Heads-Up: If you're sensitive (no shame! so am I!), or eating, you might want to know that this post includes pictures showing an open cut. It's not pretty, but is here to show contrast.
Coconut oil (also known as copra oil) has been my main health and beauty product for the last several years. I first started with it in the kitchen, to ingest and use nutritionally. Then it made its way to my bathroom, where I regularly use it as:
- head-to-toe moisturizer (boosts collagen, and skin is penetrated and quenched)
- home-made toothpaste (with baking soda and a minty essential oil)
- home-made deodorant (with baking soda and an appealing essential oil)
- personal lubricant (well, have neither needed nor used it in this way since being in Acapulco, but one day...)
Earlier this week, it came through with a new use: wound healer.
Monday night, I fell in my apartment's hallway. The floors are stone, so there's no bounce whatsoever. My head crashed on it, hard. (Thank goodness for the thick curls that helped cushion my noggin!)
The impact caused the skin to the side of my right eyebrow to split. Kinda deeply. There was a fair amount of blood on the floor, and there will be a lasting scar. #scarface :-(
I deeply distrust allopathic (mainstream) medicine. Their premises and presumptions about health are very different from mine, so I decided to handle this myself at home. This is what I have used on the wound since Monday:
Six to eight times a day I rinse it with hydrogen peroxide. Gently rub coconut oil on/in the wound. Then tape the edges together to try to close that gap!
According to Healthline, "Coconut oil seems to have antibacterial properties that can help improve healing and reduce skin infections." In addition to being antibacterial, coconut oil is also:
- antiseptic
- antifungal
- antioxidant
- antimicrobial
- antiinflammatory
- antiaging
"Three of the identified mechanisms behind these healing effects are its ability to accelerate re-epithelialization, improve antioxidant enzyme activity, and stimulate higher collagen cross-linking within the tissue being repaired."
Collagen cross-linking. Yes, please! I took this pic only five days after the fall, and am amazed at how well -- and how quickly -- it is healing.
When hurt or injured, there is a tendency to immediately outsource healing care. And in an urgent situation, I certainly would seek medical assistance that I could not address myself. But there are a lot of healing things we can do for ourselves. Often, simply. Cheaply. Naturally.
The more closely we live with plants (and awareness of how they enhance and enrich us), the healthier and happier we become.
