I have worked with Urushi, aka Japanese lacquer. You get a rash, some people never get over it. Others do get over it, and I did. Years ago I was in the black thumb club. I could stick my thumb in Urushi, and not get a rash. Since Urushi was a big thing in Japan (and other places), people who worked harvesting or packaging or using it either got over or did not. I have a friend who did not. He said he could walk down the street and detect if there was raw Urushi anywhere near by.
I still got a "tingle" even when I did not get a rash.
The way to tolerate the adaptation is hot water - spray water as hot as you can stand (without damage) on the affected area and you will get substantial relief for about 12 hours. The relief of hot water on an affected area cannot be understated. A friend used the word "orgasmic" and it fits. I can almost imagine someone purposefully getting the rash just to take a shower.
Finally in this bizarre world of Urushi - when it is cured (warm & humid), NOT dried, the chemical properties change so the coating does not cause problems. If you see photos of Chinese or Japanese rice bows ls that are red or black they are probably wooden bowl coated with Urushi and cured. Urushi as used to make eating utensils.
There is more. There are an incredible number of decorative techniques. Supposedly each village had its own. One of the best is Rankaku. Tiny chips of quail egg shells are placed to form a pattern.
> The way to tolerate the adaptation is hot water - spray water as hot as you can stand (without damage) on the affected area and you will get substantial relief for about 12 hours.
Yes. Similar to poison oak (in irritant effect), we've also got poodle-dog bush out in California. It thrives in post-fire environments, and isn't as well-known as poison oak. The reaction to it is often even worse than for poison oak. And so, before I was better versed in the "fun" plants of our local mountains, I had a run in with some poodle plants, and.. that was a rough few weeks.
I tried everything to make it more tolerable, and hot water was by far the best. The effect didn't last forever, but it was remarkable how it a) was actually pleasurable and b) muted the itchiness for a fairly significant amount of time (although still not as long as I would have liked..).
It's probably still best to avoid hot water until you've done a good job of getting the offending substance off (as best as possible). And near scalding water isn't otherwise great for the skin, so it's probably not something one should do all the time.
A note, if you don't want to dry your skin out by removing your own body oils (after you've cleaned the offending substance off, of course!)... use a hair dryer.
Same result, without having to get wet. Can spot-kick the "too hot" -> remove the itch phenomenon any time, any place.
> I tried everything to make it more tolerable, and hot water was by far the best. The effect didn't last forever, but it was remarkable how it a) was actually pleasurable and b) muted the itchiness
I've been thinking of a "low fantasy" story, which is actually Sci-fi under the covers. In it, the "fey" characters are just indigenous people who have immunity to a plant which is similar to poison oak, but which grows in nigh impenetrable hedge like clumps and walls. Your mention of hot water for relief gave me an idea for a story beat, where another character discovers the hot water effect, and simultaneously discovers how to infiltrate the "fey" character's territory and bathing practices similar to Japanese and Finnish bathing.
I wonder if the benefits you get from applying hot water is from the heat itself. Heat activates heat shock proteins in the skin and suppresses/alters inflammation. [1] There are people who use infrared heat lamps to treat autoimmune skin disorders.
Back when I had a really nasty run-in with poison oak, my friend’s father who was a doctor suggested the hot water trick. AMAZING. His explanation was that it depleted histamines that caused the itching. Appears to bear out:
“ a poison ivy rash (like any other allergic reaction) is caused by the body releasing the chemical histamine to the affected area as part of your immune response. Heat will stimulate the production of histamine, and although this creates an unpleasant itching in the moment, the heat will eventually deplete the affected cells of their histamine, which can provide up to 8 hours of itch relief afterwards. This can be achieved by aiming warm water at the affected area, and slowly increasing the heat to the maximum tolerable temperature until itching stops.”
Interesting. I was a long time heavy cannabis user and developed cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome over the years. It causes severe gastrointestinal issues and vomiting. Relief comes from taking scalding hot baths or showers. I wonder if I simply became allergic to it.
would love to see some pics of your work. Since you seem to know about Japanese craft techniques - do you know what sort of adhesive is used in Japanese gold leaf application? I am not able to use bole or animal hide glue due (vegan) but was curious if the Japanese have some rice-paste based method.
Urushi is an adhesive. So for gold leaf the (egg shell) the idea is that you put down urushi, then put the gold leaf on it while it is still not cured. I tried rankaku - egg shell - and you just build up a base coast of lacqure then start placing the egg shell on a new thin, uncured coat. That is after you have prepared the quail egg shells. Then you add thin coats, curing and sanding after each, until the level of the urushi is up to the eggshell. The eggshell leaves U shaped channels with the sides of the U formed by two adjacent pieces of shell and that has to be filled but with thin coats. Sigh.
If you want to try urushi, you can go the hazmat suit method (apron, arm length gloves, etc.) Just have situational awareness. I had a friend who tried this. Her cell phone in her pocket rang and without thinking she reached in with her gloved hand and got it out. The urushi went through the pocket and she got a horrible rash! I just bit the bullet and got the rash.
I am no expert on urushi at all - I dabbled mostly. You can mix urushi with all kinds of things and there are perhaps 250 grades, including the most refined which is clear. Urushi was and is used in sword making. So the answer is out there, but I have not done any for a long time. I sort of remember mixing rice-paste and urushi at one point but I might be making that up.
I raised bronze and copper vessels and was trying to come up with ways to complete them. I found out about Jean Dunand, art deco guy, who decorated vessels with urushi and egg shell among other things. I highly recommend finding a good museum nearby and asking them if they have work and know of anyone who does restoration. Then follow those leads.
There are people out there who know and will share knowledge but I am out of touch. My sense is that many people who are interested in Japanese sword making (Katana) end up knowing about lacquer because it was used for handles.
Asian lacquerware, which may be called "true lacquer", are objects coated with the treated, dyed and dried sap of Toxicodendron vernicifluum or related trees, applied in several coats to a base that is usually wood.
I have read that the urushiol is also present in the skin of the mango fruit.
I don’t know if those who consume a lot of mangoes or have grown up with mango trees around them are immune to poison oak’s urushiol(arguably much more concentrated) as its present in stems, saps, leaves, skin more than the flesh..but they likely have more tolerance.
Also..in India, we don’t burn mango leaves or branches as it increases respiratory risks..which ..now that I think about it..is likely due to the urushiol
It must be minute quantities -- if any at all. In developing countries in Asia, it is pretty common to eat the whole mango without peeling it first. (Before anyone responds to this comment: Yes, I have personally seen this eating style in many different countries.) Usually, you just cut two pieces: top and bottom, then discard the seed. It also makes it easier to hold the cut fruit with your hands without getting too sticky / dirty.
However, when picking mangoes, you need to be careful about the sap that comes from the broken stem. That will cause a rash, and also disfigure the fruit's skin (which hurts market value). You can Google about it.
The kitchen tradition is to soak them in hot water for 3-4 hours. All imported mangoes that come into the US also get the same hot water treatment. They say it’s for fruit flies but back home it was suggested to reduce rashes.
[..]Hot Water Treatment Requirements According to USDA APHIS requirements, for rounded varieties (Tommy Atkins, Kent, Haden, Keitt), the treatment for fruit flies requires heating in 115ºF (46.1ºC) water for 75 to 110 minutes, depending on the weight of the mango.[..]
huh, every time I eat a kiwi my lips get itchy. I just googled and it doesn’t look like it contains urushiol, but it does contain an allergen called “actinidin”.
