Category: personal

Awkward Anecdotes

writ­ten 12/5/2020, updat­ed 9/28/2025

An on-going log of embar­rass­ing mem­o­ries.

~Door­way Dance — The build­ing man­ag­er for the office build­ing I work in is a tall man with a huge bel­ly. We nick­named him “Bel­ly Man.” He’s a sin­gle guy in his late 50s or so and he’s, in a word, kind of creepy. He’s nice enough and means well, but if you were to see him about, peo­ple get afraid. He reminds me of a big troll. He likes me and is my patient which makes every­thing awk­ward. Some­times, I swear he watch­es me on the cam­era because sud­den­ly he’s there to open the build­ing door for me the moment I round the cor­ner. Any­ways, as I was ascend­ing the stairs one day, I hear his voice talk­ing to some­one else, but I’m com­mit­ted and keep going up. There he is in the door­way I need, so I saw hi. From the out­side of the door (it swings inwards towards me in the stair­well), he’s try­ing to hold it open for me except that his BELLY IS TOO BIG and now have this super small space to try and squeeze through. My bag is real­ly big, too, so I’m try­ing to fig­ure out how to squeeze through that lit­tle tri­an­gle of space. I make it through, but he final­ly real­izes that his bel­ly is too big, so as I go through, he kind of spins around like a bal­le­ri­na or a revolv­ing door, hands in the air. He says some­thing that I can’t hear because I died 18 lives from cringe and hur­ry into my office. UUUGGGH.

~Hair Pluck - I was work­ing on a patient who has been dif­fi­cult in the past, but likes me. Regard­less, there’s a lev­el of anx­i­ety work­ing on her. I was fin­ish­ing up, wip­ing away any paste I got on her face. There had been a hair on her lip that I’d noticed but had failed to sub­tley brush away (some­times per­haps my hair or the patients hair falls on them). It was a pret­ty long, thick hair, about 2–3 inch­es long and blond (there­fore NOT mine). Final­ly, I just went ahead and tugged on it quick­ly, afraid that she’d feel it and notice a hair on her face. Turns out, it was con­nect­ed to her lip mole and she flinched when I pulled. SUPER EMBARRASSED, I ran out of the room to “go get the doc­tor.” As a side note, the next time I saw her a few years lat­er, she no longer had it on her face.

~I can’t see - When I was still in high school, I went with my mom to Chick-fil‑a to order food. It was our turn and she asked me what I want­ed. I had trou­ble see­ing the menu because I did­n’t have my glass­es on, so I remem­bered that if you nar­row your field of vision, your acu­ity increas­es slight­ly, and used both of my hands cupped like binoc­u­lars over my eyes. My mom jabbed me real­ly hard and hissed at me to stop that. She was embar­rassed and my mom rarely gets embar­rassed! At first I was annoyed, but then it dawned on me how weird that looked. And Chick-fil‑a is usu­al­ly quite crowd­ed. Oops.

~Duh­h­hh — I was sit­ting in front of my high school with my broth­er wait­ing to be picked up. We were both play­ing games on our graph­ic cal­cu­la­tors because this was before cell phones were wide­spread and well before smart phones (pay phones were a thing in schools!). A woman, clear­ly a mom, walks up to us and asks if we knew where the Japan­ese Club was meet­ing. Of course I knew, I took Japan­ese class! It was just inside the cafe­te­ria and I want­ed to tell her as much, except…all that came out of my mouth was, “Duh, duh, duh, duh.” I looked wild­ly around while these sounds were com­ing out of my mouth and begged my broth­er for help with my eyes. His eyes were firm­ly glued to his cal­cu­la­tor and a smirk plas­tered on his face. The woman high­tailed it out of there with­out anoth­er word and I was left going, WTF just hap­pened?? My broth­er prompt­ly bust­ed out laugh­ing and I’m sure the woman thought I was a spe­cial needs stu­dent.

~Butt poke - When I was very very small and about the height of peo­ple’s butts, we were shop­ping at Sears at the mall in the clothes sec­tion. I used to like to hide inside the clothes racks. Well, when I came out, I went look­ing for my mom who’d gone some­where. That’s when I saw her with her back to me, those famil­iar pur­ple leg­gings she wore in front of me. I went and poked her butt hard with my lit­tle fin­ger. An old lady turned around and it was def­i­nite­ly NOT my mom. I start­ed cry­ing right away and I don’t real­ly remem­ber what hap­pened after that except I was old enough to feel very embar­rassed and that I was even­tu­al­ly reunit­ed with my mom.

~Gift — A co-work­er of mine was leav­ing for green­er pas­tures and on her last day he brought in gifts for every­one. I had com­plete­ly for­got­ten. She gave me mine and I thanked her and when I went to put it in my bag I remem­bered the dog-a-day desk cal­en­dar I’d been mean­ing to bring and hap­pi­ly brought it out. As I was unwrap­ping it in front of this co-work­er I was excit­ed­ly telling her about mean­ing to bring the thing in for a while. It was­n’t until I was putting it on oper­a­to­ry that I real­ized that she was expect­ing me to have brought her a gift. Ooops. Got her a fruit box deliv­ery soon there­after.

