William Warby
If cement won't cure your poison ivy, try Caladryl or carbonite.
A few weeks ago I was in a pharmacy in Woodville, filling a prescription for something or other, when it dawned on me that fully half of the shelves in front of the counter were devoted to itch-stopping remedies. Between the Benadryl and Lanacane and cortisone and calamine and Caladryl and Ivarest and Tecnu and all the others, the variety of anti-pruritic lotions, unguents, creams, sprays, and gels far outnumbered the range of, say, toothpaste. That there would be an active customer base keen for relief from itching is not in itself surprising. The culprit, of course, is poison ivy, something that Woodville and pretty much everywhere else around here has in wild abundance. According to the American Skin Association, around 85% of the population is allergic to poison ivy or its evil siblings, poison sumac and poison oak. But then again, according to the American Dental Association, around 100% of the population have teeth. So how to account for the huge variety? Let’s put it down to desperation.
If, like me, you are among the 85% of people who are allergic to poison ivy, you will understand. When in the throes of a nasty case, there is literally nothing you won’t try to make the itching stop. Believe it or not, I know a woman who swears by slathering her legs with wet cement, which she insists worked like a charm on the itch, although it did have an adverse effect on her bathtub drain. Poison ivy does not grow in Australia, so many years ago when I first moved from there to here, I had had no experience with the innocuous-looking bright green vine that snaked its way up and over the oak tree—and pretty much everything else—in our yard. A day came when the presence of a dead limb in said tree inspired me to climb it with a chainsaw—wearing shorts and a T-shirt, of course—to cut the limb down. Talk about trial by fire. During the next three weeks, while 70% of my skin surface seemed to turn to lava, I think I tried just about every snake oil remedy that folk wisdom and the modern pharmaceutical industry could collectively conjure up. From the former there were bleach, oatmeal compresses, ice water baths and juniper berries. From the latter came cortisone, calamine, and Benadryl. After a week, unable to believe that medical science had no solution for something this awful that affects 85% of everyone, I went to the doctor to ask whether he could maybe put me to sleep for a fortnight. He regarded me sadly, primed another cortisone shot, and sent me on my way.
America’s pharmaceutical industry understands this, and in the sufferer pacing the itch-stopping aisle in the pharmacy, they have the perfect motivated customer—one quite likely to buy everything in sight. I’m guessing this doesn’t really happen in the toothpaste section. If there were a quick, easy cure, we would pay for it and be on our way. With things as they are, they’ve got us—and our money—for weeks.
Anyway, with summer coming on, and more of us spending time in the great green outdoors, brushes with poison ivy and its evil siblings are more or less assured. Even after almost twenty-five years spent living here I still manage to contract a case three or four times a year. Actually, having spent last Sunday in the garden pruning azaleas, I have a growing realization that the red, itchy patch on my left arm isn’t going away any time soon. So come on, Southerners; help a hapless immigrant out. I’ve tried bleach, oatmeal, and pretty much everything for sale in the local pharmacy, but the poison ivy is still winning. Tell me your best home remedies—the weirder the better. In the spirit of sharing Southern wisdom, I’ll test them on myself and we’ll print the best ones in our July issue. And if nothing works, perhaps I’ll try the wet cement thing. Even if it doesn’t work, presumably once it sets I won’t be able to move to scratch, anyway.
This article originally appeared in our June 2018 issue. Subscribe to our print magazine today.
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