I’ve tried Bag Balm for cracked, chapped hands & fingers and found it worked decently. I apply at night and my paws were noticeably better the next morning. BUT, it wasn’t dramatically better than any other hand cream or lotion and those don’t have the delightful aroma and, er, lasting stickypalms and fingers of BB. You can really smell ot working!
Like the “science” behind Vicks VapoRub?
I came in here to say this. One of the labs I worked at had aloe vera plants growing not only for show but for healing. If you got a bad burn, their solution was to crush a leaf and rub it into the skin. They swore by the stuff.
I jumped on a KTM motorcycle (as passenger) when I was about 14, horsing around on farm bikes. I usually mount from the left side. Most bikes that I had ridden at that point in my young career had the exhaust on the right side. Not the KTM.
I got a roughly round 15cm diameter burn on my inner thigh. Probably 2nd degree, although I am no doctor.
The farmer took me to his wife who dressed the burn with a paste of bicarbonate of soda and water.
Incredibly I don’t even have a scar.
I also don’t have any peer-reveiwed research to support my claim, though. I have hot-oil burn and a dry-ice “burn” scars that prove I am not invincible.
Hubster had a pressure sore. The home nurse used many things to heal it from the inside out. Apparently one of the things she used contained honey.
Erm, should have read the whole thread.
Pressure sores are a particular problem. As the offense cannot be mitigated. The person has to sit or lay there. Moving the patient helps but is not always to a better position for other reasons.
They will kill a person if not treated properly. I have a personal fear of them.
I hope your husbands has healed. That is party time.
OTOH, bag balm does nothing for me. Neither does that O’keefes. (Yes, I have thread about it somewhere in the bowels of the Dope). I was ultimately not impressed.
Vaseline actually costs as much as Bag balm. You can get tiny amounts of Vaseline, tho’.
I was surprised to find the cost of the tub of V-jelly, the size I have(oh yeah, its so big I’ve had the same one for a couple of years) was so expensive when I went to buy another. I promptly decided it wasn’t going to age rudely. So I waited. I still have it. I rub it on my elbows and knees every night. It may never run out.
Now I used O’Keefe’s on my fingers. When I worked full time, I worked on a touch screen register, and spent as much time as possible in the cooler, (it beat the hell out of customer service. Still does as part time.) At any rate, in the Winter my fingers constanly cracked and bled. Liquid bandage kept me from bleeding all over, but O’Keefe’s healed the cracks, and prevented some of the damage.
I recall reading an article (sorry, no cite, it was a long time ago) that investigated “home remedies” and, surprisingly, chicken soup is good for a cold/flu. It will not heal you, as such, at all. But, it provides some necessary nutrients your body needs which helps it fight the cold/flu and, it is something someone who is ill can probably tolerate eating.
To be clear, there is no magic hocus-pocus here at all. The illness will still run its course and you will be miserable for a few days. But it helps some.
I agree. Aloe has done wonders for me a few times. I get the stuff with no scent or anything. Just 98% (or whatever it is) aloe. Great for various minor skin issues.
Oh. I bet it helped with the frozen and cracking skin, like that.
It didn’t help me, for what I needed. So I was not impressed.
My skin and your skin, (the big we) is different.
What works for one may not work for others.
Aquaphor smells better than bag balm maybe works better too.
Yes, that is true. Triple antibiotic/Neosporin beats it out on some types of woulds, and it is what most doctors recommend. But if you have some honey and nothing else, it can be a good choice. Few people would have medical grade honey on hand. Some studies have shown Manuka Honey to be better.
Yep.
Yes, in general.
Bag Balm isnt a bad choice, it contains a mild antibiotic.
For mild burns, yes. Not wounds.
They can be- by a sheepskin.wool mattress pad.
I was STRONGLY encouraged to use silicone scar strips on my wrist, back in 2018. The OT gave me a bit of really thick stuff that worked great, but didn’t last forever; I was forced to get the over-the-counter sort which was super thin and preferred to stick to itself rather than my skin, and was a huge pain. I wish I’d been better able to find the thicker stuff.
Whether it helped, I don’t know. Her take was that reducing scarring would improve wrist function - the beginning of each session typically involved stretching and massaging the area to loosen things up internally.
Studies are inconclusive. But it did no harm, and may have helped.
I had such a large wound I was really anxious the scar was not really as bad as it could be.
I heal slowly, so scarring is always worse(I’ve found).
Anyway, I had scar sheets!.
I suppose they helped some. Not perfect, but as you say no harm done.
Sheepskin doesn’t heal the skin.
Of course not, but it prevents the sores from happening in the first place.
My dermatologist said to never use a neosporin type salve for aftercare from a biopsy. I didn’t hve Vaseline so I once used neosporin big mistake! That irritated the hell out of my skin.
Second degree is blisters but still surface only.
Might be obvious to folks, but that graphic is mislabeled. 1 is epidermis, 2 is dermis and 3 is subcutaneous tissue (mostly adipose).
If anyone wants a summary of aloe’s healing efficacy, Wikipedia’s main source for its article on the topic is drugs.com.
The overview begins:
“Topical aloe appears to inhibit infection and promote healing of minor burns and wounds, frostbite, striae gravidum, and skin affected by diseases such as psoriasis and seborrheic dermatitis, although studies have had conflicting results.”
The section on wound healing begins almost exactly halfway down. It reviews many studies, some good, some bad, several weird (e.g. Testing a mixture of aloe and olive oil).