~Wed­ding Card — There was a point in my life where I was very proud of writ­ing poems. My co-work­er was get­ting mar­ried and I wrote her a poem inside of a card. Here’s what it said:

I wish you love,
I say con­grats,
Like a glove,
Like nice hats,
You fit like glue
No longer one but two.

I was super proud of it but when she was read­ing it, I got a sink­ing feel­ing in my gut that the last part sound­ed total­ly wrong. I meant like, she was no longer sin­gle but dou­ble. Instead it sound­ed like they were break­ing up. Geez.

~“I Hope” — One of my long-term patients came in with the snif­fles and say­ing he had a cold. While gen­er­al­ly we frown upon patients com­ing that are sick, I’m not going to turn them away unless they had a fever. Went through the appoint­ment, every­thing was fine, when he got up to leave, I cheer­ful­ly said to him, “I hope you kick it soon!” He turned with a frown and I sud­den­ly real­ized what I’d said and tried to save it quick­ly with, “THE COLD. I hope you kick THE COLD soon!” *Facepalm*

~Deep­er — I was see­ing a patient that I cringe when­ev­er I see his name on my sched­ule. Things were going okay and he told me, as I was doing his low­er front teeth, that he gets “a per­verse plea­sure” when­ev­er those teeth are cleaned so long as it does­n’t hit his gums because he can’t stand that feel­ing. I, per­son­al­ly, love clean­ings, so I told him that my favorite place is in his place in the whole office because I love clean­ings. I said, “I love it. You could dig at me all day and I’m like, ‘Go hard­er! Go Deep­er!’ ” I froze as soon as I said that and on any oth­er patient it might go over well, albeit awk­ward­ly. He, of course, got this nasty smile on his face after I said that while I pre­tend­ed that it was total­ly nor­mal what had just come from my mouth. Geez.

~Arm Punch — After my first date with my ex-boyfriend, we had def­i­nite­ly felt the spark. He drove me home from the day’s adven­tures and I was freak­ing out about how to end the date. What do I do? We were kind of sit­ting there in front of my house in his truck and he turned towards me with antic­i­pa­tion, I pan­icked, thanked him and punched him in the arm before hop­ping out and run­ning to my house. His face was price­less when I did that, one of utter shock mixed with amuse­ment. I’m laugh­ing writ­ing about it now. He nev­er did let me live that down.

~Par­al­lel Park­ing a Hon­da Fit — I was try­ing to park my mom’s Hon­da Fit on the street. I mean, it’s a Hon­da Fit. It’s tiny, but I’m a ter­ri­ble par­al­lel park­er. Regard­less, I thought that even I should be able to park the car and the spot I’d seen while walk­ing the dogs seemed per­fect. I drove out and pro­ceed­ed to back in just like I was taught all of those years ago. I think I cor­rect­ed like 10 times before I saw some peo­ple star­ing at me mouth agape. Embar­rassed, I drove off and found a real­ly huge spot even though it was far­ther away. Parked, and real­ized that even though I thought I was real­ly close to the cars in front and behind me, when I stepped out­side, I was parked in a spot big enough for 3 cars. After fix­ing myself, I walked back to the place I ini­tial­ly tried to park in and imme­di­ate­ly facepalmed myself. Two sedans in the mean time had parked them­selves neat­ly in it. Ugh. No won­der those peo­ple were star­ing.

~Eat­ing Pil­low — I was dream­ing about eat­ing my aun­t’s hol­i­day desserts. I crammed them all in my mouth because they were so good, but sud­den­ly I was chok­ing. I could not breathe, but I kept chew­ing and try­ing to swal­low because I did­n’t want to spit them out they were so good. I kept chok­ing and chok­ing until I woke up and found that I’d been eat­ing my pil­low. The part of the pil­low­case that I was try­ing to eat had been tight­ly twist­ed and was com­plete­ly soaked in my sali­va. I was astound­ed and extreme­ly embar­rassed that I could have passed out from dream-eat­ing.

~Class Rank — It was my high school grad­u­a­tion. I attend­ed that high school from 10–12 grade, hav­ing been a fresh­man at a dif­fer­ent school with the peo­ple I grew up with. I’d nev­er fit in well at the new school at all (not only was my eco­nom­ic class dif­fer­ent, but I was one out of 5 total Asians in the school) but I was okay with my small group of friends. They were award­ing medals to the top 10 stu­dents. I’d orches­trat­ed my 5th place rank (to ensure I’d nei­ther be Vale­dic­to­ri­an nor Salu­ta­to­ri­an) and was proud of myself. As I strut­ted up to accept my rank and medal, I heard not-so-soft whis­pers all around me ask­ing, “Who is that? Who IS that???” Admit­ted­ly, it put a ner­vous damper on my excite­ment, but not too much because I real­ized I’d nev­er have to care about those peo­ple and their opin­ions any­more.

