Natural Remedies for MRSA: Effective Solutions for Infection Control

CVS antimicrobial silver gel (supposedly silvasorb brand sold as a generic). Diagnosed by lab as MRSA. went through Bactrim, and Levaquin treatment. A boil came back 3 weeks later on the same spot on my arm . I take turmeric and garlic. I have tried everything. I applied the silver gel to the oozing boil and got relief within hours. It is almost A WEEK LATER completely healed. PLEASE TRY THIS!! NOTHING ELSE WORKED AS GOOD AS THIS. IT IS ONLY 7 DOLLARS AT CVS. THANK GOD FOR THIS GEL. IT KILLS THE MRSA I AM LIVING PROOF THIS WORKS. I have also started taking oral colloidal silver.

I am struggling with recurring MRSA and am fighting it with raw garlic. It seems to be working so far, but what is the link where I could find the Allicin tablets?

Just wanted to let you know that I have been having steady relief using honey, baking soda & a pinch of salt on my boils and tiny, pimply, bump-rash (associated with MRSA) by daily application with bandaids. Growing up we used baking soda-salt to extract poison from stings and bites. Hearing of the water-extraction capabilities of honey led me to add it to the formula with good success. This isn't an isolated remedy however because I've also been eating garlic sandwiches with herbs!

I believe that iodine kills MRSA. You could take it internally and apply the iodine directly to the affected areas externally on your body. If you take it internally you need to also take vitamin c, selenium and magnesium. If it is not MRSA, iodine will kill yeast as well so it should work.

For the shingles in your eyes, I would try colloidal silver and use it as an eye wash or get a dropper and put one or two drops in your eyes to see how that works.

I would stop the antibiotics you are taking because antibiotics will kill the good bacteria in your body and that will not help your situation, probably worsen it. To offset the damage the antibiotics are doing to you, you will need to take a probiotic for a couple of weeks. Taking 3 antibiotics at once is not good (my opinion anyway).

Spirulina and chlorella are good for blood cleansing so I would also try that. Vitamin C is also good to take.

Hi Louwrence (from Rustenburg), Have had a quick look, very interesting. The one I found requires a sonic cleaner, do you know a method that does not need one to make it? I have seen liposomal vit c mentioned here before but have known nothing about it. Thanks

Wild oil of oregano with P73 kills MRSA as well as many parasites, virus, fungi & bacteria.

This works!! I had MRSA on my face, my face was swollen from my eye to my neck with the thick green pus coming from a small sore on my upper lip. It was so bad that the doctor tried lanceing to get some of the pus out. The doctor didn't think it was MRSA, but I made her do a culture and it came back positive for MRSA. I had been to the doctors 5 times in 3 days and I was fed up with the back and forth and no results, so my mother in law told me about the grapefruit seed extract. I put 4 to 5 drops of the grapefruit seed extract topically on the MRSA sore and rubed it in 4 to 5 times a day. Within a few days the swelling had gone down and it was gone by day 10. About 2 to 3 weeks later I had an apportment with Infectious Disease and the doctor did a culture of my nose to see if I still had MRSA and "it was gone". I told her that I had used the grapefruit seed extract, she told that tea tree oil also works.

I don't know about bathing with bleach but I do know that whenever I have had problems with re occurring boils adding bleach to my laundry, all delicates, it seems to help with the boils not coming back.

WARNING!

I would be very careful about using bleach on skin.

Bleach damages tissue and can make it more susceptible to disease. For example, washing syringes used by IV drug users as was suggested for many years with bleach makes one more susceptible to HIV (plain soapy water works better).

It is well known that bleach can damage skin (see MSDS). In the event of "serios skin contact" with bleach it is recommended that you wash with a disinfectant soap and use an anti-bacterial cream. In other words, exposure to bleach can make you more prone to infection. 10:1 dilutions or 100:1 might be better tolerated.

