Points for extra misery.
June 4, 2009 1:17 PM Subscribe
The "Skin Rash Hall of Fame" at poison-ivy.org forecasts what can happen if you're human, allergic to urushiol, and can't recognize poison ivy, poison oak, or poison sumac. Behold the delights of urushiol-induced contact dermititis. Just one hazard of plants you really, really don't want to touch.
Leaves of three, let it be. Damn, I am starting to itch.
The worst part of poison ivy is how it climbs a pine tree, and sends out horizontal branches right at face level.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 1:21 PM on June 4, 2009
The worst part of poison ivy is how it climbs a pine tree, and sends out horizontal branches right at face level.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 1:21 PM on June 4, 2009
If I die with a great amount of money somehow unspent I will donate it to TecLabs, soley for making Tecnu available. The many weeks of misery I have avoided by using this I cannot fathom.
posted by Big_B at 1:23 PM on June 4, 2009 [4 favorites]
posted by Big_B at 1:23 PM on June 4, 2009 [4 favorites]
My mother tells the story of the time when she was younger and she had to pee in the woods. When she was done, she needed something to wipe herself with... and there was this nice plant with big, soft, fuzzy leaves right there...
Hope she doesn't read Metafilter. HI MOM!!!
posted by LordSludge at 1:27 PM on June 4, 2009
Hope she doesn't read Metafilter. HI MOM!!!
posted by LordSludge at 1:27 PM on June 4, 2009
Back as a young boy I got chicken pox, like most young children do. Parents took me to the doctor, he confirmed it, and told them not to let me in contact with other kids. They asked if I could still play outside, and he said, "Of course! There's no harm in that!"
When we got home, I went out in the backyard to play and promptly got poison ivy. That was a fun couple of weeks.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:29 PM on June 4, 2009 [5 favorites]
When we got home, I went out in the backyard to play and promptly got poison ivy. That was a fun couple of weeks.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:29 PM on June 4, 2009 [5 favorites]
You sure that really happened, Sludge? That was the tale our camp counselors told us to take them seriously.
posted by dhartung at 1:31 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by dhartung at 1:31 PM on June 4, 2009
I don't know why I had to watch that slideshow. Bubbles! Skin bubbles! Skin bubbles with yellow fluid inside! 42.htm!
posted by Free word order! at 1:31 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by Free word order! at 1:31 PM on June 4, 2009
The worst part of poison ivy is that it tastes so damn good.
It doesn't at all.
posted by kingbenny at 1:33 PM on June 4, 2009
It doesn't at all.
posted by kingbenny at 1:33 PM on June 4, 2009
During high school I worked at the National Park during the summer clearing underbrush. Oh there were tons and tons of this stuff, we swung from the vines, the boys chased me and stuffed it down my shirt then we raked it into a big pile and burned it.
Then we all had to go to the hospital.
That is what happens when you give a bunch of 15 and 16 year old tools, fire, and a lot of quality unsupervised time.
(We also used hand tools to chop down a huge tree that was marked for removal, the ranger in charge nearly shit his pants when he came to pick us up as it was leaning over quite precariously, severed, but not down, by the time he showed up.)
posted by stormygrey at 1:40 PM on June 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
Then we all had to go to the hospital.
That is what happens when you give a bunch of 15 and 16 year old tools, fire, and a lot of quality unsupervised time.
(We also used hand tools to chop down a huge tree that was marked for removal, the ranger in charge nearly shit his pants when he came to pick us up as it was leaning over quite precariously, severed, but not down, by the time he showed up.)
posted by stormygrey at 1:40 PM on June 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
Leaves of three, let it be. Leaves of four, smoke some more.
posted by exogenous at 1:40 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by exogenous at 1:40 PM on June 4, 2009
I am SO glad I'm not allergic to these horrible plants. I have enough allergies to normal things that don't phase most humans to have to deal with these things.
I do, however, know someone who once got poison ivy on the inside of their mouth. -shivers-
posted by strixus at 1:42 PM on June 4, 2009
I do, however, know someone who once got poison ivy on the inside of their mouth. -shivers-
posted by strixus at 1:42 PM on June 4, 2009
Be careful, Burhanistan...I never got poison ivy as a kid, but discovered that I can as an adult.
Mr. Arkham managed to get some in (not around) his eye, and had to get steroid shots at the emergency room. He also unknowingly brought it into the house where it somehow...got on my butt. In a handprint pattern.
posted by JoanArkham at 1:46 PM on June 4, 2009 [10 favorites]
Mr. Arkham managed to get some in (not around) his eye, and had to get steroid shots at the emergency room. He also unknowingly brought it into the house where it somehow...got on my butt. In a handprint pattern.
posted by JoanArkham at 1:46 PM on June 4, 2009 [10 favorites]
Are you sure it was poison ivy in the mouth or a reaction to "pink pepper corns"? DH is extremely allergic to poison ivy and now avoids pink pepper corns after learning that they're from a tree in the same family as sumac and poison ivy.
posted by onhazier at 1:47 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by onhazier at 1:47 PM on June 4, 2009
It was poison ivy. Came from picking herbs and dandelion greens which apparently had poison ivy growing in and around them.
posted by strixus at 1:50 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by strixus at 1:50 PM on June 4, 2009
He also unknowingly brought it into the house where it somehow...got on my butt. In a handprint pattern.
