Jeff Garvin had never heard of Purple Glove Syndrome until his wife, Sue, woke up with her right hand painfully swollen and violently discolored from the wrist down.

The Fort Myers, Fla., woman had suffered a massive stroke in 2008 at age 52 and was hospitalized. Then, as if that weren’t bad enough, she got a botched injection of intravenous phenytoin, a seizure drug linked to cases of the oddly named disorder that has caused lingering pain, amputations -- and death.

“With the Purple Glove Syndrome, she can’t do all the things with her hands she used to do,” Jeff Garvin said. “Her biggest complaint from the stroke is a speech impediment -- and the pain in her hand."

Today, an advisory committee of the Food and Drug Administration recommended that IV phenytoin, marketed as Dilantin, should be labeled with warnings that the drug can cause Purple Glove Syndrome. The group voted not to recommend pulling the drug from the market.

PGS is a rare condition first noted in the 1980s, when patients who received IV Dilantin were developing painful, swollen hands that turned a deep shade of violet. Some 43 cases of PGS have been documented, according to the FDA. However, it's very likely the disorder is under-reported.

No one’s sure exactly how often PGS occurs. Studies have suggested that severe cases of PGS may occur in up to 6 percent of patients who receive IV phenytoin, with less-serious incidents in perhaps 25 percent of patients.

The condition is often caused when the toxic drug doesn’t go directly into a vein, but instead seeps into the underlying tissue of the hand. Often, the damage is permanent.

Another drug, fosphenytoin, marketed under the brand name Cerebyx, appears to control seizures as well as phenytoin. It carries some risk of PGS, but the panel was divided on whether there's adequate information to conclude that it also causes the disorder. Both drugs have similar risks of other side effects.

The FDA will now consider the recommendations of the joint meeting of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee.

In Jeff Garvin’s opinion, the agency should take it very seriously.

“I think they need to look at it really closely,” he said. “There are other ways to do it that don’t pose the risks. Certainly for somebody in my wife’s situation, I learned there were alternatives that had less toxic side effects with better results.”

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If you thought bed bugs were bad, consider this: Researchers are warning about the dangers of another invasive critter, the so-called “kissing bug,” which strikes at night and bites your face.

Properly known as triatomines, the long-feelered bugs common in the U.S. southwest are known to carry the parasite that causes Chagas disease, a potentially deadly illness with roots in Latin America. Fortunately, cases here have been rare, but that hasn’t deterred the bugs from causing damage. Most recently, they’ve been linked to dangerous allergic reactions in patients who wake up with swollen-shut eyes, itchy welts and blistered skin, struggling to breathe.

A recent study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases advises doctors to be on the lookout for these severe allergic reactions, which can be as serious as any bee sting in people who are sensitized. In one instance, a 46-year-old woman in the foothills of San Diego woke up scratching her leg and quickly found that she was too weak to walk and short of breath. She had to be rushed to an emergency room and treated for anaphylaxis. Other victims have lost consciousness and had seizures.

The culprit? The small brown blood-suckers attracted by light to human homes. They creep in unnoticed only to emerge at night and use scent and heat to track down humans. The reason they’ve been dubbed “kissing bugs,” is from their common habit of biting the face, which is often exposed during sleep.

Data is sketchy, but researchers at the University of Arizona’s “Kissing Bug Project” report that there were 669 exposures to kissing bugs reported to U.S. poison control centers between 2000 and 2005. They figure the number of love bug bites was actually much higher because of under-reporting.

There’s not much to do about a kissing bug bite, except to avoid it. Pest control is a good idea, experts say. This is one smooch nobody wants to wake up with.

Ever had a bug bite you on the face? Somewhere worse? Tell us about it in the comments.

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If anyone ever needed a reason to use roll-on deodorant instead of a spray, here’s one:

A 14-year-old girl in Switzerland gave herself a case of first-degree frostbite by spritzing spray deodorant way too close her skin. And when a 45-year-old friend tried it because she didn’t believe the teenager, the adult wound up with frostbite, too.

The unusual cases of "cold burn" were described this week in the journal Pediatrics, where surprised-sounding scientists verified that, yes, aerosol sprays can cause freezing injuries.

