Man developed severe rash after eating undercooked mushrooms

Cooking is a key part of life and an important skill set to possess. It is important to always check that you have cooked each of your ingredients fully as this man discovered the hard way. Indeed a 72-year-old man was cooking with shiitake mushrooms and two days later he developed a severe rash.

Undercooking certain foods can be really dangerous, some of the most common foods to not undercook are chicken due to the presence of salmonellaand fish. If you’re lucky, you’ll just end up with food poisoning, if you’re not so lucky you could end up in hospital.

For this 72-year-old, had a rash so bad he couldn't sleep. So what kind of rash did this man develop due to the undercooked mushrooms?

Undercooked mushrooms caused a severe rash

As reported by Newsweek, a 72-year-old man ended up in hospital after developing a strange, itchy rash all across his back. Upon investigation, it was discovered that the man had cooked with shiitake mushrooms two days before the rash appeared.

According to a case report by the New England Journal of Medicine, the rash was due to undercooked shiitake mushrooms. The itchiness of the rash was so bad that the man was unable to sleep. The man had developed shiitake dermatitis, which can occur ‘after consumption of raw or undercooked shiitake mushrooms’.

What is shiitake dermatitis?

Shiitake dermatitis is a rare skin condition that is found in only 2% of people who eat either raw or undercooked shiitake mushrooms. Countries like Japan and China have higher rates of shiitake dermatitis due to the prevalence of these particular mushrooms, as per Newsweek.

Shiitake dermatitis symptoms can include localized swelling, fever, diarrhoea, tingling of the lips and hands/feet, discomfort swallowing and of course, a rash.

In the case of the 72-year-old man, he was advised to not eat undercooked shiitake mushrooms and was prescribed medicine to help ease the itchiness as his rash cleared up on its own.

Eglė Janušonytė, co-author of the case report and dermatology resident at Geneva University Hospitals in Geneva, Switzerland, told Newsweek:

While this condition is self-limiting, we have prescribed topical corticosteroids and antihistamines for symptomatic relief. The patient had excellent improvement in the two weeks follow-up with residual hyperpigmented lesions remaining.

Read more:

⋙ This woman eats undercooked fish and has her legs and arms amputated

⋙ McDonald's customer horrified after son gets sick from eating undercooked chicken nuggets

⋙ Three people dead after eating poisonous 'death cap' mushrooms served at family lunch

Sources used:

Newsweek: ‘Undercooking Shiitake Risks This Intensely Itchy Rash’

New England Journal of Medicine: ‘Shiitake Dermatitis’