Muscle Strain Magic

Watch my video with Holly Rogoschewsky as we talk about using essential oils for muscle strains. 

Here is a transcript of the video if you would rather read than watch!

Blue Ice Essentials  

Okay, there we go. So welcome everybody. I'm Mary Beckett from Blue Ice Essentials. And this is Holly Rogoschewsky. And did I say your name right Holly because I always call you Holly. I don't worry about your last name. 

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Yes. 

Blue Ice Essentials  

That's terrible. So anyway, Holly is the one that got me involved in essential oils to begin with. And she's been a big supporter of mine all along. And I am a big supporter of hers. Because I think we complement each other really well. There's lots of things that she knows that I don't and vice versa. So I think we work well together.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

We do for sure. 

Blue Ice Essentials  

So this week, I was leaning over my kitchen table making some bread, and my back went eeek and all of a sudden I couldn't move. It was just like, "oh, it hurts so much. It hurts so much. It hurts so much".

And it wasn't one of those spasms that just grabs and then goes away. It stayed and stayed and stayed. So I wanted to talk about what I do for when I get a back strain because this is one of the things I really love essential oils for.

So one of my go to products is Deep Blue. And the thing about this is when you buy Deep Blue in the lotion, you're getting a whole bottle of Deep Blue in this (tube). So they've got a little picture of a Deep Blue bottle on the side. But what that really means is that this whole bottle is in this lotion. So you're really getting quite a lot of the Deep Blue essential oil mixture in your lotion and it's pre blended and so you can just open it up, squeeze out on your hand and apply it directly to whatever area is your area of concern.

And I use this for anytime my back gets sore, but I also use it when I'm getting ready to exercise like before I start working out because I find it helps me warm up the muscles so I don't get muscle injuries when I'm doing workouts and stuff.

And then the other thing that you can do is you can buy Deep Blue as a Touch roller, which is this one. And when you're on the website, you'll notice that there's two Deep Blue rollers. And one of them is a different price than the other one. And it took me a long time to figure out what the difference is. So Holly, do you want to tell us what the differences between Deep Blue and Deep Blue Touch

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Sure. One is diluted, so it's going to be it has your carrier oil, and the other one is the straight oil. So that's that also accounts for the difference in price.

Blue Ice Essentials  

Yeah, so one of them has the exact same oil is in the Deep Blue jar, at only in a roller, and this is a five ml size the rollers are 10 ml. So if you look at the price, you actually do get a bit of a price break when you buy the 10 ml roller compared to that is straight Deep Blue compared to this (Deep Blue bottle).

And of course, then if you buy the Touch roller, which is what I usually buy, it's a little less expensive again, because it's got the coconut oil in it. So you're not getting pure essential oils, you're also getting coconut oil. And I like having the one with the Touch roller, because I don't need to do any mixing, it's pre mixed and I can just apply it and I find that it works better in the Touch roller for my purposes, but I mean everybody's different so that that's why they have the different versions for different people, right.

The reason that you might buy this (the bottle) is because I quite often use Deep Blue when I'm giving massages for my husband, or when he's giving massages for me. And so you know you put some coconut oil or whatever carrier oil you like to use for your massage oil in the palm of your hand and then add a couple of drops of the Deep Blue and it will make a really nice massage for you. So that's one of the things.

The other thing is, is that I shared my recipe for what I call my Snowbank Strain Blend that was in my newsletter today. And so that one is the recipe for if you just doing a couple of, a few drops in your in the palm of your hand if you're doing a massage, and I just say two drops of this two drops to that and so on, but I made myself a roller bottle with that blend in it so that I could apply it over and over again without having to make a mess every time and get all the different essential oils.

So this has my Snowbank Strain blend in it, which is these four essential oils. See if I hold this up so that you can see so it is the Deep Blue essential oil. The Siberian Fir essential oil Let's see if I can get this. I'm terrible getting this into the right spot. 

Holly Rogoschewsky  

That's good. 

