Showing posts with label burns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label burns. Show all posts

Sunday, 5 July 2015

What to do with St John’s Wort?

St John’ Wort is my ultimate summer herb. The date when my first yellow starflower opens tells me how the season fares. This year is was 21st June, Midsummer’s Day, so although the winter was long and spring cold and late, the plants are progressing as normal. When the last seed forms in late September I know summer is over and world is turning once more.

St John’s wort was once of the first herbs I grew. Everyone talked and wrote about it, embodying it with an air of mystery. It was deemed to be very powerful, copying the pharmaceutical drugs which tackled mild to moderate depression. There was also talk of it being used to treat burns arising from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. How could a herb have such widespread action?

I knew the active part of the plant was the flower and the tiny, perforated leaves which gave it its name “perforatum”. If you couldn’t see light coming through the tiny holes, then the plant would not be particularly active (much to the dismay of those with ornamental hypericums growing in their gardens!).

My first products were the flowers infused in sunflower oil on my kitchen windowsill. Christopher Hedley taught me to use a light oil since the plant was delicate, but I know others prefer olive oil if they are looking for something which penetrates the skin more easily and has medicinal effects of its own. I leave it alone all summer, adding to the jars every day or so and topping them up as needed until I have enough oil for the coming year.

One year I put a lid on the jar, thinking to deter insects but was taught a salutary lesson when I discovered mould growing on the top. Fresh plant material contains water and if you don’t allow it to evaporate you are likely to grow something you don’t want. Now, if I were to bother with a cover, I’d fashion something out of paper or cotton.

The development of St John’s Wort oil is an amazing spectacle. After only two days the oil begins to change colour and by the end of one or two weeks, the familiar crimson oil emerges. It must have sunlight to effect the change. If you stick your jar of oil in a dark cupboard for several weeks, it will remain yellow. (Ask me how I know!)

The oil can be used in so many different ways.
  • As a sunscreen
  • For general burn healing
  • With honey and calendula as a poultice for burns
  • For massage involving any kind of nerve pain
  • In a salve with calendula and chickweed for hot, infected eczema
  • With meadowsweet for anti-inflammatory pain such as arthritis
  • With agrimony for pain involving constriction
  • As a cream with marshmallow, calendula and aloe vera to prevent diabetic foot problems

The second product I made was a tincture but macerating the flowers in vodka for three weeks in a dark place. The red colouration begins to leach out after several hours.

The tincture had me in a quandary. I don’t like to give herbs to anyone with a serious mental health problem, especially if they are under the care of professionals and may be taking other psychotropic drugs. St John’s Wort has a tendency to exacerbate the side effects of any other medication, which is not something to be recommended.

St John’s Wort is also one of the few drugs to have been extensively “researched”, although the trials are rarely with the whole plant, only with those aspects which have been extracted and standardised. Hence the long list of contra-indications and warnings which the press are so pleased to report. If you do want to educate yourself about these reports, there are lots of references in medical journals.

Like the SSRI drugs, St John’s Wort doesn’t act immediately. You need to build up a concentration in the body before you start to notice changes. Henriette Kress described it, “You won’t notice any difference when you take it but the people around you will notice you are different.”

It was Henriette who gave me the confidence to start adding St John’s Wort to my bereavement tonics. All the herbs are nerviness and help to support the adrenal gland during times of stress. I use SJW with lemon balm, vervain and nettles in the early stages of bereavement and may continue to add it to the mix or leave it out in favour of oats and/or motherwort, depending on the person. I also give people skullcap or rose elixir in separate bottles to take as and when the screaming habdabs descend.

David Winston also reported success with a mixture of SJW and lemon balm for seasonal affective disorder (SAD). This could be easily combined using tinctures but I have also made a syrup with extra lemons which proved far too delicious to be a medicine!

After several years of making oils and tinctures, I began to dry the herb for teas. A former apprentice reported great success in removing the pain of diabetic foot neuropathy in Asian elders by administering the tea as a footbath. This could also be used with any hand problems.   

My next experiment was with honey. SJW flowers in honey produces a pink honey with the characteristic SJW smell. You could use this in any drink as an added medicine to a herbal infusion. I’m now waiting for the evening primrose and bergamot to flower to make a “burns honey” together with apothecary’s rose petals. Having just treated a nasty burn on my leg, I want to be sure I’ve got a specific honey available just in case.


Every year I give away dozens of self seeded SJW plants. I believe every herb lover needs an SJW patch in their garden. I know I would be lost without mine.

I'll finish with a meditation I undertook recently with St John's Wort. This is what he said.

I am the sun and stars
I am strong
I travel along unseen pathways
I hide my scent
You will only know it if you work with me.
The more you work with me the less you will understand me
I comfort the vulnerable
Do not think to offer me on my own
I am not here to work your miracles
You will not notice how I change you until the change is past
Offer me humbly to your elders
On your knees let them bathe their feet in my waters
I will take away their pain, soothe the burning
I am strong
Trust me

Sunday, 12 April 2015

Of burns and bereavement



When a blogger fails to post for a long time, regular readers may wonder what is happening in real life to cause such silence. I rarely post about family events but on 9th February my mother died, following a long, debilitating struggle with ischaemic dementia which left her unable to move, speak or see. Death is a journey we all face alone and those who watch and share and wait can only wonder and hopefully grow through their own lessons offered during this time.

In my last paid employment, I spent eight years travelling around England training various organisations, including community nurses and army welfare officers, how to cope with loss and bereavement. I learned a great deal from the stories people shared and was able to make suggestions about things to look out for following bereavement.

The first was the lowering of immune health by grief which often causes the first twelve months to be fraught with viral infections and other more serious conditions, especially if a carer has neglected their own health to look after the person during the final period of their life.

