Chest and Coughs & Gardening

Hi

Wondering if you agree or not , guy in work has a very old house I think its just under 200 years old , very well established garden and lots of very mature trees and old shrub borders, camellias so all acid loving plants that has been left neglected, but he is in the process of slowly sorting out.
He regularly gets the most horrendous chest infections and is a non smoker , I have noticed that the chest infections/coughs happen a couple of days after he has been doing a lot of gardening and he has told me he has been cleaning and digging years of old leaf mold from under the trees and the the shrub borders.

I have a feeling the two are connected ( Chest and coughs) as he must be releasing spores etc which he is breathing in .

What do you think ?

Spruce

 

Sounds very likely to me!!

 

Yes I think the two are connected because a few years ago we were bagging up wet leaves from a front garden for a couple that we have been collecting leaves from for our allotment for over twenty years and this particular afternoon I crossed over to the other side of the road to start bagging up several piles of leaves that had been left in a heap for quiet a few weeks.

As I made a start on moving the leaves with my gloved hands into dustbin bags noticed a strong musty smell coming from these leaves even though the leaves inside the pile were very dry and stuck together.I never thought anything of it and soon got the leaves bagged up and shifted down to our allotment plots.

Within a few days I had started coughing and it was a cough that wouldn't go away no matter what I did.Gradually the cough got worse and I started sounding quiet hoarse and my chests started rattling when I breathed.

I decided to go and see my Dr and told him what had happened and he reckoned that I had disturbed mould spores which I had breathed in and they had settled on my chest so to speak and I had to have a course of antibiotics to clear it up.I do suffer with bronchitis which my Dr said was brought on through being a passive smoker when my hubby used to smoke a pipe so now when I do these type of jobs I have to try and watch how I work with the leaves so I don't suffer with the problem again.

Tell your friend to be very careful when working on these old plants and it might be worth him getting the cough checked out with his Dr who might suggest he wears a mask of some sorts if he has a weakness in his chest.

 

I am not the only one to notice the cough in work as he sound like a seal sometimes and he knows I am into gardening so pop over to see me on my section so I thought the two related in someway or form I will have a chat with him this week , I know with the Welsh valleys bracken spores are dangerous as it grows on the hillside's .

 

I too have suffered with a cough after moving rotting leaves (big pile) which had a pungent smell and were letting of clouds of grey dust/smoke. This was in the summer.