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.

My brother in Arkansas is so allergic to Poison Ivy/Oak that he almost died from it twice.

His only solution is Zinc Oxide ointment and clean gauze wrapped around each "wound." The Z.O. is a certain prescription from his doc.

Good luck.

L.W.

Go get the shot! It eats me alive but I start feeling better before even getting home from getting the shot

I look at it (and ivy) from a distance and it jumps out at me. If I get too much coverage, I have to resort to a doctor-prescribed dose pack of prednisone (7-6-5-4-3-2-1 pills a day). It clears it up better than anything else. Benadryl will help with the itching.

I've not tried this stuff, but those I know that have says it works. Problem is catching it in stock...

http://www.bujiproducts.com/

Good Lord that must have sucked....

50% bleach and 50% water applied to the affected area with a sponge.

Or,..if there's a swimming pool nearby, you can just go soak on the clorinated water until your skin gets clammy and they will relieve a lot of it.

If not too bad, rubbing it with underarm type deodorant will help dry it up. Sounds weird but know from experience that it works.

Cortisone shot will dry it up in 24-48 hours and it will stop the itch within a few hours

The chlorox (sp) sure helps the itch but might leave a burn of it's own. For me, that was better than the itch. Be careful.

Oh, the steriod shot didn't knock mine out like it seems to for most folks..

Prescription for topically applied triamcinolone cream. Otherwise, find Tecnu gel (OTC) and wear long-sleeve T-shirts for a week until it dries. Take tepid baths of baking soda and pray a lot. Doctor probably would advise Prednisone shot +++

As others have mentioned, go to the Dr. if possible.


I've had poison ivy & oak a handful of times in my life pretty bad. None of the over counter things have ever really helped me.

Watch the benydryl during the day, stuff makes me pretty sleepy

I wonder.
Back in Jr. High a kid announced he was immune to the stuff and proceeded to rub a bit on his arm. Didn't see him for a week.

I accidentally discovered that years ago, and have never heard anyone else mention it. It sure worked for me.

Haven't read the whole post, but use COLD WATER!!!

Warm water will open the pores and help the oil get in.

Water, as hot as I could stand is the only thing that works for me. While the water is warming the skin I can feel every nerve ending in my body reacting. Weird feeling but effective.

Life long sufferer, go get the steroid shot, NOTHING else comes as close to fast relief. Pregnizone? The stuff is a miracle for those of us who get bad cases.

I used to use straight laundry bleach on it. That did not help at all. (Didn't hurt either.)

I got it BAD earlier this year all over. Clear Caladryl is the SH*T. Takes the itching away and heals quickly.

I would get it a couple times each summer when I was a kid (1945-56)

My mom would make a smooth lather with Fels-Naptha soap/cool water and gently bathe the infected area about every two hours. Immediate relief and gone in a day.

Worked for me. Worked for my sister. Worked for my dad. Others? I don't know. I believe it was a common remedy among the mountain folks.

Jim

I had two very bad rounds of poison ivy when I was a kid. *bad* cases,...swelled my eyes together.

It was the first plant I learned to recognize. I'm downright clairvoyant about spotting it and even recognizing the type of terrain it prefers. I can feel its presence even before I see it.

As for a remedy,...if you get a bad case of it, getting a shot makes it gone in about 48 hours.

I've not gotten it, but I avoid it like the plague.

Funny we were just talking about this at work today. One of the guys has a case. Got a another guy talking about an old coworker that got into it running underground phone fiber while he went to take a leak.

Before he got he rash, his wife called him demanding who he'd been with as she'd gotten, as she had "something"... He then started breaking out. Both knew that they'd not been screwing around, so the other had to be lying. Apparently took a while to sort it all out.

I doubt that anyone could burn it and breath the fumes without problems.

Yes, same experience. It is almost orgasmis feeling to get hot water on the urushiol itching. From what I understand, the hot water helps disolve histamin and that eases the itch. When I get poison ivy I take hot shower once a day to help me get through it.

One of the best things I've learned is to keep a clear eye when in the woods and stead clear of it! One year at the rifle range during qualification (Camp Swift, local NG base) maintenance shredded 200 meter firing line. Unbeknownst to many of us, poison ivy was creeping along the ground. Worst case I ever had as a result of firing from prone position!!!!! The Two sons doing archaeology field school at Camp Beauregard Louisiana had to quit (thought we were going to havta put one in hospital) because of the ivy!!!

Bad sh*t!!!!

Bob

The Indians had some sense and kept the woods burnt off. They didn't suffer the ivy.

I've been in the woods in just about all the southeastern states and North Carolina has more of the stuff than I've ever seen before. Moved here from Alabama and I can tell you there's probably more PI here in Iredell County than in the whole state of Alabama.

On another note about treatment, I recently cut down and made firewood lengths from some wild cherry trees by our church. One had been covered in PI till a couple of years ago when the main vine was cut and the shoots all died. After chainsawing it and removing the limbs my face began to feel tingly. My wrist area between long sleeves and gloves had the same feeling. Soon as I got home I rubbed face, forearms and hands with vegetable oil and left it on for 5 or 10 minutes before showering. Thought process was oil would mix with oil and I could wash it all off. I came away free of PI rash except for one small patch on lower forearm. Ancedotal but seemed to work.

Try Dr. West's Poison Ivy, Oak, Sumac Skin Cleanser...
Been using it for years...

TECNU!

This stuff really WORKS for me!

When you make contact with poison oak, wash with this stuff as soom as you can.

Was cutting some brush on my property a while back, and clipped off a poison oak vine 1/2" thick and about 10 feet long.
Pulled it out of a tree, and it came down on top of me.

Went in and took a shower, scrubbing with Tecnu.

Never got ANY poison oak!

Virgil B.

Dawn dish washing liquid works as well as anything to get the oil off your skin.

There was a study here in NC at Duke University a few years back to try and come up with a vaccine or cure for the allergic reaction to poison oak / ivy. They were paying good money for local people to collect the vine and deliver to the test site. They also advertised for workers that were not allergic to the evil weed.

As I remember all of the folks collecting the vines and the workers employed to work with it eventually became allergic to it. One of the outcomes of the study was that it is evolving; spreading faster, growing larger and is becoming more toxic.

Blame Monsanto...

Burning it and breathing the fumes is NOT recommended...I've known several guys who claimed to be not allergic to it but they eventually succumbed.

Wife had 2 guys with bad PI rash come in the clinic she works at as a nurse. They had just put down a lot of mulch in the outside play area of a day care / kindergarten a couple of days before. That was their only possible exposure point. Appeared they would have to go back and take it all up. Moral, mulch is kinda like chicken nuggets; you really don't know what's in it till it's too late.

In college, I had three roommates that did not heed my warnings about burning some "wood" they'd found while out on an overnight camping/mass beer consumption trip. I told them it sure looked a lot like a big ole section of Poison Oak vine, but they wouldn't listen.

They got lucky, in that they didn't develop any respiratory issues. Though they were so entirely covered by the rash, that all they could do was lie about and moan. One individual would head up to the Health Center, and get some medicine, enough for 3 days ( or in this case, for 3 dopes). The next day, dope # 2 would go, and so on. Repeat for 10 days...

At the time, I was pretty darn immune to the stuff, and wound up with a patch the size of a quarter on my stomach. I did not say "I told you so", though it was written in size 72 font all over my face, every time I walked by them.


I don't press the issue now, though, and just last year wound up with some sort of minor rash on my arms, after brushing up against some vegetation while fishing out in CO. It wasn't Poison Oak, maybe Poison Ivy?

Scott

Lidex gel script from the doc. Two days and all set.