Skin Rash

If you suffer chronic skin rashes and over-the-counter medications do little or nothing to help, turn to natural remedies for relief.Natural “remedies” help you eliminate skin irritants from your home, and they help you relieve, soothe, and cure chafing, rashes, and severe irritation when they flare-up.

The majority of skin rashes begin with dry skin and progress to irritation and inflammation.You itch and want to scratch, but you discover scratching makes the problem worse, often breaking open delicate skin and making it vulnerable to infection. Equally troublesome, you find scratching where it itches sometimes spreads the rash. In many cases, you discover that your favorite cooling and soothing lotions relieve your itch but have no effect on the rash.

Stop skin rashes at their source.

Nature gives us a whole garden of effective skin rash remedies. First, however, you must make absolutely certain you have a common, harmless and easily treatable condition.

Some skin irritations result from serious viral or bacterial infections, or they reveal a previously undiagnosed food allergy. Similarly, if you have started a new medication—especially an anti-biotic–or if you have increased the dosage of a drug you have taken for some time, the change may have triggered your skin rash. Because your rash has persisted more than a few days and has not responded to regular treatment, you should call your doctor.

Most skin complaints are minor, requiring more patience than serious medical intervention. Still, a rash that lasts more than a few days warrants a trip to your doctor’s office. Shingles, for example, seem innocent at first—a little burning and some tiny raised dots. But shingles quickly advance to painful blisters and numbness. A strain of the herpes virus causes shingles, and you need powerful drugs to stop them and prevent their return.

Similarly, hives itch, sting, and burn. In extreme cases, hives can impair your breathing, and they sometimes indicate you have a strep infection. Your doctor can assess what has caused your hives, eliminate “the trigger” and prescribe histamine blockers to relieve itching, sting and burning. At least a dozen rash-like conditions, in fact, are symptoms of more serious problems that originate inside your body and work their way out.

Even if it turns-out your rash requires prescription drugs, you still can depend on natural remedies to relieve itching, pain, and soreness. Lavender and chamomile calm and soothe even the fiercest skin irritations.

Your house can make you break-out.

In addition to treating common skin problems with natural remedies, you can protect yourself and your family from skin irritation by switching to all-natural household products. You even can make your own cleaning products, saving money, protecting your skin and health, and making your home look and smell terrific.

Harsh detergents frequently cause brutal skin rashes. Major brands’ advertisements have convinced us we need “powerful grease-cutting action” to get our pots and pans sparkling clean. Instead of your regular dish soap, try an all-natural home-brewed mix of vinegar and lemon, and for extra greasy pots and pans, try scrubbing them with the lemon rind. Prepare for genuine amazement. Also remember that white vinegar immediately takes the sting and itch out of mosquito bites and many common skin irritations.

You may be mildly allergic to your laundry detergent and fabric softener. A few of the most widely advertised brands are notorious for irritating sensitive skin—especially in their powdered forms. Ask your grandmother what she used for washing her clothes in the old wash tub and switch to her tried-and-proven product. Most of our grandmothers used borax—hostile to dirt, healing to skin. Similarly, popular fabric softeners and dryer sheets often cause skin irritation. Instead of adding more chemicals to your last rinse, add your own lemon rinse. Instead of throwing a scented sheet into the dryer, create your own by adding your favorite essential flower oil to an old diaper—sweet fragrance, no irritation.

Treat your skin rash with an all-natural favorite.

A little knowledge of essential botanicals goes a long way toward healing and preventing common skin irritations. Give up your commercial lotions, because they contain alcohol and petroleum distillates that exacerbate your irritation instead of curing it. They also contain waxes and silicones that clog your pores and contribute to infection. Find all-natural lotions rich with avocado oil and aloe vera, both of which heal, soothe, and nourish your skin. In addition, look for lotions enriched and enhanced with lavender—Nature’s most powerful cleanser, and chamomile—Nature’s greatest anti-inflammatory.

Keep a bottle of aloe vera gel on hand, too, because it cures practically everything that affects your skin during the summer, and it conditions your hair and scalp, too. Some studies suggest it even helps restore thinning hair. Aloe vera gel outperforms any other sunburn remedy; during the winter, it soothes windburn and minor frostbites. It radically reduces swelling, inflammation, soreness and itching in rough, broken skin; and it has more medicinal properties than any synthetic remedy. In addition to its natural anti-inflammatory power, aloe vera contains strong anti-bacterial and ant-fungal agents, and it contains a pretty hefty dose of anti-oxidants. Aloe vera also supplies folic acid and vitamin E, both of which nourish tender skin and promote healing from the inside out. Nature did not put aloe vera in the world’s harshest desert climates by accident.