On April 21 I realized I had an outbreak of poison ivy. But not just a localized outbreak - nope, I got it all over my face, chest, neck, arms and in the waistband-area of my waist. It looked as if I had picked a bundle of poison ivy and buried my nose in it while I held it to my chest. UGH.
What I normally look like:
What I looked like on DAY 2 of the outbreak (don't gasp, y'all!):
my chin, nose and face were swollen out of the proportion, and that's before the blisters really popped up!
my right arm, just a little bit of redness but many itchy bumps
DAY 3:
blisters are starting to pop out
my right arm developed HUGE blisters
DAY 5:
my right arm showing developing and popped blisters, but luckily no secondary infection. I refused to take any more pictures of my face :D
DAY 12:
healed and healing! Again, no secondary infections
TODAY, ONE MONTH LATER:
When the itching began, I started taking benadryl. While it helped me sleep for several hours through the night, it certainly didn't take the itch away completely, and I was miserable! So I started research holistic remedies and found an abundance of info on the web, but not everything worked and much of the information conflicted with each other. For instance, I read that never, ever take hot showers or baths when you get poison ivy because it makes the itch and inflammation worse (this was the official medical opinion). Then I read that you should take as hot a bath as you can stand in order to release the poison ivy oil under your skin. I went to a bicyclists' forum on poison ivy, and a doctor stated that yes, indeed, run hot water over the infection in order to get the oil out.
So here's how I handled my infection, and I'm delighted to say that exactly one month later I'm completely healed with just a slight pinkness where the worst blisters were, and those will fade shortly!
1. I took hot HOT baths every single day and soaked in the tub for about an hour each time. When you first step into the bathtub, the itching will be horrendous! It lasts for about one second, but that one second is utterly, blissfully painful. You just have to experience it to understand! I added Celtic Grey sea salt, baking soda, rhassoul clay and lavender, chamomile, patchouli and bergamot essential oils. The salt, soda and clay all draw out toxins/poison, and obviously it worked because I never had a secondary infection.
2. I took benadryl every night to help me sleep and to arrest the itching so that I wouldn't scratch in my sleep. It worked.
3. I had read that rubbing a banana peel on your bumps will alleviate itching and help healing. I did this the first day, but quite frankly I was so completely covered in bumps and the peel method was so sticky mixed with bits of banana and attracted my dogs (ha!) and I had a huge area to cover that I gave it up. For those who have smaller, localized outbreaks, this may be a very good thing to try. For the larger areas? Not so much, but eat a banana every day, anyway - it's chock full of yummy goodness!
4. By day 5 my husband insisted that I go to Urgent Care where the doctor put me on a 12 day prednisone treatment. It reduced the inflammation, and the swelling went down in my face pretty quickly. The doctor was VERY impressed that I didn't have any secondary infections, especially since many of my blisters were huge, and I had open sores. Prednisone is NOT a cure for poison ivy - it simply reduces inflammation, which means that your body isn't overloaded trying to fight the infection.
5. After my bath, I applied a mixture of my organic body lotion and pure honey. (I just signed up for an Etsy account, and I'll have the lotion for sale shortly if anyone is interested.) But I mixed half lotion and half honey and slathered it all over my face and body for the first week. I wore a long nightgown so that I didn't get the mixture all over the bedding, and I slept with a towel on my pillow so that the weeping sores didn't get on the bedding. Yes, you'll be sticky, but honey is an anti-bacterial, antiseptic, anti-fungal miracle agent. It kept me from getting any other infections!
6. During my bath (and I realize this is kind of out of chronological order), I used my skin scrub with a facial sponge. (The scrub will also be for sale on Etsy, and I'll include a sponge :D.) I put a little bit of scrub on the wet sponge and just started scrubbing - it really, really helped keep the poison ivy bumps draining and healing! It also helped tremendously with the itching. And whenever I wasn't soaking and the itching started up again, I'd wet my arm/neck/face/chest and rub it with the dampened sponge. I didn't have to touch the bumps with my hands, which is where a LOT of bacteria likes to hang out, and the sponge won't harm your newly-growing skin.
