[pct-l] Poison Oak Prevention

[Brick Robbins]

On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 2:52 PM, dick.bingham <dick.bingham at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am very allergic to poison-oak and have to be very careful when around the darn stuff. The best method I have found to deal with it once the itch/signs of being affected happen is to make a paste of rubbing alcohol and Comet Cleanser and scrub the region until the skin is just "short"  of being too "pink/bleeding".<

This concoction of comet and alcohol sounds pretty good. You dissolve
the oil in alcohol, wash that off with the detergent in the comet, and
remove the skin that has absorbed the oil with the abrasion.

This may help with understanding of how remedies for Poison Oak/Ivy work.

It is an allergic reaction to an oil, called urushiol, and not
everyone is allergic.

If you are exposed, it is important to get the oil off your skin as
quickly as possible (within 30 minutes should work, but be as quick as
you can) It is difficult to tell how effective your methods are,
because urushiol is hard to see.

So try this experiment:  Go your car, pull out the oil dipstick and
rub some of the dirty car oil on an exposed body part, like your
forearm. Now try to get it all off.... using these suggested methods,
and see what works.

Tecnu and most mechanic's waterless hand cleaners (look in a auto
parts store) are mineral spirit solvent based, and they work well
dissolving the oil so you can wipe it off, then if you have soap and
water, wash the solvent off.

I have also found that a home made concoction of minerals spirits
(from a hardware store) with a little dish soap in it works well, that
way when I rinse with water after I wipe it off, I don't need extra
soap. This is very close to what is in Tecnu, and costs pennies. I
prefer this to the mechanics waterless hand cleaner because there are
no skin softeners or fragrances in it.

You need to use this solvent on your clothes/pack too to get the oil
off. Think of how hard oil stains are to get out of cloth......

Other things google taught me:

Wash with cold water to keep your pores closed
If you don't have mineral spirits or soap, then abrasives, like sand,
can help remove the oil.

Once the oils soaks in, if you are allergic, you are pretty much hosed.

As always YMMV, HYOH