★★★★☆
I went into a serious case of SAD last winter, didn't eat properly, and compromised by relatively healthy immune system. The 1st of January, got a nasty scrape on my left leg that was abut six inches long and really back. I washed it with hydrogen peroxide and let it dry, then went on about my business. Big mistake. The next day in the shower, I found a red, sore bump that looked like an ingrown hair, but couldn't pull that out. Two days later, the scrape got infected. I put an OTC polymycin salve on it, found that it didn't work and that I was allergic to polymycin. The infection spread, became extremely painful, and by Feb. 1 I was begging to panic, because it should have just dried up and healed. I figured out that I had a staph infection that was getting out of control, in spite of my efforts, and then read about a low hemoglobin count as something that will give you susceptibility to rashes in a medical column, so I started taking iron pills and the infection seemed to stop, but would not clear up. It was so painful that if I took off the bandages, it felt like my skin was on fire because every nerve ending was exposed to air. I spent thirty seconds in the shower one day, crying in pain. I was desperate to find a remedy. I knew it was staph, I looked up the symptoms and images of staph on the internet. I mean, you know these things, and I am frankly unwilling to go to an emergency room these days unless I have a broken bone. I found an antiseptic salve that is specifical directed at MRSA and other varieties of staphylococcus, but I was getting desperate, because I was not getting rid of the toxins in the scrape on my leg and it hurt all the time.
I went to bed that night, asking myself "What do I need to know to get rid of this infection? What am I forgetting?" The next morning, when I woke up, the first thing that popped into my head was "what are the medicinal uses of honey?" I looked up apitheray on the internet and there, right in front of me, was an entire page of the uses of honey, from the Egyptians using it in mummification, along with natrol, to Roman physicians using it to prevent wounds from becoming infected. I had a bottle of raw honey bought from an apiary last summer. The pollen grains looked like dust. I had bought it to work on my seasonal allergies in the spring, but decided to try it on my nasty, horrible wound, which was really worrying me. My whole body was trying to throw off this infection without a lot of help from me, so what did I have to lose?
I took a sterile wound dressing pad, put a tablespoon of raw honey on it, spread it around to cover the lesion, and plopped it, plus two others on the open areas. I did this daily for two days and took a hard look at what was taking place. The solid matter in an infection, which we call pus, is the dead bacteria and dead white cells that are killing them. The excruciating pain, the swelling and the spread of the infection stopped, but it took three months to get my skin to regenerate by granulation, which is healing from within, and close up the lesions. The last one closed up last week and has a healthy scab on it now, which I do not touch. I used the raw honey for a month and went to a great deal of trouble to keep the whole thing as clean as possible, but getting into the shower was very painful for a while. I knew I had won the battle when that no longer hurt. the sugar in honey is so concentrated that it draws water and the toxins in a wound to the surface, and the enzymes in raw honey will digest bacateria, help your white blood cells do their job.
However, staph is one mean little bacterium and won't give up. I have a set of eczematous lesions where it tried to start up again, and used the OTC staph antiseptic, alternating that with antiseptic washes and sprays. Then I heard a dermatologist reoommend a quarter of a cup of laundry bleach (sodium hypochlorite) in a tub of bath water, so I have used about one quarter teaspoonful in two gallons of water, twice in the last two weeks, to wash the skin on my leg, and it seems to be working. I also use peroxide. Just keep shifting the attack weaspons. Some of the eczema started because the paper tape I used took the top layer of skin off those spots and left it vulnerable. I've had bumps appear in my scalp that went away, tiny bubbles appear on my hands that leak clear fluid when they are punctured with a sterile needle. This thing will probably not admit defeat until I sit in a tub full of oatmeal bath additive or milk of magnesia, which is supposed to be healing. My skin has become rather dry, so I need a good, soothing bath salt. Are epsom salts OK for this?
I have noticed in all this that staph will get into anything: your hair follicles (kills the growing hair), your oil glands (dries out your skin), your mouth (blisters your palate), your clothing (use the laundry bleach, you can always buy more clothing). I continue to take the iron pill and upped the amount of lean beef I eat, as well as a multi-B vitamin and Ca/Mg/Zinc and A, D, and Natural E that I have been taking for years. This is seven months after the start of this, and the skin on my left leg looks like the worst sunburn in the world, but is slowly growing back with no scars. The hair follicles are recovering.
I forgot to credit my cat Lilly in this. Every night when I went to bed, I would visualize my Lilly chasing those little fuzzy staph bacteria and swatting them into ruins. I had a dream one night in which she chased them screaming down a long hallway into a huge pool of water. I believe it will take several more months for this to end, but I've learned my lesson the hard way: eat properly, get some exercise, take your vitamins and enjoy life. It's all we have.
