I used to get poison ivy/oak if someone said the words or I walked within 100 feet of it. It made growing up out in the sticks a bit rough sometimes. As I got older it lost a lot of potency. Well somehow it got all over my ankles, tops of my feet and my calves recently. When I was a kid the only way to stop it was dig it raw and apply bleach. Looks like I might be back to that method again. FUUUUUUUUCK!!!

https://www.amazon.com/Tecnu-E...b3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

-Rob

I’ve tried that and most other remedies. Bleach stings on raw skin but it stops that plague cold after you stop dancing.

Cortisone cream works for me.

There was a time when I hated the stuff. But I'm sometimes not a nice person. So I went to war against it. I bought a machete, an ax, and a bottle of roundup. Then I went after it. At a club owned gravel pit, I selected my battlefield.

Then I went hunting. Not hard to find. I had a friend who didn't like the stuff either. He accepted the job of painter. After I chopped a vein, he painted to soil side. Not diluted just full strength. It killed it dead. After a while I became a joke to all the other members. But it only too a year or two and you really had to look for it. And once it was mostly gone, I didn't catch it any more.

Could be I became sort of immune. My father was, mostly because of him getting it in his youth, but not able to avoid it.

I used to get it something fierce when I was younger. I too would get a really rough wash cloth and agitate the skin real bad and put straight bleach on it and it cleared up rather quickly.
One time I got it so bad my eyes swelled shut and was covered on nearly 90% of my body. Some of the pockets were the size of grapes.
I laid on the cold concrete floor of our basement listening to the radio as I could not see.
I got a prednisone pack and it helped. Since then poison ivy has had very little effect on me but the second I get a bump or two I call the Dr. to get a prednisone pack and tell my wife to bear with me or go hang out at the in-laws (prednisone makes me very grumpy and short with folks over nothing).

Interesting that most of you said you got it when younger but are now more immune.

I'm the opposite. I could have done a naked jig in a field of ivy as a child but the wind could send it my way now from 100 yards away.

I hope you get better soon leemur!

Try this stuff. it works, but costs $40 a tube.

https://zanfel.com/help

I got it bad enough as a kid to require a trip to the ER.
Never had it since.

At some point as a kid, someone was burning it in the woods behind our house. I ended up inhaling the smoke when I went to put out the fire.

That is not how you want to get poison ivy. That really sucked, I think I was in 7th or 8th grade at the time.

You're gonna need an ocean,
Of calamine lotion.
You'll be scratchin' like a hound,
The minute you start to mess around!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRfRITVdz4k

Trip to urgent care for a round of steroids and prescription cream?

quote:

Originally posted by Leemur:
I used to get poison ivy/oak if someone said the words or I walked within 100 feet of it. It made growing up out in the sticks a bit rough sometimes. As I got older it lost a lot of potency. Well somehow it got all over my ankles, tops of my feet and my calves recently. When I was a kid the only way to stop it was dig it raw and apply bleach. Looks like I might be back to that method again. FUUUUUUUUCK!!!

it works for me,

only other method I found was salt water,

like take a trip to the ocean, scratch it up good and go for a dip,


may be a bit cold now,,,,

I got in all over my hands and arms one December while taking down some trees at my Grandmother's. I didn't realize those vines were poison ivy since they didn't have any leaves showing. Just touching those vines lit me up.

The last time I had poison ivy:

Me: I have poison ivy.
GP: How bad is it?
Me: I need a box of pills and the shot this time.
GP: Where is it?
Me: All over.
GP: How did you come in contact with the poison ivy?
Me: Chainsaw.

(GP writes prescription and prepares to give shot.)

The Zanfel works for me, Walgreens has a generic version that works as well and is only way overpriced. (vs insanely too costly:-)

Cheap version is baking soda in a long super hot bath. Temporary, and make sure all the oil has been washed off days before or you'll spread it and make it worse.

When I was a little kid, I got it bad if I ever got near it. When I was going through Advanced Infantry Training at Camp Pendleton, we were playing ambush/counter ambush. I crawled into the brush and got set up to ambush a group coming our way. I was all settled in when I looked around and realized I was in a thicket of poison ivy. I thought I was going to die. Nothing happened.

One of my uncles took a guided hunting trip that included two days of riding horseback to get to the camp. He took a dump in the brush and got poison ivy or poison oak on his rear end and thighs. Then he had to ride horseback for two days. That was his last hunting experience.

Just reading this makes me itch. Ugh! Been allergic to it for all 75 years of my life. Only thing that works is cortisone.

Only thing that works for me is going to the doctor for the steroid shot. That stuff messes me up.