This thread made me realize I’m allergic to kiwi’s…
You may have oral allergy syndrome (OAS), which is similar to food allergy but not as severe. It doesn't typically lead to anaphylaxis. It is caused by pollen allergy, where the food has a protein similar to one that's in the pollen you're allergic to. This is called "cross-reactivity".
Personally I have OAS with raw carrots, which is likely cross-reactive from my birch pollen allergy. Raw carrots make my throat mildly itchy, but I don't have a food allergy to carrots and I don't get anaphylaxis. Cooked carrots are totally fine, the cooking destroys the protein. This is a common feature of OAS.
Actually, while I did have OAS with carrots in the past, I have recently been undergoing immunotherapy for pollen allergies (plus cat dander and mold) and in addition to my hay fever symptoms disappearing, I no longer get the itchy throat with raw carrots.
Not a week passes where I do not learn something interesting on hn! And this one may even be life altering!
Took me 30 years to find out that I have pollen allergies, and from that food allergies.
And because my body only produces very little diamin oxidase, that leads to heavy symptoms elsewhere in the body. I just recently got so far that diet and fenistil make things usually bearable, and when it gets heavy, only a little more fenistil fixes the symptoms. I don't think the symptoms are anaphylaxes, but overabundance of histamine. I had too many of them and I'm still here, never had to use the epi pen.
But from all the specialists I visited in my country, no one ever told me, that OAS exists, or oral therapy against them.
I can't say how thankful I am for the new ideas from your post and the child posts!
Glad to help! Just wanted to note that my immunotherapy for pollen/cat/mold allergy is not oral, but subcutaneous. That is, allergy shots. Oral (probably sublingual) immunotherapy can be done also, but for these allergens I believe subcutaneous is more common. I am not sure of the reasons but they may be related to efficacy, safety (eosinophilic esophagitis does not occur with shots), or convenience (while shots are not exactly convenient they are only once a month vs. daily oral therapy).
If you have frequent reactions, I'd say you should really consider immunotherapy. Even if they haven't been bad enough to kill you yet, the next one can always be worse. And if you have borderline anaphylaxis, waiting to administer the epi-pen can be fatal, as it can be less effective if you wait too long. Antihistamines will not save you from anaphylaxis, as while they reduce/mask some symptoms they do not treat the specific symptoms that kill you (hypotension, and/or airway swelling leading to suffocation). Only epinephrine does that.
Is this why I sometimes get little tiny pustules on my gums after eating certain foods? I have no idea which foods cause this still. Sometimes in happens with sushi
That symptom matches my reaction to egg whites but the weird thing is, it's only some forms. I can eat hardboiled eggs no problem (probably because the allergen has denatured), but not most other forms itch while baked goods are very hit or miss. The worst are meringues and macaroons.
You probably have a genuine food allergy to egg. I don't see egg in OAS lists. I see some research saying that common egg allergens are destroyed by cooking as well (though this is not true for all cooking methods or all food allergens). I would see an allergist. It's probably a good idea for you to carry an epi-pen. Even if you've only had low severity reactions so far, it's always possible that the next one will be severe, and egg is hard to avoid.
I have cantaloupe/honeydew but no problem with avocado or latex so I don't suspect a connection here. Raw bell peppers sometimes bother me.
Allergies are often funny, at least for me. Exposed to a single allergen usually results in no reaction. But many, many small exposures to diverse allergens adds up and can trigger a disproportionate response.
I have a friend who's food-related allergies (non-anaphylactic) disappeared after removing carpet flooring in their home.
> many small exposures to diverse allergens adds up
Yeah, that's a thing. Also you may notice higher sensitivity to allergens if your immune system is fighting off a cold (perhaps even before you're aware of being sick, or even if someone in your household is sick and you don't get it because your immune system successfully fights it off). If you are doing oral immunotherapy it is sometimes recommended to reduce your dose when you are sick to avoid reactions.
Ah I take an over the counter pill daily and it handles my typical allergy symptoms. I may revise that opinion once I move back home where it seems to have been the worst.
It takes a long time for allergy shots to ramp up. It's likely that they work better the younger you are, and of course also the younger you are the longer you have to enjoy the benefits. So I'd start as soon as possible if you think you would ever want to. That said, allergy shots are not for everyone. It's a big commitment with real risks and it's not always a lifetime cure. If you're happy with antihistamines that's fine. Personally, Claritin and Zyrtec were not effective and I was also concerned about the potential long term effects of daily antihistamine use.
Yes, it is certainly possible to have a true food allergy to kiwi as well, with anaphylaxis and everything. It may even be relatively common these days in some places.
I discovered it in a funny way - I was in Tokyo trying all sorts of random foods. One night after dinner, in the cab, my throat started to swell. I had a fun time getting some emergency Benadryl from a gas station late at night speaking Japanese poorly.
I had no idea what caused it.
Flash forward a few months, I was at a birthday party back in the U.S., had a slice of kiwi, and felt like I'd swallowed battery acid. Throat immediately closed up, worse than in Tokyo. Thinking back to that previous night, I realized it hadn't been some exotic food - I'd had a salad with kiwi in it.
Fun and rare allergy.
For even more fun, try being allergic to milk. I developed that allergy later in life and hoo boy has it been a humdinger.
I started getting something a bit like that with bread. My whole mouth would go numb. I've eliminated it from my diet - was a bit of a wrench, but I've got over it now, and no more numb mouth.
I am odd: I am immune to poison oak but allergic to mango flesh. Poison oak only gives me a minor issue around cuts or scratches, but the last time I had mango, I got hives anywhere my skin experienced pressure (like itching a scratch or wearing a seat belt or an elastic waste band or belt) for a week and a half. I developed the mango thing as an adult after eating like a dozen or two dried mangos one day
I do remember being told to be careful of the mango sap near where the stem attaches and to wash and cut if off before eating, never got any rashes though. Have eaten tons of mangoes directly from the fruit, and wasn’t washed every time.
Am curious now if I’m brave enough to test poison oak immunity. Probably not..
My mom grew up in South Africa, '40s and '50s, she always made us wash our lips after eating mango to avoid a rash. Only later did I discover I didn't need to, I always assumed the rash-causing compound has been bred out of modern mangos.
The only food in the world I'm allergic to is cempedak, a close relative of jackfruit. If I eat a ripe one, I get puffy red duck lips like a Kardashian for a while.
The first few bites when fire ants came to Texas hurt. The next few hurt less. Then they came to live in the walls of my parents’ house. I would get multiple bites every day and wake up with a dozen more after every night. It wasn’t that long before they didn’t hurt or leave a bump at all anymore. First hand education in how the body develops resistance to toxins.
I need this for mosquitos. They tend to go for my ankles and 1 bite is still fine, but as soon as I get 2+ the swelling up and itching just multiplies 10x.
Does anyone know why desensitization works for some allergies but for other things, like latex, the more you are exposed to them the more likely you are to develop an allergy?
It's not just the amount of exposure, it's the type. Skin exposure is generally sensitizing. Mouth exposure is generally desensitizing, as long as it is below the threshold that causes a severe reaction, and the exposure is more often than roughly twice weekly (the more often the better).
This may be a reason why babies stick everything in their mouths.
This is the basis of oral immunotherapy, and if you ate latex daily it could possibly desensitize you. However, the immune system is insanely complicated and not fully understood. There are a lot of gotchas here. It may actually be possible to desensitize with skin exposure with careful control of the dose, as there are some 'skin patch" treatments that work for some people although generally not nearly as well as the oral route. Not all allergies are the same, and may not be treatable by exposure in some people. The immunity obtained by immunotherapy may not be the same as natural immunity, it may disappear over time, and the treatment itself can have hard to detect but severe chronic side effects like eosinophilic esophagitis. So don't DIY!
