Do you have any tried and true remedies for Poison Ivy rashes?

Not really, My wife uses cold water and calamine lotion unless it is real bad, then she goes in to the clinic and gets a shot of cortizone (I believe).

I was going to suggest you have someone else pee on it, but whatever

My mother is a firm believer in the power of Epsoms Salts soaks for relief from a variety of skin problems.

There’s really no “remedy”—the rash just has to run its course—but @rojo‘s treatment, which my mother had to use every summer when I was a young kid, worked well to ease the symptoms.

The power of suggestion once worked a miracle, though. I was having a particularly bad night and, not knowing how to calm me down, mother told me she was giving me something new the doctor recommended. It was a spoonful of a liquid she later told me was cough syrup. It worked, I fell right to sleep!

Decades later I realized that although she probably didn’t know it at the time, the cough syrup contained cortisone or something like it, which not only eased the burning and itching but also helped me sleep.

Another poison ivy sufferer here. The go-to remedy for me is Band-Aid Anti-Itch gel. It stops the itching almost immediately, helps dry the infected patches, and is clear. It’s usually available at any drug store chain for a lot less than the prices posted on this site. In addition, keep it exposed to air (not clothing) as much as possible to help it dry out.

A niece swears by just plain old calamine lotion. For the number of times she has had it and tried various remedies, including prescribed ones, it’s worthy of consideration.

@Pachy, could the cough medicine have contained codeine which is a narcotic?

@Pied_Pfeffer, I never knew whether it was OTC or presciption, but in either case more likely it was an antihistamine.

Those who suggest the Epsom salts does it matter if the water is hot as in a bath or does the water need to be cold?

@Pied_Pfeffer When I read your suggestion I remembered I had a bottle of Calagel in the drawer of my desk SCORE! Thanks for the reminder!

I do take the Benedryl route at night but can’t while here at work. Keep the suggestions coming as I know in 2 more days I will be in full bloom.

I sympathize. I had two rashes this year – first time I ever had more than one exposure in the same season. What’s worse is that I’m not really certain where it happened! It had to have been somewhere on the edges of my yard, and I’ve attempted to retrace my steps and pay close attention to where the vine may have been, but I haven’t found the source yet. So that’s a concern, too!

As far as relief from the itching, one thing that has worked for me from time to time is a hot compress. That is, soak a folded hot hand towel or facecloth with the hottest water you can tolerate – I mean around 140°F or so, on the edge of “scalding” – and lay that on the affected area for as long as you can stand it. (It’s not comfortable!) It actually causes the rash to itch like crazy for a few seconds as it sort of “fizzes” the itch out. (The best analogy I can come up with is that it’s like what ice does for a carbonated beverage.) It’s only temporary relief, but it does help to allay the itching long enough for me to ignore it for awhile or get some sleep.

The benefits, to me, are: it’s an always-available treatment wherever you can find hot water and a cloth; it’s clean and odorless, and the hot water treatments over a period of days will very quickly dry out the rash. (I have also used an over-the-counter spray called “Ivy Dry” that helps a little bit, but that’s somewhat oily and has a pretty powerful scent that I don’t really care for. But it’s also convenient and at least temporarily effective.)

Finally, I had seen a YouTube video from an outdoorsman/farmer who swears by “just thorough washing” with soap and water after any “potential” exposure. His claim is that the urushiol we’re allergic to isn’t magic and isn’t “instant-active”, so if you wash it off like you would any invisible oil soon after exposure then there won’t be any reaction.

My problem was that I had not even suspected the exposure, so I hadn’t thought a shower was necessary. Now I shower whenever I do the least amount of yard work off the cut grass.

FWIW, I had been planning to write this question here myself a couple of months ago.

I am going to tell you a story.

It was a hot, humid day during a summer in the mid 1970’s and after a morning of caving we found ourselves in the Green River cooling off and washing the mud out of our clothes; twelve packs of beer and watermelons tied together in the cold water and tethered to the bank. Despite the chill of the water, each of us peeled the layers of mud and clothing off until, much to our surprise, we found ourselves skinny dipping and worrying about what a mixed group of long haired hippie looking twenty year old college students would have to endure should the local law show up.

