Natural Remedies For Healing All Those Things Summer Can Throw Your Way

That warm summer days and nights can sometimes be a struggle. Painful sunburn, poison ivy or poison oak, mosquito or bug bites, and allergies can be a challenge.

Here are a few emergency remedies that may help you have a smooth sailing, painless summer of fun!

Bug Bites

Whether it is a mosquito or beach fleas, some of these bites can be downright painful. They can also itch so much you almost want to scratch the skin off, which can create scars and wounds.

While summer is the optimal time for showing off tanned skin, it’s the can be awful, when you have unattractive bug bites, sunburns, and itchy rashes. Here are a few holistic ways I’ve found to be very effective.

1. Mosquitoes don’t normally sting through lose fitting clothing, so wearing, gauzy, light weight clothing that covers you, is a good preventative measure. Mosquitoes are attracted to dark colors, while wasps and bees are attracted to light, bright, floral colors.
2. Essential oils are also a good bug, bite deterrent.

Here is my easy Anti-bug Bite Recipe:

Ingredients

Choose one or a combination of the following organic essential oils (2 tsp. total oil):

Lavender essential oil

Myrrh essential oil

Rosemary essential oil

Juniper essential oil

Lemon essential oil.

1 cup of 180 proof grain alcohol

Use a total of 2 tsp. of essential oil and combine that with 1 cup of 180 proof grain alcohol (you can buy this at a liquor store.)

Directions:

Combine a total of 2 tsp. of essential oil and combine that with 1 cup of 180 proof grain alcohol

Place the mixture in a bottle with a tight-fitting lid.

Shake it well, before every use.

It is advised to test it on a small patch of skin first to make sure you or whoever you are putting it on, are not sensitive to the oil and alcohol.

If you are ok with the test, use it on your skin to avoid bites.

 

If you are already bitten and you are itching and wantin to scratch the pain away, here are a few remedies.

A. Rub aloe vera (either fresh or from a bottle) or organic, raw apple cider vinegar on bites and stings, to ease burning.

B. Get relief from itches by applying a few drops of lavender oil to the affected area as needed.

C. Vitamin B can help calm, reduce nervousness and insomnia. Anxiety can cause itching and/or aggravate it. Try to calm yourself by deep breathing, taking some magnesium and vitamin B’s, to help relax and alleviate nutritional reasons that could cause extra stress and help reduce the pain of the itching. Most people are vitamin B and magnesium deficient. A deficiency in these can result in itchy flaky skin, anxiety, lack of energy, and insomnia.

Vitamin B can help calm, reduce nervousness and insomnia. Anxiety can cause itching and/or aggravate it. Try to calm yourself by deep breathing, taking some magnesium and vitamin B’s, to help relax and alleviate nutritional reasons that could cause extra stress and help reduce the pain of the itching. Most people are vitamin B and magnesium deficient. A deficiency in these can result in itchy flaky skin, anxiety, lack of energy, and insomnia.

If you take extra Vitamin B1, or thiamine, since it is water soluble, you will simply excrete it. When the body discards it through the skin, it has an odor mosquitoes avoid.  that’s “discarded” by the body produces an odor that is “unbearable” for mosquitoes.

So, you can take a supplement of 100 grams of vitamin B1 plus a supplement of vitamin B complex. You can also dissolve a vitamin B supplement in a body lotion, then use it as a skin cream as a bug repellent. Depending on the skin cream you use, it should be safe enough to use on babies. You can also eat foods rich in Vitamin B, like organic, fresh asparagus and humanely, pasture-raised eggs.

D. I was bitten by some kind of small black bug or flea in Panama recently. It was absolutely miserable for at least a week. I thought it was going to never stop. I read that something these buys lay eggs in you or it could have been parasites. Since I had been all over the jungle and visited wild animal rehabilitation places, I was not sure, where I received all the bites or if they were even all the same type of bug or flea bite. It seemed to get worse a few days later and it wasn’t stopping. I was overwhelmed with the itch and was getting quite desperate to find a natural remedy.

For the most extreme cases, where you can’t get the itching to stop, I have found that food grade hydrogen peroxide can be dabbed on the itching spots with a cotton ball. It will kill any parasite that may be inside the skin, but also oxygenate and destroy any infection in the bite. It can hurt and burn a lot, so I do it immediately before getting into the shower to scrub with tea tree oil soap and a body brush. It was very effective and stopped the extreme itching. You may need to do this each day, until you are sure it has stopped the itch or infection and is on the road to healing. Also, if you do have a parasite inside the skin, the repeating of the hydrogen peroxide will make sure you kill any of them or their offspring.

I order food grade hydrogen peroxide through the internet. This type of hydrogen peroxide is extremely strong. You will need to be very careful when handling this and keep it out of reach of children. You may want to use normal over the counter hydrogen peroxide, but the food grade is much stronger for more extreme cases. You can water it down a bit, if it’s too strong for you. (You may want to wear some rubber gloves when handling it.)

E. In an emergency, applying some mint toothpaste to a bug bite can frequently help cool the spot and alleviate the itch. The will trick your mind to focus on the cool feeling, instead of the itch. Mint toothpaste is also anti-inflammatory.

Poison Ivy or poison oak

Once I went with my husband to hike in the woods with our dog. Our dog was running around in the woods and got poison ivy on his fur. I was petting him and brushing off the sticker burrs, and unknowingly got the poison ivy from his fur. I used tea tree oil on the poison ivy and it was almost gone the next day. I used tea tree oil shampoo on the dog also.

