Cuts - Editor's Choice

In spite of ice, elevation and pressure, the wound bled for 2 hours. Bandages were useless. Once I was home my husband mixed up a teaspoon each of plantain leaf powder and slippery elm powder. We sprinkled the dry powder on the still oozing nail bed. I covered that with a bandaid with a salve on it. It did not bleed or leak another drop of blood.

Even with ibuprofen, I had to sleep with the finger iced and elevated.

I am sure my friend had cayenne pepper and I considered trying it for bleeding, but I knew it would initially sting and I was already in a lot of pain. I was afraid I would pass out at my friend's house. I don't usually get faint but was feeling ill over the cut. Fingers are so sensitive.

Today I am keeping a bandage and healing salve (made with plantain, comfrey, mullein, and burdock). I will keep this up for a while. I assume the rest of the nail will fall off. Ick.

Possibly just plantain would have stopped the bleeding. And the powder did honestly hurt quite a bit.

Moral of the story? Keep some plantain powder on hand and don't keep your knives too sharp. :)

~Mama to Many~

Over the next few days I alternated different types of poultices, Epsom salt soaks and essential oils.

I used poultices overnight - charcoal one night, clay one night. I had her use tea tree essential oil and frankincense essential oil on it during the day. She also took turmeric twice a day.

The inflammation, redness and pain had improved, but when the results aren't coming as fast as I want, I change tactics. I decided to try a potato poultice. I have read about them with fascination but never tried them.

I grated some potato. I mixed in a little raw honey. I placed that on her foot and covered it with some plastic wrap and a bandage. I do think I saw the most improvement in one night with the potato poultice. She continued with the essential oils during the day a couple of more days.

She now has a healthy scab and normal color.

I love having another remedy up my sleeve (or in my pantry! )

You never know where you will be or what you will have on hand. Lots of possible remedies is always a plus.

~Mama to Many~

The pain was increasing so I took him to our doctor, who very carefully pieced each side of the swollen thumb and expelled much pus and infection, until the pain became too great. The skin also split between the two piercings, flesh extruded, it looked quite horrific. He wrapped it in gauze. I enquired, "Will you put some iodine?" "No point." he said, "it is already infected, he needs antibiotics." I thanked Dr, and left with the script.

At home I decided on olive leaf. I could have chosen many things, garlic, GSE, ginger, oregano oil, the most important factor is the frequency it is given.

Gave him the 2 olive leaf capsules (antibiotic), one Bromelain capsule (for tissue trauma and pain) added about a half tablespoon colloidal silver to his drinking water, and gave a heaped teaspoon of organic coconut oil. To the fleshy mess of his poor thumb, I applied a paste of castor oil and turmeric, because I know turmeric is great at pulling out infection, applied fresh guaze swab and bandaged it well. I changed the dressing every 24 hours after shower, and I am pleased to report the infection was drawn out and significant healing has occurred. We are at day 8 and there is only a small hole in his thumb, and after 4 days it was well enough that the intensive regimen below was stopped, both internally and externally. Olive leaf capsules every 4 awake hours, with alternating vitamin C, zinc, Bromelain, colloidal silver or probiotics X3 capsules. This was for the first two days, days 3,4 was olive leaf and vitamin C 1000mg. There was no pain from the first treatment on.

*If I had not had such immediate improvement I would have used the Dr's antibiotics, well no, I would have first given OLE every 4 hours including waking up at night to administer, and increased the probiotics intake. Fortunately for my little boy's gut health, this was not required.

Best to you and yours

So this really blew me away. I had about a half inch deep & inch long laceration on my hand. My amazing wife looked on Earth clinic and saw this crazy remedy of pouring alcohol in it (it stung pretty bad for only about four seconds) and Cayenne pepper (felt next to nothing when I poured this in the wound, which is crazy).

Since I didn't want to spend 4 hours in the hospital plus about $1500, I thought what the heck. The middle picture is minutes after the cut, the top picture is one week later, & the last picture is two weeks later (which is just a few days ago).

