OT-Poison Ivy

[86er]

I have always been immune to poison ivy. When I was a Boy Scout I could blow my nose with it and nothing would happen, where everyone else near it broke out in the dreaded rash. My Dad is allergic to it - severely. He gets a bad break out and it constricts his esophogus, usually causing him to visit the hospital. Dad told me his brother was more or less immune like me until one day when he was about 40, he got it bad and remains sensitive to it today. Last Saturday we cleaned up the hunting grounds and I was elbow deep in poison ivy with little concern. When I got home a showered with Dawn Dish Detergent. I washed at least 10 times from fingertip to elbow using the Dawn throughout the day. I did not suffer the slightest indication that I was ever around P.I. I consider myself lucky. Do any of you have a remedy, an old wive's tale, or a true story of poison ivy effects, cures and soforth?

[jeepnik]

Well, we only have poison oak out here. But I can tell you never, never, never let anyone burn it. And if you see someone doing it, run "UPWIND" as fast as you can. One good lung full of the smoke can result in an emergency room visit, and I'm talking life threatening stuff. Had a buddy working with me on the Rim of the World fire in '73 or '74. He got hit good. Ended up with fluid in his lungs, sorta like pneumonia.

[2ndovc]

Number 2 Stepson gets it if somone talks about it too loudly!

I was told by a nurse friend to try a laundry soap "Fells Naptha"

Darned if it doesn't work. Couldn't find any locally but did an internet search and
ordered a case of the stuff.

jb

[Hobie]

I was "immune" for the longest time. I have even slept in a bed of poison ivy. Last year I was weed eating (using a string trimmer) and got a splatter of some pureed poison ivy on my arm. Apparently it was juicy enough to get me AFTER decontamination procedures. I had a nasty, for me, rash. I am being very careful. I have heard that once you have a reaction you will ALWAYS have a reaction.

[deerwhacker444]

RUBBING ALCOHOL is what I swear by,..as soon as I get back inside the house...! The stuff that gives you the rash is an oily substance and scratching only smears it around causing more irritation. Using alcohol will cut the oil and free it from your skin. Never heard of using Dawn, but I guess it's the same principal.

I do have some relatives that were living in CA once, pure city folk who thought they liked the outdoors and tried camping once. Jr. went out and gathered wood for a wienie roast. Only problem was some of the picked up wood was poison oak. Note to self: Wienies roasted in poison oak are not good for the esophagus..! . I think everyone had to visit the hospital to get over that one.

[Blaine]

I had it bad a couple times as a kid, but not since...even brushing line all day everyday for nearly 4 years .

This particular nettle, however, will cause me to blister and leaves bloody wounds and scars later on:

[piller]

Tecnu brand makes a poison ivy wash which does a decent job of removing the oil before a breakout can occur. Zanfel is another decent product, almost as good as Tecnu and 4 times the price. I don't react to it either.

[Thunder50]

Last time I got it, and started feeling the rash, I got a can of Berrymans B-12 carb cleaner and squirted the area really well. Takes all the oil off your skin. Never really broke out, skin felt a little "warm", but no itching.

[RKrodle]

I got it good earlier this year and again before I could heal up. I asked my wife to pick me up some IVY BLOCK. It's a lotion you put on like sun block, I use it on my arms. It's worked so far although when 86er and I were out I got into something and it left a rash on my leg. I was wearing jeans. It's doesn't look like Poison Ivy but it does itch some. I use the Dawn dish soap also.

[Old Time Hunter]

Gasoline works well, so does Methyl Ethyl Ketone. Or just use Dawn Dish Soap.

[alnitak]

Unfortunately, I am one of those that is very allergic to it (and Poison Oak and Poison Sumac). I remember having it often as a kid, breaking out from head to toe. As a teenager, I once had it so badly on my face, my eyes were almost swollen shut (though I went to a party like that...and even found someone to kiss me who wasn't allergic! ). Later in life, I would have to go to the doctor's and get the steroid pills a couple times a year for serious outbreaks.

I spent more time in the tub with brown soap, and putting Dombro-soaked gauze wraps around my arms and legs than I care to think about. They work to a certain degree. Now, I try to avoid it. If I do get it, I find that draining the pustules as they fill helps a lot with the itching. Usually just use a pin and some cloth to compress.

[jeepnik]

I had it bad a couple times as a kid, but not since...even brushing line all day everyday for nearly 4 years .

This particular nettle, however, will cause me to blister and leaves bloody wounds and scars later on:

Brings back bad memories. I guess I was four or five. I thought they were just plants. Needless to say, it was calamine lotion time. Learned a very valuable lesson that time.

[2ndovc]

I had it bad a couple times as a kid, but not since...even brushing line all day everyday for nearly 4 years .

