Poison Ivy

[skent]

<font color=blue>Alcohol is also cheap.</font color=blue>

Depends. . . . . on how long it's aged. . . . .(burp!)

Steve
"Amateurs built the Ark. . . . . . . .Professionals built the Titanic"

 

[JayinNH]

Phred,
I've even gone so far as to use Bleach when my fingers were webbed together with that Ivy. Alcohol does work well but it doesn't bring down the swelling. I will try washing with it if I come in contact with ivy again
Good idea
Jason

 

[Anonymous Poster]

rob
I have had it every year for about 30 years and finally
found something that works.
A recipe from a Cherokee Indian.
One part Hydrogen Peroxide, one part white vinegar.
I have tried everything else and it usually takes a couple
weeks to clear up, with this, it will be cleared up within
24-48 hours for me.

 

[GlueGuy]

That reminds me of another indian recipe. I talked with some friends up in Yosemite, and they said that the indians that lived there would yank up Mugwhort plant and rub that over their skin. They claim it prevents Poison Oak.

The GlueGuy

 

[RobertN]

I was in the thick of poison oak this weekend. I used the Avon pre-exposure lotion. I came away witha couple tiny little dots of rash, tiny tiny ones.

When I was done, I did was with Technu.

RobertN in Shingle Springs Calif

 

[dmccarty]

RobS,

Mother Earth News lastest issue, June?, had a big article on the Poison oak,ivy's, sumac. Very interesting stuff and right on with many people's comments.

The article talks about some oil that plants have that sinks into your skin. Your body builds up antibodies to the chemical and attacks. This causes the itching and blistering. The article says washing the effected areas soon after exposre can work to removed the oil. Alcohol works as well if liberal amounts are used to wash off the oil. External use not Internal for you lushes out there! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif The ointments that are mentioned by others work as well. The author said that a heavy enough exposure can even get through gloves and clothes.

Well that is the short summary of the article it really had much more info. I, knock on wood, don't seem bothered by the poison plants. I certainly am in the woods enough to get it but I have never had a bad case or any case that I know of so I guess I'm lucky. The author said that only a small part of the population is not bothered buy the stuff. I would just rather stay away from the stuff in the first place..... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Hope this helps....
Dan McCarty

 

[RobS]

Thanks for the tip Dan, I'll try to pick that issue up. I've been staying away from the stuff and am almost itch free finally after a couple of pretty nasty exposures. Now that the leaves are out, it's a lot easier to identify /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Richard]

When I was a kid we cleaned out some brush and threw it into the creek. Turns out there was some poisen ivy vines in there.

Along comes dad one evening and says let's fire up the (outdoor) fireplace and grill some hotdogs. He goes on to grab the brush including poisen ivy and cooks the dogs. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

My mother (a nurse) figured out what happened AFTER it happend /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif and rushed us all next door to our neighbors house (family doctor) to alert him about us and possible systemic poisening from the dogs cooked over the ivy.

Long story short nothing happened and all were well. I DO think however that good 'ole dad got a "voiciferous" lesson on identifying poisen ivy by my mother! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Richard

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I've seen signs up for the last month, "Time to take your Poison Ivy Extract." Does this work?

Patrick

P.S. My friend, the PhD naturalist guy, says that poison ivy and oak are the same plant growing in different circumstances.

 

[cowboydoc]

Well somehow I got poison ivy all over my feet and legs. This is the first time I've had it. I went over to the barn one day last week in my Teva's to measure for some stalls. Still don't see any but I got it somehow. Anyway I've been fighting it for the last week. Did steroid cream, prednisone, and all the other "stuff". I got relief from the burning and itching for awhile but it kept coming back and not healing very fast. I remembered this thread from awhile back and looked at it. Following Rob's recommendation I went to Walgreen's last night and got the Zanfel, $29.99. I was a little skeptical but I was willing to try about anything to get rid of this. Exactly as promised immediately after using it all of the itching was gone. I slept through the night last night for the first time in a week. Today the rash is about half gone. So far today no more itch or burning. I'm completely impressed with it. It does work just as it says it does. Thanks for the info. to Rob.

 

[Bird]

That's good news, Richard. I'll have to remember that next time I get into it.

In the late '40s, my mother used to get "poison ivy" so bad that she had to go to the doctor every summer and it would take forever to get rid of it. I really felt sorry for her because she really suffered with it (no air-conditioning in the houses back then). Then in '51 we moved and when she broke out with it, she went to a different doctor and he told her she didn't have poison ivy; that she had a vitamin C deficiency. She started taking a vitamin C tablet every morning (still does) and hasn't had any "poison ivy" since. I don't know whether the first doctor just didn't know, or whether they came out with some new tests for diagnoses about time.

Bird

 

[fmorgan]

Zanfel is really impressive. I think it just came on the market and I bought a tube at Walgreens--ditto the huge sticker shock--when I went to pick up a steroid prescription for a terrible case of P.I. (3/4 of both legs between sock line and shorts line). The P.I. had migrated into my lymph system and so I still had to do the Prednisone, but it's been 11 days since the P.I. emerged and thanks to the Zanfel/Prednisone combination, it is not only completely asymptomatic but almost no scars or marks are left. I've had these things take months to clear up before so I'm really relieved!

 

[gws]

Best solution for poison ivy is a couple of LLama's. They love that stuff. My boys will clean a fence in no time of posion ivy.

Gary.

 

[PBMAX]

I'm glad some body likes it!!!!!

Laziness is the Father of invention.../w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
Lil' Paul
Proud owner of TC21D

 

[s1120]

Goats love it also. I got to get some.

 

[RobS]

I've heard that goats and llamas eat poison ivy. It's very tempting to get a couple. Do they eat the whole plant or just the leaves? Care to rent some out for a while /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Joesgoats]

Rob, goats will eat the leaves as high as they can reach (standing on their hind legs). They will also nibble on the bark of the really thick vines as well as smaller vines. Sadly, they don't really kill it off, (because they don't pull the vines out by their roots) but they do keep it in check.

PI is a type of ivy, and goats love ivy! They also love bark of almost any small trees, so you have to be careful where you put them or they will strip the bark off of your favorite ornamentals as well.

Joe

 

[cowboydoc]

Wouldn't it be worse if they ate it off? Then you can't identify it and if you brush up against the stalk of one of those poison ivy plants you are going to be far worse off than brushing up against a leaf because you are going to get more of the oil on yourself. The severity of the rash, besides the person, is directly related to how much of the oil you get on yourself. With just the leaf you don't get much, although it doesn't take but the smallest amount, but with just the stalk there and and broken up you are going to get coated in it.

 

[Joesgoats]

Cowboydoc, in my part of Massachusetts PI is never gone! The goats do more pruning than removing. I have PI vines that are up to 2" in diameter growing on trees that I've cut to kill the plant above, so those are pretty visible. As for the smaller, younger vines we just know that there will be some somewhere and take appropriate precautions. But you can never really escape because it gets on the dogs, etc.

Still in the area where we keep the goats I can say that there is no sign of living PI, except for the old dead vines (which we stay away from as you said).

Joe

 

[DVerbarg]

Growing up we had goats and used to stake them near the poison ivy. They loved it and usually went for that over the other plants. However, on the large vines they just did a pruning job but with the young tender shoots they clipped the clear to the ground.

We raised the goats as dairy animals and I found that during those years I developed an immunity to poison ivy. Once my parents found out I was given the task of removing the older vines. Neighbors would hire me to clean out their poison ivy and compared to typical yard work I received hazard pay for something that was not hazardous to me!

Its been over 15 years since I consumed the goat's milk and I get poison ivy again (as I recently discovered).

DaveV