~Umbrel­la Hat - I was super excit­ed about my new pur­chase from Ama­zon of a rain­bow col­ored umbrel­la hat. It would make walk­ing my 2 dogs in the rain a cinch! Both hands free, no need for a rain jack­et in the sum­mer, and stay­ing dry? YES! Well I put it on my head one rainy morn­ing and left to walk my 2 pups. They, of course, had zero care and I was so proud of myself. We round­ed the cor­ner at the busy 4‑way stop, and there was this kid rid­ing by on his bike (maybe 10 or 12 or so) he coast­ed slow­ly by, mouth com­plete­ly agape, eyes wide, star­ing at me. My pride wavered but I told myself that was just a kid and I did­n’t care about his judge­ment. The self-con­scious­ness was start­ing to set­tle in, though, and I turned around to go home. A cou­ple cars passed by and hit the brakes as they caught sight of me, dri­ving sus­pi­cious­ly slow­ly as if some­one was tak­ing pic­tures inside or laugh­ing. Not just one car. A cou­ple cars. *sigh* Need­less to say, that was the first and last time I ever wore that umbrel­la hat in pub­lic.

~Oniony Good­ness — I was in col­lege, the weath­er was warm, and I’d went down to the male floor to vis­it some guy friends. He One of them def­i­nite­ly had a crush on me and I was kind of feel­ing it out. I poked my head in to give them some­thing (a mes­sage or an item I can’t remem­ber) and was about to leave when I caught the scent of some food. I fig­ured they had just ordered some Chi­nese eggrolls because it was real­ly a very oniony smell and I could just pic­ture the duck sauce in my head. I inhaled deeply and said, wow, some­thing smells fan­tas­tic like eggrolls, I’m get­ting hun­gry. There was a tense­ness in the room and no one said any­thing. I was con­fused by the awk­ward­ness when it hit me that it was­n’t eggrolls at all. It was body odor. Sweat. Specif­i­cal­ly John’s armpit sweat. I quick­ly closed the door and about died against the wall before rac­ing upstairs back to my room to fin­ish dying there.

~Bad Lis­ten­er — Stuff like this hap­pens on numer­ous occa­sions espe­cial­ly at work since I lis­ten to a LOT of small talk and ran­dom crap that patients spout at me. There are some very talk­a­tive peo­ple out there. One par­tic­u­lar day I was so over every­thing and was only half-lis­ten­ing to what peo­ple were say­ing to me. Most of the time, a well placed, “ohh!” or “Wooow,” or “that’s crazy!” is suf­fi­cient for most con­ver­sa­tions so that I can get back to doing my job quick­ly. I decid­ed to laugh after a patient was say­ing some­thing and said some­thing along the lines of “that’s funny/interesting” before try­ing to get my instru­ments back into her mouth to work. She pulled back to the side a lit­tle, looked point­ed­ly at me, and stat­ed, “I said my moth­er just died.” I froze, humil­i­at­ed by my crass­ness, and apol­o­gized. The patient seemed to quick­ly for­give me (it’s nice when patients like you) and I strove to pay more atten­tion after that.

~Real Job — I worked sea­son­al retail once and not only did I gain the favor of man­age­ment, but of high­er-lev­el asso­ciates. One team lead in par­tic­u­lar was very fond of me and had me work with her at cus­tomer ser­vice often. Sea­son end­ed, and most peo­ple weren’t invit­ed back. Though I was, I turned it down because I gained more hours in the career I went to school for. I came back one time to the store to buy some­thing and ran into the team lead I’d worked with. She was excit­ed to see me, and I was glad to see her too. She asked me why I was­n’t work­ing for them any­more and though I meant some­thing dif­fer­ent, what came out of my mouth was, “Oh, I got a real job.” WTF. What I had meant to say was that I’d land­ed a reg­u­lar job, but it mixed in there with I now work in my real career aspi­ra­tions. It came out VERY wrong, and her face fell imme­di­ate­ly. There was NO WAY to take back what I’d said, no way to cor­rect it any­more, and I just felt like scum. Absolute scum. Short­ly there­after, the com­pa­ny went out of busi­ness, but it still haunts me.

Poison Ivy — My Case Experience

writ­ten 6/9/24, updat­ed 8/19/24

Summary

From con­tact to end, my expe­ri­ence with poi­son ivy (first time!) was both typ­i­cal and atyp­i­cal with both “nor­mal” and “abnor­mal” lesions asso­ci­at­ed with it. I have his­to­ry of skeeter syn­drome and many oth­er sen­si­tiv­i­ties so it does not come as any sur­prise that I would have a stronger/complex reac­tion than most peo­ple would. This is a chron­i­cle with images and thoughts of my expe­ri­ence with the Tox­i­co­he­dron fam­i­ly of plan­t’s irri­tat­ing oil, urush­i­ol.

