Dear everyone,I"m posting this for Colleen Doman of Chicago, who is not on
the Net and who rang Australia tonight to enquire whether anyone knew of
adverse reactions to topical cabbage. She is dealing with a mother who has
had blistering all over the breast after brassica in the bra.  As it
happened, I published a report of such a reaction earlier this year: it was
second hand to me, but sounded similar. Now two cases in many thousands is
not a reason to panic and discontinue a therapy used for centuries to
reduce oedema, but could I suggest that we share respources on this? Anyone
know of any other cases? If you do, did you have the opportunity to test
whether the reaction was to cabbage per se, or contaminants such as the
derivatives of world war 2 blistering nerve gases we spray on foods? was
the cabbage washed? did she choose inner of outer leaves? If cabbage, is
the woman allergic to anything, perhaps especially sulfa drugs? She will
say no (everyone does if asked if allergic) but ask all the detailed
questions re foods liked and craved or disliked and avoided, diet history
since infancy, minor health problems like "sensitive" skin, "tricky" gut,
tendency to headaches, you name it...All that stuff as per Food for
Thought...I am not surprised to get idiosyncratic reactions to cabbage: it
happens with everything else, so it's inevitable sooner or later. But
forewarned is forarmed...

Please post privately as well as to Lactnet as I can't stay on all the
time: it could become too time-consuming! But this is the sort of thing
Lactnet is ideal for: thank you, Kathleens dear. I will pass all on to
Colleen asap.

By the way, I'd endorse everything Ros has said about both avoiding
peanuts, and dry skin benefitting from Lansinoh. Most allergic Anglo
families seem to have a tendency to irritable skin (dermatographism is
common in histamine-laden skin: run your nail along and a white weal
develops.) If you would use an emollient on dry skin elsewhere on the body,
why not on the breast?

Thanks, everyone... Maureen Minchin