Hands of two, tell him "Shoo!"
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:56 PM on June 4, 2009 [7 favorites]
Hands of two, tell him "Shoo!"
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:56 PM on June 4, 2009 [7 favorites]
I'm very, very allergic to poison ivy. When I was a kid, I had a really bad outbreak that came right as I was starting to get over the Chicken Pox. It created a "Perfect Storm" of itching and soon my little body was covered with a staph infection. Picture a scab from my chin, going down my neck, all the way to my red and blistery junk.
The local hospital quarantined me until it was sufficiently determined that I didn't have a case of smallpox. When I'd turn my head from side to side, the scabs on my neck would crack, and puss would ooze down my body. Really.
Every day, twice a day, my mom would make me lie naked on the bathroom floor and she'd put domeboro pads all over my scabs and then pour nearly scalding water over the pads so that the medicine would seep through my sores.
This went on for two weeks. I still have scars. Oh, and this was the third and final time that I had chicken pox. Lucky me.
posted by ColdChef at 2:00 PM on June 4, 2009 [5 favorites]
The local hospital quarantined me until it was sufficiently determined that I didn't have a case of smallpox. When I'd turn my head from side to side, the scabs on my neck would crack, and puss would ooze down my body. Really.
Every day, twice a day, my mom would make me lie naked on the bathroom floor and she'd put domeboro pads all over my scabs and then pour nearly scalding water over the pads so that the medicine would seep through my sores.
This went on for two weeks. I still have scars. Oh, and this was the third and final time that I had chicken pox. Lucky me.
posted by ColdChef at 2:00 PM on June 4, 2009 [5 favorites]
Oh, and to make matters worser (yes, worser) it was discovered that I was also allergic to Calamine lotion. That's what helped the whelps to spread.
posted by ColdChef at 2:01 PM on June 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by ColdChef at 2:01 PM on June 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
I'm lucky enough not to be allergic to urushiol - but that didn't prevent me from always wearing long pants, shoes, and a long sleeved shirt with gloves when doing any type of brush clearing. Something that I'm sure most folks in those pictures have now learned!
posted by The Light Fantastic at 2:05 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by The Light Fantastic at 2:05 PM on June 4, 2009
I wish I had my pictures of my summer of the Ivy...
The yard at my cabin is loaded with the stuff, and one summer I was forced (labor camp style) by my mother to help my dad clear out a section of the bush.
Hot summer day, pouring sweat, working without gloves, repeatedly rubbing the sweat from my brow...
I ended up with my face COVERED in poison ivy blisters. Significant patches on my arms but the worst... oh man... the worst was the back of my knees. They became two giant horizontal blisters, cracked open and oozing pus.
I got to take lots and lots of tiny white pills though.
posted by utsutsu at 2:08 PM on June 4, 2009
The yard at my cabin is loaded with the stuff, and one summer I was forced (labor camp style) by my mother to help my dad clear out a section of the bush.
Hot summer day, pouring sweat, working without gloves, repeatedly rubbing the sweat from my brow...
I ended up with my face COVERED in poison ivy blisters. Significant patches on my arms but the worst... oh man... the worst was the back of my knees. They became two giant horizontal blisters, cracked open and oozing pus.
I got to take lots and lots of tiny white pills though.
posted by utsutsu at 2:08 PM on June 4, 2009
Ugh. There's a big plant growing exactly between my neighbor's house and mine, right under her chain link fence. I've been trying to waylay her for days to discuss what we're going to do about it; for me, poison ivy is where I toss my organic gardening cred out the window and go for heavy chemicals but she might not feel the same way and I feel bad spreading round up on a neighbor's yard. I had it systemically a few years back and now whenever I'm in contact with the damn stuff it appears on a few random patches on my body.
My old house had so much in the yard that I used to wonder if I could farm it for the military or something. Seems like there ought to be a market for it; isn't there some evil mastermind out there manufacturing some weapon of dread? "Mr. Bond, do not move. You are surrounded by. . . poison ivy!"
Tecnu & Zanfel, though, are indeed miracle workers, as is jewelweed lotion and soap. And, okay, I know how everyone feels about homeopathy but I took poison ivy pills religiously for a whole summer and I haven't gotten a bad case of it since, after having at least one horrific outbreak every year for my entire life before. So. YMMV, anecdata, etc., but I think those suckers worked.
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:15 PM on June 4, 2009
My old house had so much in the yard that I used to wonder if I could farm it for the military or something. Seems like there ought to be a market for it; isn't there some evil mastermind out there manufacturing some weapon of dread? "Mr. Bond, do not move. You are surrounded by. . . poison ivy!"
Tecnu & Zanfel, though, are indeed miracle workers, as is jewelweed lotion and soap. And, okay, I know how everyone feels about homeopathy but I took poison ivy pills religiously for a whole summer and I haven't gotten a bad case of it since, after having at least one horrific outbreak every year for my entire life before. So. YMMV, anecdata, etc., but I think those suckers worked.
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:15 PM on June 4, 2009
Wow. Don't look here.
The sad thing is that I've been THAT GUY, and subsequently don't think that looks as disgusting as everyone else here.
You sure that really happened, Sludge? That was the tale our camp counselors told us to take them seriously.
