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Never eat a wild mushroom identified from a website. This one helps you rule things out. It cannot rule anything in.

Mr Mushroom
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Deadly

Paxillus syndrome

An immune reaction rather than a toxin as such

Onset after the meal

1 to 3 hours, but only after previous meals have sensitised you

Inside six hours, which is the reassuring side of the line, with one qualification: a mixed wild meal can produce an early reaction that hides a late one.

Attacks

Red blood cells, through the immune system

What it does

Vomiting and diarrhoea, then pallor, jaundice, dark urine and collapse as antibodies destroy the eater's own red cells.

How it runs

Can progress to acute kidney failure and shock. Deaths are documented.

Treatment

Hospital. Steroids, transfusion and plasma exchange. Not something any home remedy touches.

The catch

Unique and genuinely counterintuitive: the mushroom must be eaten repeatedly to become dangerous. Years of eating it without trouble is what sets the reaction up, so a long safe history is a risk factor rather than reassurance.

Species that cause it

This is reference material, not clinical guidance and not a substitute for a poison centre. If somebody is unwell after eating a wild mushroom, call one now, tell them the interval between the meal and the first symptom, and keep an uncooked specimen.