Topical Honey Tested As A Treatment For Diabetic Ulcers

Link: Topical Honey Tested As A Treatment For Diabetic Ulcers, UW Study.

Complications from a 2002 car accident left Hurlburt, a borderline diabetic, with recurring cellulitis and staph infections. One of those infections developed into a troublesome open sore that, despite the use of oral antibiotics, continued to fester for nearly eight months. Then Hurlburt's physician, Jennifer Eddy of UW Health's Eau Claire Family Medicine Clinic, suggested she try using topical honey. Within a matter of months, the sore had healed completely. "I remember thinking, holy mackerel-what a difference," says Hurlburt, who can't use topical antibiotics because of allergies. "It's a lot better than having to put oral antibiotics into your system." With funding provided by the Wisconsin Partnership Fund for Health and the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation, Eddy is currently conducting the first randomized, double-blind controlled trial of honey for diabetic ulcers. Eddy first successfully used honey therapy a few years ago with a patient who was facing amputation after all medical options had been exhausted.

Comments

[Howard]

Honey is not sterile and may contain vegetative bacteria and bacterial spores and fungal cells and spores. They are inhibited form groeing in the honey because of the low water activity but in a wound the honey is diluted by body secretions which proivde additional nutrients for microbial growth as well. This is why raw honey should not be given to infants either.

[Howard]

Honey is not sterile and may contain vegetative bacteria and bacterial spores and fungal cells and spores. They are inhibited form growing in the honey because of the low water activity but in a wound the honey is diluted by body secretions which provide additional nutrients for microbial growth as well. This is why raw honey should not be given to infants either.