Emergency use

[Guest guest]

I posted this to another non herbal group this morning, and thought the

reminder of letting everyone in the family know where the herbs are, and an

emergency care sheet idea was something we should all have, so I am copying

it here. Many of us are the family herbalist. But what if it is US that

need the emergency help?

I have my healing herb tinctures in a special place. Normally we use them

for minor things-colds, flu, aches, as we have never had an emergency. This

past weekend I had a chance to see them shine in an emergency. I tangled

the first 3 fingers of my left hand in my table saw. (I'm typing this one

handed) I cut one finger half way across the width of the finger, through

the middle of the nail, and sliced through the upper tips/nails of the other

2. Blood everywhere. I ran into the bathroom and told my husband to get

the DMSO, propolis (raw honey is a good substitute and readily available)

and the cayenne tinc, bandages,scissors and tape. He poured the DMSO on,

which started to slow the bleeding. Then he put the cayenne in a cup so I

could soak my fingers. I started to pass out so he gave me a spoon of

cayenne, which snapped me right out of it. Which was good because it was

making him sick to look at my hand and he couldn't help me bandage it. (he

s squeamish :-). Soaking the fingers in cayenne helped stop the bleeding

enough to wrap them. He soaked a strip of gauze in cayenne while I applied

some propolis to the fingers, then I wrapped each finger in the cayenne

gauze and taped them. Then I laid down for 3 or 4 hours, and after that was

able to get up and finish my project, though it took longer as I could only

use one hand.

The ER would have done basically the same thing but 1) would have charged me

a lot 2) would have given me a shot and 3) put me on a round of antibiotics.

The natural antibiotics in what I applied were stronger than anything they

could have given me and I had zero worries of infection, plus did not upset

the balance if flora in my gut as theirs would have.

One lesson I learned from this is to make sure all my herbs are clearly

labeled and in a place where everyone in the family knows they are at. I am

the herbalist in our house and my husband knows almost nothing about them.

If I had not been able to tell him where they were and what to get me, he

would have been lost. So now I am going to make up a laminated paper with

herbal instructions for certain emergencies and put it along with the

appropriate ingredients on one shelf and make sure that everyone knows to go

to this spot if I am not home or can't tell them.