Readers may remember the heavy duty eye oil infusion that my daughter used to knock down the inflammation that was forming at the back of her eye when we were out doing some repairs around our place before Christmas.
Over the past few weeks, beginning around late March and stretching through to a week before the Wellness Fair, I suffered a couple situations. The first was a bout of dysentery that we are guessing may have been a bout of food poisoning, but it was bad enough I couldn’t attend the spring craft fair at Schubert Centre, and my son had to go for me. Rest, fluids, and a few herbs I’m not remembering just now, helped me through that one, and I was able to do the flea market that weekend.
Several days later, I’d accidentally give myself a case of vertigo that threatened both vomiting and the runs all over again, so bad that I knew I needed to be stabilized. In 2013, that happened at the hospital and was my very first ever ambulance ride. This time however, I wasn’t going to go to the hospital again, and had my kids make me a thermos of black tea and ginger. The black tea was to bung up the bowel so I would stop losing fluids so quickly, and the ginger was to calm the digestive system and by extension, the vertigo. This combination in my thermos, along with candied ginger root to nibble on, began to calm the vertigo that first night. I’d live on this combo for two full days, introducing soda crackers the second night of vertigo, and adding cheese crackers the third night (second night of the black tea/ginger combo).
The vertigo had hit on a Thursday. Saturday evening, Ashley saw me rubbing my temples and wondered if her eye oil might help with any inflammation there, so I took it, rubbed it around my eye sockets and the temples and above the eyes, and the vertigo responded almost immediately! We’d been chatting about eye issues with computer techs (was one for over 25 years), so when this eye oil had such a near-immediate impact on the vertigo, it solidified for me that my case was indeed what I’d call ocular vertigo.
That oil went with me to the two-day fair that weekend, along with the candied ginger and my sunglasses. I’d had to use my sunglasses the previous weekend at the flea market, so using them again wouldn’t be out of the norm. To our pleasant surprise however, I put the oil on as the fair started each day, and wouldn’t need more till that evening at home. I continued to pack the oil with me to the various events, but what took a number of months to recover from back in 2013, is hardly a blip on the radar now, not quite a month after it started. I’m occasionally reaching for the candied ginger, but that is no longer every day, and I am now going days between applications of the eye oil too.
So what is in this oil that it didn’t just help Ashley with her back-of-the-eye socket inflammation, but also helped me with my vertigo? Fir resin, Chokecherry berry, and rosemary aromatic infused oils. The aromatic oils had been made with sunflower oil.
Fir resin has been noted by various sources as being very good for the skin. We first learned about this in the Edible & Medicinal Plants of Canada book. It contains Citronellol, camphene, linalool, limanene and pinene, as well as vitamin C. It is considered to be an anti-oxidant, anti-septic, anti-inflammatory, calming, hydrating, and immune boosting.
Chokecherry berry contains several compounds that benefit the eyes such as vitamins A and K, beta-carotene, zeaxanthin, and zinc. It also contains vitamin C and E. Chokecherry is anti-bacterial, neuroprotective, and due to vitamin C and the two carotenoids, good for various eye conditions. Cherries in general are known to contain astaxanthin, lutein and rutin, which are all very powerful constituents for eye health. Cherries are also known to be astringent and contain high levels of salicylate, a natural pain killer. Unlike chokecherry specifically, many cherry breeds contain coumarins which are a vitamin K antagonist. Most cherry breeds also contain quercetin.
Rosemary is hailed by herbal optometrists as good for the eyes. It contains luteolin, quercetin, kaempferol, rosemaranic acid, apigenin, rosemanol limonene, is anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-septic and anti-bacterial. It has been used to deal with eye conditions, skin conditions, and is neuroprotective. It’s been used to deal with pain, dizziness, and as an insect repellant.
Well, this oil would come in handy yet again, when the evening of Good Friday, I’d royally crack the top of my head on a small door of the horse trailer! The level of impact not only caused bruising and a goose egg to form, but the eyes, particularlly the eye below the concussed area, the ear on that side of the head, and eventually down into the jaw on that side, were also affected. We would apply some Bella’s Oil to the bruising at the barn. When we got home, I applied the heavy duty eye oil to my eyes, temples, and forehead and put some arrowleaf balsamroot flower extract and prickly lettuce ACV tincture in a shot glass with some water to drink.
