Healing a severe burn with Plant Medicine
I have been meaning to sit down and write this post for quite some time, so am pleased to finally share with you how I healed a severe burn on my leg using Medicinal herbal creams alone.
Back in February I was in the garden pulling “weeds” and I came across this one plant that I had not seen before, so I pulled it out. As I did part of its stem broke and its milk latex got on my hands - it was the type of thick gooey latex that I immediately knew would not be good for my skin, so I went inside to wash it off. It took repeated soapy washes to finally release its sap from my hands, and finally I returned outside to continue gardening.
Unfortunately, I had not noticed that its constituents also rubbed up most of my right leg as I pulled it out and through it to the ground to the right of me and I continued to work in the hot Australian sun, and to add to it, I also did a controlled burn of a lot of uncompostable plant matter, which contributed to my burn from the plant (which I will explain, so bear with me here).
Later that night as I was getting ready for bed, my leg felt as if it was burning but I could not see any visible burns so I ignored it and went to bed, during the night I woke feeling as though my leg was having boiling water put on it, but I still could not see any reaction, so being the stubborn person I am, I ignored it and tried to sleep through it.
By morning I awoke to full burn blisters up my right leg, behind my right arm (this is how I pulled the plant out, tucked in under my arm - it was a tall plant), and some splotches on my left thigh below the line of my shorts. I then retraced the previous day’s activities and went to identify the mystery plant I pulled out. I then identified the plant in question as Euphorbia heterphylla, known to exert phytotoxicity and give bad skin reactions. It was a hot Summer’s day and I gardened in shorts without sun protection and then I stoked a big fire which would have compounded the phytotoxicity- meaning the plant on my skin had made me extremely sensitive to both the effects of the sun and the fire, and so I now had big, painful blistered burn up my leg.
pictured above: Euphorbia heterophylla
Now I don’t do Pharma medicine - I just don’t so into my apothecary I went and whipped up a herbal cream with plantain, licorice, chamomile and centella in it to draw and soothe the wound. I repeatedly put this on in copious amounts every few hours and at night, after my shower I picked fresh Aloe Vera from my garden and would harvest the Aloe vera juice to coat it until when I went to bed I would lather myself again in the cream I had made.
Interestingly, each day I showered and cleaned the wound gently with warm soapy water and this didn’t hurt me at all, instead, I felt it was a gentle way to remove layers of the latex that might still be on my skin without harsh rubbing. The plant medicine did the rest.
Photo Gallery of my burns over the course of many weeks of treatment.
Now these photos are a ‘glance’ - what you can’t see very well is the large fluid filled blisters, which when they eveutally subsided, did so with such ease. I had been frightened they would ‘pop’ and create a painful raw open wound, however the plants were the master healers and when the blisters were ready, they simply seemed to reabsorb themselves back into my body and the outer layer of skin where the blister was, became crusty until it healed and went away.
After these blisters had healed, the crusty scab-like wounds had healed I was left with what was a typical “red-burn scar” - you know the type, the ones you see on people who have had really bad burns and are forever scarred? Yup, I had that all up my leg, and as you can see, I have a big birthmark on that leg, so whilst I initially felt disappointed, I was used to not having “pretty” legs so I accepted my fate and continued to alternate applying my herbal cream which now included Comfrey root and Centella with St Johns Wort, with a high potency Vitamin E cream which I had used to reduce scarring on my legs in childhood, and what do you know…… my leg healed COMPLETELY!!
I have no scarring and there is no visible evidence of such a bad burn at all! I was diligent in applying my creams, and fresh Aloe Vera gels to my wounds and accepted that my plant healers would work to my highest good, and that, they did.
Our plant healers continue to always surprise me. They prove time and time again that they hold so much power, so much intelligence and are the master healers of our realm. I have no doubt that if I saw a “medical practitioner” they would have prescribed a lot of Pharma medicines for the type of wound I was carrying, however as a plant practitioner, I knew my plants would carry me and heal me. I share this with you now, so you too will know that there are many options available to you for healing to take place. The ones (options) that work beyond any expectations of what you have been taught under the conventional methods of ‘care’.
In Australia, we are not allowed to promote such remedies openly in the social media space. The regulators have us tightly gagged so you, the consumer, continue to be directed toward Pharma medicines as the only option in your healthcare journey. I have many stories to tell, however, there are guarded by very tight and stringent advertising and marketing “rules” where we can not promote products as the potent remedies that they are. But I can share with you here, my personal experience, which reflects many experiences that I see in my clinic and how I have helped many of my patients with over the years.
For instance, I recall one woman who came to see me after having a farm accident and falling into a flooded causeway, she emerged with unknown amounts of thorns and prickles from the Australian bush in her skin. She saw numerous medical practitioners who could not help her. She described her skin as feeling like it was full of painful thorns. Her skin felt like sandpaper to her, despite no prickles being seen by the naked eye, I believed her. There is no gaslighting in my office! I told her to find the plant ‘Plantain’ (not the banana), and I showed her how to make a plantain poultice and asked her to put it all over her body. (If you have read my Children’s Book ‘Plantain Medicine’ you will also know how to do this ;)
When she returned she was amazed by this simple, yet effective remedy that saw her “prickles” fall out and her skin return to feeling somewhat normal. She said to me “Why don’t people know this stuff?”
I replied: “Because firstly, people have been sold complex cures and they disregard how potent simple remedies can be, and secondly, because Naturopaths and Herbalists have to be extremely careful with how we talk about these things in public otherwise the regulators have the power to shut us down.
If any of you have heard about the now famous Barbara O’Niell - this is what happened to her, and why she now lives and teaches in America.
Should you have questions or wish to learn more, please book in and I would be very happy to help you!
If you would like to purchase a copy of my book ‘Plantain Medicine’ it is available through all good online retailers worldwide or via my online shop here - If you use code 3for50 at checkout you can buy all three for $50 otherwise they are $20 each.
Wishing you good health and from the wisdom of the plants,
Alyson
