Honey for Healing Cuts and Burns

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Natural Remedy- Honey helps speed healing of cuts burns and wounds
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I’m often amazed at things that our generation thinks we’ve discovered, only to find out that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had been using them for years. An excellent example of this is using honey for healing wounds.

I’d seen some studies recently on using honey in hospitals for helping wounds and burns heal and I’d also known veterinarians who had used it on animals, so I started looking in to it more.

I also mentioned it to several people, and the ones old enough to remember more than a couple decades ago remembered using honey as a remedy. What’s old is new again, I suppose. I’d personally used honey internally for digestive problems and mixed with cinnamon during illnesses, but am glad to see all the research on topical ways to use it for healing wounds as well.

Research on Honey for Healing

Often, it seems that there is an unspoken divide between natural remedies and conventional medicine, but honey bridges this gap. There is a great deal of research supporting the use of certain types of honey in a medical setting, and it has been a natural remedy for centuries.

Research is even showing the ability of honey to help in cases of MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and MSSA (methicillin sensitive Staphylococcus aureus), which are resistant to antibiotics.

This study explains:

“Honey works differently from antibiotics, which attack the bacteria’s cell wall or inhibit intracellular metabolic pathways. Honey is hygroscopic, meaning it draws moisture out of the environment and thus dehydrates bacteria. Its sugar content is also high enough to hinder the growth of microbes, but the sugar content alone is not the sole reason for honey’s antibacterial properties.

When honey is diluted with water, reducing its high sugar content, it still inhibits the growth of many different bacterial species that cause wound infections.

In addition to its antibacterial properties, medical honey hastens the healing of wounds through its anti-inflammatory effects. The amount of wound exudate is related to the activity of the local inflammatory process, in particular in wounds, which are colonized or infected with bacteria. Thus, the anti-inflammatory action of honey reduces oedema and the amount of exudate by down regulating the inflammatory process. It also reduces pain, as the pain in wounds results from the nerve endings being sensitized by prostaglandins produced in the process of inflammation, as well from the pressure on tissues resulting from oedema.”

Research has also shown the benefit of using certain types of honey when dressing burns. An especially compelling study showed that none of the nine most common organisms found in burn wounds could survive even a 30% concentration of raw honey. Another study showed that 28 of strains of bacteria that are most-resistant to antibiotics were all eliminated by raw honey.

Honey has been used in a medical setting for the following:

  • As a salve on burns to reduce rates of infection and speed healing
  • On amputee patients to speed recovery and reduce risk of complications
  • In deep or puncture wounds- honey is used to fill the wound as it heals
  • On bedsores
  • On surgical wounds to speed healing
  • On puncture wounds
  • To fill abscesses after they have been drained to prevent complications

I know several midwives who recommend honey to patients to speed healing after a c-section.

My Personal Experience

My husband recently got a pretty severe cut on his foot. It had visibly cut through a vein and took a long time to stop bleeding. For several days after he cut it, it would re-open and bleed if he did too much activity.

I wish I’d remembered to try honey right away, but as soon as I remembered, I applied it to his foot. By the next morning, some of the redness was gone and after two days, it had closed up and was no longer bleeding if he moved around too much. I now also use raw manuka honey in place of antibiotic ointment for all cuts/burns at our house.

How to Use Honey for Healing

Regular raw honey can be used for healing, but a specific type has been shown to be most effective: Manuka Honey. It is made by bees after they pollinate the manuka (tea tree) flowers, giving it additional antibacterial properties.

It is important to only use raw (and preferably manuka) honey for wounds and burns. Regular honey found in most grocery stores has been heated and sometimes chemically altered, making it ineffective for wounds.

Regular raw/manuka honey can be used and I keep both of those on hand, but I also keep a specific medical-grade honey on hand since it has been verified to have a high concentration of manuka for additional antibacterial properties. I have the following three things at our house for burns and cuts:

  1. Medihoney Gel for burns and cuts
  2. Medihoney wound paste
  3. Medihoney wound dressings for big wounds

This article was medically reviewed by Dr. Lauren Jefferis, board certified in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. As always, this is not personal medical advice and we recommend that you talk with your doctor or work with a doctor at SteadyMD.

Have you ever used honey as a natural remedy? How did you use it?

Research supports the use of honey for healing cuts, burns, puncture wounds because of its natural antibacterial properties.
Katie Wells Avatar

About Katie Wells

Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, Founder of Wellness Mama and Co-founder of Wellnesse, has a background in research, journalism, and nutrition. As a mom of six, she turned to research and took health into her own hands to find answers to her health problems. WellnessMama.com is the culmination of her thousands of hours of research and all posts are medically reviewed and verified by the Wellness Mama research team. Katie is also the author of the bestselling books The Wellness Mama Cookbook and The Wellness Mama 5-Step Lifestyle Detox.

