I tried some "new" things this year based on a friends' suggestion. Both are from a company who has products with "ivy" infront of it.
One is IvyWash, it comes in a tube and has micronized wax pellets in it. This is a scrub, and it certainly takes the itch away. Then I spray on their IvyDry product. Lastly I've been using clear calomine lotion. This process takes away the itch and dries it up. It's been healing 2-3 weeks faster this way.
Right now I've got a huge patch on my face which turned leathery (it looks like someone punched me!) and spots up and down my arms. Not much you can do about it when it's climbing trees and all over the place!
As a prevention, I cut the feet out of very long, old socks. I pull these up my arms, and tuck under my gloves. When finished I can peel off and throw in the washing machine.

GGG

I've never had it myself, but here is a link that might be useful. Hope you get better soon!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Poison Ivy, Oak & Sumac Information Center

Try hydrocortisone topically and benadryl to stop the itch. Don't let it get too bad or you'll have to go to the doctor - it can get in your bloodstream and travel all over your body! Also, never never never take a hot bath or hot shower when you have it. Lastly, after you get over it, if you think you have been re-exposed to it, take a quick shower and change clothes ASAP. Don't ask me how I know, I just do.

Actually, taking a hot bath or shower is an excellent way to handle the itch.

Having had this just about every year for the past 25 years, I learned just last year the benefits of hot water on treating the uncontrollable itch (normally I would avoid a hot bath or shower).

Hot water triggers the histamine in skin cells (this is what causes the intense itching). Once this histamine is spent, it takes 6 to 8 hours to rebuild these levels in the skin cells. This means a blissful nights sleep.

Try getting into a warm shower before bedtime and very slowly turning the water hotter until it is as hot as you can stand it. Initially the itching will be very intense but after 15 or 20 seconds, you will find this decreases and finally stops.

I tried this last year when I had poison ivy over about 50 percent of my skin, including my face. Not only did it help the itching but I noticed the blisters dried out about five days earlier than the normal two week period.

You have my sympathy. So far, I've managed to avoid the itch this summer.

Gail

Oh you guys are making me itch just reading this. Hope you feel better soon.

The only good thing about this stuff is that it an initial outbreak only lasts about 2 weeks.

The bad thing is often people carry the oil from the plant on their clothes and continue to reinfect themselves. These oils can remain potent for a very long period of time. I've found it helpful to wash all the clothes that may have come in contact with the plants (shoes and gloves included) in hot water.

The site someone mentioned above provides excellent information. although I'd suggest not clicking on the "pictures" unless you have a strong stomach.

BTW, Georgia also has something known as a "pepper vine" that's a prolific grower that also causes a very itchy rash. It's also quite tough to kill; we have a plant growing up in a crack in the concrete parking lot at work; it's been cut down three or four times and still manages to return. Someone who is sensitive to poison ivy/oak/sumac might want to familiarize themselves with this vine too.

Gail

Thanks so much. Yes, I did wash all the clothes I had been wearing in hot water. Infact everything i wear in the garden at the moment has to be washed in hot water! I tried the hot bath/shower and it seems to work. Thanks. Have also been using benedryl and that is a little hit and miss. One of my sons teachers recommended that I dab the rash with lysol (yep, lysol) and that has stopped the itch and the rash is drying up..........fast. not sure what it is doing to my skin though!

Hot showers are good, hot baths are bad. The plant oils will simply spread through the bath water and get all over you.

Tecnu has a very good poison ivy product. They make a skin cleanser that will remove the oils from your skin if you use it shortly after exposure.

17 years ago when we moved here, I never got Poison Ivy...though it was/is everywhere...!...then, several years ago, I became highly allergic to it...(strange) and get it every Spring/Summer...I tried every remedy that I read about...Finally,in desperation, I reached for the white vinegar...this is what I do for the itching:
I take a shower in the hottest water that I can tolerate...at first, the itching is intense, but soon, the skin seems to feel numb...I partially dry my skin, then I splash on the vinegar...it burns like crazy if the skin is raw from scratching, but after a few minutes, the itching stops and I'm relieved of itching for several hours...I just keep reapplying it when the itch starts again...The vineagr helps dry up the poison.

Get Rhuli Gel from the nearest grocery store or drugstore - it looks like Dippity-doo in a fairly large tube. I've been using it for years. Itching stops right away. Spread stops right away. Rash dries up in a couple of days.

Rhuli Gel is the good news. The bad news is that from now on you will be vulnerable to poison ivy. The body has the opposite of immunity to it. Instead of building tolerance each time you're exposed to it, you lose tolerance each time you're exposed. Eventually you have no tolerance left and are forever allergic to poison ivy. Wish I had known that back when I still had tolerance.

Many years ago my dad made up a "secret potion" to apply to my frightful poison ivy rash. He never would tell me exactly what was in it, but from watching him sneaking around, I identified Calamine lotion, alcohol, and battery acid - probably not too much of the latter. (Do they even make batteries you can get to the fluid in anymore??) Anyway, I think the idea was to dry the stuff up and it worked like magic. In a couple of days the itching stopped and rash began disappearing. However, now that I am grown up, I used Benedryl - 2 tablets every 4 - 6 hours - last time I got the stuff and it at least held down the itching. Anyone who gets this awful stuff has my great sympathy and best wishes for a speedy recovery!

