Cactus Spines and Tweezers

Yesterday I ended up with a palm full of cactus spines. Wa wa wa.

So I dig out my Swiss Army knife, pulled out the tweezers, borrowed my friend's glasses and start extracting. I was rally glad to have the tweezers and they worked well for most of the spines. However, the tweezers had problems gripping some of the larger ones – the smooth metal on hard spine was just too slick. Furthermore, when I squeezed tightly the spines tended to break off leaving less sticking out to grip again. These were also the spines with barbs, and a moderate pull was needed to get them out.

So my question is: What grippy or rubbery substance can be attached to the inner faces of tweezers for a better grasp?

A thin paint type of product would seem to be best but I can’t think of a paint that dries soft and rubbery. Maybe rubber cement, shoe goo, or aqua seal?

Alternatively, does anyone know if tweezers with rubber inside faces are available?

I see your in CO. I was expecting this to be an AZ post. Assuming it was a prickly pear up that way.

For the larger spines the ones that you couldn't get a grip on I would just use my fingers if I could.

After that did the main thorns have tiny little thorns around them known as glochid en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glochid their the worst. I have heard of people using duct tape to get them out. But sometimes you just have to wait it out. They will either dissolve or fester and come out.

There was a post around Halloween not sure what year of a guy here in Tucson who got run off of the road while biking. He was covered in Cholla balls. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylin…

People often carry combs to remove these as you can't touch any part of them.

Best of luck.

Serrated tip...
ideal-tek.com/product-449.html

A new Razor blade will help. Sharper the better.You can shave the skin or use the edge to get under it.It may take a extra set of hands. Good luck

Try Elmers glue. Rub it on let it dry and then peel it off. My experience is that this works great in getting cactus spine out of your skin.
Dallen

For the cholla bulbs, a comb is the bomb! For smaller spines, the glue solution works somewhat. In the end, if you have small spines, your best bet is full-size, high-quality tweezers and a lot of time.

PTZ wrote:A new Razor blade will help. Sharper the better.You can shave the skin or use the edge to get under it.It may take a extra set of hands. Good luck

I have a pair of tweezers with a really sharp point can be used in the same way. I think they came out of an Adventure Medical Kit. Either way your in for some pain.

Tim McCabe wrote: I have a pair of tweezers with a really sharp point can be used in the same way. I think they came out of an Adventure Medical Kit. Either way your in for some pain.

AZ vegetation knows how to bring the pain that's for sure!

you can improve the gription of your tweezers by squeezing a piece of coarse sandpaper between the pads and then pulling the paper sideways. this will create little grooves. turn the paper over to do the other face.

A sharp sewing needle is also very useful for removing cactus thorns. For cholla, a sturdy stick or two palm-sized rocks can work in lieu of a comb.

Thanx for the advice from all;

For the record it was a small prickly pear with both large stout spines with barbs and small hairy spines. There were no clusters or bulbs such as with choila. It was 1/2 hour from the car and I wanted the spines removed in the field. Soon I'll be getting new tweezers as referenced by sp, for my first aid kit, or at least I’ll modify the tips as suggested by J.D.

At home I used a 30x magnifying glass, with exacto knife, needle, and sharp tweezers to extract most of the remnants.

Why didn't anyone suggest Tequila?

Kent

Kent, I'd upgrade to a good leatherman.

On a related topic,My rope ended up getting drug through a cacti, in Socorro, this weekend. One of the spines went all the way through the rope leaving only the tip sticking out. As I was pulling rope through my ATC, the spine sliced a nice cut through three of my fingers.

Yet another reason to wear gloves, while belaying.

You can try dipping the tips of the tweezers into a rubberized paint...its made for insulating and adding grip to hammers and lineman's pliers.

google.com/search?q=ruberiz…

I would just try duct tape to remove the spines. I`ve also seen rubber cement used successfully. If you`re going to use tweezers I`d soak the body part in warm water to soften the skin

Pain dulling libations of choice seemed to go without saying.