Umm, yeah, it happens. And the worst part is not necessarily the wiping part, but the fact that, prior to the wiping, you were likely already squatting in a patch of the stuff doing your business.
My god, there is nothing good about poison ivy. I'm VERY allergic to it, to the point where the minute I start getting welts, I need to go to the doctor STAT for a cortisone injection and a course of prednisone. These days I'll only go camping in places where poison ivy doesn't grow, i.e. arid environments, high altitudes, deserts, etc. I can go on a nature walk in a more lush environment ONLY if I make sure not to go one inch off the path.
Yeah, I'm pretty much a city boy these days.
posted by Afroblanco at 2:21 PM on June 4, 2009
The sad thing is that I've been THAT GUY, and subsequently don't think that looks as disgusting as everyone else here.
You sure that really happened, Sludge? That was the tale our camp counselors told us to take them seriously.
Umm, yeah, it happens. And the worst part is not necessarily the wiping part, but the fact that, prior to the wiping, you were likely already squatting in a patch of the stuff doing your business.
My god, there is nothing good about poison ivy. I'm VERY allergic to it, to the point where the minute I start getting welts, I need to go to the doctor STAT for a cortisone injection and a course of prednisone. These days I'll only go camping in places where poison ivy doesn't grow, i.e. arid environments, high altitudes, deserts, etc. I can go on a nature walk in a more lush environment ONLY if I make sure not to go one inch off the path.
Yeah, I'm pretty much a city boy these days.
posted by Afroblanco at 2:21 PM on June 4, 2009
Afroblanco, out here in California we don't have Poison Ivy, only Poison Oak which is easier to identify. I had my first contact with it earlier this year in fact, after seeing it crowding a narrow trail but trying to get through with bare legs anyway. Thankfully, I only got a spot roughly the size of a bug bite.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:28 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:28 PM on June 4, 2009
The sad thing is that I've been THAT GUY, and subsequently don't think that looks as disgusting as everyone else here.
Well, you don't have to be insulting about it.
posted by heyho at 2:32 PM on June 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
Well, you don't have to be insulting about it.
posted by heyho at 2:32 PM on June 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
"Wow. Don't look here."
Gah! Oh...'don't' look there.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:34 PM on June 4, 2009
Gah! Oh...'don't' look there.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:34 PM on June 4, 2009
I got my first-ever case of poison oak as a direct result of a cost-saving measure by an Italian motorcycle manufacturer.
After working on my Aprilia one day, I unknowingly cracked the very cheap plastic fuel line quick-disconnect fitting on the underside of the fuel tank.
Overnight, it started to leak in the garage, and the house filled with gasoline fumes.
My girlfriend woke up around 4am due to the smell, so we got up to deal. She opened the windows and sliding door to the deck, I went and rolled the bike outside.
Around 4:45, while I was trying to stanch the flow, I noticed a little white blur outside the garage. That looked like one of my (indoor) cats! Crap! It is!
When my girlfriend had opened the slider to the deck, she hadn't noticed that the screen door was open. The cats got outside, and had romped around in the yard for forty minutes or so.
I rounded up the cats, buttoned up the bike, had breakfast, and waited 'til my dealer was open. This particular part is always failing, so they sell brass replacements. I bought it, installed it, and was really tired, so I went to bed. My cats, happy to have a snuggle partner, joined me, curled up against my bare chest.
Guess where they'd been exploring while they were outside?
I had welts in a vertical stripe along my whole belly and chest. I couldn't really blame the cats, so I blame Aprilia.
posted by argh at 2:34 PM on June 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
After working on my Aprilia one day, I unknowingly cracked the very cheap plastic fuel line quick-disconnect fitting on the underside of the fuel tank.
Overnight, it started to leak in the garage, and the house filled with gasoline fumes.
My girlfriend woke up around 4am due to the smell, so we got up to deal. She opened the windows and sliding door to the deck, I went and rolled the bike outside.
Around 4:45, while I was trying to stanch the flow, I noticed a little white blur outside the garage. That looked like one of my (indoor) cats! Crap! It is!
When my girlfriend had opened the slider to the deck, she hadn't noticed that the screen door was open. The cats got outside, and had romped around in the yard for forty minutes or so.
I rounded up the cats, buttoned up the bike, had breakfast, and waited 'til my dealer was open. This particular part is always failing, so they sell brass replacements. I bought it, installed it, and was really tired, so I went to bed. My cats, happy to have a snuggle partner, joined me, curled up against my bare chest.
Guess where they'd been exploring while they were outside?
I had welts in a vertical stripe along my whole belly and chest. I couldn't really blame the cats, so I blame Aprilia.
posted by argh at 2:34 PM on June 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
Helpful Info:
Poison ivy tends to grow on the edge of the treeline, where it's part sun & part shade. It tends to grow in a vine that has little fuzzy roots and runs up the tree trunk. It doesn't like anything else (that we have around here anyway). The easiest way to see it is to look for the fuzzy rooted vines and look at those leaves, and then follow them down to the ground and look for the bush formation. It will sometimes follow the edge of the path a ways in, if there's enough light.