Interestingly I have heard that mango skin contains the same irritant chemical as poison oak. I wonder if eating mango skin would help desensitize people to poison oak. I once ate a very small amount by accident and had a weird feeling in my throat and a bad taste in my mouth for ten minutes afterward, so it sounds pretty unpleasant to me.
Mithridatism is pretty well-studied at this point, and an allegist can likely help with any sort of desensitization that you do. Many common allergies have available therapies at this point.
Latex may be an exception depending on the mechanism of action, but almost all organic compounds that can be metabolized by your body can be adapted to.
My layman's understanding is that the key to desensitization is that it has to be below the level of a certain kind of reaction.
Allergies occur because the immune system incorrectly associates a substance with a bad reaction, and so attacks it as it would a pathogen. The problem is that the allergen isn't a pathogen, and so the immune system can't actually kill it.
There's a treatment for pet/pollen/etc. allergies that works by injecting a very small quantity of the allergenic substance every week, slowly building up tolerance. The body learns that the small dose didn't cause problems, and slowly gets accustomed to higher and higher doses. If the doctor sets the dosage too high, the body has an allergic reaction and then that allergic reaction reinforces the immune system's determination that the substance is dangerous. The treatment response to this is to drastically reduce the dosage and try again.
If the sibling comment's assertation that oral exposure was desensitizing was correct, that wouldn't explain why some people develop food allergies later in life. (As one anecdotal example, my Wilderness First Responder instructor was slowly getting more and more allergic to mangos.)
Several kids in our family's social group have successfully undergone desensitization therapy for severe nut allergies.
It was much more rigorous than the author's approach, with weekly doctor visits and taking increasingly large amounts of whatever they were allergic to (starting with micrograms of nut powder).
I think my niece had the best time as she eventually was advised to start eating daily measured amounts of nutella.
I mention this mostly because I do think the author was a bit cavalier in his approach (mostly because it's hard to accurately judge dosage from wild plants) but also to just spread the word that the allergy desensitization therapies are out there and quite effective and life changing.
I have direct experience with this and it is indeed a miracle. What's interesting is that the protocol largely emerged outside the regulatory channels, with a handful of doctors worldwide developing it once the science became clear that exposure could help and more and more offering it to patients every year. These allergists have carefully figured out regimens that work and it can take a year of daily dosing, with dose sizes increasing twice monthly, until one can safely eat, say, a handful of peanuts.
There's still today another camp: Many allergists still preach avoidance however and put fear into worried parents about the dangers of oral immunotherapy.
Because it can be hard to find an office that will run your immunotherapy program for you, or costly if you do, many parents are doing it on their own, following dosing protocols they find in Facebook groups or on YouTube. The ones I've seen have been supportive and helpful, not quackery.
Meanwhile the medical establishment is finding ways to monetize this immunotherapy by turning, for example, peanut doses into pharmaceuticals, e.g. Palforzia, which is a recently FDA approved "food allergy treatment" and is in fact simply peanut protein.
Oral immunotherapy is indeed dangerous. Eosinophilic esophagitis is real. Anaphylaxis is common. It's a long, tedious road, with daily dosing for years, and in many people the treatment ends in failure rendering the effort wasted.
Although many do achieve remission, there is no guarantee that the allergy is gone for good. The immunity obtained by immunotherapy is not necessarily the same as natural immunity. It may not be complete and it may not be long lasting. The immune system has a long, long memory and we do not have any reliable tests to determine if anyone's immunity is permanent. For that reason allergists recommend continuing dosing indefinitely to maintain immunity, and continuing to carry an epi-pen. For the rest of your life. You will get sick of peanut butter.
All that said, we are doing sublingual immunotherapy for our son. But I am hoping that within his lifetime new treatments are developed that will free him from allergies completely.
Precise control of the immune system would be the holy grail of medicine IMO. Dysfunctions of the immune system are at the root of so many diseases, not just allergies. If the immune system could be easily trained to ignore or attack arbitrary targets at will it could likely cure almost any infection or cancer. And I bet it could be useful in treating the diseases of aging as well.
> There's still today another camp: Many allergists still preach avoidance however and put fear into worried parents about the dangers of oral immunotherapy.
Because immunotherapy can be dangerous, even when conducted in a doctor's office with supervision. I know two people with serious adverse effects requiring getting rushed to the ER.
We think we know a lot about the human body, and we do, but our immune and nervous system and its myriads of interaction paths are to a large part a mystery, with most of what we think we "know" being observed knowledge without understanding the foundation.
I asked our doctor about immunotherapy and she urged against it saying it was lots of trips each week, risky, unlikely to work and the benefits were limited.
I got desensitization from ragweed prescribed by doctor (Ragwitek). But the allergy causes me permanently irritated throat. That was right before covid, then I got scared that it will make infection easier and gave up.
> I mention this mostly because I do think the author was a bit cavalier in his approach
The author may not have had access to a physician with experience in this.
I live in the part of the US where the only physician access is what can be afforded out of pocket (not much). Self initiated treatments are the order of the day.
A guy in my village, a few years before I was alive, was immune to poison oak (as am I; not sure how common it is) and he would show off by eating a bit of it. After several years of this parlor trick, he had a severe reaction one time and went to the hospital. Throat nearly swelled shut.
Makes you wonder what went differently that one time. Does the body say produce immune cells with some level of natural variation and that one time it happened to produce ones sensitive to the substance?
Some people just don’t react to it while others do.
I had hay fever as a kid which developed into asthma in my 30s, I had immune therapy from a specialist who gave me increasingly concentrated shots of allergens weekly for years. After a while my asthma went into remission and I quit taking medicine for it. I still have hay fever symptoms some times but they aren’t too bad and I rarely medicate for them because I get side effects even from some of the “non-drowsy” antihistamines.
Even though it is done under medical supervision, it is a controversial treatment. It’s banned in the U.K. They’d have me sit around the office for 30 minutes in case I had a bad reaction which they could usually treat with an injection of epinephrine but could be lethal if somebody was really unlucky.
Note there is at least one report of treatment of poison ivy sensitivity this way
The thing is I got a treatment from my doc which was somewhat evidence based, compare that to all the bizzaro ideas circulating such as Edgar Cayce’s idea that you could treat hay fever with an alcohol tincture of ragweed. (Got that from a herbalist once, it does seem harmless)
I've heard of this desensitization stuff before too. For all the mixed reviews of it, maybe success simply depends on individual factors that nobody has identified yet.
Yes, this is known to be true. Studies of oral immunotherapy often show failure rates in the 20-30% range, and nobody knows a way to accurately predict who will succeed and who will fail without actually going through the whole treatment. IgE levels can correlate with success but they are far from a perfect predictor. The other big factor is age. If you can start immunotherapy super early, like in the 0-2 year old range, it is significantly more likely to work.
Jus fyi but the "non drowsy" antihistamines are fundamentally different or anything, they're just the same type of drowsy antihistamine but with the dose lowered so it barely works unless you take more than one, thereby making it drowsy again
This is incorrect enough as to be dangerous (IMPE, I am not a doctor). They are non-drowsy because they do not cross the blood brain barrier effectively as I understand. Second and third generation antihistamines are fantastic.
While I agree with your comment, for some peoples non-drowsy antihistamines are a myth.
I must be overly sensitive or have a deficient BBB because 10 mg loratadine transform me into a lethargic zombie for about 48 hours while providing minimal relief. A double dose of vyvaanse and a few coffees are not enough to bring me out of that state.
