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Writer's pictureTamara Glascock

Bone Repair

Updated: Sep 1, 2021

Remember that scene in Forrest Gump where the mean boys are chasing Forrest and Jenny is there yelling, “Run, Forrest! Run!” Yeah, I remember it well.  Why? Because, once upon a time, I had an older brother and sister standing on the other side of the yard yelling, “Run, Tam! Run to me!”.

They thought they were really funny.

No, I didn’t have big metal braces like Forrest, but I did have to wear corrective shoes. I was very pigeon-toed and I couldn’t run more than a few steps without tripping over my feet and landing face first in the dirt, at which point my older siblings would roll on the ground laughing at me. It is a very disturbing memory, but that is another issue…

Eventually, I no longer had to wear the corrective shoes, but my ankles never grew quite right. They have, for as long as I can remember, been weak and prone to sprains. A simple misstep would result in a painful roll, followed by swelling and pain for a couple of days. I could always rotate my ankles and hear/feel a popping. Most noticeable, though, was when my legs were at rest, both of my feet would naturally fall inward at an almost right angle. Keeping them straight was a very uncomfortable effort.

So, it was no surprise when I stepped off the 4-wheeler and landed wrong, rolling my ankle and hearing a series of cracks and pops. As I lay there on the ground trying to keep the blackness and pain at bay, I just kept telling myself, “Breathe. The pain will fade any second…”

Yeah, not so much.

This time around, I had really done it. I tried to deny that it was anything more than a sprain. It is, after all, gardening season around the farm. I absolutely do not have time for a broken ankle. My ankle didn’t get the message, though.  By the end of the day it looked like this:

Swollen ankle Day 1



That was on July 23. Everyone was kind of freaking out and letting me know that it was probably broken and I should at least go see a doctor.

You all know how that worked out, right? Of course, I was not going to the doctor. I really have very few people left in my life that are willing to argue any medical points with me, but there are one or two willing to broach the subject. Both of them asked me the same question…”Why not just go have an x-ray so you know for sure?”  The answer was quite simple.

It seemed silly to waste hours in a germ/disease-filled doctor’s office so he could send me to have an x-ray taken, thereby exposing myself to radiation, only to be told that, yes, it is fractured/broken. The doctor would then offer me some preventative antibiotics and a round of pain pills, cast it, and tell me to come back in a few weeks to do it all again.  There are numerous problems in this scenario.

First, a hospital or doctor’s office is the best place in the universe to pick up some seriously nasty illnesses. Not to mention the hours wasted sitting and waiting for your turn with a doctor who is uninterested in the anonymous patient sitting in front of them.

Second, radiation exposure is ALWAYS a risky thing to do. Yes, x-rays are sometimes necessary, but this was obviously not a messy break. The ankle was straight, I could put weight on it, I still had full range of motion…and, even if it was broken I wouldn’t have let them reset it. I will explain why in a second. Needless to say, I didn’t feel that an x-ray could tell me anything I didn’t already know. Plus, as someone with moderate thyroid issues, any extra radiation exposure would have more dangerous consequences for me.

Third, ‘preventative antibiotics’ is a term that makes me cringe and laugh all at the same time. Preventative antibiotics for me is a good diet, an herbal supplement and general clean living. I spend my life in the search for a safer, healthier way of life for my family and me, which includes ways to keep our natural Immune System in good working order. This includes eliminating things like toxic cleaning and beauty supplies, eating organically-grown foods, avoiding processed foods, getting plenty of fresh air and sunshine. I am operating on the firm belief that my Immune System is operating at a perfectly capable level. Should an infection develop, I know how to fix that without prescription antibiotics, so what is the point?

Fourth, I am unbelievably claustrophobic. No, seriously. You can’t imagine. So, the thought of being in a cast gives me a case of the heebie-jeebies like you wouldn’t believe. Yeah, I know…whatever. I was NOT going to have a cast put on. Besides, that would have prevented me from being able to get at the break with my poultices and salves. Nope. Not gonna happen.

And, finally, the pain pills. Do you really want to even get me started? I never, under any circumstances, for any reason think that prescription pain pills are a good idea. Never.  Have I taken them? Yes. Would I ever take them again? Highly unlikely. No, this is not just to prove what a badass I am. I understand pain. Broken bones, natural childbirth, surgery…I even drilled through my finger once and had to have shards of metal pulled from the wound…I get pain. I understand the need to feel a single moment of relief from pain that makes you want to curl up and fade away.  But, the downside of finding that relief in a prescription pill is so huge and monstrous that it just isn’t worth it. Addiction, organ damage, bone damage, brain damage…and the truth is, most pain pills just take the edge off and make you loopy or tired. There are so many natural pain relievers available that the thought of taking a scrip med for pain is ludicrous. The natural choices may take a few minutes longer to work, but their effects are often longer-lasting and also provide healing benefits.

