Flesh Wound, Fungus Fighter

What a title, huh?

Well, happy Friday to you anyhow!

(WARNING: if you do not like to see small wounds

or barefeet,

you may wish to skip this post.)

If you knew you were going to be stranded on a deserted island

and were given one choice of medicine to take with you,

what would it be:

Aspiring, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Tums?

(Wait a minute, does this mean I am getting old

if I'm thinking about what medicine I would take if stranded on

a deserted island?)

 My medicine of choice would be a plant:

my good friend garlic.

I have found garlic to be indispensable in my life.

Not only does it ad flavor to food,

it is a natural anti-biotic.

I've already said how I found it amazing for ear aches,

but it's also great for wounds.

When I recently had a tooth worked on,

it gave me a lot of pain for a couple of weeks.

I was afraid a root canal was going to be prescribed,

so a couple times a day, I cut a small piece of garlic and

rested it against the gum line.

After the initial shock of it's powerful, raw taste,

the garlic would penetrate through the skin

bringing relief from pain while I knew it was also healing.

I never needed a root canal on that tooth,

and it healed well.

 This little cut on my finger doesn't look like much,

but had something about it that concerned me.

It seemed to be getting worse rather than better.

Hand wounds are forced to deal with more abuse

especially when cooking raw meats,

scrubbing apples that have lied on the ground where wild animals have eaten

and defecated,

feeding and dealing with animals in the barn,

and caring for little people who don't seem to understand 

either the meaning of dirty or gross.

My finger became swollen,

the cut was oozing,

and the pain seemed to be going up my arm

even though I'd applied salves to it as well as peroxide and alcohol. 

My husband suggested garlic,

and I wondered why I hadn't thought of it myself.

Sometimes he's smarter than I am.

(Okay, well, often, but let's not get into that here.)

(This picture was taken after a full day of garlic treatment,

and it's already looking much better).

(Also, please excuse the paint on my nails. It just won't come of:

I'm afraid I'm a very bad hand model).

I applied the garlic like this:

 I cut a slice off like this.

 The garlic slice is then centered on the bandaid.

The bandaid is wrapped tightly so that the garlic is securely in place.

It looks a little strange,

but this held on for the day.

I can always tell when garlic is eating infection

because it does not hurt the skin at all.

When it starts to hurt, it should be removed

because it will burn the skin.  That's why care should be taken

when using garlic on children.

I have used it on my daughter,

but only for a minute or so

and I just reapply a few times a day.

I am not a doctor,

so this is just a discussion of what I find effective for myself.

I know that garlic can have altering affects if used with certain medications,

so you will need to look into using it for yourself.

It has altering affects because it is powerful.

As for my hand wound,

I have worn the garlic in bandaid for two days:

the first day, through the night.

The second, I took it off at night.

I will probably do one more treatment through today.

For my final word, I want to mention toenail fungus.

After I had babies and while nursing,

my body seemed to be low in it's resistance.

I felt like I had no idea what was going on.

Hormones are great that way.

I developed toenail fungus in two of my toes.

(Did I just admit this to the whole world?

What a pleasant confession).

When my baby was eating food so that my milk was not her primary source,

I applied garlic treatments to my toes.

An even more effective approach is to soak the foot in hot water

and then apply.  This softening seems to make the toe

absorb more of the garlic's power.

Be forewarned however:

when I tried this method, it killed the skin around the toe

as well as the fungus.

Also, I minced the garlic and applied for this treatment.

It takes several treatments to get rid of it,

possibly weeks depending on how bad it is,

but it worked for me.

How I manage to get spots of paint even on my toes, however,

is a difficulty I cannot explain.

There are countless articles about garlic on the web.

>Here is just one I found.<

Just type in Garlic Health to find lots more.

Again, I am not a doctor and cannot be specific with your own needs;

this is all just one woman's discussion

of finding a natural way to health.

When the Spider Bit my Hand

This is the mulch pile that,

as my Farmer said,

 

 "Needs to get used; 

the grass beneath it is dead!"

 This is the flower bed

where mulch was in need...

 to blanket the enlarged garden

and squelch out the weed.