I had brain zaps with Zyrtec (Cetirizine) that took me a while to recognize for what they were because I thought they were related to other meds I was taking. I find Allegra (Fexofenadine) agrees with me a lot better. Personally I hate Claritin (Loratadine) as it definitely makes me depressed.
Experience with those others makes me wary of using Allegra except when my allergy symptoms are really bad.
BTW: Benadryl (Diphenhydramine), which has the same ingredient in the same dose marketed as a sleep aid, is really good for Poison Ivy because of its ability to penetrate into tissues really well. 30 years ago you would get a prescription for a round of steroid pills that will have you feeling pretty messed up for a week if you got Poison Ivy but today you are likely to be told to go to the pharmacy and treat yourself with OTC pills. Poison Ivy is bad enough that most people will take the drowsiness.
This isn't true. H1 antagonists, which is the group of drugs commonly referred to as antihistamines, contains two subgroups of pharmaceuticals. There are the first generation antihistamines, which are generally more popular and earn the reputation of making you drowsy, and the second generation antihistamines. The second generation antihistamines are significantly more selective for the H1 receptors you want to block versus the ones in your brain. Doxylamine is a first generation drug marketed under the brand name Unisom for insomnia, whereas a common second generation antihistamine loratadine commonly includes the phrase "non-drowsy" on the box. It still increases sedation, but at a substantially lower rate than the first generation drugs.
This sounds very much like something that someone might hear on Joe Rogan's podcast and think it's a good idea because someone who knows how to put two sentences together sounded like they knew what they were talking about.
Gradual exposure to allergens like urushiol has been a legitimate recognized treatment plan for decades. Animals are able to eat poison ivy and poison oak. It's a brave strategy to eat the stuff, but nobody including smug netizens like yourself knows if it will work for someone else. Everything that works in medicine was probably thought to be ridiculous by someone at one point.
Joe Rogan isn't the best source of medical advice, but he has been smeared by the media on behalf of big pharma. His approach to treating COVID came from a doctor and was not "horse paste"... CNN was proven to have edited video of Joe Rogan to make his skin look off-color. Also, never forget that the mainstream media said the "vaccines" would stop transmission of the virus when all the experts knew it wouldn't do so, from the start. They also lied about side effects.
Pointing out that at some points Joe Rogan might have been smeared unjustly by mainstream media does not in any way come close to absolving the crimes JR has committed against modern science by giving constant airtime to outright quacks. Anyone remotely interested in making sure proper science knowledge and education makes it out to gen pop should be completely against Rogan and everything he stands for. It only takes one to ruin your reputation. Rogan has aired hundreds. It’s even more dangerous than one might think because sometimes, like in some examples you reference, there is some legitimate medicine mixed in.
Science doesn't work like that, religion does. "Science" harmed itself with some people and an ideology heavily censoring opponents, and by shutting down any debate, including scientific one.
The very idea that one can commit "crimes" against science by discussing ideas (however false) is shameful. As you said, it's no different than religious accusations of heresy. It's truly disheartening to see a backwards and illiberal idea like that being promoted here.
Science is not conducted through public debate. Full stop. There's a reason why it's peer review, and not talk show host review.
During COVID, most everybody was operating from an incomplete data set. Public officials were wrong about some things. You can choose to see this as a conspiracy set up by big pharma, or you can see it as imperfect people doing what they could to mitigate a public health crisis.
And yes, critique the peer review process all you want. It's flawed in many ways. But this "it's us versus science" narrative is extremely, insidiously damaging to society at large. It only serves powerful people who benefit from whipping an audience into a frenzy to buy their shitty supplements or bumper stickers or whatever.
The scientific principle is based on proving thing by experimentation.
it is empirical that means that you should be able to re-produce the results of a thing or assertion by following the details in a paper.
The public might be able to do it themselves. But the point is, its not about who says what, its about can it be reproduced.
scientist "A" says that the sky is blue because of "x". devises an experiment to prove that. writes up the experiment, publishes it, asserts that the sky is blue because of x, and that the experiment proves this.
Scientist "B" says it bollocks, reproduces the experiment, but also extends the experiment to show that the data also says that the sky is green. Paper is published with data and method.
The process repeats until a consensus is reached where everyone can reproduce the data, and no one can disprove the hypothesis that the sky is blue because of x.
None of that requires asserting bollocks on a chat show. Sure science outreach is great, but its not _really_ part of the method.
During the pandemic, though, we had scientists asserting that various physical methods would stop the spread of the virus with no evidence to back that up (masking, keeping 6 ft away from people, previous COVID did not provide immunity, vaccines would stop the spread of COVID, etc etc).
When scientists don't follow their own method, how should the public decide on which findings to trust?
>The scientific principle is based on proving thing by experimentation.
As documented in Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" there are periods where little progress is made because scientists get tunnel vision. It takes someone to come along and push things in a different direction, perhaps to the detriment of people with decades or lots of money sunk into a different orthodoxy, and navigating that turmoil can be challenging.
Who do you think decides which research gets funded, or published? If you go too far outside of what's acceptable to the establishment, your career is over. When there are billions of dollars on the line and your opposition can literally fund a dozen studies to "discredit" your take, it doesn't matter if your results can be reproduced or not. It could be many years before the truth comes out, if it ever does.
>None of that requires asserting bollocks on a chat show. Sure science outreach is great, but its not _really_ part of the method.
If you want to get funding for research then sometimes it is necessary to engage the public. If you hope to buck the well-monied establishment with hot takes, you might even need legal support. Besides that it's just interesting to hear what people are working on. I think people like to know what scientists think, and it gets boring to hear just a single opinion about things nonstop.
Actually, peer review journals are public debate. The much-applauded "consensus" is essentially voting. If you follow the money you will quickly see the connection between science and politics, both internally and with the public at large.
I am biased against anyone who wants to stop me or others from thinking lol. Yes, "peer review" means something. It means that the criteria to get published is that some approved reviewers must accept the results. No more, no less. Anyone can obtain a journal article and form their own opinion about the article and its authors. This includes members of other academic fields, or the general public. Sometimes this outside scrutiny is sorely needed to address problems in the research.
If one has good results and data, their academic pedigree theoretically shouldn't matter when it comes to publication. But we know it doesn't work like that generally. The real world does not live up to our lofty ideals.
This is the most anti-science attitude I think I've seen in a very long time. It's also foolish and dangerous IMHO, because it greatly contributes to the very thing you want to prevent: amplification and creation of quack science to the gen pop.
Simply depriving these people of airtime does NOT quash their views and make them go away. It fuels conspiracy theories such as about how big pharma is censoring ideas about natural (or already highly-available) treatments in order to make billions on devoloping their vaccines and using government levers to force people to buy them. (They did try to do that too, though they got lucky in that none of the "natural" treatments seemed to really work. But had they worked, their reaction would have been the same.)
It also means the discussions people see are going to happen on shows/forums/podcasts where the host doesn't push back on them and offer challenges and critical thinking. This not only sets a terrible example for people by demonstrating through social proof that one should accept these things uncritically, but it makes it appear as though the case is very strong and there isn't a good counter-argument! This double effect makes a strong impression on people in the exact opposite way that we want.
I think Joe Rogan has done more to bring sanity to these things than most people. Have you ever watched those episodes? He is very conversational but if there is ever a claim that doesn't seem supported, he will ask Jamie (his assistant or producer or whatever) look it up, and they are highly skeptical and choosy of sources.
