stevon said:
2 weeks and still itching! How long does this last? Still charging at hotel N/C and loving it! I hugged my friend's cat 2 weeks ago and now he has it on his arms! This is nasty stuff!
OT: Bad cases can last a month or longer. I learned basic recognition of it in the Boy Scouts ("Leaflets three, let it be. Berries white, poisonous sight") and then had years of spotting the stuff in all its many disguises, from low ground cover to vines to tree-size bushes, often camouflaging itself by mixing in with a similar-looking but harmless plant, and look for it as if I'm menaced by IEDs any time I'm in possible territory. Mostly, when I can't totally avoid it I only get a small line of blisters where a vine has unavoidably crossed the back of a hand, and it's gone in a few days.
Even so, I got my worst dose ever about 25 years ago, while hiking one February along a trail next to a creek. I normally hike in shorts sans shirt, and the trail was in the bottom of a canyon with a creek down the middle and trails on both sides. I was on the shady side trail and was a bit cold, and the nearest crossover was about a mile ahead, so I decided to cross the stream to the sunnier trail. Checked the brush for telltale signs, and all was good. Weaved my way through naked thigh to chest-high stems, occasionally brushing against or grabbing them, over to the other trail, and continued on in the sun. Spent the next three weeks plus with the skin on my back repeatedly cracking open and oozing, having to remove my shirt (which had to be torn free, as sweat made it stick to the ooze) every hour and have a co-worker spray it with cortisone spray. It was also on the front of my torso, my legs, my arms and hands. I think it was over a month before it was finally gone everywhere, but my memory has blurred the details.
Turns out that in winter, at least in that particular ecological niche, the leaves all drop off making it all but indistinguishable from all the other shrubs sans leaves, but the oil (urushiol) remains on the stems, so you need to look for stains. In spring/summer/fall, once you know what to look for (and I'll bet you'll be researching that diligently now
), it's pretty easy to spot. Avoiding it is more difficult; quite frankly, these days if it's going to be hard, I just avoid such spots altogether.