Timeline

CONTACT: Sun­day, May 26, 2024 — Con­tact - Small red dots with black­ish brown smear like a burn on left under­side of arm, ful­ly asymp­to­matic, flat. Imme­di­ate issue are 3 bug bites

Day 1–2; Mon­day, May 27–28 — Bug Bites Wors­en­ing — 27th was Memo­r­i­al Day. Pushed through work on 28th but suf­fered all-con­sum­ing dis­com­fort from severe­ly inflamed and spread­ing bug bites. Prob­a­ble fever. By the end of the day on 28th, notic­ing a change in pri­ma­ry poi­son ivy lesion: grow­ing more ery­themic, raised, skin stretch­ing like a burn, grow­ing more sen­si­tive to pal­pa­tion

Day 3: Wednes­day, May 29 — Man­i­fest­ed and Symp­to­matic — Absent from work. Placed on Medrol dose pack (methyl­pred­nisolone steroid), for 3 bad skeeter syn­drome welts on both fore­arms

Day 4–8: Thurs­day, May 30 — June 3 — Bites Resolve, Poi­son Ivy Pro­gress­es Rapid­ly — As the bites dimin­ish quick­ly in response to steroids, itchy, red dots and spots pop up and spread increas­ing­ly along­side taper­ing med­ica­tion. 2 new Minor blis­ter­ing Areas pop up on out­side of right arm. All oth­er lesions, while red and blis­tery seem nor­mal for poi­son ivy. All areas weep con­stant­ly. Many bandaids

Day 9: Tues­day, June 4 — Severe Reac­tion Detect­ed — As soon as the steroid stopped, the poi­son ivy was loosed and expo­nen­tial­ly spread. Blis­ter­ing is severe on pri­ma­ry lesion. Ery­the­ma spreads, turn­ing deep red and increas­ing­ly bumpy. Sus­pect entire ery­themic area will blis­ter soon. 2 Minor Areas form large blis­ters overnight. Dog starts to notice inflam­ma­tion. No inter­est before. Last Medrol pill tak­en night pri­or. Sus­pect repeat con­tact from improp­er­ly washed sur­faces and cloth­ing. Com­mence deep clean of bed­ding, blan­kets, car, tools, etc. Itch­ing is unbear­able and throw­ing hive/eczema spots all over body, espe­cial­ly around stom­ach area, that are far itch­i­er than poi­son ivy lesions. Sys­temic.

Day 10: Wednes­day, June 5 — Med­ical Help — Exact­ly 1 week lat­er returned to PCP for poi­son ivy lesions this time, specif­i­cal­ly the pri­ma­ry lesion. Doc­tor and assis­tant reel from severe Pri­ma­ry Lesion. Doc­tor thinks this is now cel­luli­tis, too. New steroids pre­scribed, Pred­nisone taper­ing for 2 weeks, and 30 count cephalex­in antibi­otics. Went to work right after, unable to pick up med­ica­tion until after­wards. By the time I left work, my left arm (Pri­ma­ry Lesion) was unus­able. Dif­fi­cult to make a fist or hold objects. Drove with one hand which was also start­ing to hurt from inflam­ma­tion. Felt like some­one had a vise on the arm tight. Wor­thy of note: apart from the local severe Pri­ma­ry Lesion infec­tion, woke up in the morn­ing feel­ing like a cor­ner had been turned as a whole.

Day 11: Thurs­day, June 6 — Relief — Imme­di­ate response to strong steroid dose. Although blis­ter­ing and ery­the­ma is worse on all lesions, every­thing feels bet­ter. Still itchy, still weep­ing, and still blis­tery. Able to bend and twist arm and make a fist. Still a lit­tle tight. Spir­its are bet­ter as co-work­ers not­ed. Steroids don’t seem to help with hive/eczema spots which con­tin­ue to crop up all over. Pho­to and heat sen­si­tiv­i­ty on skin very promi­nent

Day 12: Fri­day, June 7 — Pain and Progress — Pri­ma­ry Lesion’s blis­tered con­verged. Dur­ing the course of the day, enter intense, sear­ing, nerve-like pain every few hours. Start­ed won­der­ing if this is like shin­gles. After work and removal of ban­dages, noticed that Pri­ma­ry Lesion’s blis­ter­ing is now a crater. Real­ized that intense pain is like­ly drainage and heal­ing of the area

