the eating thing can be tricky if you ar already highly sensitize. form, eating wild honey where I know bees fast heavily on the poison oak in flower, and rinking spring ater from whre it grows, were really helpful, but it tends t be location specific i.., the spring water in Nevada County helpe me avoid te annoying p.o. cases there, bgut when I moved to Marin i had to start all over.

I also learned a GREAT post-exposure remedy years ago from the veterinarian who wrote a column for the SF Chronicle (Dr Miler's Wonderful World of Animals it ran on the back of the Sporting Green when it was still all green, anyone else remember that?) shortly before he retired after 50 years in the biz. right after you have been exposed = don;t wait for the rash to appear. it was in the vet's column because someone wrote in with the same problem i had their cats an or dogs would ru through the brush, colecting poison oakoils along the way, and the human would pet the animl and then transfer the oils to their own skin and get p.o.

so it turns out, and I thank the good doctor who is almost surely no longer with us, that a raw potato contains ompounds that binf the iuioshol - the allergy causing haptens in poison oak, ivy and sumac, and it'll wash right off withot causing a rash just take a raw potato if it;s getting green and wrnkly and sprouty, so much the better and bt it open or grate it, then rub the juice that oozes out well ono any exposed skin. there are herbs that'll work as well, but we sometimes do and sometimes don;t have an infusion or a fresh bunch o mugwort or jewelee right there bu most of us unless we're heavy duty macrobiotic or raw foods have a raw potato in the house most of the time. cheaper than Technu, works as well and dries the skin less. and a couple small potatoes will carry easily even for overnight backpacking.

back to the oral exposure in advance; I know people who swear by the goat ilk or goat cottage cheese from animals that have grazed heavily on poison oak but one experiment I rad fe nanny goats 100% poison oak for two weeks and couldn't;tin the oils in their mil,so maybe there;s another approach.homeopathic dilutions of Rhus tox are also a decent preventive for many.

I get it mostly offseason; wsier forme to take the visual cue and avoid the green (or red) leafy stuff in spring and summer and fall, harder to recognize the barren stems come winter when i'msloggi for mshrooms.

hope this helps!