I went to a small protest during the start of the No Kings stuff a few months ago.
I didn’t do much; other people were getting up to stuff, and i was just there as a warm body/support/whatever i guess. I happened to be near somebody the police shot a crowd control weapon at. The gas only got me a little bit - initially it was maybe a minute or two of eye/face irritation and then it was fine.
but in the following days, my tear ducts swelled up, my hands and feet swelled up such that i had massive skin dieoff, and i thought i was fucking dying with how sick i felt
Now it seems to be cyclical. Right now my eyes are swolen and red again. My hands are swolen again. My joints hurt. This is the third time since being exposed that this has happened, and I had never experienced anything like that before going to this protest
I genuinely don’t know what to do to deal with this, it’s hugely disruptive. Does it go away? I t hought people on hexbear might have some insight, because right now i mostly have to just suck it up - take anti-inflammatories, tylenol, etc. and dabbing pain relieving ointments around the outside of my eye
these motherfuckers will poison you just for protesting.
How frequently is this reoccurring? Are there any preceding incidents or activities before the flare-ups happen? You have to look at this like its an illness and trace back the events to what you were doing/eating/drinking/etc. before it started.
Do you have any allergies to any of the ingredients in the spray that you know of?
all of the symptoms I am experiencing emerge in the immediate time following my participation in the protest and the exposure to the gas.
I have had irritated eyes before, but we are speaking of something like, an eye that’s itchy for a day and it gets a little red maybe, but i rinse it and try not to scratch and it clears up. This is totally different, with the ducts and area around the eyes turning red, swelling up in the extreme, and just constantly leaking/crusting/etc. - Not a single time in my life before this stuff has this happened, and incidentally the closest thing to this I had been exposed to prior was consumer grade pepper spray a woman used on a harasser on a bus i was on.
I usually notice this stuff after going bed. It seems like I go to bed, and wake up to my hands and feet swelling up. The hand swelling fucks with my sense of touch really badly, i’m autistic with a lot of sensitivity, and the sensations drive me insane. I’m not even doing anything right now for example, but im experiencing a sensation as if i was running my hands along car upholstery, which is one of the worst sensations you can expose me to. It feels so wrong, and that’s just the ambient state.
But yeah, the trigger seems to be while i’m asleep. It usually starts with hand swelling, and then a rapid flare-up of my eyes, and the feet usually follow after that.
my joints become really painful in the inflamed areas. My fingers burn when i try to articulate them right now.
As far as allergies, i have had an allergic reaction to the smoke of burning mesquite wood - this is literally the only allergy I know I have for sure.
Is it every night after you sleep or only sporadically?
Have you changed your sheets and washed your pillows since the incident? Easiest explanation is that there is some residue lingering in your bed somewhere and you’re basically festering it it over night.
Might be worth trying to find out what’s in the pepper spray the pigs used and see if it has any triggers. This absolutely sounds like an auto-immune reaction, especially the joints hurting part. That is not normal for exposure to pepper spray and certainly not for this extended of a time period.
it seems to come and go in a cycle. it’s not every night, but for the last couple of months i go through a period of several days where i swell up, have this reaction, then it stops/goes away for a bit
I haven’t done what somebody else suggested, which is oiling my clothes and sheets before washing in detergent, but all of my clothes and sheets have been washed many times over at this point since the event, and I was paranoid and went super hard on cleaning surfaces after the exposure
The infrequency of this seems very odd to me. I think this might be something other than the teargas at this point. Have you tried sleeping somewhere other than the bed for a change in environment A/B test? How about something as simple as a benadryl or allergy pill when the flare’s come on to see if it helps alleviate the symptoms.
I don’t know anything about oiling your clothes before washing as that’s definitely outside of my purview. Unless you were going to add vinegar as well, then I could recommend some seasoning to really kick up your salad laundry.
When I have inflammation, such as mosquito bites, the spots always itch the worst in the morning. I suspect it’s related to circadian rhythm aspects of the immune system.
Agree with other posters to try to see a doctor if you have a regular one, or walk in clinic if you don’t have a primary care or need more flexible appointment hours. They should be able to judge if a steroid would help, and get you a prescription of the right form(s) (pill/cream/eye drop/other).
If seeing a medical person very soon is not possible, cortisone cream is an over the counter steroid, as is fluticazone nasal spray (name brand FloNase). One or both might be worth a try.