Poison Oak, Wonderful Poison Ivy

Poison ivy, poison oak, Rhus toxicodendron.  I love them.  Why? Because they make such a wonderful medicine!  I hope they never becomes eradicated because then we would lose a very useful tool in treating back pain, joint pain, arrhythmia, restless legs and anxiety. Although these plants Toxicodendron pubenscens and toxicondendron diversilobum are no longer officially placed in the Rhus genus, we still call the homeopathic medicine made from them "Rhus toxicodendron".

Case 1: 35yo male came into the clinic for chronic back pain.  He had had this pain since his late teens and had been using chiropractic to treat it. He needed adjustments at least twice a month.  X-rays and MRI imaging done in his twenties and then repeated recently showed no physical pathology.  The patient was also otherwise very healthy, very fit, and ate plenty of organic meat and vegetables with very little sugar or processed foods in the diet.

I asked what made the pain better and what made it worse. It was worse when he was just sitting around and really worse in the morning when he tried to get out of bed.  When laying in bed, he would toss and turn due to being uncomfortable.  After he walked around, he felt better and generally felt fine when he was active.  Sometimes he put a hot pack on it.  Also he had restless legs at night. As soon as he put his feet up to watch TV in the evenings, his legs would get restless.

Classic Rhus tox!  I wanted to ask him if he had ever had poison oak. I knew he was a hunter, so it was likely.  I also wanted to ask if he liked cold milk, a small but interesting detail in people who need Rhus tox.  i didn't ask these questions because I didn't want to lead his answers.  I told him that the treatment would be simple--homeopathic poison oak.

"Oh, I'm deathly allergic to poison oak!" he said. "I get it at least once a year and end up in the hospital sometimes.  I had to take steroids to make it go away on a couple of occasions.  Even when I put my hunting gear back on months after using it, the gear will give me poison oak again."

Ah-ha! So he had had poison oak and had suppressed it with steroids.  When skin symptoms are suppressed, we see the pathology be driven inward.  We see this in kids when their eczema is suppressed with cortisone cream--they get asthma.  With poison oak, you can get back and joint pain, and restlessness.

"Aren't you going to check food allergies or other things?" he asked.  He had heard that when you go to a naturopath, this is what would happen.  I told him I didn't think he had any food allergies but I would check them if he wanted.

"Oh, he'll kill you if you take away his milk!" his wife stated. Ah-ha! He craved milk. I  told him how people who need Rhus tox often crave cold milk.

"Really? Because I put ice in my milk!" he exclaimed.  He was convinced.  He went home with a few doses of Rhus tox 200c.

We followed up three weeks later.  He reported that the Rhus tox had worked very well for the back pain.  It was better than Ibuprofen or anything else he had tried.  He had gone to the store to get more Rhus tox homeopathic and had used it with decreasing frequency over the last two weeks, only as needed for symptoms.  He had been to the chiropractor once and the chiropractor remarked on how much looser his back was.

Case 2: 29yo female with arrhythmia.  Her arrhythmia had been bad enough in the past to actually stop her heart. She had been put on beta-blockers to prevent this but even with the beta blockers, she would have terrible arrhythmia every evening where she felt like she was going to die.  Because of other symptoms and personality traits I thought about Rhus tox. I asked about anxiety and specifically anxiety about her children.

"Yes!" she said. I feel like I just want to sit with my children at home with a gun to protect them from anything that could come in from outside. I know it sounds crazy, but I just feel like they are in danger."  Classic Rhus tox.

I gave her two doses of Rhus tox 200c to take the first one in the early evening or afternoon before the arrhythmia usually starts. Take the second one in case arrythmia occurs.  She called back two days later.

"I can't believe it," she said. "I was waiting and waiting for the arrhythmia to start, fully dreading it and believing it would happen, but then it didn't.  Every hour I expected it, but then finally went bed without any palpitations at all. This is amazing!"

So you see that poison oak and ivy can be very useful and we should not eradicate it.  I often use Rhus tox (and Rhododendrun homeopathic) with lyme disease patients. Maybe there is some wisdom in nature that supplies the medicine we need for the maladies we contract right in the same place we contract them.

So instead of hating poison oak the next time you are hiking or hunting, respect and appreciate it....from a safe distance.