Facts about Poison Ivy

How do you get poison ivy?

From touching it, or touching something that has touched it, like your clothes or your dog. You normally get it from touching the leaves, but yanking the vine out by the roots - even in winter - will give you a wicked rash.

Using a weedeater to remove poison ivy will result in spraying your legs with poison ivy. If you are bare-legged and get scratches while splattered with sap from poison ivy, you may be headed to the emergency room.

And there are more unusual ways to get it, like breathing smoke from firewood burning with poison ivy on it. Which can also put people into the hospital.

Some people appear to be immune, others become immune. HOWEVER, you can gain or lose immunity, so to assume you can't get it if you never have before is foolish. People change as they age. I would never assume that I was immune at any time no matter what my past experience was.

What it is like to get it?

At first you get a slight itchy spot, which gets worse and worse. It can be a a small itchy area that will annoy you, or it can cover your whole body with giant red sores that will drive you nuts. See the rash slide show to see the rash in real life.

What if you know you've been exposed to it?

Within a hour or so you should rinse with lots of cold water - like a garden hose. Hot water will open your pores and let the oil in. Taking shower could be a disaster (see my father's story, "Washing made it spread."

For up to about 6 hours washing with alcohol may still help remove the oil, but many say that after 1/2 hour the oil has soaked in and you can't remove it.

The next day is really too late. Check with your doctor to see if early treatment can prevent the rash before it really starts.

What can you do once the itching starts?

For a serious case you MUST SEE A DOCTOR. For less serious cases check with your local drugstore or see the list below for remedies.

Here are a list of popular home remedies:

• Take a shower in the hottest water you can stand, for as long as you can stand - this should ease the itch for 8 hours.
• Jewelweed is widely thought to help the rash. Mash the weed and apply to the rash.
• Spray with a deodorant containing aluminum, which most do.

How long does the rash last?

Anywhere from a week to 3 weeks, depending on how bad it is and how you treat it. Prescription remedies make it go away much faster.

What are some common remedies for the rash?

These companies make two kinds of products - creams to block the oil from getting into your skin, and remedies once you have the rash:

Buji Skin Products
Tec Labs, Makers of Tecnu
Sumactin, Rash Remedy
Zanfel, skin wash

Is it contagious?

Once you have the rash the oil has been absorbed and you probably can't spread it to others or elsewhere on yourself. If you get big blisters filled with liquid it is mostly water and will not spread the rash even if they break. (Although I have viewers who SWEAR that the fluid does cause further outbreaks.)

What causes the rash?

There is an oil, called urushiol, that causes an allergic reaction after the first sensitizing exposure. The oil is in the leaves, vines, and roots. That's why tearing out the vine is so dangerous - it releases lot of urushiol.

Aren't there 2 types of poison ivy?

Technically there is the climbing variety (toxicodendron radicans) and the nonclimbing (toxicodendron rydbergii) or Rydberg's poison ivy. But since they interbreed, look very similar, sometimes grow in the same places, and give you the same rash I have ignored the difference.

Where does it grow?

Everywhere in the US and southern Canada except the far west, deserts and at high altitude. In the west they have poison oak, which is very similar. Both love roadsides and edges of fields. Anybody know how far into Canada and Mexico it goes?

What are some good PI links?

The best all round web source of information and more links is the Poison Ivy, Oak and Sumac Information Center.

For medical advice, try:
The American Academy of Dermatology Poison Ivy Page:

A site with advice on getting rid of poison ivy. (Put together by the University of Oklahoma Police Dept)

Good site from the Canadian Department of Agriculture.

A tutorial site with a poison ivy quiz.

A site just about Poison Oak.

A site with some serious scientific information.

Neat outdoor site with a poison ivy page.

About.com: comprehensive articles about poison ivy

Wikipedia on Poison Ivy

How do you get rid of poison ivy?

Recently, someone suggested getting a goat - a terrific idea for getting rid of poison ivy. Goats eat PI with no ill effects. There are some downsides: they will also eat everything else they can reach, and depending on where you live, goats may make you unpopular with the neighbors.

This is the most commonly asked question, and not easy to answer.

If you rip it out by the roots you can catch a terrible case of poison ivy rash. It will likely grow back until you get every last bit of root. And you can't burn it because the smoke can get in your lungs and make you so sick you won't believe it. (We have a story on this.)

If you have it in a field and keep mowing it, it might give up and die, but be VERY careful about mowing it. When you grind up the leaves you create a nasty soup out of the leaves.

You could it off at the ground, let the vine die, and keep cutting it off till it gives up and dies. This could take a few years.

You might be able to cover a ground vine with black plastic until it dies. But you'll need to plant something else right away or it will come roaring back.

You can spray with broadleaf herbicide, but you risk killing lots of harmless plants and who knows what else. But I once knew a dedicated organic gardener that came to borrow our sprayer and poison because her land was so massively infested with it she just couldn't live with it. In the end, many situations call for wise use of a product like Roundup.

Most counties in America have some sort of County Extension Agent that can give you advice about how to handle it in your particular situation.

What's good about Poison Ivy?

Poison ivy does have its good points:

• It feeds wild birds and animals who eat it without ill effects.
• It holds the earth very well against erosion near the ocean.
• Native Americans had medical uses for it.

And we probably don't know enough about it to know what is it's true value for nature or for man.

What are some good Poison Ivy books?

All of these books give a nice overview of the subject - and all are hard to find. I got them from Amazon.

1. Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, Poison Sumac and their relatives...
by Edward Frankel, Ph.D.
This one has more science and botany.

2. The Poison Ivy, Oak & Sumac Book
by Thomas E. Anderson
Solid all around. Everything you need to know.

3. Outwitting Poison Ivy AND Nature's Revenge
by Susan Carol Hauser
These are the SAME book, so don't buy both. They have good history and personal stories.

4. Poison Ivy Pets and People
A new book by Heidi Rattner Connolly and Randy Connolly available through Amazan.