So, there you have it. There was no need to go to the doctor. I could splint it myself, prevent an infection, deal with the pain and heal it up much faster all by myself.  Here’s my little secret, though…I was kind of scared. I knew, in theory, that it was possible. I had seen it done. I have read case after case of herbs that worked for healing bones on a spectacular level. This was me, though, and, after all of my spouting off about the power of natural medicine, this was something of a test. Of my faith. Of my ability. This was a ‘Live it or leave it’ moment. I chose to live it.

The first thing I did was remind my husband how to make a poultice. I am quite determined to make an herbalist of him yet, and he did a fine job! He mixed up the herbs and added the oils and heated and wrapped and doted on me. I slept with the poultice on the first night. By morning, the pain was minimal. Definitely bearable if I was very still. I applied my Bone Salve several times a day and soaked my foot in an Epsom bath. I applied ice and drank herbal tea that had herbs to heal bones in it. I stayed off that sucker for almost 2 whole days!

Then, I needed to be mobile. I got lucky because our neighbor had just healed up from ankle surgery and had gadgets and gizmos that he was willing to let me borrow. Like this crazy boot:


OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It took a good 3 weeks before I was back to almost-normal. I most often forgot to apply the poultice, but I took bone-building herbs and tea, and used lots of Bone Salve. By the third week, the swelling was gone, most of the bruising was gone and I had full functionality of the ankle. I was pretty impressed.

Now, here is where I want you to really pay attention. I attribute a majority of the healing that is happening to a combination of herbs. The most important one, though, is one that the FDA has declared, “dangerous”.  They state liver toxicity resulting from the use of comfrey. 4 cases of it with sketchy details as the basis for their theory.  I won’t make you sit and read all the studies, but should you be interested in how they arrived at this conclusion, this is a fantastic starting point that is fairly easy to read. Like most of the herbs labeled ‘dangerous’ by the morons at the FDA, Comfrey has been used for thousands of years, across a broad spectrum of nationalities, with no bad press until the last few decades. The studies conducted have been on inbred lab rats that were given several hundred times the dosage of the questionable constituent needed for a human.


Comfrey

Comfrey


For the sake of argument, let us say that they are correct, though. Let us pretend that there have been 4 cases of liver damage over the last 300 years. Hell, let us say there have been 40 cases. Compare that to the antibiotics and pain pills the doctors try and feed you at every opportunity. Need I say more…?

Next, compare the risk of comfrey to the benefits of comfrey. Of course, I have read the reports on how comfrey has been used over the centuries, not just for healing bones, but for a variety of ailments. Safely. With no reported negative consequences. Dr. Christopher has a wonderfully explicit history of comfrey here that is well worth the read!

For the sake of time and space, though, we are just going to stick with comfrey’s ability to help heal bones. One of the many historical names is ‘boneset’.

It has been reported to have the ability to pull shattered bits of bone back into their proper place. It is also a cell proliferate, which means that it has the ability to generate new cell growth, as well as repair damaged cells. Can you imagine? A plant that is actually capable of repairing a shattered bone? These aren’t a few isolated reports we are talking about. It is hundreds. Thousands.

The stories that really hooked me, though, were the ones that talked about comfrey’s ability to repair old wounds and breaks. Ones that had already reset themselves. It was said that comfrey could realign bones that had healed improperly, or that had been wrong since birth. I will admit that even I was a bit skeptical of some of these claims. However, I never really expected to be able to test the claims. Ain’t life funny?

I have now reached the 6 week point. This is the point at which I would be expected to return to the doctor’s office, had I opted to go that route. As I lay in my bed the other night studying my ankle and admiring the fact that I no longer had a greenish-black kankle, I noticed something unbelievable. Remember when I said that my feet used to turn inward at a right angle?  Let me elaborate. My left ankle was so turned in when at rest that my big toe would rest against the inside knob of my right ankle. My right ankle was not nearly as turned, but it did have an obvious bend.

That is no longer the case. Check this out!


crooked foot

My ankle is straight. For the first time since before I can remember, my left ankle is straight! Do you see that?

Then, I rotated my ankle. The double-jointed popping thing was gone. Poof! Vanished!

I started paying attention after that, and realized that I am walking different, too. It is a hard thing to describe. Where once I had to walk carefully because there was a ‘loose’ feeling in my ankles, that was no longer a problem. My ankle felt firmer. More stable. I also noticed that my heel and the side of my foot were a bit sore. I have always walked slightly on the inside of my feet and my heel and outer edge of the foot never had to bear much weight. Not anymore.

The moral of the story? There isn’t one really. This is more about my renewed amazement at the power of herbs and the bodies ability to heal itself when given the proper tools. And, not just heal, but heal in a way that makes it better and stronger than before.

After 6 weeks, I still wear the boot occasionally because I have a penchant for over-doing it when my to-do list is getting out of control. I still use the salve to help soothe the ache that comes with damp weather or over-use. I still take it easy on my ankle because I know that it is still healing. But, that’s the whole point…it IS healing. Spectacularly.

But, still…maybe, just maybe…this was simply another fluke. A one-time thing. So, I am going to be my own guinea pig. Seeing as how my right ankle is still a little bent and much weaker than it should be, I am going to spend a couple of weeks using the poultice and bone salve on it. I’ll let you all know how it goes!

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