7. I started taking white willow bark to reduce the inflammation further. And I had a eureka! moment while I was taking it: so many of our chronic health conditions are caused by an underlying inflammation. Heart disease, asthma, arthritis, pain, fever, the auto-immune disorders all have inflammation lying at their core. Aspirin used to be made exclusively from willow bark, but now it's synthetic. From the website http://www.enotes.com/aspirin-reference/aspirin :
I don't know about you, but I really don't need aluminum or GMO corn starch or the artificial sweeteners in my pain medication! The willow bark is culled without hurting the tree, and it's been a life saver! For the last 17 years - since my hysterectomy - I had been in constant neuro-muscular pain, along with suffering from asthma and two auto-immune disorders. While I was taking the prednisone, I realized that I could breathe normally, I didn't have any neuro-muscular pain, and I wasn't getting any headaches. Wait, what??? I've seen neurologists and rheumatologists and asthma/allergy doctors for the last 17 years and not one of them suggested I might have an underlying inflammatory disorder. Not one suggested that the inflammation should be treated, not even with prednisone. Instead they gave me prescriptions for all sorts of medications that treated the symptoms but not the root cause. I had been doing my own research all these years, but since it never clicked that perhaps I had an inflammatory condition that was causing the other conditions, I suffered. So it clicked while I was taking the prednisone for poison ivy of all things!, and I started a two caps twice daily regimen of willow bark. I no longer have pressure headaches - a dull throb at times, but not migraine-level. I can walk without limping. I can get out of bed every morning without feeling as if a truck ran me over during the night. I can freaking breathe! It's truly amazing, and I would recommend this for anyone. The only caution is that you shouldn't take it if you're on blood thinners or certain heart medications. I would urge anyone thinking about taking willow bark on a life-long daily basis to read the contraindications before doing so, and to tell your doctor/dentist you're taking this if they want to prescribe pharmaceuticals or before you go through surgery; willow bark is much like aspirin in that it thins the blood. But the good news is that it thins the blood! Your circulatory system will work better, your cholesterol may go down, you might be preventing a heart attack and stroke if you take it long term, even if you don't have arthritis or asthma or any other inflammatory condition. I still have some pain, but it's minor compared to what I've been experiencing for the last 17 years - eureka!
What I normally look like:
What I looked like on DAY 2 of the outbreak (don't gasp, y'all!):
my chin, nose and face were swollen out of the proportion, and that's before the blisters really popped up!
DAY 3:
my right arm developed HUGE blisters
DAY 5:
DAY 12:
TODAY, ONE MONTH LATER:
When the itching began, I started taking benadryl. While it helped me sleep for several hours through the night, it certainly didn't take the itch away completely, and I was miserable! So I started research holistic remedies and found an abundance of info on the web, but not everything worked and much of the information conflicted with each other. For instance, I read that never, ever take hot showers or baths when you get poison ivy because it makes the itch and inflammation worse (this was the official medical opinion). Then I read that you should take as hot a bath as you can stand in order to release the poison ivy oil under your skin. I went to a bicyclists' forum on poison ivy, and a doctor stated that yes, indeed, run hot water over the infection in order to get the oil out.
So here's how I handled my infection, and I'm delighted to say that exactly one month later I'm completely healed with just a slight pinkness where the worst blisters were, and those will fade shortly!
1. I took hot HOT baths every single day and soaked in the tub for about an hour each time. When you first step into the bathtub, the itching will be horrendous! It lasts for about one second, but that one second is utterly, blissfully painful. You just have to experience it to understand! I added Celtic Grey sea salt, baking soda, rhassoul clay and lavender, chamomile, patchouli and bergamot essential oils. The salt, soda and clay all draw out toxins/poison, and obviously it worked because I never had a secondary infection.
2. I took benadryl every night to help me sleep and to arrest the itching so that I wouldn't scratch in my sleep. It worked.
3. I had read that rubbing a banana peel on your bumps will alleviate itching and help healing. I did this the first day, but quite frankly I was so completely covered in bumps and the peel method was so sticky mixed with bits of banana and attracted my dogs (ha!) and I had a huge area to cover that I gave it up. For those who have smaller, localized outbreaks, this may be a very good thing to try. For the larger areas? Not so much, but eat a banana every day, anyway - it's chock full of yummy goodness!
4. By day 5 my husband insisted that I go to Urgent Care where the doctor put me on a 12 day prednisone treatment. It reduced the inflammation, and the swelling went down in my face pretty quickly. The doctor was VERY impressed that I didn't have any secondary infections, especially since many of my blisters were huge, and I had open sores. Prednisone is NOT a cure for poison ivy - it simply reduces inflammation, which means that your body isn't overloaded trying to fight the infection.
