Saturday: Do a bunch of yard work. Overhaul a large portion of my flowerbed, feeling very industrious and pleased as I pull out weeds and install rock-lined mulch paths to prevent such a huge need for future weeding. (Speaking of rocks, my grandfather has cleared up the Virginia vegetable garden rock mystery: "Rocks grow deep in the earth, and when they are big enough, the devil pushes them up to the top for us to deal with." I don't doubt it for a second.)
Sunday: Wake up with itchy arms and one eye swollen shut. Sigh. Groan. Apply ice packs and cortisone. Realize I'm a little late this year. Develop plans to further reduce growing space for evil weeds by installing a tiny patio in one corner of the flower bed. Talk to grandfather, who assures me it will be a huge amount of hassle and work. Sigh. Groan. Apply ice packs and cortisone, and go to bed.
Monday: Get up at 4 a.m. for work. Wince at the ghastly reflection I see in the mirror, but suck it up, apply more cortisone and go to work anyway. Leave work at 1:30 p.m., pick up kid from camp, go home and doze from exhaustion of itching while he watches Harry Potter Part 5. Wake up enough to feed him and apply more cortisone.
Tuesday: Get up at 4 a.m. for work. Horrified by spread of crud. Stop at drug store on way in to office and drop a ridiculous sum of money on assorted snake oil. Delighted to find that something appears to be helping, as itching decreases. Rashy face is still disgusting, however.
As a PSA, here is my experience:
Long sleeves and pants probably help. This has not been my experience, however, because in the process of getting undressed and/or throwing those clothes in the washer, I still get the crap on me, which means I sat outdoors in the blazing sun in winter clothes for naught.
All that business about showering as soon as you can after getting it on you may be sage advice. My problem is, I barely know a tree from a shrub and certainly can't pick out good weeds from bad ones, so knowing exactly when to go hose off is problematic.
I don't know if Ivy Off works. I bought some once, then we had 2 years of rain and by the time I was in a position to use it, the stuff had expired and I never bought any more.
Once you are afflicted, if at all possible, I strongly advise jumping into a 50-gallon vat of calamine lotion, getting very drunk, and remaining asleep for a week. Perhaps even an induced coma, if means allow.
Not possible? Yeah, not for me either.
Cortisone lotion works for me, but it doesn't last very long, and all those warnings telling you not to use it more than 3 times a day have served to freak me out. I also don't like that stuff on my face.
Ice packs? Don't do jack.
Running impossibly hot water over the rash? Ohhhh, that feels really, really good. However, the time I tried it, I also wound up in much worse shape for the long run. The rash got much worse, blistered, lasted forever and looked like I had a flesh-eating disease. I do not recommend this, though it was, indeed, a pleasant itch-killer.
This time around, I have taken an allergy pill and used this stuff called Tecnu Rash Relief. I don't know which one did the trick, but I'm feeling much better. I figure the allergy pill won't hurt anything, even if it doesn't help. The tecnu is wonderful stuff, but it is very oily, so keep tissues and stuff around and maybe wear sleeves to keep it off counters, desks, laptops, etc.
I don't know how much validity there is to this, but it does seem like a logical move to try to keep your contact with linens to a minimum til you know the oil is gone or til the rash is clearing up. This means changing the sheets, using different towels, etc. It also means a lot of laundry, which is a bummer.
That's what I've got -- anyone else got any good Old Wives remedies out there? Happy to try them out!
A (not too hot) oatmeal bath with a Prednizone chaser, babe. Or at least Benadryl, if you can't get/don't want the steroids. I've seen the medicated Aveeno oatmeal packets work well.
Hot water opens your pores and helps your skin absorb more of the oil, hooray! So don't do that.
I kind of thought this would be the Summer of No Rash for you but it sounds like it was actually worse this time.
Do I need to come over with an old Girl Scout handbook and learn you how to find Jewel Weed? It usually grows where Poison Ivy/Oak is...
Posted by: Gayle | July 12, 2011 at 07:56 AM
if it goes on forever get steroid shots. poison ivy is three shiny leaves, in this pattern: <-where the carat (carrot? karat? bracket thingy) are two leaves and the hyphen is the third. virginia creeper looks like pot if it grew on a vine. aveeno makes an oatmeal bath that does okay, but really, anti-histamines and calmine and other non-itch type lotions are good. Cold showers might help while you're in them, and keep the pores closed, but I have no proof of this as I only just started taking cool showers because otherwise I stay in the shower for 3 billion hours and the hot water runs out
Posted by: mel | July 13, 2011 at 08:53 PM