Toenail fungus, jungle rot: aloe sludge, oil.

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.herbs
Subject: Foot Fungus
From: max.borisoff.christnet.org (Max Borisoff)
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 00:50:00 GMT

> I'm hoping to find a treatment (dare I say cure) for my friends problem. He has a fungus on his feet. It's not athletes foot, it something else, that he believes he picked up as a child in the far east. It eats away at his toenails and the skin on his feet is heavily flaky and splits and bleeds.
> If anyone has a suggestion that might help, I'd love to hear about it.

There are several simple and easily accessible remedies.

ALOE - Aloe vera

He could grow it in a big pot and use it fresh and clean, as he needs it. Cut of a leaf and juice it. Apply the juice directly to the wounds, or soak his feet in it. It soothes, it is antifungal, healing the tissues, and prevents infections.

Eat the pulp that he strained, three to four tablespoons, four times a day. It tastes refreshing.. With a little lemon, a good appetizer.. <grin>

There are many ALOE GEL preparations on the market. I don't trust them all. So I make my own.

Clarify some butter. Which means melt it very slow until the fats separate, let it cool and scrape of the upper crust of this melted butter.

Rewarm the butter until it melts, add 1 oz of Black Walnut oil ( Sesame oil if can't get it ) - 1oz per 1 lbs of melted butter. Add the 1 pound of fresh ALOE leaf and put it in the blender and liquefy, add the melted oils, and half an ounce of garlic powder, and let it mix into emulsion. Strain the stuff through cheese cloth, and got my version of the cream which helped some of my Nam friends with what I called 'jungle rot'.. It helped me with some fungi skin eruptions, which Lortimin and Lotrizone could not handle.

ALOE POWDERS can be bought in most herb stores. Mostly used as purgatives. <grin> But it you heat up 6 oz of pure olive to the boiling temp and then put it 2 oz of ALOE POWDER and 1 oz powdered (powdered not granulated) GARLIC and 1 oz of powdered GINGER, and switch off the fire, and let it stay covered until it cools. Warm it up to the boil, and then switch off and let it cool. And again.. do it three times.

After you strain it, while it is till liquid, put it into freezer. When you need it, just cut of the piece of frozen stuff, and it will melt like butter as you apply it to the affected areas.

From: trish.o'neil.nwcs.org (Trish O'neil)

> I'm hoping to find a treatment (dare I say cure) for my friends problem.

I have a similar problem, picked up after years of running barefoot in eastern Oregon, don't know if its the same fungus, but what has really helped, and the only thing that has actually started to clear the areas under the toenail is topical vitamin E, applied around the entire nail, and on the affected skin, and then covered. Once a day helped, twice a day better- it hasn't cured the problem, but I've not been as consistent with it as I could've been, plus I developed sensitivity to tape. Hope this helps.

---Trish