Poison Ivy Contagious
Many people want to know is poison oak, poison sumac, or poison ivy contagious? That is if you have an active poison ivy outbreak can you give to your children or spouse through physical contact with the outbreak such as broken blisters or oozing skin.
The answer is generally no, poison ivy is not contagious as long as the secondary contact (scratching and touching) happens at least 2 hours after the initial contact with poison ivy and the skin has been scrubbed or washed with a solvent or soap based cleaner.
Urushiol, the oily resin in the big three that humans react to, that causes allergic contact dermatitis in people, generally absorbs into the skin within 2 hours of contact of the skin. The subsequent outbreak (rash and blisters) is the body’s response to Urushiol.
In hypersensitive people, it only takes about 2 micrograms of Urushiol to get a reaction. The average grain of salt is about 60 micrograms, so a comparable size of urushiol would effect up to 30 hypersensitive people with poison ivy.
Urushiol is a relatively stable compound and can stay active for years unless it is exposed to air and moisture that will cause it to oxidize and dry up over time becoming harmless.
Poison ivy sap can easily be transferred to people from contaminated clothes, tools, gloves and the fur of animals or pets. When urushiol penetrates your top layer of skin or epidermis it goes through a oxidation process changing to a more reactive “quinone”. This allows it to bind to proteins in your deeper layer of skin starting the reactive process.
At this point the protein cell bonded urushiol is almost impossible wash off and creates a “beacon” for circulating T-cells. The activated response is an all out attack by your own body to the area where the urushiol has bonded thus creating the red, itchy rash and blisters. The blisters contain body fluids from the under skin attack by your own body.
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