manuka honey

Sorry it's called Manuka Honey

I use it. It's not that expensive if you look around. 20+ Manuka Honey is around 15 Euros.

If my daughter's skin infection flares up, she might consider it or medical-grade honey. 

My daughter had folliculitis which turned into an abcess. Treated by Keflex, topicals, surgery, more topicals including Gentamycin, more Keflex. For the past month, she has been using wound healing ointment and her dermatologist said it looks like it is healing, but will be slow. The skin didn't appear to be infected at the time of surgery some months ago, but the wound wouldn't close - so the dermatologist removed what remained of a burst abcess and scar tissue. (Previously, in the summer, she had taken Keflex for the folliculitis.) 

After surgery, and two weeks after she went off LDN she got very sick with a cold, then in another month, a crohn's flare developed. So she took the highest recommended dose of Entocort to control the flare. Within a week of starting the Entocort the skin infection made a comeback - I believe her weakened immune system (due to Crohn's, a virus, and Entocort) paved the way for the resurgence of the skin infection. I found out steroids not only weaken the immune system, but also interfere with certain key stages in wound healing. 

They cultured the skin infection and said it was pseudomonas aeruginosa - one of the really bad bugs. They suggested Cipro and she said no thanks because Cipro gave her nearly 104 degree Fahrenheit fever when she was hospitalized in 2006. So then they suggested topical Gentamycin - it, and then another round of Keflex got the wound to close again. Then she started the wound healing cream (antibacterials can interfere with wound healing, because they are toxic to the skin healing process as well as to the bacteria, and don't allow the wound to "breathe" - it needs oxygen). Am keeping my fingers crossed that it continues healing.

Oh well, am not surprised - there's plenty of evidence showing Crohn's patients have a propensity for slow/inefficient wound healing - toss in a flare, a recent viral illness, and steroids, and you have a perfect storm of an opportunity for bugs to have their way.

While frantically looking for safer alternatives than some of the toxic antibiotics they were considering, I was surprised to find the research about medical grade honey. It's really incredible something so safe can also be so effective!!! Thanks for the tip about Jellybush - assuming my daughter's health holds up, we'll be in Aussie land next week!  

One of my doctors (originally from Romania) said she had a nasty infection from getting her ears pierced, and that it never really went away despite medical treatments. Eventually, someone made her a concoction from honey, and it healed the problem permanently. Gotta love natural products!

This year I spent quite a while learning about biofilms AND psudeomonas arginosa. FYI.

The manuka honey thing rocks. NJmom -- try to get UMF20+ you can see the exact thing I use here:
http://www.korunaturals.com/proddetail.php?prod=CWC1 I think it's shipped from Austrailia to CA and then shipped out. Have a great trip !! also, njmom - if it's healing slowly still, you might want to look at this site and read about biofilms.
http://sites.google.com/site/gavinproject/what-is-biofilm-and-what-role-does-it-play-in-chronic-wounds
I now mix my manuka with a modified version of the gel on the site and I've found it super efficient helping me manage this PG.

and to everyone else - if you give the honey a shot -- let us know! I think it's a miracle.

Have you ever noticed honey never goes bad? That's because of it's native antibacterial properties. Amazing when you think about it, what nature gives us.

Post Edited (janicea) : 2/13/2011 8:32:28 PM (GMT-7)

There's Manuka Honey in my conditioner.

This is really interesting!

they found honey in a pyramid that was still good, honey doesn't go bad.

Hi there, Before my son was diagnosed with crohns he had anal fistula and after his op they treated it with medical manuka, it worked absolute wonders and healed great and quickly. I also had fistula few years back( i dont have crohns) and mine was packed and took much longer to heal. Manuka great!!!

Thx for the suggestions and info, everybody! Nanners, the Gentamycin cream is certainly strong stuff and helped initially, but didn't close up the wound. The infectious disease (ID) doc said, since she had taken it for more than four weeks, it might even be interfering with wound healing. So I did my own research, discovering info about medical grade honey - how it is bactericidal, but does not injure healthy tissue - so unlike other bactericidals is less likely to interfere with wound healing...no doc ever told us about honey. 

The ID doc questioned whether she really had pseudomonas, because she didn't have any of the typical symptoms (I had already discovered this from checking out everything I could find out about pseudomonas.) We all have pseudomonas and other bacteria on our skin, so anything they found could be naturally occuring. I also discovered this is just one reason why it's so hard to treat a skin infection - sure, you can culture and find a bacterium, but that doesn't mean the bacterium is actually causing an infection. No wonder the ID doc looked so glum when he repeatedly warned, "Treating skin infections effectively is hard." 

The ID doc prescribed another round of Keflex and this is what finally completely closed up the wound. The wound healing cream (not bactericidal) seems to have helped keep it closed. I don't feel the need to accompany my daughter on every doctor visit, but this issue dragged on for 18 months (the first 12 she didn't mention it to any doc). Initially, I wasn't worried about it, except for the antibiotics, which might upset Crohn's, and assumed it would clear up in no time. Hah!

Janicea, it's amazing it helped your PG, which seems to be very hard to treat! Dodie, thx for sharing.

i took this a while back and it made me significantly worse. i wouldn't recommend this for Crohn's disease

I put about 3/4 of a teaspoon in my morning decaf. I don't think it has made a difference in my innards, but who knows. Maybe that's why the 6-MP doesn't make me nauseous-Ha Ha. At least it makes decaf more tolerable.

njmom: if she's putting a gauze or a bandaid on it, tell her to put a little vasaline on the gauze just enough to make a slight film.
-j