Old Wives' Tales About Remedies For Healing Bruising, Debunked!

A humorous thing about old wives' tales is that sometimes they can end up as being believable. Consider, it was not very long ago, that we had no way of knowing how beneficial things like blueberries and apple cider vinegar could be for us. However, the contrary can also be true, and you'll learn that there are many of these urban legends out there that get promoted as fact, in particular when we are discussing natural conditions like bruising. Bruises are present for different lengths of time for each of us, and it is too easy to accept that someone has found a magic cure for bruising when truth of the matter might just be the existence of a unusually strong immune system. Take enough time to ponder how to weed out any of these unproven cures that might have been relayed to you as the finest bruise treatment ever. You may just discover that there are no silver bullets.

Massaging the Bruise

Although massaging a bruise can help break down the blood clot, use of massage is only help the area if it is done gently, or it will antagonize the area if done too roughly. Although a massage can be done gently, you'll discover that it increases the flow of blood to the affected area. When you are dealing with bleeding from broken blood vessels, improving blood flow is not something that you need to encourage at this point. If you do decide that you want to massage the area, do it extremely gently and with the realization that you could be making the discoloration worsen.

Grated Black Pepper

There is an old wives' tale that tells us that pepper actually makes the blood leave the site of a bruise. Pepper may have some substances in it that can reduce the pain a little bit, but the fact of the matter is that putting pepper on a bruise is likely going to cause a mess. You can find other remedies that do the same thing or much better, so keep the pepper in the spice rack.

Baking Soda

Now we're getting to remedies that can help you out a little bit, though not nearly as much as everyone says. Baking soda can be very useful when you want to calm down irritated (as in burned) skin, and it might even soothe some of the redness out, but the fact of the matter is that it is not going to help with a bruise that is very dark, and it will not make the bruise heal any faster.

Raw Meat

This is one a lot of us have seen and perhaps we have even experienced, but raw meat, no matter how good the cut, isn't going to help you cure the bruise. I've heard plenty of debates over what kind of meat is best for the job, and the answer is that they are all about the same. The only benefit for putting raw meat against a bruise is that it presumably just came out of the freezer, and the cold can help reduce swelling. The meat belongs on your dinner plate, not on your bruise.

Try to determine which, if any, of these old wives' tales is going to be beneficial for you, and which ones are just so much bunk. Discover a remedy that actually works for you, and leave these old, purported remedies for others.