What is the best way to remove Poision ivy from your land without becoming a lump monster?
If you do catch the dreaded poision ivy what are the best forms of getting rid of it?
thanks in advance,
Osip
Round-Up.
Or one of the other weed killers that kills the root. There are a bunch that work in 24 hours.
-Rue
Roundup always worked for me, but it can take a while to kill the entire plant (you can get the rash from coming into contact with any part of the plant - even the roots). I’d contact you local County Extension Agent and ask them for advice. Be careful if you decide to burn it - the smoke can carry the oils that cause the rash into your lungs and then you’ve got terrific trouble.
As far as getting rid of the rash - my mother always put us in a tub of hot water with a little bit of bleach in it. Just don’t get the water in your eyes. A trip to the beach with also do the trick - the sun and the salt water help the rash dry up quicker.
Thanks, now I itch all over from just thinking about this.
Herbicides work quite well. But chemicals can be very indiscriminant unless you apply them carefully. My preferred method is the “boot and axe” approach. When hiking through my mom’s woods, I stomp and grind down any p.i. I see cropping up. For bigger plants, especially vines, two or three good hacks with a hand-axe work well (try severing the vine in a couple places, but try not to damage the tree). These are fairly crude methods, but if you apply them regularly, the p.i. will be out-competed by virginia creeper and wild grape. Once you those species are established, the p.i. has a hard time coming back.
After contact with poison ivy, I wash with a lot a soap and water to remove the p.i. oils. And then wash a second time for good measure. If your clothes come in contact be sure to wash them too, as the oils can linger there as well. Fortunately, my family isn’t especially allergic to p.i., so typically the good washing is enough to prevent any rashes.
If you contact the stuff, you can wash the oils off right up until you first start feeling the itch (usually about an hour)-- Wait too much longer than that, though, and there’s not much you can do. Calomine and the like can help ease the suffering, but I don’t think that they’ll actually do anything for the healing process.
For the removal, I’ve heard that either goats or donkeys will actually seek out and eat poison ivy, and apparently suffer no ill effects.
You might try asking some of your friends if they happen to be allergic to poison ivy. Some people, such as myself, are not at all sensitive to the plant. Ask them if they would like to come over and clear it out for you, and offer to trade some service that you can perform. Of course, it helps if they actually enjoy yardwork or gardening, but it’s worth a shot.
Oh My God… i had poison ivy a few years ago, and believe me, do anything you can to avoid this hellish stuff. It itched like the dickens for a solid week, and has even left slight scars. DO NOT BURN IT! It usually has three leaves, but can sometimes have five. It can take the form of a bush or vine, and is even potent in the dead of winter. Some people are allergic, some are not. Allergies can suddenly appear where there were previously none. Your first exposure will not result in anything, but then your body builds up antibodies. After a case of poison ivy, the next exposure will be much more potent if only a relatively short time has passed. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
If you break out in a rash, and it is really bad, then go to the doctor and get him to either give you a cortisone shot or to prescribe you a cortisone pill treatment. The shot clears the reaction completely within a day or two. The pill therapy (seven pills first day, then 6 the next, etc) takes about three days to make the rash start shrinking, though it does stop itching much faster than that.
Cortisone can cause other problems, though. It depresses your immune system and makes you more vulnerable to sickness in general. If you have to repeat the treatment too often, then it can cause your skin to be thin. (Or so I have been told - I have thin skin and have to use an electric razor always. I had to get treated a lot for poison ivy as a kid. Short sightedness and high sensitivity to the crap is a bad combination.)
It’s not cortisone they use, it’s prednisone. Picky, picky, picky… I’m like that some days.
Anyhow - if you are removing it DON’T BURN IT! Even if you’re not sensitive to it someone downwind likely will be. Cover yourself up good, wear gloves, etc., and wash everything you’re wearing afterwards. The oils can linger a year or more on clothes.
For a mild case caladryl (the stuff with the antihistamines in it) will help with the itch. If it’s bad, go to a doctor for the prednisone or related stuff. Yes, long-term it can have bad side effects but the amount they give you for a poison-ivy attack won’t last long enough to cause that sort of trouble. About the worst that is likely to happen is you’re hungrier than usual for a couple days and retain a little water, which you’ll lose as soon as you stop taking the medicine. Skin-thinning and so on take years of constant therapy to acquire. It will affect your immune system, though (that’s actually how it works) so avoid filth and people with headcolds while you’re healing up from an ivy encounter and if something does get infected while on it tell your doctor.
If someone encounters poison ivy and has an immediate, violent reaction - hives, swelling, difficulty breathing - get the person to an ER immediately. They could be heading for a life-threatening reaction.
Broomstick:
The last time I got treated for poison ivy (fourteen or fifteen years ago,) the DOCTOR referred to the pills as cortisone. All of the times before that, the doctors also referred to the injection and the pills as cortisone. Hydrocortisone, if I am not completely wonky. Maybe the treatment has changed, maybe the doctors were just using a more commonly known term for a similar substance. I don’t know. I am, however, one hundred percent certain of what the docs said.
I’ve never reacted to poison ivy, but I steer clear. When I was little, my grandmother discovered some poison ivy on our property. She sent me and my sister into the house and, since she had never reacted to it, she proceeded to pull it up with her bare hands. Mom and Dad came home in time to rush her to the ER.
I’ve also had friends who had severe reactions from exposure to the smoke of burning leaves that included poison ivy.
If you’ve never had a reaction to poison ivy, do not assume that you will never have a reaction.
Yaeh, no kidding. I’ve currently got a dose of poison oak (the same nasty oil in a different, related plant. Poison oak seems to be more common in the Western US, ivy in the East).
The thing is, it didn’t used to bother me, at least I don’t think it did because I’d be in a group of people who’d get it, and nothing would happen to me. Consequently, I never paid much attention to identifying it until several years ago when I developed masses of itchy hives, and realized “Gee, I was hiking through all those weeds last weekend …”. The blasted stuff is all over Northern CA, and I usually manage to somehow get a dose of it once or twice a year in spite of trying to avoid it.
Anybody know if any of those “screen” products to protect you from poison ivy / oak are any good?
Hot water will calm the itch. As hot as you can stand it without burning yourself. It will itch like the dickens for a few seconds…then the itch will abate.
N.B: When washing clothes, wash the undies you were wearing FIRST, and separately. Don’t burn the P.I. There is something my wife started using (she’s very allergic) called Tecnu that seems wo work. It removes the oils from the skin (and you use it as sort of a pre-teatment on your clothes to get the oil out of there).
Jeez, people. Don’t you even check to see if JillGat has written a staff report about something before you post?
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpoisonivy.html
[[For the removal, I’ve heard that either goats or donkeys will actually seek out and eat poison ivy, and apparently suffer no ill effects.]]
That pathetic suck, Chronos, obviously read it.
In my experience, goats will eat poison ivy, and do fine unto themselves with it, but you then have to watch contact transmission from them. A little warning to those using this method.