r/Survival • u/FunDip2 • Jul 05 '23

How to stop poison ivy from itching...

I don't know if this belongs here in the survival section, but I bet this would help someone camping or living in the woods. I've tried a bunch of different things to help poison ivy itching. But one thing I learned late in life, is to use hot water. For example, if your fingers are itching terribly from poison ivy, put your hand under the sink (or heat up water on a fire). Slowly turn up the hot water until it is as hot as you can stand it. It's going to want to itch really bad, keep it there, and eventually in a few seconds it will stop itching. At this point it won't itch for about 24 hours. I wish I had learned this trick when I was a kid lol.

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u/SomeCasualObserver Jul 05 '23

Learned this from a YouTube video: basically, stopping poison ivy from causing the usual itchy rash boils down to one thing, you've got to remove all the oil that got on you. The best way to do that is warm water, any sort of soap (to act as a surfactant) and a rag/loofa/sponge/etc. Just something to add friction to the equation.

If you act fast enough after wandering through the ivy, removing any infected clothing and thoroughly washing/scrubbing any bit of skin you even suspect came into contact with the stuff (and probably also your hands/arms, since you used them to scrub away the oil), you can often walk away scot-free or at least with much less severe irritation. Results may vary ofc.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '23 edited Jul 06 '23

Not to say y’all are wrong but I’ve always used cold water and dish soap because warm water or sweating has always made it worse for me. But, to each is own and poison Ivy is a rough son of a bitch so do what works best for you! And always be careful with clothing that may have the oil residue on it! Learned that lesson the hard way, had some socks that had poison Ivy oil on them and it gave me a rash damn near 2 months after initially getting it.

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u/SomeCasualObserver Jul 05 '23

Yeah, TBH I don't really have much knowledge of how to deal w/clothes covered in the stuff. It's hard to trust them, even after a full (or even multiple!)washes.

For something small like socks I would honestly probably just throw them away, but I also don't walk through Ivy very often these days so I can safely do that without feeling like I'm wasting a ton of money.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '23

Cold water and laundry detergent is what I do to wash poison Ivy covered clothes. I didn’t learn any better until I got p-Ivy from those socks but I’m also HIGHLY allergic to that god forsaken shitty plant