I have never reacted, but avoid it anyway, as you are more likely to react the more times you've been exposed.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 2:50 PM on June 4, 2009
Poison ivy tends to grow on the edge of the treeline, where it's part sun & part shade. It tends to grow in a vine that has little fuzzy roots and runs up the tree trunk. It doesn't like anything else (that we have around here anyway). The easiest way to see it is to look for the fuzzy rooted vines and look at those leaves, and then follow them down to the ground and look for the bush formation. It will sometimes follow the edge of the path a ways in, if there's enough light.
I have never reacted, but avoid it anyway, as you are more likely to react the more times you've been exposed.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 2:50 PM on June 4, 2009
Oh man. I am immensely allergic to poison ivy, poison oak, poison whatever-the-hell-is-in-the-damn-woods. If someone were to crush up a poison ivy leaf while I am in the same building, I'll fucking get it. Anyway, my brother, who ironically enough is not allergic to any of it, used to delight in rubbing it on his hands and then trying to touch/wrestle with/otherwise infect me. To this day I still believe that he deserved damn near all of the ass-kickings that I as the older brother granted to him (OK, maybe not the time when I beat him up and locked him in a linen closet for almost the whole day, but all those other times were justified dammit!)
posted by anansi at 2:50 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by anansi at 2:50 PM on June 4, 2009
Five years ago I got into some of it and that night ended up in the emergency room, as my throat was closing down, it was getting to where I couldn't breathe, they shot some steroids into me to open that up. Still, weeks and weeks of bumps and sores and itching, weeping skin on my arms and chest and neck -- this shit holds on for six to eight weeks for me, and it seems I can get it if the stuff is even in my area code. A nightmare.
Hot showers DO help -- direct the water, hot as you can bear it, right on the exposed places and you will get real relief, lasts maybe an hour, 90 minutes. Talk to someone who's done this and they'll sometimes tell you that it actully does more than just take the itch out of it, that it actually feels really, really good; that's been my experience as well, it's got to release some sort of feel-good stuff in your brain. When I get nailed, antihistamines are my lifestyle, they allow me to sleep, along with the ongoing showers.
A neighbor 'cross the way was blasting his stereo at four am last summer, woke me up, I'm super pissed, I go over there to kick his dumb drunk ass if need be, but I got my own dumb non-drunk ass kicked instead starting later that day, as I hadn't put long pants on, and brushed through some poison ivy, the next six weeks of my summer very interesting indeed. I had to wrap my lower legs in elastic bandages for weeks when I went to practice yoga, so as to not gross out other people as they practiced. I should burn the guys house down. I may yet.
Like other posters, when I get it nowadays I not only react in the place where I've been exposed but in places all over me. Great. I'm really happy now. I'm wearing a big happy hat now. Jesus F. Christ. I mean, come ON, life -- I've got all this other jive, did this have to be part of it too? I look at these web sites as some type of fetish-terror-porn or something, I'm fascinated and scared and pissed and feeling compassion and understanding for the poor bastards in the photos, all at the same time.
The stuff is everywhere here where I live. It's the Official Plant Of Austin. I know its look, I'm cautious as hell, I watch every step, and I know I'm going to get nailed again, only a matter of when...
posted by dancestoblue at 3:31 PM on June 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
Hot showers DO help -- direct the water, hot as you can bear it, right on the exposed places and you will get real relief, lasts maybe an hour, 90 minutes. Talk to someone who's done this and they'll sometimes tell you that it actully does more than just take the itch out of it, that it actually feels really, really good; that's been my experience as well, it's got to release some sort of feel-good stuff in your brain. When I get nailed, antihistamines are my lifestyle, they allow me to sleep, along with the ongoing showers.
A neighbor 'cross the way was blasting his stereo at four am last summer, woke me up, I'm super pissed, I go over there to kick his dumb drunk ass if need be, but I got my own dumb non-drunk ass kicked instead starting later that day, as I hadn't put long pants on, and brushed through some poison ivy, the next six weeks of my summer very interesting indeed. I had to wrap my lower legs in elastic bandages for weeks when I went to practice yoga, so as to not gross out other people as they practiced. I should burn the guys house down. I may yet.
Like other posters, when I get it nowadays I not only react in the place where I've been exposed but in places all over me. Great. I'm really happy now. I'm wearing a big happy hat now. Jesus F. Christ. I mean, come ON, life -- I've got all this other jive, did this have to be part of it too? I look at these web sites as some type of fetish-terror-porn or something, I'm fascinated and scared and pissed and feeling compassion and understanding for the poor bastards in the photos, all at the same time.
The stuff is everywhere here where I live. It's the Official Plant Of Austin. I know its look, I'm cautious as hell, I watch every step, and I know I'm going to get nailed again, only a matter of when...
posted by dancestoblue at 3:31 PM on June 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
I used to think I wasn't even allergic to urushiol. Maybe I didn't used to be, anyway I got it once while driving up to Tahoe, from some pants that I had worn a few weeks prior around some poison oak. It took me a while to figure out what on the ski slope was making me itchy!
It wasn't a super-severe case, compared to most of the stories here, but it was bad enough that for the next few weeks it was very difficult to think about anything other than not scratching my itchy legs.
Anyway, I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for anyone who got this stuff.
posted by aubilenon at 3:48 PM on June 4, 2009
It wasn't a super-severe case, compared to most of the stories here, but it was bad enough that for the next few weeks it was very difficult to think about anything other than not scratching my itchy legs.
