Yarrow for healing

AKA plumajillo in my neck of the woods.

Yarrow is a fantastic wound poultice. It's been used by humans for thousands of years, and it's latin name, achillea, derives from Achilles, who it is speculated might have owed his near-indestructible nature in battle less to a dip in the sacred river, more to his using yarrow to treat his battle wounds.

Fresh yarrow leaves placed on an open would act as

Analgesic
styptic
antibacterial

I got a nasty puncture wound while breaking up a dogfight last year. The canine of a canine, right into the palm of my hand, a deep, ragged puncture wound primed for infection. I put a couple of mashed yarrow leaves on it, and the tingling began radiating up my forearm within seconds, an incredible feeling.

On the second day, I used a bread poultice alternated with more yarrow. When I was confident that there was no infection, I switched to comfrey.

It healed in less than two weeks, no infection, no complications.

Yes, I have used yarrow to treat a variety of skin wounds, it stops bleeding instantly and generally results in rapid healing, no infection, little or no scarring.

I've also heard a tea from the flowers are used for cold and flu conditions, I haven't tried it for that yet.

Do you just mash the yarrow onto the cut, or otherwise, how do you apply it?

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
Do you just mash the yarrow onto the cut, or otherwise, how do you apply it?

I generally pick a leaf or two and bruise them well with the back side of a knife, then attach them to the wound with a bandaid. You could also just chew them up a bit and apply them as a spit-poultice, some people do.

I use yarrow a lot.  I was weeding in the garden, in my bare feet, and chipping with my hand hoe at a clump of dirt to break it up when I missed and send the sharp tip of the hoe into the top of my big toe.  After the requisite colorful metaphors and a bit of hopping about I went to the garden edge where I left some wild yarrow growing and some narrow leaf plaintain.  I sat down and squeezed the wound to get the blood out and then mashed up equal parts of the leaves until they were flowing juice in the palm of my hand and then dripped the juice all over the wound and then held the mash on while I sat down and had some water.  It HURT like stink!!  After about 10 minutes I took off the mash and it really wasn't bleeding at all and the pain had gone.  I got a good look at the would and it was about 1/2-inch wide and I don't know how deep.  The blade went straight in.  I poured a little water over and then mashed up some fresh yarrow and plaintain and wrapped up my toe and tied it off with the plaintain flower stalk and went about my business.

Usually I take a while to heal, but this would healed up quick, and it never got a thick "picky" scab (I usually can't help myself with thick heavy scabs).  In fact, about 4 days later when my husband came home and I was telling him the story I realized it never hurt again and we looked at it and there was just a small mark where it gash had been.  I was sold.  That was my first time using yarrow in a real life bleeding painful situation and I now use it a lot.

I also infuse the yarrow flowers in witch hazel and use that for all surface wounds and skin conditions.  My daughter dabs it on pimples and zits and I use it like alcohol for cleaning cuts.  My husband cut his head at work pretty good (about 3/4-inch long) on a Wednesday and was just using neosporin on it.  He came home Friday night and said his head still really hurt and he could hardly stand for me to touch it.  So I took an eye dropper and dropped the witch hazel-yarrow flower infusion on the wound.  The next morning I asked and he said it must have stopped hurting because he didn't think of it again!!  When I looked at the gash it wasn't red, but just a small cut.  So I kept putting the yarrow-witch hazel on it and it healed quickly without a huge scab and no more pain. 

Gotta love Mother Nature!

Tami 

LasVegasLee wrote:

On the second day, I used a bread poultice alternated with more yarrow. When I was confident that there was no infection, I switched to comfrey.

What does the comfrey do? Just curious because I don't know 

oracle wrote:
What does the comfrey do? Just curious because I don't know 

Comfrey can really accelerate wound healing, but that makes it dangerous to put on a fresh puncture wound, because it can heal the puncture at the surface and seal an infection inside, creating an abscess. So I wanted to make absolutely sure that the wound was not infected before switching to the comfrey.

Yarrow is an antibacterial, amongst other things. And a moist bread poultice is a potent drawing agent, sucking out any nastiness from a puncture wound.

LasVegasLee wrote:
Comfrey can really accelerate wound healing, but that makes it dangerous to put on a fresh puncture wound, because it can heal the puncture at the surface and seal an infection inside, creating an abscess. So I wanted to make absolutely sure that the wound was not infected before switching to the comfrey.

Yarrow is an antibacterial, amongst other things. And a moist bread poultice is a potent drawing agent, sucking out any nastiness from a puncture wound.

Thanks, good stuff to know