Goldenrod Strikes Again

So yesterday I had this nice long walk from the mesa to the road where we park. We normally have a big four wheel drive truck for going in an out through the usually shallow seven river crossings. However, with all the lovely Spring rain we had last week, the river's been too high to drive through. So I was walking, and carrying a few things while I walked (a backpack, and a heavy object in each arm). Now, I'm quite used to carrying heavy things up and down mountains, in and out of the river. Occasionally I'll get sore muscles or tweak my neck a bit from carrying a heavier load than I should but nothing more than that. Imagine my surprise then, when I got home, took of my pack full of groceries and found that I suddenly was unable to move my right shoulder without excruciating pain shooting through my neck and down my arm. Interesting, I thought, and sat down very quickly. My shoulder continued to tighten until I was completely unable to lift the pound bag of sugar with that hand, and my head was screaming with a tension headache. Not good, I thought, and went fumbling to my little wooden medicine box. I promptly dug out the Goldenrod oil, eying it with some doubt. While Goldenrod has worked wonderfully on sore or pulled muscles, I hadn't yet tried it something truly acute. So I applied it liberally to my right shoulder and neck and waited a while. Nothing. So I did it again, more liberally, and then went on my one handed way. An hour later the pain was significantly lessened, by bedtime two hours later, it only hurt when I reached up and out, directly engaging the hurt muscles. By this morning, the headache was gone and there's a minute amount of pain and stiffness in the shoulder.

We have a friend visiting who has had more than his share of horse wrecks and other kinds of accidents that are common on Wyoming ranches. This includes a badly separated deltoid with lots of chronic pain and stiffness with little alleviation from standard alopathic or alternative procedures. One application of Goldenrod oil last night significantly reduced the symptoms. He'll be trying it out more today to see if he can regain more movement and perhaps initiate some long term healing. He also has some badly damaged muscles in his thigh I'm hoping to help with the Goldenrod.

I think I've said it elsewhere but I want to reemphasize how well I think Goldenrod oil externally works with Peony root internally for overtightened, stressed out muscles. Peony is rather cooling, so if you're already the cool type you might try it with something a bit more warming, like Ginger, which is also anti-inflammatory and soothing to riled up musculature. Vervain would be complementary if the muscle problem originates in the neck. And so on...

The benefits of my long walk is that I found just huge amounts of Corydalis growing among the Nettles I stopped to harvest. I was very pleased to see how well it's spreading and thriving. I harvested a bit more, enough to make a little more tincture and to dry some for tea.