Concerning animals: the perils of poison ivy

After 10 plus years in The Star-Ledger's Accent section, the pet column has moved to a new space: the weekly Home & Garden. In honor of the move, I thought I'd write about my own garden, where a certain lethal leaf recently set up camp among my favorite flowering shrubs and hedges. Of course I'm talking poison ivy, that ubiquitous and nasty intruder. Poison ivy is not ugly per se, but what it does to the unsuspecting gardener can be very ugly. I know -- I just recovered from an attack that covered half my body. What does this have to do with dogs and cats? Plenty, as I found out. But first, let me lead you to my discovery of the connection between me, poison ivy and my husky, Timber.

The attack

It started innocently, with an itch beneath my left ear. I scratched without much thought. By the next morning, pink spots were creeping around my face, neck, chest, both arms and my waist, causing an itching frenzy. Since it was the weekend, I went to the nearest walk-in clinic where I swear the doctor on duty yawned, probably thinking, "Not another case of poison ivy," as he drifted away -- but not before giving me a printout of facts and fiction about poison ivy along with prescriptions for Prednisone and a tube of Halobetasol cream. Here's where I made my first mistake.

Hedging my bets

I'm one of those patients that doctors find, well, trying: I seldom take so much as an aspirin. Stuffing the prescriptions in my bag, I went out and bought good old calamine lotion, which did absolutely nothing to stem the spread and little to ease the itch. Just in case, I washed my hands compulsively every time I pet Timber, who had been molting huge chunks of fur that scattered around him in a constant cloud, reminiscent of PigPen in the "Peanuts" comic strip.

I already knew that dogs and cats don't catch poison ivy but can transport urushiol, the toxic oil from the plant, on their coats. Just a dot of that insidious oil can start a poison ivy epidemic on a susceptible person. When the spot beneath my ear began to itch, poison ivy never entered my mind -- the only case I'd ever had was mild and occurred in childhood. Little did I know that every time I had touched my ear and then another part of my body I was spreading the poison ivy.

Retracing my steps, I remembered rubbing against a privet hedge I was trimming. As I reached high, my left ear and arm had grazed the hedge, which had poison ivy intertwined that I didn't then recognize. I also had to accept that some of it could have been on Timber. I prefer to blame the hedge.

A solution

When I mentioned my poison ivy attack to a friend, she said she'd just recovered from a bout and urged me to race to the nearest drug store for some Tecnu gel, produced by Tec Laboratories in Albany, Oregon. Tecnu is an amazing product that does what it says on the tube: "Works in 15 seconds." If it weren't for Tecnu, the itching would have sent me to the moon.

I nabbed the last tube at a Rite-Aid. A druggist said the store had seen a big demand for poison ivy remedies recently, especially Tecnu. Rite-Aid consistently offered the best price and even sold tubes half-price (no wonder they ran out) while other chains maintained the retail price of $13.99 or more. One privately owned Union County drugstore was even charging a hefty $16.99.

Heeding advice

By the fourth day, my right hand and arm had swollen dramatically, prompting me to frantically call my dermatologist. He was on vacation and his partner was swamped (possibly with other poison ivy sufferers?) Rushing to my local physician, I received prescriptions for -- guess what? The same remedies that first doc at the clinic had prescribed. This time I listened. The swelling was gone the next day.

While Tecnu continued to preserve a modicum of sanity between itching episodes, calamine dried the sores and the Prednisone and cream did their thing. Had I listened to that first doc, I would have been spared the swollen arm and shortened the span of time in which my life was controlled by poison ivy (a full two weeks.)

Pets as carriers

First off, don't even think of getting rid of your pets! Get rid of the poison ivy, which is fairly easy to do. Effective products are Roundup, Ortho's Kleeraway Grass & Weed Killer or Ortho's Brush-Bgon Poison Ivy Killer (prices vary). Make sure the poison ivy killer is on the plant a minimum of 12 hours with no rain to wash it away. You'll have to apply it twice.

Until the ivy is dead, buy some Cortaid 8-inch-by-7-inch pads, six to a $9.99 package at CVS, to wipe down your dog's coat when he comes inside. You can also use them on yourself and on outdoor cats. Cortaid also sells a gel similar to Tecnu in a package with a spray, for $34.99 at CVS.

According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, changes in the atmosphere have increased the abundance and toxicity of the nasty weed. Don't take chances. Check www.poison-ivy.org for pictures and more advice. The old saying "Leaves of three, let it be" won't mean much to Fido and Fluffy, who don't know poison ivy from forsythia. You must be vigilant.

www.nj.com

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