I’m off to see my acupuncturist. For the past week, I’ve had a poison oak rash. it pretty much floored me until yesterday. I actually ventured into the world and interacted with other people beside my husband! It was out of necessity,of course, as I needed some supplies to replace homeopathic remedies given to me by my equally sensitive skinned neighbor..
So, before I get into poison oak and why I think that is like living hell, I made a lunch to eat after my acupuncture appointment!
Green tea soba with sliced young coconut meat. Chopped chives and togarashi pepper on top. The cold soup of enoki, shitake and pineapple has two peeled tomatoes. when that gets heated up, mmmm yum.
So, I’ll spare everyone the yucky details of pictures, but essentially I crashed my mountain bike into a bed of oak and both arms and were affected. I recently read that if you constantly tax your lactic threshold with hard workouts and don’t let yourself recover properly, fatigue sets in, tour technical skills suffer. Swell.
I’ve been off both bikes for 4 days now, which is 3 more than I have been in almost 2 months. So technical skills down, body down, at least no more accidents! Right?!
Here’s the remedy recommended to me by my neighbor who suffers from as many allergies as I do and has extremely sensitive skin.
At first I was using topical Benadryl spray with Aveeno oatmeal bath. It did very little and the Benadryl in conjunction with heat made me stick to sheets, clothes, what have you. I also knocked myself out with Benadryl 25mg tablets. (I’ve had to use steroids before, but that case of poison oak was REALLY bad.) Steroids are harsh and made me super dazed and useless.
But… Ivory soap dries your skin.
The hydrogen peroxide cleans and disinfects the rash. The witch hazel comes next and does essentially the same thing as the peroxide but way more soothing and non-traumatic. Then, calendula ointment both soothes and heals the rash.
Personally, I was not sure this would help me, but I did it and the oozing was definitely less and the itching was also lessened.
Leaving now for acupuncture! She’s going to do “poison points” today to further draw out the toxins of the plant! Evil poison oak!
