Found a great new way to treat poison ivy archived

lol, wow, can't be healthy, but i guess it's better than scratching your face off! what about rubbing alcohol?

Bleach works, too, I hear, though brutally.

There's probably bleach in the wipes. I used to use Bleach when I got it as a kid -- either that or take a dip in a chlorinated pool.

Dries the crap out of it.

There was just a TV segment on using a mild bleach solution bath to treat the skin of children affected with psoriasis.
The medical community has just announced it is THE most effective way to treat it.

I saw that, kmk -- but it wasn't psoriasis, it was excema. And I do not recall them saying it was the most effective way to treat it... and they made a point of telling people only to use the prescribed amount and in open the window. I really think bathing with bleach is a bad idea (and I have a skin condition). Bleach is such a harmful chemical, and I think people are so used to having it in the house that it has become less frightening. I once used so much bleach cleaning my bathroom that I had to go out of my apartment, and I really hurt my breathing tubes and lungs (and my eyes hurt really badly too)... I was so frightened that I had done permanent damage.

Then again, we put chlorine in our swimming pools... and if it can help relieve the effects, that's a big thing... but I think they said a half cup, and that sounds like a LOT to me... you only need a tiny bit of bleach in a lot of water to make something sanitized, so why a half cup??

found an article:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1894149,00.html

All I know is instead of putting 2 weeks of steroids into my system, no need for Benadryl (which is very toxic for your liver by the by) and cortisone cream and all I had to do was scrub twice very hard with Lysol wipes. I have tried the bleach and the rubbing alcohol and it made it seep more which caused more spread.

Yeah, that's a point they made in the article (about the bleach with excema), that this way they use less antibiotics... which is wonderful... I just think there has to be more precaution with such a caustic chemical...

This is a good tip, watch me get poison ivy and use it!!

By the way, where did you grow up that didn't have poison ivy?

Also - what's the scoop on Benadryl? Why so bad for the liver?

Ooops! You are right...I get the two conditions mixed up.
Excema is the one that is somehow connected to asthma as well right?

I grew up in Austria and we have no such plant..thank god cause I used to practically live in the woods going camping with my horse.

People are very casual about Benadryl which is fascinating to me. It is the first drug you have to stay clear off if you have liver issues. Benadryl is extremely taxing on the liver. What is scary is that some people give it to their kids so they sleep better???

Posted By: bajouWhat is scary is that some people give it to their kids so they sleep better???

I'm one of those. Doc suggested I give it to my little ones as I was taking them to England on my own a few years ago. I gave them both the dose the
doc told me to 45 mins before boarding the flight. No-one slept on that flight because my kids were on hyperdrive all 3300 miles across the Atlantic and the stuff had them wired.

wow. i once interned at a psych hospital, and besides all of the horrific abuse i encountered there, they would give a lot of the patients benadryl to put them to sleep... ugh...

Hi, everyone. I gotta step in here and make some comments about Benadryl (diphenhydramine HCl).

- It is a safe night-time sleep aid for short term use in doses of 25 to 50 mg in adults. The sleep you get isn't the best quality but it does help you get to sleep.

- While it almost always causes drowsiness when the person taking it is a teenager or older, it is well known to cause excitation in children. That excitation can be anything from mild (like the hyperdrive SOParent mentioned) all the way up to severe central nervous system stimulation leading to convulsions. Still, it is mostly safe to use it as an allergy medicine in lower doses (12.5 mg or less) in children. Obviously it affects some kids with agitation but usually it causes drowsiness in them. It shouldn't be given to a kid younger than 6-7 unless a doctor is aware. In addition to drowsiness it can also cause anti-cholinergic symptoms like dry mouth, dizziness, constipation, blurry vision or urinary retention and these are dose-related. The higher the dose, the more likely these things will happen. I do not recall if they've figured out why it can cause excitation in kids but that might be related to the anti-cholinergic effects.

- Diphenydramine HCl is not toxic to the liver. At all.
Things that might be in the same product along with it like acetaminophen or the alcohol in the elixir are hepatotoxic but not diphenhydramine itself. Benadryl is one of those brand names that has many different formulations and combination products for colds and allergies so people often end up consuming other drugs along with the diphenhydramine they thought they were taking alone.

As for the Lysol on the poison ivy rash. Yikes. Doesn't sound like fun but I can hazard a guess as to how it would work.

- First off, it has oils and weak organic acids (in the strict organic chemistry sense of the word organic) and they tend to absorb the urushiol still floating around on your skin and in the lesions. The less of that stuff on you the better. In fact, if you can wash the area you suspect has come in contact with poison ivy, oak or sumac (even cashew nut shells and ginkgo biloba can have urushiol) soon after exposure, say less than 10-15 minutes, you'll prevent a lot of the damage.

- Second, I guess it is the overall skin irritation and drying of the area tissues that blunts the autoimmune response that is going on that explains how Lysol works. A bit abusive to the skin if you ask me but I haven't had poison ivy that I can remember. People also vary greatly in their sensitivity and so it also goes that they vary in their responsiveness to various treatments.

Hey BF, you sound like a pharmacologist....

Posted By: justmelauraHey BF, you sound like a pharmacologist....

Yeah, funny about that...