Anyway, I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for anyone who got this stuff.
posted by aubilenon at 3:48 PM on June 4, 2009
My father-in-law has a great story about cutting down a tree at a new house they'd bought. This was accomplished by climbing it by shimmying up the trunk wearing nothing but those 1970s shorts everyone seemed to wear back then. The tree was covered in these.
To anyone convinced they don't get it "anymore," I can tell you firsthand that I have started developing (now age 27) comparatively mild reactions to contact with poison ivy after clearing brush. I would rub it on myself as a freak-out thing to my friends when I was a boy and I never got it. FWIW. So be careful.
posted by resurrexit at 3:54 PM on June 4, 2009
To anyone convinced they don't get it "anymore," I can tell you firsthand that I have started developing (now age 27) comparatively mild reactions to contact with poison ivy after clearing brush. I would rub it on myself as a freak-out thing to my friends when I was a boy and I never got it. FWIW. So be careful.
posted by resurrexit at 3:54 PM on June 4, 2009
Years ago, wandering the streets of Berkeley, my body and face covered with poison oak rash, someone stopped me on the street and asked me if I had syphilis.
posted by Xurando at 4:09 PM on June 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by Xurando at 4:09 PM on June 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! I didn't know poison ivy rashes could get so bad! It's almost unbelievable.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 4:21 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by MaryDellamorte at 4:21 PM on June 4, 2009
Also, how bad of an idea is it to pop those huge rash bubbles? Anytime I get a blister of any sort, I pop the damn thing to get it over with so it can heal faster.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 4:23 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by MaryDellamorte at 4:23 PM on June 4, 2009
Oh, that ain't nothing. Outside the United States is where it gets interesting -- the family contains all kinds of bushes and trees that look nothing like poison ivy. Mangoes, for instance. If you're sensitive to urushiol, do not get mango skins on your face, say, by eating a mango without peeling it. Peel them and wash your hands; the flesh of the fruit -- and the rest of the tree -- is fine. The urushiol is just in the skin. My daughter has gotten really nice rashes twice from mangoes.
Japanese black lacquer, by the way, is made of urushiol. The word "urushi" is, in fact, Japanese for lacquer.
But the real pain, for me this last Christmas, was my discovery of Comocladia dodonaea, which has both nasty thorns and urushiol, during the Great Guanica Accidental Off-Trail Trek of 2008. I was broken out for two months. My favorite part is that the thorns themselves contain urushiol, so while poison ivy can't infect the palms of your hands (because your skin is too thick there), C. dodonea can - in little stings that itch like mosquito bites, but for three weeks.
Since I had no idea that anything in Puerto Rico had urushiol in it, I didn't avoid contact with the stuff (except for the thorns, of course) and I had the worst case poison ivy of my entire life, especially all over my lower legs and inside my knees (but also behind my ear, along my arms, and even on my stomach). Hot showers on it helped. Hydrocortisone cream helped. Salt water (i.e. the ocean) helped. What helped most was a hairbrush. With the hairbrush, I could scratch without breaking the blisters. It was almost literally orgasmic. But the only thing that really helped was time. Two months of it.
I freaking hate poison ivy.
Incidentally, Roundup now makes a little foam sprayer that you can spray just on the leaves of the plant you are targeting. The Roundup soaks into just that plant, and kills it to the roots, but doesn't salt the ground around it. It's perfect for poison ivy. My "new" house has plenty of poison ivy in the yard, but it's mostly dead already thanks to Roundup. Good stuff, and I don't normally like the idea of poisons. (Except where poison ivy is concerned, where I would honestly use spent uranium if I thought it would help.)
posted by Michael Roberts at 4:30 PM on June 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
Japanese black lacquer, by the way, is made of urushiol. The word "urushi" is, in fact, Japanese for lacquer.
But the real pain, for me this last Christmas, was my discovery of Comocladia dodonaea, which has both nasty thorns and urushiol, during the Great Guanica Accidental Off-Trail Trek of 2008. I was broken out for two months. My favorite part is that the thorns themselves contain urushiol, so while poison ivy can't infect the palms of your hands (because your skin is too thick there), C. dodonea can - in little stings that itch like mosquito bites, but for three weeks.
Since I had no idea that anything in Puerto Rico had urushiol in it, I didn't avoid contact with the stuff (except for the thorns, of course) and I had the worst case poison ivy of my entire life, especially all over my lower legs and inside my knees (but also behind my ear, along my arms, and even on my stomach). Hot showers on it helped. Hydrocortisone cream helped. Salt water (i.e. the ocean) helped. What helped most was a hairbrush. With the hairbrush, I could scratch without breaking the blisters. It was almost literally orgasmic. But the only thing that really helped was time. Two months of it.
I freaking hate poison ivy.
Incidentally, Roundup now makes a little foam sprayer that you can spray just on the leaves of the plant you are targeting. The Roundup soaks into just that plant, and kills it to the roots, but doesn't salt the ground around it. It's perfect for poison ivy. My "new" house has plenty of poison ivy in the yard, but it's mostly dead already thanks to Roundup. Good stuff, and I don't normally like the idea of poisons. (Except where poison ivy is concerned, where I would honestly use spent uranium if I thought it would help.)
posted by Michael Roberts at 4:30 PM on June 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
When I got it, after clearing the vastly overgrown yard in a house we had just bought, I only got it on my arms, and not nearly as bad as most of those pictures. However, the little blisters (like these) looked an awful lot like track marks. It was ... awkward.
posted by scratch at 4:34 PM on June 4, 2009
posted by scratch at 4:34 PM on June 4, 2009
the deal with urushiol sensitivity is that it increases with repeated exposure as your body's immune system is better able to recognize and over-react. so the first time you touch posion ivy you might not react at all...
