Natural First Aid for Sprains & Strains—Is Your Herbal Medicine Cabinet Ready?

When my daughter sprained her ankle during a softball game, I was grateful to have Comfrey growing in the garden and some Arnica oil stashed in the van. But as I reached for what I had on hand, I realized most of my oils were past their prime.

This episode is a real-life story behind that moment, the herbs I turn to for sprains and strains, and why it’s time to restock my home apothecary. I also talk about what happens when we get excited about making herbal medicine—but don’t plan ahead for what we’ll actually use.

And if you’ve been wondering what remedies to have on hand for your own family, I’ll share how you can join me in the upcoming Herbal Medicine Planning Party—a free, fun, and practical way to get clear on what to make for the next 1–2 years.

01:10 – My daughter’s sprain and how I responded
03:45 – Using older oils in a pinch (and what I’d do differently)
06:15 – What’s in my Bobcat Balm: the herbs I always use for injuries
08:20 – Why Cayenne is a key player in these formulas
10:10 – The power of Comfrey
12:40 – How easy it is to make remedies without a plan—and why that leads to waste
13:45 – Why I’m getting intentional with my medicine making this year
14:20 – What we’ll be doing inside the Herbal Medicine Planning Party

Wanna join the party? Click here and get on the list!

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Oshala Farm is hosting Herb Camp, and tickets are gone June 2nd.

Click here to get your tickets & let's laugh & frolic among the plants together!

There's no better medicine than the medicine you tend to with your loving hands.

If you're ready to grow beautiful medicine for you and your family, now is the time to grab my Medicinal Herb Garden Guide.

Just click here, and have fun planting, harvesting, and creating great medicine!  🌸

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to The Herbalist Path
• 5:21 A Softball Sprain Emergency
• 9:59 The Magic of Bobcat Balm
• 13:46 Why I'm Making Medicine Again
• 18:18 Herbal Medicine Planning Party Invitation
• 20:11 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:48

Welcome to the Herbalist Path, a podcast that's all about helping herbalism spread like wildflowers. I'm Mel, a clinical herbalist, environmental educator and a mama who's been walking this path for well over 20 years. I created this show to help you feel confident with herbal medicine. You're going to get a blend of how-to episodes, incredible guest experts sharing their wisdom and real talk about using herbs every day, all to help you care for your family naturally, take better care of our precious planet and maybe even become the trusted herbalist in your own community. You see, this work isn't just about the herbs. It's about healing ourselves, it's about caring for each other and it's about living in deeper connection with the earth. So, whether you're blending your first tea, making your first tincture or feeling called to be the go-to herbalist in your community, welcome, you belong here, you are right on time and you are on the herbalist path. Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode on the herbalist path. I am so grateful that you are here and you are tuning into this episode, and you are as into learning about herbs as I am to talking about them. So this episode today is going to be a bit yes, learning about herbs and a bit of storytelling as well, because last night I just had one of those like real life examples that was so perfect for everything that I'm kind of stepping into right now. We're about to open up a live round of Medicine Making Mamas, which is my program, where you learn all about making really great medicine and making sure that it's effective and all of that good stuff. So it's really an important lesson.

Speaker 1: 3:52

That happened last night, and especially as I head into my herbal medicine planning party, which I'll talk about a bit later, but anyways. So here's what happened last night. I was at my daughter's softball game and, if you've never heard or didn't know, I love the game of softball. I played when I was my daughter's age and I still play today, but now it's slow pitch and it's just so much darn fun. And one of my favorite things is to cheer a lot and, like all the team, cheers are so much fun for me and I'm usually hanging out by the dugout if I'm not coaching and I'm teaching the girls the cheers that I used to do way back when I was an 11 or 12 year old girl and it's so much fun, and so I was like teaching one of these girls one of the cheers and at that moment somebody was like, oh and you're as down and Anira's down.

Speaker 1: 4:50

And it turns out that my daughter went to steal second and when she got there her ankle just collapsed off the bag and she got a pretty healthy sprain. Honestly, and I didn't really worry at all. Some moms would just freak out and be like, oh my God, my kids hurt and you know I knew that the coaching staff was more than adequate One of them's a nurse and so I just let them handle it in the beginning parts. And then, once they got her into the dugout and she was chilling, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go comfort her emotionally because I know that's scary for her, and so it was definitely there. And I also remembered that I had some Arnica in my van in the little console, and I had some of my Bobcat balm from way back in the days when I ran Mountain Mel's. And who in the heck knows how old those oils are? Actually, I know they were probably made in the beginning of 2022, or possibly even as long ago as 2021. So definitely not prime time medicine right there, like definitely past their prime. But I still use them in the moment because I know how potent the oils are and how good I make those oils Like. They're definitely far beyond anything I've ever bought in a store. So I slathered her up with some Arnica and some of the old Bobcat balm to help the healing process.