Blue Ice Essentials  

And then Lemongrass. And the last one I use is Copaiba or copaiba.  I sort of go back and forth on how I pronounce that. So the purpose of the blend is is that I sometimes find that if you use more than one essential oil, it's and some people like to layer them on one and then the other, and so on and so forth. I find I just mix them together. And when I use multiple essential oils, they kind of build on one another and you get kind of a synergy of several oils that do similar things working together in your body. So that's what I do.

So I wanted to talk about how I use these together. So do you have a specific way that you like to use yours when you're doing them or do you just use one or the other? What do you do?

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Well, a lot of times, I will put the Lemongrass on first if I don't have them in a blend like that. The one that I use the most would be the lotion, the Deep Blue Rub. But I also always love the Touch rollers, like just the ease of those being just ready to put right on. Mm hmm. Yeah. And same with your own one you're not then you're not dragging all those bottles out and not the mess all the time.

Blue Ice Essentials  

Yeah. Well, what I found with using the because I've had back injury, a couple of car accidents, four months apart. And so I had whiplash and then I got whiplash again. So I got really severe whiplash. This was you know, 30 years ago, and more than 30 years ago. It's terrible. She laughs at me. I'm actually only 30 years old... really,

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Exactly.

Blue Ice Essentials  

Anyway, I found because I get back problems when I'm traveling and carrying a lot of luggage or whatever that that I've got a real protocol for using this stuff.

So I always start with the oil. And the reason I start with the oil is I put the oil directly on my skin and I use the Touch roller because I have this theory that if you put essential oils into a carrier oil they absorb into your skin better.

In fact, it's been shown that you actually get a lot more benefit from the essential oils when they're in a carrier oil. So I always use a Touch roller or add it with fractionated coconut oil if I'm using the straight essential oils, and I apply this first to the area that's bothering me and let that absorb in a little bit.

And when when your essential oils are in a liquid carrier oil like fractionated coconut oil like the Touch rollers are, it absorbs into your skin very quickly. And so you get sort of that immediate rush of sensation and then I put the lotion on overtop of the oil.

Now first of all, it means that you don't gum up the rollerball head with lotion which is you know, practical, right? But the other thing is is that the lotion is slower to absorb. So it gives you a longer lasting relief than you get from the essential oil in the Touch roller that gets absorbed right away this one takes a little longer and so it sort of stretches out that feeling of relief that you get and it sort of makes it lasts a little longer.

And if I'm using my Touch roller with the with the blend I do the same thing. I put the Touch roller on first and then I put the the lotion on, but then here's the part that really makes it go for me is then I use a heat pack and not for like an hour or 40 minutes or anything. It's like 10 minutes on, five minutes on, somewhere in that range I'm not trying to heat up the muscle really hot.

But the heat pack helps that essential oil absorb into your system, it brings the blood to that area and, and gets it circulating in that area. And I find it really makes, it really amplifies the effect to get it in faster if you use a little bit of heat along with your essential oils.

And if you've got a really sore back, what you're going to find is that things like copaiba have analgesic properties as well as being anti inflammatory. So not only is going to make the muscle start to calm down and feel better, but it also relieves the pain to a certain extent.

And I found that really, really helpful this week. Because that was the thing that was getting me it was I was in a fair bit of like, it was spasming every time I tried to move or do anything, but it was also residual pain between muscle spasms because the muscle is injured a little bit and it's just not getting better very, very... well. it's better, better now than it was but it's been a while getting better so  that's sort of what I go for. But there are other other essential oils that you could use to make your own blend. Do you remember when you had the repetitive strain injury on your wrist?

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Yeah, I know you had added the Myrrh. Yeah, for me.

Blue Ice Essentials  

Yeah, Myrrh, and Wintergreen, which is another one that's already in the Deep Blue blend. 

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Mm hmm. 

Blue Ice Essentials  

We also put in Clove Bud, which is a really good one if you've ever had a sore tooth.

Clove Bud oil is something that my mother used on me when I was three, when I was teething. I actually found a bottle of clove bud oil from like a gazillion years ago and I was cleaning out one of my mom's drawers one day and I went "Oh, that's  cool!" Essential oils from back before we knew they were essential oils.

Another one I use is Helichrysum. And then of course there's Frankincense which is really good for any kind of almost... they call it the king of oils right because it's good for so many things, but it's very anti inflammatory.

