Cave related: When my sister and her now ex were living in Tennessee, they went
caving one weekend. The entrance was a crawl-in slit, but what Jodie didn't
realize was that the lush veg at the entrance was p-i. She got it all down her
front including neck, chest, belly and legs. I think she may have burned her
clothes when she got home. She used something topical for the itch and
blisters, but got a cortisone shot from her doc. The blisters finally went
away. Out West, we have poison oak (same results) and we carry Tech-Nu in our
warehouse for people to wash up with if they've been exposed. The biggest
problem is when we get big wildland fires that burn through poison oak areas;
you can't wash your lungs with Tech-Nu.
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 23:15:06 +0000
From: dirt...@comcast.net
To: Texascavers@texascavers.com
Subject: [Texascavers] Poison-ivy and Karst
Poison-ivy and Karst
How cave related can you get?? (I'll do everything I can to get this site back
on track)
I grew up in New York and was terribly allergic to poison ivy as a youngster.
Like, someone burned some brush with the vines in the pile, a half-mile away.
Good Lord, was I ever in an awful itchy situation after the smoke passed over
me ------. Fortunately my lungs did not react.
When I started to do karst and geological things in upstate NY, I discovered
two things:
1. To see the bedrock I had to crawl on my belly like a snake up stream beds.
2. I could map the limestone without ever seeing it, just by mapping where the
lush poison ivy grew. (THAT is the Karst tie-in)
After I came West, I could more easily see Rocks and I gradually lost my
extreme reaction. But I learned what George cautioned: Immunity is lost by
repeated exposure.
Then I moved to Texas and discovered Poison Oak. It makes TREES going up the
cliffs with trunks as big around as Bob Oakley's thighs around springs in the
Big Bend. ESPECIALLY in what is now Big Bend Ranch State Park.
