Woman Gets ‘Christmas Tree Syndrome’ After Bringing First Real Tree Into Her Home

An Ohio woman went into anaphylactic shock after bringing home her first real Christmas tree and had to be rushed to the hospital.

Angela Presti said she could not wait to decorate the tree with her daughter after finding the perfect one at a tree lot. But as the pair started to decorate it, Presti said she noticed that one side of her face had become swollen.

Presti wrote it off as temporomandibular joints, or TMJ, and stress and kept decorating, but her symptoms just kept getting worse.

"My cheek was hot and itchy," Presti told WKYC. “My tongue, I felt like I could swallow it, except, I couldn't swallow and my throat started closing and my breathing was wheezy.”

Presti was rushed to a medical center by her father and ended up collapsing upon arrival. She was given epinephrine by medical staff.

"They knew it was an allergic reaction right away and kept asking me what I had eaten, but I knew it was the Christmas tree," she told the station.

However, Presti’s reaction to the Christmas tree was not necessarily surprising to the staff. According to Ohio State University, about 7% of the population suffers from “Christmas Tree Syndrome,” which is typically an allergic reaction to the mold spores from the tree.

After the tree is cut and bundled, it often gets wet during transportation, which is the perfect condition for mold to start growing.

University Hospitals allergist Samuel Friedlander, MD, told WKYC that he frequently sees Christmas tree-related allergy cases during the holiday season.

"It's pretty common and can cause trouble breathing and skin rash," he told the station.

More than 50 different types of mold can grow on Christmas trees, according to some studies. Still, the most common types are Aspergillus, which can present a danger to those with compromised immune systems, and Penicillium and Cladosporium, which can cause skin infections and allergic symptoms.

Drew Lipold of AdvantaClean, a mold remediation company, told WKYC that the risk of mold exposure can be reduced by hosing off your tree and letting it dry before bringing it inside, wiping down the base of the tree, using an air purifier in the room with the tree, and taking the tree out once Christmas is over.

Artificial trees are the only real solution for people with Christmas Tree Syndrome. Lipold recommends wrapping, stashing it in a dry place, and wiping it down before setting it up.