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Wheatgrass for Molluscum Contagiosum
What is molluscum contagiosum?
Molluscum contagiosum is a common and quite contagious viral infection affecting mainly school-age children. It appears as small, sometimes itchy raised spots anywhere on the body, but mostly on the face and upper body, armpits and behind the knees. Although not dangerous, molluscum can be quite unsightly and distressing to both child and parents. Sometimes the child is banned from public bathing areas because of it. Scarring, dermatitis or skin infections can sometimes result from the infection.Molluscum also occurs in adults and is usually, but not always, sexually transmitted.
How do children get molluscum?
The molluscum virus usually spreads by direct contact from person to person e.g. from family members or other infected people with whom they swim or bathe. The incubation period can vary between about 2 to 24 weeks.How is molluscum treated?
If possible, start with prevention. If a family member has the condition, avoid the sharing of baths, towels and close contact with other children.Traditionally, there has been little in the way of effective treatments available. Medical advice and treatment varies from "it's impossible to treat..it will disappear in a year or two", to freezing, cauterizing, squeezing, pricking, slashing and burning the spots. Other "treatments" include benzyl peroxide, Betadine, and Burow's solution (aluminium acetate). None of these methods are satisfactory, can be quite distressing to a young child and should be avoided as scarring can result.
One of my own children contracted the virus and more as an afterthought, not expecting it to work, applied the wheatgrass cream daily to the lesions. To my surprise, in about three weeks, they had completely disappeared.
Since then the collective experience of my and many other health practitioners' patients and hundreds of people around the world who shows that it can take anywhere between two weeks and three to four months for the spots to disappear. Because of its high degree of safety in infants and children and rare treatment failures, it pays to persevere.
Either the wheatgrass spray or the cream can be used for molluscum, but because individual responses vary, it is impossible to predict which is most likely to work. For large affected areas, the spray would be more economical. Twice daily application of either formulation, parental patience and the knowledge that treatment will most likely be successful are the keys to treatment.
Dr. Chris Reynolds.
M.B.,B.S.
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