# let us talk about travelling and spider bites (or, fuck it, poison ivy or scabbies or whatever)



## gofreescout (Aug 5, 2008)

Feel free to move this thread if it's more appropriate somewhere else. I put it here only because the swollen cigarette burn looking thing on my ankle was incurred while on or around a train. Has anyone else felt the wrath? I mean, must be--train cars and yards seem like ideal spider lurking grounds. I'm wondering if my deal was a brown recluse. They're not in Maryland, but the train I was on came from NC. So, maybe? It's not bad at the moment (two days later), but seems to have gotten worse since I noticed the blister. (Also pertinent is that I've had poison ivy for the past two weeks, caught of course in the yard.)


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## marc (Aug 6, 2008)

goto a free clinic or get someone to look at and and if its a brown recluse bite your gonna need to get it lanced and bandaged up. get it looked at as soon as possible.


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## Withoutatrace (Aug 7, 2008)

Change your socks. and wash the bite with soap two times a day.
Maybe wear sandles and let the sun get to the bite.
In this heat some of these bites become infected.
Stop drinking - if you are - and any drugs too. You have to build up your defences.
I know it's hard when you are travelling but try and wash up every day and change your clothes. Buy cheap clothes in the thrift stores and dump em after wearing them.

Withoutatrace


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## gofreescout (Aug 7, 2008)

i had it looked at and the bite and the surrounding ankle and foot are pretty infected. prolly not a brown recluse but something fierce (it went through a thick sock)--no way to tell. i'm on pills the size of bullets, but at least i don't have to worry about my foot falling off.


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## finn (Aug 7, 2008)

I hope you mean the surrounding ankle and foot are pretty swollen... but if you're not sure, if they are pretty infected, they should either smell funny, have sores that do not heal, or be discolored in a vein-type pattern or a defined splotch pattern which is unlike any bruise. The splotches are really bad, and the smell is a bit like cheese- a fermenting smell.


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## gofreescout (Aug 7, 2008)

swollen + rash. no cheese.


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## gofreescout (Aug 11, 2008)

the swelling has gone down such that i can see the lumps of my ankle bones again -- well over a week later. this has been a peculiar experience. i don't recommend it.


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## Mouse (Aug 11, 2008)

I'm so glad I'm immune to poison ivy. 

one time my boyfriend of that moment got p.i. all over his fucking body. sad shit. had to make him bath in oatmeal and cover him in calamine. took two weeks to clear up. luckily we had a place to stay so we could take care of it (I say "we" because he was too dumb to take care of it himself... i guess he'd never really had it before)

I guess I've got one big benefit of growing up in the country... I'm used to this shit.


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## maus (Aug 23, 2008)

i love the title of this thread.

anyway. i was just going to post about natural (non-pharmaceutical/insecticide) scabies treatments. ive tried tea tree oil baths once before but didnt have enough time to make it work. here are some things ive read about, does anyone have any experience with

-manuka (plant from new zealand, applied topically as oil, cream, soap)
-triphala (ayurvedic herbal formula, taken internally)

???


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## RandomRaccoon (Sep 15, 2008)

My poision ivy wounds just finnaly stoped pussing!!!!, sucks to wake up in the night and think you wet your pants then find out it was just your ass cheeks leaking sweet sweet ooze all over the fucking place, the one on me hand also scares the shit out of people that pick me up hitching... Bwa ha ha ha haaaaa
anyway, gum weed and jewel weed, often grown near the ivy jewel weed where its wetter and gum weed where its dryer sumac is known to work too (donre use the poision stuff!) look em up....


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## Ravie (Sep 15, 2008)

Okay, I cant be the only one with this problem... I'm allergic to any metal except sterling silver. my belt buckle is wrapped in electric tape and my earrings eat away at my ears. Anyone have any good ideas to alter cheap metal so i can wear it? i cant afford silver. i heard clear nail polish works?


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## finn (Sep 15, 2008)

Ravie said:


> Okay, I cant be the only one with this problem... I'm allergic to any metal except sterling silver. my belt buckle is wrapped in electric tape and my earrings eat away at my ears. Anyone have any good ideas to alter cheap metal so i can wear it? i cant afford silver. i heard clear nail polish works?



