A Paste and a Preparation to Reduce Even the Most Gruesome Shiner!
Saturday morning, my husband came home with a gruesome shiner. For the last two years, he's trained seriously in Krav Maga (an Israeli martial art). In the beginning, he'd come home with a bruise here and a sore spot there, but as he's moved up in belt rank, so have his injuries. This was by far the worst.
Nonchalantly, he strolled into the living room, looking like a victim in a slasher film. I was completely horrified. The left side of his face looked disfigured; but once I got past my shock, I sprang into Herbalist Florence Nightingale mode.
Not only did he have a black eye (well purple and maroon at that point to be accurate), but his entire eye was swollen shut and there was a bleeding scrape on the top of his eyelid.
He refused to let me photograph his misery for the purposes of my blog, but you get the picture.
As he settled onto our sofa and tuned into ESPN, I worked to devise a plan. My first objective was to cool the area and try to reduce the inflammation and swelling. He'd already iced the area to no avail, so I decided to pull out my cooling summertime face mist and a roll of cotton rounds. I sprayed the rounds with the cooling mixture and placed the sodden pads over his entire eye. I repeated this for about five minutes. The witch hazel and aloe cooled the area, while the lavender and witch hazel worked to clean the scrape on his eyelid.
Next, I wanted to stimulate the blood flow to reduce the discoloration and inflammation.
I made a paste using 1 tablespoon shea butter, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper and 1 teaspoon turmeric. After mixing the paste, I applied it liberally to the swollen puffy area beneath his eye (being very careful not to get any inside his eye). After five minutes, I rinsed the paste off and repeated my summer skin cooling mist application.
We began a cycle:
- cooling summertime face mist
- paste application
- cooling summertime face mist
- ice
- repeat
Two hours later, the swelling went down tremendously and he was able to open the eye 90% and his skin color began to return to normal.
It looks like Mr. Musician will be able to return to the stage again in no time. As for the gym, that's a completely different story.
This regimen works well for bruises and swelling of all types as long as you don't have broken skin (if you've got a scrape or cut, don't get the paste in it! It will burn).