Day 13–15: Sat­ur­day, June 8 — Mon­day, June 10 — Intial Heal­ing — Intense pain comes and goes. Notice­able on big­ger of 2 Minor Lesions. Ery­the­ma has some­what fad­ed, though still present through­out. Blis­ter­ing has notice­ably stalled on all lesions. All eczema/hive lesions are crazy itchy while poi­son ivy lesions no longer itch or even hurt except Pri­ma­ry Lesion upon pal­pa­tion or pres­sure. Many night­time bath­room awak­en­ings. Taper­ing of pred­nisone start­ed. Hive/eczema lesions so itchy, start­ing to won­der if aller­gic to cephalex­in. Pri­ma­ry Lesion begins to hard­en, crater and exhib­it incred­i­ble, intense, sharp pains every few hours. Attrib­uted to drain­ing and inter­nal heal­ing. Most lesions’ itch­i­ness has low­ered in inten­si­ty, though hive lesions con­tin­ue to pop up as pred­nisone tapers. Scratched a small­er hive and cre­at­ed bruis­ing

Day 16–17: Tues­day, June 11–12 — Heal­ing and New Hives — Grow­ing depressed. This has been going on for a long time and start­ing to men­tal­ly feel unwell. Cra­ter­ing has increased in Pri­ma­ry Lesion while blis­ter­ing sub­sides and skin begins to peel. Minor Lesions are weep­ing blis­ters, but a hole forms in one which starts to hard­en and scab. No craters like Pri­ma­ry Lesion. “Nor­mal” lesions fade in col­or and weep minor­ly. Right Elbow Patch starts to fade in col­or, still itchy. Left bicep area grows itch­i­er and forms new patch­es. Bel­ly Lesion dark­ens, but begins to grow in size. New prob­lem: Upper Bel­ly forms new red dots that are very itchy. Very pho­to­sen­si­tive on all skin

Day 18: Thurs­day, June 13 - Scab Crack­ing — Excite­ment! Morn­ing shows a crack halfway through Pri­ma­ry Lesions’ scab. Through­out the day pieces break off. Itchy in a scab way. By the end of the day, much has fall­en off, show­ing new skin under­neath! Ery­the­ma lessens on all ini­tial poi­son ivy con­tact lesions. Left Bicep area’s ery­the­ma increas­es along with itch­i­ness. Bel­ly Lesion notice­ably grows larg­er and Upper Bel­ly patch­es increase in size and itch­i­ness. Sleep­ing is grow­ing dif­fi­cult

Day 19–21: June 14–16 — Con­tin­ued Heal­ing and Increased Hive Activ­i­ty — All Poi­son Ivy Lesions con­tin­ue to heal. Pred­nisone tapers more and final­ly rid of cephalex­in. Pri­ma­ry Lesions devel­ops red­ness with­in the new skin which is wor­ri­some as it’s raised and shaped exact­ly like the ini­tial con­tact lesion. Not over­ly symp­to­matic, how­ev­er. Minor Lesions con­tin­ue to hard­en and scan with minor cra­ter­ing. “Nor­mal” Lesions con­tin­ue to fade in col­or, have not been a prob­lem. Fri­day, June 14 is tor­ture at work because I stu­pid­ly cut pred­nisone pill in half, afraid of not hav­ing the dou­ble dose in the day result­ing in major with­draw­al symp­toms. Unable to stay awake longer than 30 min­utes at a time. It’s obvi­ous my body is addict­ed. All hive lesions con­tin­ue to wors­en except the first Right Elbow lesion. Sleep­ing is next to impos­si­ble except for a few hours at a time. Extreme­ly itchy and uncom­fort­able around the bel­ly and upper arms. Dif­fi­cult to con­cen­trate on any­thing. Decid­ed to start treat­ing hive lesions like eczema con­di­tion with heavy lotion use, and not eat­ing any­thing that could remote­ly set off aller­gic reac­tions. Haven’t slept well in many days. Eyes feel like the desert. NEW PROBLEMS: skeeter syn­drome bumps begin to inflame (they do that) and leg hive/eczema lesions flare up. Very itchy

Day 22–26: June 17–21 — Fin­ished Med­ica­tions and Less­en­ing of all Lesions — Day 24 marked the first day of zero med­ica­tions, and pro­vid­ed for anoth­er day of with­draw­al symp­toms, though not as bad. Sleep­ing grow­ing more com­fort­able. Over­all con­di­tion is bet­ter and able to com­mu­ni­cate well with cowork­ers and patients. Every day itch­i­ness lessens and skin peels all over. Quit hav­ing to use heavy duty skin treat­ments except on leg. More ener­gy and increased desire to accom­plish tasks. Less pho­to­sen­si­tiv­i­ty. Stu­pid skeeter syn­drome bumps.

Day 27–28: June 22–23 — Almost Nor­mal — Every­thing is bet­ter. Leg. Bel­ly. Arms. Even skeeter syn­drome bumps. Pri­ma­ry Lesion is heal­ing nice­ly, with a lit­tle more ways to go. Minor Lesions are almost ful­ly healed, though still peel­ing. Fore­head has grown a hard lit­tle bump, asymp­to­matic. Elbow and Bicep lesions no longer itch. Bel­ly Lesions only some­times itch. Leg lesions are get­ting bet­ter. I feel bet­ter all around! 1 month mark has been met. Lesions are all sen­si­tive to heat (heat­wave right now), but sig­nif­i­cant­ly less pho­to­sen­si­tive

Pictures!!

