Poison Ivy cure?

[dodge man]

I got in some poison ivy last Wednesday. Several years ago I bought some Zanfel, it seems stupid expensive, nearly $40 for a tube of it. It’s kind of a gritty cream and they give pretty specific instructions on how to use it. I started breaking out on the back of my upper arm and usually it gradually gets worse over a period of a few days and lasts 2 to 3 weeks. The Zanfel almost immediately relived the itching and I used it about 3 times a day. It’s not quite the miracle cure the make it out to be but it’s the only over the counter medicine I’ve found that actually helps clear it up.

I’ve probably had poison ivy around 30 times and found if I was with Technu in about 2 hours I don’t get it but in this case I couldn’t was for about 10 hours after being exposed.

 

[grsthegreat]

Good to know. I used to get struck with poison ivy years ago….bit have not seen or had it since moving to Idaho.

That and not having flees and ticks on the dogs…and no more rattle snakes or black widows made the move nicer.

 

[chevy]

I am very allergic to poison ivy & have been since I was a kid.
If I know I have been in poison ivy, I scrub down with Dawn dish soap & cold water. If I
do not know I was in it & start to feel the itch, I scrub down the same way. I repeat the scrub down for 3 days. Using cold water is very important, hot water opens skin pours & lest the poison oil in. For itching, I use Benadryl Itch Stopping Gel.

 

[CalG]

Everyone's auto-immune system reacts differently to the poison plants.
I got into some about five days ago, I must have rubbed my neck to get the black flies off.
It's the two wood tick bites that keep me from a good night's sleep. My wife was up at 3:00 last night removing a tick from her thigh.

I've reduced my treatment of all these "itches" to Gold Bond medicated skin cream. It works well enough for me.
Maybe it's just a placebo...;-)

 

[ultrarunner]

I’m highly sensitive and just the dust from bulldozing is enough the get a bad case…

Barrier products work ok but if I get it Zanfel brings relief and it was always expensive like $30 years ago.

I end up spraying a lot because my sensitivity is off the charts so brush cutting is a no go.

The Docs here prescribe prednisone and it does bring relief but it has its own side effects.

 

[Southernspeed]

I get a pretty bad reaction to Poison Ivy. I use one of the scrubs (can't remember off hand) which are only designed to remove the urushiol , the oil that it leaves on you, then I use calamine lotion to stop itching. Before I used the scrubs I'd go to bed with it just on my forearms, then the next day or two it would be all over my chest and stomach from where I'd be laying at night.
Couple of years ago, working on the treeline, I needed a pee. I think you know where I'm going with this! Next couple of days I swelled up so bad I had to go to urgent care. Doctor said she didn't need to see it (thank heavens for small mercies!) and gave me a steroid that got the swelling down within hours, I've never been so happy to pay a medical bill!

 

[Oaktree]

If I know I have been in poison ivy, I scrub down with Dawn dish soap & cold water.

Never heard of using Dawn, but Tide seems to work to relieve it. I've only used the powder (don't even know if they still make it), can't speak for liquid. Other brands of laundry detergent had mixed results, though all worked to a degree.

 

[ponytug]

Everyone's auto-immune system reacts differently to the poison plants.
I got into some about five days ago, I must have rubbed my neck to get the black flies off.
It's the two wood tick bites that keep me from a good night's sleep. My wife was up at 3:00 last night removing a tick from her thigh.

I've reduced my treatment of all these "itches" to Gold Bond medicated skin cream. It works well enough for me.
Maybe it's just a placebo...;-)

Whatever works for you! I do think that the immune response is at least somewhat variable. I will say that for me, poison oak is 50 times as potent and itchy as poison ivy. I could ignore small poison ivy outbreaks. Not an option with poison oak, for me, and the poison oak outbreaks, last much longer, even with treatment.

I've used Tecnu barrier cream before exposure and used to use Tecnu for clean up, but like @chevy, I've gone to cold water and Dawn. I always, always shower after potential exposures, and the clothes go straight into the washing machine.

The local rumor was that Tecnu arose out of local power line technicians spraying themselves liberally with alum containing deodorant to use the alum to bind up the poison oak oil (a form of urushiol, with multiple double bonds, making it an allergen for something like 90% of the population). I would point out that the poison oak of the southeast is a different plant to the western one. Mostly, I cover up if I know that I might be around it, and I've found myself reflexively diving away from something before brain registers the poison oak stem, often while trotting along on horseback.

I have lots of acquaintances who weren't allergic until one day they were; I have a friend who went along happily hand pulling and generally ignoring poison oak for seventy odd years until one day, she was allergic. So, if I were currently not susceptible, I wouldn't bank on staying that way...

All the best,

Peter

 

[bdhsfz6]

I was allergic to poison ivy until my teens when I went on a boy scout camping trip. A few of the other scouts I was with thought it would be funny to put a poison ivy leaf in my sandwich. By the time I got home, my face had begun to swell. It got so bad, my eyes swelled shut and I had difficulty breathing. My mother was about to take me to the ER when one of the scouts responsible, knocked on our door and fessed up to what they had done. He got worried when I didn't show up for school that day. My mother called the doctor who phoned in a prescription which quickly brought the swelling down. Don't remember what it was but it did the trick.

The up side was, my poison ivy allergy completely disappeared for close to 10 years. Unfortunately, it came back though, and I'm allergic as ever. Our acreage is loaded with the stuff and every time I get a case, I'm tempted to chew on a leaf. At my age though, it would probably kill me.

 

[ponytug]

I’m highly sensitive and just the dust from bulldozing is enough the get a bad case…

Barrier products work ok but if I get it Zanfel brings relief and it was always expensive like $30 years ago.

I end up spraying a lot because my sensitivity is off the charts so brush cutting is a no go.

The Docs here prescribe prednisone and it does bring relief but it has its own side effects.

Before I got the poison oak down to a dull roar here (the quail always drop of new seeds), I used to spray, or use the front forks to pry the live plants out of the ground, and then wait a year or two before coming back to brush hog it or rototill it up.

Full zip up coveralls, chainsaw face mask, and respirator for me. Before I went to only mowing dead poison oak, I once had an outbreak on my face that looked like a case of the measles, made from tiny particles that sailed through the chainsaw screening.

All the best,

Peter