That was the search phrase we were looking for after my husband pulled a “weed” in a bag and 2 weeks later…yes, 2 WEEKS later a delightful rash came about on his legs. (This was from the oil dispersed when he pulled it despite having the bag over it and wearing shorts. It may have occured after he said he was immune as well.) The first thing to look at is what does it look like? SummitMedical.org had the best picture of both. You remember the phrase “leaves of three, leave it be?” Well it doesn’t quite cover it all because sometimes the leaves look like they’re in three but you can’t quite tell or maybe they were once in three and one went rogue and grew further so its no longer clustered. If you want to remember a phrase to go along with it, this one I just made up will help me remember…”leaves are jagged, you’ll itch yourself ragged.” Stupid but I won’t forget it. Maybe now you won’t either. The thing is there is SO much information about it out there and some of it is so contradictory that you don’t know what to believe or what will actually work. Read on to see what we did, what worked and what didn’t.
Here are some things you need to know up front:
1) Immunity to poison ivy/oak/sumac can change. Like my husband who apparently had an immunity as a child is now no longer immune as an adult.
2) If you are exposed to it in your garden, GET IN THE SHOWER IMMEDIATELY. You need to wash off the oil that could’ve come in contact with you. DO NOT use hot water. Hot water opens up your pores and allows the oil to penetrate into your pores. This defeats the purpose of getting it off of you. Some sites will encourage you to take a hot shower but then you might run across the site of a guy who did that and ended up in the hospital and the doctor told him why he was so sick, which was the opening of the pores. So hop in a cold shower and lather up, several times and get all the nooks and crannies of your bod.
3) Wash your clothes one or two times. Also watch pets as they can be carriers and then hop up on you and there you go. So wash your clothes, sheets, anything you came in contact with once exposed. This includes using wipes to clean door handles, keyboards, etc.
4) Rashes usually appear within 12-48 hours but can take as long as two weeks to show up. It’s good to have the basics on hand like Calamine lotion and anti-histamines. You can go to the doctor but nothing they give you is really going to speed up the healing process and they’ll give you a steroid pill or cream which have their own delightful side effects. My husband actually had a reaction to the Claritin anti-histamine and dealt with the Zyrtec version better. There are two different active ingredients in them so choose the one that works best for you. We also used rubbing alcohol to help dry out the blisters. Looking back we should’ve used some of the topical astringent I have which is 41% alcohol. Would’ve fried those mothers!
5) If these topical aids don’t work for the itch you can try what was our last resort but it should’ve been the first thing we did. If you have a pool, access to a pool or ocean or any body of water that has salt water or chlorine in it. GO IN!!! This will dry out the rash/blisters and we saw the most improvement in the rash once he went to the pool everyday for a week. We know not everyone has the means so if you need other methods, keep reading.
6) Here’s a more radical form of itch relief we found in our search online from other sufferers. It was essentially aiming the shower stream at the blistered area and inching up the heat until you get it as hot as you could possibly stand it without scalding yourself. What this does is release all of the histamines (itch inducer) at one time and you will have the absolute WORST itch of your entire life and it will go away after a minute or so for hours. (Like a full work day) The problem with this is the histamine overload is SO intense that your heart races, it drains every ounce of strength from you and my husband almost passed out and I thought he was dying the first night he did this. It took him a whole day to recover completely. So I am not recommending this, don’t email me saying you had some reaction or something because I’m just reiterating what we saw online and its up to you how desperate you are to try whatever home remedies are out there.
Hopefully the time we spent surfing the web and condensing here has helped you. Seriously though if you have an ocean or pool nearby, spend at least 20 minutes in it per day minimum and it will do wonders. Good luck and stop scratching!!
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