Stealth Poison Ivy

I assume it got me one rainy day when my dog Bella came in from the back yard after brushing up against some poison ivy. Usually when she’s wet I towel her off so she doesn’t get the whole house dirty, so presumeably my arms rubbed up against the urushiol oil that was on her fur, unbenownst to me. Then I went back to my computer and most likely got the oil all over my desk while I typed and moved the mouse around like I always do.

Next thing I know, I’ve got rashes on my wrists and arms, itching like crazy. I figured I must have gotten it from Bella, but it kept getting worse until it finally dawned on me to clean my desk, too.

So let that be a lesson to you. Make sure to clean *everything* that was exposed to poison ivy. And do it early.

Also, get rid of any poison ivy growing in your back yard.

By the way… I discovered by accident that running hot water (hot enough to flinch from, but not scalding hot) on poison ivy is a pretty awesome trick for stopping the itching for a little while. I had never heard of this before, but apparently it “overloads” your nerve endings so they don’t transmit the itchy signal for a couple hours. It’s really weird. It feels great for a few seconds and then the area goes kind of numb. I’m finding mixed results about whether it’s advisable or not, though. One bad thing is that it opens up your pores so the urishiol oil could get even farther into your skin, so it seems like you wouldn’t want to do it until the later stages of the rash. But on the other hand, I followed it up with hydrocortisone cream, so if it opens up your pores, wouldn’t that mean the cream gets in there better? Anyway surely it’s got to be better than scratching.