We were having a high old time and presently found ourselves sitting on the river bank dripping wet, drinking beer, eating huge slices of watermelon and spitting seeds at each other. We had worked our way through several melons when one of the crew noticed that the section of bank we had chosen for our repast was covered of poison ivy and here we all sat naked to the world, the vegetation our only picnic blanket.

Fear entered our hearts as our genitals contracted into our bodies seeking the safety of concealment. Each and every one of us launched ourselves head first back into the river, watermelon husks hanging like walrus tusks from our mouths. Fearing the worst, we splashed, scrubbed, chafed, wished for soap, used our semi-mudded clothes for washcloths bemoaned our cursed luck and eventually made our way back to our trucks; dreading the coming night an subsequent weeks of torture we knew were to follow.
To our surprise, despite having sat in, among and on the poison ivy, not a single one of our party came down with a rash.

I swear that all that I have related is truth but I cannot tell you how or why we were so fortunate.

Perhaps it was the watermelon; perhaps the cave mud or the cold water; it could have been the Lone Star or maybe the cheap Mexican pot. I cannot say which or what combinations protected us and not a single member of the group ever volunteered to test out many the possibilities, so you are on your own here, glean whatever useful information you can.

@CWOTUS If a good shower is supposed to work than my rash should be all over my body because I took a Slikwood shower after working in the yard. What gets me is a lot of the PI I saw on Saturday was only an inch or two high and it still got me!

I have heard that the more times you have an episode, the more intense the following flare ups.

@rojo It kinda seems that way. In my 20’s I could take a nap in poison ivy and not get a bump…now it seems even the smallest of plants can get to me. So far it is not horrible but since I posted this question I have 4 more areas that have bloomed on my arms. Just getting warmed up it seems.

@rojo

That’s absolutely true for any allergen, including bee stings as well as chemical allergens as well.

Each body has a unique response to the total allergy load. This is why you have a few extremely sensitive individuals who develop allergic response to just about everything.

People scoff and think they must be hypochondriacs or something but these are individuals whose bodies have reached a tipping point after multiple exposures to an allergen or many different allergens over their lifetime.

Particularly vulnerable are people who work in heavily chemicalized environments where levels are supposedly considered “safe”. Safe is a relative term and different people are affected to varying degrees.

Someone at work who does landscaping on the side swears by the soap called Tecnu for when you’re exposed. I know that’s not what this question is asking for, but just a heads up. I know it’s sold in drug stores, on Amazon and in places like Costco.

@jca I looked up this soap online and people swear by it. Seems it works best at onset of exposure and I will get some for next time! Thanks.

@jca Another thank-you for letting us know about the soap. I’ll pass the recommendation on to my poison ivy prone niece.

Here’s the Amazon link for Tecnu. They sell smaller sizes of course, and it’s cheaper per oz at places like Costco.

http://www.amazon.com/Tecnu%C2%AE-Original-Outdoor-Cleanser-Ounce/dp/B0034CZ3M6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1443190074&sr=8-2&keywords=tecnu&refinements=p_85%3A2470955011

Recommendations from the niece: For poison ivy rashes I use Ivarest. It is a liquid bandage that smothers the rash. You’ll get pink on all of your clothes, but it washes out. Tecnu does work well if you know you’ve been exposed; Dawn dish soap works as well.

It says I asked this just a week ago and I know it is longer…at least I know it feels that way. So for 3 weeks now I have tried every suggestion every remedy….every ointment and no magic bullet amongst them all. I will say the hot water singe brought the best immediate albeit short lived relief. I did not scratch for 3 weeks now and finally could not resist and let loose. Poured vinegar again over the freshly removed scabs and finally have relief.

I first discovered the hot water thing over 20 years ago with my first exposure. Someone had suggested “a hot bath with oatmeal”, and while the oatmeal did little or nothing that I could determine, the baths seemed to help. But they were still in the nature of “a bath”. Ten years ago when I had my second exposure, and it wasn’t so much “full body”, I tried using warmer-than-bath water on cloths to wash my arms, and that’s when I discovered that the hotter the water, the better and longer-lasting was the relief. (Even if I was giving myself first degree burns in the process.)

I’m glad to know that helped, but yeah, I do wish there was something better.

@CWOTUS I used to be fairly immune to PI and now enduring my 5th exposure this summer I find I have to tend to my rashes with more attention and yes the hot water near scaldings seem to bring the most immediate relief.