General Chat

I had a whitlow when my son was a baby. Changed his nappy and the safety pin stabbed my finger. The pain was bad and I kept putting my finger up and down. My hubby said one night "what on earth is wrong with you " Said I did not know but was in pain. He looked and said I had a red line running up my arm. The doctor lanced the wound the next morning and what a blessing xx

On the rare occasion I have a boil, I use a bread poultice.
First though, as I no longer eat bread, I have to 'acquire' a slice, or defrost the 'emergency' rolls in the freezer. :-(

I always found it to be good Amokavid :-D :-D

The old ways are sometimes the best :-D :-D

LOL Joy, I reckon the old remedies are the best!

Been a long time since I had a Whitlow ,was just a girl, my aunt used the sugar & soap cure & it worked a treat.

Whitlows are very painful.

Joan.

excellent news

I am glad to hear the patient is now recovering :-D

Bread poultice? He would have eaten it before it had chance to work but I am pleased to know that I am the last exponent of the poultice.

Pleased to announce that he is now sitting up and taking a little light nourishment.

Sounds a good all-rounder, having googled it, it's Epsom salts + other things in a tube :-D
Will buy some tomorrow ready for my hols :-D

Iris, I think that's the stuff I was talking about.

Lizx

I had to Google whitlow.
Fortunately never had one (touch wood), nor do I know anyone who has. Looks nasty though :-(

However, if I had one, I would use a bread poultice.
Used to use them on a cat that would regularly get abscesses.
When he got one on his face, I took him to the vet, who managed to 'sort it' without putting the cat 'out'.
The vet asked me, in future, not to bring him in, unless it was desperate, but to carry on using the poultices - as he howled the whole time, and kept the emergency vet awake :-S

Mum always used Kaolin poultice put on as hot as could suffered !! be to draw out any splinters or any nasties from something that had gone infected

hello sharron ,
glad to hear your OHs whitlow has gone ,what I find very useful is magnesium sulphate paste , cost about £2. used it the other week to get a splinter out from behind my nail . iris

:-) :-) :-) :-)

Sorri Sharron. I often find Sylvia's statements ambiguous. :-S

When I posted this I was trying to elicit world prayers for my OH with his terminal whitlow and you two have turned it into an argument about whether there is Savlon in New Zealand.

Now shape up you two, this is a very serious matter, it's OH's whitlow we are talking about here!

Yep I read it.. looked like " you found out that only hot water and Savlon would work after getting a whitlow while visiting NZ "

It certainly looked like you did not try anything else or that we perhaps had alternative treatments..

Persie ................


did you really read what I said??? .........

I didn't say anything about how people in NZ would have handled a whitlow

I said that we were on a 10 day driving holiday in NZ after spending 10 months in Australia. We had a very limited medical pack with us, and full suitcases so no room to add much more to them, and little money to waste on something we would throw away.

I had to make do with what I had, and what I could use in a small motel room.


I was brought up in the UK, we did use Savlon, and often just used hot water, or a mustard plaster. Dad had a technique that could get almost any kind of splinter out, so we rarely had to resort to any "poulticing"


We used to be able to buy Savlon in Canada, just as we used to be able to buy soluble Disprin and Codis here ................. until there was a requirement that everything sold here had to be labelled in both English and French. Those companies were not willing to spend the money to do the amount of translation and re-packaging that was necessary for a relatively small market.

There is a special 'drawing' ointment you can buy from a chemist. I had a slightly ingrown toenail which was red and inflamed at the edge and the pharmacist said it would help, which it did. It 'draws out' infection. Will look for it and write the name on here.

So glad your o.h's whitlow has burst, Sharron

Lizxx

Well Sylvia I grew up in NZ, and my father (like JoyBoro with wings) would always use soap and sugar on a plaster. It was put on splinters that were difficult to get out with a needle.. swear by it.. he used to say that will draw out the poison.

Now umpteen years later and still here in NZ I have never used Savlon and hot water and no one here has told me to do so. BTW we do have Savlon cream in the house and have even had it in liquid form as a disinfectant.. also have Dettol but was told by a relative (Doctor) that both products were actually useless as a proper medical disinfectant despite what it says on the labels.

Sharron ................

i found out that only hot water and Savlon would work after getting a whitlow while visiting NZ on our way home from Australia in the mid-1970s.

We were on a 10 day driving holiday, so had limited things with us. I wasn't about to buy salt or epsom salts only to throw out the majority of the package ............ so I tried plain hot water from the tap and Savlon, which I always carried.


Unfortunately, we can't get Savlon here, so I have to try to stock up when we go to the UK or someone comes out to visit. I have 1 more unopened large tube in the store cupboard, then that is it!

We do have antibiotic creams which I can use instead and which are very good, but Savlon has that soothing effect which I haven't found in anything here ..... and that's after 47 years!!

I didn't have any Savlon but I did have salt and I did (purely out of pity you understand) indulge in some Epsom salts which costs considerably less than Savlon.

'Cause he's worth it!

Glad to hear he survived, Sharron!



I swear by regular dips in plain hot water, as hot as you can stand it, and Savlon