Poison question

[pontifex]

Is it possible that poison ivy or oak or any of those types could take a week to appear on your body?

On Friday morning I woke up and my thumbs were red and felt sore and swollen. Fast forward to today and most of both of my hands feel this way and itchiness came in somehwere also. some areas are a lot worse than others and it does look like there is posion there (kind of bumpy).

The only thing I can think of as to how I got it was when I went deer hunting 12/6.

How long would poison stay on your clothes? guess I should throw that stuff in the wash just to be safe?

 

[JJ650]

You have to actually have the oils from the plant actually make contact with your skin in order for you to develop an allergic reaction (itchy blisters, rash, etc...). Normally the oil can be washed off fairly quickly and you don't have to worry.
It can be washed easily. If not washed off, it takes quite a long time for the oils to go away.
You could have gotten it from touching your hunting clothes. Don't burn them tho. You can get the oils airborne and then you can be REAL miserable.


Urushiol

 

[PokerGuy]

Yes, it can take a couple of weeks before you actually start showing symptoms of things like poison ivy etc. My wife is very sensitive to it, a couple of times she came into contact with poision ivy but didn't start the hives/blisters etc until a 10 days later.

Also, the oleoresin (urushiol) that causes the irritation can stay on your clothes for a looooooooong time (years) if you don't wash them. Washing with ordinary laundy soap is fine.

The crappy part about the poison ivy is that once the skin has bonded with the resin and your body starts reacting, there isn't a whole lot you can do to get rid of the itching etc. The stuff they sell in the stores doesn't seem to work very well.

 

[olds]

It's possible. Depends on how sensitive you are too it and how you got it.

 

[JJ650]

If you got it on leather tho...you might as well get rid of it.

I manged to walk thru some while hunting a few years ago. It was climbing up a pine tree and I had leaned my rifle against the tree to retie my boot. I guess the leather sling was touching it. About a day later my right hand was all blistered up.
I cleaned the rifle and sling as best as I could. Went hunting again and a day later my hand and wrist were all blistered.
I had to trash it.

 

[pontifex]

usually i see symptoms pretty quickly, but this time it took like a week for me to see any symptoms and didn't even think it was poison then. the only leather I was wearing was on my boots.

I'll throw those clothes in the wash when I get home tonight.