So this story is kind of gross, but if you push through, there's a happy ending.
There is a show space here in Columbus that is practically a superfund sight (really really dirty and nasty). My boyfriend returned home one night from said space with a medium sized gash on the front of his leg close to the ankle. Being a terrible herbalist, and also drunk, I didn't clean it out or anything. One night later he got a fever. We took his temperature at 101. I remember something about fevers being the bodys way of trying to fight infection. Most herbalists ive talked to are against suppressing fevers unless the person with one is a baby or an old sick person. Instead a lot of people talk about helping the fever untill it breaks itself. this sounded like a good idea to us because his ankle was clearly infected and that was the only reason we could figure for a random fever. I know yarrow is good for this but i didnt have any so we used wild ginger. a dropper full in some water. a half hour later his fever was 102! I dont know if the ginger did it, but i like to think so.
The next morning he woke up totally fine but said to me " i had this really weird zit on my foot this morning" Hmm.. thats funny I dont think ive ever had a zit on my foot. The "zit" was about three inches away from the original wound which was looking really really bad. I've had staph before and knew right away thats what it was. We started spraying goldenseal on the wounds and i had him take it internally 4 X's a day. We also tried using lemmongrass essential oil topically and internally (just one drop in some water) because we had some stuff in our notes about that being the best essential oil for staph but about 5 days after starting the lemmon grass he overdosed on (just felt sick and somehow knew it was the lemmongrass) so we stopped taking it internally and just stuck with golden seal and oregon grape. We also cleaned it as much as possible.
its a week and a couple days now and that shit's almost gone! I'm sure antibiotics would have done the trick a little sooner but staph cant become immune to herbs because every batch of herbal medicine has tons of variables that make it diffrent everytime whereas pharmacuticals are chemical identical batch to batch so the virus can "figure them out".
If i had it to do over i think i would have not sprayed tincture directly on the wound because alchohol kills healthy tissue too, maybe instead burned out the booze or put it in a little water.
Can anyone remember what the deal with activated charcoal and staph was? i didnt have it in my notes but remember Tyler talking about it.
now if only i could figure this cough i have out...
Lets hear about other peoples herbal triumphs!
ay! all's well that ends well, i suppose. thanks for the story. nice work, m. blankets!
ReplyDeletei'm curious to know if you used goldenseal as a dropdose or in dropperfuls, and what you did with the oregon grape.
obviously you are not a terrible herbalist.
xoxo
nice story yo. i just had a lesson with 7song on activated charcoal. he didn't talk about using it specifically for staph, but he explained how to make an external poultice of it which i assume is how it's used for staph, because basically it just causes everything to bind to it, including bacteria. he had the activated charcoal powder, mixed it with a little water until it was a consistency which is probably impossible for me to describe, but basically wasn't too runny but had a little bit of runny-ness to it - pretty sludgey. Then he spreads it 1mm to 2mm thick on a bandage and applies it. it will stain things alot! I bet we're gonna learn about staph soon, because we're going to rainbow gathering real soon...
ReplyDeletehope you're well. been nice to be around peoples that remind me of you (kenton and nicole). i <3 the zine - it's been entertaining and very educating - edu'tainment!
<3 N
I know I'm responding late! but 1 thing is that I've been using this blend of six essential oils and colloidal silver on staph and staph-like infections topically, with success. The effect of these oils is synergistic, so they have more power together than any one of them by itself. Lemongrass, I read too, is the best for using just one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, activated charcoal. Nettles is right. Make a sludge. Its messy. You buy it at pet supply stores - they sell it for aquarium filters. My dad just got bit by what he thinks was a brown recluse from the wood pile a couple days ago and has been successfully treating it with charcoal!