Re: Poison Oak warning

I hate to say it, but the spreading might be due to the hot baths, rather than just using hot water from the faucet. The oils are getting on the rest of your body in the bath. I know, I recommended hot water, but I meant running water, not standing water. As I say, for me the hotest water you can stand not only feels great, but it dries it out --- and won't spread the oils on other parts of your body if it is running water from a bath faucet.. If it has really become bad for you, and spread all over, you probably want to take Paul's suggestion: Go to an urgent care (if you have the $120 or so) and get a prescription for prednizone. It will take a day or two, but it will work, and in the meantime I suggest hot faucet water (shower even better IF the water is still hot enough after dropping a foot or two -- I always found that it wasn't). You might turn your water heater up so the water from the shower is hot enough to do the trick by the time it drops a few feet to your legs, etc. Good luck. I know how miserable it is.

But here is one bright side: People that get poison oak seem to develop a resistance to it. The first time I had it (Santa Cruz mountains) I pretty much had it all summer. So bad, droplets would form from my wrists (where onetime I had it the worst) and literally drop to the sink or floor. Utter agony. It would get better, I would keep mountain biking...and keep spilling, often tumbling down hillsides through a forest of poison oak. I was usually wearing nothing but shorts and shoes. (I was not a good mountain-biker!). Next summer, same spills, and got the rashes but they were only about half as severe. Third summer, same spills, same contact with the nasty plant -- but not much happened,, just a few merely annoying red marks. Then, as a hiker, I would accidentally brush across it occasionally (in hiking boots and shorts), but nothing happened.

I seemed to be immune for about 10-15 years. Went through a brush of it a year ago, and did get the rash, but it was so mild it was not worth speaking of.

Anyway, I am sure you will always be on the lookout for the stuff now, and hopefully you will never suffer from it again. I know, it is utterly miserable.

By the way, the leaves tend to get redder in the summer. And different plants, in different areas, can look different. Worst of all -- in the winter, stems might have few or no leaves, but the stems themselves have the oils. The good news is that I have never seen nothing but stems in a 2-3 foot area (always, there are leaves somewhere close by) so if you keep a good lookout you should probably be able to avoid it from now on.

Good luck!