WHAT is a Poultice?
A poultice is a soft, wet paste mixture of ingredients with healing properties that is applied topically to the body, covered with a bandage, and left in place for anywhere from 20 minutes to 24 hours. Depending upon the condition being treated, poultices can be warming or cooling. Another name for poultice is cataplasm.
In this age of high tech, specialized medicine and commercially, mass produced products, not too many individuals have experienced the healing benefits offered by the old-fashioned, homemade poultice.
For centuries, poultices were commonly used to treat a variety of conditions in people and animals. Indigenous peoples around the world are still using clay for medicinal purposes.
Common poultices for people were made to treat abscesses, infections, and insect bites.
For horses, warming, drawing poultices were made and are still made to treat abscesses and infections in the hoof. Cooling poultices are made to treat inflamed or stressed tendons, ligaments, and joints.
The Art of The Poultice
Today, “Poultice Knowledge” resides with classic horsemen and a small number of western and oriental health care practitioners.
Making a poultice is like cooking. Anyone can throw ingredients together and call it a meal. However, creating a delicious meal requires a knowledgeable, experienced cook.
In the horse industry, there are a lot of “bad cooks” preparing and using ineffective poultices and wondering why they don’t really get the results they had anticipated.
Producing a highly effective poultice is an art that requires the skill, patience, and specialized knowledge of:
- Selecting the proper ingredients and preparing the poultice mixture.
- Applying the poultice properly with the correct bandaging.
- Allowing the poultice to remain in place for the proper amount of time.
- Properly removing the poultice and cleaning the treatment area.
Don Doran is a “Poultice Guru”. He garnered his poultice making skills as a youth working on the backstretch of Belmont Racetrack. Poultices have been and still are an integral part of daily life in professional horse training.
Over the years, as Don developed his knowledge of herbal medicine, he was able to super charge his already wonderful poultices.
Traditionally, poultices were made by hand and stirred with a wooden stick. Modern poultices sold in the tack stores are mass-produced and blended in stainless steel industrial mixers. These poultices are less effective because the absorbing, electromagnetic properties of the clay interacts with the metal machinery and this reduces the osmotic benefits of the clay.
In Don’s way of thinking, using a store bought, premixed poultice is an insult to his honor as a professional horseman. According to Don, premixed poultices are made with the wrong kind of clay and the cheapest, ingredients that are only marginally effective.
Don cringes when he witnesses a horse person thinly apply a store bought poultice on their horse’s legs and then leave it uncovered. Don explains that a poultice only works while it is WET. Applying a thin coat and leaving it uncovered assures that the poultice will be dry and ineffective within 1 hour. This is a total waste of time and money.
As an example of how to get the most benefit from a poultice, here is the step by step process for treating a horse’s leg with an inflamed tendon. Precaution: Do not apply the poultice if the skin is broken or if there is an open wound.
Per Don, here are the steps to get the most benefit out of the poultice:
- Start with the correct clay. Only Bentonite Clay will do. More information on clay is provided here.
- Mix the clay with the proper ingredients. Make sure to stir with a wooden stick, or you will reduce the effectiveness of the clay. Don has a secret recipe. He will share some of the secret with you here.
- Make sure the mixture is really wet and thick. Include glycerin in the mixture to help keep the poultice moist.
- Thoroughly, wet the horse’s leg.
- Apply the poultice in two thick layers. Sprinkle water on each layer as you mold it to the horse’s leg.
- Wrap the poulticed leg in wet brown paper.
- Wrap the poulticed leg that is now wrapped in wet brown paper in a standing bandage.
- Leave the horse in the stall overnight with his leg wrapped.
- The next morning, when you remove the standing bandage, a well made poultice will still be moist and the poultice will still be contoured to the horse’s leg.
- Peel the poultice off the horse’s leg and discard it. It has done its job and cannot be reused.
- Thoroughly wash the horse’s leg with warm water and towel dry.
- Check the treatment area. The heat, swelling and pain should be less. It is customary to re-apply the poultice over several days in order to achieve full resolution of the injury.
- If the treatment area looks worse, then DO NOT reapply the poultice. Seek the professional advice of your veterinarian.
Click here to see Don’s slide show about Healing Clay.