This is the glove for my gardening work:

the garden and mulch pile,

I no longer could shirk.

This is the place where the spider's web was

unbeknownst to myself

he took up house in his fuzz.

This month old scar is what's left

from stinging pangs:

thinking mulch stuck my wrist

when I saw twas not, but his fangs.

Here grows the plantain that was picked and minced

then placed with a hot tea bag while in pain I winced.

This is the mailbox where the ER bill will come;...

but the plantain had removed the poison,

swelling gone,

problem done.

So if you are a'gardening and you come upon a fiend,

 remember good friend Plantain,

he's the best Dr. for your need.

Linking up to these great parties:

Home Cures for Burns, Blights, and Baby Bottoms

Are you searching for the fountain of youth?

I remember reading about Ponce de Leon's search for the Fountain of Youth when I was a child:
I'm not really sure why that story stuck in this strange collection of saved pieces in my brain,
but it did.

As a child, it didn't seem like such an important wish,
to find water that would make one stay young.

As I've aged
and dealt with my wounds
and
my children's wounds, however,
the idea of a revitalizing fountain,
or even one that could do just a wee bit of healing
would be something worth finding.

I have come to the conclusion that is was not a fountain he should have been looking for,
but a plant.

Okay, I will now admit that I have not found the fountain of youth;
I have found a pretty amazing natural skin healer though.

Let me present my proof to you.


Exhibit A:
The Cast Iron Beast.

Winter makes this black hunk of steel my friend and my foe.
It's warm embers are wonderful.
But it's radiating heat comes at a price.




Fiery.
It is filled through this top opening which must be opened by hands...

my hands,
which are terribly clumsy when balancing large dirty logs and a poker to stir the hot coals.

Exhibit B:

 The Bubbling Boiler.

Steamy hot water...

preserves summer sweetness,

but can also splash on angry blisters.

Exhibit C:
What in the world is this?

Yes, that's exactly what I said when I noticed my baby's skin breaking out in fearsome red patches of dry skin.

And this is on it's way to getting better.
I didn't want to scare you with the looks of it when it was BAD.
It was heart-breaking and made me chew all my nails off looking for a cure.
But I am happy with the cure I found.



The Hero:

Funny Looking Plant of prickly long stalks.

Aloe Vera.

This plant holds secrets that every person should know,
secrets that I have seen in action.
This plant should be a requirement in every household.


I cannot count the number of times I have burned my fingers on the wood stove and then hurried to scrape some aloe vera gel onto the burn.  I have been left with bubbling blisters that have been painless.  If you've ever experienced burn blisters, you know that painless is not an attribute of a burn.

It is incredible on sunburn
(this I know)
and there are even reports of it healing poison ivy and easing chicken pox
(although these I have not proved but only read).
It is a wonder to skin care.

This past fall I was canning applesauce.

This uses a hot water bath to can.

I fill the canner with water and set it to boil while I get the applesauce boiling and then into the jars.

By the time I am putting the jars into the water bath,

the water is boiling and ready to go.

At one point while I was carefully placing the jars of applesauce into the bubbling bath,

a jar slipped and plopped down into the water,

sending a cascade of boiling water all over my throat area and upper chest.

I do not need to tell you that this area is sensitive;

I shrieked and grabbed a towel to get the liquid off.

I was horrified by what consequences I might suffer from this horrible situation.

Immediately, I ran to my aloe plant,

(an item I purchased after reading about it's benefits)

sweetly sitting on my kitchen window sill.

I snapped off a piece and peeled it back,

releasing an oozing inner substance that I quickly plastered all over the burning area.

After I let that sit for a few minutes, I then got an ice cube to finish off the treatment.

The next morning, I was surprised to see

nothing.

There wasn't even any redness in the area.

I now know that whenever I deal with burns again,

I will instantly run to this plant for relief.

When I discovered that it was eczema that my baby was suffering from,

I began to search for what might be causing it.

My son also had it,

and I narrowed it down to the dye in the baby soap and the preservatives in the baby wipes that I was using.  I now buy specific products without these things, so I knew it couldn't be these.