*WARNING* Images might be gross to some peo­ple

Primary Lesion — Left Forearm Underside

Day 3

Day 6

Start­ed oral methyl­pred­nisolone on Day 3 Have treat­ed with 3–4 rounds of Zan­fel at this point. Day 6 is larg­er and raised but con­tained thanks to the steroid. Note the blis­ter­ing start­ing on Day 3 under the dark streak­ing and grow­ing on Day 6

Day 7 — 7:47 am

Day 8 — 7:36am

Last days of methyl­pred­nisolone. Start­ed trac­ing the out­line. Notice­ably blis­tery and raised. Not over­ly hot yet. Col­ored rings show the pro­gres­sion of size

Day 9 — 6:26am

Day 9 — 6:44pm

Day 9: 12 hours apart. Grow­ing worse! Blis­ter­ing and ery­the­ma sig­nif­i­cant­ly worse. Last pill of taper­ing methyl­pred­nisolone tak­en night pri­or on Day 8. VERY uncom­fort­able. Start­ing to feel effects on fin­ger joints, much pres­sure from inflam­ma­tion on arm

Day 10 - 6:18am

Day 10 — 9:25pm

Doc­tor Day! Could­n’t come fast enough! Severe inflam­ma­tion, blis­ter­ing, ery­the­ma, heat, itch­i­ness, pain. Doc­tor sus­pects pos­si­ble cel­luli­tis. Rx pred­nisone and cephalex­in. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, could not get med­ica­tion until after work. So much pres­sure and inflam­ma­tion that hand became unus­able by the end of the day. Unable to grip objects secure­ly. Notice the dark red col­or­ing, almost pur­pling

Day 11 — 6:14am

Day 11 — 7:56am

2 views in dif­fer­ent light. Looks ter­ri­ble with much more blis­ter­ing, but med­ica­tion start­ed night pri­or and it felt a ton bet­ter. No longer blaz­ing hot, less red­ness, able to twist, bend, and grip

Day 12 — 6:21am

Day 12 — 8:25am

Blis­ters have con­verged into a large one (the whitish pink is calamine lotion that got stuck in the bumps and ridges). Right image is a good view of the skin blis­ter­ing that con­tin­ues to spread but much more slow­ly around the red areas. New symp­tom: crip­pling, sharp pain that seemed to pierce the arm’s nerves. Would come on every few hours dur­ing the day

Day 13 - 10:40am

Day 14 - 8:43am

It seems that the intense sharp pain has some­thing to do with the cra­ter­ing that has appeared. Blis­ters are drain­ing and leav­ing behind a dark, hard…scab? Notice­able light­en­ing of ery­the­ma between two images

Day 15 — 7:27am

Day 16

Cra­ter­ing is even larg­er and hard­er. Signs of skin peel­ing and scab shed­ding. Fad­ing blis­ter­ing

Day 17

Day 18 - 6:21am

Progress! It cracked in half overnight and you can see new skin under­neath!

Day 18 — 6:11pm

Day 18 — 9:19pm

Very itchy owing to scab shed­ding.

Day 19 — 6:16am

Day 19 — 9:49pm

Wor­ri­some pro­gres­sion of the new skin. The red, raised dots on the new skin look exact­ly like the ini­tial poi­son ivy con­tact. Itch­es to touch, but oth­er­wise not both­er­some

Day 20 — 8:42am

Day 21 — 8:05am

Looks kind of bad! How­ev­er, the red­ness is dry, not sig­nif­i­cant­ly raised and appears to be peel­ing off slow­ly. No symp­toms to pal­pa­tion aside from minor sen­si­tiv­i­ty. VERY pho­to­sen­si­tive!

Day 22

Day 23

Day 24

Day 26

Day 24 is the first day with no med­ica­tions at all. Red­ness is fad­ing and peel­ing, too, thank good­ness!

Day 28 (1 month) — 6⁄23

Day 35 (5 weeks)

Sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment by 28-day (1 month) mark! Itchy and dry to the touch. Been apply­ing lotion. 5‑week mark shows improve­ment, but still there and still peel­ing

Day 42 (6 weeks)

Day 105 (3.5 months)

6 Weeks: Much less pho­to­sen­si­tive, but still peel­ing and rough. What you can’t see is that the entire area that the lesion cov­ered ini­tial­ly con­tin­ues to be dark­er in col­or than the rest of the arm, almost like a port wine stain. 3.5 Months: I actu­al­ly for­got about it (or blocked it out??). Rarely, it will itch like­ly from dry­ness. The skin on my arm is still dark­er in col­or than the rest of the skin, but feels smooth to the touch

