Poison Ivy

Where are you? Are you sure it is poison ivy and not poisonoak? Tried TechNu? TechNu makes a soap and a lotion that I use on poisonoak--label makes is seem like it would work on poison ivy too.

Something often overlooked: wash the clothes you run in after every run...the oil from 'ivy or 'oak is what prolongs the effect. I probably have 10 pairs of gloves for cool weather running so I can wash them as needed. That goes for the socks too. The lower parts of the body get exposed and then you, surprise, use your hands to take the socks off--presto, you have the oil on your hands.

Try to keep the affected areas open (no long sleeves, etc.) and as dry as possible.

Best wishes, we have a great crop of poisonoak in Oregon this year.

Use bleach my man. It might sting like hell and turn your leg hair white, but it works wonders. I have used it when I have gotten the occasional poison ivy and no itching after that

legendarypegasus wrote:

Use bleach my man. It might sting like hell and turn your leg hair white, but it works wonders. I have used it when I have gotten the occasional poison ivy and no itching after that

Use the Technu soap ... doesn't sting, doesn't turn your hair white, and you will still be able to produce offspring afterwards. Also, you can wash your running clothes with it too ... to remove the poison ivy from your clothes.

I saw my sister once go into the ocean while she was covered with poison ivy, we went down to FLA on vacation. She gave out a loud scream because it stung so bad, the next morning IT WAS GONE!! Years later, I had it all over my body and thinking of my sisters experience and not being around an ocean, I did the second best thing or so I thought, all salt is the same right? Well, I got a wash cloth and a box of Morton Salt, got into the hottest shower I could find, poured salt all over the wash cloth and scrubbed the blisters raw..I let out a shriek too...The next morning all the itchy poison ivy blisters were purple oozing infections and my head hurt bad and I was puking..I went to the emergency room and low and behold who was on duty but my buddy the running doc....I told him what I did and it was the first time any patient was called a "dumbass" by his doctor in an emergency room.

There is a product that can be used to prevent posion ivy.

It contains dimer acid as the active ingredient and there are a lot of patents that teach the use of dimer acid as a way to prevent poison ivy. I don't know how popular the product is but maybe drug stores mught sell it. The sap that cause poison ivy is a sensitizer so you cannot reduce the length of time that you will have it.

see a dermatologist who will give you scrip cortisone that will kill your reaction to the poison ivy oil very, very quickly

suck it up and be a man. it itches but will go away. sorry, don't mean to be rude, but just be tough. it will go away.

dont wip your ass with that shit man that is anoying

Yeah, do the manly thing...don't drink when it seems hot; eat only steak and potatoes, always run through the pain; if there's no bone sticking out, you ain't hurt.

Must be a million of these "real men do it this way behavior patterns" that do more harm than good.

With whatever respect is due to manly behavior, some people's allergenic reactions can put them in the hospital and be life threatening without them knowing it. Reactions to things change over the years for a lot of people. Some changes for the positive, some for the negative.

i've tried rubbing alcohol with some success.

what i've been doing of late is running with shin / knee high gaiters. i have a nice light-weight pair that i've used for backpacking in the past; they do well, but i haven't found a similarly suited replacement pair, so i can't direct you to a good brand. equinox ltd might be a good place to start ... (out of pennsylvania, i believe).

My doctor told me when I was a kid, to cut a poison ivy leaf the size of a dime, put it on bread smear the bread with peanut butter and eat it..It worked! I didn't get it that summer...true story..He was also the head Boy's Scout guy...he probably knew something about home remedies.

My brother-in-law told me this load of crap as well.

Big Paul, you said just what I was going to say. I must have forgotten that if something is bothering you and you try to fix it, then somehow that's not manly. Knee or foot hurting? No problem; keep running those hundred mile weeks. To back off would be weak! Anemic and suffering on your runs? Don't get a blood test! It's not manly! Legs itching constantly from poison ivy? Tough luck! Only a weakling would try to put that sissy medicine stuff on his legs!

Well, last year, after over 16 years of running, walking, and hiking trails and never being bothered by most stinging bugs, on the night before a 100-mile trail run, I got stung (bit?) by a horse fly sort of thing and reacted (could hardly breathe, arm got quite swollen) in a way that had never happened before. Ratz. Six months of training down the tube...all the running for training was fun, but I didn't get to see if I had done it correctly.

Ya just never know when Mother Nature is going to remind you of exactly who is in charge.

I had an annoying case of poison oak recently and found out that there are a bunch of websites devoted to poison oak/ivy. Just do a search under "Poison Oak". Unfortunately, the main message seems to be that there is nothing over-the-counter that works all that great; you can get a prescription for corticosteroids or something like that, but it wouldn't be a good idea if you're getting exposed to it on a regular basis, as you don't want to be taking that medication all the time. There is some helpful advice on those sites, though.

I've used one of the over the counter "preventers" with some success and so have friends. I used to get it regularly pretty bad when I was landscaping and I'd get a script for Prednisone which is heavy duty stuff and dries out your whole body. The Doc told me I'll keep getting it but eventually my body will build up a resistance to it because I was getting it so often... still waiting for that to happen