Spell It U-R-U-S-H-I-O-L

I don’t know when I got it – it could have been from camping last Thursday night or hiking on Friday or Saturday - all I know is at some point between Thursday and Saturday in California I picked up poison oak.

While on a bike ride through San Francisco with my friend Paul, the back of my left leg opposite my knee started to itch (btw, what the heck is the back of your knee called?) I figured it was either a bug bite or poison ivy, and I was certainly praying it wasn’t the latter (or I would have, if I ever prayed). So, with these two possibilities in mind, here is the logic I used in my decision to start scratching my leg (remember that I have a degree in philosophy): if it’s a bug bite, it’s fine if I scratch it, but if it’s poison ivy, I can’t scratch it, cause it will spread all over if I do. So I’m going to play chicken with my itch. “You think you’re poison ivy? Well guess what, I think you’re bluffing, and to prove it to you I’m gonna scratch you. And there ain’t nothing you can do about it cause you’re just a little bug bite.” So I scratch it with the peace of mind that by expressing my overconfidence that it’s not poison ivy it will turn out not to be poison ivy.

I scratch vigorously all day, and by nightfall the itch is still there. The next morning it’s still there. And now there’s another spot on my leg. And a spot on my hand. So at this point I’m thinking, shit, it is poison ivy and I just spread it all over myself. Now I’ve had poison ivy before, and the rule of thumb is that if you can keep from scratching it, it will go away on its own. So I decide to ignore it and try not to scratch it.

Monday night comes, and it’s getting worse. I’m out at bar with Paul who encourages me to look up out to treat it. Now I’m pretty sure I know the basic gist of poison ivy, but I hadn’t ever done any actual research on it. Fine, I say. Let’s figure out whether it’s poison ivy or poison oak, and what to do about it. I have my Blackberry with me, so I Google “poison ivy.”

The first thing I learn is that poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac all produce the same toxin, urushiol, which causes an allergic reaction. I most likely contracted poison oak, which is prevalent in California. The type of urushiol contained by poison oak causes the strongest reaction. What this chemical basically does is “tag” your skin cells with a marker that makes your immune system think your skin cells are an invasive microbe or something, and so your white blood cells start attacking your skin cells causing redness and swelling. Freaking Fantastic.

Ok, so what do I do about it? I click on a link for “treating poison oak” and read the following instructions:

According to this article, the first tip in dealing with poison oak is to prevent contact. And it went on and on about wearing long pants when you’re going for hikes in the woods, how to identify poison oak to avoid it, recommending you wash your clothes and hands as soon as you get back, and some other helpful preventative advice. Great. Thank you very much. Well I’m already past that stage, so what the heck am I supposed to do now?

Next tip: how to treat it. Ok, this sounds more like it. If you do come into contact with poison ivy, the best approach is to make sure you treat it within the first ten minutes. You should scrub the contaminated area of skin with rubbing alcohol, then wash with cold water without soap (cold water keeps your pores closed), and then wash with soap. Wait - the best way to treat poison ivy is to respond within ten minutes? What percentage of people who come into contact with poison ivy respond within the first ten minutes?? I mean, you don’t know you have poison ivy until it starts to itch! Which, according to your website, doesn’t happen until 1-2 days after contact!

How is this information useful? You tell me, “don’t get it, and if you do get it, deal with it within the first ten minutes or you’re screwed.” In frustration I stop reading and return to savoring my Pliny the Elder IPA.

This morning when I get up, I decide that I better deal with the rash before I take off from San Francisco and go camping tonight near Big Sur, because I don’t want to be camping in the woods tonight and scratching all over. So here’s the plan: Don’t go back online and look for steps for treating poison ivy if you missed that magical ten minute window and symptoms have actually started to develop. Instead, just follow the advice that last night I thought was bullshit and hope that maybe I’ve been granted a grace period beyond those first ten minutes. And then I’ll go online and see what else I should do.

So first I gather all the clothes I’ve touched in the past three days and throw them in the wash. Next, I take rubbing alcohol and scrub down my computer, my phone, everything I’ve touched that can’t be thrown in the washer. Then I strip down and go over my entire body with rubbing alcohol – all the spots where the rash has broken out (of which there are now at least thirty). I then jump in the shower and wash off with cold water. I stand there for 10 minutes, shivering and letting the cold water rinse me again and again, hoping all traces of urushiol are disappearing. I then vigorously scrub everywhere with a wash cloth. Last, I apply soap and repeat the scrubbing.

I get out, and at this point I’m looking at my rashes, and I don’t think this is working. I don’t know what the heck this procedure did, because the rashes look worse - they’re starting to ooze. Is this good, am I getting the urushiol out? I hope so. To finish, I cover every spot of rash with Aveeno cream that contains calamine. Finally I’m sterilized, and I feel like it’s safe to touch my computer again to figure out what else I should do.

I Google poison oak and see a bunch of sites with “myths versus facts” of poison ivy/oak. Great. This is exactly what I need. OK, let’s see. Number 1 Myth: Poison ivy/oak is not contagious - the rashes cannot spread. Wait, what? That is the foundation of all my knowledge about poison ivy/oak, the fact that it does indeed spread.

Well, apparently while your rashes do look contagious because they ooze, once you’ve washed you’re skin they don’t actually contain urushiol anymore. Since urushiol is what causes the rash, and your skin can’t produce urushiol, scratching after you’ve washed your skin at least once will not spread the rash (though scratching is still not recommended because it increases the chance of infection). The rash only looks like it is spreading because your skin usually comes into contact with urushiol at different points in time. Because of the delayed onset of the rash, you will see a gradual development depending on when each are of skin was exposed to urushiol and how much it was exposed to. So my initial technique of scratching my leg did not actually cause this outbreak. And while washing my clothes was a smart move, my whole hour long song and dance in the shower was all for naught (I had already showered several times since contacting poison oak). Oh, and apparently calamine lotion doesn’t work, either.

So I’ve been standing here covered from head to toe in pink calamine lotion, wondering if I should stay in San Francisco to avoid getting poison ivy all over my sleeping bag and spread it further. But now that I realize I can’t spread it anymore, and since I look like a pink leper, I might as well get the hell out of town where other people won’t be able to see me.