I was initially concerned how I would sleep that night, as the injury was on the right side of centre, up near the cerebral cortex along the fusion line between skull plates. I sleep on my right or on my back. By the time bedtime rolled around however, the goose egg was largely gone, and thanks to that eye oil, ACV tincture and arrowleaf balsamroot, many of the concussion symptoms were dissipating too. The next day saw further improvement and as we came out of Easter weekend, all that was left of Friday evening’s mishap, was a healing bruise. I would only need the prickly lettuce and arrowleaf balsamroot for the first couple days after the incident.
We use prickly lettuce ACV instead of tylenol in our house, and arrowleaf balsamroot is another anti-inflammatory, and together they made quick work of any inflammation I was suffering due to this accident.
We are praising God for swift recovery of all three of these situations, and for the herbs He taught us about, and the application methods we’ve learned about, to make use of them in these situations.
Vertigo has various causes, most of them inner-ear-related one way or another. To have one’s eyes cause the condition is so rare, you won’t find most practitioners or doctors talking about it.
Concussions and/or contusions (when just the membrane of the skull has been affected) often require medical care and observation to deal with. People we’ve talked with over the years when my son was recovering from his concussion however, often felt that mainstream medical failed them. A huge cause as to why is the way mainstream medicine deals with the pressure on the brain. This pressure is often inflammatory and can also be caused by fluid build-up as the brain has tried to protect itself. The fluid needs to be reduced and the inflammation brought down, and mainstream medicine does this entirely with manmade medicine.
A hat made from foldable ice packs helped my son calm inflammation, but he would be years before he could pull a full work week again. When I had my first major concussion in 2018, we were learning about anti-inflammatory wild herbs and making them a regular part of our teas and salads. While my concussion had many of the same symptoms as my son’s, it wouldn’t last anywhere near as long.
Good Friday’s event this year (2025) while mostly a contusion, had concussive effects into the eye, ear, and jaw, and these oils that we now know how to use, came to the rescue very quickly! I believe it was the concentrated anti-inflammatory compounds in the oil blend that contributed to the quick recovery, alongside the carotenoids, anti-oxidants, and terpenes.
One thing I want to point out in the situations mentioned in this article, is that herbal solutions were not just North American, but also Asian. The tea plant doesn’t grow wild here, but as it’s tannins are already known to firm up stools in the bowel, it was the first herb I could think of to do the trick for my dysentery. While ginger can be grown here, and apparently wild ginger grows in our area, we haven’t seen it growing here yet, so imported ginger root was used to calm internal systems for both the dysentery and then the vertigo. Rosemary is a domestically-grown herb typically bought in grocery stores, but that many grow in their kitchen herb gardens as well. It may not be wild, but it is highly recommended where you can’t get or can’t afford saffron for eye care and maintenance. Fir and chokecherry grow wild and in our area, are quite proliferant, making them very easy to get.
Tannin levels found in pasture sage are fairly high, but it is advised to only have sage in small amounts. So I haven’t tested to see if pasture sage can do what black tea does for solidifying one’s loose or runny stools. Eventually I want to try making my own non-candy lozenges or “pills”, and when I figure that out, seeing if pineapple weed “pills” might do the same thing as ginger for vertigo. Pineapple weed already does everything ginger does for the digestive system. Further research is called for to see if I could have handled all three situations with strictly North American foods, but two were for sure.
This update is brought to you by booth visitors at fairs telling me I need to tell my story! Some going so far as to tell me I need to be writing a book! Well, books don’t appear out of thin air, and experiences that aren’t recorded, end up with details forgotten. So I am sharing this here.
As of yet, queries to see if we can sell our infused oils at our fair table are being met with silence from Interior Health. Health Canada thinks an infused oil is an essential oil, they even list the distillation process. An infused oil is not distilled, essential oils are distilled. Until we hear otherwise, any infused oils must be privately considered.
