DIY Natural Remedy: Slivers & Splinters

Slivers have always felt like a DIY kind of problem.  As a kid I remember hating them and crying as my mom would pull them out with tweezers.  As a teen I remember hearing people talk about how they just need to be encouraged to come out on their own with different types of packs or by pushing on and manipulating the skin.  At that age usually the only slivers I got were pretty close to the surface without me even needing tweezers to pull them out.  Just a day ago I was moving our wooden side table and out of the blue this little table bit me!  I know that sounds funny, but that's how it felt.  I had a very large gash right through the inside of my knuckle.  Yes, it was bleeding, and in the middle of it was the largest sliver I have ever had going the deepest I've ever seen.  I couldn't fully straighten my finger.  I also couldn't fully bend it.  I was fatally wounded... Oh you better believe I yelped like a wounded puppy, this hurt!

Sliver Damage to My Middle Finger... Ouch!

I started off wishing I had a potato because potato packs are very useful in situations like this with drawing stuff out.  No potatoes in the house so I did the next best thing.  I soaked it in epsom salt water with a drop of Lavender essential oil.  It really reduced the pain and the swelling.  I cut open some extra skin to try to get the sliver.  No such luck, it wasn't even close to the surface.  That night I packed a cotton ball with epsom salt water on my finger.  It helped the pain through the night but didn't get that sliver any closer to coming out.  In the morning I cut a little more trying to get the sliver still with no success.  Asking my mom for help, she recommended packing it with a slice of lemon to draw it and any toxins that could cause infection out.  It stung a little but only for a few seconds.  This reduced the swelling even more and helped increase my fingers ability to straighten.  I still could not bend my finger very well and whenever I took a break from soaking or packs the pain was unbearable.  Not to mention the redness around the wound was growing.  Finally, as I was talking to my dear friend that I work to teach about essential oils with, I asked her if she thought my next step was to go to the doctor.  She said a bunch of things I knew for milder slivers and then said I should google slivers and DoTerra because there were oils that would help my body push out the sliver.  I swear that I almost always go to my essential oils first because they tend to work better then any of the other remedies I can find, be they herbal or medicinal, but this time I hadn't even thought of that for some reason.

The DIY remedy that worked:

So after that phone call I didn't want to turn my computer on, so I just went into my bathroom opened my medicine cabinet where I keep a lot of my essential oils, and looked at them.  I have learned that knowing a few properties of oils helps, but in the end if we feel drawn to a certain scent of essential oil, we usually need it for either our physical or our emotional health, since they help both.  I have seen many times that when even other oils were not quite what I needed to heal, Helichrysm essential oil has that extra boost of power to kick start my body.  I saw it in the cupboard, was immediately drawn to use it, and dropped 1 drop right onto my wound, undiluted.  Within a couple minutes I decided to try to pull out some sliver.  A little shard had surfaced so I tweezered it out.  Then I cut a new opening for a deeper part of sliver I could see emerging and I squeezed the skin together.  It was like my body was all of the sudden pushing it out because enough was coming that I could now grab it with the tweezers too.  The sliver was the biggest my hubby had ever seen in someone like that.  I could immediately bend my finger again.  We put a drop of Melaleuca essential oil on it to disinfect after the fact.  Its the morning after and my finger feels fantastic!  Thank you Helichrysm... You saved me when I had a bad burn, a cut that didn't want to heal, and now with this sliver.  You are a great friend to have in my first aid kit!

Is it safe to use Natural Remedies with Cancer?

Whenever I come across new and important health information I feel obligated to share it.  I met an amazing man who had cancer and who is married to a woman now undergoing cancer treatments.  I have researched a little on natural remedies in cancer, but his take really hit me hard and made me realize that there are a lot of misconceptions out there.  I want to share some statistics he gave me with you.

Your chance at surviving cancer if you do nothing - 18%
Your chance at surviving if you do no modern medicine and only natural/herbal remedies - 20%
Your chance at surviving if you use modern medicine (i.e. surgery to cut out tumor, chemo, etc.) - 80%
Your chance at surviving if you use modern medicine and natural remedies at the same time - 60%
Your chances if using natural remedies for healing during intervals not on chemo - unknown (under research)

He spoke of people saying all kinds of things to do.  "Drink lemon juice once a day to be healed" or "Take colloidal silver every day."  He had taken the colloidal silver previous to being diagnosed but still got cancer so these comments were a joke.  Then he spoke of a common remedy he had found for cancer tumors called a black salve.  There are many different types of black salve, but the one he spoke of essentially burns the top layers of skin, causing new skin to grow and though people say they can see the tumor fall off, that is really just dead skin.  There is no way to know if it burned deep enough to eliminate the tumor partially, completely, or not at all.  It is a dangerous game to play with no diagnostic tools.

I realized many people, possibly even including myself, have had a misconception that natural remedies give a higher potential for living than chemo and medical approaches.  The only misconception I think he may have had was that natural remedies could be more harmful than good.  This is far from the truth.  The one thing to remember to up your chances of recovery is to not mix natural remedies with chemo.  Get those medical checkups and use what will help with recoveries, but hold of on using any natural remedy be it essential oils, homeopathy, or herbs, while on chemo and 2 weeks before and after.  You wouldn't want to undo parts of the job the chemo needs to do.  There is a lot of new research being done in this area with great results.

After listening to many doctors on the subject I am grateful to know where the boundaries are for both natural care and for modern medicine.  I will say that the absolute best oils for cancer in my opinion, that have been researched the most, are wild orange oil and frankincense oil.  Its been found that after 6 weeks of use tumors will stop growing and in some cases reverse in size.  In the research it seemed like the reversal of the tumor was very much dependent upon the genetic DNA code, however the discontinuation of more growth was pretty standard.  Even I was able to get rid of a lump on my chest that was causing me so much pain that simply lifting my arm nearly caused me to fall over in pain.  Mixing certified pure wild orange and frankincense oil and putting a few drops each on the lump 3 times a day for 4 days was enough for the pain to cease and the lump to completely disappear for me.  At this point maybe I would recommend getting that doctor apt for a diagnosis still, but doing this in the meantime while waiting for the appointment.  That way at least you can have a greater chance at slowing any potential progress while trying to get a diagnosis (and if your lucky it will change the diagnosis before you get it).

Stories like his make me so grateful for modern medicine.  It is true that if we are the absolute healthiest possible and certain factors are met that cancer cannot live in our bodies.  It is also true that in general it is nearly impossible to meet every single factor in our polluted and nutrient deficient societies, not to mention the fast paced stressors and emotional states that bring more risk.  That doesn't mean we can't try to be our healthiest or prevent life threatening health problems like cancer.  His doctors said that care has never been more advanced and easy on people.  People still get sick during chemo, but not nearly to the same degree, and their chances of living are much higher.

So here I leave you... a mixed answer.  Yes, its safe most of the time, depending on the remedy used and when you use it.  No, its not safe during, right before, or right after chemo or radiation treatments; actually counteracting the chemo's effectiveness.  I personally think we could all nearly rid our society of cancer if we were to rid our society of stress, pollution, and ultra processed, chemical, colarant, flavorant, and other unnatural additives or types of foods.  Whole foods, super foods, organic, raw, probiotic & enzyme rich, etc.  These are the types of foods that will prevent our cells from going crazy and getting cancer along with reducing stress, and reducing the rest of our toxin load from our household products and all the pollution.  If we all work together for cleaner environment, eating, & home products then, at the least, this world would be a much healthier place to live.