Over the weekend, I was exposed to poison ivy (or maybe poison oak). The rash covers portions of my thighs, knees (front & back) and calves in addition to a few places on my arms (somehow, it appears to have gotten onto my buttocks as well). It is terribly itchy and gets quite a bit worse when I sweat. I’ve been using some cortisone cream and “Burt’s Bees” soap, but nothing helps when I’m training/sweating! Does anyone know of a cream or salve that won’t sweat off or any treatment that might help?
Dude, I feel your pain. Just a few months ago I pulled over to the side of the road on my bike, leaned the wrong way and fell over into some weeds. The funny part is that I wasn’t wearing a shirt, the funnier part is that I didn’t know that I had fallen into the poison ivy, and I proceeded to ride around for another 1.5 hours while my sweat redistributed the poison ivy venom all over my body. Absolutely miserable.
Anyways, I used a cream prescribed by a doctor (not sure what it was), and some pills also prescribed by a doctor, I think both were some kind of steroid. Neither did much in the way of getting rid of the itching. The one thing that did feel awesome in a sick kind of way was to turn the water in the shower as hot as I could stand it (really really hot), and just let it fry the damn bumps. I would usually scratch them a bit, since I have little self control, then get in the shower. It felt good during, and made it feel tons better afterwards.
Good luck. If you need me to get the names of the medications I’ll ask my wife, as she’s well versed in different types of medications.
I have had two pretty killer cases of poison ivy in the past several years. The first one I ended up at the dermatologist and was prescribed high octane cortisone cream and oral steroids. It was miserable!
Second time I was more aware of what I was in for and decided not to go the doctor. I found that calamine lotion worked significantly better than cortisone at relieving the symptoms and promoting the “weeping” and healing process. You can buy calamine spiked with menthol to relieve the itching—I recommend the Aveeno. Gold bond powder also has menthol in it to help with the itch.
What I noticed this time around is that as soon as I stopped using the cortisone the swelling and itching diminished. It could be that I have a bad reaction to it that you won’t have.
Some people recommend the topical creams with antihistamines to relieve the itching, but you have to make sure that benadryl isn’t another allergen for your body. I was unwilling to try it.
You can try Burrow’s solution which is similar to calamine and also quite efficient at drying the rash and helping you get better faster… I haven’t used it but it’s in the poison ivy aisle at your local drugstore. Both calamine and Burrow’s solution are aluminum salts, they should work the same way but the Burrow’s solution isn’t that familiar, embarrassing shade of pink.
Soap with pine tar or baking soda is helpful. The baking soda is just “scratchy” enough to provide relief without permanent scarring.
The hot, hot, hot shower helps a lot but it really dries out your skin and I don’t know if it’s worth it or not. When the rash was unbearable I did everything just short of scalding myself in the shower. As it calmed down, I weaned myself off of the hot showers.
Months after the initial exposure when I exercised and got flush the outline of the rash was still noticeable. I also noticed that it wore my body down a bit–so it might be worth taking it easy a smidge.
Try an over the counter product cream/soap called “Technu” it dries out the oil that causes the discomfort. Also use a hot blow dryer to the exposed area for as long as you can stand it and it should provide some temp relief.
try swimming in a chlorinated pool–it dries p.i. out, and generally you’ll at least feel better when you’re in it.
a little bleach mixed with water put on with a handtowel does the same thing, though in both cases this assumes you haven’t ripped them all open by scratching (bleach would hurt if you did)
prednisone is key–get it from your doctor–and if this happens a lot, have him give you a standing prescription. as a former mt bike ranger, this was a life saver for me.
finally–you can’t both itch and be feeling cold at once. so in a cold shower, you won’t itch. a big reliever. (a cold chlorinated pool… heaven)
I’ve never heard of taking a hot shower–that sounds like torture to me…
Ditto on getting to a Doc. I’ve gone through many many bad bouts of posion Ivy/oak/sumac. The worst of which kept me up for a few days straight and put me in the emergency room from the discomfort. I don’t want to get into the details but suffice it to say that my balls were HUGE!!! I’m not exactly sure how it spread to everywhere it did but I was a kid, I guess didn’t wash up much… good times.
So I’ve tried a bunch of things. The steroids that a doc prescribed for me were the best at eliminating the rash quickly. As for the itch, the clear calamine, the solution from Benadryl, and the Technu are all good. I usually buy them all and rotate through them. The soap that Gary mentioned looks interesting too. (There are other methods that work well at relieving the itch, but I only tried them as a kid. Usually fire and/or significant scaring was involved and they came with their own uncomfortable drawbacks.)
Unfortunately, there’s nothing I’ve found that eliminates all the discomfort. The best thing for me has always been to take a deep breath, relax, and do my best to ignore it.
I heartily second the Technu suggestion, if used within an hour or so, it is the only thing I have found that will remove the oils from the skin. I’ve had some hideous cases before and when it gets really bad, go to the doc and get the prednisone. For prevention, I carry small tubes of Technu in my car, mtn bike seat bag and in my camelback.
