Poison Ivy: The 🌶🚰 Solution

I don't like doing yard work.

For one thing, there are so many other things that are much more worth doing. Like reading.

For another thing, I hate nature, so spending hours taking care of the piece of nature that I own is not something I enjoy.

And for another thing, nature hates me. For instance, a few days ago I cut back some vines and stuff that were growing on the side of my house. I didn't see anything that looked like poison ivy, but I was really careful anyway, and when I finished I scrubbed my arms and legs down thoroughly. But a few days later...

And it itches and burns like hell fire.

I've tried using an ointment my doctor prescribed for me. Nope.

I tried hydrocortisone. Nope.

I tried calamine lotion. Nope.

I either got no relief or very temporary relief.

So for the most part I just tried not to scratch. It still kept me awake, woke me up, and was always in my peripheral vision.

But then I started thinking about how it felt kind of weird but good when I washed the dishes in hot water, and I thought, maybe I should just take a bath in really hot water.

And it worked for several hours.

When it started to wear off, I thought, What if I just put my leg / arm under really hot water? (Because you can only take so many baths in a day, right?) So I tried that.

It worked. The relief was almost immediate, and then I felt no discomfort for hours afterwards.

So I did what any 21st Century person would do. I Googled, hot water and poison ivy  and voila...lots of things talking about how and why hot water provides relief from the itching. So how come I never heard about this before? I don't know. And if I hadn't happened to be washing dishes using very hot water, I probably never would have thought about looking at that as a way to deal with the ill effects of poison ivy. As a matter of fact, when I was searching the internet for a way to deal with the intolerable itching, the hot water solution never appeared.

So maybe everybody already knows this and I'm just slow. It wouldn't surprise me. But if that's not the case...well, then, this one's for you.

No, no, thank you.