The Two Worse Things about Poison Oak...

The two worse things about Poison Oak beyond the fact that I'm allergic to its oils to begin with are:

The sympathetic itches I get in places that I should be able to relieve by scratching but don't because it may just be another outbreak of a Poison Oak allergic reaction.  I really don't know if these non-Poison Oak itches are normal and being normal only rise to my consciousness when I have Poison Oak, or are additional itches that are a mental side effect of having Poison Oak.  If normal, then I do a lot of scratching that I'm not "normally" aware of.

The second is where I get the Poison Oak outbreaks.  They are generally where I would normally have something rubbing, like my jeans on my thigh, or the cuff of my sleeve on the back of my hand.  Although, the more I think about that outbreak's placement, it makes me think that one of my cat guests, Napoleon, may have created the outbreak.  I don't know whether or not he got the Poison Oak oils on his claws from his own expeditions or from something I brought in but it is right where he was kneading my leg.

Then there are a number of inconveniences that come with Poison Oak that are not technically worse but are bad enough.  Caladryl is a messy medicine for Poison Oak and takes forever to dry.  This would not be bad in itself but I don't know what I am going to do tomorrow when I need to "dress up" a little better than my normal jeans.  Taking forever to dry in a house in the 60's is also an interesting experience, but I won't go into that.

I'm also more conscious of where I put my fingers, not that I can change very much of it.  I find I swap out my reading glasses for sunglasses far to often with the threat of Poison Oak oils around.  I've read stories that off road vehicles driven through patches of Poison Oak can infect people sensitive to it for as much as a year later.  With all the hiking I've been doing, just how much oil is on my hiking boots or tennis shoes.  Oh well, at least the hiking boots are due for a replacement.  But if they have oils on them, I've also worn them around the house.  Are there oil deposits in my house?

Arrgh!  Even in a positive frame of mind, I can't think of a single good thing about Poison Oak and that's really bad.