When I went near poison Ivy, I would just bath with brown soap, like octagon That was a tip from my grandfather from Italy. Seems safer than bleach or Lysol. But than the soap was to avoid it. It did help dry it out afterwards. For some reason it stopped me from getting it or I got it very lightly. Than if I got it, a trip to the ocean was great. The salt water is great. A day in the ocean and I was healing. Than there was the brown banana skins my mother heard about and we would all eat bananas or my mother would bake some banana bread, pudding and rub the skin on us. It certainly tighten the skin but than I am not sure it did anything else. My mother swore it did though even though we were the ones with the poison ivy not her.

Bikefixed I know you are very well versed on this topic but one of the first things I was told to stay ABSOLUTELY away from is Benadryl because my liver was so damaged from my old epilepsy medication and that Benadryl is very taxing on the liver. Don't know what compound of it they were talking about though.

I don't have any poison ivy in my yard but the problem is that is seems to be growing rampant this year on a couple of properties along Vose and especially along the traintracks. I think the issue is that my cat who is outdoors gets it on her paws and fur when she is hunting and then brings it home. The first outbreak was after I took the dogs to the res. Can't go there anymore with really sucks. Problem is that one of the meds they put me on (Lamictal) has one nasty side effect which is called Lamictal Rash or by it's proper name Steven Johnson Syndrom which is a deadly rash. Well it is thankfully very rare but when you are in the introduction phase of the medication and you get a rash you have to rush to the emergency room, get it checked, reduce the dose of Lamictal and after 10 days slowly work your way back up to the dose. Since I can't afford to up and down the dose all the time I had to promise my doc to stay out of the woods for a while but apparently I am getting exposed even around here.

One of the properties four houses down from me (which is also the bus stop for school) is full of poison Ivy. The whole front of the yard and it's all in the bushes next to the side walk. Do you think it's appropriate for me to ring their doorbell and ask them to do something about it?

I actually kinda like mary2430's approach.

I would like that too but as I said I don't know when I come in contact with it until I already break out. I might pet my cat and then go about the day as usual not realizing that my cat slept in a bed of poison ivy the night before and has urisol all over her fur. Trip to the ocean is kinda out to since I can't just take off of work after being out so much this spring. Lysol wipes work fine for me and they are much handier then Banana peels although not as tasty as bananas LOL

Posted By: bajouI used a lysol wipe thinking that at least this will kill any bacteria.

ick

Posted By: Tom ReingoldBleach works, too, I hear, though brutally.

double ick

bajou (or bikefix) what about peroxide for poison ivy? it dries out the area around a wound. at least for me it does after it sizzles.

Posted By: bajouThe whole front of the yard and it's all in the bushes next to the side walk. Do you think it's appropriate for me to ring their doorbell and ask them to do something about it?

i would ring the bell and mention it to them. maybe they don't realize it's poison ivy.

hope you feel better bajou.

It's obvious that you cat isn't listening to you telling it to stay out of the poison ivy, so I would suggest a different approach which will ensure that your cat can roam where it likes and you (and it) remain poison ivy free.

:clap::clap::clap::clap:

JTA, Although I haven't tried it, hydrogen peroxide might help early on after exposure. It would clean the lesions of any bacteria if they were on their way to being infected but possibly more important is the chance that the peroxide would destroy any urushiol still around as well as alter the exposed protein-urushiol complexes that are causing the autoimmune reaction. Urushiol acts as a hapten and when it seeps into the skin and attaches to various proteins it forms something akin to an allergen the body can't help but attack.

However, hydrogen peroxide may not sink in deep enough since it is not very oil soluble and that won't do a complete job. Just off the cuff I wonder if benzoyl peroxide (used for acne) might be an option since it is more lipohilic and would sink in better. That would deliver the oxidative effect to the areas that need it and would also do some drying out. It might hurt though.

NOT THAT THIS IS A RECOMMENDATION!!! USER BEWARE - TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Seriously, I've tried all the topical remedies, and nothing worked better than good ol' calamine lotion. It's an old recipe, and it's cheap!

Tom, it doesn't sound like you've ever had blistering, weeping, dripping, horrible poison ivy. Calamine is good, but not that good.

This whole conversation reminds me of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where her father said that Windex would cure everything.

Oh yeah, I forgot that remedy.

bikefixed -- how do you know so much? seriously! you sound very, very knowledgeable about all of this! I have severe reactions to poison ivy (have had to be rushed to the hospital, eyes swollen shut... get it with the slightest exposure) -- and I have never gotten so much helpful information to understand it! thank you.

I would be extremely careful and couscous when using Lysol whips to treat poison ivy. You are rubbing chemicals on your body that are poisonous. When you rub anything on your skin it gets absorbed into your body. I do not know how toxic Lysol is, but I would defiantly want to know. This way I would know if it is safe for me to be rubbing Lysol on my skin to get rid of poison ivy.

Posted By: mjhTom, it doesn't sound like you've ever had blistering, weeping, dripping, horrible poison ivy. Calamine is good, but not that good.

Actually, I have. I'll never forget it. Calamine wasn't exactly "good" at that point, but everything was worse.

I'm probably as susceptible to it as bajou is. I learned about it when I was a little kid. My best remedy is prevention. I'm now conditioned to spot it in my peripheral vision from a quarter mile away. OK, I'm exaggerating, but not much.

bajou, can you eradicate the plant in the vicinity of your home? You'll need your neighbors' help. When I spot it near my house, I alert the neighbor whose property it is on. I don't want it living anywhere near me. Once, Red walked through it, and I hosed him down immediately upon returning home.