Date palms look innocent enough, but getting pricked by the sharp edges of the
leaves can be dangerous and end in hospitalization.
Prof. Roni Peleg and
Prof. David Greenberg of Ben-Gurion University’s Health Sciences Faculty, Soroka
University Medical Center and Clalit Health Service say even many doctors here
and abroad are unaware of the phenomenon. Writing in a recent issue of the
Hebrew-language Israeli Journal of Family Practice, the experts on community
medicine and infectious diseases said that such incidents are quite common but
many patients are not treated.
They looked at eight cases in which men
suffered pain after being “stabbed” by date-palm leaves. Their average age was
around 40, and they suffered “moderate” pain for about 13 weeks on
average.
One man suffered harm to his eye rather than to a limb. In many
cases, a sharp piece of the leaf – which contains a toxin – embedded itself in
the tissue. One 14- year-old boy, who was pricked in the knee, suffered an
infection with a virulent type of bacteria called Pantoea
agglumerans.
The most important thing is to remove the sharp piece stuck
in the tissue, the doctors wrote. But there may not be one, as the wound can be
painful even without it. Suitable antibiotics should be given to fight the
infection, but they don’t shorten this process. Analgesics could relieve pain,
they wrote. Only the patient with the date thorn in the eye had to be
hospitalized; all the rest were treated in their community health fund
clinic.
As without any treatment the infection can get appreciably worse, the authors urged primary care physicians to learn to identify the
injury, remove the thorn if it is present and fight pain and bacterial
infection.