Trauma Effects Skin – Treating Skin as the Nervous System; Radiation damaged skin; Hormonal blowout damaged skin; Skin depleted of sexual energy; Skin traumatized by Nervous Electric Voltage Fluctuation/ Blowouts (Shock trauma); Skin traumatized by poisoning, assault on liver and digestion; How to treat the skin with nervines
Dear Ed,
For many years now, I’ve been noticing the direct effect of trauma of different sorts on the skin, especially on the face. At any given time, my facial skin directly demonstrates the state of my nervous system.
Perhaps not everyone has as extremely reactive skin as me, but in varying degrees, everyone’s skin mirrors their nervous system. Those who get enough sleep and enough good fat in their diet; their skin has a buffer in place preventing extreme sudden reactions, just as fat around nerves and nerve endings cushions them from electric surges and dips.
Long story short, Ed, for all intents and purposes, our skin IS our nervous system.
Looking at skin that way, Ed, I find that treating the skin with herbs classified as nervines gives results that the usual herbs used for skin healing don’t.
For those whose skin conditions are caused by weather extremities, the traditional remedies of Comfrey, Elecampane, Aloe Vera, Calendula will do just fine. These and oil of any sort will get one through harsh winters, walking long hours in windy places and so on.
But we have a new sort of skin problem scenario these days. Something not seen in decades.
– Radiation damaged skin
– Hormonal blowout damaged skin; Skin depleted of sexual energy
– Skin traumatized by Nervous Electric Voltage Fluctuation/ Blowouts (Shock trauma)
– Skin traumatized by poisoning, assault on liver and digestion
– All of the above
What the beauty and cosmetics industry has been doing since maybe the 80s, Ed, when trauma skin began to be very common, is supplement damaged skin with synthetic hormones or extracts of hormones from animals and humans that provided the actual chemicals required for spot healing.
These had immediate effect in normalizing skin issues, but created a wider problem. Because the skin was getting hormones ready made, the body considered it not necessary to make its own hormones, according to its own dna patterns and in response to the particular needs of the skin for healing. Therefore the body’s own ability to deal with skin problems began to be suppressed.
Some people’s bodies fight back the interference resulting in autoimmune skin disorders.
So, in the long run, a chemical/ hormone treatment of the skin is going to cause severe skin problems. Not to mention the hormonal imbalance caused in the body in other ways because of the interference.
I recently saw this ad on the internet for Clindamycin, an anti acne topical treatment. When I was 15 and experiencing acne, a classmate whose mother was a doctor had a complete clear out of her acne almost overnight. I asked her what she’d done and she mentioned Clindamycin. I got it and almost overnight my acne disappeared too. I used it regularly for nearly four years. I didn’t have to worry about my skin at all when I was using it. I didn’t have to do things like face packs, or anything really. The only “beauty treatment” I did was remind myself to stay hydrated.
When I went to Australia to university, I ran out of my supply I’d taken with me, and I thought it was ok… I’d taken it long enough. To my shock, in three days of not using it, I had the worst acne breakout EVER and worse, I had severe heavy hemorrhage literally every month and all manner of hormonal blowouts. Because the only treatment I’d taken in years was that one, I wondered if it had had something to do with what was happening to me.
I found the paper that comes with the tube, still inside a box I hadn’t thrown away, and read it. I got such a shock when it said that Clindamycin shows up in breast milk, and among its side effects were all the things I was going through.
The drug had worked by artificially controlling hormonal levels to make sure I did not have an acne breakout, and my body had forgotten how to manage my hormone levels without it.
It took me more than a decade to get my body to managing hormones naturally again. I suspect that my pregnancy carrying Gabriel for way longer than the usual, otherwise called “cryptic pregnancy” could have been caused by hormonal imbalance stemming from the interference in my hormonal cycles in my teens.
Since then I’ve read people’s experiences with neuro-effective drugs, hormone affecting drugs and so on, and even though most give their attention to pressing conditions that affect basic life processes, the skin is one of those areas affected badly.
Anyway, Ed, so what I set out to say is, that, I’ve found that treating the skin as the nervous system itself has worked for me and others, where the usual Aloe/ Comfrey/ Petroleum jelly/ Oils regimen hasn’t.
Radiation damaged skin
Radiation splinters the energy field into sections. The person feels broken up into many pieces and there’s a lack of coordination between those pieces as time goes by.
The skin becomes brittle, fragile and hypersensitive; some areas show burn marks and others go purple like a big bruise.
To support the energy field in recovery from shock, Vervain, St. John’s Wort and Celandine and energy neutralizers like Charcoal and Clay, used directly on the skin help heal. These have an energy field effect of consolidation or gathering together. They inspire our energy field to gather together.