I changed the Band-Aid and the Cayenne pepper four times during the first seven days. And then I just left it completely open after that.

Absolutely amazing. Thanks to all of you who brought this to our attention.

I dressed the wound each night with iodine an honey. A friend of mine had cautioned me that a bone infection could result if the bone had been nicked.

Each night, when he got home from work and after showering, I put one drop of 5% iodine in the wound and then a few drops of honey. I covered this with a fabric adhesive bandage and secured it with cohesive tape. He wore a splint on the thumb for the first 5 days because movement was likely to re-open the wound. I think I did the iodine and honey treatment for 6 or 7 days total.

For the first two nights I also applied a cooled, blanched plantain leaf before the adhesive bandage since that would not stick to the wound at all. Plantain also helps with pain relief and wound healing.

He does have a scar but the wound has healed nicely and never had a single sign of infection. And he is currently working outside in the heat, so the bandage would be wet all day from sweating.

He was making sure he had full motion of his finger. With deep wounds there are many risks, including nerve and tendon damage, infection, etc. I did ask if he wanted to go get stitches but he did not.

Iodine is a great antimicrobial and so is honey. Honey is also excellent for wound healing.

~Mama to Many~

I recently went on holiday to Thailand with the family and thought my health kit was well stocked. I had tea tree oil and Vicks for bug bites and repellant, also tto is antiseptic, magnesium malate for magnesium and as an apple cider vinegar replacement, Olive leaf for antibiotics should anyone develop sickness, a wholefood multi vitamin to replace the many tablets I use at home, borax for laundry and head to toe body wash inc teeth brushing (add water) rosehips for wholefood vitamin c, beet root for my husband's blood sugar, kids organic multivitamin and melatonin for sleep assist with the added benefit of gut health. I thought I had every situation covered! Until I fell in the street (narrow foot path) directing all sorts of filth into the soft part of my inner ankle and foot. I had twisted my ankle in the fall as well but did not realise for a few days.

Not in much pain but embarrassed and bloody, I returned the short walk to the hotel and passing the bar collected some salt. In the room I soaked my foot in the salt and water, cleaning it was difficult it now hurt sooo much and to my dismay I saw grit embedded in the wound. I hobbled to the couch whereas before treatment I was walking normally, albeit slowly, the attention I had paid to my injury had been rewarded with large pain increase. I applied the tto oil and researched poultice that I could access in Thailand. If I was at home there would be at least twelve plants in my garden I could use for this purpose, my husband calls some of them weeds. I could have really used one of Mama's charcoal poultices!

I found that honey could be used as poultice which I was not confident of but thought at least it has healing properties, so when hubby and kids returned from foot massage (! ) I asked him to get the purest honey they had at the chemist. I applied the honey, covering with tea bag wrapper (limited supplies) so it wouldn't stick to the wound, and a sock to hold it in place. I rested it by having a few days just watching the kids in the pool. Twice a day I applied the honey, I didn't have to touch the tender skin which was a plus, just plopped the honey on it till it was covered. The grit was still there though, but I couldn't touch it still and would not allow my husband to either.

When the wound scabbed over I was a little concerned because I knew the grit had not come out, but I had put my faith in the healing properties of the honey. I stopped applying the honey once the scabs formed. Couple weeks later when the scabs came off, the skin was pink and healthy. I guess that as much as I thought I was prepared you cannot prepare for everything, but EC got me through.

After the initial cleaning and removal of dead skin, all we did was use a dressing of a healing salve I make (we keep it on hand for daily use) and a large fabric bandage. We usually changed the bandage every evening. He would leave it open for an hour or two after his shower each night and then we would re dress it. Once or twice we left the bandage on for 2 days. We did this for a total of 10 days. Perhaps the dressing was not needed the last few days but we wanted to give that tender skin a little longer to heal. He is hard on his head at work (He keeps it shaved) as you will see by the additional cut in latter pictures.

