Poison Ivy

[Fedusenko]

I cut some wood in poison ivy. Normally I am not affected by it, but this time it got me! It spread too! Arms, legs, chest, back, and butt. I can handle the itch, but I look like Radiation Man! And I am always afraid that I am going to rub against something and pop the bubbles leaving a small, disgusting puddle.

I have tried Calomine lotion. No help. I have rubbed salt to both pop the bubbles and dry the areas out (it stung so good), no avail. I am very tempted to take a tomato soup bath if someone would make me some grilled cheese sandwhiches (i would so do it!).

I think that time has taken its course and the irritant is subsiding, but does anyone have a poison ivy fix?

 

[handy]

Benadryl... it's otc these days and really good for all kinds of inflammations. When I tangled with some poison oak way back when, it was what they gave me at the doctors.

Also, oatmeal baths work well for horrible itchyness... I learned that when I got head-to-toe chicken pox at the ripe old age of 22... worst time of my life!!!

For an oatmeal bath just put about a cup of oatmeal into a blender and blend until it's a fine powder. Dissolve it into your bath and soak for as long as you like... it helps.

 

[tim-from-pa]

I second what handy says. I take Benadryl when I get poison and helps prevent the inflamation. Someone may ask, "I thought Tim doesn't believe in drugs?" Never said that. Benadryl is just temporary and any damage it does to the body should easily be offset if we are healthy, right? What I am against is continual use for example someone has high cholesterol and they don't want to figure out the cause, and then say, "Here's a pill you'll have to take the rest of your life." That's not a cure, and mostly likely does not cause a person to live longer, either--- the serious condition causing the cholesterol to go up is still there. It's just helping numbers and making some wallet fatter. Big difference.

Also, for poison ivy, you want to dry it up. My blisters tend to be small, reptilian type bumps and my skin just looks red or even purplish, then eventually they turn into itchy scabs as the itch and redness is the sign that it's getting better. So something like Ivarest is good enough for me, as I'm basically too lazy to make my own concoction. But you may have to do the oatmeal stuff and baths if you are the type that gets big blisters. There's a lot of good, natural remedies on the Internet--- again, the idea is to dry it up.

One hint where one can get it. I took every precaution this year and still got it bad on the back of my shin. It's those outdoor cats of mine! The one is friendly and rubs a lot. She's starting to learn every time she gets near me I now have to say, "No rubbing!" and she's learning to back off now. So, watch outdoor pets that don't get it but drag it home to you.

Also wash a lot--- there's all sorts of advice out there from salt water to detergent. But from what I read poison ivy is basically an oil and it dries up quickly --- the impression I get is the oil solidifies like an enamel and then is hard to get off which is why it takes a month to get rid of. So one has to wash right away --- say within 5 minutes of exposure.

 

[Mike S]

I cut some wood in poison ivy. Normally I am not affected by it, but this time it got me! It spread too! Arms, legs, chest, back, and butt. I can handle the itch, but I look like Radiation Man! And I am always afraid that I am going to rub against something and pop the bubbles leaving a small, disgusting puddle.

I have tried Calomine lotion. No help. I have rubbed salt to both pop the bubbles and dry the areas out (it stung so good), no avail. I am very tempted to take a tomato soup bath if someone would make me some grilled cheese sandwhiches (i would so do it!).

I think that time has taken its course and the irritant is subsiding, but does anyone have a poison ivy fix?

I sympathize with you. I never got a rection to poison before a couple of years ago. I think what I've gotten into is just a particularly viscious strain of it. Now I get a reaction, but only after about two weeks, and then it spreads slowly to cover most of my arms and legs, and takes about three weeks to be done.

I din't think there is anything we can do to make it go away faster, but I've found a spray called Ivy Dry (pharmacist recommended it) that really does dry it out and knock down the itching.

 

[elizabethbraddock]

Yes, as others have already stated, benadryl.

 

[elizabethbraddock]

I second what handy says. I take Benadryl when I get poison and helps prevent the inflamation. Someone may ask, "I thought Tim doesn't believe in drugs?" Never said that. Benadryl is just temporary and any damage it does to the body should easily be offset if we are healthy, right? What I am against is continual use for example someone has high cholesterol and they don't want to figure out the cause, and then say, "Here's a pill you'll have to take the rest of your life." That's not a cure, and mostly likely does not cause a person to live longer, either--- the serious condition causing the cholesterol to go up is still there.

I don't want to thread jack, but I just wanted to address this.

Firstly, let me agree with you. I also believe that as a society, we are over medicated, and that many physicians prefer to treat the symptoms rather than look at the person as a whole. This is something our osteopathic counterparts do much better than traditional allopathic physicians, but that is changing.

Secondly, I want to address the issue of hypercholesterolemia, or high cholesterol. Most people can lower their cholesterol by making lifestyle changes, such as diet and exercise. They usually want a pill though because it's "easier". However, there is another case where hypercholesterolemia has a genetic component. Hypercholesterolemia has been known to run in families and has been associated with aberrant genes. For these individuals, diet and exercise are ineffective, and do not produce any significant benefit in terms of lowering blood cholesterol levels. For these individuals, cholesterol-lowering drugs are the only option available to them.

 

[tim-from-pa]

......

Secondly, I want to address the issue of hypercholesterolemia, or high cholesterol. Most people can lower their cholesterol by making lifestyle changes, such as diet and exercise. They usually want a pill though because it's "easier". However, there is another case where hypercholesterolemia has a genetic component. Hypercholesterolemia has been known to run in families and has been associated with aberrant genes. For these individuals, diet and exercise are ineffective, and do not produce any significant benefit in terms of lowering blood cholesterol levels. For these individuals, cholesterol-lowering drugs are the only option available to them.

Except for one thing. Cholesterol per se is not harmful. My point was actually a jab at medicating a non-issue as Hypercholesterolemia is an invented disease. Sometimes high means something, and sometimes it does not and someone with high cholesterol is not necessarily less healthy than someone with less, nor are their heart necessarily in any more danger. You can Google articles that admitting the fact that just as many people have heart attacks with low cholesterol as with high --- it's fairly even LDL and HDL taken into consideration. In statistics, 50/50 is a ZERO correlation. So what's the justification of treating the "high" and why not the low?

For direct conversation about cholesterol, we can resurrect one of my old threads:
http://www.christianforums.net/showthread.php?t=36361

But poison ivy is something verifiable and tangible. It's an environmental contamination of sorts that the body just has to deal with. Besides the symptomatic relief, one should stay well nourished to help heal faster. This time mine was basically there for only 2.5 weeks, and it was bad enough for the skin to turn purple. Dermatologists say the average length is one month. Staying healthier is probably why it healed faster.