Friday, June 10, 2011

Healing bumps, burns, and wounds- Comfrey!

Well, it finally happened- my two year old finally biffed out in the middle of our apartment courtyard and ate it face first. Hard. His little face got all scratched up and I was SO happy I had some fresh herbal salve on hand. I thought it would be an interesting project to see just how effective herbal medicine can be.

Comfrey is well known for it's ability to rapidly accelerate cell regeneration and it's irreplaceable in topical treatments for both open and closed wounds. I always vary the accompanying herbs; sometimes I'll pair it with Chickweed and Mullein, other times I use Myrrh and Sage, but Comfrey is my topical salve mainstay. Why? Well, see for yourself.

This picture is post accident, and the abrasion (from concrete) looks pretty angry. It was cleaned with a wash with diluted Tea Tree Oil, organic Lavender Oil and Grapefruit Seed Extract in a spray bottle. That's actually my disinfectant spray for household use, but the great thing about using herbs to clean your house is that, more often than not, you can also use them on yourself, your pets, and your kids.

After disinfecting and wiping it dry, we applied a nice, thick coating of herbal salve. Here's a shot of the damage:

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The side of his face was considerably swollen, and he was not pleased. Liberal application every 2-3 hours or so brought this significant improvement the following day:

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The swelling and the aggravation of the lacerations has been reduced dramatically, and Baby is much happier :D I was so excited to be able to compare the two pictures and demonstrate to people just how amazing and effective natural medicine really is. There are so many topical creams and ointments out there on store shelves that people put on their children's skin not knowing what's really IN them! A label might say "natural" or "organic", but that's certainly not the whole story. It's a rare day when I find something on a store shelf that I would actually put on my children, and that's while shopping in a health food store. 

Salves are a popular healing method. They're easy to take on the go, don't need refrigeration and can be applied to just about anything on your body: rashes, burns, wounds, scratches...anything that been thoroughly cleaned can always use a dab of salve. The above results can be achieved with either a Sage, Myrrh and Comfrey combination or a Comfrey and Mullein. Take a little one around with you if you have kids like I do o_O

Who else uses Comfrey? How you you use it?

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