Poison Ivy can leave you miserable for a week after a visit to the woods, if you’re not careful. Salty and I talk it over here:
Despite being famous, poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) can be a sneaky rascal. Oh, there are plenty of aphorisms that aim to help:
“Hairy vine, no friend of mine!” True…when it grows as a climbing or trailing vine. When it grows in bush form, not so helpful.
Watch for this when cutting firewood: The vine forms have these characteristic abundant fine hairs holding them to the tree. Sometimes the hairs look more red.
“Berries white, run in fright.” Well, they do have white berries in the fall. And no berries in the winter, spring, and summer, and green flowers in the late summer. But don’t run, you’ll be going too fast to watch and will probably run through the rest of the patch.
This is what the berries look like midsummer; abundant small berries in cone-shaped clusters. Thanks Fritzflohrreynolds**
“Leaves have mittens, don’t pet like kittens.” Ok, I made this one up. Sometimes the leaves have a distinctive lobing that makes them look like mittens. Sometimes they don’t.
Leaves like mittens is often poison ivy… but not all poison ivy leaves look this way. Thanks Stilfehler* for the image.
“Leaves of three, let it be.” This is the best of them. More specifically, poison ivy always has:
- Three leaves coming off the central vine or stalk
- The first two leaves alternate (not coming out right across from one another)
- The third leaf is at the end, on a longish individual stems
There are plenty of other plants that have three-leaf clusters though, so you can overestimate and be shying away from Virginia creeper and all sorts of things if you get too literal with the saying.
There’s more at stake than just discomfort.
Anyone who’s had poison ivy knows it’s miserable, being incredibly itchy. That’s bad enough in an emergency situation, as it can steal precious sleep and attention. The other problem is that it does create an open rash. Any time your skin is broken, your risk of an infection goes up several-fold. Bacterial infections will at best use up precious antibiotics — and some can not be effectively treated. Better to avoid the whole issue!
Why does poison ivy bother most people – but not everyone?
Poison ivy isn’t actually toxic. It just produces an oil, urushiol, that binds to skin proteins. The majority of the people are allergic to this combination, but a few lucky souls are not. For those of us that are allergic, it’s what’s called a delayed hypersensitivity reaction because it takes several hours (sometimes more than a day) for enough attacking cells to be produced to cause the rash. Unfortunately, I know of no way to lose this particular allergy once it develops. It can, however, develop in people who had previously been impervious to the rash.
The best protection is to keep out of contact with that oil.
Since poison ivy can be tough to spot among the dozens of plant species you might find in each square foot of Missouri woods border, I wear light but long pants and sleeves whenever I’m off the mowed firebreak at The Place. This has the bonus of also protecting from ticks, so long as I tuck the pantlegs into my sock or boot tops. Using gloves when handling wood is important too, as the vines may be left behind on the cut trees.
Did you ever wonder why you can get a rash all over, on skin that couldn’t possibly have touched the ivy? That’s because once you get the oil on one area, any contact can spread it to new areas. (That can turn out very badly, especially for the males … particularly if they find they need to water a tree while working in the woods. ‘Nuff said.)
That oil is annoyingly stable too, maintaining its evil allergenic character for months or potentially years. That means you may need to wash tool handles with soap and water before using them without gloves. Pets can run through the stuff then generously share the oil with you when you pet them. I change clothes just after working in ivy-rich areas and wash them separately. I don’t know if that’s necessary, but I am allergic and seldom get a rash, although The Place has tons of poison ivy.
What if you suspect you could have touched it?
The good news is, it’s an oil. It will wash off. Not easily, since it binds with skin proteins, but if you’re careful you can get it off. You can buy all sorts of expensive product that claim to help, but both my research and my experience tell me what really works best is soap, a scrubber, water, and soon. Some research reports mentioned Dawn dishsoap particularly, but it seems any good grease-removing soap does the trick.
The scrubber and soon are the parts most people miss. If you give the oil hours of potential binding time, it’s harder to remove and the damage may already have been done. The scrubber does a much better job of removing oil than the soap alone. I don’t have running water at The Place, so I’ve constructed a Tippy Tap washing station. It includes a bar of soap inside an old bit of hose (girly leg hose, not water hose) tied to the station, both keeping the soap handy and clean and providing scrubbing action when I wash. I highly recommend it! Here’s some information on the Tippy Tap:
Oh No! Here Comes The Rash! What now?
If you do get a rash starting to rise and itch, it’s not too late to do damage control by scrubbing all exposed skin with soap, scrubber, and water. Go easy on the rash, the goal is not to tear it up, but washing over it may remove any remaining oil and reduce the spread.
As for relief, the key is to remember an allergy is essentially an immune reaction. Systemic allergy treatments are helpful. Diphenhydramine (Benadryl and related products) that work as antihistamines are useful. Diphenhydramine doubles as a sleep aid, so that one must wait until you can afford to sleep. It knocks some people right out and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere around a car driven by someone on the stuff. Other antihistamines such as loratidine (in Claritin, among others) don’t make one as sleepy and also help.
Topical anti-itch treatments also help. Calamine lotion (combo of zinc and ferric oxides) is an old remedy (with a great shelf life) that’s useful. Hydrocortisone creams and diphenhydramine lotions are good too; and the lotions don’t make you sleepy unless you put on Lots. Cooling the rash (with ice, a cooling towel, or even just a bucket of spring water) will slow blood flow enough to reduce the itch.
You’ll want to be careful of the cleanliness of the rash, as you don’t want a secondary bacterial infection.
I’m not a physician. I got this information from a combination of medical research, pathophysiology background, and personal experience. When it comes to poison ivy, I don’t recommend that last method. Better to learn it the Easy Way, by reading.
*By Stilfehler (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
** By Fritzflohrreynolds (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Quick cure for any poison ivy or ok…get a banana, eat the nanner; now, take the peel and use the inside of it (while it’s still moist) and rub it on the affected area. Don’t touch it and don’t scratch it. You should feel instant relief- and this actually cures, removing the toxins and oil from the skin. Do this as needed, and eat those nanners!! Try it can’t hurt and it works for me.
Look for the Jewel weed. 2 reasons. Grandad taught me this when i was a yungin. Jewel weed is a tall floweing plant that has broad leaves and a yellow or orange flower that hangs “upside down”. They grow in the same places that poison ivy grows. So if you see it you are close to the ivy, a warning. If you get into the ivy pluck a hand full of Jewel weed leaves. Bruise/crush them in your hands. Then scrub the effected area with the leaves. Some say it is a cure for ivy, others say it is the scrubbing that removes the oil. I do not care i just know it works. Also how many of us carry soap water and a scrubber into the woods for just something like a day hike?
I also learned the hard way that poison ivy is much more potent in the winter. The oils are more concentrated.
If you get it bad and are miserable go to a clinic and get a cortisone shot.The best temporary relief is to run hot water over the rash, don’t burn yourself but run the water as hot as you can stand. And I will try the nanner peel next time!