A Remedy for Drawing Infection From a Wound

Herbal remedies abound for both preventing and healing an infection. Most of these natural herbs and plants can be made into a topical ointment or salve and applied to a wound to draw out the infection.

Herbal Salve

• A simple herbal salve for an infected wound uses a well-known infection fighting herb, golden seal. When mixed with aloe vera, it makes an effective topical infection-fighting medicine. The type of aloe vera and golden seal used is important for the ointment to work properly though.

  There are many products on the market which contain one or more herbs. Not all of these are usable for medicinal purposes, though, because either there is just a small amount of actual plant material included or there are many other chemicals added which can be problematic.

  Aloe vera products often have perfumes and alcohol added to them, for example, and these are not good to use for treating infected wounds. The added chemicals can burn or sting when applied to a wound, and the extra chemicals can cause additional irritation or problems. For the purposes of an infection fighting salve, buy 100 percent organic aloe vera juice.

  The same issue can arise when buying golden seal. If you purchase a product which is not 100 percent herbal material, you run the risk of buying something that's ineffective because there's not enough of the actual herb included to draw out the infection. Hard pills have the additional issue of needing to be dissolved before they can be made into a salve. Organic golden seal in a gel caplet is best because you can open the caplet and use the dried ground herb from inside to make your ointment.

  Open the golden seal caplet and pour the dried herb onto a small plate. Add enough aloe vera juice to mix everything together well then spread the salve onto the infected wound and cover it with a clean bandage. Leave the salve and the bandage on overnight for the best results. In most cases the infection is gone by the next morning.

Tips

• Golden seal root is stronger than the leaves from the plant. When no golden seal is available, other infection fighting herbs such as garlic or echinacea can be used.

  Remember that herbal remedies are not recognized or approved by the FDA, and as with all medicinal approaches, individual results may vary. If the infection is severe or does not start clearing up within 48 hours, please visit your health-care practitioner.