Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Cost of Poison Ivy



EEWW! GROSS! I know! Sorry for the graphic pics. As you can see, I am still recouperating from my recent bout with poison ivy. I guess you could say I am highly allergic! These are what's left of my hands, BTW.

Anyway, I've been thinking over the cost of my misfortune. Here's the breakdown:

2 bottles of Caladryl @ $6.00 = $12.00

1 bottle of DermaIvy @ $30.00 = $30.00 (My husband was trying everything in the drug store, bless his heart)

2 boxes of dye-free Benadryl @ $4.99 box = $9.98

Going to dr. because poison ivy on my neck started affecting my breathing = $20 copay.

2 prescriptions dr. wrote for poison ivy = $20 oop

Not to mention, it cost us two unplanned trips into town to get supplies/dr appt. It cost alot of mommy downtime. (And I didn't even enjoy it!) It cost my husband 2 weekends of having kids, cooking, doing mom chores, in addition to his own chores of mowing, getting firewood, etc. And just the pain for me.

Total cost: Over $100.00

A frugal thought: I think I'll be more careful about poison ivy. Maybe we'll turn poison ivy into a science lesson.

I am grateful that it's about gone. I'm grateful that we had the means to pay for good care, but I can't help but think about "working people" and their kids. If something as minor as this can set back a person's budget like this, what would happen if medical things like this caused time off from work?

*Just a small note: I think the thing that helped my poison ivy the best was what both of my daughter's boyfriends recommended, soaking it in chlorine water. I filled the dishpan with hot water and bleach and did some spring cleaning through all this.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh my goodness, this looks like my rash! I'm highly allergic to poison ivy/oak too. A couple of years ago I decided I was going to tackle the vines growing in my trees out front before the kids got into them. I wore long pants and sleeves, and still broke out really badly. My hands and arm looked just like yours! I finally had to get steroid shots from the doc. I feel for ya!

Marcy said...

Ouch! I am on day 18 of my first ever case of poison ivy...and I thought I had it bad! I just started my second round of Prednisone today...I'm hoping that will do the trick. Hope that yours gets better soon!!