Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban
In the first years of the 21st century, my husband and I hired a carpenter-friend, John McCabe, to work on our 1855 home in Rhode Island. During this time John showed me a MRSA infection on his wrist that he had contracted while working on a project in New York City. He revealed that he had been hospitalized there for several days with intravenous antibiotics that failed to have any effect, and he was released after the unsuccessful treatment of the antibiotic-resistant MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus). MRSA infections are novel bacteria known to be resistant to the broad-spectrum of antibiotics, such as methicillin, amoxicillin and penicillin. There are both community acquired infections (CA-MRSA) and hospital acquired infections (HA-MRSA). The progress of a MRSA infection is such that you get a small cut that does not heal after two to three days and the area becomes swollen, oozing pus and is hot to the touch (www.hopkinsmedicine.org). MRSA infections are typically spread by contact with infected people or things, and it is estimated that 5% of patients in U.S. hospitals carry MRSA in their nose or on their skin. An MRSA infected area is: red, swollen, painful, warm to the touch, full of pus or other drainage and is accompanied by a fever.
When I saw John’s infected wrist and heard his story of having been hospitalized in New York City without any remittance of the symptoms despite the introduction of intravenous antibiotics, I recommended that he try applying honey directly to the wound using a jar of my local honey that I gave him. He took the eight ounce jar that I offered and within a few days he reported back to me that the infection was abating after only two to three days of applying the honey, and that within two weeks he was cured. I had offered him the honey with the knowledge that one of our medical doctors in the Rhode Island Beekeepers Association had successfully treated unresponsive bedsore infections in his geriatric practice using natural—not store-bought—honey packs. I thought, why not try my local honey? As it turned out, the results were both immediate and dramatic.
Scientific Studies Demonstrate the Healing Effects of Honey
This report would not be news to the ancients, who kept honey more for medicinal purposes than for culinary ones, nor to contemporary natural healers. However, they made delicious desserts, like baklava popular today, with honey being the only source of sweetening before the dominance of sugar from sugar cane after the “discovery” of the New World.
For example, “Yemeni Sidr Honey,” from the SidrTree, has been shown to be 73% effective in killing MRSA and the commercialized Manuka Honey (from Hawaii) has proven to be 63% effective. Honey has also proven to be effective in healing infections by the MSSA (methicillin susceptible staph aureus) bacterium (Kelley Colihan, 2008).
The use of honey for healing dates back to human antiquity and is documented from the earliest civilizations of the Near East, c. 2100 BC, and it has been recognized in Saudi Arabia for its effective antimicrobial uses (Saad B. Almasaudi, et. Al. 2017). Modern science has concluded that the honey bee’s ability to produce hydrogen peroxide and enzyme oxidase both combine to produce the healing effects of honey. I can personally attest to my use of honey applied directly to various wounds and burns I have incurred. I have found that not only is the pain immediately relieved by applying honey directly to the wound but the healing time is reduced dramatically. But, until my experience with John, I had not had any experience with an infection as serious as a resistant MRSA infection. I am grateful to him for his permission to use his name in the telling of his very interesting case of the curing of a MRSA infection with the direct application of natural honey—i.e. from my own bee yard—to cure his serious infection.
References:
“Humble Honey Kills Bacteria”, Kelly Colihan. Webmd.com/9/22/2008.
Saad B. Almasaudi, & 9 others. 2017, “Antibacterial Effect of Different Types of Honey on Staph Aureus”: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28855819/
