It seemed like no matter what I went to the doctor for as a child, I received an antibiotic. This happened so regularly to so many people that it changed the way a whole generation, or maybe more, looked at medicine. When it came time to raise our own kids we looked at the doctor cross eyed when they would say things like:
“It’s a virus. It will just have to run its course.”
Forced to take the suffering child home and manage their fever, we began to realize that doctors didn’t hold the golden key to the medicine cabinet. It turns out we have just as much power as the doctor when it comes to preventative medicine and even healing. Sometimes, we have even more power!
Through a combination of digging out lost skills and the radical availability of raw materials, people have begun to stock their own medicine cabinets. Even easy to buy OTC meds are being replaced by safer natural methods of dealing with pain, infection and healing in general. You might think this kind of work belongs in a lab, but you’d be mistaken. In fact, we are going to go over some of the medicines you should know how to make at home.
From Propolis to Poultice you will learn the basics of making your own medicines at home.
Tools Of The Trade
Capsules
Many homemade medicines for internal use can be produced and made in capsule form. These capsules are readily available, and are great ways to transport things like essential oils.
Mason Jars
You are going to need a vessel for your concoctions, decoctions, tinctures and the like. Syrups and ciders all store very well in mason jars.
Bandages
A poultice will always benefit from a bandage covering it. Have plenty bandages on hand, so you can keep your homemade medicines in place.
Mortar and Pestles
The processing of plant material requires a good mortar and pestle. This is also a method that requires no electricity, which will help you out no matter how bad things get.
Related: 23 Survival Uses for Honey that You Didn’t Know About
Propolis
Propolis is the “glue” used by bees to seal holes in the hive. It is a mixture of saliva, beeswax and botanical ingredients harvested by the bees. Propolis has incredible health benefits, and is claimed to have just about every ‘anti’ property you can imagine, from antimicrobial to anti-inflammatory.
Propolis can be purchased, and is most often used in tincture form. This tincture can be added to lard at a ratio of 1 tablespoon to 15 grams of lard and a little beeswax, to make a great ointment for external use.
Triple Antibiotic Ointment
The healing oils and vitamin E in this natural version of Neosporin are going to give you all the benefits of a TAO, but without the antibiotics and the unnecessary ingredients.
Infection of wounds will be a massive concern when it comes to a SHTF scenario.
You have to have the ability to not just cover that wound, but to apply a healing ointment that will promote faster recovery.
Elderberry Syrup
These little berries, when reduced into a syrup, have the ability to do several things.
They boost immunity, help with flu recovery, and they have even been shown to reduce swelling in the nasal passages. Elderberry is no snake oil, and the syrup should be kept around to deal with all of your family’s winter ailments.
- 1/2 cup dried or 1 cup fresh elderberries
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup honey
This very simple recipe requires only that you mix the ingredients together, bring them to a simmer, reduce the mixture by half and then cool. Once the mixture is completely cool it will be ready to use. You can add things like turmeric, ginger, cinnamon and other spices to your syrup as well.
A homemade batch should last the full winter season.
Related: How To Make Vicks Vapor Shower Tablets To Treat Your Flu This Winter
Willow Pain Reliever Fever Reducer
Containing the active ingredient of aspirin – salicylic acid – willow bark is a legitimate pain reliever and fever reducer.
Not only is the salicylic acid in there; its also pretty easy to get out. Willow bark should certainly be a means of pain relief that you create at home.
- The bark from younger branches will have more salicylic acid than bark from the trunk.
- Start by stripping some bark off these small branches.
- Gather yourself a nice bundle of bark that is about 3 inches in diameter when gathered together, loosely packed.
- The best practice is to let the bark dry out a bit. If you need the medicine now you can make it immediately, but it will produce more if its allowed to dry out.
- Add 1 tablespoon of bark for every 1 cup of water.
- Add the bark to boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Allow to cool, and drink with some food as the acid can be a stomach irritant
Fire Cider
Fire cider is a powerful mixture of raw apple cider, honey, lemon, chilis and a whole bunch of mean roots like onion, garlic, horseradish and maybe even some turmeric for good measure.
It can be a serious treatment for things like colds, congestion and flu recovery.
The best thing to do is try out a recipe and tweak it to your liking. Some people take it as raw shots, some drink it as tea or a base tea, and some people even marinate food in it! It’s a powerful little concoction.
Charcoal Poultice
Charcoal is highly absorbent. There is a reason that fine activated charcoal is used in high quality water filters. The beauty of charcoal is that it can be created and pulverized by hand, even in austere settings. What a charcoal poultice offers is an option to pack a wound with something that will absorb any bacteria or infection.
