One of my famous personal essential oil testimonies is how I got rid of my shingles using ravensara essential oil.
Shingles, aka Herpes
Zoster, is a severe and short lived viral infection caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox.
It's an infection of the nervous system that affects
certain areas of the skin.
Shingles originates from having chicken pox as a child.
During a childhood bout of chicken pox, not all of the viral
organisms are destroyed. They hang out and stay quiet - "dormant" - in the nerves in the skin for many years.
When there is severe emotional stress, severe
illness, or things that severely affect the immune system, these "dormant" critters wake up and get active again, and cause an infection.
The pain is severe
and sometimes long lived, and the medical approach is anti-viral medications, steroids, pain meds, and antibiotics for potential skin infection - and not everyone
wants to take this approach (although if the outbreak is near the eyes you should definitely seek medical attention!) So once again we say Thank God for the
oils!
I had a shingles outbreak a few years ago when my mother, who had been diagnosed with kidney cancer, had surgery to have her kidney
removed.
I was so stressed out that I wasn't paying attention to my body. It's interesting how that happens, isn't it?
Our bodies have to tell us the
degree of how much stress we are under if we're not paying attention.
When I found out I had shingles I ran to my two favorite resource books - the Essential
Desk Reference and The Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide by the Burton Goldberg Group.
Both of these books mentioned ravensara - which I had in my
oil collection and loved for sinus issues.
I immediately took some internally (I had taken ravensara internally before for bronchitis so I was comfortable taking it
internally again).
I put 7 drops in an empty gel cap and I took one capsule in the morning and one at night. Within one day my pain and symptoms went
away.
I decided to keep myself on this regime for 21 days because that is the normal life span of a virus. My symptoms stayed away for the whole time except
for one day I did forget to take my dose.
I said to myself "oh, I probably don't have shingles - I don't have symptoms so I'll stop taking the capsules." Well,
within one day the symptoms came back, so I resumed to completion.
Now not everyone will feel comfortable taking oils internally, so here are ways you can
use essential oils topically for the discomfort of shingles:
Blend together:
-- 10 drops sandalwood
-- 5 drops blue cypress
-- 4 drops
peppermint
-- 2 drops ravensara
Dilute 50:50 with massage oil and apply 6 - 10 drops on the affected area, back of neck, and down the spine 1 - 3 times
daily. (from Essential Desk Reference)
____ A case study was done of six hospice patients with shingles. It was found that three essential oils combined
together and placed in distilled water and used as a spritz improved the symptoms of the shingles.
The three oils used were:
--ravensara
--bergamot
--niaouli
Aromatherapist Noel Gilligan ran this study. Mr Gilligan reported that after 48 hours:
--there was a significant reduction in the
pain from the shingles
--scabbing and healing of the pustules took place and in one
instance there was a disappearance of the
pustules
