Home remedies · Skin, wounds & stings
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Pour half a litre of boiling water over two tablespoons of chamomile flowers, let it steep covered for ten minutes, strain. Stir in a level tablespoon of salt and let it cool to a comfortable bath temperature. Bathe the finger in it for ten to fifteen minutes, three or four times a day. Pat dry afterwards.
Two things work here side by side. The salt makes the water hypertonic: it draws fluid out of the swollen tissue, which takes the pressure off — the same reason salt water gargling helps a sore throat. The chamomile brings bisabolol and chamazulene, two compounds from its essential oil whose anti-inflammatory action on skin and mucous membrane is well studied. The warmth itself widens the vessels and brings more defence cells to the spot.
Do not lance it and do not squeeze it — that carries the inflammation deeper rather than out. The bath works on what sits at the surface; a pocket of pus that has slid under the nail will not come out this way. Chamomile can irritate with an allergy to the daisy family.
If nothing improves after two days, if a red streak runs from the finger towards the hand, with fever, with strong throbbing pain, and always with diabetes or a circulation disorder. A pocket of pus needs opening, and that belongs in practised hands.
See a doctor: wounds that gape, bleed heavily or are deep, bite wounds, burns larger than your own palm or with blisters on the face and joints. Likewise redness spreading quickly, especially with fever. And any mole that changes.