The charcoal poultice can also be combined with other easy to find wild medicines like common plantain. This is another great poultice ingredient for healing wounds.
Combine them both in a mortar and pestle at a ration of about 4 to 1, charcoal to plantain, and pound the mix up. Cover your wound with the mix and apply a clean bandage.
Related: Medicinal Uses for Activated Charcoal
Immune Boosting Tea
While its hard to find an immune boosting medicine on the market, you can buy things like Emergen C or Airborne to help boost immunity. However, you are probably a short distance away from the plants you need to make a quick immune boosting tea.
When it comes to immunity Vitamin C is king. We used to think that oranges were the holy grail of natural Vitamin C. The truth is a single orange only contains about 70 mg of Vitamin C. To really get the most out of this Vitamin you want to take about 1,000 mg a day! More if you are sick.
A better source is pine needle tea. A variety of pines can be used for this tea, and you need only pick the youngest needles, wash them thoroughly, then boil 1 tsp if chopped needles in a cup of water for 20 minutes. Strain and you are ready to drink.
Unlike an orange, a cup of this pine needle tea contains nearly 350mg of Vitamin C and can be had several times a day.
Thanks to the oceans of knowledge at our fingertips, and the incredible access to resources that we have today, healing medicine is no longer just for doctors. As you can see, with just 7 simple medicines you can treat a whole host of issues.
I encourage you to just make one. Pull one of these natural medicines from this article and make it, use it and reproduce it. Be sure to gather the tools of the trade so you have the things you need.
When you have the right tools, everything is easier. Before long, you will have cabinets of dried willow bark and jars of elderberry syrup hanging around the house. It might even make you feel like some kind of witch or warlock!
You may also like:
Black Seed; The Remedy For Everything But Death
10 Medical Supplies You Need To Stockpile Before It’s Too Late (Video)
23 Medicinal Plants the Native Americans Used on a Daily Basis
How to Make Pine Syrup at Home (Step by Step Guide With Pictures)
Curious what your feeling is about Rose hips, they are supposedly higher in vitamin C than oranges, might be a bit more easy to swallow than pine needle tea? I know they can be eaten, perserved as a jelly and dried and made into tea..
I agree! I’ll eat rose hips over pine needles any day.
Pine Needle TEA, you don’t eat the needles. Grab a bunch, Crush, boil, REMOVE the needles or just sip through them but don’t eat.
I have had it, sweaten mine with honey but it’s not bad just as a tea. I’ve eaten Rose Hips too, they are sweet with LOTS of little seeds inside. I use White Pine needles for my tea.
Dah, I don’t even like the SMELL of pine.
And if pregnant, any conifer will cause an abortion. Pine is less toxic than the rest, but it also has tannin, which prevents absorption of protein. Sauerkraut or any naturally fermented vegetable should have plenty of C and is much higher in protein than plain cooked veggies.
No! All pines do not cause abortions only ponderosa.
How to make each other and bro rot to ensure that your own
Check Barbados Cherry
Don’t forget about witch hazel.
Thanks
‘Snake oil’ is echinasea and the best thing available for poisonous snake and spider bites. Research it and you’ll never look down on it again!
When making Elderberry Syrup put your honey in after the elderberry liquid has cooked down and cooled to room temperature. If the honey gets too hot it will kill most of the medicinal properties that are in the honey. You can reheat it after adding the honey but DO NOT BOIL!
I wondered why no one brought this up
Did you know and not say anything??
And never microwave honey. It also needs to be local to your area, not from the grocery store. We make our own Elderberry syrup! It works!
this does not have to do with this article . But in my area there is a plant the woman called jewel weed , said it is good to rub on poison ivy , if you get it . I have not seen the plant ! do you know of this weed , or is it known by a different name ?
Jewelweed often grows right next to poison ivy. It likes a wet environment and does well in mottled shade. It’a a member of the impatiens family. The kind i have used for p.i. has salmon/orange flowers. Hummingbirds love it. There’s also another kind that has pink/magenta flowers, but i don’t know if it works as well for p.i.
When i got a case of p.i. (has lots of little openings on my arms after harvesting a bunch of zucchini, and the leaves cut my bare arms, then i next cleared out a bunch of p.i. and had on some sort work gloves but arms were exposed, and you can guess the rest), i got some jewelweed. It can grow to be quite tall if it’s in a happy spot. I usually see it about 18 inches high, but it can easily double that height.
