One of the best home remedies for shingles is a homemade oatmeal bath. It’s not like sitting in porridge – a homemade oatmeal bath is a soothing, gentle, easy home remedy for shingles that reduces pain.
If a homemade oatmeal bath isn’t for you, get the Shingles Treatment Cream formulated for shingles recovery. It’s made with Manuka Honey, and is organic and fast acting. It’s great for itchy and burning skin – which shingles often causes – and it comes with a risk free guarantee.
The bad news is that soothing creams and homemade oatmeal baths won’t cure shingles – but the good news is that an oatmeal bath can help reduce the pain, itchiness, and irritation of shingles. That’s why it’s one of the best home remedies for shingles.
Shingles is a viral infection caused by the chickenpox virus. Symptoms include pain and a rash on one side of the body. It usually affects older adults with weak immune systems, but it can hit anybody. Although you can take steps to shorten the duration of a shingles outbreak, the virus must often simply run its course. Pain from shingles can be difficult to manage, and can last months or even years. Seek early and prompt treatment for this virus – and don’t shrug off a homemade oatmeal bath! It’s one of the easiest home remedies for shingles.
Home Remedies for Shingles
Here are three ways to ease the pain of shingles. The third home remedy for shingles is the homemade oatmeal bath, which may be the most effective.
Keep your skin dry, clean, and exposed to air
Keep the affected area clean, dry and exposed to air as much as possible. This means don’t put clothes, gloves, socks, etc over the shingles areas. Don’t scratch or burst the blisters. If the pain from the shingles keeps you awake at night, bind the area an elastic sports bandage. To make sure it doesn’t stick to your skin, dust the area with a bit of oatmeal dust (see the “homemade oatmeal bath” recipe below to learn how to get fine oats).
Ice the shingles area
For some people who have shingles, one of the best home remedies is ice. For the first three or four days, put ice wrapped in a cloth for 10 minutes on the areas affected with shingles. Take the ice off for five minutes, then re-apply. Do this every few hours. You might also apply cool, wet compresses soaked in aluminium acetate, which is available over the counter in the form of astringent solution (such as Domeboro Astringent Solution
Homemade oatmeal baths – an easy home remedy for shingles
Other remedies for the pain and itching that shingles brings includes frequent applications of calamine lotion, vitamin E oil, or gel from the aloe vera plant – such as Aloe Vera Gel By Earth’s Daughter
Dusting a powder of colloidal oatmeal – which are like rolled oats and available in some health shops and online – where clothes rub against your skin can also remedy the pain of shingles. Also taking a warm (not hot) oatmeal bath may help reduce pain and itching.
Here are easy steps to an oatmeal bath recipe that you can make at home, quickly and easily…
Homemade Oatmeal Bath Recipe for Shingles Treatment
If you suffer from shingles, you know the irritation and itchiness that accompanies this painful skin virus! Doctors can load you up with prescriptions, creams, and ointments, but in many cases, these remedies can be harsh or full of chemicals. A homemade oatmeal bath is one of the best home remedies for shingles because it’s natural and you know what’s in it.
Choose your oats
Finding the right oats for your oatmeal bath is easy. There are plenty of prepackaged oatmeal baths on the market, but you can save money and make your own oatmeal bath at home. First, buy a package of Bob’s Red Mill Old Fashioned Regular Rolled Oats.
You can choose from any variety sold at your grocery store – except for the Quaker’s Instant Brown Sugar and other flavors of oatmeals! Read the ingredients to ensure that the oats have no added chemicals, sugars, or salts. Organic is always best, but any store brand of rolled oats will be an effective remedy for shingles pain.
Grind the oatmeal so it’s bath-friendly
Use a coffee grinder, food processor, or blender to grind the oats into a fine powder. Test the powder’s consistency by taking a teaspoon of the ground oatmeal and mixing it into a cup of water. If the oatmeal is ground well enough, the water should become a milky colour. If there are clumps in the water, you will need to grind the oats more. You want your oatmeal bath to be smooth and soothing – not lumpy and clumpy!
This is how you create the oatmeal “dust” that I mentioned above, in the home remedies for shingles section. Sprinkle some of this between your shingle-affected area and clothes, so your clothes don’t irritate the area further.
Run warm water into your tub and add the ground oats
Begin to run a warm bath – make sure you avoid high and hot temperatures as they will irritate and aggravate your skin! As you run the water, add your oatmeal powder to the bath and stir it around until the bath changes into a milky color. Move your hand around the bottom of the tub and try to break apart any clumps that you find in your oatmeal bath.
Alternatively, if you want to avoid getting your tub dirty, you can put the dried oat powder into a stocking and run the bath water through the stocking. This will release the enzymes from the oats and help treat the shingles without creating a residue on your bath tub. Sometimes home remedies for shingles are messy – but a shower can quickly clean the tub after your oatmeal bath.
Soak and relax in your oatmeal bath
Home Remedies for Shingles – Homemade Oatmeal Bath
Carefully get into the tub; the oatmeal mixture will make it more slippery than usual. Enjoy your warm bath for 15-20 minutes. Make sure you submerge all of your shingles-affected areas into the water, as you want to allow enough time for the oatmeal solution to soak into your skin and treat the eczema.
The beauty of this homemade oatmeal bath recipe is that it’s so inexpensive, you can have multiple baths a day! Not like my Epsom-salt soaks, which are much more expensive. (Epsom salts are NOT a home remedy for shingles, so don’t try it).
Rinse your skin and pat dry
Once you have soaked in your homemade oatmeal bath for 15-20 minutes, drain the tub. Once the tub is empty, rinse your skin with lukewarm water to remove any left-over residue of the oatmeal bath. When your skin is clean, carefully get out of the bath (it may still be slippery) and use a soft towel to dry your skin. Make sure you pat (not rub) your skin dry, as this is less irritating and it allows the nutrients from the oatmeal to stay on your skin.
Isn’t a homemade oatmeal bath one of the most lovely, soothing home remedies for shingles? Treating shingles naturally can be a long process, but this homemade oatmeal bath remedy will soothe not only your skin, but also your mind.
A homemade oatmeal bath can also heal other skin problems. To learn more, read Natural Eczema Treatment – An Easy Oatmeal Bath Recipe on my other blog, Quips and Tips for Achieving Your Goals.
If you have any tips for natural or home remedies for shingles, please share below! I’d love to hear what worked for you – or what helped you deal with other skin problems.
