Got Calendula? If you have roses, you need this herb!
If you love Dr. Pimple-popper, you're going to love this post! EWWWW!!!
I love roses. Especially knockout roses. When we bought our house a year and a half ago, one of the things that let me know it was really “my house” was the gorgeous, many-years-old Knockout Roses that line the front walkway. I love them. They are so easy to care for and respond perfectly to neglect - a necessity in this house. The only thing I have to do is cut them way back, and I mean down to the sticks, a few times a year. They respond by coming back even more full and beautiful each time.
I have had roses off and on during my lifetime, beginning with my mother’s rose garden, which was quite sizable. My most salient memories are of the huge Peace Roses, and of being on my knees, weeding. I didn’t really love roses at that point.
As a child, I was not responsible for cutting back the roses. That IS my responsibility now, and it’s one I love. It’s immediate gratification. And the payback is REALLY satisfying.
One drawback of Knockout Roses is their thorns. Especially as the bushes age, the thorns get really big and really sharp. I wear thick gardening gloves when I’m pruning, but I do occasionally get stuck. And that’s what happened a few weeks ago. I didn’t realize I had been pricked by a thorn until later that evening when I was shooting pool with my husband and suddenly noticed that my index finger on my right hand was sore and tender. When I checked, there was a tiny piece of thorn embedded in the side of my finger. I removed it, cleaned it, and went back to my pool game, thinking nothing more of it. “It’s a splinter” was my mentality.
A few days later, my finger really started to hurt. It was swelling and I could tell there was a nasty infection brewing.
Okay. Here’s the deal. I’m an artist. I paint. I’m a gardener. I garden. I’m a pool shooter. I shoot pool. I do a lot of things with my hands. I have never really had beautiful nails, other than in the late 1980s when I went through a brief love affair with acrylic nails. I learned to do them myself and they were gorgeous. And oh! So toxic! That was long before I knew about the dangers of benzene, formaldehyde, and toluene. I still love the way they look, but they aren’t for me. They don’t fit in my life and after living through and recovering from very serious illness, I have concluded that they aren’t worth the risk. Definitely not for me.
All of that said to say this: Don’t judge my nails and cuticles! This is a learning thing…
This picture shows my finger when I got to the point I knew I had to do something about it.
I upped my supplements. Lots of vitamin C. Blackseed oil. Zinc. Oregano Oil. Good stuff for infection fighting. The pain, redness, and swelling did not recede. At my Tuesday night pool tournament, one of my friends remarked, “Oh! You need to really be careful with that. Rose thorns can make you really sick.”
The next morning, I woke up with pain in my right elbow and radiating up to my shoulder. I went to a local “Urgent Care” place and the lovely and kind Nurse Practitioner confirmed that yes, Rose Gardener’s Disease is a real thing, and YES, I needed to take this seriously. She pushed on one side of my finger to see if there was any white spot, indicating that she would be able to lance and drain the infection. Nope. No white. No lancing. She put me on a ten-day course of Doxycycline and gave me a prescription for 600 mg. Ibuprofen for the pain and inflammation.
I was definitely not excited about taking a strong antibiotic for the next ten days. And I hate taking Ibuprofen at all, much less 600 mg. at a time. I know what these things do to my body, starting with the destruction of the microbiome. But. From all indications, this is what I needed. So, I went home, took my first doses and fretted. For about five minutes. Two hours later I ate some kimchi and took a powerful probiotic, and resigned myself that this was going to be what I needed to do.
And then I started researching.
Rose Gardener’s Disease? What the heck is THAT?? I had never heard of Rose Gardener’s Disease before. So, I “Googled it.” This is the point where I got genuinely worried. Rose Gardener’s Disease, or sporotrichosis, is a fungal infection that can pretty quickly go systemic and put you in the hospital. Oh, crap. I’m really not interested in THAT.
But wait. If this is a fungal infection, why am I taking an antibiotic? This is where my background and what I know about fungal overgrowth and antibiotics started setting off some very big alarm bells. I looked a bit more and found out that rose thorns can also cause bacterial infections and…
Antibiotics can often effectively treat actinomycetoma.
Although eumycetoma is commonly treated with long-term antifungal medication, treatment may not cure the disease.
Surgery, including amputation, might be necessary to remove infected tissue.
Oh, shit. Definitely not interested in that.
The more I looked the worse it got.
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Okay. Definitely not interested in ANY of THAT.
In my somewhat panicked state, the feeling of fear was amplified when I read that doctors often don’t consider that the infection could be fungal, rather than bacterial, and that it’s only after antibiotics don’t work that the fungal infection is finally diagnosed and treated, and by this time, you might well be in the hospital. Or worse.
Shit.
Is it fungal? Or is it bacterial? From the research I was doing, I felt fairly confident that the presentation was consistent with a bacterial infection. But. What if it’s not? I was sufficiently concerned enough to keep taking the antibiotic.
Fast forward to day four of twice daily Doxycycline. Nothing. No response. The pain in my elbow and shoulder did calm down, but the infection in my finger continued to rage like a wildfire. And the amount of concern I was feeling was growing.
Enter my best friend, Sherry.
I had already taken my morning dose of antibiotic on March 9th, prior to seeing Sherry’s message. I puttered around a while that morning, and by around 11:00, I was ready to try the calendula.
This is what my finger looked like before soaking in calendula.
This is what I used:
This is what I did: I put 4 droppers (ml) in about 1/4 cup of filtered water and immersed the end of my finger. And waited.
I didn’t have to wait long. Two hours later, I sent Sherry the following message:
Just so you know… I am not a sitter. I don’t sit well for long periods of time, unless my mind is actively engaged in something. Like writing this post… On March 9th, I initially soaked for two hours and then took a break for about two hours before starting again. The next screen shot is after an additional two hours of soaking, so total of four hours at this point.
