WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO "GET RID" OF POISON IVY INFECTION?
1) The root cause of the PI irritation is the oil Urushiol.
2) Urishol itself causes no irritation to the body. However it does penetrate the skin, painlessly, and then it forms a complex with protiens in the skin cells.
3) The complex takes time to form, giving some opportunity for the removal of the jamority of the oil by proper washing.
4) Once the complex(es) form with Urishiol and skin proteins, the body's immune system recognizes this complex as a foreign body and the immune system is activated to attempt to deal with the foreign body.
5) T-cells recognize the foreign body and call up B-cells whose goal is to destroy the foreign antigen and various antibodies are called into play which produce things like histamine.
The Byproducts of the immune system reaction (histamines or other) are what cause the itching and discomfort.
6) The complex of cell protein and urushiol related chemistry is elimined by two methods....
a) The B-Cells destroy the complex (could be relatively fast?)
or
b) The skin growth simply carries the urushoil contaminated cells to the surface whene they fall off( could take a week or several weeks?)
7) The balance of the amount of urushoil complex destroyed and that which is carried off by skin cell regeneration has not yet been indicated in the available writings....
So, in summary the ways to get rid of the foreign body response or CURE POISON IVY are....
I. To remove the oils and cells by mechanical scratching, resulting in potential scars.
II To remove the oils and cells by immune system reactions which takes time.
III To decrease the severity of the immune system reaction by cortiscoid drugs which inhibit the immune system reactions and thus decrease the itching symptoms.
IV To extract the urushoil compounds by a salve such as Technu which claims to do so.
V To extract the urushoil compounds by any other solvent. For example, prolonged swimming in heavily chlorinated water which may slowly dissolve the oils or alternatively react with the oils.
VI To destroy the urushoil compounds in the skin with harsh chemicals such as lye, bleach or ammonia (or such as prolonged swimming in heavily chlorinated water?)..... which are subject to scarring and other considerations as precautions.
Based on a day's research, the ways to "Cure" PI are logical....
Remove the irritating oil compounds
Destroy the irritating oil compounds
Decrease the immune system reaction by drugs
Exhause the histamine content of cells by hot showers for temporary releaf.... essentially replicating part of the slowdown of immune system response.
Let the body work the compounds out of the body by cellular turnover and normal slough off of dead cells..
Jim Buch |