Hot showers DO help -- direct the water, hot as you can bear it, right on the exposed places and you will get real relief, lasts maybe an hour, 90 minutes. Talk to someone who's done this and they'll sometimes tell you that it actully does more than just take the itch out of it, that it actually feels really, really good; that's been my experience as well, it's got to release some sort of feel-good stuff in your brain. When I get nailed, antihistamines are my lifestyle, they allow me to sleep, along with the ongoing showers.
i believe the phrase is ecstatic itching.
i once weed-wacked a little overgrown hill in the summer with my shirt off. guess what was on that hill. it was sort of like two-face, the side of me exposed to weedwacking was all bubbled puss filled skin. leaking yellow juice...
then, i climbed up a building that was covered in ivy, regular ivy and the other kind. what did i do after i cllimbed that building... i took a piss. my 'member' was permanently swollen for weeks. who needs viagra...
finally, i scrambled up a brush covered hill in marin county. i still don't know what posion oak looks like. after the hill climb i did some other things and took a shower, enjoying the water as it poured off my head, over my face, into my eyes and down my back. after a week of turning into the elephant man i finally went and got the steroids.
posted by geos at 5:20 PM on June 4, 2009
Hot showers DO help -- direct the water, hot as you can bear it, right on the exposed places and you will get real relief, lasts maybe an hour, 90 minutes. Talk to someone who's done this and they'll sometimes tell you that it actully does more than just take the itch out of it, that it actually feels really, really good; that's been my experience as well, it's got to release some sort of feel-good stuff in your brain. When I get nailed, antihistamines are my lifestyle, they allow me to sleep, along with the ongoing showers.
i believe the phrase is ecstatic itching.
i once weed-wacked a little overgrown hill in the summer with my shirt off. guess what was on that hill. it was sort of like two-face, the side of me exposed to weedwacking was all bubbled puss filled skin. leaking yellow juice...
then, i climbed up a building that was covered in ivy, regular ivy and the other kind. what did i do after i cllimbed that building... i took a piss. my 'member' was permanently swollen for weeks. who needs viagra...
finally, i scrambled up a brush covered hill in marin county. i still don't know what posion oak looks like. after the hill climb i did some other things and took a shower, enjoying the water as it poured off my head, over my face, into my eyes and down my back. after a week of turning into the elephant man i finally went and got the steroids.
posted by geos at 5:20 PM on June 4, 2009
Talk to someone who's done this and they'll sometimes tell you that it actully does more than just take the itch out of it, that it actually feels really, really good; that's been my experience as well, it's got to release some sort of feel-good stuff in your brain.
Yup. I tried this on a medium-sized poison oak rash on my arm once, and it felt like my arm was having sex. I've been tempted to get a rash intentionally, for this very purpose. But knowing me, I'd overdo it and burn off my skin with hot water.
posted by yath at 7:19 PM on June 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
Yup. I tried this on a medium-sized poison oak rash on my arm once, and it felt like my arm was having sex. I've been tempted to get a rash intentionally, for this very purpose. But knowing me, I'd overdo it and burn off my skin with hot water.
posted by yath at 7:19 PM on June 4, 2009 [1 favorite]
You mean it's NOT "Leaves of three, wipe with me????"
That explains a lot of last summer.
posted by bloomicy at 7:34 PM on June 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
That explains a lot of last summer.
posted by bloomicy at 7:34 PM on June 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
Related: here is the notable Should-I-Eat-It AskMe about a large chicken-in-the-woods wild mushroom with bits of poison ivy growing through it.
I can feel my throat closing up just from typing that.
posted by Elsa at 7:41 PM on June 4, 2009
I can feel my throat closing up just from typing that.
posted by Elsa at 7:41 PM on June 4, 2009
Bubbles! Skin bubbles! Skin bubbles with yellow fluid inside! 42.htm!
Dilute! Dilute! OK!
posted by zippy at 8:49 PM on June 4, 2009
Dilute! Dilute! OK!
posted by zippy at 8:49 PM on June 4, 2009
I didn't know poison ivy rashes could get so bad! It's almost unbelievable.