By the same token, Nonoxynol-9 was shown to kill HIV in-vitro but in-vivo it was found it could do more harm than good due to tissue damage - after years of use by consumers.

Alcohols and hydrogen peroxide may cause tissue damage in some cases, particularly on mucous membranes. Alcohol gels at least contain things to make them easier on the skin and appear to be ok to use.

http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Sodium_Hypochlorite_5_-9925000

Sterile Manuka honey looks worth checking out. Wounds reportedly heal in about half the time compared to most modern treatments and it has been shown to be helpful on MRSA. Some pre-prepared manuka honey dressings have been FDA approved (but are expensive). But beware of diluted preparations. Pure sterile manuka honey can be imported in 500g jars and 25g-80g tubes of sterile manuka honey can be purchased in the US. Not all varieties of Manuka honey contain the same amount (or any significant amount) of the active ingredient that makes manuka honey more effective - it depends on the variety of manuka the bees feed on. Even plain honey has a very long history (8000 years) of being used as a wound dressing, though largely forgotten today with the aggressive marketing of commercial products. However, non-sterile honey may contain Closridia or other disease causing factors.
http://tahilla.typepad.com/mrsawatch/wounds_honey/index.html

Tea tree oil is known to kill MRSA but if it is diluted too much it not only doesn't kill but breeds tea tree and antibiotic resistant strains quickly.
Dilute Benzalkonium chloride also breeds resistant strains. I have heard triclosan has the same problem but the research on that appears a little questionable.

Oregano oil appears to be a potent MRSA killer.

From personal experience, a water based gel lubricant (KY jelly/Surgilube/etc) is very helpful for fungal infections (better than more expensive anti-fungals). It helps moisturize (without promoting growth due to moisture) and heal the skin and the preservative used, chlorhexidine gluconate, is effective in very low concentrations against candida. However, the concentration is much lower than in chlorhexidine gluconate surgical scrubs such as hibiclens. Thus the suggestion to use tea tree oil in KY seems promising, though the tea tree oil concentration should be at least 5% (but not too much higher). Adding neem oil and oregano oil would be worth investigating. But the combinations haven't been clinically tested.

Strong disinfectants may do more harm than good due to tissue damage. Diluted disinfectants breed resistance. Whatever doesn't kill the bugs makes them stronger.

When cleaning surfaces, reuse of a wipe on more than one surface, and use of non-disposable mops, rags, etc. can spread MRSA.

I don't have MRSA (I hope) but my housemate is suffering from a post-operative MRSA infection.

The Mayo Clinic and the Center for Disease Control recommend this now, along with Manuka honey. 1/2 c bleach and two big handfuls of baking soda. Don't over do it. Every three days or so.

Bleach in bath water would be no different than swimming in a pool. What do you think is in a chlorine pool??

Bleach bath doesn't help. It dries the skin, and that makes the skin more susceptible to infections. If you read here, you get the idea that much of this MRSA bacteria specifically enjoys itself in a acidic environment. So a bleach bath would just keep your skin at a low pH (acidic) which is really bad to treat these infections.

Have you tried Manuka Honey on it yet? Manuka kills mrsa.

Healthy healing to you & your daughter.

We recently had an aerobic septic system put in. The lawn people came out and were kicking up dust (because the yard was torn up) and I was on the deck. The next day, I got a golf ball size lump (boil). I think you are on the right track about something in the soil. I used an EC remedy of tumeric, tea tree oil, VCO, aluminum-free baking soda, and the contents of a vitamin E capsule. I put the paste on a cotton round and changed it frequently. It drew out the pus from the boil and I am fine. For good measure, I put some triple antibiotic on it. I then put castor oil on a cotton ball in an attempt to finally get rid of the remnant of it. The 5 ingredient paste worked very fast. It couldn't hurt to take tumeric (1/2 tsp. in 1/2 glass of water) and a Neem capsule to prevent blood poisoning for a few days.

