poison ivy help needed....home remedies....

Good reason to take a trip to the beach. Salt water will dry it up quick Rubbing alcohol will help with the itch.

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Wouldn't do this early on, you can spread it, especially if its weeping. Once it's dried out though, I agree the warm water seems to help decrease the itching.

If you know you've been exposed, best bet is to wash thoroughly in cold water - get the oils off before they bond to the skin. If you can do this with in 30 minutes of exposure, it should cut down on the severity.

I've heard that rubbing the inside of bananna peels on the wounds works well as a home remedy, but haven't tried it. Generally I use hydro cortizone cream, and take benadryl for the itching.

A lot of the time it seems like the old story: "What you need to do is such and such. Do this and it will clear up in just 2 weeks, guranteed! If you don't, your going to be stuck with it for 14 days!"

mldollins, do you have a particular reason for wanting a home remedy? Preference, dislike of standard medical treatment, or cost? This will help with potential recommendations...

scrub it very good with a non moisturizing soap like dish soap then treat as if it were an infection with tripple anibiotic ointment - so that it doesn't become one - that is the biggest concern not letting it get infected

My wife is extremely sensitive to PI. It spreads very easily on her skin, and the rashes spread very badly, and keep spreading.

The Zanfel works wonders.

Get out your wallet, however, it is about $27 for a tiny tube.

Follow the directions. It works amazingly well.

When all the other home remedies failed to work for her, the Zanfel fixed the PI immediately.

Get it at any drugstore, Walmart, etc.

Clove

I do all of the above.... the trick seems to be to find something that dries up the rash and the skin. I get it every summer. Used to get it from my milk goats on my right shoulder from bumping up against them while milking. Nowdays, I get it behind my knees and on most of my lower legs from goat kids. Their pen is a big section of woods that apparently has plenty of poison ivey. When I go out to feed them, they all rush up to me and rub and bump me from the knees down..... <sigh>
I have almost reached the point of giving up wearing shorts.
Tana Mc

Jewelweed.

My family has always used bleach and I don't even dilute it. In fact I started using the bleach pen when I lived in the Ozarks. I'm not aware of any danger, (of course you keep it away from eyes!) I'm 40 and been using it since I was a kid and my grandparents lived to 90 and of course we learned it from them.
Benadryl might give immediate relief but the main thing is to dry it up.

I don't think that I would use bleach:

"Bleach can be absorbed into the skin and can take months to
break down. Bleach is now being suspected in the causes of breast, ovarian,
and testicular cancer...."

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We clean our skin with Tecnu anytime we think we've been exposed. If you scrub down within six hours it prevents the whole outbreak. You can get Tecnu at any drug store. I think it's got kerosene in it, not sure. No steroids at all.

But I generally wash thouroughly with bath soap, if I've been puling vines,
just in case.
On the Off-chance that I do get a few spots of blisters........I use good old pink Calamine or Caladryl lotion.
I think Caladryl has the addition of an anti-histamine. It works every time for me.....gone the next day.
You might try pink Caladryl Lotion.

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Say what you will but the bleach works. Not over the next few days, it works today and its cheap. I've used it many times over the last 50 years on myself and then on the kids and grandkids. It drys it up overnight.

If you don't have access to Jewel Weed, try bottled shoe polish. It'll dry it up real fast.

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