Poison Ivy

Last weekend I was trying to clear our backyard of sticker brush so the dogs would not get it stuck in their hair. It was all along our fenceline. My goal was to pull it so that the root and all came out. I also had some tree limbs hanging over my yard and there was a bush that was growing between my neighbor's and my yard. I got out my wood clipper, cut the low hanging limbs, and moved on to the brush. The brush was harder to get to because of the way it was growing between the fence. I had to pull some of it or twist it after cutting to get it to come off.

After I got it all done, I felt good about what all I had accomplished. A couple of days later, I noticed a rash on my arm and asked my wife what she thought it was. She said it was probably poison ivy and I believed she was right. I don't think I have ever had an allergic reaction to poison ivy or just never got into it before. I took some benadryl and went to bed that night and went to work the next day with no problems. The night after, the itching started. I scratched in my sleep and when I woke up my arms were a mess. I went to the doctor and got a steroid shot and we started cleaning and putting calamine lotion on it.

It has nearly been a week and it still looks awful. The average time for it to clear up is about two to three weeks so I'm hoping by next week it will be gone. I did a search on poison ivy and found this site that has a "Skin Rash Hall of Fame". Mine is much nicer compared to some of those.

Read up on what poison ivy looks like. It might just save you a lot of torment. You itch constantly and it leaves a strong desire to scratch it. You have to have a strong willpower not to scratch or it will spread and/or get infected. Also read up on how to prevent it from getting under your skin within an hour of coming in contact with it. Cold water shower! Once it gets under your skin, you are in for a long ride of torment :P

Each day I take benadryl, soak each arm for 15 minutes in an alluminum-water chemical combination, use a cotton ball to alcohol the affected areas, and then another cotton ball to apply calamine lotion to the affected areas. You would think after all that the itching would go away. It does not! It lessens the desire to scratch but the itching is always in the background of your mind :P