This particular nettle, however, will cause me to blister and leaves bloody wounds and scars later on:

Brings back bad memories. I guess I was four or five. I thought they were just plants. Needless to say, it was calamine lotion time. Learned a very valuable lesson that time.

What is that?
I looked up nettle and it covers a lot.

jb

[Blaine]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinging_nettle

I know there are several, but this is the "real" stinging nettle and the one that is the worst. There are some in the MidWest, but I can, um, "P" on my skin with the others and it takes away all of the itch and pain..not so with this one.

[2ndovc]

YOW!!

I though poison ivy and poison oak were bad enough!



jb

[Grizz]

my story is that so far I have never had a reaction to poison oak or poison ivy. my brothers and sister would have awful breakouts and I never did.

my Dad's story is that he was on a boy scout camping trip and got into one or the other of the poison stuff. he had a rash that sounded like it covered him from head to toe. his Mom tried everything to get him some relief, and nothing was working. his next scout outing was to the seacoast, and not thinking anything about the huge percentage of open sores on his body he ran headlong into the ocean.

the way he describes the pain of the salt water meeting open wounds is akin to my description of doing a root canal on myself.

but the upside was that the rash went away right away, AND he never had a problem with it again.

wow, did a gene mutate in my Dad and pass to me? nah, that can't happen, can it?

thanks for stirring up those memories.

Grizz

[Ben_Rumson]

Skinny dipping one summer night in an irrigation canal.. We 15 year olds would walk out on a 8 inch pipe that came out of the bank and dive in.... After the pipe got wet a buddy slipped off it into stinging nettles that were not there the last time we swam there... Yup he got stung everywhere! Problem was the canal ran right behind a housing tract...and at 3am a kid screaming and jumping around caused several houses to light up...making it very hard for us to "P" the burn off him...Let alone get our clothes on and flee!

[pokey]

I had it bad a couple times as a kid, but not since...even brushing line all day everyday for nearly 4 years .

This particular nettle, however, will cause me to blister and leaves bloody wounds and scars later on:

the good thing about stinging nettles is, no oils just little spines.
if you pick, with gloves, the young ones and cook them up in
soup they taste like asparagus, and are good for you.

[Rusty]

I haven't had it in years. A friend of mine was construction superintendent at Everglades National Park for 20 years. He couldn't stay out of it so he used to go get a shot every year from his doctor that made him immune to it. He said he couldn't have worked there without it.

[RobertS]

I am also one of those who has been exposed many times and never broken out, but I read an article in Outdoor Life, I think, which said that each time you are exposed, you use up a portion of your resistence to it. I think it is important to keep that in mind, and not expose yourself unnecessarily.

[BAGTIC]

Nettles that have been dried also lose their sting.

Once while I was fishing from a shady spot beneath some overhanging tree branches I spotted some smallmouths cruising the shoreline directly in front of me. Without taking my eyes off of them I reached back with my left hand for my can of nightcrawlers. Stuck my hand directly into patch of stinging nettles.. Everyone should experience it once to give them a sense of Hell on earth.

Only thing I could do was plunge my hand into the ice cold (40 degree) water which numbed the pain until it was replaced by the bone breaking agony of prolonged hypothermia. I was caught between a rock and a hard place and there isn't much to chose between ice and fire. Put hand into water until it turns blue. Take it out until the fire relights. Repeat.

[Gobblerforge]

Folk medicine has it that washing the affected area in the Blacksmith's slack tub would cure poison ivy and such. Modern medicine has shown that washing the affected area with most anything helps to wash away the oils and stops the spread. The BSA first aid standard is to wash with cold soap and water and cover only if needed. Done.
Gobbler

[geobru]

I used to get poisen oak when cruising timber in Oregon. At first, there was no reaction, then I got a spot, and over the years, with subsequent exposures, my reactions gradually got a little worse. Now if I get it, I'll wind up with an area a few inches long. I know some people who cannot even walk near it without a serious reaction. I think the shot referred to that is administered by a doctor is cortisone.

[/quote]

Blaine, next time you get into stinging nettle, look around and you will usually find some cow ferns. Break open the stem and rub the juice from the cow fern onto the affected area and it will stop the sting. The area will feel kind of numb, but the pain will be gone. My understanding is that the sting from the nettle is caused by an acid, and the sap of the cow fern is a base, so the base neutralizes the acid. Usually, wherever there are stinging nettles, there are also cow ferns in the plant community.

[PaulB]

I read an article in Outdoor Life, I think, which said that each time you are exposed, you use up a portion of your resistence to it.

I think it's true. Either that, or a heavy exposure will sensitize you.

I used to have no reaction whatever, to even gross contact with poison oak. Then one day a friend asked me to help clear his land. He had poison oak bushes 10" tall, mixed in with blackberry. It was a hot summer day so we worked with our shirts off, carrying this stuff to a place where we would burn it. The blackberries got our arms scratched good, working the oil in.

