Fractured Wrist Chronicles: Comfrey!

Starting this past week, I’m making and applying comfrey poultices to my fractured wrist, one two hour application per day. Here’s the video I watched to learn how to make them —

Today I decided to look at a video on the many uses of comfrey. Interesting: my orthopedic doc says don’t drink comfrey tea, because of the alkaloids in the leaves, but this video claims that “one bottle of beer contains as many alkaloids as 150 cups of comfrey tea” (something like that). I might start drinking the tea again (I drank it right after the accident, until the scare talk by the doc). Or not. Haven’t had the clue I need to decide one way or the other . . .

We’ve got comfrey in the GANG garden, under the fruit trees. There’s plenty for my wrist, the next two months. We use it for mulch, too.

More and more we’re looking at how to best make use of perennials (many of which are known as “weeds”). The ones that tend to grow here by themselves are of course hardy, and many of these are both edible and medicinal. Would that we could get all our salad greens via perennials!

P.S. Went for physical therapy today for the first time, and learned that compared to my left wrist, which has 271° of total range of motion (up/down, lateral left/right, turn over and back), my right wrist has 150°. So that’s the baseline. We’re looking to increase range of motion 10° per week. Boring exercises. But I do tai chi and go on our walks with the splint off at this point.