Using Herbs to Build and Repair Broken Bones

common boneset with bee

Last winter, my boy broke his arm in a taekwondo test. It was an accident, the perfect connection of sidekick and outer forearm block, that split a thin space from the outer edge of his ulna into his elbow joint. As has so often been the case when I’ve been neglecting some aspect of my life, my boy managed to send me a huge wake-up call. 

Kids grow bones with relative ease, even when bone building nutrients like calcium, silica, and manganese are in short supply. Adult’s just don’t. As we age, our bodies are prone to losing bone rather than making it, especially when those bone-building nutrients aren’t readily available. Most of us see the shift from that wonderful childhood bone-building to greater risk of bone depletion around age thirty, with a greater risk for women in the perimenopausal years. My boy’s injury reminded me I need to give my poor old bones a little more care as well.
Nettle is the best, all-natural source for calcium. To boot, nettle contains and all the nutrients our bodies need to digest and use calcium as well as a host of others needed for healthy bone growth. For most of us, nettle coupled with a good strength-building, muscle-toning exercise program will keep our bones healthy into our senior years.
Comfrey and boneset are natural partners in healing broken bones. Boneset is most often used by modern herbalists for reducing fever, but the native tribes of northern America used it to heal broken bones and ease arthritis and rheumatism. Boneset helps ease pain and encourages energy to move through the bones, thus helping clear damaged tissues and build anew. Comfrey was traditionally called knitbones herb because it helps speed cell regeneration and thus encourages bone and soft tissues to grow. For a broken bone, like the one my boy needed to heal, comfrey and boneset make an outstanding daily medicine.
After that fateful taekwondo test, my boy drank two cups a day of a brew I call Three Bone Tea made of nettle, comfrey, and boneset until his arm had healed. The whole family often drinks strong infusions of nettle, too. The nettle provides the rest of us with what we need to keep our bones healthy and strong. The tea offered that broken bone no excuse but to heal right fast, a directive with which it was to be happy to comply.
Try this:
Make a pitcher of nettle cold infusion or hot infusion using a cup of dried nettle in a half-gallon of water. Drink one or two pints daily.
Or
Add nettle to your favorite herbal tea mix, such as our Herbal Building Block tea, and take three cups a day.
To help broken bones heal, make Three Bone Tea and take two to three cups a day until the bone is healed.
Or
Make a pitcher of nettle cold infusion or hot infusion using half a cup nettle, a quarter cup comfrey leaf, and a quarter cup boneset in half a gallon of water. Drink three cups daily until the bone is healed.

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