Aloe Can Aid in Frostbite Treatment.

Keep water in the freezer long enough and you get an ice cube. Keep your body in the freezing cold long enough, and you get frostbite. In both cases, the mechanism is exactly the same: Fluid freezes.

Obviously, frostbite is a medical emergency. The symptoms-skin that stings and burns, then becomes numb and waxy white-call for an immediate trip to an emergency room. This is the first degree of frostbite. Following this first stage, the skin develops blisters, then turns red with blisters, and finally, becomes purple with deeper blisters.

The common medical treatment for frostbite includes rapid rewarming and painkillers such as ibuprofen, which is also anti-inflammatory. But this may not be the most complete treatment for healing and preventing permanent tissue damage, says J. P. Heggers, Ph.D., professor of surgery (plastic) and of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

Anyone who works or plays in the cold-that is, anyone at risk for frostbite-should know that another way to treat frost bitten tissue is to add to the standard medical approach a very generous helping of an alternative home remedy, aloe.

ALOE: Prevent Permanent Damage

After you've been treated by your doctor for frostbite, spread aloe gel on the frostbitten area four times a day to speed healing and prevent permanent damage.
"Aloe does help take care of frostbite," says Pierre Brunschwig, M.D.a holistic physician in Boulder, Colorado. "You can use the gel directly from a cut leaf of the plant or buy 100 percent pure aloe gel. Simply apply it liberally to the involved area four times a day until the area is healed. The aloe will stop the pain, stimulate healing, and prevent infection."
Why does aloe work so well? The answer comes from Dr. Heggers.

In 1983, he was working at the burn center in the hospital at the University of Chicago School of Medicine in that windy (and chilly!) city. One day during the winter, bus service was canceled because the wind chill was - 80oP, and 30 people who hadn't heard the news ended up with frostbite while waiting for the bus. They also ended up in the burn center for treatment.

Dr. Heggers and his colleagues knew that frostbite blisters contain the chemical thromboxane, the same tissue-damaging substance found in burn blisters. They also knew that a cream made from the aloe plant could inhibit thromboxane formation, speeding the healing of burns, so they decided to use aloe cream on the frostbite patients, applying it four or five times a day. The results were remarkable. "All of the patients healed without major tissue loss in the affected areas," says Dr. Heggers. In a study conducted a few years later, Dr. Heggers and his colleagues at the burn center at the Detroit Receiving Hospital looked closely at the hospital's records of 154 patients with frostbite: 56 had been treated by the burn team with aloe and ibuprofen, and 96 had been treated by other doctors with other methods. Among the patients who received aloe and ibuprofen, there was 80 percent healing of frostbitten tissue, compared to 33 percent in those who received other treatments. And while only 7 percent of the aloe group had permanent tissue loss, 33 percent of the other group lost tissue.

Dr. Heggers emphasizes that while all cases of frostbite must be
treated by a doctor, patients should feel free to add aloe to the treatment regimen with their doctors' okay. And he offers this final caution: "When you're putting it on, be sure that you don't rub the skin too hard and cause loss of tissue. Put it on very gently."