Are women over forty immune to posion ivy? Are there natural cures?
Better questions: 
Does poison ivy spread from scratching?
When is one old enough to know better?
A woman old enough to know better about poison ivy should know what it looks like.
Answer to second question. No. No, women in menopause are not immune to poison ivy. Not perimenopause, not postmenopause. Not even when old enough to not care if one is postmenopausal. My grandmother used to get poison ivy, she lived to nearly one hundred.
Answer to the natural cures for poison ivy and can it spread from scratching. We’ll get to that soon enough. But jewelweed did not work for me. Neither did scratching.
Today I was raking leaves, picking them up without gloves and grabbed a stringy, brown dormant vine. Not once but three times.
What is it with poison ivy?
How old do we have to be before we, either, know better than not to go outside without full body armor, recognize poison ivy in all its lovely stages of dormancy and lushness, or are old enough to be immune?
What I do know is that when I was fifty-one I learned how to get rid of poison ivy even after it spread and was weeping. 
Before I was fifty-one I would get poison ivy in increasing, raging cases several times each year and the steroids did not even work.
Sometimes my eyes were swollen shut, I got scars on my face and poison ivy streaks where I can promise that the sun has never shone. You know, I really fell a little sorry for myself to say that about the sun, but have never been much of a nudist. Anyway. . . I would suffer, trying everything. No sooner would one case be cleared up than I would sit on a bench in the yard and feel itchy.
Hubby would say, “Stay out of the garden.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m benched here.”
“But you were thinking about going in the garden.”
He means well and all that.
Just a few things I do know from poison ivy experiences. . .
- It is stored in our fat cells forever. What I did learn before I was fifty-one is that poison ivy is stored in your fat cells. There’s a lot of poison ivy stored in my body then. I make no apologies for the fat cells but I do wish they would store sunshine or something all year long, not poison ivy.
- Can poison ivy be spread by scratching. Poison ivy most definitely can be spread by the person who touches and scratches from one spot to the next. Don’t let any doctor tell you it cannot, I have proven this to myself. Look at the streak tracts from scratching.
- This stuff gets in the ears and every crevice, the nostrils, the throat, even poison ivy in the lungs.
- If you try to shower to get it off, you can spread it all over your body.
My natural cure for poison ivy – bloodroot extract on the skin, just a drop as needed.
What I did learn after fifty-one was that bloodroot extact is a natural cure for my poison ivy. I do not DO NOT !!! take it internally, I just rub on my itchy skin the extract which is in an alcohol base. After one or two applications, the itch stops and I do not even get poison ivy if I was just exposed.
Now the next question would be where do I get the bloodroot extract for my poision ivy. I go to Ojibwa Tea of Life. www.ojibwatea.com But you can find the bloodroot extract elsewhere. If you order from Ojibwa Tea of Life, please tell them the lady with the skunks sent you. Thanks.
I thought it was a grape vine. Dada da da.
Bloodroot extract and bloodroot in many forms is good for skin and gum conditions. This is just one more. No natural medicine cabinet should be without. But keep in mind this is nothing to mess with or leave where children can get into it, just like any herb or prescription.
Today, I used Technu within the hour then the bloodroot extract.
I remember my first case of adult poison ivy. Thirty years ago. I thought it was a grape vine. Yes, Hubby and I were pulling these huge amazon vines out of trees on the land we just purchased by the Wolf River. The neighbor stopped by and informed us that was poison ivy. We didn’t know the vines could get so big they needed cut with a chainsaw. He did not get poison ivy. I had it everywhere. It has been said that if a fool rolls in poison ivy they can make themselves immune. I am not that kind of fool, but, I was near nude in the summer heat and though I did not roll on the ground, there couldn’t have been more full body contact than that episode. We were hanging on these vines, pulling, thought about swinging off one and into the river. Duh. That was the first adult experience. I tried calamine lotion, iodine, lemon juice, vinegar, bleach (splashed bleach in my eye and ended up on a gurney in the ER with an optical irrigation) and steroids. The doctor prescriptions eventually worked but that was one of the last times I was relieved with allopathic medicine.
Since then, I have tried many natural cures for posion ivy, until two years ago my favorite being the colloidal silver on skin to follow with hydrogen peroxide on skin then repeat, taking a break of a half hour between applications. That worked sometimes, if I caught it early enough.
Now I use bloodroot extract and it works for me.
But I am still not immune. And I still do not seem to be old enough to know better.
Time for a few more drops on bloodroot. I am itching again just thinking about today. My hair itches, my toes itch, my eyebrows itch. . .
Share your poison ivy experiences in comments.
Essa Adams
Author, A BREATH FLOATS BY
Contemporary Women’s Fiction
I feel your pain, dear. We are blessed to live on 30 acres in Central Texas, and (somehow) it is mostly poison ivy-free. Note the caveat. There is a large, half-dead oak across the clearing from our house, festooned with the pernicious stuff. We (read, dear husband and sons) have tried pulling, poisoning, and burning. After these sessions, my intrepid menfolk strip to their skivvies outside, double-bag their clothes, and scrub down with lots of dial soap in a semi-cool shower. I tell our animals (basically, the cats) repeatedly, “Don’t go near the nasty tree with the vines. It’s a scary, Ba-a-a-a-d place!” Yeah. You know how well cats follow instructions.
Fortunately, the cats have other hiding places they like better, and Prednisone still works pretty well for me. I haven’t had a round with it in almost two years! Eep…hope I haven’t just started something…
Julia – cats have a devious sense of humor. So far I am good, every time I get a little poison ivy I use the bloodroot extract on my skin, a few drops and the attack stops every single time. I am fortunate. Thanks for writing. Essa