We should know by now that censoring information these days does not work. We're no longer living in the society where the average person only gets information from TV or books available at their library or local book store. If there's a quack theory out there, it will get to people through the internet. The answer is not to shut down the internet. We need to expose these ideas and defeat them using logical and scientific refutation, and we need to encourage and teach critical thinking skills. This is a new world we are living in, and the tried and true techniques or censoring and book burning do not work anymore. Embrace it and use it.
> Simply depriving these people of airtime does NOT quash their views and make them go away.
> We should know by now that censoring information these days does not work
This argument (repeated) is a bit of a red herring. I haven't seen anyone saying we can make pseudoscience go away forever. We're just questioning the wisdom of embracing and amplifying it to reach people it wouldn't have before.
> It fuels conspiracy theories
This is kind of a corollary to the above point: People are going to theorize conspiracies no matter what. There are undoubtedly conspiracy theorists who think the exact opposite: that including pseudoscience is a conspiracy to make people think it isn't being censored in other ways.
Thus, that a given action might strengthen or weaken the conspiracy theories of at least 1 pseudoscientist isn't enough to justify doing the action or not. Neither choice will make conspiracy theories go away.
>I haven't seen anyone saying we can make pseudoscience go away forever.
You must not have been looking. There are government and media officials coming out against "mis-, dis-, and mal-information" on a constant basis. These same people are the biggest liars around.
>We're just questioning the wisdom of embracing and amplifying it to reach people it wouldn't have before.
"You can have free speech as long as you only speak quietly in your own closet." The power to curate information or "amplify" it as you say is practically very hard to distinguish from censorship when you choose to show only things you agree with, or show only the worst straw men for the other side.
>There are undoubtedly conspiracy theorists who think the exact opposite: that including pseudoscience is a conspiracy to make people think it isn't being censored in other ways.
There are some "conspiracy theories" designed to discredit anyone who is skeptical of authority. The people who complain the most about conspiracy theories really just want people to stop thinking independently, and start accepting whatever their establishment says.
>Thus, that a given action might strengthen or weaken the conspiracy theories of at least 1 pseudoscientist isn't enough to justify doing the action or not. Neither choice will make conspiracy theories go away.
Conspiring to suppress conspiracy theories sure won't make them stop. Being right and showing positive results to the contrary is what wins the day.
> "You can have free speech as long as you only speak quietly in your own closet." The power to curate information or "amplify" it as you say is practically very hard to distinguish from censorship when you choose to show only things you agree with, or show only the worst straw men for the other side.
No platform owes you the right to amplify nonsense. The government can’t make you stop, but individual platforms or individuals themselves? They’re free to do whatever, just like you. Don’t like it? Start a Truth Social and go yell at your adoring fans all you want.
> Conspiring to suppress conspiracy theories sure won't make them stop. Being right and showing positive results to the contrary is what wins the day.
While that’s a cute thought, conspiracy theorists are exceptionally good at one thing: theorizing conspiracies. “Being right” doesn’t happen, ever, because any positive results can simply be walked back as “part of another conspiracy.”
The way you kill conspiracy theories is not amplifying them as truth. That’s it.
>No platform owes you the right to amplify nonsense. The government can’t make you stop, but individual platforms or individuals themselves? They’re free to do whatever, just like you. Don’t like it? Start a Truth Social and go yell at your adoring fans all you want.
Governments of the world, including the US government, have repeatedly been shown to order these "private" platforms around. So this argument is cooked.
>While that’s a cute thought, conspiracy theorists are exceptionally good at one thing: theorizing conspiracies. “Being right” doesn’t happen, ever, because any positive results can simply be walked back as “part of another conspiracy.”
You should ask yourself why conspiracy theories make more sense to people than "the truth". Hint: It's because real conspiracies are commonfare.
>The way you kill conspiracy theories is not amplifying them as truth. That’s it.
Again this "not amplifying" is code for "censoring" or "burying". The truth inevitably shines through, even when it comes to this bullshit. You think the reality of censorship is a conspiracy, yet people have been censored heavily in this country for years now at the behest of the US government and some NGOs. Sometimes for strictly political reasons. You can call me a crackpot if you want but I've seen the censorship itself and the evidence of government involvement.
Who, pray tell, is qualified to judge what is worthy of "not amplifying"? That word makes me cringe every time because it was chosen to sound innocuous and appealing to young people. It is pure doublespeak.
Liberals even 10-15 years ago knew better than to argue for censorship. Now the left can't stop singing the praises of censorship, keep trying to redefine words to suit the agenda, and basically dragged the political dialogue into dangerous territory that was conclusively settled hundreds of years ago by brilliant philosophers.
> You should ask yourself why conspiracy theories make more sense to people than the truth
While conspiracy theorists believe this to be the case, and they are people, they're a slightly-vocal minority, and thus it'd be disingenuous to represent what conspiracy theorists think as what "people" think, unless you clarify that you're using the term "people" to refer to 1+ persons, not any indicative majority.
As you and I both said upthread: there will always be greater than zero pseudoscience conspiracy theorists who view literally anything as confirmation of the conspiracy theory.
>> I haven't seen anyone saying we can make pseudoscience go away forever.
> You must not have been looking. There are government and media officials coming out against "mis-, dis-, and mal-information" on a constant basis.*
This is not evidence that they, or any significant amount of people, have said they can make conspiracy theories and pseudoscience go away forever. There's nothing wrong with "coming out against" disinformation.
>While conspiracy theorists believe this to be the case, and they are people, they're a slightly-vocal minority, and thus it'd be disingenuous to represent what conspiracy theorists think as what "people" think, unless you clarify that you're using the term "people" to refer to 1+ persons, not any indicative majority.
Conspiracy theorists are everywhere. Just casually mention price fixing and you'll see endless speculation from just about everyone about how "they're out to get you". Mention politicians and lobbyists and they will readily speculate about who is on the take, based on stupid shit like physical traits of a person. These same people will then cry about a bunch of other conspiracy theories that don't jive with their preconceived notions.
>As you and I both said upthread: there will always be greater than zero pseudoscience conspiracy theorists who view literally anything as confirmation of the conspiracy theory.
This is true. Likewise, many "normies" regard the existence of nutty conspiracy theorists as evidence that any speculation about possible conspiracies is evidence of stupidity or even insanity.
>This is not evidence that they, or any significant amount of people, have said they can make conspiracy theories and pseudoscience go away forever. There's nothing wrong with "coming out against" disinformation.
First of all I didn't say that. Second of all, there is a lot wrong with trying to police speech, especially under the pretense of it being "disinformation". If you care about disinformation then you put out good information only, engage in debates, and so on. Basically stop treating your fellow citizens like children for merely disagreeing. Even if we want to suppress untrue information, it is extremely difficult to be 100% sure what is true, and the intellectual and popular discourse requires free expression of controversial ideas. If you don't want to have your worldview challenged, there are many ways to tune out the stuff you don't care for. The problem we have is that the authoritarians are threatened by the fact that someone out in the world disagrees with them. They can't handle that because their egos are too fragile. (Of course, some authoritarians do not care about the ideas at all. They just want power and the ideas are the tool they use to get it. We have this type in the West too.)
This is just a variant of “both sides” argument. Both sides are not equal. There will be conspiracy theorists and quacks always, no matter what you do. It’s when you give them a microphone and any semblance of legitimacy that it becomes dangerous. Case in point: Alex Jones. The correct thing is to dismiss these people outright. It’s already been demonstrated that if you try to have a public discourse on this kind of stuff that bad actors will just come in and sow misinformation. Attempting to have such discourse merely elevates the legitimacy of the quack’s claims, since you can have the most detailed of detailed takedowns but be countered with literal word salad nonsense and still “lose” in the eyes of gen pop. The quack has everything to gain, because by getting into a discussion with someone legitimately qualified in a public arena they are placed on somewhat equal levels with that person in the eyes of the public. A standing in society they absolutely do not deserve.
