Poison Ivy

[wgator]

Speaking from experience, can't recommend calamine lotion to treat poison ivy. Thought you might get a kick out of my experience. In summer of 1978, I was USMC platoon sergeant in Charlie company 1/1, Camp Pendleton. Our mission was to aggress a reserve arty battalion for their two week summer training exercise. We had attached bad ass members of SNTA platoon. Day 2 we hit the arty bn at 0100, screwed them up royally. Set up a platoon patrol base shortly after. Pitch black and patted my boot down to find a soft spot to sleep, found what felt like a rubber bitch (anyone recognize this?) Lay'd down and slept like a baby until about 0500 when 105 howitzer rounds started zinging overhead (we ended up being about 150 yards forward of battery). Dang if I wasn't suprised when it got light and found my rubber bitch was a bed of poison ivy. Best night sleep I ever had in field but next couple days (actually weeks) sucked. Found out calamine lotion Doc had makes you like "tammy faye baker" (remember her makeup?) but don' do crap for itch and ooze.!

 

[Raymo853]

Here is what I do each time I think I am exposed. I use cheap non-antibacterial liquid dish soap. I scrub it with face towels or paper towels using only cold water. The antibacterial stuff has stuff in it that does not rinse as clean, leaves an oil film or so on that reduces the effectiveness of the soap. And for scrub, I scrub like I am covered in dirty motor oil and need to make myself look presentable for a bar mitzvah. This works like a charm so far for the last five years since I learned this process.

I do the same cleaning process in those rare cases where I begin to react. Then, to keep me from scratching it and making it much worse, I cover the area with bandages or gauze.