“Mum, my fingers are burning.” Being met with those words from my 8-year-old daughter on Easter Sunday didn’t raise alarm straight away. She often gets niggles that pass as quickly as they come. It wasn’t until we were sitting on a ride at the Sydney Family Show four hours later and she had tears in her eyes that I knew this was serious.
By the time we got home that afternoon, the burning rash had spread all down Cassie’s legs and she was in a lot of pain. I immediately reached out to the friend we had being with the day before to see if their son Max was experiencing any of this. The immediate answer was ‘no’, but a few hours later the rash appeared on him as well.
Max breaking out with a rash on his stomach
Exploring Contact Rash
At first, we assumed the kids had contact rash, so we gave the kids antihistamine and started looking at all the bushes they had been playing in the day before. As we researched, the pain was getting worse and blisters had started to appear, so we went straight to the GP to be diagnosed with contact rash and given steroids. These did nothing. By the hour we were watching blisters appear on our kids’ skin with no idea what was causing it.
Blistering appearing on Cassie’s fingers
Nothing was adding up, so Dr Google (I know, never advised) became my best friend and as soon as I came across ‘phytophotodermatitis’ (also known as a ‘Margarita Burn’) everything made sense. It was the limes.
Harmless play with limes in the sun…
Saturday afternoon Cassie and Max had discovered the lime tree in Max’s garden and decided to get picking and cut them up into lime juice. We half-heartedly told the kids to leave the limes, but weren’t too concerned when they insisted on making their juice, dripping the lime all over themselves in the process.
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- Cassie’s leg
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- Juice streak burns
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- All the way up her leg
The red rash wasn’t a rash at all. It was horrible burn all over their legs, fingers and Max’s stomach where the limes had touched them. Lime contains furocoumarins, a class of chemicals in some plants and fruits, which when exposed to sunlight can cause sensitivity and burn. Something so innocent was actually so dangerous.
Bouncing around hospitals
We went straight to the ER, knowing how extensive and painful the burns were getting by the hour, they needed to be seen. Of course, this wasn’t straightforward. Both kids were again diagnosed with a ‘contact rash’ and offered steroids and we were told it wasn’t a Margarita Burn. I stood my ground and urged one of the ER doctors to just look into it. After what felt like an eternity, the doctor returned, convinced, and began treating the burns and asked us to come back as outpatients the next day.
The next morning, the blisters had multiplied. Both Cassie and Max were in agony. We couldn’t just sit and wait, so we decided to go to a different hospital, hoping to skip the long wait.
Finally! The right diagnosis and treatment
Getting wrapped at the San
At the new hospital, we had to go through the whole process again, educating the staff about Margarita burn. Thankfully, they contacted Westmead Children’s Hospital and got the right advice. They wrapped the kids’ wounds, providing some relief at last. Our final stop was the Westmead Burns Unit. It was there that Cassie and Max finally received the care they needed. The skin, blistered and painful, was carefully treated and wrapped.
Finally feeling more comfortable while the burns heal
This experience was a wake-up call for me. Something as simple as playing with limes in the backyard led to such a terrifying ordeal. I learned the hard way about Margarita burn. Now, I share this story with other parents, hoping it can prevent a similar situation and educate others about the hidden dangers that can turn an innocent day into a nightmare.
