home remedy

[sd locke]

please help . i get poison ivy , oak, sumac . really bad at times have to go to hospital to be treated . and i dont even have to go to the woods to get it . i use tecnu . and tecnu extreme . it dont help .

[Phorester]

Have you or your doctor tried to find a vaccine to prevent the rash?  I know in the 80's or 90's they were trying to develop such a vaccine for western forestfire fighters. 

[Jeff]

If you dont have to go in the woods, then you need to get rid of your contamination problem to begin with. Probably clothing or maybe even the interior of your vehicle.

[beenthere]

sd locke
More info about where and how you think you are getting the poison ivy oils on your skin would help respond.

Like Jeff says, it could be on your clothes, or shoes, or even from a dog.

I get it if not careful. But washing within 2 hours of contact works for me.
I usually get it now from chain saw chips, and cutting a tree with the PI vines on it.

Where are you located? Filling out some info in your bio would help. 

[SwampDonkey]

I have no experience here with poison ivy. I think I only saw it once on a line fence row. Never got into it, but I know a fellow did who was tree planting the field. I don't know his remedy, if he had one.

Here, we often run into stinging nettles, and it is usually growing with jewel weed (spotted touch-me-not). Just rub the juice of the jewel weed stem on the infected area and it will take the sting out. Does for me anyway. But, everyone is different in their reaction I suppose.

[redpowerd]

I have no experience here with poison ivy. I think I only saw it once on a line fence row. Never got into it, but I know a fellow did who was tree planting the field. I don't know his remedy, if he had one.

Here, we often run into stinging nettles, and it is usually growing with jewel weed (spotted touch-me-not). Just rub the juice of the jewel weed stem on the infected area and it will take the sting out. Does for me anyway. But, everyone is different in their reaction I suppose.

my weed id professor in college says the juice from the top of the root crown will cure stinging nettles.

[sd locke]

i do wash clothes .boots. i dont use trucks i just walk from the woods . it seems to be in the fall and part of winter i get it worse . can it be in the air like pollen . i am stumped by the problems i have . i now what it looks like so i stay away from it and still get it . my kids dont get it . they can eat it .  so they cut up the wood that is near it . it seams over the years my body would get use to it and never get it . i dont now just a pain in the butt. if i think . i have to touch it .... on a piece of wood . i wear latex gloves this is the only thing that i now that works.and also if i use tecnu before and after contact . it some times helps . also if i do touch it say i dont now it is there . i start to break out in a rash 15minutes afterwards.      thanks for the help steve

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

[sd locke]

thanks swapdonkey i will try that

[Jeff]

Are you sure its poison ivy?  Worse in Fall and winter sounds more like you have eczema.

You can't wash poison ivy out of cloths, that only spreads it around. You have to dispose of them.

[Phorester]

For many years my mother would never get a rash from poison ivy, so my Dad and I would let her clean out poison ivy from wherever.     But once on a hot humid summer day she cleaned out several big vines from a big white oak where we made a picnic area.  She got a very bad reaction from that.  Had to get some sort of shots once every few days for a couple of weeks.  I was young then and don't remember the details.

As we get older, we become either more or less susceptible to allergies.  Unfortunately she became more susceptible to poison ivy as she got older. 

Hopefully you will become less susceptible to it in the future.

After the leaves fall off the vines, it is less likely to contract a rash.  You can still get it from the vines themselves if they are touched, but there is no poison ivy pollen or anything like that.  As Jeff is asking, maybe you're getting something else that time of year.

[metalspinner]

Are you stacking and handling firewood in the fall and winter that had PI growing on it?

The worst I ever had it I needed to get a steroid shot to clear it up.  Though expensive, the over the counter stuff didn't help at all.

[sd locke]

thanks guys for the info . i never got as a child or young man . talked to my dad about today also he did say he has never got it nor my grandfather . he also mentioned that i do get fast and hard . maybe it is body change like Phorester mother . thanks guys it is making me think about the piles of wood i have .

