Poison Ivy cure!

[Fuddy1952]

I never used to be allergic to it when I was a kid; my friend and I used to have fun chasing our sisters around with it.
Somewhere along the line that changed. One day I was walking my dog and inadvertently got into some; as soon as I got home I washed up thoroughly so all was well... for a time. A couple of weeks later I developed an itch; and where it started made me nervous as I had spent a couple of weeks with someone who turned out to be sluttier than I realized. It quickly spread to my arms though, apparently I should have washed off the dog's leash.

"I had spent a couple of weeks with someone who turned out to be sluttier than I realized."
Not Ben Gay I hope!
I'm joking...just a joke

 

[polo1665]

When I was a kid I was even more highly allergic to poison ivy than I am today. So I was maybe 10 or 12 and I had to take an emergency thunder dump in the woods.... and used leaves to clean..... guess what I used!?

I ended up at the doctor and getting steroid shots because my entire crack was blistered, splitting open and in horrible agony of itching, bleeding and pain. The couple times since then that I was forced to do an emergency woodlands dump... I remove a sock, shirt, boxers and wipe with that. I'm never getting a sore butt like that again.

My brother did the same thing.........we all felt sorry for him. It was bad enough he had to wear diapers for a week or so.

 

[Gunny]

As a youngster, I'd get a terrible case of poison ivy once or twice a year, lots of times, so bad that all I could wear was a pair of loose fitting shorts and flip flops, while covered in calamine lotion.
I guess I had so many terrible sessions with it that I eventually got immune to it. Now I can pull it by hand, roll in it, whatever, I never get itchy.
That worked against me years ago while I was cutting firewood, wound up cutting a bunch of locust with the vines embedded in the bark. The wife filled the stove one night and there was enough oil in the smoke to really mess her up.
That was a double whammy for me, she was torqued off big time and I had to do everything related to the woodstove after that, she wouldn't go near the stove if the door was open.

 

[jajiu]

I use Fells Naptha Soap with a wash cloth. The important thing is the wash cloth as that scrubs the oils off.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Jewelweed isn't a cure, it does relieve the itch for a while.

Zanfel is a cure. Although it's wickedly expensive. For a while CVS had a generic equivalent that was about one third the price but I haven't seen it in a while.

 

[Fuddy1952]

I'm not a doctor or scientist. All I know is from personal experience. I'm highly allergic and all I know is if I know I've come in contact I wash immediately, but if itching blisters form the Jewel Weed soaked paper towel stops it. My guess is it maybe the scratching makes it worse. It works for us and it's free.

 

[Ford850]

I'm not a doctor or scientist. All I know is from personal experience. I'm highly allergic and all I know is if I know I've come in contact I wash immediately, but if itching blisters form the Jewel Weed soaked paper towel stops it. My guess is it maybe the scratching makes it worse. It works for us and it's free.

Do you strain out the cooked leaves after boiling, and only store the tea? Or maybe the leaves are left in the liquid too?

 

[CalG]

I would suggest that everyone read up on the mechanism by which poison ivy inflicts it's suffering on us humans.

Have you noticed that dogs, cows, deer etc. don't get the reaction?

From my own suffering, and then reading, it has come to light that the poison ivy "experience" is our own individual immune system response to a perceived problem. That is why some people do not display an adverse reaction to contact with the plant, while for others, any contact can be near fatal. It may be true that no one develops an adverse response to their first contact. That initial exposure serving to trigger the production of anti bodies that will cause problems next time. We each respond differently. The oil it's self is actually harmless to tissue.

In that, it is easy to understand why there might be so many useful "treatments". All might work, but each will work differently.
I find jewel weed works for me, plus it frequently grows in the same area as the poison plant. I've scrubbed exposed skin with the jewel weed crushed in my palms and avoided what I thought was going to be weeks of misery (again).
At the moment, I have a small "outbreak" on my back that displays as contact with poison oak. I'm trying to think of how I could have got it.

 

[Fuddy1952]

Do you strain out the cooked leaves after boiling, and only store the tea? Or maybe the leaves are left in the liquid too?

I pick leaves, wife cooks it in a big pot. She believes best in August or September , cook flowers and leaves (My guess is leaves even now are fine). She pours after cooking through a metal strainer into another pot to cool. Then pour into a gallon milk jug into fridge. I write on jug so I don't drink it!
It looks like real dark tea. I pour some in a dish with a paper towel folded to about 4"x4". I get instant relief. For us it works for lots of other stuff like bee stings, etc.

 

[Fuddy1952]

I pick leaves, wife cooks it in a big pot. She believes best in August or September , cook flowers and leaves (My guess is leaves even now are fine). She pours after cooking through a metal strainer into another pot to cool. Then pour into a gallon milk jug into fridge. I write on jug so I don't drink it!
It looks like real dark tea. I pour some in a dish with a paper towel folded to about 4"x4". I get instant relief. For us it works for lots of other stuff like bee stings, etc.

I wanted to mention my father in law was Native American , Cherokee. Lots of things handed down like the antidote for one thing is close by.
My nephew lives in the Peruvian jungle and studies with those native people and their natural cures. Imho a lot of pharmaceutical companies have expensive medicines derived from natural plants.
Couple pictures...