poison ivy treatment

[Bobb-o]

I have heard of using spotted touch me nots to treat it but only immediately after contact with the PI plant.

[Dragonsm]

Sounds like we have a support group for PI. I to am allergic to PI. From the "research" I have done myself on it, it's your body's own "reaction" to the oils...and each time you get it, your reaction tends to be more extreme. I am to the point now if I even think about that stuff...I end up breaking out.

Something that I have used in the past when I got it was something called Domboro. You can purchase it at most major super stores in the pharmacy area. Spendy, but I have had repeated great results with it. Really dries out the PI and gets the body back to the healing stage. Calamine works well to. One other thing I tend to do when I get it is to try and run around my place and keep it exposed to air as much as possible to help dry it out. Anything to dry it out!

Good luck! (One nice thing about getting it all the time....the itch doesn't really bother me much anymore as it has become a mind over matter thing)

[This message has been edited by Dragonsm (edited 10-12-2004).]

[Deputy Grizz]

I don't know about how it works for poison ivy, but the jewell weed you mention works wonderful for stinging nettles, and even grows in the same places nettles grow-usually damp, moist soil.You just crush it with your fingers and rub it where the stinging nettles are in you.
I really can't recommend using it for poison ivy as I think it will spread the plants oils around and make it worse.

[larryz]

My neighbor gets poison ivy often. He swears that he always lets his dog lick the affected area. He says that it then dries up and goes away. Anyone else ever hear anything like this?

[Ice9]

I guided two-three times a week all summer for ten years, getting in and out of a raft and walking the riverbanks where there was a lot of pi. I had only a few minor eruptions even after I had several terrible infections as a kid (and hospitalized once). I just started to wash my bare skin--legs and hands--with river water and sand. Though I also had young ladies in bikinis lick my leg...thoguh maybe that was just in my imagination. Anyway, you can wash it off if you think of it. You can buy products to take it off but I think lava soap or sand and water works just as well.

ice

[The Grebe]

I'm not 100% on this, but it seemed to me like it would work and I tried it....may have even been what kept the PI from spreading.

When filling my old Coleman lantern with White gas, many years ago, I noticed that if you get some on your hands, it will leech the oils out of your skin so thoroughly, that it looks like you dusted them with flour and they will be drier then the proverbial popcorn fart!

I have used it over the years in a number of situations and it evaporates real quick.

Oil is oil and I figured that if applied to the PI, it would also leech those oils out,
maybe it did, maybe it did'nt, but it was contained to the size of a quarter?