Show me your poison ivy/oak tips??

[tiki244]

I usually rub it with rubbing alcohol and then put crushed ice in a pillow case and hold that on the sores, but it is still miserable. Then I take claritin during the day and benadryl pills at night. I hate the side effects of the pills but get some relief from the itching. I think I will try some of these other suggestions. (some gnats attacked me the other night and it is bad too)

 

[BearSwampChick]

Jewelweed is another common application for poison ivy/poison oak. It usually grows alongside stinging nettle. If you've never gotten into that nasty stuff, count yourself lucky. Rubbing the jewelweed plant on it stops the stinging instantly. Here's a site with pictures, if you don't know what it looks like. http://wildmanstevebrill.com/Plants.Folder/Jewelweed.html

 

[arlee453]

Well, I survived another night...only work up 1x itching.

New symptom this morning - my right eye is almost swollen shut from this stuff - it's all around my eyelid and can't really put medicine on it there

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm going to try a couple of them and see - I'm getting desperate at this point! I'll let you know what works.

 

[BearSwampChick]

If it is in or near your eyes, you'd better go to the doctor! You might need steroid shots. Happened to a friend who was utterly stupid and tried to burn poison ivy vines in his backyard. Ended up in the hospital with it in his lungs and trachea. His eyes were completely swollen shut. If it gets any worse, please see your doctor!

Susan

 

[fowltemptress]

I am ALWAYS getting into poison ivy or oak. Miserable stuff. I was looking up relief for the itching online, and believe it or not, I found one that actually worked, and it's nothing more than a hot shower.
You run the water as hot as you can possibly stand. The burning and itching will become unbearable as it reacts to the hot water for a moment or so, but afterwords . . . complete relief. By complete relief, I mean I feel NO itching for about four hours. Once I start to itch again I just rinse the affected areas again. Histamine is the chemical that causes a reaction, an itch, in a person with poison ivy, bug bites, etc. When you rinse your skin with hot water, the histamine rushes to the site and it temporarily itches more. At a point, the histamine flushes from the site, and it doesn't itch again until the histamine has a chance to build back up.

 

[MayberrySaint]

I wash my hands in a bleach/soap mixture...it will get hot as the chemicals react and completely eliminates the itching. This mix was used when I worked on a hog farm to get rid of the smell and found it also worked on poison ivy...

Leaves of three, let it be...
Berries of white, run away in fright...
Hairy vine, no friend of mine...

 

[MayberrySaint]

Quote:
I used to do this...and it works. The extremely hot water must desensitize or damage the nerve endings in the skin temporarily.

 

[fowltemptress]

Yeah . . . I edited my post to add the reason why it works.

 

[morelcabin]

Aloe vera gel straight from the plant worked instantly on my poison ivy. I little tip...the cure usually can be found right beside the 'poison' so to speak. So one of the plants grwoing in the same area as the poison oak is the cure for it. So the Jewelweed and the English plantain may just be the answer.
You can use aloe around the eye, but you should see a docotr as well about it

 

[AussieSharon]

So sorry you are going through this. My hubby is too and he's been miserable.

Quote:
After a week of my hubby being miserable with Poison Oak I finally remembered I had Tea Tree Oil. Just one day of using that he he says the difference is very noticable.