By the way, Rogan himself has a few entries on Quackwatch for promoting questionable supplements that he has a financial interest in. So he’s not, as you imply and he would love to have you believe “just asking questions”. He is actively engaged in the same bullshit his quack guests come on and peddle.
Ivermectin does nothing. Linking to a site that uses fraudulent research in order to prove an incorrect point does not help your position. There were places in the world that widely distributed Ivermectin as an experimental treatment (such as Brazil) whose health agencies have now, after the fact, said that Ivermectin does not help. You are peddling fraud.
I will not engage with you further and simply refer you to [1], which includes some of the studies used in your fraudulent website. And the data has only gotten more damning since 2021.
It's not a fraudulent website. I'm familiar with the blog you linked to and frankly I think it's run by a bunch of snobby conformists who pose as free-thinkers. Therefore, I don't expect much. But I may look over the post when I get time. Thanks for trying, I know what I asked is a lot of work. It's just not as clear-cut as you think, and it certainly wasn't at the time everyone came out against it.
Just look at the low depths the media went to in order to smear Ivermectin, a Nobel-prize winning drug for humans with minimal side effects, and that should tell you there is more to it than we were officially told. As I said before, they literally tried to connect the Joe Rogan thing to horse Ivermectin, and fabricated a hoax about an ER not treating gunshot victims because of people falling ill with the veterinary stuff. Meanwhile in Africa, people routinely take inexpensive Ivermectin that they buy with great ease. It all sounds fishy. I can't ignore the official lies, even if I do find some research that claims no benefit is there.
If you dig into this stuff more, you'll find that pharmaceutical companies fund studies to cast doubt on established medicines that they can't make money on, such as those with expired patents. If there was a simple silver bullet solution to covid and big pharma couldn't monetize it, they would surely bury the results. The huge investments in vaccines could not be allowed to fail, as many elites were heavily invested in the producers of those vaccines.
> Authorities were told from the top to not prescribe it
They were also told not to prescribe Metamizole, because it kills people. there is no controversy there (well apart from spain who still have it on license.)
> How about the fact it killed some people within minutes?
> The dictionary even changed the definition of "vaccine"
Which dictionary? Also, bear in mind that the dictionary isn't static. Its updated to reflect how english is spoken now, by the public.
> In the years since the vaccine came out, many young people have suspiciously dropped dead or at least lost consciousness on live TV
Do you have data for that? what does it corrolate to? also depending on the country, some places its the younger that have less uptake.
Do you know how hard it is to run a project with 10 people?
Do you know how exponentially harder it is to run it for 1000 people? How on earth, looking at how shit the US government is at functioning, can they organise something like that?
Moreover, if its the "MSM", who are holding the secrets, do you know how fucking chatty those pricks are? (I used to work for a finance newspaper) All you have to do is take them to the pub and you can find out who's doing what illegal shit. or whos flogging synthetic opioids to the rust belt
If you don't know what I'm talking about don't make shit up. This was a court proceeding in the US. Yes, people had to sue to get the trial data and again separately to get VAERS data. I forgot which one was supposed to be delayed 75 years (the original Pfizer trial I think) but in any case I remember the judge thought it unreasonable. In the end it was released. The list of possible side effects is huge and includes just about everything you can think of, perhaps by design.
>Which dictionary? Also, bear in mind that the dictionary isn't static. Its updated to reflect how english is spoken now, by the public.
You can google this easily. As for changing the definition, this vaccine didn't even stop death or infection as claimed. It at best "reduced" bad outcomes and that is negligible at best.
>Do you have data for that? what does it corrolate to? also depending on the country, some places its the younger that have less uptake.
No because this data is suppressed and never accurately reported. I think the CDC to this day hasn't made separate categories for "death/hospitalization with covid" and "death/hospitalization because of covid". Even when there is an incident, it's blamed on something else or even covid, because the vaccine does not prevent infection. At one point deaths among the vaccinated eclipsed deaths of unvaccinated, because of how many people were vaccinated (if nothing else).
>Do you know how exponentially harder it is to run it for 1000 people? How on earth, looking at how shit the US government is at functioning, can they organise something like that?
First of all, the truth has largely come out about all the major alleged conspiracy theories. The conspiracy theorists were right about: the lab leak, biowarfare research, gain of function research, Fauci lying and intimidating his subordinates to suppress the truth, and the fact that the vaccines don't stop the spread of covid or even slow it. They were also right about side effects and attempted suppression of trial and VAERS data.
Second of all, are you suggesting it is impossible for a large group to conspire to do something, or that crimes can be ongoing even as the public is aware of it? All they have to do to shut it down is call you names and censor you, get you fired, and so on. This has happened to people over the vaccine vs. their basic human rights, don't forget.
If all that needed to be done to halt crimes of that scale is make them public, we would not live under the constant state surveillance that we do today, because Snowden exposed all that.
>Moreover, if its the "MSM", who are holding the secrets, do you know how fucking chatty those pricks are? (I used to work for a finance newspaper) All you have to do is take them to the pub and you can find out who's doing what illegal shit. or whos flogging synthetic opioids to the rust belt
I don't have this personal experience but there have been whistleblowers and even hidden camera exposés on a lot of this shit. James O'Keefe had a big undercover interview with a Pfizer employee, and not long after the board of his nonprofit went rogue and sunk the whole thing. He is still fighting them in court. No doubt they were all bought by Big Pharma or something, because it makes no sense otherwise.
Look at the Boeing situation. 2 whistleblowers dead within weeks of each other, and 10 more living in fear. And that's not even the government or the richest company around. Even though Boeing has been exposed, they haven't made any major changes yet.
Is there any research out there which links moderate amounts of vitamin D (such as the recommended dosages on vitamin D supplements) to any negative effects at all?
Is there any research to indicate that a lack of urushiol has negative effects, similar to how we know that a lack of vitamin D has negative effects?
It's not a prescription drug, so I'm not really sure what 'self-medication' means; I self-medicate with caffeine, might eat an orange and self-medicate vit C later, etc.
NHS (UK) guidance:
> Government advice is that everyone should consider taking a daily vitamin D supplement during the autumn and winter.
> People at high risk of not getting enough vitamin D, all children aged 1 to 4, and all babies (unless they're having more than 500ml of infant formula a day) should take a daily supplement throughout the year.
(People at high risk = for example darker skin, or indoor jobs.)
Vitamin D deficiency (and while we're at it, B12 deficiency and iron deficiency) are real deficiency issues that have risen in numbers across Western societies for quite the time now - IIRC, a large contributor is our change in diets and living habits.
Basically, we're spending far less time working out in the open so our body doesn't generate vitamin D on its own in sufficient quantities, and the trend towards highly processed, nutritionally inflexible diets on one side and vegetarianism/veganism on the other side leads to a whole host of malnutrition issues.
Unfortunately, the "malnutrition" levels in bloodwork are mostly calibrated on white European males... so similar to BMI [1] and a few medications and diseases [2], there is a "vitamin D paradox" in Black people who seem to not be that sensitive to lower vit-D levels than White people [3].
Human bodies and genetics are fascinating, even if you're not an expert in it.
There is lots of research saying that vitamin D deficiency causes problems, and the deficiency is more common than you'd expect. Other health conditions and habits can lead to a deficiency.
There is fixing deficiency and then there is "hyper dozing". Also lot of it is seasonal, northern hemisphere is entering summer so there should be plenty of sun light even with short exposure to light.
