Tag Archives: RA

Sitting here, recovering from the single longest on call week I think I’ve ever spent. Smores coffee (from yesterday in the percolator), Rebirth of the Sun Ambience (youtube), and the doggoes are my morning company. 

I completely enjoy quiet mornings like this. They seem to come too few and far between. When they do come… it helps immeasurably. But I always end up waiting for the other shoe to drop and something, or someone, to help everything come crashing down.

The last few days I have been using my generic “muscle balm” because my name brand Tiger Balm ran out and the off brand was cheaper when I went hunting it. Even the off brand is a bit pricey and none of what we can get in the US matches the amazing stuff I bought when we were in South East Asia. Apparently the FDA limits the amount of menthol and camphor that can be in ours. 

A guy at work told me (SEVERAL years ago) that you can buy the menthol crystals from an Indian store, melt your US Tiger Balm and add in the extras, but I could never get a good ‘try this amount’ idea, so I never tried it. 

I found out that the stuff I have relied on for like ever when my hands start screaming is toxic to dogs. If you have it on your hands, before you be near your pets, make sure you wash your hands extremely well. Uh… I use it when my hands scream… washing it off is counter productive.

Tiger Balm was always my ‘go to’ before the Dr prescribed the stuff that will probably kill my dogs, so I’ve been falling back to that. 

And it works.

But the jars are SO freaking tiny. What is with that? I love that I can toss it in my “makeup bag” (the one that I carry all of my portable medicinal crap in) and it doesn’t take up much room. But it’s almost always on the shopping list. 

AND, if you look at the ingredients list on, at least, the off brand I have here… there is petroleum in it. Yeah, yeah, I get it. petroleum is cheap and lord knows it is SO freaking plentiful… I mean, it’s not like we can run out of it or anything. 

Sigh

WAIT… wait wait wait…

Dr Google to the rescue.

There are a metric crap ton of places where you can get DIY versions of almost everything. I was very good at my online retrieval class at Pitt. I bet I can couple searching for DIY versions with digging into what and how much would be applicable to my situation… bump up the menthol and the camphor just an eensie bit (too much, it turns out, can be a bad thing, health wise but is it two extra crystals or three extra crystals that will send you over the edge… thinking… thinking… thinking… ).

I stumbled onto Jenni Raincloud’s website and went down a HUGE rabbit hole. She has the most amazing DIY products. A DIY for Tiger Balm (yes, I messed a bit with her recipe but not much), one for vapo-rub, one for “vaseline”, and a metric crap ton more things for in the ‘medicine’ cabinet. 

And the ingredient list is… you know… stuff like coconut oil, olive oil, bees wax pellets… essential oils…

Not a whole lot scary in all of that… and holy freaking crap, I have a bunch of it in my cupboard already.

So, yesterday, while I was sitting at my desk during my 12 hours of work on my 7th day in a row trying not to completely and totally lose it with everything… I started a batch of the DIY Tiger Balm. Enter crock pot, glass measuring cups and canning jars.

It takes for freaking ever for even the pellets of bees wax to melt in a water bath in the crockpot but on the up side I don’t have to worry about watching it like a hawk and having to be RIGHT THERE stirring it all the time.

I bumped up the menthol crystals by half again as much.

and I added an extra 5 drops of camphor

and viola… my first batch was made. 

I was a little worried, since when I took the lid off it didn’t smell as strong as what I was used to, but putting it on my neck and hands… It’s pretty much exactly what I was after. And for less than what a .63 oz ‘jar’ would cost me, I made a half pint jar. The jar and the lid cost more than the ingredients. 

Yeah, I had to buy some of the oils, because they weren’t in the <much sarcasm> treasure trove </sarcasm> of essential oils that I was sold a while ago, but oz per oz, dollar for dollar, I can make a batch of this that FILLS a half pint jar for less than a dollar.

So… since I already had the ingredients, once the stupid bees wax pellets melted and I jarred up the balm, I decided to make vapo-rub. 

Again… less than a dollar. Added in a little Shea butter that I already had… and poof…

And this dark, windy, cold, wintry mix morning there is a batch of “vaseline” (can’t actually call it petroleum jelly since there is zero petroleum in it) melting in the crock pot. Looking at the ingredients for pretty much all of the recipes on Jenni’s website, it looks like if I just make up and put away a few jars of this base, I can melt it down and tinker with it (adding in whatever essential oils are needed and maybe some Shea butter) to make almost anything. 

I’m thinking that my next investment is going to be comfrey essential oil (yes I know… ew ick… comfrey is poisonous if consumed in large doses… much like sassafras is too) to make some healing salves… and some activated charcoal capsules and bentonite clay for drawing salve.

All in due time… all in due time… but for now… this morning I put on my balm when my hands started to complain (too much ‘doing’ not enough resting)… and here we are.

Will I still use napproxen? Yeah. There are times when it takes a bit more to make the hot glass shards that feel like they are in my fingers… wrists… elbows… shoulders… quiet down. But for the day to day stuff… I have found my new go to.

Now, to find a supplier of smaller jars to carry some around with me… and maybe put it out on my table next venue I’m selling at… see what the legalities there are…

Love and Light

have a magical day

AprilJoy (AKA… Granny of Granny Fricket’s Thicket)