They call it poison for a reason

[Renze]

My mother is allergic to bee stings: She once had such swollen legs that she went to the first aid of the hospital, where was discovered that it was a bee sting infecton. She now keeps an antidrug at hand during the season, which makes it all go away soon.
With a heavy bee poison infection (e.g. accidentally poke in a nest and get stung multiple times) this could kill her, so we're glad she found out with just a mild infection, and got knowledge of the problem, and the antidope before this situation ever occurred.

 

[mrutkaus]

Only thing that ever stops it for me is putting on 1% cortisone cream on ASAP. Of course the GoJo washing before that helps too.

Guy at the school bus stop when I was a kid showed us how he ate a poison ivy leaf. Said it prevented him from getting it!

Mike

 

[J_J]

This is a very good article on Poison Ivy/Poison Oak. Seems like it is called Poison Ivy in the East, and Poison Oak in the west.

Correction, Poison ivy mostly in the Mid US, to Eastern United States, whereby Poison Oak is in every state, included Canada. Poison Sumac is not wide spread, almost rare, found in wet lands.

Poison Oak

 

[psj12]

I live in the east and we have both poison oak and Ivy. They are different plants.

 

[cowboy357]

I live in the east and we have both poison oak and Ivy. They are different plants.

Yes They are different plants . I live in the middle & have ivy, oak & sumac & having a hard time controlling any of it this year. Bob

 

[jinman]

If you live in an area where there is lots of poison ivy/poision oak and have outside pets, be extra careful. My woods gets carpeted with poision ivy every spring and it doesn't start to dry and die until late June and July when the heat kills it. We have outside cats and my wife will get poison ivy reactions from petting them. I have never shown any allergies, but don't push my luck anymore than is required to run the rotary cutter and the string trimmer while I wear long pants.

Come to think of it, my poor wife might be coming in contact with the poison ivy from doing laundry.

 

[ampsucker]

i, too, have heard you can desensitize yourself by eating small amounts of the very young, tender leaves over time. never had the bells to try it.

i've also found that whenever you have a large, dispersed patch of poison ivy that comes back yearly - look up. you'll probably see the parent plant climbing a tall tree and that plant is both putting out runners AND getting enough sun to make and disperse seeds. no wonder it's so hard to get rid of!

i've also read in serious poison ivy pamphlets and literature that the resin can not only stick around for weeks but for years on tools, gloves, clothing, etc. regular detergent and water will remove it from all surfaces except skin to which it bonds and must be removed using a special blend of surfactants such as go-jo or zanfel which have the correct chained fatty acid to grab the oil on one end and a water molecule on the other.

as we all know, regular soaps will not do the job once it's bonded to the skin. these documents also indicate you have about 4 hours to wash off the oil from your skin before the bonding process begins to make regular soap and water ineffective and you have to go to the specialized soaps.

sorry to hear about the fellow who passed away due to this. i've felt pretty downright miserable from it until i started to learn about it. he probably had what is termed a "systemic" case. if you get enough oil on your skin, it can get into your lymph system and travel to other parts of the body where your own immune system does you in by trying to attack the oil. this occurs when large portions of the dermis are covered or you breath it in in aerosol or smoke form and it gets direct access to lymph and blood system.

i think i had a partial systemic case once when i cut some spring vines (unknowingly) and the sap dripped directly onto my legs. you could actually see the streaks in blister form where the vines had rubbed across my bare legs and the sap had left a trail. not fun.... to this day, i get itchy when i get close to the stuff as if my body has become a highly tuned detector of the plant just from it's airborne chemicals. i know that sounds crazy, but it's a real feeling i get sometimes and when i look around i usually find a good amount of the plant.

amp

 

[JoelD]

I was weedwacking last friday and have my first case this year yesterday and today.

I hate the stuff, I can't figure out what it looks like, all the plants look the same to me.

Joel

 

[J_J]

JoelD,

Here are all three plus some more irritants. Bad stuff. Look at the pictures.


http://www.poison-ivy.org/rash/index.htm

 

[Airic]

Very sad indeed. One I learned recently is to be careful when cutting oak and walnut. The fine saw dust can give you the same effect as poison ivy along with other major issues including cancer, kidney failure, to testicular something or another. I was helping a friend with some wood working and the next day he looked like he had rolled through poison ivy. Made him sick with a temperature as well. I was fortunate not to be affected. After that he bought a book about diferent types of wood and the issues that can be caused when working with it. Pretty scary stuff in there which I had no idea about.