A spring emerged and been is on the corner of the street. You know the signs. Daddy fires up the grill, oil raise gasoline prices and children down with itchy skin rashes. Toxic plants are back, and this summer, they promise to send two million Americans to the doctor's Office.
The three most common culprits - poison ivy, sumac and poison sumac - originate in America. European explorers had never seen before. Around 1600, Captain John Smith recorded his meeting when he wrote, "the poisoned weed is very shaped as our Ivy, but be affected, grows the redness, itching and finally, blisters."
Pocahontas may have warned. After all, the Indians knew all about poison ivy. Indian warriors coated their arrowheads with it, and medicine men rubbed the leaves on infections in an effort to break open the swollen skin.
Physicians loaned attention colonies. They jumped on the train of poison ivy and expanded its use for the treatment of herpes, eczema, arthritis, warts, ringworm and even rattlesnake bites. The use of poison sap in American medicine in the beginning was so widespread that poison was included in the pharmacopoeia of the United States as official therapeutic agent.
Today, we know that the eruption of plant poisons is contact dermatitis. On the first exhibition, most people develop antibodies against SAP. On subsequent exposure, antibodies attack the SAP, which resulted in the boring eruption. The few that are not antibodies will not get the rash. But they should still look - antibody production can begin anytime, making an idiot of poor Uncle Pete one or two days after it rubs poison ivy up and down her arm just to prove it ain't allergic.
So, what is anyway poison sap? The offending substance urushiol, a yellow oil within leaves, stems and roots of plant poisons. Because it is within the plant, intact leaves do harm you. However, if the leaves are chewed by insects, is made on, or otherwise damaged, leaks of oil on the surface of the plant where it can come into contact with human or animal skin. It turns out that only humans and close primates occurred with the rash. Dogs, cats, cattle and sheep are not affected, but they can transmit oil to their human keepers. Tools and clothing also spread oil and because SAP remains allergenic years unsuspecting gardeners spring can obtain the eruption of gloves of last season.
If you come in contact with sap poison or at the first sign of an eruption, you take a long shower with plenty of water and SOAP. Avoid sinking into a bath because oil can float, spreads to other parts of your body. Your skin of washing oil will stop the spread. Rash may still appear in new areas, but it is because the areas exposed to small amounts of sap take more time to get out.
Once you have the rash, there remains some time. The skin repair itself, a process of 10 to 14 days. All what you can do is in the range of treating the symptoms. With cream, mild cases free sale and oral Antihistamines - such as Benadryl - hydrocortisone is the best combination to control the inflammation and itching. If you have a generalized rash, participation of the face or blisters infected, it is time to consult your doctor. You may need steroid pills, a coup or an antibiotic.
As always, prevention is better. All the three poisons plants have leaves made up of three leaflets. My grandmother said, "leaves of three?". Let you be! ", and she was right." The leaves are green brilliant with a smooth surface. In the fall, the foliage may turn orange or red. Poison ivy is a vine robust weeds which often climbs trees. Sumac is more and more resembling shrubs. Poison sumac grows in marshy areas and can reach up to twenty feet tall.
It is a drug that stops the eruption by providing a barrier on the surface of exposed skin. IvyBlock (bentoquatam) is available at the counter and approved for six years and more. It should be applied 15 minutes prior to exposure and every 4 hours for the maintenance of the basic protection.
So get out there and take advantage of the spring. Grilling your burger. Fill your tank. A ride in the country. But when you get there, don't forget my grandmother said. Otherwise, you can finish by in the waiting room, scratching your wounds with these other two million Americans.
COPYRIGHT 2006, PATRICK MIKE JR, M.D.
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