Garlic Oil... to the Rescue?

By: Chelsa

What do you picture when I say garlic oil? Italian food? Things like pizza crusts, bread sticks, and spaghetti sauce. Garlic is one of my favorite spices for food. I love how it tastes and I love how it smells. But did you know that garlic has powerful antibiotic properties as well? I mean really powerful. A few years ago, kind of by accident, I discovered the benefits of using garlic oil on skin infections, ear aches, spider bites and even staph infections. I was very skeptical at first. I mean, how could garlic save a life? But I just kept reading testimonies from trustworthy people I know on the healing properties of garlic. Their stories peaked my interest and I've been researching and experimenting with medicinal herbs for a couple of years now. And I want to share one of my experiences here.

The first time I experienced the healing power of garlic was on one of our kittens a couple of years ago. (If you are squeemish, you might want to skip this paragraph) Samantha informed me that her kitty, Paint Kitty Phillip, had a big bump on its back. I went outside on the back porch to check it out and saw the huge lump, the size of a golf ball on her small back. The kitten looked weak and sick. She didn't run or play like the others and she wasn't eating well. She just laid there limp. At first glance I thought it must be a tumor of some sort. But as I got a closer look I found that it was some sort of infection; maybe a mesquite thorn poked her or another cat bit her and it got infected. I found the scab, picked it off, and squeezed the lump ever so slightly. Large amounts of green pus came pouring out of the hole. It was nasty. I continued to squeeze until it emptied out completely. Then I tried to find a thorn or some other object that might be inside, but there was none.

The next day the lump had grown back full size and I attempted the same thing again to no avail. The same thing happened the third day. The kitty was sick and she wasn't getting any better. I really thought she was going to die because the infection was so big compared to her small body. The kids wanted to pool their money and take her to the vet, but because of the high number of farm cats at our place I said "No, I'll do a little research on the internet and see what I can find out." That's when I remembered GOURMET GARLIC GARDENS on my favorites. I had read something there about the healing powers of garlic (the man had a staph infection on his thumb and treated it with garlic and the infection went away). After reading about that I decided to give it a try on kitty, it certainly couldn't hurt. So I followed his directions for making garlic oil.

• Finely chop 5-6 cloves of garlic
• Let it sit on the cutting board for 11 minutes (time is important because chemical changes are taking place in the opened garlic)
  
• Then put the chopped garlic in a small glass jar and add 1/4 cup slightly warm olive oil
• Stir and leave it in the oil all day
• Strain out the garlic and use the oil
• Store the oil in a glass jar with a lid (it will smell very garlicky)
  
• Rub on infected area several times a day

Thankfully the kitties lump was between her shoulder blades, so it was extremely hard for her to mess with it. But mother cat had no trouble licking the garlic oil off of her baby, so we quarantined kitty to the red shed. I got the hair clippers, shaved the fur where the lump was, squeezed out the pus, and drenched the spot with the freshly made garlic oil. I repeated this every couple of hours that day. The next morning the lump was half its normal size! I couldn't believe this stuff was really working! It's just garlic, for cryin' out loud! So I squeezed the pus out again and applied the oil again several times that second day. By the next morning, day 3, the lump was completely flat. I couldn't squeeze out any pus because there wasn't any! Not only that, but the kitty began to get an appetite and feel better. By the end of the week all signs of weakness or infection were completely gone. The kitty ran and played with all its brothers and sisters again. I was amazed!!! And excited!!! Ever since that day, I have kept a jar of garlic oil on hand in the medicine cabinet.