May 30, 2006

I once got into while barefooted. I might have been 7 or 8. It was so bad that I couldn't wear shoes for weeks. This would have been about 1955/56 and there wasn't anything but calamine lotion to do for it.. No shots, steriods, etc. Pure hell, especially in the hot summer.

Also had a friend at that age who bragged he wasn't allergic to it. Rubbed it all over himself including his face. You can guess what happened.

The father of one of my childhood friends had to take a dump whilst hunting one day. Grabbed him up a big wad of leaves in lieu of Charmin. You provide the visuals. He was weeks getting over that, rather excellent punishment for hunting out of season however!

Can't really top it but sometimes you just don't care. My first time racing my Formula Ford I had a large patch on my arm. It was hot and my arm was oozing that shit real good. Of course we have to wear fireproof underwear and a suit. Between sessions it was just WAY TOO hot to keep all of that on (July in Oklahoma!) so I would unzip the suit and get out of the underwear and everytime the underwear would ingrain itself into the oozing patch. I did not care because the adrenaline rush of driving that car was more than any poison ivy could ruin.

Why hell, acidman, you shouldn't hafta worry about that kinda shit no more.....you got a BIONIC DICK!
Heh.

I was about 11 or 12 and I had never had poison ivy in my life. I went fishing and I distinctly recall never touching ANY foliage. When my mom took me to the doctor's office, they diagnosed me with scabies and gave me a nice cream to smear all over. That cream made the rash and pustules spread from my knuckles to my elbow. I reacted so badly to the poison ivy that I STILL have scars from it. A couple of years later we went to some Indian Mounds. Again, stayed on the trail and never touched any greenery. Still got the rash. The doc said I'm hyper sensitive to it. Ya think?!?

I too have had the enlarged roscoe caused from poison ivy swelling, although it was a transfer while taking a leak, unlike my father.

While growing up, my uncle and father played a little game. A game of dare involving poison ivy and who was willing to rub it in different places. Well, my uncle rubbed it in his crotch, which meant his younger brother, my father, had to do it too.

My uncle wasn't allergic to it but my father was. As the story is told, it was a very, very bad outbreak. Although, grandpa made sure my uncle was in pain for a week as well.

I was deer hunting in the early winter in Kansas. While sitting on the side of a hill overlooking a creek, I picked a small twig off a small bush and proceeded to chew on it. I then wiped my eye with the same hand I'd picked the branch. I then took a piss...again with the same hand. The next day, I had poison ivy in my mouth, down my throat, in my eye, and on "roscoe". I continued to hunt. Got my deer, a shot from a dermitologist and a week of pure misery.

I live in the woods and I've never gotten poison ivy.

I've scrupulously avoided everything with three leaves since I was a young child. I think my sister got it badly and I remember being horrified at how she looked. I cried because I thought she was going to die.

I believe I looked it up myself and kept a vigiliant eye out ever since while I'm in the woods. I don't care how unlikely, outside of trillium, I don't get within fifty feet of anything with three leaves. I've only had it once and just a little on one arm. Fortunately it was after the advent of Ivy Dry which I think is the best thing on the market.

I wonder how you get rid of it though. I have some growing on a tree in my backyard that's been freaking me out.

If you have never gotten poison ivy, then STFU (because I THOUGHT this was supposed to be comments about horrendous poison ivy cases, no?)

We don't have poison ivy on the prairie here. We do, however, have numerous varieties of cacti.......

I haven't had a bad case of it, but I have seen a PINK MEXICAN! He didn't recognize the plant and sprayed that stuff all over him while weedeating.

Wow Ruth, you seem a little hostile. Been a while, has it?

I had it bad when I was a boy scout (shots, pills - the whole bit). The next time our troop went camping, I saw the telltale three oily leaves and warned my friend to stay away from them.

He responded by plucking the leaves and rubbing them all over his face, bragging that he "is immune to poison ivy".

Two days later, he came to school with so much pink shit on his face he looked like someone substituted a big wad of bubble gum for his head.

Jackass.

Vandenburg AFB, California...5 day survival/evasion course during college(Air Force ROTC)...poison sumac...running, sweating, crawling through underbrush...taking the occasional piss...on the third day started to itch. On the forth day, notice considerable redness, swelling, and blistering around Big Jim and the Twins. By the fifth day I was praying that the bastards would track me down and capture me. Spent days 6 through 8 getting shots, IVs, and bathing in Calomine lotion. Trust me, I can now identify sumac from 100 yards and know to stay the hell away.

Never had it and Ruth can kiss my furry hiney.

Fishorman, both my dad and my uncle are immune, and they pulled that stunt on the neighborhood bully when they were kids. They got him to roll around bare in a patch of it on a dare.

Not only did he get an awful case, he got whupped by his momma for being so stupid.

.... never had too much trouble with poison ivy... but while swimming up on North River when I was 6 or so, Petey got bitten by one of those water spiders....

.. so I can identify with the massive dick swelling on one level... but it wasn't poison ivy....

When I was 15, I had worked my a$$ off with various fund raising activities for 6 months so that our youth group could go on a weeklong trip to Colorado.

The night before we were to depart, I came down with not only poison ivy, but poison sumac as well. Had blisters up to 1 1/2 " across. ALL over my body. So I missed all the fun I had worked so hard to earn.

I swam in Calamine lotion, but the only thing that really helped was to get on the back of my dad's motorcycle and have that cool air rushing across the blisters. But as he was allergic too, I couldn't sit on the double saddle with him, I had to ride on the three bar luggage tie down rack on the rear fender.

Have you ever ridden the rear fender of a 1954 hardtail? YOWTCH! what a rough ride!

Naturally, that broke a number of blisters, leaving my shorts soaked with the contents of said blisters..looking like I had fallen into a polluted creek with them on..anyone in the family that did their share of laundry came down with the rash too...I wasn't very popular with my sibs the rest of that summer!

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I'm not allergic to poison ivy. A coworker, though, once was burning some & inhaled the smoke. He's extremely susceptible to begin with, & that damned near killed him. He was hospitalized for several days.

Do YOU have a horror story about getting poison ivy?

Not so far. I've only lived in a poison-ivy-prone area for 6½ years, though.

I've also lived in a fire-ant-prone area for 6½ years and never been stung that I know of.

BTW Barry and Y'all, out here in the west, (I'm about an hour south of Vandenburg AFB in Santa Barbara,) we don't have "poison ivy" we have "poison oak". I have always been immune to the stuff but I keep clear anyway.
You just never know when Mother Gaia is going to call your #. With all that man caused CO2 in our air we might soon have Poison Oak Trees FCS.

Personally, I'm scared witless about Dying from a man caused evirodisaster. The thought is giving me goose bumps right now! /;^)

good storyteller. www.bashtherash.com is currently accepting poison ivy stories for a summer writing competition. thought you might want to enter.