E17 and B15 took some days off last week from homeschooling. They went on a mission trip with some other homeschool friends to Camp Joy (near Mammoth Cave) to get it ready for the summer camp season. They worked hard, Bible studied, explored the camp, and had a wonderful time with their friends.
E17 came home with a souvenir, too. A rash on her legs from Poison Ivy! I gave her the bottle of Calamine Lotion to dry out the rash and to relieve the itching. It did not work for her. The rash continued to spread and itch like crazy over the weekend. By Sunday night she gave up on the Calamine Lotion and set out to find an alternative to that “yucky pink stuff”.
The first remedy she tried was cucumber slices over the worst of the rash sites.
E17 says this decreased the inflammation of the rash and as long as the cucumber stayed on it, the itch was tolerable. But, this wasn’t quite the relief and healing she was hoping for.
She tried a mix of vinegar and alcohol, but that did not work either. After another day and a few more failed attempts with other remedies, she tried potato slices.
Folks, this is working great! The potato seems to be drying up that nasty rash and is stopping the itching! She had to change the potato slices often for the first hour of the treatment. because they turned dark blue and got hot.
I realize now that we should have known to try this sooner. We have used potatoes before to draw poison from insect stings and spider bites. It makes sense for it to work as well for drawing poison from her rash.
I asked E17 if she remembered studying poison ivy in our homeschool science last summer. She said she did. She even quoted the rhyme we learned, “Leaves of three, let them be!” She said she didn’t see any at the camp.
After a quick Google search, we learned that in the spring, Poison Ivy is not green, it’s red.
I’m sorry this has happened to her, but I’m also quite the proud momma. She has demonstrated a responsibility for her own health. She has a faith that proclaims that God has provided whatever we need and allows us to use what we have on hand. She proved that she understands the scientific method and can proficiently research. She’ll be getting an “A” in science this week even though this study was not on the lesson plan.
E17’s science lesson has been a good one for the rest of us, too. We needed a review on identifying poisonous plants. This site was helpful for our review http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/
No itching is such a good thing!
betty jo
Still Learning Something New 
Tell Emily I hope her rash heals soon. I am so sensitive to the stuff I will probably break out just from looking at the picture above! I end up having to get a shot for it almost every summer & it seems to get worse as I get older. I used to love to be outdoors when I was younger going camping & hiking & such. Now, I avoid the woods almost completely because I want to ‘stay away from the green stuff’! I hope Emily never becomes that sensitive to it. I wish there was something I could do to desensitize. I really miss the great outdoors. Way to go, Em, figuring out a way to make it better!
We thought about you Debbie as we were discussing the dreaded leaves of three.
I’m going to try the potato slice idea on mine, thank you for sharing.
A few corrections though if you’re interested — it is not a poison (that requires you to have ingested it), if it was still spreading then that’s likely because the oil which causes the rash was still on some clothing, and she was getting multiple exposures from that. I knew a lady who got some on her coat and every time for months she would reach into the closet to get a different jacket, she’d brush up against it and the reaction would repeat.
Thanks Chris. We had already thought that the oil might be getting on her bed sheets since she was leaving the rash uncovered. I hope the potatoe slices help you like it did for my E.