Clear nail polish will work until it inevitably wears off. Have you thought of stitching some kind of tough spacer (leather, real or fake) on so that the metal doesn't touch your skin? Like a stiff flap, maybe some padding on the back, on your belt that goes under your buckle, for example. This won't work for your earrings, but aside from gauging it out so that you can use something other than metal, I'm not sure what you could do for that.


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## Ravie (Sep 17, 2008)

well ive been wrapping my belt in tape...that seems to work for a week or so until it starts to fall off. i already have 00 gauges but i have 16 piercings so...yeah. i was going to try wrapping it with some thin strips of leather or something. fuck man, maybe i'll just stop being a cheap ass and figure out how to find a cheap silver belt buckle.


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## finn (Sep 17, 2008)

Have you tried the rubber from bike innertubes? Just ask for old ones from the bike shop, they throw out a good deal from changing customer's tubes all the time.


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## Ravie (Sep 19, 2008)

not a bad idea. as a matter of factually i think i have a couple somewhere.


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## shittinassrabbit (Oct 7, 2008)

alot of places will actually just give you busted innertubes...for free...good stuff...


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## finn (Oct 8, 2008)

rememberusername said:


> it was right after spending time on sand. I had sand in my pants, shirt, everything i owned had sand in or on it. I hadnt taken a shower in weeks.. and all of a sudden I started to get little bumps on my shoulders, neck, and ears.. they itch like crazy.



It sounds more like sand fleas to me. They don't live in your clothing, they only go into your skin to feed, but they usually live in the sand.


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## finn (Oct 9, 2008)

Are you still itching? If it's sand fleas, you should not feel the need to itch anymore, usually the way it works is that you itch after they've left- I got them last summer and it took a while after I'd left the area where I picked them up for the itching to stop. But the itching is pretty awful.


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## finn (Oct 11, 2008)

You can also get Tyvek from the post office, via the waterproof envelopes, but you should have a friend with a sewing machine or just be really fast at hand-stitching...


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## Double-A (Nov 10, 2008)

me and my friends were on tour last year and my friend got the worst poison ivy i've ever fucking seen. never travel into the woods at 9th st park bloomington if you don't know where the poison ivy is. anyway, after much arguing, i got him to rub the inside of a banana peel all over his skin. the swelling went away in 3 hours, but since he hadn't washed his hands or body or changed clothes, it came back with a furry, a lady at the clinic actually took a picture of his swollen face. think the cartoon hunchback mixed with the guy in the basement in the goonies.
the banana peel can also be used to waterproof boots. it's not perfect, but it's fucking free.


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## Tailz (Nov 10, 2008)

poison ivy is tricky. i know it sounds sketchy, but mineral spirits work really well, it draws out the poison. the rash will fully come out and go away in a few days. my two cents


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## streetrat (Nov 10, 2008)

you can waterproof boots with bannana peels? thats pretty strange. way cool though.

and again...
GOOOONIES!


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## Tailz (Nov 10, 2008)

ahhh fuck yeah, i didnt even notice that!


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## EaznaZ (Nov 25, 2008)

This has been so helpful to me! I want to know what people in this community are commonly being afflicted with (luckily I haven't experienced ALL of it myself) because I'm compiling information for a zine called 'A Wanderer's Ailments and Afflictions: a focus on natural treatments for the homeless, travellers, hobos, whatever you call yourself in 'modern' countries' or at least that's what it's called right now. I just started today and I've got many pages of info written down. I'm a health enthusiast, and studying in school for natural health too.

So far, topics are 
External - 1) Lice, 2) Psoriasis, 3) Showering 4) Scabies 5)Staph/MRSA infection 6) Feet 7) Oral Health 8) Poisonus Plants and Insect Bites 9) Metal Allergies 10) Sand Fleas
Internal - 11) Candida Albicans 12) Mental Health 13) Vitamins 14) Bladder Infection 15) Constipation and Diarrhoea 16) Indigestion

I'm trying to do just a very brief overview of those health-related things common to this group, that the mainstream doesn't know about and many people find out by trial and error. I'm writing ID, Prevention, Treatment and some extra info where it is needed.

I'm also planning on one called 'a traveller's kitchen' -making makeshift dehydrators, stoves, what to eat, importance of vitamins, etc. but I'm putting more of a focus on the natural health zine right now. 