WARNING!

I got several staph infections, but was never tested for MRSA. January of 2004, I got one on my forehead and one on the hairline near my neck. I chose to lance them at home, which was the biggest mistake I could have made. The infection on my neck got into my bloodstream, traveled into my spinal cord and festered for nearly three months. When my back pain began, doctors could find no cause for it, so they admitted me to the local hospital after three trips to the ER in agonizing pain, and treated me for five days for Kidney infection and Kidney stones. Turned out it was MRSA in my lungs, blood, spinal cord, pneumonia and bronchitis. By the time they realized this my blood pressure was dangerously low, as well as my blood oxygen level. I had about six hours to live at this point. Thankfully a rather risky back surgery saved my life, as well as 2 months of severe antibiotic treatments, where I was given Vancomyacin through a groshong catheter directly into my aorta. Lesson here, if you get more than one staph infection, get tested for MRSA. I didn't, and the result is life long pain. My son was only six months old when this happened. He is two now and I can still barely carry him for long.

MRSA outbreaks in Thailand? Possibly it comes from the pollutants and birds (excellent carriers for many diseases, bugs, etc) here in my home. However, boils outbreak I think is difficult but they tend to occur during the "vegetarian festivities" here in Thailand.

The reason why is really simple, most white flour which is used in cooking during the festivities is used in the food, so people consume more.

They are very acid forming food, next to soda pop that is banned in schools in U.S. at least, but not here. Some milk actually added fluoride, so that doesn't help either. These acid forming food, especially flour, do get easily contaminated quite easily with fungus, etc. The body's immune system simply stops for about 2 hours in presence of sugar, the fact that some cola adds phosphoric acid simply make things worse.

The outbreak, therefore is more tied to the diets which lowers your immune system, such as sugar, and white flour found in bread being the worse offender of these MRSA and an outbreak as well as weight gain often occur or coincide during and after the vegetarian festivities.

I am not a pro meat or a pro vegetarian either. What I am saying is white flour is one of the worse offenders of acid forming food (next to soda pop) and the rise in use of sugar often rises to coincide with the vegetarian festivities. I once got a terrible boils in the buttocks similar to Kathryn, but the source of it i knew to be ice cream, but chocolate or cocoa strangely enough causes pimples but not boils.

So the way to stop boils at least for me was taking plenty of zinc, chromium, vanadium and baking soda to alkalize my body. Drain whatever pus that occurs in the boils to dry them.

Being especially careful to avoid both sugar AND acid forming food is the best way to remove these antibiotic resistant out of the body. You don't have to buy an elaborate lists of kinds of acid forming list, just remember to simply stay away from sugar and flour. They are easier to remember, getting too particular can confuse you. Certain supplements, you need to be wary if you take too much as they too are acid forming, whose supplements name have the words "hydrochloride", such as pyridoxine hydrochloride, a vitamin B6. A better substitute is pyridoxal 5 phosphate.

Antibiotics no longer works with me, actually it had not work for at least 10 years now, regardless of the kinds of antibiotics I use. And this is why I have remedies to get around this issue for at least 10 years now. Ted

In addition to the previously described strategy to decolonize the MRSA bacteria on skin and in nostrils, you should also at the same time take internally dietary supplements of probiotics containing a variety of strains of acidophilus like lactobacilus acidophilus and lactobacillus rhamosus. Make sure the brand you buy has a guarantee of true potency. This product will be in the refridgerated part of a health food store and you should keep it refridgerated at home. Also youghert with live probiotic cultures and buttermilk also have lactobacilus acidophilus. Eat plenty of these. Feed youghert, kefir, buttermilk to your kids to strengthen their immune system. Eliminate sugar, gluten, alcohol, beer, wine, as much as possible. Drink lots of water cause as the MRSA bacteria dies, you need water to flush out the dead bacteria. May God help us all to achieve good health and to praise Him.