Other Lesions

Aside from the Fore­head one, these all cropped up as soon as the ini­tial Medrol dose pack steroid (methyl­pred­nisolone) tapered and fin­ished (last pill was night of Day 8). Pred­nisone and cephalex­in admin­is­tered night of Day 10

2 Minor Lesions — Right Forearm Outside

Day 7

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14 (2 weeks)

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

Day 22

Day 23

Day 24

First day with zero med­ica­tions

Day 26

Day 28 (1 month)

Day 42 (6 weeks)

Day 105 (3.5 months)

By 3.5 months, I no longer remem­ber that I had it. Scars remain and con­tin­ue to heal. Com­plete­ly asymp­to­matic. Skin will occa­sion­al­ly itch as it sheds and heals

Forehead Lesion — Present Since Contact

Fastest to heal

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Day 18

Day 21

Day 28 (1 month)

Day 42 (6 weeks)

Day 105 (3.5 months)

3.5 months: This healed the fastest by far. This far out a faint scar remains

“Normal” Lesions

This is what I assume a “nor­mal” reac­tion to poi­son ivy would be. You can see the lines where the plants brushed up against the skin. It blis­tered, it wept, it was itchy, and got red, but it was­n’t exces­sive. Real­ly, was­n’t all that bad.

Left Fore­arm Out­side

Day 9

Day 10 — 6⁄5

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13 — 6⁄8

Day 14 (2 weeks)

Day 15

Day 17 — 6⁄12

Day 19

Day 21

Day 22

Ignore the 2 red lesions. Those are skeeter syn­drome lesions

Day 23

Sor­ry, my cam­era focused on my shirt instead of my arm

Day 24

First day with no med­ica­tions

Day 26

Again, the red lesions are not poi­son ivy

Day 28 (1 month)

Fad­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly, with a new bug bite far­thest south

Day 35 (5 weeks)

Day 42 (6 weeks)

The Poi­son Ivy lesions have most­ly healed. The 2 skeeter bites are heal­ing (ignore those)

Day 105 (3.5 months)

3.5 Months: Scar­ring still present but con­tin­ue to heal. Com­plete­ly asymp­to­matic. Ignore the 2 skeeter syn­drome bites which are also heal­ing

Right Fore­arm Inside

Only ever minor­ly itchy. Did an exper­i­ment where I popped the blis­ters when they first came up. Don’t do that.

Ignore the red bug bite lesion
Day 21 — 6⁄21
Day 28 — minor peel­ing, zero symp­toms
Day 105 (3.5 months) — Faint scar­ring

Hive/Eczema/Rash Lesions

These did­n’t act like the poi­son ivy lesions. They did not pro­duce blis­ters and they itched 100x worse. The doc­tor con­firmed that it was a sys­temic response. The big ones got leath­ery. I treat­ed them like they were eczema lesions and that approach seemed to work. What­ev­er you do, DO NOT scratch them as they seemed to spread to scratched areas!!! Start­ed won­der­ing if it’s an aller­gic reac­tion to the antibi­ot­ic…?

Arms

Right Elbow — Day 8 Symp­tom Start

Day 9 — 6/4/24

I made the mis­take of scratch­ing when it first popped up. It grew rapid­ly in response and got even itch­i­er

Then it grew some more trail­ing lesions

Day 21 — 6⁄16
Day 28 (1 month) — only occa­sion­al­ly itchy

Most­ly healed at this point. Can be itchy if irri­tat­ed by a sleeve or bend­ing the arm for too long a peri­od of time

Day 42 (6 weeks) — final­ly start­ing to peel
Day 105 (3.5 months) — ful­ly asymp­to­matic

Left Arm

Day 15 — 6⁄10

Evi­dence of scratch­ing. Don’t do that

Day 17

Day 18

This is also extreme­ly itchy and pos­si­bly a result of me scratch­ing a small red hive. At one point it even spread onto the pri­ma­ry lesion

Day 19

Day 21- 6⁄16

Day 22

Day 23

Day 24

First day with no med­ica­tions

Day 28 (1 month)

To clar­i­fy it’s 1 month since con­tact

Day 42 (6 weeks)

Final­ly peel­ing

Day 105 (3.5 months)

Just scar­ring. No symp­toms

Tor­so - Day 10 Symp­tom Start

These popped up last and has been the WORST of all the lesions for discomfort/itchiness by far!!

