knitbone

last week we had a scary incident here on the homestead. moonpie was attacked by our beloved kitty, texas. it was fast and completely out of his character. i often find buddy pulling him out from under the bed by his tail, and he's never attacked. never. so when i heard moonpie's scream, i flew off the porch with my mind racing. she popped up and her eye was covered in blood. i was panicky and confused. i just couldn't figure out what happened. she finally told us 'it was texas'. after john got her cleaned up we could finally see the damage. she had 2 puncture wounds on her scalp, 3 on her right cheek (with bruises under them), her left eyebrow was hanging off on one side, her left eyelid had a cut and under her eye there was a scratch from her cheek to her nose. yuck! after a couple of days of hydrogen peroxide and neosporin, i decided it was time to try something herbal. i started with aloe, but it made it feel too tight and scratchy. a friend passed on some comfrey oil to me that she had made and it has been fantastic!

i didn't know much about comfrey as we haven't had any major bodily harm like this before. comfrey is also referred to as 'knitbone' because it has traditionally been used to 'knit' bones back together. it is also great for skin because it only feeds healthy skin cells. this speeds the healing process and also minimizes scarring. after a day of using it, moonpie woke up to major results! the redness was gone and the cuts themselves looked smaller. less traumatic. we've been using it daily, and here at right under 1 week the puncture wounds are gone and her eyelid and eyebone scratch are almost gone. her eyebrow took the brunt of the attack, so i am anticipating many more days for that to heal. i cannot say enough good things about this herb! i highly recommend having some on hand for even minor skin irritations (can be used for poison ivy/oak, arthritis pain, scarring, etc.).

i should mention what became of texas. i woke up in the middle of the night remembering that right before the attack moonpie had sprinkled a tiny amount of catnip on his food. after some googling, i found on several sites that catnip can cause aggression in a small percentage of cats. apparently our kitty can't handle his high very well : ) (i've been really getting a lot of mileage out of that one- go ahead, roll your eyes if you've already heard it!). this is my warning to you though- if you don't know how your cat handles catnip just avoid it. i have since emailed the company of the catnip to request that they begin putting a warning on the bag, but i haven't received a response. i guess you have to sue someone to get them to listen to you...