Re: Cleaning Poison Ivy Urushiol off Gear

Alicia -
As you will recall, I do a lot of competitive orienteering. Poison Oak (closely related to poison ivy and poison sumac) is the scourge of orienteers in the intermediate and advanced categories, since so much time is spent off-trail. There is a lot of literature on the web on how to deal with it. And, yes, Fred, secondary contact is actually very common. The oil (urushiol) stays active for 6 to 12 months. Orienteers have learned to wash everything, including shoes, hydration packs, hats, all clothing (including underclothes that seem to pick it up from hands when changing clothes after a run through the "dark green").

I will locate and post the URLs of some of the best websites, but in the meantime you can look on the Bay Area Orienteering Club's website (http://www.baoc.org) to find some of the links.

Best cure is, of course, avoidance and prevention. But there are several things that can be done afterward. Briefly, for clothing and packs, wash then with either or both Tecnu and/or a good grease-cutting dishwashing soap (Dawn seems to work best of the major commercial brands). You can use rubber gloves to keep the oil off your hands, but since you will be washing with the solvents, you shouldn't have to worry.

There is no such thing as "truly immune." Some people (15% of the population, according to the medical literature) show a very minimal reaction, often not being noticeable unless examined very closely. But things change with age and repeated exposures. I had no reaction until into my 50s. I could do trail work in shorts and T-shirt, handling the stuff with bare hands. But after one Trail Days event, on which the rangers had us drive into the back section of a local park on muddy roads during a light drizzle, I spent the following day cleaning the mud off the bottom of my vehicle. About a week later I developed a strange rash unlike anything I had seen before. After another week, it had spread over most of my body, with lines of blisters outlining my lymph system (systemic reaction). I went to the doctor finally, and when he said immediately "Poison oak", I said no, I don't react. To which he replied, "You do now!" Ever since, I get severe reactions starting in spring each year as the leaves come out in full force, unless I take lots of precautions. The reactions diminish over the next few months through the no-leaf season (you can still get the oils from the bare branches, so learn to recognize the plants even in the no-leaf season). Then, sure enough, next spring, as the leaves appear, the reaction re-appears. Over the past few years, I have learned to minimize the reaction to the point of rarely having the rash "weep" even if I am out in the PO for a full day and can't get treatment until afterwards.