This post is partly a response to my last hiking trip. I'd climbed a rock face ahead of my friends, and was so intent on my handholds that I didn't notice the lovely, shiny bouquets of poison ivy just beyond. I ended up slightly brushing the plants before I noticed and warned my friends to go around a different way. They seemed amused when they caught up to me and found me with mud caked halfway up my arms, frantically washing in a cold stream. I wasn't amused. I had slathered on the first wet dirt I could find (to the utter confusion of some other hikers on the trail) and sprinted down to the stream we'd passed. There are times when mud is actually better than soap. I did manage to avoid a very bad reaction.
posted by zennie at 10:14 PM on June 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
This post is partly a response to my last hiking trip. I'd climbed a rock face ahead of my friends, and was so intent on my handholds that I didn't notice the lovely, shiny bouquets of poison ivy just beyond. I ended up slightly brushing the plants before I noticed and warned my friends to go around a different way. They seemed amused when they caught up to me and found me with mud caked halfway up my arms, frantically washing in a cold stream. I wasn't amused. I had slathered on the first wet dirt I could find (to the utter confusion of some other hikers on the trail) and sprinted down to the stream we'd passed. There are times when mud is actually better than soap. I did manage to avoid a very bad reaction.
posted by zennie at 10:14 PM on June 4, 2009 [2 favorites]
One year at the cottage when we were young, my teen-age sister was brazenly demonstrating to her friends her "immunity" to poison ivy by rubbing the leaves all over her body - with special attention given to her face of which she is quite proud.
The next day, it became evident that she may have overestimated her superpowers and we had to leave the cottage immediately to get back to the city and treat what - by the looks of things - could turn out to be a pretty serious reaction.
On the way home, she was in the very back of our old wood-paneled station wagon - with the very back, rear-facing seat put down flat to form an area between the rear door/window and the back of the middle seat in which she could lie down and convalesce. Normally two kids were stuck back there as, all in all, there were 5 kids + 2 adults to fit in. This trip, she got the royal litter all to herself.
About half way home, a poor old lady was stopped at a red light in one of the many small rural communities which lie along the road from the lake to the city. While she is absentmindedly starring ahead, all the blood suddenly begins to drain from her face. In the car ahead - right at the gigantic rear window - a zombie teenage girl rises into view: the bloated features of a fetid corpse - with open sores and pustules covering the once human visage that has been disfigured almost beyond recognition - her eyes swollen shut and her blond hair an unkempt halo of madness. With much difficultly, the drowsy creature tries to open her eyes - fighting her gross deformities and cursing the punishing sunlight. It manages to peer confusedly out of the windows - obviously trying to determine her location - and maybe, perhaps, her reason for being.
The light turns green, and as we pull away, we leave a long line of traffic behind us, held in place by one old lady at the front of the line who wouldn't move. Or let go of the steering wheel.
The honks fade into the evening sky as the sun begins to set on another cottage season.
posted by sloe at 12:03 AM on June 5, 2009 [10 favorites]
The next day, it became evident that she may have overestimated her superpowers and we had to leave the cottage immediately to get back to the city and treat what - by the looks of things - could turn out to be a pretty serious reaction.
On the way home, she was in the very back of our old wood-paneled station wagon - with the very back, rear-facing seat put down flat to form an area between the rear door/window and the back of the middle seat in which she could lie down and convalesce. Normally two kids were stuck back there as, all in all, there were 5 kids + 2 adults to fit in. This trip, she got the royal litter all to herself.
About half way home, a poor old lady was stopped at a red light in one of the many small rural communities which lie along the road from the lake to the city. While she is absentmindedly starring ahead, all the blood suddenly begins to drain from her face. In the car ahead - right at the gigantic rear window - a zombie teenage girl rises into view: the bloated features of a fetid corpse - with open sores and pustules covering the once human visage that has been disfigured almost beyond recognition - her eyes swollen shut and her blond hair an unkempt halo of madness. With much difficultly, the drowsy creature tries to open her eyes - fighting her gross deformities and cursing the punishing sunlight. It manages to peer confusedly out of the windows - obviously trying to determine her location - and maybe, perhaps, her reason for being.
The light turns green, and as we pull away, we leave a long line of traffic behind us, held in place by one old lady at the front of the line who wouldn't move. Or let go of the steering wheel.
The honks fade into the evening sky as the sun begins to set on another cottage season.
posted by sloe at 12:03 AM on June 5, 2009 [10 favorites]
I guess I'm not too terribly allergic to this urushiol stuff. As a kid, I never caught it, and I was always amongst the greenery.
Then one day, I was water skiing. My turn ended, and I dropped the rope and headed into the shallows. A bit too much momentum propelled me up onto the shore, where I landed in the weeds, my skis stopped, I didn't. No big deal, I thought.
The evidence revealed itself that evening. All over my body. Somehow, I was lucky, and it wasn't too terrible. Fells Naphtha soap was the remedy known to my family (probably quite effective, immediately after exposure), and calamine lotion. No doctors needed to be involved.
Years latter, I would become more closely acquainted with poison ivy, around the beaches of Long Island. The stuff there is prolific, and I have wondered whether it was a deliberate attempt to keep folks off the delicate dunes. Still, exposure was minimal. I learned amazing feats of weaving my way along paths, without touching any greenery. I got a bit between my toes, once, and lived with it.
posted by Goofyy at 3:04 AM on June 5, 2009
Then one day, I was water skiing. My turn ended, and I dropped the rope and headed into the shallows. A bit too much momentum propelled me up onto the shore, where I landed in the weeds, my skis stopped, I didn't. No big deal, I thought.
The evidence revealed itself that evening. All over my body. Somehow, I was lucky, and it wasn't too terrible. Fells Naphtha soap was the remedy known to my family (probably quite effective, immediately after exposure), and calamine lotion. No doctors needed to be involved.