Bel­ly

Day 11 — 6/6/24
Day 15 — 6/10/24
Day 18 — 6/13/24
Day 21 — 6/16/24

Grow­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly larg­er and spread­ing to areas pre­vi­ous­ly untouched. You can see the more red areas on the out­skirts of the main patch and spread­ing towards my back. VERY itchy, but grow­ing more painful/stingy too

Day 23 — last day of med­ica­tions
Day 26
Day 28 — 6⁄23
Day 35 (5 weeks)
Day 42 (6 weeks) — Now that it’s heal­ing well and only occa­sion­al­ly itchy, you can see the orig­i­nal patch and how big the area got
Day 105 (3.5 months) — Ful­ly asymp­to­matic, just scar­ring which is slow­ly fad­ing

Mid to Upper Bel­ly

Day 16

Day 17 — 6⁄12

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20 — 6⁄15

Day 21

Grow­ing notice­ably worse as the steroids taper. Supreme­ly itchy… more than the stom­ach patch

Day 22

Day 23 — 6⁄18

Day 26

Itch­ing has most­ly calmed, but still pho­to­sen­si­tive

Day 28 (1 month)

Fad­ing and no longer con­tin­u­al­ly itchy

Day 35 (5 weeks)

Fad­ing, but still pho­to­sen­si­tive

Day 42 (6 weeks)

No longer itchy except on occa­sion

Day 105 (3.5 months)

Ful­ly asymp­to­matic. Scar­ring is slow­ly fad­ing

Leg

Day 21 — 6⁄16

Start­ed pop­ping up. Image is upside down

Day 22

Day 23

Spread­ing

Day 24

First day with zero med­ica­tions

Day 24 — Close­up

Nasty bumpy, and extreme­ly itchy

Day 21

Dark­en­ing = less itchy

Day 28 (1 month)

Note: 1 month since ini­tial con­tact

Day 35 (5 weeks)

Start­ing to peel, itchy

Day 42 (6 weeks)

Still itchy, but not as much. Still peel­ing

Day 105 (3.5 months)

Com­plete­ly asymp­to­matic aside from occa­sion­al itch­ing from heal­ing skin

Second Contact with Prompt Treatment

I got it AGAIN! On July 4, 2024. I had bar­ri­er lotion on while doing yard­work and attempt­ing to erad­i­cate it phys­i­cal­ly but did­n’t have face pro­tec­tion and some­thing brushed up against my face. With­in 2 hours I had doused my face in 91% iso­propyl alco­hol, bathed in Dawn dish soap, and scrubbed with Zan­fel. I knew it was­n’t a mos­qui­to bite because (unlike the one on my ear) it did­n’t itch right away, just start­ed welt­ing up and inflam­ing, no oth­er symp­toms. Because of the quick action, I (think so far) have been able to con­tain the reac­tion. It itch­es and twinges, but so far noth­ing else. Here are pic­tures!

Right Cheek

Con­tact — 8:45 am (2–3 hours)

8:51 am (post-Zan­fel)

11:00 am

Start­ing to raise

Day 1 (7/5)

Day 2

More notice­able!

Day 3

Dis­tinct bumpi­ness to both lesions

The oth­ers did­n’t get bad until a week lat­er, so here’s hop­ing it does­n’t get worse! Day 1 felt the inflam­ma­tion affect abil­i­ty to move cheek. The worst itch­i­ness so far has been Day 2. Day 3 has more of an aware­ness so far

Day 43 (6 weeks)

Day 43: Itch­es a few times a day, tin­gling worse than usu­al with­in the last 48 hours. Sus­pect heal­ing.

Recommended Treatment and Info

From Professionals

  • Home­care for most cas­es (mild-mod­er­ate reac­tions)
  • Severe cas­es (i.e. dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing or swal­low­ing, facial swellings where eyes shut, wors­en­ing itch­i­ness, full body rash, fevers) require IMMEDIATE med­ical atten­tion
  • If/when you come in con­tact with the plants, as soon as pos­si­ble, clean the affect­ed areas with soap (even laun­dry deter­gent) and warm water. You can also use rub­bing alco­hol or OTC poi­son ivy wash­es. The faster you get it off, the less chance there is of strong reac­tion
  • Wash ALL affect­ed cloth­ing and gear includ­ing shoelaces in the laun­dry thor­ough­ly in longer cycles. It is rec­om­mend­ed to wear gloves to pre­vent the spread as you remove your cloth­ing.
  • Use OTC prod­ucts such as poi­son ivy wash­es, calamine lotion, top­i­cal anti­his­t­a­mines, oral anti­his­t­a­mines, cool com­press­es to relieve itch­i­ness
  • Do NOT scratch and leave blis­ters alone to pre­vent infec­tion
  • Most rash­es take any­where from 2–3 weeks to clear up on their own and can seem to get worse before get­ting bet­ter. Reach­es peak out­break around 2 weeks

First expo­sures take longer to pro­duce lesions as the body is slow­er to sen­si­tize. Sub­se­quent expo­sures appear much more quick­ly and last for the rest of your life.

Lesions are not con­ta­gious and liq­uid from popped blis­ters will not spread the rash because the liq­uid is just the body’s flu­id, not more urush­i­ol oil.

Useful Treatments

Zan­fel

Tec­nu

Dome­boro

Calamine Lotion

Cor­ti­sone

Eucerin Lotion

Anti­his­t­a­mines

UV Sleeves

Bandaids