The cure for Poison Oak

[Whisky Fish]

Don't know why I haven't posted this before, with all the sportsmen here it should have been a no brainer. Dan's post on MMJ kinda inspired this;

If you suffer from poison oak, poison ivy, minor to severe skin burns or any other skin issue, I urge you to try this,
Tannic acid;
It may be available over the counter but I have never seen it.
To obtain it you need to have access to acorns or the galls on oak branches(those are the round, bark covered balls of various size)
In order to make acrons edible the indians found that boiling them in water removed the tannic acid, which is horribly bitter in taste. For the wine drinkers here, you have probably discussed the tannins in wine. Same stuff.
20 or so acorns and a couple cups of water will produce a good solution. peel the acorns if green or if dry just throw em in with the skin on. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. I usually go an hour, more if you leave the skin on.
The water will turn black. Discard or consume the acorns(I don't care for the texture, they kind of have a chalky, numbing mouth feel).
To treat poison oak simply apply the water with a paper towel 2 or three times a day. You will notice that it removes the itch immediately and in 1 day you will see a drying and reduction in redness. Should take a week or less to be 75% cured and you can stop applying the solution.
We don't have poison ivy around here but I have read that it is effective on that as well and while I certainly would say go to the doctor for 2nd and 3rd degree burns, in 3rd world countries it has been used successfully on all burns.
A friend of mine was suffering from some sort of psoriasis on 70% of her body, and the Drs were'nt healing her. two weeks of this solution and all symptoms were gone, she still thanks me when she sees me.
Kinda pisses me off that it isn't available commercially when it has long been known to be effective, but again, the pharmaceudical companies can't make money on it?
Give it a try, really works.

[Meat Hunter]

Good post Whiskey. Don't have any poison Oak around here, but we do have the Ivy. And, I got a chitload of acorns.
I'm a firm believer, that if one does a little research, you will find there is almost always a natural cure for something in the wild

[Fishawn]

Good stuff JT, very interesting

[WALLE]

JT,

I don't think we have poison oak here, but we do have a shit load of poison ivy. I'm sending this to my brother. When we were kids, we tromped through a huge patch of poison ivy to get to the river to go swimming. He still breaks out from it when he even gets close to the stuff. We use him as our living poison ivy detector - when he starts going off, we STOP!

I agree that these scoffed natural remedies kept the natives alive for centuries and can be just as or more effective than a tube of cream...

[Checkered Past]

Good info JT.. Thanks for posting it...ya never know what you might get into out there

[Mark R]

Great post JT. IF it grows here it will stick you, stab you or sting you! We have poison ivy, oak and sumac! And a couple other plants that will give you a rash.
I never knew that acorns were human edible at all, might have to try just for curiosity.

[WALLE]

Hey Jerod,
Do you know if this can be made and then stored? Obviously not for a long period I would think, but in these parts, the acorns are far and few between, and really only available in late summer/fall. Wondering if a guy should make the elixir and store it, or just harvest the acorns, save them, then make it?

[Mark R]

Hey Jerod,
Do you know if this can be made and then stored? Obviously not for a long period I would think, but in these parts, the acorns are far and few between, and really only available in late summer/fall. Wondering if a guy should make the elixir and store it, or just harvest the acorns, save them, then make it?

You want a box of them ? Got plenty.

[Whisky Fish]

Hey Jerod,
Do you know if this can be made and then stored? Obviously not for a long period I would think, but in these parts, the acorns are far and few between, and really only available in late summer/fall. Wondering if a guy should make the elixir and store it, or just harvest the acorns, save them, then make it?

I just let the acorns dry naturally and store em in a quart wide mouth jar, and the galls are available all year long and contain 10 times the amount of tannic acid. Just check on some oaks and look for what looks like a bark covered ball somewhere between golf ball to baseball size. This occures from the trees reaction from a parisitic invasion

[SmokinLee]

good info. thanks, I'll have to save this.

[Crewdawg52]

Tis very good info. But not many acorns around here. I keep a bottle of Ivy-Dry in the cabinet. Spray it on and it works relatively quickly on the itch and rash.

[Jimh]

up here there is also a weed that grows right next to poison ivy that is a cure for the itch it is called jewel weed and it has these cool little pods that when you touch them they sort of explode.you just strip the leaves and pods roll them back and forth in you hands until they turn dark and sweaty( the only way I can explain it) then rub it on the blisters

[chisoxjim]

nice home remedy tip, the over the counter remedies are slow working.

I have poison ivy, oak & sumac on my property. Some of the ivy grows in vines as thick as my forearm.

[HawgHeaven]

Great post... thanks for sharing!!!

[wntrlnd77]

Very cool post!

Great post!

And from reading the Wikipedia article on tannic acid, I discovered Black Tea works the same way. Although tea doesn't contain tannic acid, it does have tannins and other polyphenols that sooth burns.

So, if you don't have oak trees/galls around, you could just buy some cheap black tea at the 99 cent store and brew some cure up in a teapot.

And, apparently the bark from redwood trees contains the cure, too. So if you are lucky enough to live where those big suckers grow, you have another potential source.