Anyhow, you can apply a leaf right to the spot, which if fine for just one little patch. If you’ve got a bit more, as i did on my arms. i took the whole plant, put it in some water to heat up on the stove and when the plant was limp draped it over the p.i. spots. The itching stopped instantaneously. Amazing stuff.
I saved the water and made it into ice cubes to rub on future p.i. spots.
Burt’s Bees makes a jewelweed soap, but it’s not as good as getting the plant.
This site has a couple pictures of the plants and sells some jewelweed products. I haven’t used any of the products to know how good they are, but you may want to order one or two to see how they work for you and then go on to make your own.
https://learnaboutherbs.com/jewelweed.htm
I bought some jewel weed products, a salve and a soap, at the county fair. I don’t recall the brand, but they worked great on any itchy rash or bug bite I had. After a couple of years, though, the base for the salve went rancid. So, it’s a great plant, but use a salve base which won’t go rancid.
Jewelweed is also called touch-me-nots in my neck of the woods because when you touch the flowers with the seed pods, they explode sending the seeds flying. They can be orange or yellow.
Eucalyptus oil works great to help stop the itch from poison ivy. Also, there is a product that you can get at most pharmacies over the counter, called Emuaid. It works wonders and is natural with essential oils. For fire ant bites, we use that or hemp tincture on them. And for mosquito bites, the hemp tincture will stop the itch and whelps almost immediately.
For a virus, use zinc. in ancient times, people realised it works, along with copper to knock out bacteria and internal parasites. The two combined at brass, and it’s easy to get. ‘Irish’ silver is brass coated with silver. It’s considered junk by dealers and I got a lot of it just by asking. Silver, itself, is a potent healer, and the term, born with a silver spoon in the mouth came from wealthy people giving babies a silver pacifier, which saved a lot of lives. When the black plague hit, a much smaller percentage of wealthy and middle class died because they used silver and brass. The poor ate out of wooden bowls and died.
Pregnant women should NOT consume pine. It causes abortions. Make wine or fruit vinegar and use that for vitamin C, instead.
Jewelweed is an Impatient. If you have a damp area where you can grow Impatients in the garden, get jewelweed and sew the seeds there.I have no clue if Impatiens work as well as jewelweed, sorry. But, we can’t grow either. 112 degrees for weeks, and no rain for months each summer. I use allergy tabs when attacked by poison oak.
My stepdaughter studied herbal meds with her grandfather and standard meds with her grandmother, a physician. She suppers several genetic disorders but by going completely organic, the problems are minimalized. She raised her two younger on organic food and dairy and neither sow any problem. Her oldest, tho, suffers, possibly because she didn’t ‘discover’ kosher and hallal foods till moving to NYC just before having her second child.
Niio.
Not only did the poor eat out of wood, but the uppity ones ate out of pewter. And that stuff’s bad for you too.
Pewter is bad, very bad. It has a lot of lead in it. But the wealthy used silver and gold. Silver is toxic to most pathogens. This is why you see those goofy baby spoons of silver still today, the wealthy used on as a pacifier because they know the child had a better chance at living. I collect Irish silver, American. American made was silver coated over brass or bronze. I found a few earlier pieces made of copper. But, why do it, because it has silver, and brass will knock out darn near as many things, as fast as silver. What part of the rust belt are you in? I Lived in Penna for years, and Ohio. niio
About silver as a medicine
What do you do boil yr jewelry
God to antique dealers and ask about American made Irish silver dinner plates and so on. When the immigrants came here, as soon as they could afford it, they bought silver sets. This is silver over brass, usually, and no lead was allowed in American silver. It’s considered junk because it was so common. Just use the things, cups and so on, when sick. If you use copper then make certain its clean before using! A lot of people got copper poisoning from not washing coffee pots and so on. 3rd world nations still reverence silver, brass, and copper because it heals, killing everything from liver flukes and tape worms, to bacteria a viral infections. Make certain you use a good dose of C, as well, as they enhances the effectiveness.
Hi Jojo –
I noticed that your messages were so short, I think people were missing them. I have silver, and we use it all the time, and have been for a very long time. I buy ours from a company called Emergency Essentials (they have everything – a great source for freeze-dried food). Their web address is: beprepared.com
The brand they sell is ASAP, and it is a “colloidal” silver, which Doctors will NOT flinch at! It is terrific for scrapes, scratches, tooth problems, gargling (then swallow it), and maintenance, by taking a teaspoon every day. It strengthens the immunity system something fierce! You can’t OD on it, but you don’t want/need to go overboard.
Back in the 70’s, the “back to nature/hippies” got ahold of using colloidal silver (called it a magical solution), and went overboard. It was a waste of the product, and over a period of time, it literally can turn your skin a greyish-green colour, and make you look like something straight from Area 51!