A few years later, one of our contractors once had terrible poison oak. He had used cortisone, medicines from the doctor, and everything he could think of for more than four months. He was absolutely miserable. I gave him my tea tree oil to try. The next day, he came back absolutely astounded at how well it had worked. His poison oak was gone in a matter of days. Tea tree oil works extremely well for both poison ivy and poison oak.

I use the tea tree oil any place, bite, rash, or itchy place. It is especially good for places that have a fluid in it. Tea tree oil has antibacterial properties.  It not supposed to be used on an open wound.

In my opinion, the New Zealand variety smells better than the Australian type, but both work really well.

In addition to the tea tree oil, you can also use aloe vera leaf gel on a rash to soothe and promote healing. Oat meal baths are also good for calming down inflamed skin

Natural sunburn treatment

I love getting out in the sun and often over-do the amount of sun I get. I’ve found that all too frequently, I have a bit of a sunburn that hurts and needs some relief.

1. My favorite thing to do for sunburn is take an oatmeal bath. This is very refreshing as well as soothing.
2. After the bath, aloe vera leaf gel, either from the plant itself or an aloe vera gel I’ve purchased at the store, can feel very nice applied to the burned places. You can also just use the aloe vera gel without the oat meal bath.
3. Another thing I’ve found to be very effective is a mixture of cold-pressed, organic apple cider vinegar with some pure water. I use half a cup of water with half a cup of apple cider vinegar. I wash it over the sunburn or put it in my bath water. It can really relieve the sunburn heat and reduce the inflammation. After applying the apple cider vinegar, and it is dried, then applying the aloe vera gel on the inflamed area is also helpful.
4. Drinking some chamomile tea and dabbing the cool tea on the sunburn, has a cooling effect and can bring some relief as well.

If you have a heat rash from the sun, then try an oatmeal water paste applied to the areal. Sandalwood powder and equal part water, mixed into a paste and spread over the heat rash or sunburn is also a very effective anti-inflammatory remedy.

As a natural sunburn preventative measure, drinking carrot juice, eating carrots, or sweet potatoes, with beta-carotene, is a natural way to protect yourself from too much sun during summer. These vegetables give the body some natural sun protection.

Allergies

1. Essential oils, Eucalyptus and peppermint, are very effective in alleviating allergy symptoms. I put mine in a humidifier. You can also put a few drops of them in a pan of hot water and do a mist inhalation of the oils. You can also rub the bottom of your feet with these oils, which is refreshing as well as helpful for allergy symptoms.
2. A nasal lavage is a very effective way to help a congested sinus start to heal. My family went to Dr. Ludwig Michaels, an ear, nose, and throat doctor, for many years. He used a bulb syringe filled with a mixture of sea salt and warm water.

He would fill the bulb syringe with the warm salt water mixture, then he inserted it into one nostril, and gently pressed the warm salt water into the nostril. The water would come out the other nostril, along with any congestion.

He repeated that process on each side a couple of times. We would hold our head over a bowl to catch the water that came out. It always cleared out our congestion and was refreshing. Neti pots work in the same way, but I don’t think they are as easy or effective to use, as a bulb syringe. You can buy rubber bulb syringes and neti-pots at many pharmacies. Note: Always use purified water and avoid using tap water. I recommend using unrefined, mineral rich salt and avoid ever using the white refined salt.

3. A pinch of unrefined sea salt under the tongue with a little purified water, also has a wonderful antihistamine affect.
4. The spice turmeric can also help in calming down allergies symptoms. This following recipe makes a wonderfully soothing drink with effective anti-inflammatory properties.

Recipe of Turmeric Milk

Ingredients

1 cup (preferably unsweetened, vanilla) hemp or coconut milk

1/8 tsp. turmeric

1/16 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

¼  tsp. raw, unrefined honey

¼ tsp. cold-pressed, flax seed oil.

Directions

Combine and drink warm or at room temperature.

Note: Many foods act together like a symphony.  Combining the black pepper with the turmeric, can make the turmeric up to 1000 times more effective, because of the piperine in the pepper.

In addition to this, turmeric is fat-soluble. This means that it dissolves in fat. Adding the omega 3 fatty acid (cold pressed flax seed oil – which is anti-inflammatory) to the mixture, helps the active component in turmeric, curcumin, to be absorbed more effectively into the blood stream.

Variation: If you don’t have a cold pressed omega-3 fatty acid oils, you can substitute pure, coconut oil instead.

In conclusion, as you enjoy your delightful summer months, using some of these healthful, home-made remedies to make your summer more pleasant can be easy and inexpensive.

May you have a summer of heathy sunshine, fresh and, fun!

 

Nancy Addison is a certified health counselor, certified in plant based nutrition, certified raw food chef, certified in Health-Supportive Cooking, and certified in Mediterranean Cooking. Nancy has written award-winning books on health, nutrition and cooking. You can reach her on her website, Organic Healthy Life.

 

The information from Nancy Addison and Organic Healthy Lifestyle LLC is not offered for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of any disease or disorder nor have any statements herein been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We strongly encourage you to discuss topics of concern with your health care provider.

Medical Disclaimer: Information provided in this article, book, website, email, etc. is for informational purposes only. The information is a result of years of practice and experience by Nancy Addison CHC, AADP. However, this information is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional, or any information contained on or in any product label or packaging.