Tea Trea Oil: My Favorite Natural Cure All. and a note on MRSA

First, the disclaimer. The information in this post is meant as a guideline and to be informative only. I am not a doctor and this is not meant to be used as medical advice. I am in the health care profession and believe that there is a time and place for medicinal cures and for surgery. Please use your best judgment when treating yourself and your family with any product, man made or natural. Tea Tree Oil has been a true God send for me and my family. I have been using it for many years now and keep finding different uses for it. I am writing this post simply because it really and truly works for so many conditions and ailments and I just wanted to share the information with whoever might find it useful.

I haven't bought OTC antibacterial ointments in at least 10 years. Partly because 2 very respected hand surgeons that treat an enormous amount of infections surgically, adamantly protested the use of these ointments and in fact said they were worse than using nothing at all. According to him and his (physician) partner, these ointments actually prolonged the healing of minor and major (surgical) wounds. Wounds are supposed to be kept clean and dry in order to heal, not gunked up with goop and smothered with a band aid. Also, I have found this wonderful, all natural treatment from a plant in Australia that is used to treat infections and beyond called Tea Tree Oil.

When my second son Jack was just 1 week old I noticed a 'blister' on his itty bitty baby toe. Having worked in surgery for so many years I immediately new it was an infection. But how could this be? He was only a week old!  Being the crazy, new, paranoid mother that I was I put him right in his car seat and drove him to the pediatricians office whom we hadn't even had the pleasure of meeting yet. The skeptical receptionist/MA at the front desk suggested I go back home and make an appointment. Ha! Only a normal person would do something like that. I insisted that we see a Dr.,  not a nurse or PA immediately seeing as that it had been over a week since he'd been born and I hadn't been able to get an appointment thus far.

She saw the seriousness in my eyes and managed to find a doctor in the place. O.K. Long story short (what, to late for that?) It ended up being MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) a highly resistant infection that used to only be seen in chronically ill patients in the hospital setting. Thanks to over and mis-use of antibiotics however there is a new super bug that is spreading like wild fire called " Community Acquired MRSA or CA-MRSA"  Only a few years ago MRSA was almost always Hospital Acquired or HA-MRSA, meaning it was found primarily in long term hospital patients No longer is this scary bug confined to immune-compromised patients with surgical wounds, it is in our schools, the local gym you go to and the restaurants you eat at. In fact, 3-4 out of 5 people are said to be carriers. Meaning if you swabbed 5 peoples noses and tested for the super bug, 3-4 of them would have MRSA in there bodies.

After spending some time in isolation at the Children's hospital and frightening talk of maybe having to do a spinal tap and 2 weeks of  heavy duty I.V. antibiotics on my newborn baby we found out at our 2 week follow up appointment that 7 other newborn babies had shown up with MRSA (at that pediatric office alone) and it had been traced back to the hospital where they were all born, probably a nurse who had contact with the babies who was a carrier of the bug.

picture from Bien-'Etre skincare and wellness

Two years later a week before Christmas, Jack had been acting sick for about a week and I noticed a lump on the side of his neck. It turned out to be a peritonsilar abscess that needed to be treated surgically. The results confirmed it was indeed MRSA and we spent 2 whole weeks in the hospital on some pretty serious drugs. They tried to send us home after a few days post-op but the 1 of only 2 or 3 antibiotics that will actually treat MRSA is so harsh my then 2 year old couldn't even tolerate it going down his throat. The stuff smelled like gasoline! So, we ended up back in the hospital on I.V. antibiotics.

This whole experience was a very difficult and frustrating time. Not only for obvious reasons like having to watch your baby suffer with such a scary infection and go through surgery and then regress back to an infantile state in his confined metal crib, but because nobody could give me a straight answer on the recovery or recurrence of MRSA. Not any of the doctors, nurses or even the Infectious Disease Control Specialist that visited us. There just wasn't enough information about this new form of the disease,

CA-MRSA.

What I was told over and over again was that my son would most likely have MRSA infections for the rest of his life. Every scrape, every cut that got infected, every chest cold and ear infection would likely be MRSA. What's worse is that eventually this bug becomes resistant to antibiotics as well and then the infections become Vancomycin resistant which means nothing will treat the infection.

This was very hard for me to accept being as that I have always been very skeptical of the use of antibiotics. Again, I am grateful for them as a last resort but firmly believe that most doctors over prescribe them and most people don't use them correctly, such as forgetting to finish the full dose which is exactly how the staph infections became resistant to the antibiotics in the first place.

