Would DMSO make poison ivy worse?

[Guest guest]

Just curious, would it spread the irritant and make the patch grow? Anyone have

an opinion?

[Guest guest]

I did a Google search on <urushiol +dmso> and found an Earth

Clinic page where a couple of people were saying it does

help dry up PI.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/pjyemz Read this Earth Clinic

page, it had several mentions of DMSO so I sent the cached

version of the page with DMSO highlighted for easy scanning.

There are a number of suggestions for treating PI including

ACV or a paste of ACV and Baking Soda, which does foam up

but will leave a paste.

I have used a poultice of Yarrow, Clay, Slippery Elm and

Comfrey to dry up PI blisters in a matter of 20 minutes.

Yarrow is the main active ingredient, the others were things

I had on hand and threw in. The one time I used it I had

severe blisters from cutting a Mother Vine off a fence in

winter. I only applied the poultice once.

This Wikipedia page <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urushiol>

says " Urushiol is a mixture of several closely-related

organic compounds. Each consists of a catechol substituted

with an alkyl chain that has 15 or 17 carbon atoms. The

alkyl group may be saturated or unsaturated; urushiol oil is

a mixture of saturated and unsaturated molecules. The

mixture varies with the vegetative species. Whereas Western

poison oak urushiol contains chiefly catechols with C17

side-chains,[2] poison ivy and poison sumac yield mostly

catechols with C15 side-chains. The allergic reaction is

dependent on the degree of unsaturation of the alkyl chain.

Less than half of the general population reacts with the

saturated urushiol alone, but over 90% react with urushiol

containing at least two degrees of unsaturation (double bonds). "

Maybe DMSO is *altering the chemical structure of the

urushiol* so that it is no longer an allergen so it does not

matter if it spreads or gets carried into the body? This is

the first thing that popped into my mind when DMSO was

suggested for PI, but you know DMSO is an antioxidant and

reacts with some stuff so it's possible, not being a chemist

I don't know for sure. I think I would be conservative until

I had tried it on a small patch. Apparently those reporting

on Earth Clinic found it beneficial.

Garnet

haecklers wrote:

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> Just curious, would it spread the irritant and make the patch grow?

> Anyone have an opinion?

>

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