So I have poison oak again; big surprise scratches. I heard recently that GOATS have a natural immunity from poison oak, and if you drink a lot of goat’s milk, that will boost your immunity to the evil weed of the west. I am skeptical. If I went down to Taqueria Santa Cruz every day until I turned 45, and ate a goat burrito, would that make me a superman in the leaves of this plant? But my housemate SWEARS it’s true. Any knowledge?
AND, since the docs can (and have) prescribed me adrenaline for counteracting the effects of poison oak, would just adopting a bitchin’ lifestyle for the next two weeks, involving a lot of epinephrine production, help me overcome this? I’m thinking about long mountain bike rides through private property and ranches, running naked down city streets and maybe robbing a few convience stores. Would this help, or should I just stick to the reccommended remedies?
Um, I can’t answer the second one, but goats definitely eat poison oak with no ill effects (they use goats for brush control in parts of California, and I’ve seen them snork down poison oak like it was alfalfa). I expect that the milk from a poison oak-eating goat might contain some of the allergen, and maybe even some antibodies, but I suspect that the effect, if any, would be more unpleasant than helpful.
The active agent in poison oak/ivy/sumac is the oily resin, urishol. While it is true that goats are not irritated by urishol and that a lot of people repeat the story that drinking goat’s milk will provide resistance to urishol, I have never seen a reputable study or report that makes that claim.
It seems to be based more on a notion of sympathetic magic than science. Since milk is produced separately from the digestive tract, drinking the milk will not supply urishol in minute doses that will help build up immunity. (In addition, urishol is one of the allegens/toxins that seems to grow worse with repeated exposures, so attempts at desensitizing are generally bad ideas.)
It is remotely possible that drinking goat milk (or eating goat) might convey the natural resistance of goats to the consumer, but it is currently nothing more than folklore and I have never heard of a study that addressed the issue.
I’ve seen goats milk being acclaimed as having other beneficial effects on skin complaints such as eczema and psoriasis; not sure if these are founded on good science though…
yah, this is true. So uhm, should I, as mentioned, just stick to the reccommended remedies? And the last question still remains, if anyone has an opinion.
Thanks
Having had poison oak more times than I care to remember, I think I have tried about every remedy there is (Except for eating a leaf every morning. A Native American I worked with swore by this method but being the embodiment of Coyote, it was difficult to believe anything he said).
I have only been to the doctor once for poison oak and they prescribed a five day regimen of steroids, so I have no first hand knowledge of whether adrenaline works or not.
Some people swear by Tecnu for rash prevention but it has never worked for me. Cortisone and topical Benadryl are also good for the itch. I have also found that washing the rash in very, very hot water alleviates the itch for some time. However, the most effective treatment (other than the steroids which dried the rash out in about 12 hours) is a product called Zanfel. It is a cream and works great. It is over the counter but the drug store often has to order it. It is pretty pricey as well but for those of you who have gotten poison oak, you all know that money is no object!
Urushiol is not found in goat milk so you can drink it without fear of getting a rash in your throat, even if the goat has been eating poison ivy. http://danrrec.ucdavis.edu/sierra_foothill/research_publications8.html#h_3 Whether the goat milk provides some miraculous protection against getting a rash, I don’t know but I would tend to doubt it.
You can also safely drink goat urine, since it too is urushiol-free. I wouldn’t eat goat shit though, because it will contain urushiol if the goat has been eating poison ivy, etc.
JillGat is right that the reaction to poison ivy isn’t caused by antibodies. It’s a cell-mediated reaction. There are special cells in your skin called Langerhans cells, that are related to macrophages, that take up antigens and then migrate into the lymphatic system. The Langerhans cells process the antigen and present it to lymphocytes. The lymphocytes have to develop an immunologic memory before they can respond, which is why you have to be exposed more than once to react. Once a lymphocyte specific for that antigen has developed its memory, if it encounters the antigen again it migrates to the site of exposure and puts out factors that recruit inflammatory cells to the site, and the inflammatory cells cause most of the damage.
My pathology textbook gives poison ivy as a specific example of this, but it doesn’t explain how urushiol can be presented as an antigen if it isn’t a protein.
I assume the reason goats don’t react is that they’ve evolved to ignore urushiol, which is a good idea because the body’s reaction to it seems to be overkill. If they do make antibodies to it and secrete it in their milk, which is entirely possible for a goat that’s eaten a lot of poison ivy, they might help neutralize it on the surface, but they wouldn’t get past your digestive tract if you drank the milk.
Okay, I just found a site saying that the urushiol, which is a small molecule, binds to proteins on cell membranes, which is what makes it antigenic. It’s apparently those urushiol-protein adducts that attract the attention of your immune system. This page has a pretty detailed description of the process:
It’s true that goats aren’t effected (affected??) by poison oak but then neither are cows, horses, dogs, cats or lizards. In fact only people and a couple of the higher primates are affected (effected??) at all. I can get you a site if you insist.
My approach is to use a product called Ivy Block prior to exposure and another product called Tecnu after exposure. If this fails and I break out anyway, the hands down best treatment is heat. Pour hot water - as hot as you can stand it (y’know don’t be stupid about it - over the infected area. At first you will get the same relief as if you were scratching it but within a few seconds the itch will go away and stay away for hours. Topical ointments are worthless.
Heat will open up ones’ pores and thus allow the oil to further enter one’s skin. That’s why youre not supposed use hot water to wash off tear gas and pepper spray, and that’s why on the bottle of technu it says to use cold water. I guess that doesn’t matter once you wahs the oils off tho, i dunno.
By the time you start itching the urishol has bonded to the skin, so heat or hot water won’t further release it. But you’re right about not washing initially with hot water.