What Are the Best Home Remedies for Poison Ivy Rash?

Contrary to popular belief, not all plants have medicinal value. In fact, exposure to some of them can result in the development of a rash on the skin. Commonly known as the poison ivy plant, this plant produces urushiol, which is a type of soil that infects the skin causing a severe and often painful rash you should know some home remedies to cure it.

One can get a rash from poison ivy while hiking, having a picnic with friends in a garden, or spending their quality time in their backyard. However, you need to focus on one thing that your skin is exposed to rash, thereby you need to keep using home remedies so that the situation doesn’t get exacerbated.

For those of you who work in such outdoor environments or are prone to get a poison ivy rash frequently, we have listed some of the most effective and best home remedies that can help you relieve the extent of the problem immediately.

Best Home Remedies for Poison Ivy Rash

While there are some really fortunate people who are not at all sensitive to having physical contact with the poison ivy plant, most of us immediately develop a rash if our skin is exposed to the plant oil that is produced. In most cases, the rash usually takes its own time to subside and go away and the treatments and natural remedies are only helpful in managing symptoms.

Here are some of the easy home remedies that you can adopt to get some relief from your poison ivy rash symptoms.

Take a Quick Bath

If you are exposed to a rash due to poison ivy, the best thing you can do is to immediately take a shower and wash the infected area with cold water. Further, to avoid future infection, wash your fingernails and your hands with a strong disinfectant. Finally, throw all your clothes into the laundry right away and wash them separately from other clothes. This is the first step towards applying home remedies.

Banana Peel

In order to provide an immediate soothing and cooling effect to your rash with home remedies, rub a banana peel on the infected skin. The antimicrobial properties of the peel will help in the anti-inflammation of the skin surrounding the wound and provide some quick relief. Once you rub your rash with the peel, let it stay there for at least 20 minutes before washing it with clean water. For best results, repeat the process three times a day until the rash soothes.

Rubbing Alcohol

This is one of the most applied home remedies to soothe the rash. Alcohol helps in extracting the poison ivy plant oil from the skin and from subsequent surfaces. You can either dampen a cloth with some alcohol or use commercially available alcohol wipes to gently apply it to the rash. Not only would it prevent the rash from spreading further, but would also speed up the healing process.

Baking Soda

Another home remedy is to apply baking soda to the rash. While some people still don’t believe it to be an effective measure, the truth is that it actually helps in the speedy recovery of the rash. It is all chemistry at work here. The pH of the baking soda helps in healing the blistered skin and further prevents the prevalence of other infections. Always remember to dilute baking soda in water before applying it or the concentration can become too high to manage.

Aloe Vera

A classic way to get quick relief from the poison ivy rash or actually any other skin infection for that matter is to apply some aloe vera gel on the rash. It is a stated fact that aloe vera helps in beating the burn and has antifungal properties that promote the healing of the wound. So, the next time you go on a hike or a picnic, always keep a bottle of aloe vera gel handy as this is one of the beneficial home remedies.

How To Recognize Poison Ivy?

They say prevention is better than cure, and they are certainly right. If one has the knowledge of how a poison ivy plant actually looks, it would be easier to remain cautious around the plant and avoid exposing oneself to the risk of getting a serious rash. So, the next time you are outside, look out for the following features to identify what a poison ivy plant looks like:

• One of the easiest ways to differentiate poison ivy from other plants is to have a close look at the leaves of the plant. In doing so, pay special attention to the leaflets. There would be three glossy leaflets present on each leaf of the plant.
• The edges of the leaves will mostly be smooth and if you cannot find something with smooth edges, try and look for something that is notched.
• Poison ivy is not a tall plant. Rather, you will largely see it as either growing as a very small shrub or with the support of a vine and rarely independently.
• The leaves of the poison ivy only remain green during the summers. It changes colors according to seasonal changes. They become red in spring and yellow or orange during the fall.
• The plants bear white and yellow berries with green and white flowers.

Conclusion

While the symptoms of a poison ivy rash and contact dermatitis are relatively similar (large red rash and severe itching), the aforementioned home remedies can be nonetheless used in either condition to get a soothing effect and improve the condition. For more health and wellness tips, do not forget to check out more of our informational articles.