[Phorester]

When I was in Boy Scouts we had a fellow scout get it in his lungs.  He spent 2-3 days in the hospital and further treatments at home for a couple weeks.  The doctor said he must've been in campfire smoke from a piece of firewood that had a poison ivy vine on it.  I get a rash only if I touch the leaves or a cut vine. 

When I was growing Christmas trees and replanting seedlings by hand, I'd always get a rash on my right hand, the one I used to stick the seedling into the ground with. I've never gotten one from handling my clothes or boots after walking through poison ivy during the day, never gotten a rash from pets, never from smoke.  Thank goodness I'm not as sensitive as that scout or I certainly wouldn't be able to be a forester.

[Brian Beauchamp]

Sounds like she got sensitized to it. This happens when it gets into a cut/scratch and the body builds antibodies against it in the bloodstream. The next time the body encounters it, the reaction can be extreme. Many people think that they are 'immune' to poison ivy, and there may be some that are, but it is just that most probably have not produced the antibodies that cause the visible reaction.

For many years my mother would never get a rash from poison ivy, so my Dad and I would let her clean out poison ivy from wherever.     But once on a hot humid summer day she cleaned out several big vines from a big white oak where we made a picnic area.  She got a very bad reaction from that.  Had to get some sort of shots once every few days for a couple of weeks.  I was young then and don't remember the details.

As we get older, we become either more or less susceptible to allergies.  Unfortunately she became more susceptible to poison ivy as she got older. 

Hopefully you will become less susceptible to it in the future.

After the leaves fall off the vines, it is less likely to contract a rash.  You can still get it from the vines themselves if they are touched, but there is no poison ivy pollen or anything like that.  As Jeff is asking, maybe you're getting something else that time of year.

[SPIKER]

I can just about roll around in it and not get any, only areas I ever get any are forearms/wrist and ankles and only if I'm sweating a lot.   I can cut & pull it without much fear, but I do use common sense too;)   always wash asap, cold water and dawn dish soap to remove the oils in the ivy.   repeat about 3 times increasing water temps.   Same for clothing, use dawn dish soap for removing cooking oil. works great...

if I get some rash, I use milk dabbed on it to dry it out very fast.   works great for me.   I dab it on about every 5~10 min let dry, usually takes 3 or 4 applications over an hr or two.   might take 2 or 3 trys but it seems to really work.   most people dab some on wipe it off and say it didnt work.  you have to let it dry, and apply several coats until a whitish coat builds up...

Mark M

[johnjbc]

Up until I turned 17 I got poison Ivey real bad every summer. I would usually end up going to the Dr for a shot. We tried all of the drugstore remedies but the only thing that helped it was Clorox.  That dried it up but if you had scratched it. It burnt like hxxx . Now I can pull it out by the roots with no problems.
Some where in the 50’s they took the poison Ivey shots off the market and the Dr started giving cortisone shots and now you can buy an over the counter 2% cortisone ointment that works pretty good.
I wonder if you are getting it from handling fire wood or getting it from the smoke.

[bandmiller2]

I remember Euel Gibbons [sp] said you can build up a resistance to poison Ivy buy eating very small amounts of the new leaves of the plant and increasing the dose gradually.I have never tried it nor would I recomend it, may be interesting rescearch.Frank C.

[bill m]

Domboro (sp) solution. Mix the powder in warm water and wet a cloth with it. Lay it over the affected area for about 30 min.- 3 times a day. It will help stop the itching and help dry it up.

[thecfarm]

Interesting to hear all of you say PI is a vine.I have it on my land and spray it with Round Out to keep it in check.The worse place I have it at the edge of the woods.Can't really get rid of it,but can keep it from spreading.It can grow close to the ground,in the open,or in the woods it can be 2 feet tall.I have never seen it as a vine on my land.I have heard of smoke spreading the juice.My Brother worked for the town in school and they burned some.He was a mess.But they gave shots out then.Now the Dr tells you to stay out of it. 15 minutes reaction is bad.Both of my Brothers got it real bad,but would take 1-2 days before they knew they got into it.To my knowledge you have to brush up against it.Not a pollen problem around here,or my Brothers would of had it all the time.We would cut hay 4 feet from it.I use the cortisone too.Have a tube of it at work,just in case.I had it real bad 10 yeras ago,had to go to the DR to get the full strength stuff.

