Poison Ivy

Hello my dear friend,

This letter is going to be a bit of a mess.

And that is totally okay. Because I am realizing that fear of making it perfect is what is keeping me from actually putting my fingers to the keys.

It has been 2 weeks. I missed last week.

What the heck is going on?

A lot.

First off, I’ve got a Poison Ivy rash that feels like it came out of the old testament.

My arms and legs have been terribly swollen and itchy for a week now.

I showed it to a older friend and he said:

“I’ve never seen it that bad“.

Same bro.

You are probably hoping that I’ll include a picture or something here.

Nope.

I don’t want to give you nightmares.

Poison Ivy

So, Poison Ivy is in a family of plants that produce an oil called Urushiol.

When you get this oil on your skin, you experience a delayed allergic reaction. It comes on over the course of days.

The symptoms are TRULY miserable and I am saying that while resisting the urge to itch every inch of my body.

My arms and legs are covered with a sweeping rash that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

A Scientific Breakthrough?

Interestingly, because of the immense amount of pain that this infection has caused me, I ended up shifting my curiosity towards the science behind Poision Ivy and boy, oh boy, have I went down a rabbit-hole.

I’ve either lost my mind or achieved a scientific breakthrough.

I’m still developing a thesis.

But in the meantime, here are a few of the thoughts that are swirling around my head:

At least that is my theory. There are ways to test this, but it is a little outside of my means.

I suffered through a lot of desperate 2 AM research to develop the theory.

Because to be honest, I think that the recommended treatments for Poison Ivy are unproductive and probably cause much more suffering than necessary.

If you search for treatments, you will find a whole bunch of products and interventions that don’t work.

I’ve had a serious poison ivy infection twice in my life and trust me, I’ve tried literally everything at this point. If it is on a grocery store shelf, I’ve rubbed it on my sad legs.

If you told me that rubbing ketchup all over my body would get rid of the suffering, I would have said:

“Where is the Heinz?“

I don’t think I’ve found the ideal solution yet, which is why I am saying that this infection is being treated incorrectly by most people.

The number 1 recommendation that you will find to ease the miserable itchy symptoms is corticosteriods. I used a doctor-prescribed lotion, got on a cycle of prednisone AND they gave me an injectable shot in the shoulder.

All of those things gave me very little relief/took too long to kick in. The side effects sucked too.

So, corticosteroids can help a little bit, but they are just treating the pain that is occuring at the end of a LONG chain of chemical reactions.

But you are probably wondering what I recommend to ease the pain? At this point, honestly I’m still not sure.

I’ve had poor results with anything topical. None of it works for more than like 15 seconds. That said, a friend of mine gave me a native medicine from the Cattaraugus Reservation and as soon as I started putting that on my legs, I could feel my infection start to chill out. It was a poultice made from yarrow, st. john’s wort, plantain, and jewel weed.

Hot baths/showers have been best for me (but you will notice that that goes directly against standard advice). You can do your own research to decide, but a good place to start is by googling “how to treat a jellyfish sting“.

You will find some compelling similarities between a poison ivy infection and a jellyfish sting, but the recommendations for treating them are drastically different.

I think that hot water is ok, because when your body gets super hot (sauna, etc.) for an extended period of time, it releases heat shock proteins that help your body heal at a cellular level. Heat = healing.

Plus, when your skin is exposed to hot water, eventually it just goes numb.

And guess what DOESN’T happen if you are numb?

Itching.

Well, then why not just use the ice bath?

Good question. It will numb your legs, which feels good and takes away some discomfort but I think it is actually counterproductive when it comes to the oil found in poison ivy.

Urushiol is an oil. That means that when it is in cold water, it is going to be glued to whatever surface it is on.

If you want to “unstick“ an oil, just hit it with a hot, acidic solvent.

So, that is how you address some of the symptoms. I don’t have all of the answers here.

What I do know is that Poison Ivy gets more fascinating the more you zoom in…

Even though it should all be incinerated and its ashes should be projected into space.

Alright, starting next week we will be back to regular programming. Weekly long-form text based content based on whatever I am most interested in at the moment.

As you can tell, I am really passionate about Poison Ivy.

I guess you could say that it got under my skin.

Chat next week!

-Cliff

P.S. I used AI relentlessly while I was researching Poison Ivy. Big thanks to ChatGPT and Perplexity for helping me understand why my legs are so itchy right now.