Honey for wound care

[Crazy Fox]

This is a really interesting topic and I think I'll try an experiment of my own the next time I get a (small) cut or something.

I agree with the earlier opinions that the more processed honey will be inferior to the more local raw stuff for both using on wounds and allergies.

I remember reading an article a while ago that warned that a lot of "US" megamart brand honey is being diluted with cheap Chinese honey which is completely stripped of the good stuff (pollen). Just something to keep in mind.

[archer]

support your local bee keeper! buy local raw honey!

[doublehelix]

Interesting website for medical honey dressings.

Sterilized for botulism spores:

http://www.dermasciences.com/products/advanced-wound-care/medihoney/inside-the-u-s/

[PrepperJim]

Dr. James Hubbard recommends honey for wound care if you don't have antibiotics. Not for babies, however!

His book.

[F15CrewChief]

What a great thread.

A personal testimony here: A month or so ago my 2yo son was having quite a bit of chest congestion/coughing at night and the doctors office was closed. I didnt want to take him to the ER because I didnt think it really classified as an "emergency." Instead I called the nurses hotline for their opinion.

The nurse I spoke to suggested a teaspoon of honey as opposed to any OTC meds. I told her how nice it was to speak to a medical professional and be given a holistic remedy as it seems that advice like that is rare these days.

Long story short, we gave him the honey and it helped immensely. 2 teaspoons a day and 2 days later the cold he had been fighting for about 8 days was gone completely! And it's a whole lot easier to feed a 2yo a tspn of honey as opposed to a tspn of robitussen!

[ConnieLDawson]

Yes manuka honey is effective in healing of wounds.I have used it and got good results

[Gale Dacalio]

You can use honey slightly warmed and add herbs for making your own medicinal syrups. 

[dittyfish]

As a wound care nurse, I do use honey from time to time (medi-honey being the brand name).  It can be a great product, but it is not a cure all for all wounds.  I would certainly recommend it over the hydrogen peroxide/neosporin regimen that seems to be the standard home care regimen for most people.  MY public service announcement:  DONT USE HYDROGEN PEROXIDE ON YOUR WOUNDS!  While hydrogen peroxide does kill the bad bacteria that might colonize your wounds, it also kills off the good cells and oxygen that your body sends to heal the wound.  Warm soap and water is more that adequate to clean a wound.   
DF

[RobisMarshall]

honey wow I wish the army taught us that

[Cedar]

We had a goat given to us a couple days ago which had SEVERE mastitis and her one teat is concrete hard on the lower half and it is possibly sloughing off in the middle of it. It is gross, even by this vet tech's experience. The former owner did nothing to treat it and she kept saying she did not have mastitis (yeah, sure). The only reason I took her was we bought the other does and she would have been left along. I did not pay a penny for her. I will take some pics of it tomorrow (sorry I did not before treatment), but even after one day of home raised honey in/on it, it is looking much better.

From experience of 5 animals now, 2 weeks of treating it with honey will probably cure her. I doubt we will be able to breed her as I believe she will not be able to milk well if at all, but we shall see. I have treated a cat with honey with necrotic mastitis who lost all of one side of her mammary system. In a few weeks you could not tell other than being teatless on that side. A rabbit who eviscarated himself healed very well too.

Cedar

[Stachys]

I download some stuff from the American Apitherapy Society when I was a member. 
Here's a link from my Dropbox to download the zip file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xyz2kzwwudpdsw8/AAS%20Journals%20and%20CMACC%20Presentations.zip

I hope you find useful info in there.

[archer]

thanks

[redrocket76]

I happened to notice last Sunday on some animal type tv show, that they used honey to treat a dolphin that had a severe sunburn.

[hardpoint9]

Dr. James Hubbard recommends honey for wound care if you don't have antibiotics. Not for babies, however!

His book.

Just curious, but why it can't be used for babies? 

[archer]

Honey is the only known dietary reservoir of C. botulinum spores linked to infant botulism. For this reason honey should not be fed to infants less than one year of age.[13] Other cases of infant botulism are thought to be caused by acquiring the spores from the natural environment. Clostridium botulinum is a ubiquitous soil-dwelling bacterium. Many infant botulism patients have been demonstrated to live near a construction site or an area of soil disturbance.[citation needed]

[hardpoint9]

Honey is the only known dietary reservoir of C. botulinum spores linked to infant botulism. For this reason honey should not be fed to infants less than one year of age.[13] Other cases of infant botulism are thought to be caused by acquiring the spores from the natural environment. Clostridium botulinum is a ubiquitous soil-dwelling bacterium. Many infant botulism patients have been demonstrated to live near a construction site or an area of soil disturbance.[citation needed]

Thanks Archer!

[archer]

no problem. so more or less honey gets a bad rap because the spore lives in the dirt... and there is more dirt than honey... it's just easier to slap a label on honey than dirt..

[Cylon]

I'm using medical honey in the clinic at work and have had some very surprising (unexpectedly good) results from it, when compared with the traditional magnoplasm.

[archer]

I'm using medical honey in the clinic at work and have had some very surprising (unexpectedly good) results from it, when compared with the traditional magnoplasm.

what brand/name?

[Scotty2Hotty]

I am also interested in what type/bread of medical honey that is being used. I have been using warm honey and a touch of whiskey to treat a sore throat for ages. My daughter has started somewhat willingly taking honey when she starts feeling scruffy, she is three so taking any sort of medicine so a battle for the ages. Honey seems to be the answer so any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[Cylon]

what brand/name?