Years latter, I would become more closely acquainted with poison ivy, around the beaches of Long Island. The stuff there is prolific, and I have wondered whether it was a deliberate attempt to keep folks off the delicate dunes. Still, exposure was minimal. I learned amazing feats of weaving my way along paths, without touching any greenery. I got a bit between my toes, once, and lived with it.
posted by Goofyy at 3:04 AM on June 5, 2009
Japanese black lacquer, by the way, is made of urushiol. The word "urushi" is, in fact, Japanese for lacquer.
Could someone please explain this to me? Are the Japanese, like, immune for life or something?
posted by Afroblanco at 7:07 AM on June 5, 2009
Could someone please explain this to me? Are the Japanese, like, immune for life or something?
posted by Afroblanco at 7:07 AM on June 5, 2009
Are the Japanese, like, immune for life or something?
Heat treatment seems to cause the urushiol to be bound up in the lacquer, although it would probably still give sensitive people a reaction. I would guess it's like most peoples' ability to handle and eat mango fruits. Not enough urushiol to trigger a reaction, and perhaps a lifetime of low-level exposure garners some level of immunity. As for people who work with the lacquer, apparently it's hyposensitization.
posted by zennie at 7:22 AM on June 5, 2009 [1 favorite]
Heat treatment seems to cause the urushiol to be bound up in the lacquer, although it would probably still give sensitive people a reaction. I would guess it's like most peoples' ability to handle and eat mango fruits. Not enough urushiol to trigger a reaction, and perhaps a lifetime of low-level exposure garners some level of immunity. As for people who work with the lacquer, apparently it's hyposensitization.
posted by zennie at 7:22 AM on June 5, 2009 [1 favorite]
Related: here is the notable Should-I-Eat-It AskMe about a large chicken-in-the-woods wild mushroom with bits of poison ivy growing through it.
I can feel my throat closing up just from typing that.
posted by Elsa at 7:41 PM on June 4 [+] [!]
Wow this was a serious question where someone actually though that not only eating a wild mushroom was a good idea but eating a wild mushroom that was overgrown in poison ivy was. a. good. idea?!?!?!!?
And the Darwin award goes to!!!
posted by Mastercheddaar at 7:31 AM on June 5, 2009
I can feel my throat closing up just from typing that.
posted by Elsa at 7:41 PM on June 4 [+] [!]
Wow this was a serious question where someone actually though that not only eating a wild mushroom was a good idea but eating a wild mushroom that was overgrown in poison ivy was. a. good. idea?!?!?!!?
And the Darwin award goes to!!!
posted by Mastercheddaar at 7:31 AM on June 5, 2009
Some of those photos show pretty horrific blisters. Will those things leave scars? Will those areas no longer be particularly sensitive to touch? What are the long-term effects of a huge, horrible PI reaction?
posted by five fresh fish at 12:02 PM on June 5, 2009
posted by five fresh fish at 12:02 PM on June 5, 2009
Afroblanco, as I understand it, urushiol blackens with oxidation, and in its oxidized form it's no longer capable of binding to your skin. So the lacquer's safe. Just ... panic-inducing if you know what it really is.
What I don't get, having said that because I've read it on the Internet (and so it must be true), is why urushiol doesn't always oxidize with exposure to air; it can stay effective for years.
Here's another tidbit: there's a hardwood tree (I forget its name) used in Brazil to make furniture. And yeah, there's enough urushiol in it that if you're sensitized, you'll break out from sitting on said chairs.
Urushiol is used as a laundry marker in India (from a nut of some sort, another plant in the family). Again, if you're not sensitized from exposure to more virulent plants, it'll never bother you, but American soldiers in India in WWII broke out from the laundry marker on their laundered shirts.
five fresh fish -- normally, poison ivy blisters don't leave (much of) a scar, but that one in 42.htm, I don't know. It's just the very top of the skin that forms the blister, so normally the skin underneath will just grow back out to replace it. My Christmas case was pretty bad (if I had pictures that weren't blurry and bad, I could easily qualify on that site) but except for some temporary loss of melanin, the blisters left no marks at all.
But that one in 42.htm ... yikes. I'm going to have nightmares about that one. That's like some kind of alien parasite.
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:28 PM on June 5, 2009
What I don't get, having said that because I've read it on the Internet (and so it must be true), is why urushiol doesn't always oxidize with exposure to air; it can stay effective for years.
Here's another tidbit: there's a hardwood tree (I forget its name) used in Brazil to make furniture. And yeah, there's enough urushiol in it that if you're sensitized, you'll break out from sitting on said chairs.
Urushiol is used as a laundry marker in India (from a nut of some sort, another plant in the family). Again, if you're not sensitized from exposure to more virulent plants, it'll never bother you, but American soldiers in India in WWII broke out from the laundry marker on their laundered shirts.
five fresh fish -- normally, poison ivy blisters don't leave (much of) a scar, but that one in 42.htm, I don't know. It's just the very top of the skin that forms the blister, so normally the skin underneath will just grow back out to replace it. My Christmas case was pretty bad (if I had pictures that weren't blurry and bad, I could easily qualify on that site) but except for some temporary loss of melanin, the blisters left no marks at all.
But that one in 42.htm ... yikes. I'm going to have nightmares about that one. That's like some kind of alien parasite.
posted by Michael Roberts at 12:28 PM on June 5, 2009
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posted by Afroblanco at 1:20 PM on June 4, 2009 [1 favorite]