Instead of accepting the fate of my son to be destined to using harsh medicine over and over which destroys your GI tract, kidneys, liver and over all health, I decided to do a bunch of research for natural alternatives. Tea Tree Oil is one of the solutions I found that it ended up working miracles for us. Silver being the second, but we won't dive into that today since I've probably already lost most of you anyway at this point.

this is the brand I use

I first tried it myself and then started giving Jack small amounts of tea tree oil topically as a prophylactic (preventative) measure. For young children I suggest mixing a teaspoon or so of Vitamin E or Olive Oil with 1 drop tea tree oil and rubbing it on the bottoms of their feet and/or under their arms near the lymph nodes. Keep away from their face and hands as small children will rub their hands on their eyes and put them in their mouth. I haven't found that tee tree oil burns at all when I use it as a face wash, but still think it's best to keep away from children's sensitive faces.

What Exactly Is Tea Tree Oil?

picture from Dermaxime Skin Care

Tea tree oil is an essential oil  from the leaves of Melaleuca alternifolia, a plant native to Australia.
Historically, the leaves were used as a substitute for tea, which is how tea tree oil got its name. The part used medicinally is the oil from the leaves.

Australian aboriginals used tea tree leaves for healing skin cuts, burns, and infections by crushing the leaves and applying them to the affected area. Tea tree oil contains consituents called terpenoids, which have been found to have antiseptic and anti fungal activity. The compound terpinen-4-ol is the most abundant and is thought to be responsible for most of tea tree oil's antimicrobial properties.

Today tea tree oil is used for many ailments from acne to athletes foot. Personally and for my family I have used tea tree oil {and it worked} for the following conditions:

• Relief of itching and inflammation from bug bites (2-3 drops in a basin of water, soak 10-15 minutes. 5-8 drops in a tub full of water.)
• Acne (when mixed 2-3 drops with 1/4 cup EVOO and Castor oil as a cleanser)
• Ppsoriasis (small patch on my forehead)
• Eczema, (mild cases on 2 of my 4 children)
• Infections (from skin and ear infections to pneumonia. I pour a few drops of Vitamin E oil and 1-2 drops tea tree oil in the palm of my hand and simply rub onto skin. It will soak into your body and amazingly enough has worked wonders for treating almost all infections my kids have had. We've only had to get antibiotics 1 in the last 2-3 years for a stubborn ear infection.)
• Toe nail fungus (from getting pedicures)  Mix 3-6 drops of tea tree oil in a basin of water and soak feet for at least 10 minutes, 1-2 times a day. This worked much, much faster than any OTC or prescription medicine used to treat nail fungus which is notoriously hard to cure.
• Dry Scalp/Dandruff (mix 2-3 drops in Cider Vinegar & Baking powder)
• Aromatherapy to treat colds and persistent coughs.

Here is an example of why it might be better to use a natural product such as Tea Tree Oil instead of a man-made chemical based one.

A single-blind randomized trial by the Department of Dermatology at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Australia compared the effectiveness and tolerance of 5% tea tree oil gel with 5% benzoyl peroxide lotion in 124 people with mild to moderate acne. People in both groups had a significant reduction in inflamed and non-inflamed acne lesions (open and closed comedones) over the three month period, although tea tree oil was less effective than benzoyl peroxide.

Although the tea tree oil took longer to work initially, there were fewer side effects with tea tree oil. In the benzoyl peroxide group, 79 percent of people had side effects including itching, stinging, burning, and dryness. Researchers noted that there were far less side effects in the tea tree oil group.

A little goes a long way! Start with just a drop or two and increase as needed.

Things to consider when using and purchasing Tea Tree Oil

• Make sure it comes int a dark bottle so the light doesn't destroy the medicinal properties in the oil.
• Do NOT take tea tree oil orally. It is to be used topically or as an aromatherapy only.
• A little goes a long way. Start with just 1-2 drops of oil as a soak or mixed with oil.
• Choose a bottle with a dispensing cap that only lets a drop out at a time (like the one I use pictured above) or one that comes with a dropper.
• Tea Tree Oil can be found at most Naturopathic and Holistic shops as well as many common stores including most Walmart's, Sprouts, Walgreen's, CVS, Whole Foods and Fry's Marketplace.