Manuka honey is being used in many places (UK, Australia, New Zealand) for treatment of MRSA. One teaspoon morning and night for prevention and up to 3 tsp. once or twice a day for an internal infection. It can also be used topically to stop skin infection, 50/50 with water in an atomizer for chest infections, along with many other uses. One potential reason for its effectiveness may be the existence of small amount of naturally occurring hydrogen peroxide in the honey, although researchers put it down to "Manuka factor," an unknown active ingredient.

I am going to try to give a good synopsis of what I have learned from infectious disease doctors (several), and many naturalists. At the FIRST sign of a boil (yes even a painful pimple), I would start with the following:

Wash thoroughly twice a day for at least 10 days (or longer if you still have the boil) with either:

a) enough good quality(dr bronners baby unscented is great) liquid soap to wash you entire body to which you add approx 5 drops of good quality 100% pure Tea Tree Oil, for each washing. or

b) A chlorhexidine solution available over the counter under the brand name Hibiclens (this is the western medicine option)

Ok, this is the most important step! Don't skip it, you will regret it when you have a relapse.

Take a small clean glass jar and mix about 2-3ml (think thimble full or less) of KY jelly or equivalent with 1-2 drops of 100% pure Tea tree oil. Cap jar and shake to mix completely. Take a cotton swab (q-tip) and dip it in the solution and apply it to the inside of your nostrils, one clean swab full per nostril (it will sting a bit at first but you'll get used to it fast). Once you have it in both nostrils pinch your nose closed and squish your nose around to spread it out inside your nose. Do this twice a day religiously until 10 days after you are boil free. Then do it 2-3 times per week for a month. This step is super important because MRSA will usually hang on in your nose even after all infection appears gone just to rear its ugly head again when conditions are right. (an antibiotic like mupriocin would be used by a western doctor worth his salt)

Supplements:
Zinc 50mg-90mg daily (never more than 100mg)
Vitamin A (one softgel) daily,
Turmeric 1tsp (or two 00 caps) 3 times daily (thanks Earth Clinic!),
Neem (1 capsule) twice daily.

I currently consider this the holy grail of knowledge on natural MRSA treatment. I hope to post an update with more details soon. Good Luck!"

8/5/2006: Shawn adds more to his earlier post: "Apply 1 drop of 100% pure Tea Tree oil directly to the boil and cover with Band-Aid (or a telfa (nonstick) pad with tape for large boils) 2-3 times daily.

Avoid using plain gauze, it tends to make the boil dry out or scab over. You want to keep it moist.

I suggest using a moist compress as hot as you can stand it (i use a tea kettle), apply tea tree and/ lavender oil to maximize effect. Do this several times per day (inconvenient, but so are boils!)

And, of course, NEVER SQUEEZE A BOIL! it can spread the infection very quickly to the surrounding tissue.

If you see red spider web like lines around the boil, see a doctor immediately. This can be a sign of the infection spreading to the blood, which is very dangerous.

Once a boil has a white tip or has opened, it should be kept covered and treated liberally with tea tree directly into the wound if possible.

Notes on Tea Tree Oil : Has been shown very effective against MRSA, nearly as effective as the best antibiotics.

To test for sensitivity to tea tree oil: apply a drop on inner arm and cover with a Band-Aid. Wait 1-2hrs and remove Band-Aid if redness or swelling occurs you should not use tea tree.

Hi, thanks for sharing your experience and for being awesome, hope you're still living a super healthy life :)

Hi what brand and type of colloidal silver worked for your friend? I have had my staph for 4 years and won't go away, I would like to try colloidal silver, but I don't know which one is good, thanks!

Which specific brand & for how long have you been taking it to see improvement.

I personally fought MRSA for 5 months. I tried everything, to no avail. Then I read about Manuka honey mixed with turmeric. I couldn't afford Manuka honey, so I tried just plain raw honey and mixed it with turmeric.