I messed with the wound as little as possible. He was rinsing it in the shower. I would apply a very thick layer of healing salve to the bandage – not the wound, so I wouldn't have to mess with the wound. The layer of salve was probably 3-4 mm thick. The salve and bandage never once stuck to the wound. New skin cells and evidence of healing were noticed within 24 hours!

Some advantages to moist wound healing include less pain, faster cell regeneration, reduced tissue death and dehydration, and reduced scarring. Pretty nice advantages!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8109679

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3842869/

Additionally, herbal healing salves contain nutrients that the body can use to heal. The salve I used has plantain, which helps with pain and comfrey which promotes skin cell regeneration. The olive oil and coconut oil base contain nutrients also.

We have seen other things used for moist wound healing with great results as well.

Honey is amazing for wound healing. When my mother was elderly and near death, she had bedsores that were not healing. The nurses used honey on the sores and there was actually an improvement in the wounds, even in my mother's severely compromised state of health.

Lanolin is used for breastfeeding moms to heal cracked nipples with a great reduction in pain and faster healing.

I have not tried it but I suspect that lanolin and honey mixed together would make a nice wound dressing.

Herbal salves and honey are also used for burn treatment with great success.

A dozen years or so ago my daughter had a bike accident. She basically tore many layers of skin off of the bottom of her foot as it rubbed along a bike tire. (She was about 4.) It was very, very painful. The doctor I took her to introduced me to Advantix bandages. Daily I changed the dressing. I was only using those bandages that did not stick to the wound (and pull of new skin cells as dry dressings do.) (I think I had a layer of Advantix then gauze then cohesive tape, but not positive.) This dressing worked well and she was not experiencing pain with it and her healing was pretty easy.

Deeper wounds are more complicated because of fluids the wound produces – they need a place to go. But there are protocols to benefit from moist wound healing from them, but I am not suggesting that my methods here would be appropriate.

There are manuka honey bandages and colloidal silver bandages available too. It is good to know about these options before the need arrives. I try to keep a decent supply of first aid supplies at home.

Picture 1 - right after the injury

Picture 2 - 48 hours later

Picture 3 - 4 days after injury

Picture 4 - 10 days after injury

~Mama to Many~

This morning I woke up - No visible sign of the scratch! I knew frankincense was powerful - but I sort of can't believe my eyes.

I purchased some frankincense and myrrh essential oils to make some organic face and body creams and tested my sensitivity to these oils on my skin with sweet almond oil a couple days ago but had no idea of the power of healing these oils had until I watched "The Truth About Cancer". I thought to myself, if frankincense could help people heal from cancer, it should work on a cat scratch! Wow!

From here on out, my skin care routine will always include organic lotion I make with frankincense and myrrh. Dr. Josh Axe has a recipe on his site that I will be using.

I'm sitting here....I still can't believe it.

MyWay :D

Having been a lurker at Earth Clinic for a couple years, I was aware that cayenne pepper stopped heavy blood flow. So I had my nurse sprinkle it liberally all over the site and then we re-applied pressure to wound. (I had been applying pressure for 45 minutes to no avail. )

About 6 minutes later she withdrew the compress to check it and lo and behold the bleeding had totally stopped. She was amazed! (Me too! )

I was transported to the emergency room as a precaution. Blood flow stayed stopped and ER Doctor ended up doing nothing. That was 8 hours ago and bleeding has stayed stopped. Note that I didn't have to make a paste or anything special, just heavy sprinkling of regular cayenne pepper on wound and compression for about 10 minutes after application. You can check your wound and if still bleeding repeat the process. I can guarantee this works!

Long story short, everyone was amazed about the cayenne pepper and none of them had heard of it before. They all asked, "doesn't it sting?" No, it doesn't sting at all. You don't even know it's there.

Earth Clinic has been very helpful to me and I hope this info can be helpful to others. I encourage you to keep cayenne papper in your first aid kit.

Thank you Earth Clinic for providing such a great website. You were a life-saver for me today.