I have numerous bottles of it in our emergency stash – it doesn’t stale date, and will last forever. It comes in 4 oz/8 oz/16 oz/32 oz bottles, so get what you can afford. It is a bit pricey, but sooooooo worth it. It’s good for adults (1 teaspoon), kids (1/2 teaspoon), and babies (a few drops), on a daily basis. There is a lengthy article that tells all about it, and what all you can use it for, on the beprepared.com site.
Good luck. Enjoy. Stay well.
Sorry – but I don’t know anything about using it on jewelry.
I make my own collodial silver. Have a good grade machine. Really good for a lot of issues. BTW, takes a long time and a high dosage to turn blue. First you’ll get intestinal dieoff, instant flu. That’s when to back off for a while.
I used to go to a nuerological chiropractor. He gave me a recipe for onion soup with so many onions, sauteed in a pan and throw away the actual onions, preserving the liquid with all the vitamin C. I believe it had chicken broth base. I don’t know how much vit C it had, and cutting up the onions was a job, but the soup, with mozerella cheese melted on top and a few bread crumbs, was crazy yummy..
I’ll trust this stuff when scientists (reputable ones and a scientific consensus) says it’s safe and effective.
Definition Oxymoron: Scientific Consensus. Ain’t no such animal and never was. The idea behind science is debate. When you hear the term scientific consensus, it’s because the scientists have a gun aimed at them, or worse, political pressure. Why are copper, zinc, and silver reverenced by traditional peoples? they kill the things that are trying to kill you. If a thousand generations of proof it works isn’t enough, I leave you to the gentle, beneficent hands of the government. But, with one warning from Henry Ford: “If anyone thinks the government should be trusted to care for him, he need only look at the Red Indian to see how good that care is.” Government exists to promote government, to grow and eventually to control the people. We, who are the government thru the ballot box, are losing everything thanks to people who believe they can trust the government, or trust scientists who are controlled by the government. Examples of scientific consensus: Eat a hotdog, you gonna die! Global warming, global cooling, climate change. Give us a few billion to study it before the sun swells up so much it explodes before a giant comet destroy us first, and all the frogs die, then Bambi, Thumper, and Stinky kick the bucket, and the last spotted owl is slaughtered by some mean ol’ logger. That’s what ‘reputable’ scientists claim. I know quite a few scientists, and there are a number of them in my family. People I trust to tell me the truth, not government swill PC, AKA patsy complicity. Live free, not clinging to the government. niio
Jojo, my machine came from TheSilverEdge.com. A bit pricey, uses distilled water. It’s the best as long as we have electricity.
Then you will be dead LONG before any of us, who use these remedies like our ancestors did. Bu bye!
Great Knowledge to have I want more
Is there any logical reason why you would end the article with “It might even make you feel like some kind of witch or warlock!”? A witch is defined as ” an adherent of Wicca.and a warlock is defined as “a man who practices witchcraft; a sorcerer”. What do either of these definitions have to do with the contents of this article? Please update this article and remove the last line.
Witches and warlocks had potions for practically everything. They are not promoting evil. Research.
I agree, in part. Who were the great healers in Europe before ‘modern’ medicine led to witchhunts of all herbalists? Wicca. One great-grandfather was jailed three times for practicing his beliefs without the permission of the jackass party. He was our sacred person, a lay-minister in the Lutheran church, and an herbalist. We use a different name for warlock, Owl Men (Bu’u’Great Horned Owl means Satan). Some are good, some great, some evil. Unlike most peoples, we never rousted anyone unless they broke one of two main rules: do not scare the children, don’t bug the old folks. I studied under Owl Men and curanderos alike, and we respect them for their wisdom. Niio.
It just so happens I have a huge pot of jewelweed simmering on the stove. We freeze some for later use and also put some in spray bottles for bites etc on a daily basis all year long. We keep the bottle in the fridge.
I have a question not necessarily related to this post, but on the same line, I think.
I have dried and powdered some plantain. It is good for pain I understand, and hope to put in capsules for pain relief.
What are your thoughts on this? Will it work kinda like aspirin or pain pills?
I thoroughly enjoy your site. Learn a lot too. Thank you!
Zinc for viral infections. Copper works on most things and brass ios copper and zinc, both reverenced by the ancestors because they heal. niio
I wrote an entire novel basically about multiple things I’ve asked or informed people about and I filled in all the fields ( except website) and hit post and it’s no where to be found unless you have to review it first?? I’ll be checking back in.
Thank you