The usual symptoms of the rash are:
- Itchy skin where the plant touched your skin.
- Red streaks or general redness where the plant brushed against the skin.
- Small bumps or larger raised areas (hives).
- Blisters filled with fluid that may leak out.
The rash usually appears 8 to 48 hours after your contact with the urushiol. But it can occur from 5 hours to 15 days after touching the plant.1 The rash usually takes more than a week to show up the first time you get urushiol on your skin. But the rash develops much more quickly (within 1 to 2 days) after later contacts. The rash will continue to develop in new areas over several days but only on the parts of your skin that had contact with the urushiol or those parts where the urushiol was spread by touching.
The rash is not contagious. You cannot catch or spread a rash after it appears, even if you touch it or the blister fluid, because the urushiol will already be absorbed or washed off the skin. The rash may seem to be spreading, but either it is still developing from earlier contact or you have touched something that still has urushiol on it.
The more urushiol you come in contact with, the more severe your skin reaction. Severe reactions to smaller amounts of urushiol also may develop in people who are highly sensitive to urushiol. Serious symptoms may include:
- Swelling of the face, mouth, neck, genitals, or eyelids (which may prevent the eyes from opening).
- Widespread, large blisters that ooze large amounts of fluid.
Without treatment, the rash usually lasts about 10 days to 3 weeks. But in people who are very sensitive to urushiol, the rash may take up to 6 weeks to heal.