I couldn't find what was causing the problem.

It might be our water, which is very high in nitrates b/c of the spraying that goes on in the farm field across the street and all the run-off from several upland neighbors who relentlessly spray their yards with chemicals for greener, weedless grass.  We filter our drinking water, but I know that those chemicals can still get through our skin when we bathe, 

(How "clean" are we really getting when we bathe?  Now that's a funny thought.)

so it could be that.

It could be any number of things.

But I had to do something.

Her back, arms, legs, and now stomach were red and inflamed and miserable.

I didn't want to go to the doctor as,

even though I know they are just trying to help and doing the recommended course of action,

I didn't want to spread chemicals all over my baby's sensitive skin that would not heal but only temporarily relieve the problem.

Then I read on a website that aloe was a possible solution for it.

I'd tried the green bottle of aloe gel we had in our medicine cabinet,

but when I looked at this store bought substitute, I read chemicals and coloring made up most of it.

So, I turned to my plant.

For the next week or so,

I made a concoction straight from the leaves of this plant.

It is very sticky stuff,

so I mixed the gel I scraped from it...

with these things I keep on hand.

I love the smell, feel, and what apricot oil does.

I find it a much healthier alternative to baby oil as it comes from a fruit as well as a grain base.
(Baby oil is just mineral oil which is petroleum based).

Vitamin E is a healer and wonderful for skin.

I used it faithfully on my skin after I had Violet and actually saw stretch marks disappear.

Yes, after Violet.

I haven't been so faithful after my other two.

One of these days I'll make time for it again,

and then I shall flutter about with renewed youth again.

Maybe.

Please don't burst my dreams.

Anyhow, I'd break a 2 inch piece of aloe off the plant in the morning,

(which would last 1 - 2 days: I'd just scrape out some to mix as I needed it.

I used more of it at first)

scrape some of the gel out,

and mix it with about 1/4 tsp. of Vit. E

and 1 tsp. of apricot baby oil.

I then put this directly on the eczema twice a day.

It worked.

I saw drastic improvement in about 5 days.

 

 The eczema was much better although the red is still healing.

After about a week of this treatment,

I did pick up this:

 which has aloe as one of the first ingredients and consists of all-natural ingredients that I recognize.

It didn't work as well as the straight aloe.

I had to stop using it and go back to the direct aloe gel mixture

for a total of two weeks.

This lotion does seem to be working now to finish the healing process

and to continue to keep the skin moisturized.

 One more natural remedy before I end

for those of you with babies dealing with diaper rash.

(My daughter is teething in some painful teeth: this seems to always bring on the diaper rash.

I think her immune system was down from teething which the eczema could have been related to as well).

I read online somewhere that egg whites are good for diaper rash.

Egg whites?  Really?

Yes, I said the same thing.  I'm very doubtful until I see it work for myself.

 My daughter got such bad diaper rash when she was teething, she bled.

It was horrible and made me sick to see her suffer like that.

Nothing was working, and I had the whole store shelf line-up of creams.

I tried the egg white: just whipped some up in a little bowl like this

and reused the same egg white for a couple days.

After I cleaned her up from her dirty diaper,

I'd just scoop some out with my hands and wipe it on.

I let her get up and walk around with it on for a minute to make sure it dried some to soak into her skin, and then diapered her back up.  I made sure to change her frequently so that she was not in the ammonia atmosphere of the urine.  Then I wiped on the egg again whenever I changed her.  After about a day of this, the egg seemed to "harden" the inflamed skin so that it was not sensitive anymore,

and the diaper rash healed up quickly.

(I'd keep using it til it was healed, or finish by keeping it moisturized with one of the creams.)

I do need to make clear that I am not a doctor.

This is just what worked for me as I studied up on it on my own.

I only share these things because I am encouraged when I find simple remedies for things that make me bite my nails.

So, please use these suggestions at your own judgment.

I'm only beginning to discover this amazing world of natural remedies.

Linked to: Home is Where my Story Begins: Home and Family Friday
Kellys Kornerblog: Show-us-your-Life-Beauty-Secrets