Bloodroot: A Medicinal Plant

WARNING!

I used bloodroot paste on a mole on my stomach. This is what I learned: It is very powerful. Be sure to put it ONLY on the spot you want gone. That's what I did at first, but when it got all white around it, I put more paste all over that too! I mistakenly thought that it was trying to reattach. Over and over for about 4 days. Not a good idea. Now I realize I should have been careful to put it only on the spot itself. The resulting area would most likely have been much smaller.

It developed into a big sore. Was swollen and red and hurt like heck! BUT each day the redness and soreness lessened, so I wasn't too worried about it. I used antibiotic cream with a pain killer on bandaid and kept it covered. It was rather interesting watching the process, even though pretty gross. Then the center of the thing got sorta rubbery and began to loosen around the edges. Now that hurt, but I realized that it was getting ready to fall out. When it came out, it left a pretty deep looking hole about the size of a quarter. All in all this process took about 2 weeks, but the crater that it left is filling in nicely.

At no time did it seem to be infected, all fluid was clear, and I could see improvement each day.

I will be much more careful should I decide to use it again.

WARNING!

I used the bloodroot salve almost three weeks ago. I only used a little bit on four small moles, probably the size of a pin head and covered the area with a bandaid. The next morning I had redenss and swelling under my eyes and scabs where the moles were. It looked like I was in a fight! I called the company and was very frustrated. The guy told me that the reaction was normal, and that it would heal. Within the next two days the scab came off of one which is healed, but light in color. On the left side of my face was the bigger mole. It was a little bigger than a pin head, but once the mole fell off the area was bigger.That area has also healed, but is white in color with some darkness around the circled area. Once again I contacted the company and the guy stated that the skin would repigment over time. The problem that I am experiencing now is on my left cheek where I removed three small moles. My excema has flared up, which is making my skin look terrible. I am trying to be patient with this process but it is very frustating. I would not advise using the cream on your face.

WARNING!

I tried bloodroot bought off ebay last autum (2007) I do like herbal alternate remedies and was quite excited when reading about bloodroot. Looking at my moles for years (and being vain) I rejoiced at the possibility of having them vanish in an easy and scarless fashion (as proclaimed) Got a bit carried away though and decided to eradicate all about 30-40 off them on front and back of torso at once. Thought if they do take a few weeks to heal and might be unseemly in the mean time (plus I won't be able to use the sunbed to avoid pigment scarring) it would be better to do them all at once, rather than one after the other (which would have taken month and month...) The result was major discomfort - after 2-3 applications my body seemed to turn into a sea of skin irritation and itching!!! It really did drive me up the wall and since there was no position in which I could lie painless and itchfree (forget Paracetamol - won't help a bit), I did not realy sleep for 2 weeks.

Now for the benefit of the procedure. Some moles fell off pretty soon (especially the more raised ones) and have vanished hence. Mostly though - especially the smaller ones were still there when the scabs came off and I still have slight reddening around them. For the bigger flat ones - one fell off (with about 5mm of underneath skin tissue leaving a 8mm itching crater in the skin - took about another 10 days to close up and the result is a reddish smoth round scar as big as the mole there used to be. Several other bigger moles did prevail as well and are now suspiciouse looking, i.e. they are now multicoloured and less regular shaped. It does also seem a bit as if I have a few more tiny moles in vicinity to where treated mole on my abdomen. (cannot swear on that though). The post-bloodroot look of the multicolored moles did get me worried and my GP had two biopsised. Fortunately the biopsies were benign. They will still cut them both out completly to make sure though(ergo in the end the bloodroot did help me get rid of two more big moles, by causing the NHS to pay for their excision). If someone were to ask me - don't use bloodroot for the heck of it. Make sure that the moles you treat are really draining your self worth and not just little beauty spots. Consider the options - when I had the biopsis done the process was much more 'comfortable' that the bloodroot procedure, it did not hurt, did not itch and left less scarring yet.

My experience hasnt been so good with bloodroot. I put it on a small mole on my arm to test it, and one on my thigh. It did what everyone else has said - scabbed, turned black, got a white ring, fell out. but now, ive got 2 hideous hypertrophic scars (red and raised) which my surgeon says will take years to fade. the one on my arm is about 1cm diameter while the mole was originally only about 2mm. There are complications with revising hypertrophic scars so for the mean time im stuck with them. Im not usually prone to hypertrophic scarring either. The freaky part is that beneath the scar there is a dark patch where the mole appears to be growing back. Now I feel like there are bigger things to worry about than permanent scars - like has the Bloodroot made a way for mole cells to access beneath the skin? If so am I at risk of melanoma? Someone please help me out.