I ended up laid up for a week, taking cool showers every 15 minutes, and using alcohol to wipe down. I was itchy everywhere. Don't know why I had no problem with lungs, maybe because most of it was dead already. Or just dumb luck. But now I have a moderate reaction to it.

I have chopped a hell of a lot of poison oak in my life. The rules I try to stick by are these:
1) If possible, do it in winter when there are no leaves
2) Use long gauntlets
3) Avoid at all costs, contact with sweaty (pores expanded) skin
4) When you get hit with it anyway, don't delay, take instant action - which consists of running cold water over your skin and rubbing the contact area.

I don't actually think the oil is that hard to get off, such that you need special soaps or something like that. What's more important is acting quickly to wash it off, and using water as cool as possible so your pores don't stay open and accept the oil. Sometimes when water is not handy, I just use spit! Then rub it off on my jeans. As long as I act right away, there is usually no rash later.

[cjm135]

I've had two cases of sever PI. Since then the best remedy or should I say relief is to treat the affected area with hot water, as hot as you can take without burning your self. This will cause it to itch like crazy. Once the itching stops you can pat dry the area. This prevents the blistering and you will be itch free for most of the day. The principal is the hot water releases the histamines which cause the blister and the itch. It is best to catch it early before the skin puffs up.

[piller]

The reason for subsequent exposures making you more likely to be sensitized is that it takes time for your body to make the Immune Globulins which attach to the Urushiols in the oil and then attach to the Mast Cells which contain Histamine. When your Immune Globulins finally recognize something as an allergen, then they attach to the Mast Cell and rupture it, releasing Histamine. This is what then causes the allergic reaction. AntiHistamines prevent the released Histamine from attaching to cells and causing swelling/itching. The more times your Immune Globulins see something, the more likely they are to be made by your bone marrow to be specific to that something.

The shot in question is an allergy shot which is to make the body forget the allergy. AJMD429 can probably give you the rundown on how it works.

[flatnose]

I have been stung plenty of times by nettles, even fell in a patch of them as a kid.
Are the effects of poison ivy or oak worse than nettles?

[pokey]

I have been stung plenty of times by nettles, even fell in a patch of them as a kid.
Are the effects of poison ivy or oak worse than nettles?

different, nettles are fairly instantaneous,sting,burn,itch,and short lived.
poison ivy/oak take a while to set in and can last days if some remedy is not applied,
mostly itchy rash.

[flatnose]

Thanks,
I did a quick bit of research to find out what the oak and ivy looks like. It seems there is none in the garden.
I learned a hard lesson with cactus once. The father inlaw wanted to cook some up, (mexican dish) so he asked me to pick some fresh cactus. Didn't take but a few minutes, but my hands itched for a couple of days. He said I was supposed to use tongs to pick them.

[Noah Zark]

Washing with a heavy-duty detergent like Dawn, Lava Soap, or Fels Naptha soap will remove most if not all of the ivy plant oil that's the bad actor.

However, itchy red areas and blisters appear, soak gauze in witch hazel and apply to the affected area for as long as you can. Alternate with a paste of baking soda and water, then back to witch hazel-soaked gauze pads. Keep that up for a day or two.

As an alternative to witch hazel soaked gauze, 40%-50% witch hazel is available in a gel form as "Preparation H Gel." Make sure you get the GEL, a clear gel that looks like KY, and NOT the original cream ointment. Prep H Gel is a wonderful product for treating allergic rashes, insect bites and stings, etc. Witch hazel is an astringent that "dries" up the affected areas, helping remove the histamines and lymph from the blisters. It isn't just for 'roids!

Noah

[brucew44guns]

I lived in Northern California as a kid growing up, and from there on up into the Oregon Cascades there is a weed that grows wild in clear cut areas called fireweed, due to it's red blooms later in the summer. My Grandma would harvest fireweeds, boil them in a pot like so many greens, and bath her affected areas in the juices from the boiling. It was supposedly an old indian remedy, and it helped her a lot with poison oak. Sores and scabs would infest her arms, fireweeds would dry it up and stop it.

[ceb]

Been fortunate enough to have never had a case of PO or PI, even though I've been in it all my life. What I do get though is a case of Cocobolo. When I was building custom longbows and recurves many customers would request Cocobolo as their choice of riser wood. Cocobolo is a very hard, dense and beautiful wood. It is also very oily. I discovered that when you sand Cocobolo it produces a very fine dust that will go everywhere including through the material of your pants and shirts. First few times I just got a couple of small patches of rash on my hands, but if you ever sand out a bow first thing in the morning and go all day. OH MY!! Reaction just like Posion Ivy and lasts just as long. I Finially had to quit using the stuff, seemed the reactions got worse each time.