I don't think exposure to light is enough to overcome an actual deficiency. When you're exposed to light you get kind of a huge dose, until you get a tan. Then your skin won't produce much more for a while.
You're right about overdoing it. There is such a thing as vitamin D poisioning. I think it draws calcium out of your bones or something. On the other hand, not enough vitamin D is bad for your bones too.
Fortunately, there are tests for vitamin D. If you think you have a problem with it, you ought to get a test.
You don't need to eat it. A well-known phenomenon in the US military is that some of the sites for Basic Training of new recruits have prodigious quantities of poison oak/ivy/sumac as the local flora. As consequence of the military training, you are rolling around in those plants daily. Initially, a large percentage of people have the usual reaction but it quickly disappears after a few weeks and it never happens again, providing apparent permanent immunity.
This is in contrast to the experience many kids have in the US of sporadic exposure and no immunity. Apparently intense sustained exposure is required.
That link doesn't make a claim quite that strong. I also don't know anyone that has eaten it.
Given that I know dozens of people who demonstrably lost their sensitivity to poison oak via the accidental chronic exposure regimen I outlined above, at the very least it should raise a scientific question. It would be easier to dismiss if it was an isolated case or two. No one exposes themselves like that intentionally.
> lost their sensitivity to poison oak via the accidental chronic exposure regimen
This is not how the immune system is known to work.
Sensitivity does not downregulate. Increased exposure enhances detection and response. Recognition proliferates. Once you're allergic to something, it'll only worsen.
You can become allergic to new things, but you won't lose allergies unless the recognizer population dies off entirely. And even if it did, you're likely close enough to training your immune system to this sensitivity again. (You've already done it at least once.)
> Sensitivity does not downregulate. Increased exposure enhances detection and response. Recognition proliferates. Once you're allergic to something, it'll only worsen.
I don't think that's correct. If it were, then allergy immunotherapy wouldn't work. Which... it does. Not perfectly, and not for everyone, but it does for many.
One is correct in that repeated exposure to an allergen can upregulate IgE production, especially in cases of severe allergies like bee stings or peanuts. This is due to the immune system's sensitization process, where each exposure can lead to more intense reactions, driven by the Th2-mediated immune response that promotes IgE production and allergic inflammation.
However, one is also correct that controlled exposure through allergen immunotherapy (SCIT or SLIT) can downregulate IgE and mitigate allergic responses. This therapy works by gradually introducing the allergen in controlled doses, which shifts the immune response from a Th2-dominated profile to a Th1-dominated or regulatory T cell (Treg) profile. This shift reduces IgE levels and increases the production of blocking antibodies like IgG4, leading to long-term desensitization and reduced allergic reactions.
In particular environmental allergens (pollens, dust mites, animal dander, molds), insect venoms (bee, wasp) may respond well to immunotherapy but we’ve had poor success or disproportionate risk attempting to mitigate food allergens (peanuts, tree nuts, and shellfish), certain medications, and latex .
I don't think that's necessary. I've been doing allergy immunotherapy for the past few years, and it's all subcutaneous. Definitely not into the bloodstream.
Looks like you are giving "Ackshually" technically correct points, when it's clear what others are trying to say. Please engage with what they are trying to convey instead of coming up with technical gotchas.
From personal experience, exposure does not lead to lasting immunity. Quite the opposite. I've had several intense exposure rashes that were debilitating, like not being able to walk properly for a week due to leg swelling. And I still get rashes from poison oak.
Maybe there's a bit of short term immunity from severe exposure. I've never tested that since the discomfort from an intense rash makes me avoid exposure like the plague for a few years.
In fact urushi is the Japanese word for lacquer, the plant is in the genus Toxicodendron.
Like most jobs until recently, making lacquerware was hereditary, and (clearly) the people making it were able to withstand sustained and direct exposure. It's possible that there is a genetic proclivity involved in ability to do the work, but just as clearly, there is hyposensitivity gained in exposure.
Wasnt there some sort of natural selection centuries ago so that only folks tolerant to such chemistry actually performed the job?
I know next to nothing about these topics but there are some wildly opposite claims in this thread. Truth has the tendency, despite being complex, to generqlly favor one direction.
That's the exact opposite to what happens with DCC in chemical labs. DCC reacts with amino groups in proteins, same as urushiol in poison {oak,ivy,sumac} and is a notorious sensitizer. It happens to some graduate students that they are unable to work in a lab any longer.
n=1 but I used to be immune to it, then one summer started landscaping, and probably weed whacked and pulled more of it than ever. Started with small hives, then small rashes. Then each successive exposure got worse and worse and I had to take a long course of steroids to stop a multi week outbreak. Still have scars 20 years later. For me, more exposure made it far worse.
About a half dozen times or more being exposed led to worse and worse reactions. It was awful.
I’ve also never heard from others that your body gets used to it. I’ve always heard it gets worse every time, which was my experience. Obviously anecdata.
My personal experience is quite the opposite. Repeated exposure to poison ivy resulted in worse symptoms each time, leading to a scar from one particular welt that lasted years.
Something similar happened to my father (we had moved to a new house that had a large patch that kept coming back) and the year before he finally managed to get rid of it, his reaction was so bad he actually couldn't eat cashews for a long time, since they can have traces of the urishol.
The component that causes the reaction is not the allergen. It's a chemical that reacts with multiple proteins in the body - it's a very reactive molecule and not at all selective.
So theoretically, subsequent exposures would create new antigens each time - molecules your immune system hasn't seen before.
Grandfather was in the military in WW2 and said he became immune to it around then. He used to pickup poison ivy and tell us "don't do this" while rubbing it all over his arm.
I'm not actually sure what the lesson he was trying to teach their was but in hindsight it's a cool flex lol
This is an interesting story. It definitely contradicts both current medical findings and anecdotal evidence that repeated exposures and repeated reactions generally worsen allergy to poison oak (and insect bites/stings, and other things). But there is a lot that is unknown about the immune system and it's not impossible that there could be other unknown factors that when combined with exposure could induce tolerance.
What does the military do for treatment of the rashes?
I grew up in the woods. I was a latchkey kid from age 5 so every afternoon I was in the woods with a dog, a horse, and a rifle. I would be covered in poison ivy each day and it never bothered me. Until I turned about 35 years old. Then I started to be affected by it every time I went out and did work on our land. Now I take precautions although I have eradicated most of the poison ivy on our lot.
My first introduction to urushiol was as a kid... there was a Japanese rhus tree [1] near my local bus stop and I happened to play with some of the seed pods while waiting for a bus one day. I ended up looking like the elephant man for a few days, and it took a bit of time to figure out what was going on.
It turns out that Urushiol shows up in some surprising places, including mango skin, which I discovered later in life after peeling a bunch of mangoes to make a mango salad. Apparently the husks of cashew nuts are notoriously bad for the workers who deal with them too (although the nuts themselves are perfectly safe)..
I don't think I'm likely to deliberately eat anything with urushiol in it, but I must admit, the idea of being able to train my immune system to deal with it is kind of appealing.
Question: I've worn leather gloves most of my adult life. Last year, after using a new pair, I developed a severe rash that spread beyond my hands. Having used gloves regularly for many years, I initially assumed it was a reaction to formaldehyde or whatever substance was used in manufacturing. But now, without exception, any time I wear leather anywhere with direct skin contact, I get a persistent rash.
Also, I have an extreme sensitivity to poison ivy and react to mango and peach leaves. Perhaps there's a clue here? Anyway, I'd be grateful to understand why I spontaneously developed an allergy to leather, which really hinders my work at times.
