Geranium Oil For Nerve Pain

I absolutely love the smell of geranium oil.  But what I love more is all of the amazing excuses that I have to use it all of the time.  This wonderfully scented essential oil is an effective household remedy for so many women and childrens’ conditions from pain relief, to  reducing swelling and inflammation, soothing anxiety and stress, and sedating the nervous, this stuff is a natural first aid.  Geranium is also renowned for healing burns, wounds, and skin ulcers and it’s even used to soothe the sore breasts of lactating mothers. You can even use it safely for all types of skin conditions including dry eczema, burns, shingles, ringworm, lice, acne and even as a  herpes treatment. I actually had an opportunity to use it for my children’s lice and it worked beautifully (believe me, I checked their little heads extremely thoroughly each day after school!)  It sounds incredible for one simple essential oil, but even modern medicine has recently validated the efficacy of geranium for treating pain. A recent study on 30 adults with post-herpetic neuralgia were assigned to receive one of five topical treatments (100% geranium oil, 50% geranium oil in mineral oil, 10% geranium oil in mineral oil, mineral oil only, or 0.025% capsaicin cream and measurements of spontaneous and evoked pain one a scale of 0 (no pain) to 100 (worst possible pain) were taken at 2, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, and 60 minutes following application of the respective topical treatment.  Pain was found to be reduced in all participants receiving geranium oil and the degree of pain reduction was proportional to the amount of geranium oil in the topical mixture, so those using 100% geranium oil had greater pain relief than those using 10% geranium oil.  The researchers reported that topical peppermint oil (Mentha piperita) or licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) may also be useful for neuralgia.  Considering how well it worked for nerve pain, I’m definitely planning on enjoying the smell of geranium on a regular basis in my home, for whatever reason I can.