let us talk about travelling and spider bites (or, fuck it, poison ivy or scabbies or whatever) | Squat the Planet

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

gofreescout

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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.)
 

marc

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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.
 

Withoutatrace

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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
 

gofreescout

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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.
 

finn

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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.
 
M

Mouse

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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.
 

maus

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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)

???
 
R

RandomRaccoon

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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....
 

Ravie

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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?
 

finn

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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.
 

Ravie

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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.
 

finn

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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.
 

Ravie

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

finn

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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.
 

finn

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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.
 

finn

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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...
 

Double-A

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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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