I've actually gotten more sensitive over time. I used to be practically immune to poison ivy. I've also become somewhat sensitive to low quality cashews (they can contain urushiol from the shells).
Just wash off the chemical soon as possible. It will turn red. And then it will go away. If it bubbles up, then wrap something around it to absorb the liquid that explodes from the rash.
This is a bit of an oversimplification. I am probably on the more sensitive end of the spectrum when it comes to poison ivy/oak but I have gotten rashes that are legitimately debilitating (i.e. typing was very painful). This was also after washing with dish soap post-exposure. I've since switched to Tecnu and it seems to work better but, unfortunately, is ridiculously expensive.
Do any plants with urishoil exist in Europe any where? Fairly confident they don't in the UK. The worst common plant we have that irritates skin is the stinging nettele.
> If you don't know why your body is fevering, don't lower the fever. If you don't know why your blood pressure is high, don't lower it.
And if you don't know why you have cancer, don't do anything about it?
Like, I get the point with fever (which is a known defense mechanism), but high blood pressure is a big problem in the long run and even if it's just a symptom, not doing anything about it is not likely to be the best move.
The point is that we treat certain things like high blood pressure as a primary issue instead of a secondary one. Instead of addressing something cholesterol, which can often be a lifestyle issue, more emphasis is placed on just taking the statin.
Fever happened and doctor thought it was virus. Fever hit 106. As I didnt take Tylenol. Fever turned out to be sepsis salmonella. Should have taken Tylenol.
Humans evolved to reproduce as a species successfully, not to ensure the optimum survival of an individual. Not everything your body does is in your best interests: something that tends to be the best solution for long-term survival for a group might be entirely wrong for your specific case.
That may be, but the prior comment was an overstatement. Nuance is important. Many things can be true, and being skeptical and having an open mind is important for all aspects of life, especially medicine and science.
If the human body was a codebase you'd be cursing the idiot who designed it. It's just good eonugh to get the job done (reproduction) before the wheels code off.
According to family lore, my grandmother’s rural northern-ca elementary school teacher had the class eat some poison oak. Despite living in prime poison oak territory and being a lifelong outdoors person, she never got it. I always assumed it was some wild folk medicine ritual, so it’s interesting to see that there might be some basis for it.
Metamizole is the only thing that works for me when I have fever. But it seems that I recently developped an allergy to it, which is a bummer. Every single damn time I take metamizole, I develop very itch rashes.
So by taking some substance it seem I became more sensitive to it's side effects, not less.
Those most at risk of developing anaphylaxis from bee stings are not those that get some as rarely as the typical population, or as often as experienced and busy beekeepers wearing mediocre protection, it was the hobbyists wearing complete protection that only got stung once or twice a year.
Made me start wearing a little less protection for fear of developing a stronger allergy.
The immune system is so complex. I have to wonder if allergies develop when something else is stressing the immune system and it misidentifies the culprit.
Current research seems to suggest that allergies develop when the immune system doesn't find anything to fight and goes looking for trouble (the hygiene hypothesis). Although that is a long term effect and I think it's likely that what you said is true as well, on a short term basis. There's also a big difference in being exposed to the natural environment with lots of bacteria and viruses and plants that don't cause disease in humans, which is really what the hygiene hypothesis is about, and getting sick with human diseases, which is not actually beneficial in any way (the immunity gained this way is narrow, not broad, it doesn't "train" your immune system to fight anything but the particular strain of whatever you got).
So my best guess is that when you live a life indoors for years without much exposure to natural outdoor bacteria/viruses/plants, and then you encounter a human disease, your immune system goes into overdrive and misidentifies the culprit.
I just had a conversation today with someone who had a friend who ate poison oak for immunity. I brushed it off as bro science.
What a crazy coincidence.
I am almost forty now, never try to avoid it, still no problems. I even had a side gig going in high school removing it. But it is still only any anecdote.
Doctors are pretty much required to follow Establishment medicine. They're not going to tell you about folk remedies, because it could be malpractice for them.
By way of contrast, I've told my doctor about sinus rinsing, and she was not disapproving. But she said, "a lot of my patients do this and they seem to like it."
I think this is a better response than blanket disapproval. The corresponding response to urushiol desensitization would be "There's no guidance on this. Be very careful! Here are some risks." Which is the best you should expect from an establishment doctor.
A homeopathic doctor would tell you a lot of stuff that might or might not be accurate or safe.
> Doctors are pretty much required to follow Establishment medicine. They're not going to tell you about folk remedies, because it could be malpractice for them.
Not in the USA. In the USA doctors can absolutely recommend non-medical treatments like supplements and homeopathy and other crap. Each doctor has their own threshold of comfort in what they will and won't recommend. But as you yourself then followed up, your doctor said when you brought up nasal rinses, "a lot of my patients do this and they seem to like it." Other doctors will go so far as to suggest them, mine has, and he was right. My doctor (same doc for my wife) will bring up lots of things, and explains his position on them all clearly, even explaining risks and things. He even went so far one time as to suggest a Chinese medicine treatment for a rare disorder my wife has. He didn't say it would work, but said he's heard about it and it should be risk free if she wanted to try it.
Doctors are allowed to recommend lots of things, it's the presentation and outcome that define liability. If a Dr says "you should shove bees up your butt to cure this ear infection" then yeah, they're going to get in trouble. But it's a lot less black and white than you seem to feel.
Note: I've worked in real-medicine healthcare for 9 years now.
> But it's a lot less black and white than you seem to feel.
That's the problem. The concept of what is reasonable is too nebulous to rely on.
Also people are quite simply really dumb. You can make some innocuous statement like "others have found nasal rinses to be beneficial", and some idiot will get themselves hospitalized with a draining abscess in their face. It turns out that person decided their nasal rinse was going to be alternating eucalyptus oil and bone broth because someone on Facebook said that was the most healing, and they claim that you as their doctor said it was OK. The case gets escalated to you having to explain to the board that you didn't make any such claim, but because there is a record of you saying that nasal rinses can be beneficial, it can be at the discretion of a "reasonable person" if that skirted too close to their line of culpability for the injury that the person sustained.
The solution is to stick close to what is accepted medicine, and if people want to complain about establishment medicine, then let them. Doctors understand there is safety in the herd.
Do you have an actual instance of something like that happening? I'm not saying it never has. An MD ought to know his/her patients well enough to judge what kind of idiocy they're likely to go off and try.
One thing where I do not have a link is but I recall it happening is: quackery is impossible to kill with research. Someone does a double- blind study showing that peach pits are worthless against cancer, and the peach pit "doctors" just say "studied by legitimate science!" or "more research is needed!"
>Do you have an actual instance of something like that happening?
My colleague being dragged in front of the board for a similarly stupid situation. Knock on wood I haven't been, but there are far too many people that hear what they want to hear. The only safe course is to stick well within the non-ambiguous accepted medicine responses as much as possible.
According to the article, urushiol extract is considered safe and effective by the US FDA and pills were available over the counter up until the 1970s. They disappeared from the market because of regulations regarding determining exact dosage needs and the ability to make pills containing that dosage. It is, apparently, a difficult problem. But a company claims to have solved the problem and will start doing trials shortly.
In other words, eating poison ivy absolutely will work. But nobody knows how much you should eat. And the leaves aren't fungible, so how can anyone tell you how many to eat even if they knew how much you should eat?
that was how i was told to do it, too. they said to put them into gel capsules so the leaves don't touch your skin. supposedly you want to dose up like two weeks worth of gel capsules.
