As if we needed another reason to fight global warming, a recent Duke University study concluded that rising levels of CO2 are causing poison ivy – and its likely cousins – poison oak ans sumac – to grow more ubiquitously than ever. What’s worse, excess carbon is making the plant’s allergenic toxin, urushiol, up to three times more potent!

Ways to treat poison ivy, oak, and sumac:

1. Baking Soda – add 1/2 cup of baking soda to a cool bath or create a pasty compress. A good short term fix.

2. Zanfel – touted to remove the toxin urushiol from skin in 30 seconds. The rash disappears in days.

3. Steroids – Taken in decreasing doses over several days can boost your immune system response. Verdict: Roids rock – rashes recede in just a couple days.

4. Sublingual Immunotherapy – build up your immunity to urushiol by dropping regulated doses of it beneath your tongue! Worth trying for extreme sufferers.

Excerpted from “Ask Doc Wild” – May 2008 – National Geographic Adventure

As a long-time sufferer of poison ivy rashes, I’ve tried most of the cures above (except for Zanfel, which I’ve never heard of until now). There is a cure missing from the list, though. I’ve always had great luck with “Jewelweed,” a.k.a “Touch-Me-Not,” which is a weed that grows about 3 feet high, produces orange snapdragon-like flowers. The “TouchMeNot” name is due to the seedpods that vigorously rupture when touched. Fortunately, this plant grows in the same areas where one finds poison ivy.

I learned this tried-and-true, never-fails cure for poison ivy from a old woman in the Great Smokies; she taught me to repeatedly rub a poultice of the fresh Jewelweed stems and leaves on the affected area, and the symptoms will disappear within a couple of days. It seems that the fresh sap of this plant is a natural antidote to the urushiol. There are extracts available, but something gets lost in the processing: fresh works best. In fact, nothing has ever worked so well for me as this plant. So, if you’re on the AT, and you decide to run nekkid through a poison ivy patch, Jewelweed can save your skin—literally!