Comments

68 responses to “Honey for Healing Cuts and Burns”

  1. Deirdre Avatar
    Deirdre

    Dear Katie,
    I’m a fairly new subscriber to your excellent blog and I just like to say how impressed I am with the quality of the information (and the way you express it!) and the tone of your postings. I live in Australia and I’ve seen a few other sites along similar lines – yours is definitely a cut above. Thanks!

  2. Nicky Avatar

    Thank you so much for this great article. I use honey to wash my face and to deal with facial blemishes but I have never imagined it could be used this way. Next time I have a cut I will definitely be experimenting with this!!

  3. Rho Avatar

    I’ve used honey & a couple drops of tea tree oil mixed in for deep, painful pimples. I leave it on overnight(cover with a bandaid) & the next morning it’s so much better! I have used it as a face mask for the deep cleaning & moisturizing effects, as well.

  4. erinwarman@hotmail.com Avatar
    erinwarman@hotmail.com

    I am a community and wound resource nurse. We deal with a lot of really severe wound care from surgeries, bed sores, diabetes, trauma, you name it! And medihoney is one of our number one products. I’ve seen in work miracles on my patients. I’ve been reading wellness mama for a little while now and I was so happy to see this post. Thanks!

  5. Marley Kramer Avatar
    Marley Kramer

    Some snake oil salesman at a Farmers Market in Florida was trying to sell me some sort of Honey Bee Miracle Healing Cream. The literature in his booth suggested it solved all the world’s problems. This cream was as white as the pure driven snow, yet he claimed the main ingredient (as listed in the order on his label) was honey. I read the label further and it also included Royal Bee Jelly, Distilled Water, Vitamin E, etc. Continuing to read the label, I saw there was no preservative listed in the ingredients. When I asked about the lack of a preservative, he proclaimed, “Honey is a natural preservative.” I wanted to laugh in his face, but was too stunned by his remark. Even if this were Manuka Honey, which has some very remarkable properties, HONEY IS NOT A PRESERVATIVE. (BTW, neither is Vitamin E.) First of all, once honey is mixed with water its properties are compromised. Also, Royal Bee Jelly is made up of about 60-70% water, and then he included distilled water on his label. With all that water in his formula, it would be a breeding mecca for fungi and bacterial growth. There is no way that he could have made this cream without a preservative and expect it to last more than a week..under refrigeration. Even worse, he was selling this stuff in the Florida sunshine. I personally think he is using some pre-made commercial base cream (which contains a preservative) and then adding some honey and other ingredients to it. Even if that’s the case, his label is still illegal by FDA regulations. He must disclose all the ingredients in his cream. When I asked him how long his cream would remain good to use, he said, “Oh, at least 3 years!!” LOOK, I like honey for all the good points you have brought out, but please understand that honey is not a preservative and that once any water in any form is introduced, that it is a breeding ground for fungi and bacterial growth. I did not confide to him my credentials, even when he asked me, “What are you, some kind of scientist.” I wanted to see how far he could fit his foot inside his mouth.

  6. Sherry Avatar
    Sherry

    Got a cut yesterday and happened ot have read this on Sunday and it worked like a charm thanks!

  7. becka Avatar

    This is too funny! I just took my Chameleon to the vet yesterday because his fingers are dark brown underneath. The vet suggested that it’s burns from grabbing onto his UVB/UVA lights that sit on the top of the enclosure (which I’ve since raised off of his home) and said that a small dab of honey on the bottoms of his toes would help to heal them naturally, and since he doesn’t groom, it will stay put. Then loe and behold, I pull up your website today, and the spotlight is over honey! I love it! 🙂

  8. Beth Avatar

    Honey is SOO amazing!! Thank you for this post!! I was just thinking about how I want to get rid of my neosporin!!

  9. shannon Avatar
    shannon

    The Medihoney description and reviews are amazing. I’ve never heard of this product but want to buy some for my house and also to send to my mother who is in a wheelchair and often injures her toes when they slip off the foot rest and scrape on the ground. She can’t feel it but it makes horrible wounds on her feet. I’m interested in both the gel and the wound paste. Can you tell me how you use each? How would you choose one over the other? Thank you! I’m going to send my mom one (or both?) for Mother’s Day!

  10. Jenay Green Avatar
    Jenay Green

    I have also used honey on my skin as a mask and it leaves my skin feeling so soft. My husband makes fun of me for all the food from my kitchen I use for beauty products. Thanks for all your great information I know many are blessed by it!