I applied it to my sore and covered it with a bandage. I was amazed the next day, that it was actually starting to heal. Real raw honey is a miracle, it is full enzymes that started healing my MRSA.

It is important that that the honey has never been heated. Raw honey mixed with powdered turmeric into a paste, cover with a bandage. I changed my bandage daily. Slowly each day my sore got smaller, until it totally healed. It took about a week. I also, had to take sugar and white flour out of my diet, while I was trying to heal. I noticed that MRSA feeds on sugar.

So while I was healing, I followed a paleo diet, that helped my immune system get better.

Well, I thought I was going downhill again but it was the flu.

From what I can tell, the brand of kombucha I've been drinking is fortified with b. coagulans. I can tell the difference between this and other brands. I found out you can just buy b. coagulans capsules.

So, I was a bit worse than I thought last time I posted. The kombucha definitely helps a lot but it's not perfect. I started taking colloidal silver. That got me even better. Then I started taking turmeric, 2 tbsp. with pepper and whole milk. Now I feel like 99% better.

Phage therapy is the only real way to cure MRSA. Other "remedies" will help to keep the outbreaks under controls, but they will not cure it. There is a large and growing movement among health professionals in the western world to legalize phage therapy, but there is also a lot of resistance because phages can not be patented and patented drugs are part of the business model of western pharmaceutical companies. However, chemical antibiotic therapies stopped working a long time ago and now cause more problems than they solve. It is safe and effective and has been used to treat lots of bacterial infections for almost 100 years. Read about phage therapy. There are many websites that have information.

Nothing has helped my terrible case of mrsa more than urine therapy..I treat myself inside and out with it .I use other natural cures as well like garlic probiotic vitamin c essential oils h2o2 ect..but nothing I have found has made the anxiety and depression go away but urine. It also stops mrsa pain instantly and nothing kills a mrsa boil faster than urine..I drink it, I bathe in it, I soak my infection in it nothing has helped me more..

I find raw living garlic in tangent with urine works best I pee in an old glass pickle jar let it sit all day sometimes several days then crushed raw garlic added to it to soak and clean infection it works better than anything else I've tried..

If you are fighting mrsa I highly recommend it.

Mrsa cure:

Dmso and coconut oil completely heals Mrsa within 3 days.

I agree. Please describe the mixture and method!

Hi

Are you still using kefir regime? How has your MRSA been? I have a 7 year old son who gets terrible boils every month and I am desperate to cure him of them. They have also spread through our family. So far we have not been diagnosed with MRSA, but the Infectious Diseases specialist thinks that we have PVL positive Staph Aureus which is just a step down from MRSA. The whole family have taken a course of really hard core antibiotics and decolonised ourselves, but it has now come back after 7 months free of them! My 7 year old has had two big painful boils in 3 weeks! I really want to cure this now and prevent it becoming MRSA! I've just bought Manuka honey medicream today and ordered water kefir grains tonight. Any ideas would be very much appreciated! Thank you :-)

I was diagnosed with MSSA (methicillin susceptible strains). I'm told it is slightly less serious than MRSA. Doctors freaked me out a little by saying I must go on antibiotics and use antibiotic cream topically. I said NO and proceeded to do a ton of research. This site was very helpful. My "rash" was severe, legs, arms and back. Itching was almost too much. I tried many protocols but finally found what is working for the extend of this rash.

After four weeks of experimenting this is what I found. Everything I wear, sleep on and all towels get washed and bleached ( if possible) every day. Hot dryer afterward.

After awakening, I smash about 8-9 cloves garlic and let them sit for an hour. I take supplements, tumeric, colloidal silver, olive leaf extract, grapefruit seed capsules, Himalayan sea salt capsules. Then into a tepid bath with garlic and 8 oz of hydrogen peroxide (35% food grade). I stay in for at least one hour and if possible another half hour. Pat myself dry and smear on manuka honest. This I leave on for one hour. Then wash off and put on coconut oil. More supplements at noonish and evening after which I do the garlic, peroxide bath again, honey and coconut oil.