And then that mixture you also have Copaiba, Siberian Fir and Lemongrass again. So those are ones that I use quite a bit.

And then I was looking at for somebody else another another one that you can use is Eucalyptus you could reach for that one or the Lemon Eucalyptus is another one that we have in our list that you might have in your in your stock.

Geranium, which is you know, maybe not when you think of. Lavender is another one that you might not think of. But Lavender has been shown, if you go on PubMed or you talk about things on... Oh, what's that, that fancy clinic down in the in the south, you know....  the Mayo Clinic they have a website. They talk about the lavender essential oil and rheumatoid arthritis.

And it's been shown in studies that lavender essential oil helps people with rheumatoid arthritis.

So, you know, that's another one that people don't think about essential oils sometimes having multiple benefits to them. But that was one of the things I really noticed when I started using my lavender, lemon and peppermint for my allergies was that my overall inflammation you know how much my ankles swell when I fly and ride in long car rides and stuff like that really changed. And it's because all of those oils aside from helping me with my allergies, they're also quite anti inflammatory. So that really helps.

Just reading my list. So Basil, Fennel, Rosemary are three more that you might reach for and those ones are really great for headaches, too. If you're a person that gets bad headaches from time to time, throw those in your diffuser and of course, Peppermint. Awesome for any kind of injury. And Peppermint's another one that you can get in a Touch roller.

So you can just have that in your bag. I carry a Touch roller with Frankincense and a Touch roller with Peppermint in my purse when I'm traveling, because if I'm getting a headache, I can just put that on, on the back of my neck. And maybe the people around me notice the smell a little bit but you know, I can survive without getting into the pharmacy for any kind of drugs.

I don't, I threw out my last bottle of patent medicine the other day because the gel caps had gone to goo and apparently their best before date on those, they really mean it. When I opened it to look and see if I was gonna give it to my daughter or something.

So anyway, those are those are all ones that you can use, and they will.... so if you don't like one you can use another one and so on and I don't know I guess you could even diffuse them to a certain extent they won't help as much if you don't apply them directly to the muscle.

But if you've got a headache, I find that diffusing them is a really effectively way of dealing with them because I can sit beside the diffuser and do my deep breathing exercises with my yoga. And by the time I've done my 30 minutes of yoga breathing, then I am quite often without a headache just from sitting next to the diffuser. So, that's sort of where I'm at with those. Did you have any that you particularly like to mention or...

Holly Rogoschewsky  

You know, I was gonna mention a couple of things like just how how great they are, like you said for inflammation like and how they, how we really encourage people to still do their their regular medical appointments, but to really bring these in for support.

And like in pain, oh the Copaiba, I have found it really good like I'm still I'm actually seeing a chiropractor now for my wrist, but the difference has been like huge if I find that if I really need some quick relief, I will tend to ingest the Copaiba.

And the one other thing like I agree with, of course all of the things that you've said all of those, there's so many that are favourites of mine.

Rosemary, I have to include that in almost everything because it's just so lovely.

But one other thing I was going to mention is sometimes when people are wanting to get it more in like to get it deeper in they we've also been told that if you do just a little bit of massage of an area that also helps to get it in.

Blue Ice Essentials  

And what I what I find is it's really helpful if you do a little bit of massage before you start using the essential oils, too. Like get the area warmed up a little bit with just the carrier oil and then and then move into essential oil.

So we have a question, Janae wants to know, it says on Deep Blue lotion not to use heat. Well, I guess I didn't read those fine print, and I think it depends on. I think what they're trying to avoid with that is if you're going to get a skin reaction to some of the oils that are in the blend heat would exacerbate that.

But using essential oils with heat has been a standard for a long time, what I would say is you have to use your own judgment for your own body and make sure that what you do, if you find that the Deep Blue is irritating to your skin, you definitely wouldn't want to add heat to that.