5. After my bath, I applied a mixture of my organic body lotion and pure honey. (I just signed up for an Etsy account, and I'll have the lotion for sale shortly if anyone is interested.) But I mixed half lotion and half honey and slathered it all over my face and body for the first week. I wore a long nightgown so that I didn't get the mixture all over the bedding, and I slept with a towel on my pillow so that the weeping sores didn't get on the bedding. Yes, you'll be sticky, but honey is an anti-bacterial, antiseptic, anti-fungal miracle agent. It kept me from getting any other infections!
6. During my bath (and I realize this is kind of out of chronological order), I used my skin scrub with a facial sponge. (The scrub will also be for sale on Etsy, and I'll include a sponge :D.) I put a little bit of scrub on the wet sponge and just started scrubbing - it really, really helped keep the poison ivy bumps draining and healing! It also helped tremendously with the itching. And whenever I wasn't soaking and the itching started up again, I'd wet my arm/neck/face/chest and rub it with the dampened sponge. I didn't have to touch the bumps with my hands, which is where a LOT of bacteria likes to hang out, and the sponge won't harm your newly-growing skin.
7. I started taking white willow bark to reduce the inflammation further. And I had a eureka! moment while I was taking it: so many of our chronic health conditions are caused by an underlying inflammation. Heart disease, asthma, arthritis, pain, fever, the auto-immune disorders all have inflammation lying at their core. Aspirin used to be made exclusively from willow bark, but now it's synthetic. From the website http://www.enotes.com/aspirin-reference/aspirin :
"To produce hard aspirin tablets, corn starch and water are added to the active ingredient (acetylsalicylic acid) to serve as both a binding agent and filler, along with a lubricant. Binding agents assist in holding the tablets together; fillers (diluents) give the tablets increased bulk to produce tablets of adequate size. A portion of the lubricant is added during mixing and the rest is added after the tablets are compressed. Lubricant keeps the mixture from sticking to the machinery. Possible lubricants include: hydrogenated vegetable oil, stearic acid, talc, or aluminum stearate. Scientists have performed considerable investigation and research to isolate the most effective lubricant for hard aspirin tablets.
Chewable aspirin tablets contain different diluents, such as mannitol, lactose, sorbitol, sucrose, and inositol, which allow the tablet to dissolve at a faster rate and give the drug a pleasant taste. In addition, flavor agents, such as saccharin, and coloring agents are added to chewable tablets. The colorants currently approved in the United States include: FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Red No.3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Blue No. 2, FD&C Green No. 3, a limited number of D&C colorants, and iron oxides."
I don't know about you, but I really don't need aluminum or GMO corn starch or the artificial sweeteners in my pain medication! The willow bark is culled without hurting the tree, and it's been a life saver! For the last 17 years - since my hysterectomy - I had been in constant neuro-muscular pain, along with suffering from asthma and two auto-immune disorders. While I was taking the prednisone, I realized that I could breathe normally, I didn't have any neuro-muscular pain, and I wasn't getting any headaches. Wait, what??? I've seen neurologists and rheumatologists and asthma/allergy doctors for the last 17 years and not one of them suggested I might have an underlying inflammatory disorder. Not one suggested that the inflammation should be treated, not even with prednisone. Instead they gave me prescriptions for all sorts of medications that treated the symptoms but not the root cause. I had been doing my own research all these years, but since it never clicked that perhaps I had an inflammatory condition that was causing the other conditions, I suffered. So it clicked while I was taking the prednisone for poison ivy of all things!, and I started a two caps twice daily regimen of willow bark. I no longer have pressure headaches - a dull throb at times, but not migraine-level. I can walk without limping. I can get out of bed every morning without feeling as if a truck ran me over during the night. I can freaking breathe! It's truly amazing, and I would recommend this for anyone. The only caution is that you shouldn't take it if you're on blood thinners or certain heart medications. I would urge anyone thinking about taking willow bark on a life-long daily basis to read the contraindications before doing so, and to tell your doctor/dentist you're taking this if they want to prescribe pharmaceuticals or before you go through surgery; willow bark is much like aspirin in that it thins the blood. But the good news is that it thins the blood! Your circulatory system will work better, your cholesterol may go down, you might be preventing a heart attack and stroke if you take it long term, even if you don't have arthritis or asthma or any other inflammatory condition. I still have some pain, but it's minor compared to what I've been experiencing for the last 17 years - eureka!
