A great year for poison oak

@savypat (20216)
United States
June 16, 2012 2:49pm CST
This weed is as bad as I have ever seen it. And of course the dog, who runs the hills got it on herself. We have never had a reaction to this, but this year it struck. Hubby got it first and before I had a chance to treat it, he scratched it open. Then it started to spread and next thing I know is I got it. Well I took Hubby to the Doctor because by now 3 days had gone by and his poison oak was infected. He was given meds and told not to touch it. I am to wash everything, which I was already doing but I must have touched the dog also. Thank goodness all i have is the itch since I knew exactly what it was and didn't touch it without gloves on. What a pain and right now we have so much to do outside, right where the poison oak grows. It's hot but we will make sure we go out fully covered and pull the cloths off at the door so we don't get anymore skin inflamed.
4 responses
@Octav1 (1419)
• Romania
19 Jun 12
We don't have this poison oak either. What we have and it's similar to what you describe is the rush from the nettle. But it goes away in a few hours (the most!). Can't you just cut the plants that caused this, so that you won't need to come in contact with the poison?
2 people like this
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
20 Jun 12
This is true in our neck of the woods as well. I've never suffered from it, but my husband has in the past and this year my daughter has been struck as well. Luckily, I knew what it was right away so I was able to instruct her to not scratch it and I've kept calamine lotion on it so that the itching isn't as bad as it could be. My little brother is highly allergic to it and one year when we were children he got it so bad that he had to take steroids to help to clear it up. He actually looked like ET for a while because he was so swollen.
1 person likes this
@marguicha (214281)
• Chile
16 Jun 12
I´m so sorry that you got this. I suppose it´s a sort of awful allergy. We don´t have those trees in our country. I think it´s part of the price you pay for having such beautiful trees with incredible leaves, specially in Autumn. Our trees are not as stunning, but there´s only one that you could call poisonous (although only some people are allergic to it when they touch it).
• India
16 Jun 12
That's actually the case for all of the itching problems , don't itch and it'll be fine. Sorry to hear about your hubby hope he makes a speedy recovery. There are plenty of solutions and lotions that can be applied before and after being coming in contact with it but none of that works effectively enough to be any help. Keeping yourself busy would help control the itching and Good luck dealing with all these problems.
1 person likes this