How to Take a Salt Bath to Help a Wound

People who need to treat a wound should take comfort in knowing that a time-tested remedy is already in their pantry. After you receive an injury or wound, ready access to treatment is comforting and critical to your recovery. To keep a wound sterile and promote recovery, you can soak in a salt bath. The solution cleans exposed flesh, ensuring proper and timely healing. Salt also detoxifies your body and replenishes proteins in your joints and brain.

Things You'll Need

• Tweezers
• Epsom or Dead Sea salt
• Bowl
• Unmedicated gauze
• Elastic or synthetic fiber gauze

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Instructions

• 1

  Remove foreign debris from the wound that you can grasp with your fingers or tweezers. Do not attempt to remove every particle of dust. Prolonged contact with exposed, injured flesh may infect the area, inhibit healing and cause pain. Remaining dirt or debris should work its way out of the wound in the bath.

• 2

  Avoid further contact with the wound prior to the salt bath. Do not wash the area with pure water, soaps or antibacterial ointments.

• 3

  Fill a bathtub with warm water. Add 1 cup of Epsom or Dead Sea salt to the water. Stir the water until the salt dissolves.

• 4

  Drink one or two glasses of unsalted water while you wait for the salt to dissolve. Increasing the salt concentration outside of your body can leach water out of your body, causing you to dehydrate.

• 5

  Climb into the bathtub gently. Position yourself so that the wound is exposed to the water entirely, if possible. Soak in the water for 12 to 20 minutes.

• 6

  Pat yourself dry gently with a towel. Blot the wound as little as possible. Drain the bath water. Each salt bath must be fresh.

• 7

  Pour 2 cups of fresh water in a bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of Epsom or Dead Sea salt. Stir the mixture until the salt dissolves. Place dry, unmedicated gauze in the solution.

• 8

  Squeeze the saturated gauze to remove excess water. Wrap the wound with the treated gauze. Wrap elastic or synthetic fiber gauze over the wet material to keep it from dripping. Leave the gauze on the wound between baths unless wound drainage requires you to change the dressing. Cover the solution and store it in a refrigerator up to four days.

• 9

  Bathe up to twice a day until the wound heals. Remove the gauze before each bath. Soak fresh gauze to wrap the wound following a bath.