It's "Medihoney wound gel" apparently it's made over in NZ from a specific type of bee, but don't quote me on that.

[MadBodger]

I remember reading an article a while ago that warned that a lot of "US" megamart brand honey is being diluted with cheap Chinese honey which is completely stripped of the good stuff (pollen)....

That's been one of my "go to" articles since it was written. It can be found in its original form at http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/#.UZOZtcwo7K5

The article was written by a Pulitzer winning investigative journalist, and corroborated with data from a Texas A& M university professor. Lengthy... yes. Disturbing...yes. Informative... absolutely!

True confession... We used to buy small amounts of "the good stuff" for "special" use, & Costco size containers of the generic stuff for everyday or baking use. Upon reading this article, the "not honey" was banned from the house, &  only locally sourced honey gains entrance to the pantry now, and a lot of it!

I recently spoke personally to the owner Nate, of http://naturenates.com, formerly known as North Dallas Honey Company (name change only, same owner) & he had a lot of encouraging news about the gains they've made recently in getting placed into the local mainstream markets & even price clubs. They also have a west coast operation that sources local honey in that region. For anybody without good local sourced honey, they also ship at what we consider to be reasonable prices. Honey is truly amazing stuff, & local, ethical beekeepers are some of the unsung heroes in todays struggle to reclaim wholeness in our lifestyles... No such thing as supporting them too much!

[archer]

Honey is truly amazing stuff, & local, ethical beekeepers are some of the unsung heroes in todays struggle to reclaim wholeness in our lifestyles... No such thing as supporting them too much!

and that is why i have a honey bee colony again.

thanks for the links.

[Burton]

I have used honey three times since I found out about how good it is compared to other 'medical' sources and figured I would share some recent experiences with honey in place of something like neosporin.

I had a minor scrape on my left wrist where one of my earthbox's I made somehow snagged me and it happen to do it while I was mixing soil for them >_< I went to clean it out but didn't remove all the dirt as I had to go right back to mixing. After mixing I rinsed it again and went down stairs with my hydrogen peroxide to clean it out more while I watched a friend clean his motorcycle chain as he came over to learn about how to do it.

Noticing he was near the end I put the hydrogen peroxide down and then showed him how to lube the chain. After lubing it i went to wipe it off and was using the wrong hands to do tasks I typically when doing it alone all while talking to my guest and I snagged my middle finger between the chain and sprocket. The bike was off, I would never touch the chain while the bike was on as I have seen people loose fingers but the sprocket still punctured my finger pretty good. In fact it looked like an indent of the tip of the sprocket when it happened.

I immediately rush to my bike and grab my first aid kit and brought it into the garage, after realizing I had grabbed my toolkit out of habit I rushed back and got the FA kit again. I instructed my guest to put on the gloves in the kit and start prepping gauze for me while I grabbed the Hydrogen peroxide and cleaned out the wound. At this point the injury was so fresh I couldn't feel the pain associated with doing this as my finger was relatively numb.  I prepped the surface with iodine as a final cleaning procedure and then lobbed on the honey.

As I was doing this I was explaining to my guest the contents of my FA kit and why honey is so good for wounds. I then have him put a clean gauze pad on top and I put more honey on it to saturate the gauze. I then topped it off with a wing adhesive bandage. The skin seemed only depressed and pushed out of the way so it was easy to 'close' though I did debate using adhesive wound closure strips originally.

Moving on to the next day and I wake to clean my wound and find it has healed shut on top, there is no redness, there is no hint of infection and it didn't really hurt at all unless you pressed it hard. I then realized I never got to clean out my scrape and looked over at it to find it had what I would call an infected scab with minor red'ing around it and some bits of dirt still mixed in. So I broke out the hydrogen peroxide again and sat for 10 minutes 'cleaning' what I could but realizing I didn't get too much of the scab or dirt bits out. So I used the same honey technique as before knowing exactly what would happen.

Flash forward to the next day (today) and I go to clean the wrist scrape and I find a mostly raw surface and a lot of the infection had literally disappeared. I was able to clean out 99% of the 'dirt' as the once solid thin infected scab had been softened to a point where it wicked into the gauze or was removed via cleaning. I just put more honey on it as I got these two days ago.

I expect tomorrow I will find the scrape, the one I am more worried about here, to be pinkish and there will be no infection. The skin will still be a little raw but it will be starting to heal from the ground up. After another day I will expect the same but not as pink and more skin on top. At this point I will feel safe leaving it exposed to the air more and loosely covering it with an adhesive bandage to protect it from impact but let air get to it.

My punctured finger is still healing though it is miles ahead of the scrape which is more of an open wound at this point. I have used honey on other wounds and it  can be messy and it requires a lot more than you think since the bandage will typically suck up a lot of the honey.  But it works, and it even works on wounds which already have a scab on them. I am looking at another scrape I got about a week ago which I treated with honey as well and it also had an infected scab which took two days of honey to 'fix' since it was a deeper scab. After that though the wound healed itself just as I described. Raw to pink to lighter pink to no scab but healing to shiny and pink (where it is now) to healed (where it will be in a couple days)

I have read of honey being used in open wounds as well only the technique of 'bandaging' them is different. If I recall you have to use a bandage which seals the honey into the wound to keep it in place. While I don't want to have to try it i will if time comes and I will keep stocking honey in my deep pantry.

[janinec]

Manuka honey is produced in Australia and NZ because of the plants the bees are harvesting. If you wanted to produce this from your own bees I see no reasons why you could not plant a small field to produce your own. Just a thought.

Janine