I was doing the bath only once a day and was not getting good results but twice a day has reall shown progress. I think if I could add more peroxide, I would have even better results but for me it was a comfort level. The honey helps with toning down the itching. I have been sleeping all night most nights and I'm thankful for that. Seeing progress now.

I've been dealing with MRSA for almost two years but didn't know it. After going to a dermatologist with a small crusty itchy spot on my ankle, I was diagnosed with squamous and had MOHs surgery to remove. Shortly after, I had more sores pop up on both legs. I decided to try black salve and this seemed to work for a short while but is a difficult treatment and really didn't stop the spread. Then went to a new doctor and she thought the sores had a lymphodemic look. I was now scared I had lymphatic cancer.

I totally changed my diet. No gluten, organic raw diet and worked with herbal supplements both the ground herbs in capsules and tinctures. Lost all bloating and some weight but the sores kept multiplting. My doctor wanted a diagnosis so I went to a dermatologist who told me I had dermatitis!!! Wanted me to take prednisone. I refused and went to another dermatologist who told me I had Prurigo Nodularis. Wanted me to do a course of antibiotics. I refused but asked him to swab the sores and get a real determination. Several days later I received a call that I had MRSA. He insisted I take antibiotics. I refused. By this time I had a severe form of MRSA which is on both legs, upper and lower and both arms, back and chest.

I immediately began to research and am now finding relief from.

1) installed an alkaline water filter and began drinking lots of water.

2) I'm taking H2O2 35% a half cup in bath at night and after applying Manuka honey to all affected areas.

3) also Oregano oil rubbed in in the morning And 5 drops in water ingested.

4) ingesting optimized Curcumin capsules.

5) taking a probiotic

6) also ingesting a liquid liposomal Glutathione. I also use an EV coconut oil on my skin and in my food.

After four days, the itching is much improved and the sores are half and don't appear as deep. I'm sleeping through the night which is huge. I will add turmeric and hope it all works.

Dear Myway,

Fascinating article! It is humorous that modern scientists are so shocked at the effectiveness of a medieval remedy. We have found garlic to work very well for infection. Not sure if I am gutsy enough to add the ox bile though! (And wherever would you get that?)

Thanks for sharing that!

~Mama to Many~

Mama to Many, you can buy Ox Bile from iherb. I use it to increase bile flow so I can digest food and fats better.

Dear Mary,

Wow! I should not have doubted there would be a source for this! Thanks for passing it along and letting me know how it helps you - fascinating! You learn something new every day! :)

~Mama to Many~

Mary, Ox bile...wow. We do learn something every day! Thanks for sharing. MyWay, :D

We are vegetarian but the doctor talked my husband who never gets sick, to take ox bile and he was throwing up for hours. Everyone is different I steer clear because if Lyme can infect deer meat, than why not all meat. I'm a vegetarian

How do you deal with the pain caused by the application of iodine of that strength, on a large wound? It's very painful even on a small wound!

What would help with MRSA of the trachea and lungs? Also, what about the side effects of the aluminum in the milk of magnesia? Can one use another type such as magnesium? Got MRSA after a lanced boil.

Thanks, wanda

wanda, try taking oregano oil capsules for mersa.

I got the MRSA due to colonization as I am allergic to all antibiotics for MRSA. I am also colonized with Pseudomonas and two others. I have never had it on my skin. I do not know how that got added to my post. Sorry about that.

I have several other serious medical issues and often come to this website which is, in my opinion, one of the very best! The people here give some of the best info one can get anywhere and I and many others appreciate you for this. I am in my 70's and have had these infections for 30 years now.

Pulmonary Fibrosis along with asthma, copd, and heart problems inc. open heart surgery, colon cancer surgery with 1/2 removed, and many other surgeries including a hysterectomy with removal of an 8 pound fibroid tumor and other surgeries over the years.