I am usually too cheep to buy even a comb so yep two rocks been there done that.

Letting the rope get into one only made that mistake the once. It really sucks.

Kent at least they were in your hand. Never never fall into a cactus butt first, take my word for it. Nuff said.

Mark Nelson wrote:Kent, I'd upgrade to a good leatherman.

Agreed. The last time I got bit by a jumping cholla (ouch) it required my leatherman pliers to get the needles out, and it worked pretty well. I'd rather save my tweezers for getting out smaller splinters.

Help infested with glochlids no body can help. I have tried everything the worst part is no one understands and everybody looks at you like you're stupid Tweaker because they're driving you nuts. They never go away they just lay dormant for a while even if you leave them alone and then they break out like a mother bear. I just need help medical help I tried home cures I've tried tweezers I've tried outside cutting my digits off I have no clue

After living in Tucson for 6 years, I found a well aligned leatherman worked wonders. (Well aligned meaning the pliers line up) works great for the big cholla chunks and pulling out near microscopic prickly pear glochids. The problem with tweezers is you can't torque them enough to get the deeply set needles out. If it's glochids that you can't get out, give it a day or two, they'll fall out, or your body will destroy them.

Wax works well!

kcet.org/living/travel/soca…

Glochids

There is no such thing as one glochid wound. If you have a glochid penetrate your skin, more than likely it has come with several hundred of its friends. Glochids detach with a slight breeze, work their way into your skin to what would be their hilt if they had hilts, and their shafts are barbed so that it's harder to extract them than it should be.

The good news is that there are just a few kinds of cacti that have glochids: prickly pears and cholla. The bad news is that there are a lot of prickly pears and cholla out there. The worse news is that even the most effective means of removing glochids from your skin are about 95 percent effective, meaning five percent of those glochids remain. And the damn things hurt a lot more than their size would indicate, causing pangs from annoying to excruciating when you rub that patch of skin the wrong way.

There's one thing you absolutely should not do when you get pierced by a bunch of glochids: do not bring the injured part of your body anywhere near your mouth. More people than you'd believe, getting a patch of glochids stuck in their hand, bring their hand up to their mouth in an almost involuntary attempt to suck the offending spines out of their skin. The danger here is that sometimes it works: the glochids get sucked out of your skin and into your mouth. There they can lodge in your tongue, your gums, and even your windpipe with effects ranging from severely unpleasant to fatal.

Similarly, under no circumstances should you touch your face, especially near your eyes.

Your first line of defense with glochids is the same as with their larger, less infuriating cousins: tweezers. Given bright light, patience, and a tweezer operator with good eyesight, you can remove a bit more than half of the glochids transferred in most mishaps by careful tweezing. It helps that the things tend to come off the plant in clumps: with one pull you might be able to remove a couple dozen glochids.

You can also use adhesives to remove glochids en masse. I've used duct tape to good effect, applying it to the affected area and then ripping it off. This removes between a third and half the glochids with reasonable efficiency, along with any local hair and occasionally the top millimeter of skin.

Apparently the most effective method of removing glochids is a two-step process. First, remove as many as you can with tweezers. Second, wrap the affected area in gauze and soak the gauze thoroughly in white glue. Wait for the glue to dry and peel off the gauze. The combination of the two methods can help you get all but 5 percent of the glochids out.

Frustratingly, even the most effective removal methods often leave the barbed tips of the glochids embedded in skin. For many people this isn't a problem, or causes only minor discomfort. But these leftover barbules can cause seriously annoying dermatitis, which is best treated by the incredibly laborious and unpleasant process of scraping the sores open and removing the barbules with dissecting tools and a microscope.

Obviously, the best way to deal with glochids is to admire them from a distance

A small good quality pair of needle nose pliers - you can lay them sideways and take whole strips out or use the ends to do one at a time. Works pretty well (says personal experience).