I have a question regarding my own health. I have a severe reaction to poison oak and wondering if you have insights on how to treat it. It seems to get worse with each exposure?

Megan says, “Yes and yes. I seem to get the oils brought to me by my pet and it seems to persist for at least three weeks. My immune system needs support at this time and wondering if fasting would be beneficial. I do not use steroids and tend to let it run its course but it seems to get worse in times of stress.”

Megan, everything gets worse in times of stress. Let me see. I’m trying to pull up quickly because I think I have—here we go, poison oak. Okay, here we go. Let me see if I can post these. Avery I’m not sure. I’m going to need your help here. Megan, hopefully you can look in the chat box, so I’ve just provided two links. These are things that I have from the clinic, and I don’t remember if these are from Chris or from Dr. Schweig, but they’ve recommended these in the past for poison ivy, so that’s Zanfel. It’s a soap for poison ivy. As soon as you get the exposure— some of my patients have had relief from this one. I don’t know if you want to give that a try, and that’s for the more acute stuff. The other one, Tecnu, I’m not familiar with that one. Again, the notes that they gave me and you can see there. Let me know if you can see that, but the Tecnu, again, the notes I have they are less expensive and may not be as effective, and you’re mentioning the stress, and then it’s this vicious cycle now. I have poison ivy and why is my immune system not functioning and now more stress, so it might be worth trying the Zanfel if you can. You’re mentioning the stress worsens it, so yes, then you need to think about— and then you’re saying those tend to be when you know when you’re exposed to the oils, but you never know when this happens. I wonder then use them as soon as you realize, like, as soon as you start to get the outbreak. I’m looking at the Zanfel, and it says you can remove it from the skin any time after the outbreak. I think even as soon as you start getting it, just try using it. Let me know if it doesn’t work, but that’s what I’ve recommended to patients. What I have for dealing with the actual skin lesions, I have not looked into and if you’re California or probably even if you’re not, topical CBD or cannabidiol. I’m just kind of off the top of my head. I would contact Synergy Wellness. I’m forgetting the name of the owner. I won’t say the name because it is not going to be correct, but at Synergy Wellness, he does consults, and I would ask if he has seen any use of cannabidiol for the poison oak because I think that can potentially be an immune modulator, so maybe that would be like a safe kind of benign approach.

So, that’s where to start for topical and then again, you’re asking immune system. Would it be worth fasting? If you’re comfortable fasting, my initial answer is yes. That would be worth a try. I think fasting helps with, again, me not knowing you, I’m reluctant to give you too much advice and particularly something too aggressive like, “Yeah, don’t eat for five days.” But if you’re a practitioner, you can make the decision depending on what feels good to your body. I do think fasting, I think it’s almost magical sometimes. if you feel comfortable doing like water fast or fasting mimicking-type diet for even three days, to me that feels like such a powerful way to bring down inflammation, but if you’re saying that sometimes you notice a correlation with stress, if fasting feels stressful for your body, then that might be kind of counteracting some of the benefits. Think about adrenal adaptogens. Do you need some ashwagandha, holy basil, maca, whatever you’re sort of go-to adaptogens are? Can you set aside some extra time for self-care doing body scans, trying to prioritize two to 40-minute body scans during the day something like that? Diet if you’re not already, maybe doing something not like autoimmune Paleo but kind of along those lines where you’re kind of removing a anything that could be causing inflammation, but I do like the idea of fasting if it doesn’t feel stressful for you and if that feels comfortable, but maybe trying the Zanfel. Maybe talk to Synergy Wellness or if there’s another dispensary nearby that that feels okay to you.