But I've used heat on an area that I've applied Deep Blue to, I don't put on like, right the same second you don't usually usually 15 or 20 minutes later by the time I get around to adding the heating pad but you know, and again, I don't put the heating pad on for very long. For myself, I'm putting it on for three or four minutes. As soon as my back starts to feel warm, I turn it off and just let the residual heat from the pad continue for a while and then maybe half an hour later, I might turn it on again for two or three minutes, just until it gets hot and then I turn it off again. So I'm not putting a lot of heat on. And another way that you can do it is you know, you can take a warm towel and wrap it in a plastic bag and apply it and that works equally well.

And then the other thing she wants to know is how many drops you put in a roller?

So my recommendation if you're doing a roller like this, for any kind of  a mixture is 30 drops to a 10 ml roller is sort of the maximum top end that you want to use.

You can always use less, you can always use a little bit more.

I made a mixing video when I was making this roller so I will be posting that as soon as I can get the tech gods to agree that that's okay. I was trying to post it earlier in the week and it was not happening. Facebook did not want to know about me. And they were not gonna let me post it no matter what.

But anyway, when I made this one because I had four different things, and I was aiming for about 30 I put eight drops of each, which comes to 32. But you know, drops are not exact measurements, right? I mean, we're not we're not super scientists here making a precise mixture, we're trying to use our essential oils to their maximum benefit without wasting the money that we spend on them.

Right. So that's sort of that's, that's why I use the 30 drops but I have made rollers like this when I'm making them for young children and stuff with only four or five drops of essential oil and the rest fractionated coconut oil.

The thing about essential oils is they are very concentrated. And so a little goes a long way and you don't need to necessarily have your essential oils neat on your skin.

I mean some of them you can use neat, but I don't think it's necessarily beneficial to use them neat because when you add the carrier oil, then and I'm just seeing if I have oh yeah I do.

This is the fractionated coconut oil that you can buy from doTERRA it's super nice. It's non staining like I wear a shirt like this, that's white. If I get some of this on it, it'll just wash out it's not a big deal. It doesn't leave a nasty stain. It doesn't have a smell of its own and it's shelf stable so it'll last a long time.

If you make a rollerball it's not going to go off. If you use something like I have this sweet almond oil and people ask me about links The link is on my webpage. So you go to Blue Ice Essentials dot com you can see the link for this but the sweet almond oil I really love the smell of, but have you ever smelled sweet almond oil when it's not sweet anymore? 

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Not so good. 

Blue Ice Essentials  

It's not a nice smell. I bought a lovely bath oil blend that had dead sea salts and sweet almond oil in it. And I went to use it one day and I went, "ooh, this sweet almond oil is not that sweet anymore!" Yeah. And I've been saving it for those special days.

So the lesson this is - everyday should be a special occasion. You know, I used to save this blouse for when I was going out to fancy things. I'm not going anywhere  fancy today, but I really like the blouse. So I'm wearing it, because everyday should be a special occasion. Right? 

Holly Rogoschewsky  

For sure. 

Blue Ice Essentials  

So just seeing if there's any other questions. So anyway, no that that was the only one we had so far.

So the other thing that I wanted to mention is that you know, you don't have to mix it into a rollerball to mix it as a blend to use an a massage. Any kind of a jar or I quite often re-use these bottles (that the oils come in) and make mixtures of oils and then add the... like you can either add fractionated coconut oil in the mixture in your little jar or you can add it afterwards like say you're going to have a massage blend that you use for your regular massages.

You could make the essential oil blend in a bottle for yourself and then just add a couple of drops or a few drops to your palm of your hand with your  massage oil and do it that way you don't necessarily have to.

The other thing is I don't think I have any downstairs today but you can buy the  lotion that's the unscented lotion from doTERRA. And you could do the exact same thing with the unscented lotion. Just squeeze some into a jar, add some of your of your things and have it pre mixed in a little jar and I reuse all my jars and stuff so I just like if I'm finished with the night cream jar that I use then I wash it out and I use it for making other mixtures in so you know that's something else that you can do.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Yeah, so it's good to recycle those containers and and that lotion is amazing. Like it's so nice for making something individual, even if it isn't for pain, maybe you just love a certain scent. And just make it up ahead and you know,

Blue Ice Essentials  

You know what I use it for is every night I lotion on my feet with a couple of drops of Serenity and a couple of drops of Clary Sage and a couple of drops to Cedarwood and then I go to sleep.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Very good, very good sleep.

