Eating Poison IvyRE: [at-l] Poison Ivy eating

[nealb@midlandstech.com (William Neal)]

My Grandmother (born around 1880) and others of her generation swore by it.
The way I've heard it is that you eat two tiny of the first new leaves early
in the Spring.  Then every third day you add a leaf.  By the time you hit
the 7th course (21 days or three weeks), you should be immune.  I think Mema
tried that on me once.  She tried a lot on me.  

I've also heard that you can eat three tiny leaves a day for 3 weeks.
Usually most advice of this kind recommends a course of treatment over 3
weeks.  And they recommend tiny, new leaves.  Nothing large or left over
from last season.  It seems based on homopathic or naturepathic (I'm not
sure of the spellings) practices that believe taking a small amount of
certain substances builds up your natural immunity to the substance.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Leitschuh [mailto:janl2@mindspring.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 3:45 PM
To: DTimm65344@aol.com; AT-List
Subject: Re: [at-l] Poison Ivy




I have a poison ivy question/observation. But first:

Last April, I met some remarkable home-schooled children - yes, children,
aged 12, 14 and 16 - who were hiking the Trail. 
They got on in Gatlinburg, TN. Happy, positive, resourceful kids. Friendly
and wide open as puppies. The eldest, the girl Sass, would read a chunk of
"Ivanhoe" to the other two at night in the shelters. Hope she found the rest
of the book...
I last saw them at Trail Days in May. The Cummings family, Sass, Torch and
Bo. Does anyone know how they did? Did they finish?

Anyway, they were immune to poison ivy. I actually saw them pulling it out
from around my tentsite for me (thoughtful kids, those home-schoolers) at
Damascus. They fashioned me some extra tent stakes out of poison ivy
"sticks" (the climbing version). That made for an interesting time breaking
camp, as I am highly allergic.

They said their secret came from an older mountain woman, their hiking
mentor actually, who had advised them to eat two tiny poison ivy leaves each
spring. Mouse-ear-sized, eaten when the leaves are bronzey-red. They'll be
out in about six weeks. 

Anyone ever hear of this? The kids swore they used to be allergic..

Is there any immunological basis for this? Anyone care to experiment (I'm
right behind you, buddy-ro...)



DTimm65344@aol.com wrote:
> 
> I solved this problem during my youth by being dosed so many times and
> getting painted with that purple stuff so many times that I no longer
react
> to the stuff - not the recommended way to get immune, but apparently
that's
> what happened.
> 
> Black&blue - but no longer purple
> 
> In a message dated 02/19/02 6:33:19 PM Eastern Standard Time,
kahley@ptd.net
> writes:
> 
> > Ahhh.............poison ivy...the maintainers ban..................
> 
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    	Jan Leitschuh Sporthorses Ltd.

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