Poison Sumac: What it is and My Personal Experience

You've heard of poison ivy I'm sure. Everyone avoids it because the effects of it aren't pleasant to say the least. I never had it. I have every inch of my yard inspected and cleaned of it every year if there is any found. I had heard of Sumac before, but never poison Sumac, that is until I got it.

Poison Sumac is the cousin of poison ivy. It has green berries that droop in clusters, the stem is usually a reddish color and it has seven to thirteen leaves on each stem. This plant contains an oily substance called Urushiol, which is what gives you the itchy rash. The rash will start happening anywhere from hours to days after contact and can last for a weeks depending on how severe you have it. The rash goes from a simple red rash to the skin being swollen and then parts of it developing into large yellow blisters that ooze if they break.

When I'm gardening, I'm always on the lookout for poison ivy to the point of being paranoid. I decided to go into a different part of my yard that hadn't been cleaned out in a very long time. This next part will explain exactly how I got it where I did. I wore a long sleeve shirt, long pants, long socks, sneakers and had gardening gloves on. When I was finished, I bagged the weeds, took off the gloves, brushed my clothes off, scrubbed my hands and took a shower. After I was finished I grabbed the dirty clothes and put them in the laundry. When I was finished, I put on shorts and a t-shirt then I remembered that I had left the gardening tools on the porch that I used. I crouched down, and put them on my knees as I put them away one by one. I finished, got up, brushed my legs off and continued on with my day.

The next day I wake up with patches of red skin. I scratched it but I didn't think anything of it until a few hours later when I noticed that the red patches of skin were starting to get swollen. I didn't make a big deal of it, I figured that I had just touched some small insignificant weed that irritated my skin and made me a little itchy. Hours later I had it on my arms, stomach and legs. After awhile my legs and stomach were blistering in spots and I thought that was the worst of it. I didn't have any blisters on my arms and not a lot of swollen patches there either, so I figured it was something I could deal with. The worst parts were on my stomach and on my legs. Still I didn't go to the doctor against the warnings of everyone around me. I had too much to do and didn't want to take the time off of work. I took antihistamines and used Calamine lotion. I had an important formal event in three days and there was no way I could possibly miss it. I had made a promise to someone and I had paid a lot of money, plus I was looking forward to going.

Then it happened. The red patches of skin on my inner thighs were now completely swollen and blistered. It was about four inches in length and five inches wide. It was the kind of itchy that makes a person feel like they're going completely mad. I was in so much pain whenever I touched my skin that had the rash on it that I couldn't apply the medicine without crying. Even wearing clothing on any part of the rash hurt. I would go on scratching rampages- holding off until I couldn't take it anymore tearing into my thighs, legs and arms. I had gauze wraps all over me where I had the rash and I kept having to change them because the blisters were oozing. The one bright spot is that I didn't have on my face, in my eyes or in my mouth or ears.

I went to the formal event and covered up the swollen spots that were on my arms with a shawl. There wasn't much to cover considering the majority of the rash was elsewhere and I was wearing a long dress. On the way home from the formal event, I went to the hospital. That is where I was told that I had poison sumac. I immediately went home, threw out the clothes that I was wearing along with the garden tools that I had used.

You can probably guess how I spread it where I did on my body. The Urushiol was on my clothes and the garden tools, which then transferred to my skin.

You can prevent getting poison sumac, or anything like it, by doing the following things:

Identifying exactly what the plant looks like. If you're nervous about removing it yourself, hire a professional.

Wear long clothing when walking in wooded areas or doing any form of gardening.

Scrub your hands as soon as you get inside, then immediately throw your garden gloves and your clothes into the washing machine and clean them.

Wash off all of your garden tools as well as possible.

If you have any pets that you think may have been exposed to it, bathe them well to remove the Urushiol from their fur.

t's now the season of gardening, so make sure you study up on poisonous plants before doing anything involving the areas around your house.