Eytons' Earth: Natural & Alternative Medicine

[sadie]

Hi Jason; (and any others who may have successfully treated poisonous insect bites with clay applications)

I have read this website from time to time and have greatly benefited!

A few years ago I had a rose thorn pierce my 3rd knuckle on the hand and got an infected tendon. After reading this site, I decided to work at my potter friend's for a month, messing around with clay. I had had the infection for over a year with blackening and purple color always present. Just having my hands in the clay helped! finally after a year of suffering with it and the pain, the clay took care of it, apparently! All discoloration left and the pain was gone! Well, that made a clay convert out of me.

So I am back with another issue. I was bitten in my sleep Sunday morning by a spider while sleeping on a pad on my floor; possibly a hobo spider. We have plenty of hobo spiders up here in the Pacific NW. I woke up with searing pain in a very localized part on my shoulder on the deltoid muscle. The area was reddish, weltlike, with a dardened irregular area (blackish-purple bruised looking) inside the reddened area. The red, hard, slightly raised area was quarter size, then expanded to half dollar size. (Not sure how many hours before I'd actually been bitten.)

I had mixed up some bentonite clay in distilled water as you had described, so it was in my cabinet waiting. I didn't have any bandages, so I've just been applying clay with fingers on the bite area, which is very tight and hot and feels much like a second degree burn; searing pain and much heat.

The clay seems to be working! I applied it several times on Sunday and rested as much as possible. Monday night I applied it about 1/8" thick, just before bedtime. The bite area is getting smaller (about dime size, down from half dollar size.) There is still pain and burning, but much less and not all the time now.

I had been leaving the dried clay on the area. simply adding more wetter clay after gently washing the area, but today I gently washed and rubbed off all the dried clay because I wanted to have a look at the bite area.

It looks pretty good; still very red and hot looking, but swelling gone and no necrosis (I have had several of what I think may have been hobo spider bites before, and they took 6 months to heal with some necrosis and scarring, but I am one of the lucky ones who never needed surgery or a doctor's intervention.) This bite is on my shoulder/upper arm, so the area is less fatty than, say, an inner thigh, and may be healing faster -- but I attribute that to the clay, even though I am not doing it "properly" and only with what means I have.

I am wondering, though, if I need to be treating my skin otherwise, as it feels dry and tight and irritated. (or is that the toxins being drawn out of me?) I have a great herbal salve which I have been putting around the red area, but am trying to keep the red area very clean. Today I rubbed 2 tiny (size of pinheads) scabs off with the wet washcloth, thinking that they were dried clay bits stuck to the skin. I wanted to see the wound without any clay on it. Now the pain is much worse again and constant, but that may just be irritation from rubbing the area with a washcloth. I see one round hole (pinhead size) and there may possibly be another about 1/4" away from that -- so I may have been bitten twice; it's hard to tell.

I guess my question is, do I keep going with what I've been doing? I am convinced the clay is helping. The washing, gentle rubbing, and cleaning up of the clay made the bite area hot and irritated again though.

Some other questions are:
1. if I have been keeping the wet clay mix in a cool dark cabinet in a glass jar, is it good "indefinitely"?
2. Does light affect it, and how? (I have had the jar out on my nightstand the past couple of days).
3. should I be putting clay on thicker and keeping it wet at all times? I am letting it dry out on the bite site.
4. Is there a tutorial on that (do I need gauze and tape, or some kind of way to hold the clay on?) My "intuitive" sense was that the wound needed air too, so I have not covered it except with a soft shirt over the clay.
5. Are there other things to do to help my skin not feel so tight and dry, and is clay by itself too drying, astringent, and irritant? The clay is so astringent I feel I need to be hydrating the skin too. (I am not young!) I'm certainly willing to go through the pain and burning if it is part of the healing process; I want those toxins out of me! I guess what I'm trying to ask in my too-verbose way is, could the clay harm my skin or dry it out too much?

Thanks so much for this site; I will probably keep going with what I am doing, as the reduction in size and swelling are indications to me that this is working well!

Sorry for the extremely long post; I wanted to be as detailed as possible, and maybe help others who get bitten to know that clay helps with poisonous bites and stings.

gratefully,
Sadie