Looking for medicinal herbs to aid in wound and pain care? Comfrey can easily be grown in your home garden. This herb grows like a weed in many areas. It is known as a knit bone, boneset and slippery root. Comfrey is a great first aid herb to have on hand.
Comfrey
Identification
Comfrey is a perennial herb with long lance-like leaves, each 12 to 18 inches long. They hairy leaves grow from a central crown on the ends of short stem. The pant reaching 2 to 5 feet in height and spreads to over 3 feet in diameter. It can be propagated from cuttings but it not invasive once planted. The flowers begin as a blue to purple bell, fading to pink. The leaves can be used to make a medicinal tea or gargle.
Medicinal Use
This herb is a valuable remedy that accelerates healing of the skin and wounds. A compress of the roots and leaves a can be applied directly to the skin or make into a salve. It inhibits growth of bacteria, helping to prevent infections and minimizes scarring. It is mucilage our and contains the compound allantoin, which boosts cell growth and repair. Comfrey tea is best used to alleviate stomach pain, heavy menstrual bleeding, bloody urine breathing problems, cancer, and chest pain. It can also be gargled to treat gum disease or sore throat.
Sprains, Bruises and Breaks
Comfrey salve or comfrey compresses are one of the best remedies for sprains, strains, bruised muscles and joints, and fractured ones. The herb speeds up the healing while increasing the saver or a poultice made from crushed comfrey root, up to 4 times a day.
Minor Skin Injuries, Burns, Rashes and Wounds
One of the best uses for comfrey is in healing minor injuries to the skin. Rashes, eczema, burns, and skin wounds heal quickly when herb is applied. Leaves and root can be used for this application. Apply Comfrey salve 3 times a day or used bruised leaves or crushed root to make a poultice for the damaged skin. You can use comfrey tea or comfrey root decoration as a wash for the area, especially for rashes, acne, eczema, and psoriasis. DO NOT use for deep wounds or punter wounds as it heals the too quickly, blocking in infection.
Our store front has a Healing Salve for you, using comfrey as one of the ingredients!
Harvesting
Leaves are best harvested in the spring or early summer, before the plant blooms. They can be harvested in serval cuttings and dried for later use. The roots can e dug at any time as needed. Leave behind part of the roots to encourage continued growth and an additional crop the next year.
Warnings
Harmful toxins in comfrey are believed to cause liver damage, lung damage, or cancer when used in highly concentrated doses. For this reason, many healers do not recommend internal use of comfrey. However, small doses have been used safely in herbal medicines for hundreds of years with no reported ill effects. Use internally with caution or under care.
It is recommended that bone fractures and bone breaks are properly set before using it. Do not use id you have liver disease or any liver problems. Not recommend for pregnancy or breastfeeding women.
Genesis 3:18
Every moving thing that live there shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Making tinctures is an amazing thing to do. Creating your own medicinal remedies right in your kitchen. The sweet smell of the herbs drying, looking though that clear glass container unto the soaking herbs, knowing that each and every plant is created to have a purpose in your body. Aiding and supplying things your body needs. A course of cells transformation through your blood stream into each organ. Its truly astonishing what we are given and what we can do with it. I wont dig too deep into all the chemical compounds and the other nerdy detail (maybe in another post). But really look outside! All those ‘weeds’ they can all be used for different things!! Dandelion for example, they grow EVERYWHERE, here in the midwest. Go outside, get the roots to the flower, clean off the dirt, throw into a glass container with some 80 proof alcohol. BAM! You got yourself a liver cleanse tincture. Its seriously THAT easy. The amount of goodness that comes out of this earth is incredible, all you need to do is look for it. God has provided all of this for us! We need only to go out and get it.
We will make this quick and simple I persoanlly perfer alcohol tinctures. They last over 5 years, you get more medicinal properties exacted and you can notice it react faster with your body.
For a Alcohol Tincture,
1 quart mason jar – with air tight lid 2 cups herbs – you can mix a blend up or use one kind 3 cups 80 proof Alcohol (I prefer vodka, some prefer brandy)
Clean out your mason jar and dry it out. Add the herbs and fill the jar with your alcohol base. I generally add it so there is an 2-3 inch of liquid above the herbs. But it also depends on what type of herbs your using, some soak up more than others. You will be shaking up the herbs once a day for two weeks. When you do this watch the liquid level if you see there herbs soaked up most of your liquid (should be within the first day or two) add more. Yes there is a way to do this but its also an art. Make it fun and make sure your herbs are well covered with the alcohol so you don’t get any mold growth. After two weeks of shaking you can strain and start taking! mmm.. delicious..
For a Vegetable Glycerin Tincture.
1 quart mason jar – with air tight lid 2 cups herbs – you can mix a blend up or use one kind 2 cups vegetable glycerin 3/4 cup distilled water
I always go a little heavy on the liquid here because this isn’t something you can just add a little more, well you could, but its messy and you got to figure out the right 3/1 ratio with the vegetable glycerin and water. On that note, using vegetable glycerin you need to dilute it with water because its very very thick. This also helps the herbs soak. So clean out your jar, dry it off. STOP! Its different here…Add the glycerin, add the water and MIX WELL! Than go head and add your herbs and shake or stir. Soaking time would be 4-6 weeks for a good potent tincture, shaking every day, for at least 2 weeks.
Its fairly simple and generally speaking hard to mess up. Even though I have in the past… Its an art, the more you do it the easier it is pull it all together. The best part about doing it yourself is you can make 3- 1 cup single herb tinctures test out each one, see how YOUR body reacts to it and than create a blend just for you.
Hope you enjoyed this little post! Until next time! Mariah McDowell