    1. Peggy Seydlitz Avatar
      Peggy Seydlitz

      Don’t need to buy the expensive Manuka honey! Get regular raw honey @ grocery store! Why spend too much extra money for medicisl honey!!!! I scratched my nose and upper lip with swollen
      Under my nose? My elderly neighbor told me to use raw honey 2-3
      Times a day until it developed a scab. The honey helped dry up and heal my wounds. I have no scars and its healed up great!!! Use raw honey inexpensive brand on bandages or on wounds!!!!!

  11. emily Avatar

    I am a Wound Nurse at a Pediatric Hospital and we use MediHoney products all the time on patients with burns and wounds you’ve talked about! I’ve followed your posts for 1+year, fun to see you post this! MediHoney products work wonders, that Honey is the only hospital grade honey they have approved yet, it’s specially sterilized and from New Zealand. I am also up for trying home remidies and have usd many of your tips and tricks. I will have to give raw honey or manuka honey a try! Thanks!

  12. Wanda Avatar

    Can someone recommend a reputable brand of manuka honey? I heard some are better than others.

    1. naomi Avatar

      manuka health New Zealand. I have the MGO 250+, the higher the number the more antibacterial properties it has.

  13. Sue Avatar

    Have you ever heard of it healing external fissures caused by hemorrhoids? I’ve tried (I’m pretty sure) everything. The pain & discomfort has been plaguing me for over a year now, and for obvious reasons, that area is hard to heal since we use it every day.

  14. Jena Avatar

    I am so glad to see this article. I am a nurse and we occasionally used gauze soaked in honey (comes prepackaged) for hard to heal wounds and burns. I have never made the connection to use it at home though. I will now be adding it to my arsenal of home remedies! Thanks Katie!

  15. Susan P Avatar
    Susan P

    About 10 years ago peeling chrome over plastic on the recessed interior door handle of my car nearly sliced the pad off the end of one of my fingers. I had just arrived at my son’s to help them move into a recently purchased home. It took my daughter-in-law about 20 minutes to stop the bleeding enough to apply a bandage. She finally had to put a tourniquet on my finger to stop the flow long enough to apply the band-aid. I then worked for hours helping with the move. When I got home late that evening I showered and lost the bandage on my finger. Now, I am alone and my finger is bleeding freely into the sink. The only thing I could think of to stem the flow enough to get a bandage on the finger was honey. I got the honey bear bottle (yes, pasteurized honey) from the kitchen, Applied it to the cut. Put on a band-aid and went to bed. Two days later I was able to go without any bandage at all as the healing was miraculous.

    A few months prior to this I had been bitten by a spider. The out of pocket cost of healing the spider bite was around $300 between doctor’s office and pharmacy. It also took about a month of treatment. After the experience with the honey and the cut, I was again bitten by the same type of spider. When I discovered the bite, the blister was already broken. I applied honey to the spider bite ONCE and it was fully healed in a couple of days. After that, I moved as the house I lived in at that time was infested with tiny white spiders.

    Today, I only buy raw honey and it is my go to for any small wound. But, my point in telling you all this is that in a pinch even pasteurized honey has phenomenal healing power.

  16. Isabel Avatar
    Isabel

    For burns, I always have an aloe vera plant at hand. The burning sensation stops very quickly and the wound heals three times as fast as if you just let it be. I burnt myself in two different places once, on the inside of my arm, so just to experiment I just put aloe vera on one spot, and antiseptic cream and a plaster (bandaid) on the other. The aloe vera spot has long disappeared while the other one can still be seen years later.
    And it is just so handy to just chop of a bit of a leaf and just smear the jelly like flesh on the wound!

  17. Agricola Avatar
    Agricola

    Hi Katie,

    I currently use the madhava organic raw honey at my house in cooking and facial scrubs, but was wondering if it was the same as the manuka raw honey? Your answer would be greatly appreciated….
    My husband gets really bad acne sores on his back from blogging all day and we can’t seem to get them to heel. We have tried just about everything, except for the honey remedy. I will wait for your reply before I try it though because I need to know if I should go get the manuka brand.
    Thank you!

  18. Mary Avatar

    Here is a tip from an old old pamphlet i got 30 years ago… Honey for any kind of sting. It works the stinger and venom out. also does the same for splinters. Amazing!

  19. Barbara Wellman Avatar
    Barbara Wellman

    I use honey frequently and most recently used it after a knee replacement surgery. Working great the scar is almost gone. Also great for chapped lips.

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