Blue Ice Essentials  

But yeah, oh and again, all I do there is I put the I put the lotion on my hand and have the drops to the lotions and just do this.

You know you don't have to get really fancy, you don't have to you don't have to premix things, you don't have to have all the jars and the and the roller balls and all that.

But if you do want to you can buy blank roller balls from doTERRA. Or you can go onto Amazon there's 1000 different ones that you can get. And you can even have pretty ones you can have ones with gems in them. You can, you can, there's a gazillion different ones. So there's there's lots of choices out there if you're making yourself a rollerball.

So I'm just checking, that's where we are.

Okay, so I just wanted to because this is all we're getting towards the middle of the month, and our specials are running out and I wanted to remind people that Immortelle is on special this whole month. all the way till the end of June you if you order 200 PV worth of points when you place an order, or if it's your enrolment order. If your enrolment order is at least 200 PV, you get this one free and it's $89 to buy it regularly on the wholesale price So that's a really screaming deal. Because this is the one I was showing you a couple weeks ago that I use every day. So you know, that's good. And then here's another one that I use really often. And this is on sale this month for what is it? 15% off holy.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Yes it is.

Blue Ice Essentials  

Yeah, so this is moisturizing spray. So this is another one of those pre mixed things that doTERRA has. And it has the Beautiful...

It's called Beautiful Mist and Beautiful is a blend but they made and they offered as limited time offers from time to time. It's not always available, but it just smells beautiful. I mean, there's no other way to describe it. It's It's beautiful, but you can get the hydrating body mist and it's in a sprayer.

So you can just pump it and it's what they call a 360 degree sprayer, which means it'll spray when it's upside down or right side up or sideways or whatever. And I use these after my shower because it just... It's like coconut oil and essential oils and it smells lovely and it makes my skin not absolutely dry as soon as I get out of the shower. And since I live in the Arctic where it's really dry, that's  a thing...

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Yeah it absorbs so quickly.

Blue Ice Essentials  

Oh yeah, I just spray it on and then I give myself a little bit of a rub and then I'm good. I do have to warn you though if you're into using the body mist. I went through a week where I was trying to figure out what on earth I'd done with my hair because it was getting so greasy all the time and I couldn't figure out right after I washed it would still be greasy and I thought maybe I'm not rinsing stuff or whatever, but what it was, as I was putting this on, not paying attention to where it was and then just letting my hair down and letting it drag through the oil and you know, add oil to your hair after you wash it. It's oily right away. I just I learned... I learned... I give it a minute or two to let it absorb now.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Yeah. And then it is it is almost like quick like it is. It is super quick after 

Blue Ice Essentials  

Yeah, it doesn't take long. It doesn't take long. I spent a whole week trying to figure that one out then all of a sudden I had one of those...  

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Aha. 

Blue Ice Essentials  

Yeah Aha.

So I don't know. I'm just gonna check and see if there's Oh, yeah. And there's Jill. And she says she's doTERRA, too, and she loves to listen to oil talk.

Well, I'm glad that you do. And we're on here every Thursday at 11 either Holly or me or the two of us together. And we're trying to make this a regular scheduled event so that everybody remembers, but it's also shared on both of our pages. So if you miss us, you can always watch us later.

And I also take these down and transcribe them and put them on my blog on my website. So you can search through the website to find with keywords and so on to find what what I'm talking about and read some of the ones.

So I've done things on migraines and allergies and a bunch of other things over the over time and you'll be able to search through and find what you're looking for. So anyway, I think that's pretty much it unless you have something else you want to share, Holly?

Holly Rogoschewsky  

No, I think that's that. I'll just say that recently. You did the the bug spray and the sunscreen. So she has got some really relevant really time sensitive ones up just recently.

Blue Ice Essentials  

Yeah. And and I have to say like the bug spray and the sunscreen are ones that I have really enjoyed doing.

When I do one of these ones where I'm sharing a blend with you. I just want you to know I'm not sharing recipes that I found on Pinterest. And I've never tried and it's not real.