Speaker 1: 6:30

And before I go on to like more teaching, I want to say how cool it was, because I showed up at this game and it was about an hour away from where we live and it was in the city in Portland, oregon, and I showed up to the bleachers and there's a mom there from the other team and she's like looking at me and she's like hey, and I'm like gosh, is that one of the moms on our team, or you know? And I'm like, hey, I kind of know you, but I don't. And she's like I know you, don't I. And I'm like I don't know. She was like no, actually I saw you at the OHSU market many, many years ago before I did a 42 mile backpacking trip and you're Mountain Mel and I bought all of your first aid goods at that market and had the best backpacking trip and you and I had this great conversation about it. And she was like and I follow you.

Speaker 1: 7:27

I was like, oh, my God, how weird. Such a funny moment and honestly it happens a lot that I get that when I'm out and about that the old hey, you're Mountain Mel, and it was such a part of my identity, I guess, having a business with my name in it. So anyways, it was really funny to run into her and she was great. We chatted about softball and our daughters and life and all that cool stuff. But just ironic that like she had already bought all my first date goods that were probably made. Well, if I was at that market it was quite a few years ago, but anyways, that was. That was just one of those fun moments and kind of like a proud moment in that time. So anyways, yes, I had some Arnica oil on hand for Anira and, if you don't know, arnica is absolutely amazing for sprains and strains and bruising and things like that, and you can get like a nice gel or cream from Boron, the homeopathic company, or their palettes are really really good too.

Speaker 1: 8:38

I've always found my oil to be better than their homeopathic gels. The oil I make with fresh Arnica is absolutely phenomenal and I had my Bobcat balm, which I made specifically for people that get sprains and strains, and it's got arnica, it's got comfrey in it, which I'll talk about again in just a moment and I use cayenne in there as well. And cayenne is really amazing in this particular case because it brings heat to the area and we know like if there's a sprain we want a little. We want to do the rest ice compress and elevate for sure but we also want a little heat there. And a couple of other actions that the cayenne comes in to help with is it's going to promote blood flow to the area which is going to speed the healing process and it opens up the capillaries in that very, very specific spot. So the things like the arnica and the comfrey and I use St John's wort and mullein as well in there it helps those medicinal goodnesses Medicinal goodness, that's a total technical term those medicinal herbs get exactly right where they need to be.

Speaker 1: 9:59

So again, the cayenne comes in. It's bringing all this heat, it's bringing all this blood flow and it opens up those capillaries so that the good medicine from the arnica, from the comfrey, can get right to where it needs to take action and speed that healing and repair process and it's absolutely phenomenal. And then in that Bobcat balm I also use things like menthol crystals and peppermint and a little bit of camphor too, and that brings on the cooling. So this is a product I used to make when I ran my herbal products company and I sold it at REI and all kinds of really, really cool natural health food stores and chiropractors offices. Actually, our local chiropractor just bought a whole case of it of our old batch and I was like it's past its prime and they're like that's okay, we love it, it's the best.

Speaker 1: 10:52

So anyways, to the name Bobcat Balm, I made it because I wanted it to be like a tiger balm, but I live on Mount Hood in Oregon and I definitely, when I named it the property that we lived on, bobcats would frequently come and steal our chickens from our space, so I thought that it would be a funny play on words. I don't know that many people ever got it. I had to tell them the story, like I just did with you. But still, bobcat balm is the jam and it is all natural and it is all made with plants that grow around where I live and can also be easily grown in my garden. I guess the cayenne doesn't grow natively, but you can certainly grow it or gather it from a sustainable supplier, of course. So yeah, that's the name of bobcat balm.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Those are some of the things that I think are really important in cases of an injury like this, of sprains and strains and broken bones and things like that. So my whole point in sharing this story is like, yes, the arnica was way past its prime and I am so grateful because I have comfrey growing in my garden and I have, like, this one plant that I brought to my garden a couple years back and comfrey is kind of known to spread a lot, but I've had it there for about four years now and it is not spreading anywhere. So, like the week before, literally the week before today, I had a woman post on our local buy nothing group that she had so many comfrey plants that she needed to get rid of them. She was like, where are my hippie people that need the comfrey? And I'm like it's me, hi, it's me, I'm the hippie freak that will use your comfrey. And so we went to her property just a few miles down the road for me, and I dug out like four new comfrey plants for my house, because mine had already gone to flower and these ones were not in flower at all yet, and I planted them last week also because I knew that this year is going to be a big medicine making year for me because, honestly, I haven't made much medicine for a couple of years.

