Can you use wild oregano oil for hand foot and mouth disease? The best way I can answer this question from a reader is to tell you a story about my personal experience with hand, foot and mouth disease when my son was 2 years old.
“Hello! I’m waiting for a doctor’s appointment for my son, but I suspect he has hand, foot and mouth disease. He’s almost 19 months old. How do you recommend I use WOO for this at his age? I have the one I bought on your website. Thank you!!”
Of course, I am not a doctor and would not give anyone advice on how to treat their child. But I can tell you what I did over 20 years ago when my son developed hand, foot and mouth disease. This is a viral disease that is highly contagious in children. By far the worst symptom (fever, mouth sores, rash) is blistering mouth sores. They were very painful for my son (who tends to be stoic) and he would scream in pain even when he drank water! Eating any kind was out of the question. Even milk hurt too much for him to drink. He had large, blistering sores all over his tongue and into his throat.
Well, from my experience with canker sores, I already knew that wild oregano oil would probably work. I explained all about it to my son and how spicy it was. And I put some on my own tongue to demonstrate. Then we tried a 7:1 dilution (7 drops of organic olive oil to 1 drop of commercially available – not absolutely necessary – wild oregano) so it doesn’t “burn” his mouth too much, but hopefully it’s effective.* That wasn’t the case.
I then explained to him that we could try full strength wild oregano and that it would hurt like crazy for 2.5 minutes, but then the pain would completely go away and I thought it would heal him enough to be able to eat and drink again. He was willing to try it. So I filled the pipette and quickly dripped wild oregano over his tongue while he held his mouth open. I explained to him that he needed to swallow it so that it could treat the sores in his throat.
Well, he was fucking screaming, tears streaming from his eyes, but he swallowed and swallowed as I counted down the two and a half minutes. Wild oregano stimulates a lot of saliva in the mouth – so I had to explain this to him beforehand and make sure he was ready to swallow it and not spit it out. I explained to him that it would burn his lips like crazy if he tried to spit it out! And then his throat would no longer be on medication and so eating or drinking would still be very difficult. Understanding and honesty are key as we engage our children in their own healing.
When we reached the 2.5 minute mark, his tears dried, he blew his nose, and then we waited 15 minutes for the wild oregano to do its job of killing the virus. He carefully swallowed some water and was thrilled that it didn’t hurt! Then he asked for food, and I offered him oatmeal or Annie’s Mac ‘n Cheese – foods that I felt would be easy to digest and wouldn’t aggravate the sores. He chose mac ‘n cheese and happily ate a large bowl without any pain or problems.
I can’t remember how long the effects lasted…maybe a few hours…but when his mouth started hurting again and he could no longer eat or drink without pain, he immediately asked for another wild oregano treatment. Such a brave boy! But the healing relief was more than worth the 2.5 minutes of excruciating pain. I let him determine the frequency of treatment and within a few days he was completely healed.
The first treatment was by far the most painful for him; each subsequent treatment hurt less and less. I suggested that the more it hurt, the more bad bugs died, so wild oregano didn’t have to kill as many while his tongue healed. He seemed to like this explanation!
We used the same brand that we sell here in the Shoppe – Joy of The Mountains.
*AND NOTE: Never use Oregano ESSENTIAL OIL, otherwise it may cause burns/damage to the skin and mucosal tissue. It must ALWAYS be diluted with a carrier oil, such as organic olive oil, in a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio. All brands we sell are already diluted in this way and can be used or further diluted depending on the application.
Jini Patel Thompson is an internationally recognized expert in natural healing for digestive diseases. She healed herself from widespread Crohn’s disease and has been medication and surgery free for over 25 years. Jini has appeared on numerous podcasts, TV and radio shows in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, giving people hope and vision on how to heal their colitis, Crohn’s disease, diverticulitis and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) using all-natural methods. Her books on natural healing of digestive diseases have been sold in over 80 countries worldwide. Jini is married and has three children, nine sheep, 11 horses, a cat and three dogs.
