What is the difference between poison ivy and impetigo?

Answer 1

Poison ivy is a common plant that can be found in the wilderness. Contact with the plant can cause the skin to get irritated and itchy, eventually forming blisters, due to a mildly poisonous chemical found on its leaves. A normal poison ivy plant has three leaves with a reddish tint to the normal green found in most foliage. I do not believe that the rash is contagious unless contact with the infected person's skin happens fairly close to that individual's contact with the plant.

Impetigo (which I've actually done a presentation on) is an infection only common in very young children and athletes in very physical sports (Wrestling, for example; think along the same lines as Ringworm). It's caused by certain strains of bacterias, and can be transferred from person to person; this usually occurs from direct contact to the infected person's open lesion. Impetigo usually causes blisters to form somewhere on the body, and causes a flu-like illness.

Basically, one is a plant that makes you very itchy, and the other is a bacterial infection. The infection can be treated, the rash can only be waited out (and relieved with certain ointments).