories, I'd really appreciate if you'd let me know, whether it's here or via PM.



Edit: If it helps to know: Icing the leg was apparently a terrible decision, and made the entire thing feel like it was going to burst like an over-stuffed sausage. Wrapping it in a heating pad soothed it a little, and taking some advil seemed to relieve some of the pressure almost immediately.

Three and three quarters years ago, while mowing along the edges the day before the MD Ren Faire, I got stuck on the back of my right hand by a multiflora rose thorn.  The next day at the faire, I started to feel a throbbing ache, which turned into an agonizing pulse by the end of the day.  On the way home, I sat in the back and iced it.  After leaving Matt's I drove directly to the ER at Doylestown Hospital.

After taking a culture (my temp was 102 and climbing) the docs had me hooked up to intravenous antibiotics.  THe lead one told me had I waited until the next day, our discussion would be whether to cut at the wrist or elbow.  MRSA is a bitch and I still cannot have intravenous lines put in my right wrist.

You obviously do not have that, but I have learned that whenever punctured deeply, I put a triple A antibiotic on it.

Two Possibilities logged on two pages from those who have encounted these plants.:

Unfortunately, this arch harbors a hidden menace, one that is the bane of humans and wildlife alike: A hard, viciously decurved thorn (above) that can slice an arm, lacerate an ankle, or--in the case of cattle--shred an udder or scrotum so savagely the cow or bull dies from shock or infection. The curve of a Multiflora Rose thorn is toward the base of the cane, so a person brushing against the shrub is instantly impaled; moving forward merely drives the thorn deeper into one's skin or lengthens the scratch. During a less severe encounter--one in which a body merely bumps the cane--the thorn tip often breaks off in the skin, festering a day or two later. (Some people even have an allergic reaction to rose thorn scratches.)


Raspberries were less ubiquitous than blackberries, but also abundant. Both plants are armed with dangerous thorns, but I noticed that wherever the blackberry thorns scratched me, they left an intense stinging reaction that was more than the actual wound seemed to justify. Susan got a blackberry leaf stuck in her pant leg and felt like her whole calf was on fire for about half an hour, even after she removed the leaf and I rubbed Benadryl cream all over her calf to try to stop the allergic reaction. We didn't notice the same problem with raspberries (shown below), but then, neither of us got a raspberry leaf stuck in our pant legs.