With a house full of boys, we deal with a lot of bruises around here.

Especially with Little Brother, who has a tendency toward collisions with inanimate objects. The other day (in just one day) he sustained three sizable blows to the noggin. Poor guy.

As an aside, I’ve been meaning for some time now to blog more about how we use essential oils here at the Yankee Homestead. EO’s have served as a major component of our Medicine Cabinet Makeover, in which we’ve attempted to treat illness and injuries with safe, natural remedies while avoiding chemicals and synthetics as much as possible.

We LOVE EO’s. The boys now ask for oil whenever they feel sick or injured. Little Brother pronounces “oil” so that it sounds like “whale,” so sometimes we joke that someone needs some “whale.”  You need some whale for that?

Anyway, I feel so overwhelmed about sharing all that we’ve learned and experienced with our beloved EO’s that I’ve finally decided simply to jump in and begin sharing our specific success stories, little by little.

So here’s one of them.

We’ve tried this remedy several times now, with such success that the first time or two I actually thought it might have been a fluke.

I present to you our go-to remedy for bumps and bruises:
doTerra’s Deep Blue Oil & Rub and Geranium Oil.

When Little Brother acquires one of his frequent goose eggs on the noggin, I immediately apply a drop of Geranium Oil followed by a tiny amount of Deep Blue Rub, gently massaging each into the skin.

On that recent day when Little Brother incurred three separate injuries to the head, I was present for only one of them.

It was late afternoon on a Saturday.  His forehead had smacked the edge of his brother’s antique, solid wood bed frame.  A large, ugly, blue lump was beginning to form, along with a cut.  I immediately applied the oils.  Shortly afterwards, he said it felt better.

Mr. Native Texan and I were headed out for Date Night, so I wasn’t able to check his head that evening.  The next morning, however, not even 24 hours later, the bruise was completely gone.  No discoloration, no lump.  The cut was still there, but was healing up nicely.

Another, separate incident, this time involving Yours Truly: I dropped a frozen container straight out of the freezer, from about shoulder height, directly onto my middle toe.  Oh, the pain!  We’re talking writhing on the floor issuing forth tears and exclamations of agony.  (It’s perhaps relevant to mention here that Mr. Native Texan thinks I have a high pain tolerance.  I’m not exactly sure what this is based on, or how to prove or disprove it, but for what it’s worth…)

As soon as I regained composure–while the boys sat in their chairs at the dining room table, staring into the kitchen with mouths agape–I grabbed the Deep Blue Oil and the Rub and applied a drop of the oil, and then a tiny bit of the Rub.

It was one of those amazing, Is This For Real? moments.  Like someone had given me a shot of Novocaine.  The pain was gone!

Now, not all of our EO experiences are quite so miraculous.  Some treatments take much longer to produce an effect.

But for bumps and bruises, we’ve found nothing more safe, effective and with such speedy results than Geranium Oil and Deep Blue Oil & Rub.

How do you treat bumps and bruises?

NOTE: For more information about doTerra, including why I believe their oils are the best around, see the following posts:

• Why I Use DoTerra Essential Oils (and why you shouldn’t get your oils at the grocery store)
• doTerra Essential Oils: How to Purchase

Deep Blue Explanation:

• doTerra’s Deep Blue Soothing Oil Blend is a combination of wintergreen, camphor, peppermint, blue tansy, blue chamomile, helichrysum and osmanthus, meant to be applied topically  to ease achy joints and sore muscles.
• Deep Blue Rub is a rich, topical cream infused with close to 5 ml of the Deep Blue Soothing Oil Blend.
• Read all about Deep Blue here.

Other posts you might like:

• Tea Time: Traditional Medicinals Herbal Teas for Self Care
• Zand HerbaLozenges: fight colds and flu naturally!
• Lavender, Lemon & Peppermint: our favorite uses for three popular essential oils