Essential Children's First Aid Remedies

 

by Louise Mclean, LCCH.

There are certain remedies that are extremely useful in an emergency and you should keep in your bathroom cupboard when your child has an accident.

The first of these is ARNICA.  You can get the Arnica cream to apply to the skin for bruises but the homeopathic Arnica remedy is far more effective. Buy Arnica 200c and Arnica 30c, depending on how serious the accident.

For a very bad bruise to the soft tissue, i.e. thighs, buttocks, abdomen give one dose of the 200c potency.

If your child has a bad head injury, Arnica is invaluable, even if slightly concussed. Arnica 200c is the first remedy to be given in any head injury.  It will bring up the bump and then heal it very quickly. 

Arnica 30c is also the remedy for a sprained ankle, for a pulled muscle as well.  It can also be given for whiplash in a car accident.  It is a very versatile remedy!

You will find that children love taking homeopathic remedies, as they taste nice and sweetish, are very small and do not need to be swallowed, just sucked! For this reason they might want to take more! It is very important not to give more than one 200c but two 30c can be given.  The point is when the remedies work, no more need to be given as homeopathic remedies keep working long after they are taken.

For blows to the actual bones, you will need Ruta Grav 30c. For example once a child had a hard ball hit her nose and she was better very quickly with Ruta Grav and when I say quickly for Arnica and Ruta, I mean within a few hours!

For broken bones or just a fracture of the bone, you can give Symphytum 200c and the bone will knit together fast. Symphytum is the herb Comfrey or Knitbone, made into a homeopathic remedy.

For less serious bumps and blows you can rub the Bach Flower Rescue Remedy Cream on them, which works very well.  

Bach Flower Rescue Remedy Cream can be used for burns.  Rub the cream on thickly and there will be no mark on the skin from the burn.

Rescue Remedy Cream is also very good for insect bites. One friend of mine was stung by an African bee in South Africa and I had given her a tube of the cream.  It was a Sunday and she tried everything, then used the cream which worked perfectly, giving great relief and healed the sting.

Rescue Remedy Cream will get rid of the itchiness after any insect bite.

Rescue Remedy Cream is excellent for Chicken Pox!  When the spots have come up and then become extremely itchy.  I found it much better for children than old fashioned calamine lotion that was used in the past. If you put the cream on the spots, they will not be itchy and therefore not scratched, which would leave a small lifelong scar. 

Aromatherapy Lavender Oil is another absolutely invaluable thing to have in your first aid cupboard! If your child has a bad cut which is bleeding, get them to the bathroom, drop about 8 drops of lavender oil into the wash basin or bath.  Fill it with warm water.  Get cotton wool or a wad of cosmetic pads.  Soak this in the lavender water and bathe the cut.  So the lavender is Antiseptic and will kill off all germs.  It should stop the bleeding.  You will find the next day the cut is almost completely healed.  Lavender heals really fast!  Also it is very soothing for your child to breathe in.  It will calm your child down after the fright of the injury.

For a wound which is bleeding profusely, you can give the homeopathic remedy Calendula 30c or you can apply Calendula cream on it.  Calendula is also Antiseptic and kills germs. It will stop the bleeding.

Likewise if you have a fractious, bad tempered or over excited child, before bedtime you can run a bath and drop some lavender drops in it and this will calm your child down and help them sleep better.

If your child falls heavily on their coccyx at the end of the spine, bangs their elbow hard or injures it, or crushes their finger tips in the door, the remedy is the big one for Nerve damage, which is Hypericum 30c. The coccyx, elbows and finger tips are places rich in nerve endings.

Splinters will come out very quickly if you give one dose of Silicea 6c. I have seen them come out within 5 minutes of taking this remedy, which ejects foreign objects from the body.  NOT to be used on people who have metal fastenings or hip operations or any foreign object in their body, as the Silicea will try to push them out!

For a child that has repeated blood tests requiring needles, you can give them Ledum 6c, which is a remedy for puncture wounds and it will heal up the needle wounds speedily.

You will find these things are quick and effective and much better than dragging your already traumatised child to Accident & Emergency at the hospital and possibly left to wait for hours.  These things can be dealt with quickly at home. Of course for serious accidents, it is obviously necessary to go and see a doctor immediately.

The Healing Properties of Calendula

by Louise Mclean

Calendula Officinalis is a bright yellow or orange flower and comes from the daisy family, commonly called pot marigold and grows from one to three foot high (30-90 cm).  Marigold is an attractive and fairly easy annual plant to grow, which withstands the cold well, blooming in spring to autumn. 

Over the past week or so we have experienced freezing cold weather and I have noticed my skin, especially my hands, feel extremely dry, like sandpaper.  Nothing I put on them seems to really alleviate the discomfort but I remembered Calendula cream is good and very healing, so I put some on today and found it worked!  I had previously tried the wonderfully rich castor oil but even that didn't help as much as the Calendula cream in this instance, which is better designed for chapped hands.

In fact Calendula, which is made from Marigold flowers, is extremely good for cuts and abrasions.  If you have a cut that is bleeding, it is specifically good for stemming the blood flow and fast healing.  It is good for open wounds, parts that will not heal, ulcers, etc.  It can also be used on superficial scalds and burns.

The other contender for fast healing is Lavender Aromatherapy Oil.  If you have a seriously bad cut, you can simply run a basin or bucket of warm water, add a few drops of lavender oil and place the part of your body with the cut into it for at least 10 minutes.  You will be amazed that the cut will almost totally have healed up overnight!  What is so good about this is that lavender is antiseptic, so no need to use anything nasty that will sting your cut to clean it, the lavender water will do this AND completely soothe any pain from the cut, as lavender is calming and soothing.

Now Calendula is also antiseptic, so the cream can be immediately applied to any cut, to clean and stem the flow of blood.  It also has antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory properties.

Another very important use for Calendula is for breastfeeding women!  Very often with a first baby, women find their nipples become extremely sore from the baby sucking.  All you need to do in between feeds, is put the Calendula cream on them for fast healing.  Remember it is antiseptic, so safe for the baby, if they get a little on their mouths.  In addition, it is excellent for nappy rash.

The Calendula homeopathic remedy in a 30c or 200c can be taken for tears to muscles or ligaments, commonly known as lacerations.

A very important use is to apply the cream on sunburnt skin to help heal it but I personally prefer the Bach Flower Rescue Remedy Cream for sunburn.  We used it to great effect on our holiday last summer, when one of us was seriously badly burnt!  It completely healed after three applications and took away all the pain, as well as averting any peeling of the skin!

Someone I know had a chemical skin peel face treatment and afterwards her skin certainly peeled in a rather dramatic way but applying calendula cream repeatedly, soon healed her face up quickly!

In addition to using Calendula cream, there is also the homeopathic pill form. This is good to take as well, if you have a badly bleeding cut.  The homeopathy remedy pill sucked and taken internally sometimes works better than the cream, as you can choose the potency 6c, 30c or 200c, depending how serious the wound is.  

I have used it after tooth extraction to stop the bleeding.  You might have to apply the cream quite a few times to a cut but if you take the homeopathic Calendula pill, it works much more quickly and effectively.

Incidentally, the homeopathic remedy Calendula 30c should be taken for those with cervical cancer, as it heals the wart virus and the raw soreness of the vagina that accompanies this condition.  Indeed the homeopathic Calendula is used as an intercurrent remedy for cancer.

All in all Calendula cream (and the homeopathic Calendula remedy) are things I would definitely always keep in my first aid kit and the cream is definitely helping my dry hands in this freezing weather at the moment!