I didn't ever spend time with nature before, if you can believe that. The first couple times I got poison ivy it was horrible. It was on my legs and lasted two weeks. That was years ago. Ivy doesn't bother me anymore. There's tons and tons of ivy where I hike. It brushes past my legs and ankles and I step on it with bare feet and nothing much happens. Sometimes I get a few red marks but these disappear in an hour or so. Has anyone else experienced this immunity? I know some people have a very bad reaction to it. A young woman I know went to the hospital for ivy and had her arms in bandages. I heard that consuming ivy oil can make you immune, although I've never tried this. .
DO NOT consume ivy oil!!!!! I reccomend that you get a plant field guide book and learn to ID jewelweed aka spotted touch me not. Pick the jewelweed plant whole crush stems and leavesand rub sap on skin to prevent and treat poison ivy.
I've heard of people who have breathed in ivy oil as a result of someone burning the plants. They ended up in the hospital. Even the vapors from burning can do a lot of damage. .
yea... whenever i brush up again ivy.. i can feel a slight tingle wherever it may have rubbed... but its gone within an hour or two after that....
Got trough the same situation... got it like 4-5 times, now leaves a few marks for sometimes and than go away! hopefully!
I personally do not know if I am immune. I have spent a lot of time outdoors and (knock on wood) have never had poison ivy allergies. I do know of about 4 people who are immune to it, either that or the effects of posoin ivy are so miniscule it does not affect them. I would go to google and find out some more information on this.
That's cool. Others here have had the same experience with ivy. I'm glad the stuff doesn't bother me like it did before. .
I've never been bothered by it. One time I was going camping with a bunch of friends and our trip started out way later than we had meant it too. We set up camp in the dark and ended up getting high and drunk in the middle of it, rolling around and wrestling on the ground. By the time we woke up, everyone else was showing signs, and when we looked around there was poison ivy all around where we were camped. They all ended up with the spots all over their bodies and it never bothered me at all. Another time last year when I was OTR w/ my bf and 2 dogs and 2 cats, one of the cats got loose and we were crawling through all sorts of thick brush and bushes to find her in sandals. My bf contracted poison ivy or oak that night, all over his feet ankles and lower legs, and again I got nothing. Guess I'm lucky, but I still try not to push it!
right on mama, "don't try to push it!" i have NEVER had a reaction either & i have spent lots of time in the woods, mostly in the south, where poison ivy is rampant! i still avoid ivy though b/c you can actually lose your immunity. my dad grew up in the country & never got the rash until he was in his thirties. i met another woman who works at the arboretum where i volunteer & she said ten years ago she used to pull it out of the beds with her bare hands. now she can barely look at it without breaking out! it seems like the more you're exposed, the more you weaken your resistance against it. i've always felt VERY fortunate that i can brush up against the plant & not break out, but now, knowing that that could change.....i just avoid the stuff like everybody else!
Typically you can't go from being sensitive to Poison Ivy to not having an effect at all. Maybe you did. I'm not sure about that. But, what you can be sure of is that if you keep on exposing yourself again and again to it, you will eventually end up becomming sensitive to it. Best to just avoid it if you can and count yourself lucky that if you brush it by mistake, you won't break out like most people. (sorry.. don't like using the word allergic... ha ha ha)
Here's a link with many pics of poison ivy and imposters. Some of the imposters look very close to that of poison ivy, especially boxelder (ashleaf maple) and some types of bramble. I'll have to pay more attention to things I've been stepping on and make sure they were indeed poison ivy. http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/picqna.html http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/picqna.html?func=viewQNA&did=1135&wid=486 .
I don't seem to ever have much of a problem with it, and there is a plant around here that always seems to grow next to poison ivy and stinging nettles. I don't know what it is called, I've been told it is called sour doc. Don't know if this is correct or not. When I was landscpaing there was this stuff the company I worked for always bought called Tech-nu. It seems to work pretty good. You can put it on if you're going to be somewhere where there is a lot of poison ivy as a preventative. I seem to get a lot more stinging nettles around here than poison ivy, but it is alright because I can use stinging nettles in some of the medicines I make. There is still some poison ivy around here, but it is easy to identify.
I used to get poison Ivy as a kid. Not really that bad, but bad enough. Later in life, in my 20's, after moving to NoCal, I noticed I did not get poison oak. I don't know if the difference in ivy and oak made the difference, but I just did not get it. I pushed it. Since I did not get it I began to not even attempt to avoid it. During a watershed reclaimation project I worked on I found that if I contacted it in an area I had an open scratch I would show symptoms. So a year or so goes by while I'm still just thrashing through it and I start to show a reaction, and it just got worse. I don't know what happened, but after years of not reacting I now will.
Yeah, that stuff works pretty good. Like you said it works as a preventative, but you can also used it to wash off the poison oak/ivy oils after you get out of the woods before you react.
you could also be mistakingly walking thorugh stinging nettle, hurts like heck but it dosnt have the lasting efects of ivey, and it wont cause blisters. The sting of stinging nettel is casued by an an acid, so somthing as simple as baking soda and water can do wonders. Curled dock leaves can also releve symptoms. poison ivy uses an iritating oil, so baking soda wont do anything for it.
I got it a number of times as a kid, but despite lots of contact, I haven't had it in years. I might be immune. I don't know.
