How do I tell if my rash is from poison ivy?
A poison ivy rash can be indentified in a few ways. The most common one, of course, is realization that you have actually been in contact with a poison ivy plant! If you break out in a rash while you're stil out and about amongst plants, look for the guilty party. You can pick out poison ivy from the crowd easily enough if you know what you're supposed to be looking for – its leaves come in threes on single stems. They're a reddish color in the spring or fall, but green in summer. Often quite shiny, they have jagged edges and can grow as a shrub, a ground covering plant, or a vine. The vines are easily noticed, since they're covered in fine hairs, giving them the appearance of hairy ropes clinging to trees.
If you can see such a plant in your surrounding area, then you know you've found your culprit. Poison ivy contains an oil that is toxic to skin, known as urushiol. When you brush against the plant, the oil will transfer easily to your skin, and once it gets rubbed in or has time to absorb, most people will experience an allergic reaction called urushiol-induced contact dermatitis. But even if you're positive that you haven't come into contact with a poison ivy plant, there are other ways in which the urusiol could have ended up on your skin – it's very easily transferred on to clothes, for example, or on to the fur of a cat or dog who's been out exploring and rubbed against some poison ivy! You can even catch it by handling a gardening tool or other object that's previously come into contact with it. Consider the possible poison ivy carriers before you completely rule out the possibility that your rash comes from poison ivy.
The rash will normally show up 24 to 48 hours after contact with poison ivy. It begins with patches of red skin appearing, which are usually incredibly itchy. This develops into raised bumps on the skin, and often blisters filled with clear fluid. The itchy bumps are often in a straight line or streaks, from where the leaf dragged along the skin when you brushed past it. They will often appear to spread over a period of a few days, but don't worry – if you're definitely not still in contact with poison ivy or a carrier, this isn't a new infection. It's just that parts of your skin will have touched the plant for less time and so received less of the poison, so these parts will take longer to come out in a rash. It's a myth that scratching the rash will cause it to spread – once the urushiol has been absorbed by your skin, and the rest washed off, it can't be transferred either to other parts of your body or to other people.
A poison ivy rash is most commonly identified by its often unbearable itchiness. The severity and number of the blisters depends on the individual's skin reaction, as well as the amount of urushiol absorbed by the skin. Generally, if left alone, the blisters crust over within a few days. The rash itself takes at least a week, often 2-4 weeks, to disappear completely.
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