Things that go itch

From the very moment I realized my daughter had contracted ringworm (so I thought) from school, my head started crawling. My face and neck itched too, but not like my head. I figured it was probably all IN my head, but in the meantime, what to do?

I already knew what to do. Apply the eczema remedy. The chigger healer. The mosquito bite miracle. It's commonly called tea tree oil, but is actually from the leaf of the melaleuca alternifolia tree in Australia. I got turned on to this first aid in a bottle when a friend was applying the oil directly from the bottle to her daughter's mosquito bite. What is that? I inquired.

We were right in the middle of a crusade to find something to ease our daughter's raging eczema. Lotions and creams did not work. We had found one store brand that contained cucumber that did a fairly good job of controlling it, but of course the company stopped making it. We looked everywhere but to no avail. I even purchased some off the Internet, paying in shipping the price of another bottle of the stuff.

We so happened to find several bottles of the cucumber lotion on the bottom clearance shelf and bought them all, literally whooping with joy. That was a couple of years ago and we still have a few bottles because we found something even better — tea tree oil.

The oil, which is not oily and can be applied straight from the bottle onto problem skin of any kind, did wonders to heal the itchy patches of skin on my daughter's neck, wrists, and knees.

The last time I got a nasty bout of chiggers, the thing that really helped the horrible itch — mosquitos, the Arkansas state bird, don't really find me tasty but the chiggers make up for it — was bathing in water that contained a few drops of tea tree oil, and then applying more directly to the bites before sealing them with nail polish to smother them. Viola! No itching until nighttime, when I itch because I'm sleepy!

Then the ringworm comes along. Before I even found out exactly what they were, I was already treating the mysterious spots with the oil. When my head started crawling I washed my hair with shampoo containing the miracle oil and then massaged some tea tree oil (also called melaleuca oil) directly onto my scalp. Not only did it not ease the itch, it made my hair really soft! How 'bout that — another use for my favorite substance!

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