Treatment of Poison Ivy, Oak, and Sumac

There is no treatment for poison ivy, oak, or sumac. You can only treat the symptoms. That is why you try to prevent getting it if you are susceptible to it. One particular concern is that of secondary infection from scratching the poison ivy, so most of the treatments involve ways of minimizing the itching desire. Ways to find relief are as follows:

What not to do:I found several references to take a knife, and deliberately scratch your rash until it’s raw and then pour bleach over it and the rash will go away. For some reason, I imagine doing that would not only scar, but hurt really really badly (as opposed to hurting really goodly?). So just as a word of caution, check remedies (especially home remedies) with a couple of sources before trying them out. Antihistamines, creams, and lotions:Oral antihistamines (like Benadryl® or Chlor-Trimeton®) can help the itching and swelling while hydrocortisone lotions will do much less if anything at all to help. Hydrocortisone lotions are not strong enough to make that much of a difference, but some claim to find minimal relief in using them. If you want a topical (that means you put it on the affected area of skin) substance, use something like aluminum acetate (Burow’s solution) to sooth the itching. Do not use anesthetic sprays as they may actually make your rash more annoying. Hot showers/baths:Hot water (as hot as you can stand) will deplete the skin of histamines, removing the itching feeling. This solution will gain you several hours and possible enough time to get somewhat of a nights rest prior to the itching returning. As you can see, there are much more options to try not to get PI, as there are options to treat it. So try to be as careful as a hasher can be.