Healing a Muscle Strain Naturally

The other morning my toddler woke up and refused to walk.  He kept complaining of pain in his ankle and refused to put weight on it.  We knew it was not broken (if there is ever ANY doubt, please speak with your health care professional); he had been romping pretty hard the night before and I suspected a minor sprain or muscle strain, which can come on delayed.

Since he is only two, it was difficult to figure out exactly what was going on, but I saw some minor puffing around his ankle and decided to try some treatments that day for muscle strain since I really wanted to avoid using tylenol.

The first thing I did was to give a dose of homeopathic arnica.  I gave a few doses over the course of the day, both in spray form and oral.

I then rubbed some diluted lavender essential oil into the sprain and spent some time icing the foot.  He was not a very big fan of the ice, but since it was slightly puffy, I wanted to get some ice on it.

A little while later we tried an epsom salt bath.  Epsom salts are very healing for muscle strains and sprains, so I made up a little foot bath and let him soak his foot - he loved that!  I think this was one of the best treatments I could have tried for him.

Picture credit: www.real-noni.com

After his Epsom salt bath, I rubbed my all time favorite Noni lotion all over the ankle area.  I cannot recommend this lotion enough.  It also comes in an ice hot version, which my husband loves.  I just used the regular version on my son.  We ALWAYS have this lotion on hand.

I'm happy to say that by the evening, he was walking around a little and by the next morning, he was running.  No need for tylenol!  Gentle, natural remedies did the trick!