[YEA]  03/30/2009: Khulthum from Chicago, IL: "Tea Tree Oil to Prevent Burns

My girlfriends and I, along with all our children, meet weekly in the evenings, at our community center. One evening, when tea was being served, one of the young children ran by and knocked the entire pot of tea all over one of the older girl's legs. She is 12 years old. The sight of that steaming tea all over that poor girl's legs was like a nightmare. It looked like her legs were going to be ruined.

She was rushed to the restroom, by her mother [my friend], and placed in the shower. My friend kept running cold water on her legs to relieve the pain. But she wouldn't stop wailing and her mother didn't know what to do.

I knew that tea tree oil was good for burns, and since I had some in my bag, I offered to apply some to her legs. I had to assure my friend, and especially her daughter, that it would definately be of some help. They did not even know what tea tree oil was, so they were hesitant. But clearly ANYTHING that could help would be welcome, because the girl was screaming uncontrolably at this point.

We took her out of the shower and dried her legs as best we could. Then, I put some oil in the palm of my hand, rubbed my hands together, and rubbed the oil on her legs. For a brief moment, everything was okay. But then she started screaming like you wouldn't believe, saying it was hurting her even more.

Admittedly, I was a little surprised myself, because I had not experienced a reaction like that before [neither from myself, nor from any of my children]. My friend was alarmed, and asked me if that was normal. I told her I had never seen that type of reaction, but that I thought it was because her legs were wet and her pores were open.

I asked her daughter to be patient and wait, and that it would soon get better. She tried her best to wait in out, but she was unable to bear the pain. At this point she was jumping up and down begging us to take it off of her.

I felt really bad because she was clearly in a lot of pain because of ME, but I didn't really know what to do because I thought that water would only push the oil deeper into her her skin. After briefly discussing it, my friend decided to try washing it off, because doing something was better than doing nothing.

After washing her legs off with soap, like a much welcome blessing from God, she stopped crying. 23 loooooooonng minutes, and she finally stopped crying! She said it still hurt a little, but that it felt much better.

My friend took her daughter home, and the next morning she called me to let me know that there was not a single mark on her daughter's legs. It was as if nothing had happened!"