Patient: Honey Wound Treatment ‘Just Like a Miracle’

Honey of a Cure: Woman's Wound First to be Healed By New Treatment
By Brett Dalton, Lee’s Summit Journal (USA), 2/5/2008

When Louise Overman fell and broke her leg in March 2007, her main health concern was making sure her bones healed properly. But when they did and the cast came off, Overman discovered another condition that sounded an alarm.

Under her cast and near her ankle, Overman's skin had become discolored and a "baseball-sized scab" had formed, she said. Overman, a resident at John Knox Village in Lee's Summit, said her doctors told her the wound was caused when the broken bones tore and aggravated her skin tissue…

Having unsuccessfully tried various treatments, the medical staff at St. Mary's asked Overman if she'd be willing to let them administer a new type of treatment - one which they hadn't tried on too many patients. Overman, just wanting the wound to be gone, happily obliged…

In late November 2007, Overman began receiving the Medihoney treatment, a wound dressing that St. Mary's recently began trying on a few patients, said Debbie Cobb, a registered nurse at St. Mary's who helped with Overman's procedure. According to its Web site, Medihoney combines an active mauka honey from New Zealand with jellybush honey from Australia. Together, they have proven to be ideal for the management of chronic and acute wounds and burns, according to Medihoney's Web site.

Cobb said St. Mary's had recently heard of the Medihoney treatment when another member of the medical staff attended a seminar that included information about the new treatment. Cobb said St. Mary's had been trialing the treatment on five patients and decided to give it a shot on Overman's condition.

It worked like a charm. On Friday, Feb. 1, Overman received word that her wound had healed and she no longer needed to make her weekly visits to the wound center. As an added bonus, Overman also was told she was the first patient at St. Mary's to have a wound completely heal by using the Medihoney treatment.

"It was just like a miracle," Overman said. "(The wound) just kept getting so much smaller all of a sudden. It really did work."…