[pineywoods]

The thing to remember with poison ivy is this. What causes the skin reaction is an oil, not juice, not pollen. The leaves look oily because they are coated with it. The stuff bio degrades very slowly and will quickly soak into clothes, gloves, or just about anything that will absorb oil (including wood). Best thing I have found to take the oil off skin is dawn dish washing detergent, in other words a good de-greaser. If you use gloves to handle the stuff, bury the gloves. The smoke from burning PI has been used as a chemical warfare agent...

[bandmiller2]

Goats love poison ivy,turn them loose and don't overfeed them, ivy gone.Frank C.

[ohsoloco]

The worse place I have it at the edge of the woods.Can't really get rid of it,but can keep it from spreading.It can grow close to the ground,in the open,or in the woods it can be 2 feet tall.I have never seen it as a vine on my land.

The edge of the woods is also the worst place that I have it around my place, but it readily grows up into the trees, and develops a thick stem that attaches to the trunk.  When I get it I usually have to get an oral steroid prescribed in order to get rid of it.

[zopi]

Goats love poison ivy,turn them loose and don't overfeed them, ivy gone.Frank C.

If you drink goats milk that has fed on P I It will boost your immunity to the stuff...

Of course, if you're drinking goats milk you're pretty tough already, so it might not matter much...

[Phorester]

THECFARM, we could be talking about different plants.  There's poison ivy, which is a vine, but can also grow as a small single-stem shrub 2-3 feet tall.  Both forms occur in my neck of the woods.  Then there is poison oak, which is a tree, and poison sumac, which is also a tree.  All give the same allergic reaction to an individual.  Whatever reaction somebody has to one plant will be the same reaction he/she has to the other two also.

[SwampDonkey]

Phorester, we don't seem to have the vine type up here. My friend lived down your way for a few years and he pointed the vine type out to me. I thought he was pointing to virginia creeper, he said go ahead and grab onto it. I didn't try, wasn't brave enough. 

[Phorester]

One winter day I was out with a landowner who didn't recgonize poison ivy vines.  They are very furry in appearance.  He began stroking one like he was rubbing a cat.  He said, what's this. I said, poison ivy.  He jumped like he'd been shot, then began stroking it again saying, oh well, I'm deathly allerigic to poison ivy, thank goodness you can't get it in winter.  I said, yes you can, just by touching the vine like you're doing.  He jumped back again.

I don't know if he ever got a rash from that episode, but I didn't shake hands with him when I left either

[bandmiller2]

We have poison ivy boath ways as an understory low plant and also as a vine that will climb trees or fences.I've never seen a poison oak or sumac.When young I got it bad now I'd have to really abuse it to to get the itch.Frank C.

[Trax]

 When we bought the house we're living in now there was an out building 100 feet behind the house that was cover in vines. We moved in in Jan. and you couldn't even open the doors it was so covered. Most of them were wild grapes(still had some dried up ones on the vine) What I didn't realized was at least 1/2 of them were poison ivy. I had only seen it as low ground bush(which is still a vine if you pull it up you'll find that out) . Any way I got back to it in the spring and was ripping off the vines and my son comes back to tell me he has a school project(2nd grade) to make a May Basket, I set him up with a piece of wood that we drilled holes around the diameter. We tapped some kabob skewers into the holes with a little Elmer's and he started weaving a basket out of the vines. When I got home Monday from work he couldn't wait to tell me how much everyone loved his basket since the majority of the baskets were made of construction paper his really stood out. Matter of fact the principal of the school liked his so much my son gave it to him. Two days later I broke out in the rash from head to toe. I figured out what it was and my wife called the school....... a little to late the principle had it also, but my son never got it.