How to Use Epsom Salt on an Insect Bite

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Dr. Susan Jewell. Now, in this clip, I am going to show you another way where you can relieve the pain and symptoms from insect bites and bee stings. Now, the use of Epsom salt has been shown to actually have some temporary effect in relieving some of the symptoms. Now, the thing about Epsom salt is that you have to add 1 teaspoon Epsom salt with hot water to dissolve the Epsom salt, then once you've dissolved it in the hot water, you put the solution to chill in the fridge and then for about 10 or 20 minutes. Then you take it out and apply this nice cold, chilly, chilled solution on the affected area for about 20 minutes. So, what I have here is I've already got some Epsom salt and I've made a paste out of it. You know, I've chilled in the refrigerator, so it?s nice and chilled and I'm going to apply it to the skin. So for example, say this is the area that was bitten or stung by the bee or bitten by the mosquito. I need to clean this area very well first before I apply anything. So, this is a bowl of soapy water. I'm going to clean the whole area around and then I'm going to pat it dry because you want the paste or the solution to stay on and have direct contact with the skin itself, the affected area itself. So then, what I do is with this solution, I can, if its too watery, then you can actually, if it's too watery, then I guess you could dab a very clean pad into the solution and then you could just apply over the infected or affected area on your skin. But if the paste is thick enough, if the consistency is thick enough, like this, then you can just apply a little bit of it to cover the whole area with the Epsom salt solution. And then, it would help you relieve the symptoms and the itchiness as well, because the coldness, if you chill it, also will give you additional relief from the symptoms from the bites or the stings."