Field Guide to Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, and Poison Sumac by Susan Carol Hauser

Author:Susan Carol Hauser
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781461746775
Publisher: Falcon Guides
Published: 2015-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

For about 75 percent of cases, says Epstein, corticosteroid tablets given in decreasing doses over a week or two may be enough to preempt the reaction. For others, especially those with severe reactions, he recommends aggressive treatment with an initial corticosteroid injection followed by two days of dosing with pills. If the reaction starts to erupt again after the pills are discontinued, they can be taken again for one day, and again for one day several times more, if necessary, until the eruptions cease.

Even with the availability and effectiveness of corticosteroids, however, prevention is still the best medicine. After my first bout with the rash, I vowed to never again be exposed to the demon leaf. “Fat chance,” my friends told me. And they were right. Even if I didn’t go outdoors, I could still get a rash from petting the dog—and I did.

Despair brought on by similar experiences is possibly behind the rather extreme measure reported in the lore of aboriginal Americans of the United States and Mexico: the eating of poison ivy and oak leaves to obtain immunity. While there appears to be no documentation that this was ever common practice, it is theoretically possible for it to work, in the same way that allergy shots do. Naturalist Ewell Gibbons, in his 1962 book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, said that he heard about lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest who had adopted the practice. He tried it himself, since his forest peregrinations sometimes led to mild rashes. Beginning in early spring, he ate three leaflets a day for three weeks, then stopped. The growing size of the leaflets provided him with a gradually increasing dose, as is common with allergy shots. For the two springs that Gibbons tried this, he had no poison ivy reactions.

American Indians today, when questioned by Epstein, eschewed the idea of eating poison ivy or oak leaves. The practice was not part of their contemporary culture.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.