Wound Care Naturally

Goats are notorious for getting into trouble and Birdie managed to slice her leg open terribly on a rusty nail that she found when she was in an area we usually do not have the goats. We found her shortly after it happened with a tendon severed, a lot of blood and a very ugly gash that was about 4" long.  We unfortunately had more vet bills already this year than we'd had for over a decade, and really could not afford to take another goat in as I knew this wound would cost hundreds of dollars at our vet... Plus, I have seen herbs work incredibly well in healing serious wounds, so trusted that we could heal her ourselves.  My biggest fear for her was infection and possibly tetanus (however, being an open wound rather than puncture and applying tea tree immediately, I wasn't too worried about the tetanus possibility). As of this writing, we are 32 days after the cut and she is doing AMAZINGLY well.  She walks like nothing ever happened to her and the wound is almost completely healed!  Will update this page once it is 100% healed.

Day 1                               Day 11                                  Day 32

I will document here what we did for Birdie as well as photos to show her progression.

Here are some of the products we used:

Day 1 - wounded around noon.  Hard to photograph because of the blood and bright sunlight. What you can't see here is the end of the cut.  It started above and on the outside of the knee and wrapped around and down to the inside of the knee.

 

First sprayed with tea tree (melaleuca) oil, then sprayed with LiquaLife. After letting these both soak in I cleaned it as best I could with iodine.

Bandaged with a poultice of fresh comfrey, yarrow and plantain chopped in blender with manuka honey, LiquaLife, tea tree oil and Wounderful! salve, small amount of cayenne. Placed herb blend on paper towel and wrapped onto her leg with vet wrap.

When we laid her down to put the poultice on, she thrashed and caused the wound to begin bleeding profusely, so was not able to pull it together as well a I would have liked as we had to just wrap it quickly to stop the bleeding.

Orally gave:

Also gave fresh comfrey and yarrow to eat (and grass) and tea of comfrey, yarrow, nettle, clover, plantain to drink free choice.

Day 2

Gave Vitatone and tea in syringe

Noonish gave - Colloidal silver, VitaTone, aloe C

1pm ish

Removed bandage and soaked for 3 minutes in warm Epsom salts (later learned that Epsom salts were not the best idea).

Sprayed with: lemongrass, tea tree, lavender, thieves, in olive oil

Poultice of fresh comfrey, yarrow and plantain chopped in blender with manuka honey, liqualife, and above oils

Thankfully did not begin severe bleeding again, but was obviously painful.  Swelling wasn’t actually too bad although above the bandage was puffy.  It was very painful (the exposed tendon was especially tender/sensitive).  She kicked and fought hard at times.  Took all my husband’s strength (and he's strong) and my brother and sister helping to hold her still for me.

Oregano oil orally 3pm (1 drop in 5cc olive oil)

4:30 gave:

Repeat above at 7 or 8 and then right before bed gave it again plus oregano oil

Day 3

Upon arising:

10am - Oregano oil. Comfrey and yarrow leaves 

1pm

Took temp - 102.6 Good!

4pm

Remove bandage, soak leg in epsom salts with lavender oil to remove old poultice

Spray wound with essential oil blend (5 drops each peppermint, lemongrass, thieves, tea tree in 1 oz olive oil)

Coat with Wounderful! salve and then poultice of fresh comfrey, yarrow and plantain chopped in blender with manuka honey, LiquaLife. Gave probios too.

7pm

Before bed - Oregano oil and probios

Day 4 (Sunday, so not home for the late morning and afternoon) Same as day 3 except for nothing between 10am and 6pm

Day 5 - same treatments as day 3. 

Very perky, walking outside with a fair amount of weight on leg, belly not as full as yesteday, but good appetite.

When changing bandage, had to dig out some of the herbs from the wound - probably a 1/2 inch deep next to the tendon.  Still very tender, sensitive and painful.

 

Day 6

Repeat previous day of oral administrations except Colloidal Silver - she did drink her tea this day better than previous days.

HUGE thunderstorms all day

When we took her wrap off, we let her walk around the shed for a while as it was a downpour with big hail outside and we didn’t want the sound to scare her while we pinned her for replacing the bandage

She licked her wound a lot after removal of the bandage - it was pretty itchy (good sign!)

Sprayed down with essential oils and then packed with Wounderful! salve (no additional herbs) and rebandaged.  Only took a few moments of being pinned down to replace the bandage - much better than previous days.

 

Day 7 - same treatment as day 6

Day 8

Oral treatments from previous repeated except missed one of the oregano doses

Removed bandage for a few hours around noon (not getting enough airflow) and then put pantyhose to keep flies off.  (didn't work too well as it stuck and then bled a little when removed at night) Sprayed with essential oil mix.

Replaced bandage around 8:30. Sprayed with essential oil mix and then a small amount of Wounderful salve before wrapping with gauze.

Day 9 (Friday, May 19th, 2017)

Fir Meadow Order arrived, so started a new regimen...

Time Treatment
Upon arising 7am Herb mix
After feeding kids 10am Oregano oil, Fresh comfrey/yarrow/grass
Before lunch 1pm Herb mix
Afternoon 4pm Oregano oil
Fresh comfrey/yarrow/grass
Evening Replace bandage & give Probios
Before milking 7pm Herb mix
Before bed  10pm Oregano Oil

'Herb Mix'

Oregano oil (1 drop in 5cc olive oil given 3x/day)

Fresh Comfrey (2 leaves each time) and handful of yarrow and grass

Bandage procedure

Essential oil mix used at this point:

Kept this up for the next 11 days (Day 9-20). INCREDIBLE progress.  See pictures.

Day 11

Wound looked bad - rotty smell and pus on lower left hand corner.  Held her down (took 3 adults) and dug it all out. Saturated with colloidal silver and then let her clean it off again.  Drenched in oils. Slathered in salve and rewrapped. And prayer!

Day 12

Day 13

 

Day 18

Day 20 - flesh largely closed up except for around the tendon. Stopped the oregano oil as infection risk largely gone.

Day 23

Decided it was staying too moist with the salves now, so experimented with leaving bandage off and just spraying with the essential oil blend 2-3x/day. Also cut back on the herbs.

Day 32 - flesh all closed up and skin grown over except for a 1/4" area of tendon.  Hair starting to grow on new skin.  Pretty much no swelling at all. Treatment for the last week or so was just occasional spraying of the essential oils on the wound.  Comfrey leaves still offered, but none of the drenching every three hours!

I need to post an updated picture as she now is completely healed, and you can only tell that it was this leg as she doesn't kneel on it like the other one, so has no knee pad on this side.