Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Need Advice: Poison Oak

Worked in my mother's yard last week and now i am covered with poison oak. what do you guys use to stop iching and try to make it go away.
thanks

To be honest, I've tried a lot of different remedies, the best advice I can give is to keep it clean and dry - soap & water followed by rubbing alcohol seems to work best. It may sting, and when I get it good, I wash it frequently.

As far as the itching, benadryl.

Nothing really makes it go away. Calamine lotion and oatmeal baths will help with the itching some. Just one of those we gotta deal with from time to time.

Lots of benadryl. If it's bad enough it may be worth a trip to your local Doc-in-a-Box clinic for a shot. I hate that crap. It'll jump over somebody else just to get on me.

Poison Ivy by the Coasters......CLICK IT

Go to your doc and get a steroid shot or taper pack. Use a hair dryer on it to make the cells de-granulate and release all their histamine at once. It will feel pretty good while doing it and then not itch for a couple of hours afterward until the histamine is replaced. Benadryl creme and tablets.

Poison oak / ivey is my kyptonite.

Take a trip to the beach. Get in the water!

Why are all the Carolina guys posting here?

Goes back to my theory that the Army mad scientists in Bragg have genetically engineered poison ivy, green briar and kudzu into one super bio weapon.....

IMO,..First thing,..take some rubbing alcohol on a clean rag and pour alcohol over the affected area a few times. Don't spare the alcohol, it cuts the oil.

You must make sure you have all the Urushiol removed from your skin, or it will just spread around causing more reactions.

Once you're sure the oil is gone, use the Calamine and maybe some Benadryl.

If it's not working, get yourself to the Dr. and get a shot.

Best of luck.

Tec Labs' CalaGel, been using it for years:

http://www.poisonoakandivy.com/calagel.html

Also, Tecnu Rash Relief:

http://www.poisonoakandivy.com/tecnu_rash_relief.html

Can't help ya...I've never had it. I didn't even know what it looked like till I was in my mid twenties & my girlfriend wouldn't follow me in to the bushes...

I had a lot of it in my back yard in NC. I was warned, cut all the shoots and branches in the fall - and use a axe or shears, not a weedeater, which will spread them around. Then wait a few weeks later, until the dead of winter to remove the dead poison oak, when the chemicals are least active.

I can pull it bare handed and burn it without a problem. Got bad as a kid a bunch of times and then it just quit bothering me.

I grew up walking barefoot in the stuff, moved away and came back 15 yrs later and the stuff eats me alive. I have gotten it SO bad that my hands would literally swell up so bad and so ugly that my own mother couldn't look at them! The ONLY two things I have found that help are:

1) Run hot water over your hands or area affected. As hot as you can stand it. Something about it neutralizes the itching for me. Becareful not to burn yourself while doing it, as the relief is SO great that you may lose focus on the heat.

2) Triamcinolone Acetonide cream, USP 0.1%

In several days the cream will wipe it out, apply the stuff to any safe area and it dries it up. It is powerful good stuff for it. Must be prescribed, well worth it, for me at least!!

Good luck, I know how miserable it can be!

Rhus Toxicodendron will cut the recovery time in half. http://www.elixirs.com/rhus.cfm

Getting steroids or prednisone pills will cut recovery time by 3/4s, but many doctors don't like to give it for poison. One Dr told me it's like putting out a match with a firehose.

It was pure misery for me the first time I had it. I pretty much had it all over except my head and where I was double layered. The doc kept bringing people in to look at me like a case study. I got the taper pack but it was still hell. If you have bad seasonal hay fever it can be worse. At least that's what the doc said 30+ years ago.

http://www.zanfel.com/help/

It works,found out about it in Boy Scouts.

Call your doc and get some Prednisone tablets. You'll take 6 then 5, then 4, etc. Knock it right out. Promise.

Nothing works. Go to your doctor and get a shot. Cleared mine up in a day.

I wiped my azz with it once at a dove shoot. I was miserable.

Nothing works. Go to your doctor and get a shot. Cleared mine up in a day.

I go the the MD and get a shot(s)...that will stop it in tracks. Otherwise, at first they make a special soap that will remove the oil from your skin, then get the shots...

I'm hyper allergic to it, it gets worse every time. I can't even be around the stuff and I break out. One small spot and my immune system overreacts and I'm covered.