Poison Ivy Season Is Here
Summer can be scary. Especially if you are prone to poison ivy skin rash! Your regular walk in the woods can quickly turn into a nightmarish experience if you are not careful. Summer is best known as poison ivy season and you had better be aware of the havoc it can cause!
So what do you do? Discontinue walks in the woods. However, you still need to do the laundry right? Therefore, when you put your children s clothes, which are stained with grass, into the washer you can be prone to poison ivy sores. If you just felt a rush of love from your dog who went for a little stroll in or near the woods, your skin could quickly flare up because of poison ivy!
Do not touch anything feasible? Of course not. As much as we hate contracting poison ivy rash you just cannot stop touching things around you, right? You would look like a lunatic straight from another planet! Since this is not a solution, you need to think of ways where you avoid indirect and direct contact with poison ivy.
Things to do in summer If you want to avoid poison ivy skin rash and all those messy, leaky boils that itch all day, you can stay indoors all day long! But what fun is summer if you have to be indoors all the time? Or better still, do not let anything or anyone touch you. But what if you need a hug? Nah not a good idea! Otherwise you can dress up like a Taliban leader who looks like he is warding off bees! That would sure make heads turn in curiosity!
Do you know what poison ivy looks like? Okay, if you have never seen poison ivy then here is a primer. These plants grow to a height of two feet and appear in clusters. Therefore, if you are walking inside the woods and come across an especially weedy section, you need to be extra alert. After all, summer is poison ivy season and the plant lurks in such weedy areas. The flowers are not much to look at anyways. Wait a minute did we say flowers? Yep, you heard us right! Poison ivy does have flowers, but they look like itsy bitsy mushrooms or popcorns on the cluster of leaves. If you still didn t notice poison ivy inside the woods, you can identify the plant based on the berries on it. These clusters of berries ripen during late summer season. You will see these berries transform from pale green to a whitish hue. If you thought poison ivy only grew and stayed on land you re mistaken my friend! Poison ivy, as menacing as it is, even climbs up stone walls just like regular creepers! So if you find a trailing creeper with pale green berries and disgusting looking flowers, you know it is the dreaded poison ivy!
The deadly rash You may not even know it but might have accidentally brushed against a poison ivy plant. The resulting rash can be nasty and leave you with boils all over the affected area. If you have come back from a walk inside the woods and notice a swelling, itchiness or blisters on your skin you can be sure it is a case of poison ivy rash. You will most likely notice a straight line of blisters and redness on the skin. This is usually the case when you rub against the plant. However, if you touch some clothing with urushiol oil over it, it can trigger a massive case of poison ivy skin rash. You can expect to see a nasty rash appear anywhere from 12 to even 48 hours after contact. If the condition is more severe, you may notice more rashes appearing several days after contact. Most people believe the poison ivy rash is spreading across their body but actually it is a reaction to how much urushiol oil got absorbed by your skin.
Do leaky blisters trigger its spread? No. In fact, if the pus from the blister were to spread to other people around, they would not get infected. However, if you have germs present under your nails these could result in secondary infections.
Removing Urushiol oil Urushiol oil is the substance found on the poison ivy plant, which triggers poison ivy skin rash. If you suspect being infected by the plant, your first priority should be to remove all urushiol oil traces from the skin.
This article was written by A. Broussard, a free-lance writer currently working in the medical field. Broussard has written for a number of news journals and is currently under a writing contract with Q-Based HealthcareTM.
About the Author
This article was written by A. Broussard, a free-lance writer currently working in the medical field. Broussard has written for a number of news journals and is currently under a writing contract with Q-Based HealthcareTM
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