Other Names:
Furuncles, Carbuncles

Symptoms:
Itching, mild pain, and local swelling, often on the scalp, buttocks, face, or underarms. Within 24 hours, the boil becomes red and filled with pus. Fever and swelling of the lymph glands nearest the boil may occur. Boils are tender, red, painful, and appear suddenly.

Cause:
Boils are small pus-filled bumps. The medical name for them is furuncles.

Carbuncles are many-headed boils which tend to combine and enlarge. They begin as a painful, localized infection, producing pus-filled areas in the deeper layers of the skin. Carbuncles are slower healing than boils. They are both treated alike.

Boils are contagious. Do not let the draining pus get on the skin elsewhere! When it spreads to nearby areas, the result is a carbuncle.

Untreated boils tend to exude their poisons and disappear within 10-24 days. But, given careful treatment, they are contained and less severe.

Keep in mind that if the body is trying to expel a poison (especially sulphur!) through the skin, you may continue to have a string of boils for a time. The body is trying to cleanse itself of something bad. Inorganic sulphur in the body is especially prone to come out in skin boils.

Treatment:
• Go on a brief cleansing fast, to rid the system of impurities. The problem may be toxins, but it may be chemical poisoning. One example would be sulphur. Whenever it is taken into the body, it tries to leave—not through the bowels or kidneys—but through the skin.

• While on this liquid fast for a couple days, you may drink 3 cups of an herb tea daily of one or more of the following: comfrey, red clover blossoms, yellow dock root, chickweed, plantain, and wild cherry bark.

• Every night apply a poultice of raw potato mixed with flaxseed. If you apply a poultice during the day, use whole wheat flour and stiffened it with enough honey so it will not run.

• Apply moist heat (a clean towel, cloth, or gauze that is wet in warm water) 3-4 times daily to the boil. This will reduce pain and help bring it to a head more quickly. Avoid irritating the area or spreading the pus. Avoid exercise which might cause sweating until it heals.

• Keep the skin clean by washing it several times a day. Place honey directly over the boil. Alternates would be clay, charcoal, and/or chlorophyll.

• Apply vitamin E oil to the area.

• Some boils are large and persistent. Some type of poison in the body is trying to get out. Bed rest, a short fast, followed by a light, nutritious diet will greatly help.

• Helpful herbal teas include oat straw, goldenseal, dandelion, and burdock root.