In case you were ever wondering what it's like to be in a group text thread with me 😂

I really don't react to poison ivy - I can walk on it barefoot and wade through it in shorts and a tank with no problem. You should never follow me hiking off trail if you do react to it.  Also,  if you or anyone you know reacts strongly to poison ivy,  learn to identify jewelweed and pluck a few leaves of it, or even better the stems before the flowers open, when you see it while hiking to help with any brushes with poison ivy.(you can also now buy jewelweed soap from many naturopath/holistic soap makers. That didn't exist when I was younger,  but now I'd recommend packing it just like sunscreen and bugspray and a basic first aid kit for any hiking/camping/backpacking excursion with kids now that it DOES exist.  From what I understand (given that poison ivy has no effect on me) : the soap is less effective than fresh jewelweed, but more effective than no jewelweed.  And jewelweed soap can be used on clothing and animals that have come into contact with poison ivy which the leaves/sap can't as easily cleanse and neutralize.)

It's also true that water with a high iron content actually DOES cause me to break out in horribly painful burn blisters all over my skin. it's especially bad on the backs of my hands, probably because of washing my hands more often throughout a given span of time than other parts of my skin.  I have learned to buy bottled water for washing my hands and hair and to sponge bath style wash myself with water bottle water when I visit places with well water with a high iron content... Including my parents cabin in Montana....  Ingesting iron rich water also causes me internal bleeding issues the way small amounts of pork contamination too small to start me vomiting causes me internal bleeding.  (small amounts of pork poisoning that don't induce vomiting but will cause me internal bleeding include: porcine gelatin (including gel caps on pills - but like most pills, those I usually just throw back up anyway), eating fries or sweet potato fries or tater tots or anything fried at places that cook their bacon in the fryer (surprisingly common cooking hack at restaurants), southern style cornbread or traditional tamales that use lard,  Nashville hot chicken (traditionally use lard to batter it), ordering pizza or subway somewhere they touch the cheese/veggies with the same gloves they used to touch ham/bacon/pepperoni/sausage/canadian bacon, improperly cleaned griddle and utensils while also cooking someone else's porky meal,  making out with a guy after he's recently enough eaten pork that the proteins are still in his mouth,  etc. Amounts that small of the proteins. It's great fun...... 😒 and I don't always know the source of the contaminant if I eat out, order in from certain places, or eat anything premade.)  

So yeah.  Iron rich water causes me to have burn and blisters all over my skin and causes me internal bleeding when ingested.... Folklore would say it's my fairy blood that finds the cold iron inimical to me. Or,  more accurately,  that I must be a changeling of a fairy bloodline since nobody else on either side of my family reacts to touch of iron by breaking out in chemical burn blisters.  Science says there is a naturally occurring bacteria in oxidized iron veins that this bacteria in an aqueous solution produces burns/blisters on a small percentage of people's skin - but they don't know why. Curiously, chemical burns/blisters from this bacteria in aqueous solution IS apparently a more common reaction in people with either or both of 2 of the various redhead related genetic mutations - these mutations are specifically modifications of pain receptors, but the data isn't extensive or conclusive enough to find causation there. Also there are people with these mutations who do not get chemical burns and blisters from iron water.  So science says it's a bacteria,  they think,  but they don't know why.  😂 May as well claim it's faery blood. 

Either way, I can touch poison ivy without reacting but my skin gets chemical burn blisters and I bleed internally from iron rich water....  Yep.  That's a thing with me,  lol.