Disclaimer: If you are easily grossed out, the next few photos might send you looking for a bucket to puke in. If, on the other hand, you LOVE watching Dr. Pimple Popper, you’re going to love this!
photo below taken at 7:07 pm on March 9th. Total soak time: 4.5 hours.
Next photo taken at 7:39 pm. Note: I did not “pop” or do anything to encourage the release of pus.
Next photo taken at 7:53 pm.
8:12 pm, March 9th:
Already feeling so much better! Pain and swelling greatly reduced, and the amount of infection cleared was just… wow. Still some work to do. I cleaned the little ramekin I was using and reloaded with four more droppers of calendula and fresh water. Started soaking again at 9:00 pm. Thirty minutes later (9:33 pm, to be exact), the drawing out was in full swing again…
I stopped soaking shortly after the above photo. I put a couple of drops of calendula on the area, covered it with a Band-Aid, and went to bed. I did not take my second dose of Doxycycline, and I felt very comfortable about that decision. It just didn’t make sense to me to continue taking a strong antibiotic that *is supposed to* work systemically, when, clearly, eradicating the infection locally with calendula was much faster and far more effective. And it didn’t mess with my gut. I stopped the Doxycycline completely and haven’t taken it, or the Ibuprofen, since.
The next photo shows my finger the following morning.
9:14 am March 10th. Prior to (day 2) calendula soak:
Fifteen minutes of calendula soak. Photo below taken at 9:29 am, March 10th.
10:07 am, March 10th:
I soaked for probably another hour on March 10th. The skin where the infection had been growing was stretched in the process from all the pus. I am also 64 years old… the outer layer of skin had been damaged and was fragile from soaking. It began to peel away. There was still some infection that could be seen in the areas around the edges of the infection. I soaked for about thirty minutes in hydrogen peroxide (3%) and the rest of the skin peeled away and the remaining infection went with it. Note: Be careful about soaking for any length of time in hydrogen peroxide. It will cause your skin to peel. In this case, it’s what needed to happen to get to the infection that was trapped beneath the already damaged skin.
I wish I had taken more pictures of my finger over the last few weeks. It was pretty discolored (pink) where the new skin is exposed. Kinda like a sunburn that’s peeled and how the new skin looks…
Here is how it looks now:
No more infection. No more swelling. No more tenderness. And just look at that beautiful nail! (insert smiling face).
Lessons learned:
Always take great care when trimming the (gorgeous) roses. Wear gloves. Good ones. And if you get stuck by a thorn, clean it immediately. Make sure there is nothing left in the wound. Treat with antibiotic ointment - or better yet, hit it with a drop of two of calendula tincture.
Keep calendula on hand! You never know when you might need it. It’s good for your immune system. It fights ALL KINDS of infections - bacterial, viral, fungal… the works. And, it’s really good for dogs, too. The reason I had it in my cabinet was because I used it two years ago when Tanner (our sweet yellow lab wannabe) got seawater in his ears after a trip to the Outer Banks and playing in the Atlantic Ocean. I’m not kidding. This stuff really is magic! You don’t want to be without it.
Be grateful. Be especially grateful for like-minded friends who share things with you out of love. I hesitate to think how things might have turned out if not for Sherry’s message directing me to something that I already had on hand but didn’t think to use. Two brains are always better than one. And when those two brains are connected to two hearts and two souls traveling this journey together, that’s when the magic really happens.
Trust your instincts. Going against mainstream medicine can be scary. When you’re dealing with infection or serious illness, it can be downright terrifying. To clarify… I am NOT advising ANYONE to stop taking prescription medication just because you read something on the internet. I have been doing this a long time and am very comfortable with alternative methods of healing. If it hadn’t been for alternative medicine, I cannot even think where I might be today. Mainstream medicine nearly killed me. Do your own research AND consult with knowledgeable professionals: naturopathic physicians, herbalists, homeopaths, chiropractors… And keep in mind that prior to 2020, medical error (allopathic medicine) was the third leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for between 250,000 and 440,000 deaths each year.
Learn more about calendula in this excellent post from Kate Tietje. If you don’t know Kate or are unfamiliar with her work, I highly recommend following her at Modern Alternative Mama. I’ve been a fan for many years and her work and advise are always spot-on.
Wow! That’s awesome thanks for sharing! Yes, I too have my own calendula success story that I helped my friend with. I stumbled upon calendula about a year ago and used it on my dog that had developed a hot spot after grooming. Cleared it right up. My friend had come over on Friday, because her lip was swelling up.. I gave some calendula and lysine (we think she was beginning to develop a fever blister) cleared it right up 80%improvement overnight. I’m basically my neighborhood Apothecary I have built up a chest of supplements, herbs and natural remedies, with information from other natural paths I follow. This is how we used to be able to heal thyself before the natural remedies got replaced by all the crap we have now. Look up the benefits of Colloidal Silver to keep in your medicine chest. It is also an anti-fungal remedy for numerous, numerous remedies!! I have so many anecdotal testimonials from using it topically and drinking it for the last five years.
Yes! My blacksmith daughter got a small burn on her hand a couple of months ago. She gets burns often and thought nothing of this one. Unfortunately that hand was still healing from a different minor injury.
A few days later, she woke up to painful swelling. The burn was infected. She applied a calendula poultice for 15-30 min followed by a bandaid with activated charcoal. But those weren’t enough.
By evening she couldn’t even hold a fork. Thankfully, a family member knew an herbalist local to her. The herbalist opened up the office after hours and gave her a strong calendula ‘goop’ to apply daily. It took a few days, but the pain and infection waned. Within two weeks she was completely healed. I thank God for that herbalist and that goop. Medical doctors would have destroyed my daughter’s gut and only MAYBE healed the infection.