Hormonal blowout damaged skin; Skin depleted of sexual energy
When we have a hormonal blowout, our sexual energy levels are depleted. This means our body isn’t making oil, skin, bone, hair, teeth cells at the same rate as before. So the first thing to do is cut out any scrubs, face and body washes, shampoos that are abrasive, which remove layers of dead cells, because those dead cells are protection right now for the new cells being produced very slow now.
You don’t deplete skin and hair of anything right now.
Fig, Walnut Oil, Flaxseed Oil, Myrrh, Phytolacca Berry are hormonal balancers ie. they help the skin and hair and body hold in sexual energy and in that way support recovery from hormonal blowouts.
You try not to give the skin any new stimulating substances to deal with at this time. Even herbs. The skin is also a digestive organ and whatever we put on it, it has to process. That’s work. At this time, we don’t give the skin any extra work.
Skin traumatized by Nervous Electric Voltage Fluctuation/ Blowouts (Shock trauma)
The difference between this and radiation damaged skin is, with electric fluctuation damage, there tends to be a whole lot of broken or dead cells that don’t know they’re dead. Ie. the body is not aware the cells are dead, because the nerve endings in the area are injured or numb and aren’t reporting right.
There’s the “combination skin” problem where there are patches of dead skin and patches of hyperactive skin cells.
Mimosa Pudica (touch-me-not), Cypripedium (Ladies Slipper), Rue, St. John’s Wort or Hypericum support nerve ending repair.
Skin traumatized by poisoning, assault on liver and digestion
When the liver and digestion aren’t working right, the skin tends to lose luster, look tired. A consciousness of tiredness, being overwhelmed by tasks, and giving up attempting to keep clean because the poison assaults on the system just don’t stop, pervades.
Parthenium Hysterophorus, Feverfew, Mustard Oil, Fenugreek help revitalize and oxygenate the skin.
All of the above – Long Term Trauma Carriers
When a person has long term trauma, the most important thing is to bring the skin (and system) out of the trauma consciousness.
Pine Bark, Pine Resin, Mistletoe, Spikenard are spectacular in that department though all plants that are not stimulating (like garlic for example is) help.
What happens is, most people stimulate the skin to recover, not realizing that stimulating traumatized skin, is like pushing a traumatized child to do better at school. That just doesn’t work out in the long run.
REST is the most important thing now. Just rest for the skin.
Why I mention Pine Bark, Mistletoe and Spikenard is because these are negative polarity herbs with inward moving energy fields. They inspire our consciousness to have more energy flowing inwards than out. This is invaluable for recovery from trauma, for the whole system as well as for each cell.
Rose is an energy field that moves inwards too, but I mention it specially here for one reason. It has this energy field property where it inspires us to sift out what matches us from what doesn’t. The effect is purifying. You don’t need a lot of it. Just a little every 4-5 days is enough. Rosewater or distilled essence of roses is such a traditional favorite worldwide because it is such a consciousness of beauty, overcoming, holding of one’s own despite all opposition.
Rose is a special help for those who are psychically or directly character assassinated or accused regularly or face that sort of conflict everyday and have skin that’s in a constant state of war trauma.
Cannabis deserves a special mention here because it helps recover from long term trauma by shrinking the consciousness to highlight places where trauma is blocked, thereby bringing it to our awareness in sleep or in waking. With awareness comes resolution and that’s the end of that problem. So it’s very powerful.
Herbs for skin cancers, all work with awareness of energy blocks – Thuja, Bloodroot, Golden Seal, but Cannabis is perhaps the one with the fastest results.
Suggestions for how to treat the skin with nervines
It’s very simple. You need two things – Your herbal extract/s and a carrier oil or cream or gel or ointment or lanolin.
Herbs slow heated in a cold pressed carrier oil for a few hours, then strained out, give you a herbal extract you can usually use directly on the skin. It seems like a big deal in the beginning but it’s really easy. You get a pot, put a kitchen towel in the bottom. Then you get a bottle with your herbs in it. Pour oil over the herbs. Now set the bottle on the towel in such a way the bottom of the bottle isn’t touching the floor of the pot. pour water all around and heat on the stove top at the lowest heat possible till you find the color of the oil has changed significantly. Just go with your gut. When you feel good about the oil, it’s done.
What I do, because I don’t have the time to keep making extracts, I put a lot of herb in – like a handful or two to 250ml or 8 oz oil and I make a very highly concentrated oil.
I then use just a few drops of this in a tub of aloe gel or papaya gel or whatever I’m using. We never need too much of a herb. A little good quality herb is enough. You don’t want to give the skin too much work to do. Just some reassuring comfort.
I have been making custommade creams for people who asked me if I could. I thought while writing this, Ed, that I’d offer it on my website for those who need help choosing the right herbs and would rather not make their own extracts and so on. I make a concentrated 2oz cream or gel which dilutes into 12 oz or 400ml. It can be used a little at a time as most people who are sensitive change their creams and lotions regularly. You just mix a little in with whichever cream or gel is working for you at the moment.
