Somehow I managed to pick up a splinter in my left foot recently. It bothered me for several days. After I got tired of limping around on it here in Beautiful Marion County, and after fruitless attempts to remove the offending splinter, I decided to try some drawing salve.
I don’t think that’s an item that’s very common in anyone’s medicine cabinet anymore, but when I was a kid in Miami, my mother always used to have some of it around for sand spurs and such. It was an oily, black ointment and smelled really bad.
I tried some local pharmacies without success. I then went to the Internet to see if I could find any of this magical stuff, and discovered several possibilities.
I wound up ordering a tube of Ichthammol Ointment from CVS’s mail-order department, but knew it would take several days to arrive. In the interim, my foot was still hurting so I thought maybe I could discover what the magic ingredient in this mysterious drawing salve is and perhaps I could whip up a bit of it in the kitchen. So back to the Internet I went.
I never did come up with an exact recipe, but I did discover one interesting article that explained how drawing salves work. It said the body has a natural tendency to expel foreign objects through the skin, but sometimes the process is impeded by thickened skin or calluses that work against the body’s natural process of getting rid of unwelcome “trespassers.”
A drawing salve merely helps the body do what it is attempting to do anyway by moisturizing and softening the skin around the splinter. In theory at least, ANY ointment or oily substance that can be absorbed by the skin will soften it. And it is this softening effect that helps the body expel the splinter more easily. One article suggested using honey and a drop of iodine to accomplish the task.
I had been applying Triple-A antibiotic to a Band-Aid which I then placed over the offending site, and one morning shortly thereafter, the splinter had worked its way up to the surface. A quick tug with a pair of tweezers solved the problem.
The package from CVS arrived two days later.
Apparently, from what I read on several sites, this ichthammol stuff is pretty effective so I’ll keep the still-unopened package around for my next little misadventure. But petroleum jelly, which is MUCH cheaper, would apparently work just as well, as would aloe vera, facial cream or any other moisturizer. That could be a handy thing to know.
DOCTORS: Ocala’s Debi Jaynes wrote: “We are so happy to be back here from Naples. Friendly people are a rarity there but everyone is friendly here! Congrats on your anniversary — you are so lucky to have each other. The doctors in Ocala are another story. I have been helping an elderly person (older than I am) with doctors’ visits and am appalled at the lack of manners exhibited by some staff members. No respect for the patient and they seem to just NOT care. Our trip to Shands was the polar opposite. We were treated with kindness and dignity. Keep up the good work. I love your column!”
Debi, we’ve always had pretty good luck with doctors in Ocala so we have no complaints there, but like you, we’ve found the ones in Gainesville to be very polite. Maybe they just have more competition up there!
THAT LITTLE BIRDIE we all hear so much about has been busy again! I’ve been told an exhibition featuring Fins, Feathers and Fur is on the agenda for June somewhere in Ocala for those of us who do not migrate north with the snowbird crowd. More details as the date draws closer.
TOO MUCH NOISE: Williston’s Ben Young recently wrote: “Some namby-pamby people want race cars, like those at Daytona, to run quieter. This would let them be able to talk to each other more. I think this again boils down to them wanting to use their cell phones more? How about this: They could all drive Teslas instead, those electric vehicles that make little noise.”
Ben, some of those electric vehicles go pretty fast. Don Garlits has even been playing around with them lately, and “Big Daddy” KNOWS his business when talking about speedy cars!
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