Speaker 1: 13:10

So I ran Mountain Mel's all the way from like 2011 to 2022. Maybe it was even longer than that Officially called Mountain Mel's in 2011. I definitely made products before then, but I closed it in 2022 to focus on teaching and to focus on my child and things along those lines. And when I closed the apothecary and moved everything out of that space and shut down the product line and I was just like then in my basement I had so much freaking medicine that I could like, I'm like, please take this medicine, please take it, please take it. It was pretty much giving away all of these different things and I didn't need anything. But now here I am all those oils past their prime and it is time for me to make so much good stuff.

Speaker 1: 14:04

And one of the things I love to do is host an herbal medicine planning party, because if you've ever like made herbal remedies, maybe you first got into it and five years later you're looking at all these random jars on your shelf and you're like what in the heck is this? I don't even know what I made. I don't even know why I made it or how in the heck I am going to use it. Like in the heck. I am going to use it Like, hey, it definitely happens. If you've ever been there, I am there or I have been there. I don't really do it so much now, because I usually have an outlet or an understanding of what I need to make.

Speaker 1: 14:47

So I think it's really important, though, because it's easy to get so excited about all the medicine that is out there and all these beautiful plants and knowing that they are medicinal or edible and that you can utilize them, and it's easy to be like cool, I'm going to go get all my jars and I'm going to fill them with oils and I'm going to fill them with various alcohols and I'm going to make these tinctures and I'm going to make these glycerides and all of these great things. Right, it's really important. But then again, if you just go gathering them all willy nilly, with no intention behind them and no thought process, and like what am I going to actually use this for? That's when you end up with those jars that are just collecting dust and you don't see them again for another five or 10 years and you're wasting time and you're wasting money, and you're wasting, sometimes, the precious plants. There could be a much better use for it.

Speaker 1: 15:43

So, anyways, I guess that's my long rant and my long way of inviting you to the herbal medicine planning party, because that's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to talk about, like, what do you actually need on hand and why? And are there things that are actually really plentiful all around you that could make great medicine and serve the purposes that you need? Because, if so, those are the ones you really, really want to focus on, instead of all the exotic, crazy, wild herbs out there. Why not keep it simple? Why not keep it local or bioregional as possible? That's a great way to go. And, yeah, so that's what we're going to do. It's a four-day party, it is a free party and we are going to map it out. I am going to help you not feel so overwhelmed, trying to figure out what to make when you can find the time to make all of the things, and, yeah, I'm just going to help you get a really well-stocked herbal medicine cabinet and one that you can utilize fully for the next one to two years without having tons and tons of random jars of what the heck am I ever going to do with this? So, yeah, that's it. It's a party, it's fun and it's free, and I hope that you come, because I love this time of year, as all the spring plants are popping up and it's almost summertime and it's like just abundance everywhere. It is so much fun and I want to help inspire you on your medicine making journey. So I will definitely drop a link to the herbal medicine planning party down in the show notes of this episode here, and I really hope that you decide to join us in all of the fun.

Speaker 1: 17:38

All right, I think that's it for today's episode, though I would love to know, like, if you are tuning into this, like, what kinds of remedies do you always have on hand? Do you have one remedy or two remedies that you're like nope, I never leave home without this. This is the one the go-to. If you do, I would love, love, love to hear from you on Instagram. You can shoot me a DM, you could do it on Facebook, you could do it on TikTok, you could do it in my emails. I would love to hear what your absolute go-to remedy is to have on hand at all times. All right, that's it. I hope that you also walk away from this episode with some insight on herbs that you can turn to when sprains and strains happen Comfrey, arnica, cayenne. You could even use peppermint or ginger. There's so much that you can do and, yeah, I can't wait to hear from you and wish you an absolutely beautiful day.

Speaker 1: 18:50

Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Herbalist Path. If you're loving this journey and learning all about the various aspects of herbal medicine, be sure to follow and review the show. It helps more people find their own path with herbal medicine, and if you have a friend or know a mama or another budding herbalist who could use this kind of support, please share this episode with them and that way we can keep making herbalism spread like wildflowers. And a gentle reminder nothing shared on this podcast is intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. All the information is for educational purposes only and, yeah, we throw in some entertainment too. But what it is not is a substitute for personalized care from a qualified health practitioner. Always do your own research, listen to your body and, when needed, needed partner, with a trusted professional who honors both your intuition and your health. Until next time, take care, stay curious and keep walking down the herbalist path.