SutherlandKFT

Hi I have been looking for poison ivy in europe. I am currently in Hungary in the Bükk mountains looking for it. There are many plants that are similar but I have found nothing as dangerous.

Someone asked what can it be used for medicinally? Look up www.botanical.com there seem to be many uses for the plant. It seems that it was used mainly as a skin cure. Herpetic sores and ringworm etc.

What is interesting to me is that some people can touch it and it has no effect on them at all. I think this is a very interesting plant indeed.

cmt

Have you been searching for poison ivy in Europe just casually, or for some special purpose? It's interesting that you even found this odd thread, which I started last year.

BTilke

Having grown up in Pennsylvania, where poison ivy is a fact of life, we swore by Rhuligel, which is now sold as Anti Itch Gel by J & J.. It worked better than anything else. I think it had some rubbing alcohol in it which helped dry it out. Even though I tried to avoid the plant, sometimes I would pick it up from the cat if he'd been wandering in the brush near our property. (However, some people are sensitive to the alcohol in the gel and for them it makes the problem worse in the long run.)
I agree with the beach cure, too. A day at the shore always seemed to go a long way to curing the itch and drying up the rash.
I keep some rhuligel in the UK for the occasional nettle brush, esp. if it happens after dark, when I'm not inclined to go grubbing around looking for dock leaves. Works very well.

kswl

Where might one obtain this miracle potion, Btilke?

she asked, gritting her teeth and willing the poison oak patches all over her right arm to NOT ITCH.

BTilke

Wal-mart? Walgreen's? CVS? Albertson's? Just look for Band-Aid anti-itch gel, which is rhuligel's new name. (I miss the old name, sounded so Old Worldy medicinal.).
Works best if you let really cold water run over your arm for a few minutes. Then dry gently and spread on the gel. It may sting a little because of the alcohol (but don't use the gel if you've got sensitive skin, or so I'm told).
Of course, for the gel to work properly, you must spend the entire next day at the beach, going in and out of the water frequently. Tell your boss you're hitting the beach for health reasons.
Seriously, my sympathies. I know how badly that can itch. I remember the maddening summer combo of poison ivy AND mosquito bites on my legs. When it got too frustrating, I used to grit my teeth and simply pour rubbing alcohol over the rash and bites. Stung like heck, but it did work.

BTilke

FYI, this site gives various PI/PO product reviews (from customers, not health professionals):
http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/commercial.html

Carrybean

Mr. Green, when I was a child I used to get terrible break-outs from poison ivy until my father who was a contractor for the phone company got me this stuff that the phone company provided to linemen to prevent PI break-outs. It came in little vials & you took it in water for several days in a row. I never got poison ivy again. I'm thinking it was called something like "Immune-Ivy." (Might have the name wrong, though.)

kswl

Thanks, Btilke. I have tried various topical remedies like "ivy dry" that just don't work, so I had all but given up hope that anything could help. I'll look for it tonight. My fabulous Sat. evening is planned: a trip to Wal-Mart for ointment!

Mr. Green and Carrybean, I'm not sure I would take something like that--would be too afraid of having a throat lined with lesions, despite Mr. Green's success.

starrsville

If you have watery welts, try pouring hydrogen peroxide over them first before applying the topical ointment.

I am HIGHLY allergic to poison ivy too. If it sees me it jumps out from the next county to catch me. One March I dug a grave for a dog and got the worst case I ever had. I was beating myself up for getting into when someone pointed out that there were no leaves at the time - I must have been cutting through roots. I ended up taking 3 of the steroid dose packs over the next few months. They say it's an old wife's tale that it gets in the bloodstream. Don't care. It does. Weeks later I was hundreds of miles away and watched new welts pop up on "virgin" territory - places that never came in contact with the stuff.

There used to be a Rx spray that dried it up pretty well but it is no longer on the market.

Take Benedryl or similar for the itching.
Try not to scratch.
Use peroxide or similar (someone mentioned sun and salt at the beach) to dry it up.
Topical ointment for the itching.

OWJ, burning rhododendron wood is also poisonous - but boo-hiss to anyone who would cut down rhododendron and burn it anyway

kswl

Starrsville, I know what you mean about the new welts. Supposedly, the reaction can occur anytime from a few days to a few weeks (!) after contact with the plant, so those late arrivals could still have come from the single contact. That's actually very depressing.

My own lesions (doesn't that sound lovely?) are in various stages of weeping/itchy/dried out. The ones that are finally going away have left the patch of skin wrinkled and puckered, as though it had been burned.