The second was a propensity towards accidents and other events caused by a lowering of attention span or inability to be “sensible” or even to process information.

You could say that my gall bladder issues have stemmed from providing support to my parents over the years and neglecting my own health. On Thursday, March 26th 2015, I managed to burn/scald myself by tipping an overfull pan of boiling bolognaise sauce over my left thigh whilst trying to keep our back door from flying open in the wind. Whilst I was more concerned about losing half the contents of the saucepan, the accident provided a wonderful opportunity to learn about treating burns at home with herbs and other household products.

The general UK advice about treating burns can be found here It  says
  • Stop the burning process as soon as possible. This may mean removing the person from the area, dousing flames with water or smothering flames with a blanket. Do not put yourself at risk of getting burnt as well.
  • Remove any clothing or jewellery near the burnt area of skin. However, don't try to remove anything that is stuck to the burnt skin because this could cause more damage.
  • Cool the burn with cool or lukewarm water for 10 to 30 minutes, ideally within 20 minutes of the injury occurring. Never use ice, iced water or any creams or greasy substances such as butter.
  • Keep yourself or the person warm. Use a blanket or layers of clothing, but avoid putting them on the injured area. Keeping warm will prevent hypothermia, where a person's body temperature drops below 35ºC (95ºF). This is a risk if you are cooling a large burnt area, particularly in young children and elderly people.
  • Cover the burn with cling film. Put the cling film in a layer over the burn, rather than wrapping it around a limb. A clean clear plastic bag can be used for burns on your hand.
  • Treat the pain from a burn with paracetamol or ibuprofen. Always check the manufacturer's instructions when using over-the-counter (OTC) medication. Children under 16 years of age should not be given aspirin.
What it doesn’t tell you is anything to aid the cooling or healing process. Nor does it identify first (reddened skin) or second (blisters) degree burns but only tells you when to head for hospital for
  • large or deep burns – any burn bigger than the affected person's hand
  • full thickness burns of all sizes – these burns cause white or charred skin
  • partial thickness burns on the face, hands, arms, feet, legs or genitals – these are burns that cause blisters
  • all chemical and electrical burns
Also get medical help straight away if the person with the burn:
  • has other injuries that need treating
  • is going into shock – signs include cold clammy skin, sweating, rapid shallow breathing and weakness or dizziness
  • is pregnant
  • is over 60 years of age
  • is under five years of age
  • has a medical condition such as heart, lung or liver disease, or diabetes
  • has a weakened immune system (the body's defence system), for example because of HIV or AIDS, or because they're having chemotherapy for cancer
Although my burn measured the distance from my knee to a hand’s width up my thigh with two blisters measuring 1” by ½”, I decided I preferred to stay at home rather than spend up to four hours in a crowded A&E department.  It’s been a while since I looked at first aid treatments for burns so I was unaware of the advice to cover with clingfilm. I did know the aim was to keep the skin intact if possible to reduce the chance of incurring infection.

After dropping the saucepan I removed my socks and trousers and rushed upstairs to kneel in the bath with my thigh under a running cold tap for as long as I could. I moved, reluctantly, when my toes told me they were developing frost bite. Then I sliced off two large aloe vera leaves from the triffid which sprawls over our upstairs window and lay on the sofa daubing the juice from the centre of the leaf onto the entire area of the burn.

It is amazing how aloe vera removes heat from burns. It is also really important NOT to treat a burn with any oil or salve until ALL the heat has gone. This is because oil traps heat underneath the application.

If you don’t have any aloe vera plants or juice then look to other cooling herbs – elderflower, rose, chamomile, bergamot (preferably wild monada fistulosa). These can be applied as a tea, herbal water or diluted infused herbal vinegar.

After a couple of hours, I used a St John’s wort salve that I had to hand since St John’s wort is specific for healing burns. I covered the burn area with clean cotton fabric (I use a piece of old sheet for most of my first aid treatments!) fastened at each end with micropore tape. I wanted the burn to be open to the air so it didn’t become soggy.

I didn’t take any painkillers because the soreness disappeared after the first night of sleep and the burn itself was only painful thereafter if pressed.

I continued treating with St John’s wort for three days. I was concerned that the blisters were still filled with liquid, so on the fourth day decided to try a honey poultice. I mixed calendula (for skin healing), St John’s wort and yarrow( to reduce any inflammation) oils with a teaspoon of honey (a gift from Cornish herbalist, Nick Jones, last August) and spread it over the wound. When using an oily poultice like this you do need to add a plastic backing unless you want stains all over your clothes!

Two days after applying the honey poultice, all the blisters had dried up and the burned skin area was diminishing. I then made up a salve from calendula, St John’s wort and yarrow and this has been applied twice daily ever since.

It takes at least three weeks for a burn to heal. I’m really pleased with how my burn is progressing.  It itches occasionally which tells me new skin is growing.  I try very hard not to scratch!

Two things I might have done differently would be to have applied a cooling vinegar or flower water after the aloe vera and not applied the salve until before bedtime (around 12 hours after the accident).  Knowing now how effective the honey was, I would have applied the poultice sooner and maybe made two applications (one per day) for two or more days.  If the wound had been worse I could also have applied a marshmallow root poultice to keep the area moisturised.

This summer I am also going to make a burns honey from apothecary’s rose, bergamot and evening primrose flowers. I made a jar several years ago when Kiva Rose Hardin first posted her recipe but no-one suffered with any burns so I ate the honey instead! Kiva Rose recommends the honey for burns where there is a chance of infection. Given how successful ordinary honey is at drawing moisture from a burn blister, I can see how an infused herbal honey would be even better.

Everyone hopes accidents will not happen but if they do, they provide a useful opportunity to learn new skills.