So, any topics you think should be covered, any experience you've had with failed or successful natural treatments are very appreciated and welcomed! Some things may not be added to the zine, because I could go on forever into a big book, but I want to make it travel-size, maybe a book will come in a few months. For now, free health zine, yay! I'll probably post a link or something to it in here when it's all done.


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## Ravie (Nov 25, 2008)

aawww! you put metal allergies! I feel special. but it really is very common and a huge pain in the ass. I cant wear belts!


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## Geoff (Nov 26, 2008)

finn said:


> Clear nail polish will work until it inevitably wears off. Have you thought of stitching some kind of tough spacer (leather, real or fake) on so that the metal doesn't touch your skin? Like a stiff flap, maybe some padding on the back, on your belt that goes under your buckle, for example. This won't work for your earrings, but aside from gauging it out so that you can use something other than metal, I'm not sure what you could do for that.



just find some cactus thorns. they'll work good and look cool too.


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## dVEC (Dec 2, 2008)

rememberusername said:


> Doc said Scabies live in your clothes, and only go on your skin to shit and lay eggs. So does that mean If I get naked for two weeks It'll cure it?
> 
> Anyone want to hangout during that two weeks? Or let me hangout at your place?
> 
> No but really.. recently I got this crazy itchying.. it was right after spending time on sand. I had sand in my pants, shirt, everything i owned had sand in or on it. I hadnt taken a shower in weeks.. and all of a sudden I started to get little bumps on my shoulders, neck, and ears.. they itch like crazy.



That thing about the bugs living in your clothes is NOT true of scabies, which actually do live in your skin, but for body lice. Body lice can be "cured" just by running all your clothes/pack/etc. through a dryer for 2 hours, or by boiling all that stuff - then taking a shower to get any stuck eggs off your skin.

And yeah, the other stuff sounds like sand fleas, or maybe chiggers. Hate the bastards.

Ravie: Have you tried using wood or stone?


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## Ravie (Dec 4, 2008)

wood or stone for a belt buckle? no.


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## tallhorseman (Jan 22, 2010)

Ravie said:


> Okay, I cant be the only one with this problem... I'm allergic to any metal except sterling silver. my belt buckle is wrapped in electric tape and my earrings eat away at my ears. Anyone have any good ideas to alter cheap metal so i can wear it? i cant afford silver. i heard clear nail polish works?


You could coat larger objects with Rhino Liner, that stuff they use in truck beds. For ear rings there's a product that they sell in electronic shops called Heat Shrink. It's made to insulate wires. you slide it on a wire and then heat it with a lighter and it tightens up and bonds. They might make it small enough for your ear rings...not sure.


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## trotsky (Feb 22, 2010)

is there any way to re-immunize oneself to PI? I used to be able to roll around in poison ivy but now I get it something awful. Or should I just suck it up and deal with it?


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## JungleBoots (Feb 22, 2010)

i have a hyper sensitivity to poison ivy because one time i was working for an appartment complex cutting an overgrown fence and got poison ivy all over my knees, face arms and thighs. my face swelled up (on my high school graduation day party lol) it looked like a severe alergic reaction, (hives, swelling in the lips and eye lids, and trouble breathing) so i went to the ER with my pops. the doc at the ER basically said "take benedryl its just an allergic reaction" to something. he didnt even look at the rash that was pretty obviously poison ivy. the benedryl did nothing but lower the swelling and help my breathing. i basically sat on the rash for several weeks as it spread and worsened. I finally went to an Urgent care facility and this doc had to have been 80 years old with a hunch back. he took one look at the rash on my legs and arms and said "poison ivy, and from the look of it you have probably developed an allergy to it" (it had developed into blisters all over by now) he gave me a shit ton of steroids reccomended berts bee's poison ivy soap, cortazone 10, oatmeal baths and calamine lotion. it went a way in a few days.

however the steroids ended up causing a staph infection in the skin of my chest.

that was not a fun summer.... but that job payed really well. im sad i left it.


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## trotsky (Feb 23, 2010)

usually now if you get a job clearing brush or whatever, they'll give you a PI vaccine that's good for a month or two when you start.


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## JungleBoots (Feb 23, 2010)

trotsky said:


> usually now if you get a job clearing brush or whatever, they'll give you a PI vaccine that's good for a month or two when you start.


 if i can afford it, i know some people that are so allergic to poison ivy that they cant even stay down wind of it without having horrible skin reactions and respratory problems.


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