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hooblie
climber
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Oct 14, 2009 - 10:44am PT
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willoughby, ok fixed it. "in the day's before conventional carnal delight, that sufficed." final edit. thanks
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 10:52am PT
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I'm reading Ishi and the author asserts the Yahi were immune to poison oak. Anybody ever heard of this?
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cliffhanger
Trad climber
California
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Oct 14, 2009 - 01:37pm PT
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Not only were the Indians immune, they used poison oak in medicine and cooking! From the net:
the Yuki of Mendocino County added red clay to the dough before baking acorn bread, to sweeten the bread (Chesnut 1902:338). The clay would act to remove more tannins. Further, these breads were baked for 12 hours in earth ovens with rock heating elements. Chesnut (1902:338) describes rocks as heated by a small fire, on which boughs of poison oak, oak, or maple trees are placed
Medicines drawn from the local plants of California were used by the Chumash, including willow bark for aches and pains, and poison oak for wounds
the (acorn) mush might be placed on hot rocks to make a little pancake or wrapped in leaves (Soap Plant, Poison Oak, etc.)
Plants like the Yerba Santa were useful for coughs and sore throats and the Amole or soap plant was used as both food and for washing the body and clothes. Pure Indians were immune to the effects of Poison Oak and actually used its leaves and juices extensively for skin disorders, rattlesnake bites and even dyes. Northern and desert California Indians used Indian tobacco but mostly for ceremonial and spiritual purposes. The plant was believed to also cure some ailments like rheumatism. The poisonous Jimson Weed was used commonly for boys to induce dreams in their rite of passage to manhood.
According to Balls (1970), the leaves of poison oak (Rhus diversiloba) were used by the Karok Indians of northwestern California to cover the (soaproot) bulbs while baking them in the earth ovens.
Poison oak and poison ivy are eaten by goats and sheep as well as deer and other wildlife. Animals do not appear to be sensitive to the poison.
Forest plants of the Southeast and their wildlife uses - Google Books Result
by James Howard Miller, Karl V. Miller - 2005 - Nature - 454 pages
Wildlife: Poison ivy and poison oak fruits are consumed by many species of ... Poison ivy is a moderate to high preference White-tailed Deer forage,
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 10:44pm PT
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Couchmaster - thanks for the tip!! Hard to find up here (wife had to pick some up in Reno today), and wasn't sure Zanfel was gonna be my friend at all, at $40/oz.!!!!! I'm definitely gonna have to go through another application, but holy smokes, this stuff might actually work!!!!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Oct 15, 2009 - 12:40am PT
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Cliffhanger,
Thanks, most interesting. I guess we honkies are just a bunch of hypochondriacs. It is interesting that 'modern' medicine views poison oak as something to which one gets increasingly sensitized. When we would get a dose as kids we would always head to the beach as a day in the salt water seemed to work wonders. Fast forwarding 'x' decades the last dose I got was so bad my doc told me the next time might see me admitted!
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Oct 15, 2009 - 01:58am PT
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hey there, say, all... here is neat link for you all:
http://www.knoledge.org/oak/
*man oh man, my stepgranddaughter barely brushed her cheeck against a michigan stinging nettle and it burned for near a half hour???
not sure if the near unsee-able nettle went in, or just scratched her...
i had seen it there and cautioned her to stay back, but somehow she was still too near it... too near to the side of the trail she was...
:(
but---it gave me a great opportunity to teach her... better than a book learning, in someways... in otherways, though, it was not... :(
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Oct 15, 2009 - 11:25am PT
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You're welcome Willoughby. The trick is to follow the directions and don't get to far away from the tube! (take it to work so if you start itching you can wash it right then). I usually buy the Walgreens house brand which at @$10 less a tube is a tad less of a ream out for the ounce you get. Every time I have shortcut the directions and tried to cheap out by putting less on, or not rubbing it together like they say, I seem to have to reapply.
It's the only thing I have found which actually "cures" it....for me. I do have a bunch of Touch-me-nots growing in the back yard as well (Orange Jewelweed), but they don't really work. For me. But I have lots of it and it looks pretty anyway.
I had it so bad once that I was very close to going to the hospital. The crap was coating my body - all down my arms, legs, crotch and was going systemic, going inside of me. I was doing the baking soda packs and baths (this helps for a short while and is cheap), but as it was inside of my body it was making me sick. I went to Walgreens and bought a tube or 2 of every Poison Oak remedy they had. I spent @ $150 or so. Tried a couple like the Ivy Wash, Technu Extreme and then something else before I got to the Zanfel. Hit it with that and it was under control right then. Totally amazed me.
So my strategy is to carry extra water for washing and regular (cheap) Technu in my car. When I crawl out of any Poison Oak encrusted woods at the end of the day, wash all exposed skin - and especially the hands! well. That helps reduce the Zanfel cost if nothing else:-) When I get home, peel the clothes to be washed and jump into a cool shower and hit everything with Technu again. Then if it blisters up later anyway (sometimes it does), hit it with the Zanfel. If it starts itching again (it only seems to if I shortcut the directions or wait till it's a majorly huge spot like all down my arm) I wash it the 2nd time and then it's good to go. Any blistering drys up and it stops itching right then. Amazing.
This was one of my best, least Poison Oak years and it wasn't an issue at all, unlike the last 25 or so. I tried to be more proactive, and I had that washing system going all year. Furthermore, as part of being pro-active, I hit 2 areas that I was repeatedly going to with some Poison Oak killer and killed the oak near or on climbs and trails. Why I didn't do that years ago is beyond me. The Tecnu says not to get it over 90 degrees (like inside a hot car), but the paint thinner in the ingredients seems to still work. In the past, I have employed the Euell Gibbons thing of eating some at the start of the year and that helps a little as well to get a tad of immunity going, but its marginal improvement and I usually forget to eat it until I'm in agony and covered in blisters. I haven't eaten any since I found the Zanfel. With this system, I started the year with a tube of Walgreens Zanfel equivalent at home and one at work. Both still have lots of salve left in them (OK, that's a damn lie, they come brand new with very little in them, I mean of the small amount originally, there is quite a bit left LOL), so it wasn't as expensive as last year where I'd wait till I was scratching and get the Oak itch bad, then apply Zanfel. I was in the woods a lot this year as well and it was not an issue at all.
Here's the Zanfel info for anyone else interested, and I have found this to be accurate, and not marketing hype.
http://www.zanfel.com/help/
"Zanfel™ Poison Ivy Wash is a safe and effective topical solution for poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac. It is the only product known to remove urushiol, the toxin responsible for the reaction, from the skin after bonding, enabling the affected area to immediately begin healing. After using Zanfel, the itching and pain are the first things to be relieved, usually within 30 seconds."
If you can't afford the Zanfel, (again, I'm buying house brand equivalent at Walgreens called "Poison Ivy Wash...dual action", it's the only slightly less outrageously priced bluish/green and white tube right next to the Zanfel tubes...: and it works) packing the area(s) with a paste of baking soda, a little water and baking soda, after climbing out of a hot bath that you had dumped in a bunch (like 1/2 a box) of Baking Soda -will temporarily give you some relief so you can get to sleep. But only do hot water days later, after you've washed all the oils off, or you'll spread it. A cool water shower should be the first thing you've done, a bath can float the oil and you'll get it elsewhere, the shower washes down the drain. This is for like the 3rd or 4th day after exposure where your skin is blistering and bloody from itching and you are ready to perform Seppuku/Hari-Kari.
When I was in agony back then, the outrageous expense of the Zanfel was still a cheap price to pay to get a cure. I used the original Zanfel too cause I knew it worked, it was worth every penny they charged.
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