Treating skin wounds start by diagnosing the problem. For this reason, we may divide this article into subsections according to diagnoses, or causes, or skin symptoms of a vast variety. Instead we will divide our treatments into two types: Dry wounds and wet wounds. Dry wounds may be distinguished by the fact that they are not festering or oozing some goo. Bleeding from a fresh wound is considered as ‘dry’. Dry wounds are best kept clean and dry and well aired.
Fresh dry wounds have a fairly well proven protocol:
Clean the wound immediately. No matter how bad it is bleeding, sometimes blood is the only liquid available for getting debris out the wound. All other attempts to repair damage will be negated by the festering of dirt inside a bandaged wound. The most bestest substance to wash a wound with was and is always water. Clean water, but the stuff they feed you through your house’s taps will do in an emergency. If the wound is still bleeding by this time, you need serious help. Start by applying pressure, not a tourniquet.
Finding the right point to press may take some time, but if the wound is bleeding badly, there must be a large vein open, which can be closed down by pressing it shut before it exits the wound. This should allow time for further treatment. At GREENPETS, this implies you are reaching for the Sphagnum Moss. Some of our friends and colleagues who have seen us demonstrate the efficacy of this stuff, refer to it as Magic Moss. Cover the wound liberally in the moss. This will soak up blood and keep the wound uninfected.
Here be some warning about using sphagnum moss: you are obviously in distress (wounded) and depending upon the severity of you wound, on your way to find medical assistance. When you approach a trained professional with a wound stuffed with something that looks like mud, you will be treated as an idiot. Also, the quick healing of a wound bandaged with moss necessitates very quick secondary treatment to prevent scars. In other words, as soon as the wound stops bleeding, you have to remove every last bit of moss, and get stitched up. If not, the gaping wound will heal quickly and cleanly, but with a wider scar than if it got stitched.
Sphagnum Moss is easily removed from a wound by gentle splashing with water. That’s it, it comes off very easily, and it simultaneously scrubs the wound of other small debris. Keeping the wound bandaged with moss instead of other salves, ointments and concoctions, will keep your wound breathing clean healing air, while soaking up any fluids that may ooze, which would otherwise irritate surrounding skin. Also, changing bandages becomes less yucky with those funny pussy fluids of normal treatments, except that the dried moss may fall like potting soil all over, the slightest breeze scatters it. What’s left on the wound just rinses off, remember. Good luck sweeping the carpet, though…
Then, there are the wet wounds. An example would be the patch of skin torn off your knee in the parking lot football game. Fresh wet wounds are treated like dry wounds, and if you gone done it proper, it should not become a wet wound. After cleaning the wound, which should be easier and less bloody work than a deep cut, the wound can be covered in the juice of Sourfig. This will disinfect and also dry into a thin protective payer. Keep the wound clean and breathing, with regular applications of Sourfig. Instructions for the correct application of sourfig can be found at the Sourfig Herbal Page.
Once the wound has dried nicely, and can be kept open and free, a generous layer of Aloe Vera can be applied. This will quickly dry into a thin, soft, pliable protective layer over the skin. This will keep the wound clean, protect the new scar tissue against light and stress, reducing or even preventing scarring after the wound heals. There is no reason to stop applying Aloe after the wound has healed; keep it up until you are sure there is no more improvement in the appearance of the scar. This is not cosmetic surgery, scar tissue means healing, but scar tissue is new-born baby skin, it should be treated no more harshly than you would a new-born baby’s skin. Sunburn turns a fresh, treatable scar into permanent disfigurement.
For old, green, festering wounds, things become tricky; people with such wounds very often have given up trying to find ‘anything that works’. Sometimes the cause is financial, or just a question of access. In all cases, the wound is old, which means the patient has sorta gotten used to living with the wound. This may or may not mean that they will co-operate. By this time, any offer of help will surely be met with scepticism, as ‘everyone has already tried’. You first task is to get past the hopelessness. Both the refusal of help and the demand for immediate results to prove your competency must be taken in the context of a desperate person who has obviously ‘tried everything’. Do not get pulled into the despair, because the next step will surely need your energy more:
Getting past the green smell of an old wound is no walk in the park. All living organisms retreat from its own kind if it stinks of death. Breathe not too deeply of the death-smell, it has effects more than just wrinkling your nose. Kind begets kind, remember. Next, you must convince the patient that the thing needs cleaning. Any skins and scabs and things on the surface has to be removed, with repeated washing with water, clean water, sterile water if you can. A good soak in salt water may be helpful, otherwise repeated sponging or brushing. If available, make a tea of one or more, preferably all the following: Lavender, thyme, sage and rosemary. These are available in most urban neighbourhoods as garden plants, and in shops as cooking herbs. GREENPETS prefer their tea herbals fresh, purely by reason of knowing exactly what we have in hand. Scrub the wound clean with this tea, convince the patient to keep washing the wound thusly, and also have the patient drink the tea twice a day as systemic support to aid healing. Cold sores and open ulcers respond well to this treatment.
After cleaning an old green wound of all putrefied matter, disinfect with sourfig. Dust with moss and bandage if needed. At all cost avoid getting a wound all sweaty and fermenting. The trick is to keep the wound open to air while keeping infection out, and bacterial infectors are microscopic.
For wounds where scarring would be cosmetically disastrous, keep your treatment to first aid, get the patient to professional help, and try rinse off the moss before you send them in. The good doctors will do the expensive things needed to prevent any prettiness escaping through the laceration. Trust me, you do not want to be saddled with the accusations that you ruined a pretty thing. They will only remember the scar, not the gratitude for saving their life or limb. If the good doctor kills them, that’s life, if you scar them, you are an evil incompetent, beware their lawyers.
