In my limited experience with poison ivy and some other skin rashes, I’ve found I can spread them by scratching and then touching other areas, but they never seem to transer to my fingers; that is, I don’t seem to get poison ivy boils or rashes on my fingers. Always wondered about that. What gives?
While waiting for the Drs. to show up, I’ll wager that you can certainly get it on the “backs” of your fingers, but maybe not the inside/palmside. Can’t get through that tough/calloused layer?
You can get it on your palms (and soles of feet,too) if the oil exposure is great enough, and left on long enough to penetrate the thicker epidermis of the palm, as samclem correctly implied. Really itches like hell then.
But it’s quite common on the dorsum (or backside) of the fingers, I’ve seen lots of that in the office.
Qadgop, MD
There are several sites with good information on poison ivy. I don’t have a link right now, but once the oils have been washed from the affected area, scratching does not spread the rash. However, different skin areas may react to the oils at a different rate. So it might appear that you have spread the rash, but in reality have not done so.
Search this forum for ‘poison ivy’ and you should find a link or two.
This link http://poisonivy.aesir.com/faq.html explains about the spreading/non-spreading issue. It’s the third entry on the FAQ page.
Thanks all. GaryM, I found especially interesting that part of the poison ivy faq that mentioned you can’t spread it by scratching after it binds to the skin: “New lesions that appear a few days after the primary lesions represent less sensitive areas or areas where less antigen was deposited”, but I guess my question then becomes:
If, contrary to popular wisdom, scratching does not spread it, is there any problem with scratching, apart from skin damage? Is “light” scratching okay?
Scratching it, although momentarily very satisfying, generally just makes it itch even more. Diphenhydramine is a drug generally regarded as safe for treatment of itch, and is available over the counter in most places. Read the warnings before using.
For worse cases of intractable itch or severe rash, consult your doctor.
I’ve had it on my fingers, especially between them.
I hate poison ivy. I have had it everywhere. I almost always get it on the palms of my hands, even where the skin is very thick. Wait, I may never have had it on the thick, callused soles of my feet, but definitely on the instep part as well. One of the worst places to get it is in the webbing between your fingers.
And one of the reasons I was told not to scratch is that you can break the skin and cause infection.
I’m not sensitive to Poison Ivy, so I don’t know about that, per se, but I do know that if you refrain from scratching an insect bite, the discomfort will go away quite quickly. I guess the Poison Ivy rash won’t go away as quickly, but the reasoning is the same. Leave it alone and let Nature take Her course. Don’t spread the venom from its localized spot. Poison Ivy venom,I’ve read, can be washed off if done immediately. Once it has penetrated the skin, don’t rub it.
I’m willing to bet that you haven’t had it everywhere, ShibbOleth, and I’m also willing to bet that one of my Boy Scout friends has gotten it in a worse place than you ever have. Think of the worst place a guy could possibly get poison ivy. Yeah, there.
For scratching insect bites and such (I too am not sensitive to poison ivy, so I’m not sure how well this works for that), what I’ve always found most effective is to scratch the healthy skin immediately around the affected area. This tricks your nervous system into thinking that you’re scratching the itch, so it gives the short-term satisfaction, but without risking further damage to the rash or welt.
Poison ivy can be washed off anytime up until just after the itching starts, usually about an hour or two after exposure. If you wait until after that, you’d better stock up on some of that creme that Qadgop mentioned, and be prepared for a week of suffering.
Chronos, you’d be losing that bet… yeah, I’ve had it there, and IMO its not the worst place you can get it. I haven’t had it internally, yet, though, so you’d recover on the second half of the bet. Getting it on my eyelids was the worst. FTR, this was caused by a neighbor who thought it would be a bright idea to burn poison sumac while I was still a little kid. I think I had symptoms for 4-6 weeks. Four or more weeks is about average for me, I am hyper-sensitive to the stuff.
My nephiew helped me clean up my backyard one summer, and he ended up with a case of ivy on his scrotum so bad he asked me to kill him to put him out of his misery. To compound it, every time we saw him afterwards we sang:
Poison iiiiiivy, poison iiiiiiivy,
late at night when you’re sleepin’
poisin ivy will come creepin’ after you
I didn’t get it on my scrotum, but I got it all over my arms and legs, and I was wearing long sleeves, long pants, boots, and gloves. I got it off my own clothes when i was removing them. I ended up in the emergency room. I took steroids for ages afterwards, and the only thing that prevented me from going stark staring mad was standing in the shower with the water as hot as I could stand it spraying the affected area. I’m told this is not a good thing to do, but for me, the pain of the heat would temporarily short circuit the need to itch.
b.
ShibbOleth has webbed fingers! 
I’m not clear on whether the OP is currently suffering from a PI rash or not. If so, I suggest the hot water treatment I mention in this thread. All of the relief & none of the scratching.
You want bad location for poison ivy? I had one patient who was quite sensitive to it, and inhaled the fumes of burning poison ivy. Instant bronchospasm with ARDS (adult respiratory distress syndrome). 2 weeks on the respirator, 6 weeks in the hospital.
I caught a nasty dose of poison ivy earlier this summer from hugging one of my boyfriend’s dogs…it started on both forearms, eventually also appearing on my upper left arm, my left thigh, and my right shin. Like you, I also was on steroids (both pill and cream form) for ages – I even had to go to the emergency room at one point because the steroid my doctor originally perscribed wasn’t strong enough. Well, it finally disappeared, and now I have scars on both forearms plus upper arm…who the heck gets scars from poison ivy blisters?!?
I found that hot water quelled the itching quite nicely, too. The only difference was that I couldn’t really feel the “pain” of the hot water, it was as though the hot water numbed the entire area…or the area itself was so inflamed and weepy that it was numb to begin with…eeek…
Regarding the OP - Why doesn’t it spread to the fingers?
I’m guessing that the poison ivy compounds that cause the itch are quite non-polar, meaning they are more much more soluble in oil and much less soluble in water. It just so happens us humans don’t have sebacious (oil producing) glands on the skin of our palms and soles of our feet.
I’m sure you could make the itch spread to your palms. Just try soothing the itch with Vaseline or some other oily lotion that will solvate the itchy compounds.
We don’t have poison ivy here but do have poison oak. As a child I was highly allergic to it. I didn’t get the dry itchy variety but did get the blistery itchty kind. The blisters were about the size of a Jelly Belly and contained (so I was led to believe) poison oak ‘juice.’ I had blisters on my eyelids and when the blisters opened and drained, my eyelashes stuck together and had to be cut apart.
I had bouts of this four or five times, each time necessitating numerous visits to a doctor. Little could be done (now I believe there are injections to prevent poison ivy/oak). I had blisters between every finger and had to wear gloves so that when the blisters opened they wouldn’t spread to other body sites. Years later I still have scars from blisters on my hands.
At camp one summer a counseler applied Absorbine Junior, an athlete’s foot over-the-counter med, to the newly emerging sites. It hurt like hell but stopped the spread.
After these severe bouts I must have built an immunity to it because I haven’t had the problem in many years, despite being exposed to the plant and smoke from burning the plant.
You’re right. The offending substance is an oil, which would not be soluble in water. I forget the name of it, but a google search would disclose that, if you’re interested.
No, you just stole my immunity, and I’d like it back please. It used to be that I’d never get it. People I’d be with would get it and I wouldn’t. I started getting it a few years back, and had to start paying attention to the weeds I wade around in, which can be a royal pain in the ass, since the Santa Cruz Mountains are infested from one end to the other with poison oak. Repaid karma for secretly giggling at everybody else itching I suppose.