I interviewed two new lawn services today and stressed the point that the old service was fired for not getting rid of poison ivy. They could see that I was NOT kidding.

momofrajah

oh, how this thread brought back memories!! I foolishly weeded my garden the night before leaving for a 10 day singing trip in France. (Never saw PI there before or after =- just this one time!!) By Day 4, I was having problems breathing (as well as loooking like one of the lepers in "ben hur'), and went to the ER in Narbonne. Of course, my pigeon French was not much help as I tried explaining that I had "poisson ivy" NO, that's "fish ivy." I then demonstrated, "le jardin, dig, dig, dig!" to which they replied I would be buried in a real cemetery - not le jardin!! fortuneately, I work in health care and managed to go thru all the trade names for steroids that I could think of - finally got an IV drip running.

The staff at the hospital were truly kind , and none of the questioned why I kept humming Faure and Durufle tunes. (I was running thru the choir repetoire looking for appropriate words - unfortuneately, "Cantique de Jean Racine does not have many phrases such as "my skin is falling off."

Last humiliation - as I and another choir member waited in the ER, a 5-year old girl across from us pointed out in French that "look mommy, all Americans wear the same shoes!" My French was good enough to pick up that criticism (even though it was in fact true, as all of us wore black shoes to go with our robes whens singing.) In other words, all the threads on this site about what to wear in France were verified as I wheezed out my laughter at the highlight of a VERY long evening!!

starrsville

kswl, it has gotten worse for me with time. In April (contact was in March) I was riding along in Miami and watched with amazement as new welts starting marching up my arm. I FELT new welts popping up elsewhere - shall I say a place that the PI roots did not come in contact with and "the sun don't shine". Of course, the oils could have transferred from a towel, but the first breakout had cleared and a few days after the steroid dose pack had been completed, here come new ones. It happened a third time as well. NOT a pleasant experience.

I think drying them up as soon as possible is the secret for me. I TRY not to scratch - but when I do I just tell myself I'm opening them up for the HP to work on 'em.

I keep Ivy Block in the cabinet - but often forget to put it on.

Goats, maybe. They'll eat kudzu. Wonder if they eat (and are bothered by) PI?

kswl

Ouch, Starrsville! Mine looked so awful that I wore long sleeves in this Georgia heat. We had people over and I didn't want to scare them!

If I ever get posion ivy somewhere unmentionable I shall just go to the hospital and demand to be given general anesthesia for about a week.

And momofrajah! I truly sympathize, but your story is hysterical! Perhaps you could have hummed Faure's Requiem? !!

momofrajah

"free me from the sting of death" was the closest I could come, and was actually pretty apt!! Of course it helped that our next day singing was at Lourdes - I was a sight sticking various body parts in and under the water! Friends stook around me, calling out "unclean, unclean!!"

The redeeming factor of this trip - I was so miserably sick and not enjoying myself that I decided to go back to France the next year (to make up for the misery!!) Turned out to be one of my best trips ever - (except for breaking my knee cap in Paris, but that's another story!!)

kswl

ROTFL, momofrajah! Would love to hear that story someday!

Annam

I am a physician. I once saw a young man (a Boy Scout) who had been swinging on vines in the woods, and then peed behind a tree. Guess where he had it?
Poison Ivy resin makes a chemical bond with receptor sites on the skin within a half-hour of contact. It is most soluble in alcohol, so if you knowingly come in contact, wipe the area down with rubbing alcohol within 30 minutes. Tecnu makes a cream that prevents the bond (Ivy Block? Ivy Guard?) but must be applied BEFORE contact. Don't bother with creams or topical stuff (except to temporarily relieve the itch). A large outbreak requires at least a 2-week course of oral prednisone. Because the resin bonds to the skin, it won't leave until the top layers of skin slough off.
Generic Benadryl is identical to the brand name. Don't spend the extra money. 1% hydrocortisone is useless. Too weak for poison ivy outbreaks. The reason you shouldn't take oral benadry while using topical is that you could overdose, not that it won't work or will make things worse.

BTilke

kswl, how goes that poison oak problem? Did you find anything to relieve the itch?

kswl

Actually, Btilke, I did. Lac-Hydrin lotion (which is amonium lactate) now comes in a version with cortisone, which relieves both dry skin and itching. The lotion is what I generally use anyway; it is recommended for diabetics (which I am not) with poor circulation. I literally stumbled upon the "fortified" version of this lotion in the pharmacy. I would absolutely recommend it for relief of itching in poison oak or ivy. Doesn't make the stuff go away, though.

I still have scars on the patches of skin on my forearms; it looks like the scars from a burn. My DH tells me it will eventually go away.

starrsville

I do believe k's DH actually IS a doctor - unlike some of us who play one on Fodors!

kswl

yes, but he thinks you're not really sick unless you need an operation. Poison ivy hardly counts, but a gallbladder attack . . .