I do use tea tree oil in Shampoo which I use in my nose around 3 times a week or more. Can not use much as it will burn the skin. That is how they can tell if you are colonized is testing the nose.

I got this while a patient in the hospital. I was in ICU and was intubated and left on respirator/ventilator for 21 days with drs refusing to protect my airway by traching me as they insisted I could not possible live.

However, I lived. My trachea grew totally together with scar tissue.

I do take the Oil of Oregano Super Strength 4 drops a day in Orange Juice as the MRSA makes me sick quite often.

Thanks to all who offer info about their experiences for it is wonderful to find these things that help those who search for cures to help themselves or family members and friends. wanda

OK, so I wasn't paying too much attention to the boil on my upper chest because I periodically suffer acne breakouts there. It was a little tender and itchy but nothing to be worried about since cysts feel like that on occasion. When it broke, it left a little crater and I thought "Hm, that's different".

By the evening of the next day it was still weeping, and it hurt like billy-oh and I thought "uh-oh".

I applied tincture of iodine but by that point I think it was a little late. It closed over but the tissue beneath was inflamed. I have successfully used iodine to fend off blood poisoning and every other sort of infection but this one was fighting back. It was growing bigger by the hour. I thought I might have to go see a doctor - my last resort.

I am allergic to sulfa and penicillin (and derivatives) and strongly resist antibiotic intervention because I do not want to develop tolerance to the exotics. Plus I hate how antibiotics just screw up your entire chemistry.

Then I thought about oregano. I have used oregano powder capsules (specific brand +80% carvacrol) to cure UTIs. I took 4 capsules, slathered the wound with oil of oregano (OUCH! ), bandaged it and went to bed praying.

4 hours later I woke up and the MRSA infection was much more localized. I took 4 more capsules, redressed the wound, and went back to bed.

In the morning the infection was almost entirely localized at the original pindot. The weeping and oozing around it, which had grown to about the size of a quarter before bed, had stopped. I took 4 more capsules of oregano, redressed the wound, and now about 18 hours since my panic attack, all pain associated with infection is gone.

This bug is a beast. Oregano is lysol for the bloodstream. The brand I use is in a blue and yellow label bottle. I thank God for oregano several times a year - works equally well for viruses and bacteria it seems to me.

Just an update.

Today was the fifth day with this awful open sore. It started as a pinhead and was finally arrested in its progress about the size of a quarter.

Aside from the oregano, I had been using iodine and hydrogen peroxide, and I am not certain how much of the skin lesion expansion was due to my having burned myself with the antiseptics.

Anyway, today was kind of a crisis. It wasn't closing up and was still weeping and oozing. For about an hour I thought the thing was doubling in size and I really thought I might have to knuckle under and go for the antibiotics.

I took 4 oregano capsules at 10 am. Then another 5 at noon. I was working so I couldn't really keep track of it. I just slathered it with hydrogen peroxide and covered it with a cotton wad and a bandaid. Then made plans to visit the walk-in clinic after my shift at 2 pm.

When I went to get changed, I couldn't believe my eyes. It had gone from dark red around all the edges to pink in the center and light red at the edges.

I went home and thought "Great the solution is more oregano! "

So at 3 pm I took 6 more, which was probably about 4 too many. Yes, you can take too much oregano. The symptoms of overdose are a tingling burning sensation all over the body, with skin flushing like a sunburn.

I drank about 1.5 litres of water and waited for the symptoms to subside. They wore off by about 7 pm. They were not entirely unpleasant, and certainly I thought that nothing else was going to survive the OD. If I had any fungal or viral infections as well, they were probably toast as well.

By 7 pm the lesion had dried and scabbed over for the first time since Sunday night.

Just thought I would share this about oregano. It's really a bomb, and is very very strong medicine.