Damn the poison ivy!! Full speed weeding, ahead!!

[love_katz]

8. Forgive me for adding more advice.

I live on the West coast, so my experience was with poison oak rather than ivy, but Google says that they are equivalent and that the oil which causes the rash is the same. The only thing I found that brought relief and quickly helped heal the rash was aloe vera gel. I used gel scraped from freshly harvested leaves because I had read that fresh gel is more potent than gel from a bottle. Relief was immediate and healing was clearly visible in about 2 hours. My skin had been fire engine red and covered with weeping sores and the itching was unbearable. I tried all kinds of remedies: scrubbing with soap and water, baking soda bath and paste spread on the rash, calamine lotion. Each of those treatments helped a little, but nothing helped as much as the fresh aloe vera gel. Wishing you healing.