Comfrey for Healing: making a poultice and salve

Our BeeHaven garden is on a steep hillside. While I was once a goat in my younger days, easily navigating rough and rocky terrain, my goat legs have abandoned me in my senior years. Thus, it was no surprise that sometime earlier this summer, I tweaked my knee. It was not a horrid tweak, just enough of one that I favored that knee, making it more treacherous than ever to scramble around the hill. 

I got an X-ray of the knee—soft tissue damage. The medical process for followup would involve more scans and most likely physical therapy. Appointments for all of this would be months in the future. So I continued to amble along on my ouchie knee until one morning last week when I had an out-of-nowhere sudden insight: Comfrey! A poultice!

Comfrey is my spirit plant. Her herbal nickname is “Knit-Bone.” Comfrey is a powerful ally for sprains, broken bones, torn ligaments, sore backs and really any ache or pain. I brought her roots with me from Indiana, to MillHaven, to my new home here at BeeHaven. She is flourishing in many places on the hillside, the favorite go-to of many, many pollinators. I have always known her as a healer and used to make a salve that I used for bruises, sore feet, minor cuts, chapped lips, and plumping of old and shriveled nether-regions (Yeah, maybe too much information, but what the hey…). 

I’d let my potion-making slip away from me these past few years, but that morning, I knew what I’d be doing for the next hour or two. I’ll share my process with you, incase you would also like to partake in the miracle of this sacred plant. First, you need to gather some comfrey. If you don’t have any fresh, you can order it dried from many online herbal shops. If you use it fresh, be sure to take the fleshy stems along with it, and gather it when sun has chased the morning dew away. While I collect my leaves and stems, I talk to the plant, asking permission and thanking it for simply being. More than just a plant, She is an old, dear friend.

Assemble your ingredients: For me, it is coconut oil and castor oil. I like coconut oil because it solidifies nicely, and I keep my salve in the fridge where it lasts pretty much forever. Castor oil is great for the skin, and helps the salve to absorb into the skin and do its good work. Gently heat your coconut oil until it is melted but not hot.

Chop up your fresh comfrey, and put it in a food processor of some kind. I used our VitaMix for this. I mix it until it is a pulpy mess. I don’t puree it.

For a poultice, take a handful of the mix and set it aside in a small bowl or jar. I’ll talk more about this a bit later. Take the rest of your mashed (or dehydrated) comfrey and put it into a jar.  Pour in a 50-50 mix of your oils until the comfrey is fully covered. If using fresh leaves, you’ll see a bunch of air bubbles in the jar. If you poke into the mixture with a chopstick or long spoon, you can release much of this trapped air.

Next, wrap the jar in a heating pad turned onto medium. Leave the jar uncovered. Let this mix cure like this for two or three days. You will end up with a bright green oil. Strain that oil through cheesecloth or a thin dishtowel. I used an old sock. Squeeze out every bit of the oil. Pour into small jars and set in the fridge. All done! When you want to use it, scoop out with a small spoon and rub in anywhere and everywhere.

To make a poultice, place your handful of mashed leaves onto a thin dishtowel. Drizzle some castor oil over it. Fold up loosely and place it where you need it. For me, it was on that tweaked knee. Wrap around with Saran wrap so you don’t end up resembling an oil slick, then pull over some kind of covering to keep it in place. I used an old compression sock with the foot out out. Place a heating pad over the area. I kept the heating pad on for an hour, and slept with the poultice on all night. Next morning, my knee was healed. Really, I kid you not! One night of comfrey completely resolved my knee pain. And I was able to do a happy dance with no pains!

If you search online, you will find many other ways of making comfrey salves that might work better for you. These utilize beeswax and olive oil. A great go-to is the “Comfrey Forum” FaceBook group. 

I truly hope this helps you to find relief for what ails you. My painful elbow is next in line…