They call it poison for a reason

[Renze]

My mother is allergic to bee stings: She once had such swollen legs that she went to the first aid of the hospital, where was discovered that it was a bee sting infecton. She now keeps an antidrug at hand during the season, which makes it all go away soon.
With a heavy bee poison infection (e.g. accidentally poke in a nest and get stung multiple times) this could kill her, so we're glad she found out with just a mild infection, and got knowledge of the problem, and the antidope before this situation ever occurred.

 

[mrutkaus]

Only thing that ever stops it for me is putting on 1% cortisone cream on ASAP. Of course the GoJo washing before that helps too.

Guy at the school bus stop when I was a kid showed us how he ate a poison ivy leaf. Said it prevented him from getting it!

Mike

 

[J_J]

This is a very good article on Poison Ivy/Poison Oak. Seems like it is called Poison Ivy in the East, and Poison Oak in the west.

Correction, Poison ivy mostly in the Mid US, to Eastern United States, whereby Poison Oak is in every state, included Canada. Poison Sumac is not wide spread, almost rare, found in wet lands.

Poison Oak

 

[psj12]

I live in the east and we have both poison oak and Ivy. They are different plants.

 

[cowboy357]

I live in the east and we have both poison oak and Ivy. They are different plants.

Yes They are different plants . I live in the middle & have ivy, oak & sumac & having a hard time controlling any of it this year. Bob

 

[jinman]

If you live in an area where there is lots of poison ivy/poision oak and have outside pets, be extra careful. My woods gets carpeted with poision ivy every spring and it doesn't start to dry and die until late June and July when the heat kills it. We have outside cats and my wife will get poison ivy reactions from petting them. I have never shown any allergies, but don't push my luck anymore than is required to run the rotary cutter and the string trimmer while I wear long pants.

Come to think of it, my poor wife might be coming in contact with the poison ivy from doing laundry.

 

[ampsucker]

i, too, have heard you can desensitize yourself by eating small amounts of the very young, tender leaves over time. never had the bells to try it.

i've also found that whenever you have a large, dispersed patch of poison ivy that comes back yearly - look up. you'll probably see the parent plant climbing a tall tree and that plant is both putting out runners AND getting enough sun to make and disperse seeds. no wonder it's so hard to get rid of!

i've also read in serious poison ivy pamphlets and literature that the resin can not only stick around for weeks but for years on tools, gloves, clothing, etc. regular detergent and water will remove it from all surfaces except skin to which it bonds and must be removed using a special blend of surfactants such as go-jo or zanfel which have the correct chained fatty acid to grab the oil on one end and a water molecule on the other.

as we all know, regular soaps will not do the job once it's bonded to the skin. these documents also indicate you have about 4 hours to wash off the oil from your skin before the bonding process begins to make regular soap and water ineffective and you have to go to the specialized soaps.

sorry to hear about the fellow who passed away due to this. i've felt pretty downright miserable from it until i started to learn about it. he probably had what is termed a "systemic" case. if you get enough oil on your skin, it can get into your lymph system and travel to other parts of the body where your own immune system does you in by trying to attack the oil. this occurs when large portions of the dermis are covered or you breath it in in aerosol or smoke form and it gets direct access to lymph and blood system.

i think i had a partial systemic case once when i cut some spring vines (unknowingly) and the sap dripped directly onto my legs. you could actually see the streaks in blister form where the vines had rubbed across my bare legs and the sap had left a trail. not fun.... to this day, i get itchy when i get close to the stuff as if my body has become a highly tuned detector of the plant just from it's airborne chemicals. i know that sounds crazy, but it's a real feeling i get sometimes and when i look around i usually find a good amount of the plant.

amp

 

[JoelD]

I was weedwacking last friday and have my first case this year yesterday and today.

I hate the stuff, I can't figure out what it looks like, all the plants look the same to me.

Joel

 

[J_J]

JoelD,

Here are all three plus some more irritants. Bad stuff. Look at the pictures.


http://www.poison-ivy.org/rash/index.htm

 

[Airic]

Very sad indeed. One I learned recently is to be careful when cutting oak and walnut. The fine saw dust can give you the same effect as poison ivy along with other major issues including cancer, kidney failure, to testicular something or another. I was helping a friend with some wood working and the next day he looked like he had rolled through poison ivy. Made him sick with a temperature as well. I was fortunate not to be affected. After that he bought a book about diferent types of wood and the issues that can be caused when working with it. Pretty scary stuff in there which I had no idea about.

