About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Prevention
By Mayo Clinic staffThe advice "Leaves of three, let them be" is familiar to many people, with good reason. It's a reminder to stay away from plants that feature three leaflets to a stem, such as poison ivy, because avoiding contact is the best way to prevent an allergic reaction.
These suggestions may help you avoid a rash from these irritating plants:
- Identify poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac. Learn what the plants and leaves look like and where they're commonly found so that you can avoid them.
- Take precautions outdoors. When hiking or engaging in other activities that might expose you to poison ivy, try to stay on cleared pathways. If camping, make sure you pitch your tent in an area free of poisonous plants. Keep pets from running through wooded areas so that urushiol doesn't accidentally stick to their fur, which you then may touch. If you think your pet may have run through poison ivy, oak or sumac, put on some long rubber gloves and give your pet a bath to remove any residual urushiol.
- Remove poison ivy. In your backyard, you can use an herbicide to get rid of poison ivy or use heavy gloves to carefully pull it out of the ground. Note that even dead plants can cause a reaction. Afterward, remove and wash your gloves and hands thoroughly. Don't burn poison ivy or related plants because the urushiol can be carried by the smoke and cause irritation or injury.
-
Clean anything that may be contaminated. Wearing long pants, socks, shoes and gloves will help protect your skin, but be sure to wash your clothing promptly with detergent — in a washing machine, if possible — if you think you've come into contact with poison ivy. Handle contaminated clothes carefully so that you don't transfer the urushiol to furniture, rugs or appliances.
In addition, wash any other contaminated items, such as outdoor gear, garden tools, jewelry, shoes and even shoelaces, as soon as possible. If you must wait to wash any contaminated items, seal them up in a plastic bag or container to avoid contamination of other items. Dry cleaning also will get rid of urushiol, but be sure to let your dry cleaner know that the item may have been exposed to poison ivy.
- Wash your skin with soap and water. Gently washing off the harmful resin from your skin, using any type of soak, within five to 10 minutes after exposure may help avert a reaction. After an hour or so, however, the urushiol has usually penetrated the skin and washing won't necessarily prevent a reaction, but it may help reduce its severity. Be sure to wash under your fingernails too.
- Apply a barrier cream. Appy an over-the-counter barrier skin cream containing bentoquatam (Ivy Block) to protect your skin. Bentoquatam absorbs urushiol and prevents or lessens your skin's reaction to the oil.
- Contact dermatitis and patch testing. In: Habif TP. Clinical Dermatology. 5th ed. Maryland Heights, Mo.: Mosby, Inc.; 2010. http://www.mdconsult.com/book/player/book.do?method=display&type=bookPage&decorator=header&eid=4-u1.0-B978-0-7234-3541-9..00013-4--s0105&displayedEid=4-u1.0-B978-0-7234-3541-9..00013-4--s0115&uniq=186228941&isbn=978-0-7234-3541-9. Accessed Feb. 28, 2010.
- Contact dermatitis: A practice parameter. Palatine, Ill.: Joint Council of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. http://www.aaaai.org/professionals/resources/pdf/contact_dermatitis_%202006.pdf. Accessed Feb. 28, 2010.
- Contact dermatitis. The Merck Manuals: The Merck Manual for Healthcare Professionals. http://www.merck.com/mmpe/print/sec10/ch114/ch114c.html. Accessed Feb. 25, 2010.
- Outsmarting poison ivy and other poisonous plants. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm049342.htm. Accessed Feb. 28, 2010.
- Poison ivy, oak and sumac. American Academy of Dermatology. http://www.aad.org/public/publications/pamphlets/skin_poison.html. Accessed Feb. 25, 2010.
- Gladman AC. Toxicodendron dermatitis: Poison ivy, oak, and sumac. Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. 2006;17:120.
- Bovine cartilage. Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database. http://www.naturaldatabase.com. Accessed Feb. 28, 2010.
- Poison ivy, oak and sumac. PDRHealth (Physician's Desk Reference). http://www.pdrhealth.com/disease/disease-mono.aspx?contentFileName=BHG01DE21.xml&contentName=Poison+Ivy%2c+Oak%2c+and+Sumac&contentId=120&TypeId=1. Accessed Feb. 28, 2010.
- Mark BJ. Allergic contact dermatitis. Medical Clinics of North America. 2006;90:169.
Find Mayo Clinic on