It works like this: Pressurized gas in a can cools rapidly when it’s sprayed. At the same time, propellants used to push out the gas have low boiling points. That means the temperature can drop rapidly, from a cozy 69 degrees Fahrenheit to a frigid 5 degrees Fahrenheit within 5 seconds.

Frostbite occurs when skin starts to freeze, usually at temperatures between 14 degrees Fahrenheit and 28 degrees Fahrenheit.

So when someone like the 14-year-old Swiss girl conducts what she described as a “test of courage,” spraying deodorant within 2 inches of her hand for 15 seconds, the result was a big, red patch of frozen skin.

It’s not the first time this has happened. An 8-year-old boy suffered a cold burn after spraying himself with toilet cleaner at close range. Another young boy developed second-degree frostbite on his mouth, including lips and tongue, after inhaling an aerosol propane propellant in an effort to get high. And two teen girls at campout burned their ankles and forearms after spraying deodorant from a distance of less than half an inch.

The study authors warn sternly against fooling around with aerosol sprays. But they also conclude that anyone silly enough do it probably won’t listen: “In a majority of cases, the patients were obviously aware that such improper use would cause skin damage.”

Have you ever conducted a dumb experiment on your body? Share in the comments section.

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If you're a hiker planning to trek into rattlesnake-infested hills this summer, take a fashion cue from a pair of California reptile researchers: Make sure to wear jeans.

Snake scientists at Loma Linda University have discovered that denim clothing significantly cuts the amount of venom injected by angry rattlesnakes, reducing the poison by up to 66 percent.

The researchers, William K. Hayes, a biology professor, and Shelton S. Herbert, a doctoral student, tested 17 small and large southern Pacific rattlesnakes, allowing them to strike liquid-filled latex kitchen gloves, some covered with denim fabric and some left bare. They reported their findings in a recent issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

Overwhelmingly, the snakes were thwarted by the denim-covered gloves, spilling their venom harmlessly onto the surface and cutting the amount of time that their fangs were in contact with what would have been human flesh.

"I was surprised," said Hayes, who believes too many hikers fail to take snakebite seriously.

"Wearing long denim pants as an alternative to shorts may provide a simple, low-cost means of reducing the severity of snakebites," his study concludes.

World Blog: One man, one room, 40 venomous snakes

Of course, the Boy Scouts of America have urged hikers for years to wear not only jeans but also leather boots when tramping around snake country, as Dr. Robert James Hoffman, a New York toxicologist pointed out in a follow-up letter.

No word yet on whether future research will consider the effect of neckerchiefs, merit badges and funny hats on snake bites, but Hoffman couldn't resist a bad Boy Scout pun:

"Perhaps their study will assist persons to 'be prepared' for potential rattlesnake encounters," he wrote.

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Just when you thought sunless tanning spray was good only for hiding pale skin, flabby flesh and varicose veins, scientists have come up with a new use for a compound in the body bronzer.

Turns out the sugar-based molecules that turn you brown and stick to your skin can be combined with a chemical goo to create a sticky gel bandage to help medical wounds heal better.

Plastic surgeons at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York have come up with what’s been described as an “internal Band-Aid” that can seal the gaps and holes that surgery leaves behind.

For instance, procedures to remove cancerous tissue or surgeries to reconstruct body parts often result in hollow spaces that fill with fluid, called seromas, that must be drained, either manually or with implanted shunts. By all accounts, it’s an unpleasant undertaking with the potential for pain and infection.

Using the new gel, however, doctors could simply fill the hole and let it heal, said Dr. Jason Spector, a plastic surgeon and co-author of a new study about the product published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The new substance would act to glue together the hole left behind to prevent seroma build-up,” he explained in a statement.

The gel, composed of polyethylene glycol and a polycarbonate of dihydroxyacetone – the stuff that turns you brown – is durable enough to stick to tissue, but also biodegradable and water soluble, so it won’t hang around forever.

The scientists have studied the gel in rats, where it reduced the chance of seromas and fluid build-up. Now they’d like to try it in bigger critters, and, finally, on clinical trials in humans.

That’s good news for surgery patients. Next, maybe the scientists can do something about the orange palms and streaky ankles that regular tanning spray leaves behind.

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