While they may seem like a good idea, avoid using other over-the-counter medications for the rash. “The most effective home remedy is over-the-counter hydrocortisone one percent cream,” advises Dr. While it’s difficult to control, scratching can invite infection and damage healing skin. Scratching the area is the most common action.
#Does poison ivy spread skin
Similarly, hot water will only injure the skin and open pores–two things that will further the degree of the allergic reaction. One harmful plan is to apply caustic products to the skin to “draw out the itch.” Solutions made with products such as bleach are dangerous and should never be applied to the skin. Home remedies span from logical and harmless to irrational and hurtful. Once can touch poison ivy once and still break out in new areas over the course of the next two to three weeks.” Rather, it is the original contact with the urushiol that causes the reaction. Hebert, Professor of Dermatology and Pediatrics at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School also adds, “Many patients (and many physicians) do not realize that scratching the blisters is not what spreads the poison ivy. Crutchfield III, M.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Minnesota Medical School and medical director of Crutchfield Dermatology.ĭr. After that, it really can’t spread, and the fluid in blisters doesn’t spread the condition either,” says Charles E. “Your skin has natural enzymes that break the urushiol down over four hours, so the rash you see of poison ivy really represents the areas of skin that were touched, and retouched other areas during the first four hours until the oil itself is no longer able to act as an allergen…. That, partnered with the spread of urushiol though clothes and other fibers’ contact, can make the rash seem like it’s spreading through the exposed blisters.
Thicker skin absorbs and reacts differently than more sensitive areas, meaning areas such as the palms may show the rash hours if not days later than areas such as the inner arms. Zimring, M.D., Director for the Center for Wilderness and Travel Medicine at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, and author of Healthy Travel: Don’t Travel Without It advises, “It is important to note that if you wash off the urushiol or the resin that contacts your skin within 10 to 20 minutes after exposure, you might avoid an allergic reaction unless you are highly sensitized the urushiol.”Ĭontrary to popular belief, the blisters caused by the rash do not further spread the rash thought they may seem like they do. The oil is resilient and can last for months, cause a later reaction. Be careful not to spread the oil onto towels or other surrounding surfaces, and wash all clothes in hot water after working outside. After being around poison, wash the exposed areas with cool water and soap. Similarly, hot showers and baths also open pores. Hot weather not only opens pores, which allows further oil absorption, but also causes sweat that can act as a transporter of the oil to other areas of the skin.
Try to work outside during cooler weather. While outdoors, wear protective clothing and thick garden gloves, as urushiol is easily carried on fabrics. The key to prevention is to avoid contact with the urushiol. Tolerance decreases with each exposure, and those who experience severe reactions most likely have been repeatedly exposed to the plant. Often animals carry the oil on the fur, transferring it to humans through touch.īecause the poison rash is an allergic reaction, some people react more severely than others. Vaguely yellow in color, the saf will flow fram any broken, crushed, or bent part of the poison plant, and even trace amounts can cause the skin’s allergic reaction. Unknown to many is that it’s not the plant that causes the rash: it’s the urushiol oil present in the plant’s sap that causes the allergic reaction. Poison oak and poison ivy grow three leaves per stem while poison sumac has seven to thirteen leaflets per stem. The three types of poison common throughout the United States are poison oak (Rhus diversiloba), poison sumac (Rhus vernix), and poison ivy (Rhus radicans). So what really works? And more important, why does it work? Home remedies aren’t any easier either, since some remedies cause more harm than help. The simplest solution to the itchy after-affects of poison ivy is to avoid the plant, but to the 10 to 50 million Americans suffering from rashes each year, this isn’t so easy. Which remedies work, and which should be avoided.