04/29/2023
Beeswax salves, comfrey, and chronic infection.
A student has asked a question about using a comfrey salve made with beeswax, and reported that it was helpful in chronic bedsores. I am glad this was useful in her case, but it could be a serious mistake in another case or in another wound. There is a risk when putting a beeswax salve on a chronic infection. The reason is that the beeswax can cut off oxygen to the area creating an anaerobic environment. Oxygen is toxic to many bacteria, and inhibits infection to some extent. Some bacteria will grow rapidly in an anaerobic environment. This can be specific to some bacteria, such as MRSA, to some extent is true in any bacterial biofilm, where the deeper layers of the biofilm are in an anaerobic state. A rule of thumb is that by the second or third day in an infection, a biofilm has formed.
This came to our attention some years ago, when a young man had a fungal infection in his public hair. He shaved the public hair and applied a salve made with beeswax. Unfortunately he also had strep and staph biofilms on the skin, and the microscopic tears from the shaving gave them a route of infection and he rapidly developed a systemic blood infection and was in the hospital for some days receiving IV antibiotics for systemic strep and staph. I put out enquiries to other professional herbalists when this occurred and a few others had seen this problem. For instance a woman with a spot of staph infection on her cheek got a sunburn. She covered the cheek with a beeswax base salve and by morning the staph has spread to the borders of the salve on the cheek. One of our students at the time was an ICU nurse, and she said the policy in her ICU had recently changed to not administering topical antibiotics in ointment form for exactly this same reason.
We got further unusual confirmation of this from an herbalist who was buying honey from a farmer in rural Oregon. When asked if he had beeswax, the farmer said he would not sell it to her. He said she would make a salve and give it to someone without “letting it breathe” and cause them harm. She enquired further and he said the salve has to breathe, and she should mix some poplar bud into it to let that happen. I’m not recommending this, I am only passing along the story, it is obvious this fellow had witnessed or had it taught to him by someone who witnessed a beeswax salve causing the spread of a topical infection. Since that event event, I have preferred to apply oils to infections rather than salves. Or good old fashioned poultices with warm water to pe*****te the tissues. You can also apply tincture soaked compresses.
A question is also there also about comfrey. Comfrey does powerfully stimulate the processes of new tissue growth when applied topically. However, it does not contain any component with antimicrobial or antibiofilm properties. So the risk there in a chronic infection or wound it to seal in a pre-existing biofilm infection. We did have such a case and it was terrifying. This was more than 25 years ago, so I am remembering the details the best I can. A man came to our clinic who had burned the back of his hand, a spot about as big around as a golf ball. He had on his own applied comfrey to the burn, and you could indeed see the new grown skin covering the wound. However the fingers were cracked and oozing pus, the elbow was too stiff to bend freely, there were large swollen nodes in the armpit, and the infection was showing on the neck and torso near the affected arm. He had a low grade fever. This is a case for immediate transport to the hospital. The German herbal master R.F Weiss took note that confrey promotes tissue growth but has no antiseptic qualities, and suggested that it only be used in the first few days of wound healing. This was historically before the discovery of biofilms, but is consistent with the principle not to apply it over a formed biofilm.
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