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Pereskiopsis glochid removal?

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Need some advice and ideas on removing peres glochids.

My 22 month old son stood on a length of peres that I must have missed when doing some cuttings. He's a tough little fella but there annoying him a bit. My partner and I have pinned him down and I've got the majority of them out. The more you look the more you find it seems and they are hard to see unless you get the light across them. There was quite a bit of fidgeting as you could imagine and I broke a few off in the struggle.

Anyway I was wondering if there is any techniques for removing the glochids that is a bit more efficient than tweezers.

Any ideas?

Not sure if this is the right forum, mods will move the tread if not I suppose. Sorry if its in the wrong place Mr mod man, person, ma'am.

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Sorry to hear Harry! Good to see the little dude has his dad's interest in cacti :P Good to see you around here again too :)

I would have gone with tweezers too in the first instance. Maybe wait until he's having a snooze (if possible when he's full of glochids...), then try to remove them. Not sure what else would do the trick?

Edit: my wife just gave the suggestion of soaking in water (bath time!) to soften/loosen the micro-barbs and surrounding skin. Apparently it's good for splinters that are too deep to retrieve too.

Edited by Ace

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magnesium sulphate, aparently. never tried it myself..

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just a idea WAXING like females & some males get all the time ?

if it can tear out hair follicles i would say it may work on glochids ? plus less stress & almost fun for kids

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Harry.

Glochids can be a bugger to remove, especially if they break under the skin. There is a relatively painless way that should work though, especially if there has not been too much time to allow the skin to heal over.

Go to your local chemist and ask for a 100g jar of Magnoplasm. It's wonderful stuff for splinters, blackheads, boils and such - it works by using osmotic pressure to draw fluid/pus to the surface, and it brings the offending object out in the process (usually!). You just bung a dab on the site and cover it with a plaster, and leave overnight. Whenever I've used it for deep splinters, they've been sitting stuck to the underside of the plaster the next morning.

Magnoplasm is just glycerol (44% w/w) and magnesium sulphate (48% w/w). Both are easily obtained ingredients: they are glycerin and epsom salts, respectively. I guess you could try to make your own, but the hitch is that the magnesium sulphate needs to be anhydrous or 'deydrated', and I suspect that commonly sold espsom salts are actually hydrous.

Given how easy it is to get from a chemist, and how useful the stuff is, just go and buy a jar of Magnoplasm - every cactophile and carpenter should have some handy!

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just a idea WAXING like females & some males get all the time ?

if it can tear out hair follicles i would say it may work on glochids ? plus less stress & almost fun for kids

I have been meaning to try something like that - I thought maybe some kinda of glue could be used PVA maybe?

My partner knocked over a T bridgesii on the weekend and got a spine through the finger nail, the spine broke off and left a bit in the nail which we couldn't remove. the best i could offer as comfort was... " hmmm never seen that before.. " ;)

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Go to your local chemist and ask for a 100g jar of Magnoplasm. It's wonderful stuff for splinters, blackheads, boils and such - it works by using osmotic pressure to draw fluid/pus to the surface, and it brings the offending object out in the process (usually!). You just bung a dab on the site and cover it with a plaster, and leave overnight. Whenever I've used it for deep splinters, they've been sitting stuck to the underside of the plaster the next morning.

Can vouch for this for larger splinters so i'm gonna say peres spines will be no prob at all with magnoplasm, it's amazing stuff! Although very sticky and will be tough to keep it on kids as it has to be left over time.. I guess depends on how large the effected area is.

Peace

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Thanx for all the help peeps, I really appreciate all your thoughts and advice.

I snagged some magnoplasm from the chemist and will give it a go. The little taker has a surprisingly high pain threshold, he has to knock a fair bit of bark off to get the tears running. If there are any glochids left you would never know by his behaviour. Can't wait till he starts to speak a few more words, would help in situations like this.

Anyway I'll put some of the magnoplasm on his foot when he's asleep to try and get the broken glochids out so they don't get infected and fester.

Let you all know how if this stuff does the job, be handy info to have about for future reference.

Thanx again friends.

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Hey Harry,

How'd the little fella go? Did you see anything drawn out by the magnojuice?

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Nah couldn't see anything which didn't surprise me glochids being glochids and all.

There wasn't any sign of inflamation or festering around the area where the glochids broke off though so I believe the magnoplasm did its job.

I've got a love/hate thing going on with pereskiopsis, love its graftability, hate working with the stuff and having it around the place now bubs is up and running around. I worry about it escaping into the wild through my accidentally dropping or misplacing a piece. Can you imagine stumbling into a ferral peres bush on a bush walk, :crux: , sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it.

I have been searching for a suitable substitute for peres in terms of grafting stock that is less nasty. Trials are underway :) I really don't want peres around my place, its just not fair on my son to have that sort of a plant around the house.

EDIT: Typos

Edited by Harry

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My partner knocked over a T bridgesii on the weekend and got a spine through the finger nail, the spine broke off and left a bit in the nail which we couldn't remove. the best i could offer as comfort was... " hmmm never seen that before.. " ;)

OWWWWW!!!!! that would hurt like hell!!!! (winces) through the fingernail???? thats impressive!!!

for glochid removal i wrap masking tape around my hand, sticky side on the outside. brush against the glochids and they come out easy enough.

poor young fella. best to put a protective barrier around your cacti when theres littlens around.

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I'll third the vote for magnaplasm although it's more suited to splinters etc (best thing out for a boil).

For glochids and other such prickles I've always used a pumice stone. Seems to snag them and pull them out pretty easily. Even used smooth concrete at times.

ed

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I always put my money on sticky tape too. Or something of a sticky... tapey... nature. This works best when the event has only just happened though. Not when they have already started to break off in your skin. Lol, so probably no help to you and your little tiger.

Just my two cents.

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