About Ciguatera Poisoning

Ciguatera is an illness, generally produced by food that contains the toxin ciguatoxin. This toxin is sometimes contained in seafood that people eat. There are also claims that it is present in tropical fruit which comes from the manchineel tree, a well known poisonous plant, and that it is distributed through the cocculus berry.


This illness is common in tropical areas such as the waters of the Pacific and the Caribbean and the majority of cases in the United States happen in Hawaii or Florida. It has also been detected near the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary north of the Gulf of Mexico and southeast of Galveston, which is scary to me because our family often goes deep-sea fishing around that area. The fish are affected by eating infected algae or other infected fish.

The best way to avoid it is not to eat fish from tropic areas and not to grow plants that are suspected of transmitting the illness. Some think that the toxin can be destroyed by cooking the fish; however, there are some arguments against that who claim that cooking or freezing cannot destroy the toxins. I have heard of test kits that are available for testing fish for the presence of the toxin before you eat it. I'll have to look into that.

Treatment of ciguatera poisoning is a challenge without a complete cure. The illness is often misdiagnosed and has the ability to last from weeks to years. The main symptoms include gastrointestinal problems such as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, but it can also produce neurological symptoms and can even cause a person to go into a coma. In most cases, the poisoning is not lethal; however, death has occurred due to the poison with children experiencing the worst case scenarios.

The illness is not thought to be contagious; however, it is thought to be passed on from one person to another through sexual contact. Overall, treatment includes treating the symptoms. Signs of the illness may go away for a while, but it is likely to reoccur again with a wide variety of suspected triggers.

If you have information about Ciguatera that you would like to share, we would love to hear from you.

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