This weekend.
No contact with actual caterpillars, just with earth in plant box where they must have pupated, possibly this season (March / April?) but hairs active for up to 5 years:
Hospital, intravenous cortisone, cortisone tabs, Atarax sleepy antihistamines, hands in bowl of iced water, and lots of agony and tears
Couldnt move my wrists or fingers due to swelling and imagine the feeling of grabbing big bunches of really potent stinging nettles with both hands and rubbing them up and down your forearms. Then imagine that for a whole weekend
I am ginger and so fair skinned, but with 30 years acclimatation here, so be warned!

Ouch! - that looks and sounds exceptionally nasty. Doesn't sound like you could possibly have known they were / had been present.

Hope the symptoms have eased a bit by now.

Thanks, yes, symptoms passing, now left with Cortisone mania, but that should ease off as I 'desmamar' (wean off) them in the next days, and isnt totally unpleasant (for me at least )

No, absolutely no way of knowing, except for in hindsight
The earth was still the new Siro Planta we put in the little plant box in the last year or 2, no signs of any insects, but if they pupate they loose their hairs, and I do know the hairs can stay active for 5 years (Sci paper, cant remember where, but Trust me, I'm a (n academic) Doctor .....

My post was to say, if you have pines then ALWAYS wear gloves whilst gardening, not for hand care but because of what may be in soil

If the contact had been nearer my chest / throat then given the swelling I did get on arms and hands, it could have been a much nastier outcome

And I dont know how far away I was from some degree on the way to Anaphylactic shock & / or panic either

Of course, I could just have a bad reaction to them, but many many people do, not just us Gingers, so ...

Please Be Careful!

I had a similar (though less dramatic) experience last year. We had just four pinheiros behind the house, on the border with the neighbours field. Over the past 10 years they grew to be impressive small trees and produce pine cones..... But also became infested with the little b*$tards, so they had to go. So I dressed up, masked and booted, and over 2 days turned the trees into a WW1 scenario. All done.

THEN...... 2 days later the blisters began, on any stretch of skin that was not as well protected as I thought. I fully sympathise with you, the rash is one of those things you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy..... And the irritation lasts far longer than necessary!!

Still, this year I have four sad looking tree stumd, but NO CATERPILLARS!!!!
​​​​​​.

Sticky bands on the trees work.

Maybe, but not 100%, I didn't even come in contact with the caterpillars themselves.
But it must help
Also, if you go out on a quiet hot night under the pines at the right time of year (differs depending on year's weather) you can hear them munching and the poo falling down, and if you shine a flashlight you can see the glittering hairs raining down, they shed them as they move and grow.

I have about 200 pine trees... maybe more.
This year was really bad for caterpillars at our place, I sprayed 100s of nests. It might have been made worse by fires wiping out a lot of the other nesting sites in the area.

Now I made a special lance for the job, a 3 meter tube with a small end to push into the nest (when they're low enough to reach with it). That's for next season.

I seem to have killed most of them, but for sure I missed some, and I couldn't reach the nests in the high trees at all, some are 15-20 meters up.
The pines are not near the house at least.

I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks all for wishes
All getting back to normal now, just skin falling off

At least you have been stimulated to start up some new, interesting posts Midge.

My problem in the Algarve this summer is not those dreaded caterpillars but the "nosee midges" to quote an American author. They are now inside my house and attack me when I'm watching TV in the evening or when I'm busy on the computer. I can't see them approaching my legs or arms but they leave a large lump 5 mins after the attack. Thank goodness for white Tiger Balm.

Next Tuesday Bill 👍

See you Tuesday.