All of this stuff is stuff that I use at home. And that I've actually tried and I don't share it unless I know it's good. So and by the way, I really don't search Pinterest for recipes.

Mostly I make my own recipes based on my on my experience and my knowledge with essential oils, and so on.

So like when I shared the sunscreen one a couple of weeks ago, the thing about that sunscreen one was that it was new for me making sunscreen, you know, adding the zinc. But that lotion bar that I made. That's one that I've been using for a few years now.

And I have gradually refined that recipe for that lotion bar to the point where I can pretty much guarantee that it's wonderful and it's so good.

Even my husband was reaching for it. We got a sunburn when we were out scuba diving in Cuba this year. And I had some of that stuff with me in Cuba, and he was using it as well as me. And you know, I brought two tins, luckily, because he's finishing off the tin and he's getting the last bit out and saying oh I you know, I'm almost done this. You should have made more and I said "aaa... got two"

He found that was really helpful because when I when make my lotion bar I always add a little beeswax and the reason I do that is it holds the moisture into your skin really well.

So it's super good if you're making a lotion bar with essential oils because it will also hold those essential oils next to your skin really well.

And I found it really healing I get eczema sometimes on my face. And within two days it will clear if I use that stuff so it's quite useful.

And what I have found with the sun-bar is is that it you know when you do it as a bar instead I usually have it in a tin but this time I made it as a standalone bar, put it in the mold and and popped it out of the mold. And it is so easy to just put that on to your skin. And it's not greasy and it doesn't stink.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Yeah. I love that application. You know, it's just it just works the best I you know, and you're not trying to get those little tiny bits of lotion in every nook and cranny like it just yeah, just goes really.

Blue Ice Essentials  

And what I really liked about it too, was that when you have that lotion bar, you can you can really be controlled about where you're applying it to, you know, like you don't have, you don't have to worry about getting on your clothes and stuff like I don't I just hate those greasy lotions and like the sunscreens that you buy in the store. Some of them just smell awful. Like I don't know what they're putting in them, but blech.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

We want the natural stuff for sure

Blue Ice Essentials  

Well it's, I don't even know whether that it's not natural or whatever. It's just they smell bad. And at least with essential oils, you end up with something that smells nice.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

I like the way we know what we're putting in.

Blue Ice Essentials  

Well, and yeah, I always like knowing what's in. And I mean, my thing is, is that you know, the zinc screen.

I always used zinc on my kids when they were little tiny, you know if I didn't have zinc cream in my cupboard I would really go nuts and make sure somebody sent me some from down south. Because zinc cream was spectacular for keeping their bums nice.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Really good for healing.

Blue Ice Essentials  

It's super good for healing and super good for protection, you know.

So it totally makes sense to use it as a sunscreen because it provides a mineral barrier, it kind of reflects, you know, zinc is white, so it reflects, but it also is a healing thing in itself. And so you know, it's good to use on your skin anyway. So that's really good.

And I'd read all kinds of terrible things on the internet about how you can't make a good sunscreen bar. It's just not worth it. And so I have to say, I think an awful lot of the internet is filled with people who are selling you their product and at the same at the bottom, that same blog that tells you you can't make homemade sunscreen, they're selling you five different kinds of  manufactured sunscreen.

So I feel like you know, maybe they're not entirely being honest, like maybe they never actually made sunscreen. That's just a guess because, I mean, some of the things that they were warning you about, it just weren't issues for me.

You know, they're saying, oh, it'll get cloggy and clumpy and it's hard to mix. I gotta say that was not my experience.

So anyway, I hope we were helpful, and I hope that people are enjoying it. And I'm glad that we had some people joining us. And feel free to go over to my website and check out my blogs, like I said, and I do also have a Members Library that I have for sale.

So if you have essential oils and you feel like you're not really getting much use out of them, they're sitting on the shelf too much or whatever. I've got it set up so that you can find all the things you need to do to make it part of your daily routine and make essential oils an essential part of your life. So have a really great day and join Holly and I or Holly or I depending on the week. Next Thursday at 11.

Holly Rogoschewsky  

Thanks for joining us. Thanks