Poison Ivy

Bird · Aug 7, 2001

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 · Aug 7, 2001

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 · Aug 7, 2001

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 · Aug 8, 2001

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

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

s1120 · Aug 8, 2001

Goats love it also. I got to get some.

RobS · Aug 8, 2001

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 · Aug 8, 2001

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 · Aug 8, 2001

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 · Aug 9, 2001

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 · Aug 9, 2001

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