Thanks to all for posting. The poison ivy has now dried up and gone away - and I have a new pair of gloves for the garden! Now I am recovering from an 'unidentified insect' bite! The swelling has gone down and the itch is going. Not sure what will be next.

a lot of allergies develop over time.... so you can touch poison ivy on a regular basis for years and then one day it's WHAM! super-allergic. it happens with all kinds of thing (for me, poison ivy; my brother, shellfish). but usually when that happens you're even more allergic than someone who's had it their whole life, so if you have a very bad outbreak in the future you might want to see about a doctor, so as to avoid scarring. i had to take steroid-based medicine the last time, but it hastened the process immeasurably- which was a great relief, as you could actually see the handprint where i had touched my face with an ivy-covered hand :)

The cure to removing poison ivy from your body!

I'm not sure about bleach, but I know that I wouldn't want it near my eyes...
The Key to not breaking out with poison ivy is to get the urushoil off of you ASAP. DO NOT USE HOT WATER.
The irritant in poison ivy is urushoil. It is a sticky oil.
If you come into contact with it, it will cause problems until it is removed from your skin and anything that comes in contact with your skin. There are several products sold just for this.

I'm very allergic to urushoil and have tried many. The best and most readily available is the same soap that your mechanic uses to remove motor oil from their hands.
Because urushoil is a sticky oil it does require a little more scrubbing but it works 100%.

Directions for removal:

1.Apply the soap dry (DO NOT ADD WATER) to the affected area.

2. Scrub for 2 minutes. The soap needs to get between the urushiol and your skin. It will temporily break down the oils ability to stick.

3. Wash off completely with COLD water. If you use hot water, then you may be in for an unpleasant surprise!

Note: The residue soap will now contain the urushoil, and when the residue drys it may become sticky oil again.

4. All itchiness should be gone. If not repeat the process.

I like Lava and JoJo brands the best. The grittier the better.

Walmart, KMart, Your local auto parts store will all carry this soap. I usually buy the 16 oz squeeze bottles for around ~$2.

This soap also gets the urushiol and many stains out of clothes. Just be sure to hose the residue off the clothes before adding them to your laundry.

There is also a product called Tenco. It is an oil-lotion that will remove the urushoil. I've been using it when I come in contact with PI and so far haven't gotten the rash (knock on wood).

this all sounds great - if know youhave been in touch with poison ivy/oak. most of the time i have no idea what, where or when i have touched something!!

Tecnu is very good. Zanfel is even better. They're both expensive but well worth it. After taking one shower scrub with the Zanfel, I felt noticeably better. After the 2nd one, I was pretty much cured. I haven't tried the Rhuli Gel but it seems to have quite a following.

Also, I discovered the hot shower remedy purely by accident. After spending a whole day scratching and suffering, the hot water in my shower felt sooooo good that something just drove me to turn the temperature up even higher. Eventually I got it up to the point where I almost couldn't stand it. However, during the course of doing so it hurt but felt incredibly good at the same time. Strange. The only downside for this method in my case was that it only lasted for about 30-45 minutes before I started itching again.

See the link below for comments about various remedies.

Here is a link that might be useful: Poision Ivy Remedies

Tecnu must be used before the rash appears, otherwise it won't do anything. Is zanfel a urushoil remover or something to make the rash less itchy?

I noticed a misspelling repeated several times above:

The chemical in Poison Ivy that causes the itch/rash is:

Urushiol (oo-roo-she-awl)

not

Urushoil

The root of the name comes from Japanese: urushi is lacquer, and the suffix -ol is from chemistry for an alcohol. Specifically it is a catechol, but that is a bit too much chemistry. The lacquer tree contains the same chemical as poison ivy and causes dermatitis amongst lacquerware workers.

I've linked to the Wiki for Urushiol below

Here is a link that might be useful: Urushiol

Oops! You're right Buford. If you've already been zapped, Tecnu won't do much. I did get a good bit of relief from it but I was in such bad shape that I tried it relatively quickly after I got the stuff. I suppose maybe it helped those areas where I had just transferred the oil.

As for the Zanfel, it purportedly binds to the urushiol in your skin and removes it. All I know is that I got significant relief after just one application. After the second shower with it, the itching was virtually gone...for good.

As is usual for me, I scoffed at how gullible people are to buy something that expensive (i.e. Zanfel) when I went to the store the first time to buy some calamine lotion. The second time I went, I bought Ivy Dry. By the time I went the fourth time I had read the reviews at the website I posted above and was literally willing to try anything. I gladly paid the $$$ for both Tecnu AND Zanfel...yes, by that time I was trying to cover all the bases. :-)

I learned this the hard way! Bleach works, of course dilute it with water. I did a lot of internet research when I had it and read that people who swam in chlorinated pools got rid of it, so I put enough bleach in a full bathtub of water to make it smell like a swimming pool, I think about a half a cup to a cup of bleach to the whole tub. It really worked. You could make small amounts of diluted mixture (maybe a teaspoon bleach to a cup of water) and dab it on with cotton balls too, I guess. If anyone gets it, try this, it was the only thing that worked for me.
Susan in Rome.

In addition to the bleach, I have also noticed that straight powdered cement or mortar (no sand necessary and wet of course), used as a paste on the affected area will have a tendency to relieve some of the itching, but more importantly will dry up the blisters relatively quickly. I believe it is due to the lye in the cement, or other stuff that causes the curing of concrete. I had the idea when I was younger, as it was always drying up my hands...hey, I wonder if it will dry up my poison ivy as well. Thus, a new use for concrete.

I’ve dealt with poison ivy for years. I know what it looks like but I do yard work, so you can’t always know everything you’re handling in jungle circumstances. Anyway, this time I dried up the weeping by using cotton balls to dab rubbing alcohol, then after that dried, straight peroxide, also with cotton balls. Face dried up but now feels like it’s made of concrete, times 3 days. I wish I had just managed the weeping by wiping it. Concrete face feels and looks terrible! And the poison is not gone—just trapped inside my face, apparently.