 

[Skyco]

Are you saying the oak and walnut wood can cause a reaction?
I have had to forego some firewood because I spotted poison ivy vines on it. I'm not sawing up or handling that stuff for any reason

 

[Transit]

WOW! Eat poison ivy!! You nuts?
Cutting wood that痴 been contaminated with poison ivy is bad enough, burning it indoors is even better.

Ever hear of Satan wood?

 

[chh]

Wow, I never heard of anyone dying from it, but I don't doubt that it could happen. I am pretty resistant to it, my wife is not nearly so. If it think I have it on my clothes I make sure they get washed seperately and that she doesn't handle them. I used to play in it and around poison ivy and poison oak when I was a kid, we had a lot of it around when I was little(still do). I sure would not recommend anyone trying eating it.
I did not realize until the floods around here last year that you can get it from the oily film on the water if there is a lot of it in a flooded area. The Corp of Engineers put out warnings at the lakes last year. That could take all the fun out of wade fishing.

 

[psj12]

I have heard of reactions to walnut and even experienced a mild reaction to breathing the dust while sanding the wood. It gave me bronchitus type symptoms and a dry cough for a couple of weeks. I now wear a dust mask when working with walnut. I never heard of oak having the same affect.

 

[JoelD]

JoelD,

Here are all three plus some more irritants. Bad stuff. Look at the pictures.


Skin Rash Hall of Fame

Thanks JJ, one of my goals for the day is to be able to successfully identify the stuff.

Long night last night, itchy, itchy, itchy. The only thing that really helps is ice.

Joel

 

[jinman]

I hate the stuff, I can't figure out what it looks like, all the plants look the same to me.

Joel

Joel, you are not the only one who has a problem. Lot's of folks here confuse poison ivy and Virginia creeper. Here are some pictures that may help. We also have green briars here that have waxy heart-shaped leaves and the vines have lots of thorns. Those are NOT poisionous. There's several of those in the pictures too.

 

[polo1665]

I was weedwacking last friday and have my first case this year yesterday and today.

I hate the stuff, I can't figure out what it looks like, all the plants look the same to me.

Joel

I have learned how to identify it the hard way. You can't always expect it to look like the classic pictures. The time I got it the leaves were at least 8" to 10" across, I didn't think for a second that it could've been poison. I was wrong. That was the first time and hopefully the last time I will ever get it.
I have tried to educate myself adequately and have read about cases like what happened to the OP's friend (my condolences to kdm0811 and his friends family). I have read about such cases but they usually involved breathing in smoke from burning leaves. I've attached some photos of examples of the plants around my house. A good rule of thumb is if you have any question and the leaves are in a cluster of three, leave it alone. Of course this does not apply to poison sumac.

 

[Soundguy]

Can you please provide some additional details? Not that we just want gory stuff but there has got to be some more to this.

Was it inhaled? Forest fire and he got in the smoke? Knocked out in a patch and didn't come to for hours after rolling all over it? What? Did he have some other condition or disease that made it worse for him?

Sounds like an agressive alergic reaction to the active ingredient.. vs the toxcicity of the ingredient itself.. but then.. I'm no doctor.. etc..

soundguy

 

[JoelD]

Joel, you are not the only one who has a problem. Lot's of folks here confuse poison ivy and Virginia creeper. Here are some pictures that may help. We also have green briars here that have waxy heart-shaped leaves and the vines have lots of thorns. Those are NOT poisionous. There's several of those in the pictures too.

Jim, excellent, perfect, I recognize the top left for sure, in my twisted way of thinking I thought they were little trees and have been pulling them up with bare hands. The leaves look a lot like hardwood tree leaves to me.

I'm far from a arborist (spelling), but this picture is very very helpful to me.

Thank you,
Joel

 

[JoelD]

I have learned how to identify it the hard way. You can't always expect it to look like the classic pictures. The time I got it the leaves were at least 8" to 10" across, I didn't think for a second that it could've been poison. I was wrong. That was the first time and hopefully the last time I will ever get it.
I have tried to educate myself adequately and have read about cases like what happened to the OP's friend (my condolences to kdm0811 and his friends family). I have read about such cases but they usually involved breathing in smoke from burning leaves. I've attached some photos of examples of the plants around my house. A good rule of thumb is if you have any question and the leaves are in a cluster of three, leave it alone. Of course this does not apply to poison sumac.

Another super post with great pictures, I'm gonna take some shots around my house and see what I come up with. I'm affraid I've been working in this stuff all along.

I was not alergic as a boy, but once I hit 40, the train came off the tracks.

Joel