Hello Mary. I have used tea tree oil for several years, and, yes, in my experience it can work REALLY fast (from a few minutes to overnight for me). Especially if I catch the pimple early, it usually goes right down w/no trace at all. I use it on trouble spots (one drop straight from the bottle), not all over my face. I like mixing it with lavender essential oil which masks the herbal smell & also speeds healing of the skin. I suspect curlymom's daughter mixes it with moisturizer because it's a convenient way to get a small preventative dose each time you moisturize your face - which is good if you are having chronic breakouts (or know you've been hitting the chocolate or chips a little too much: usually the source of my outbreaks ;-P). Three to ten drops to each ounce of moisturizer is plenty. Theoretically, too much can be irritating. Also remember that lavender & tea tree are the only essential oils recommended for use "neat" (i.e., undiluted on the skin). Straight tea tree oil is powerful enough to stop cold sores dead in their tracks too (esp. good mixed w/lavender oil) if caught early. Keep it away from the tender eye area. The only thing that I've found that works nearly as well (or sometimes better) is propolis tincture from my local beekeeper. Green blessings, ~bushpoet

Fixed it!!!! I had a good case out of nowhere, geographic tongue for 5 years, starting at age 53. I am 60-1/2 now I fixed mine, and it was by accident. I had a cold, and drank Delsym cough syrup. I have always taken cough syrup, no biggie, no issues, but likely pre-geographic tongue. This time, it burned my mouth badly. The geographic spots themselves, most of the top of my tongue, the roof of my mouth, and several spots in my throat. Just one or two sips of the syrup did this as I felt some pain within a day, and I took probably 4 more over a couple of days before I associated the cough syrup with this and stopped taking it. I hated this cough syrup, and thought something was wrong with it. It felt like very severe pizza burns. The pain increased, peaked, and took 2-3 weeks for the pain to subside, but eventually it did. What's crazy is that the geographic spots were gone. A year later they started to come back, and I did the same with Delsym because I still had it in my desk at work, and had the same result. It was during a cold, so I wasn't doing it just for GT, but for the cold mainly, but curious if it would help the GT. As the cough syrup before had such a painful result, I wasn't pumped up about doing this. The associated upper pallette and throat pain were there, but less, on this second time. Since then, I have done this with other cough syrup brands, so there is nothing about that brand, but I haven't compared and isolated the ingredient to know exactly what is doing this. I had a cold last week, and have Equate Cough DM on my desk, and took some sips a few days ago. Some pain on my tongue, and the roof of my mouth, minor, but I wasn't showing any geographic tongue spots. Likely this is nipping it in the bud before it really starts up is my guess. What's kind of key to me, and what everyone in the medical establishment appears to be missing, is that it apparently isn't isolated to the exact geographic spots. When I took the cough syrup "that served as medicine to treat" the GT, it created distinct patches or areas of pain on the roof of my mouth, in my throat and my tongue in general that weren't showing GT. Cough syrup in prior years never caused this pain. Only after the GT, and the pain was on the GT spots, and other spots I mentioned. So they HAVE to be associated, even though they weren't showing spots. That tells me whatever mechanism is present on the spots, is also present elsewhere in the mouth and throat, but not showing as spots. This might not work for anyone else, but I'm darned curious to know if it might. Please let me know if anyone has tried this. This is one heck of a nuisance disorder to have, and the medical communities inability to tell us anything about it is hard to believe in this day and age. I lucked out. Since other people have done other things with positive results, and nothing seems to be universal, probably the same here. But there has to be a link.

Far too many people have been conditioned to think that the solution to a problem must come from a store and that, generally, the more it costs the more effective it will be. Then there are those that will use severla solutions at one time and will never know which one was effective and which were a waste of time and energy, not to speak of money. The first step any real organic gardener/farmer will take to prevent problems with insect pests and diseases is to try to make the soil the plants are growing in as healthy as possible which can prevent many problems. The second step is to determine in the perceived problem is bad enough that some action is really necessary, followed by the third step which is to identify the problem and seek the least toxic solution to that problem. Fourth is to stand back and observe what this action did, before doing anything else. Lastly review the process and determine if this action produced the desired results and if needed go back to step 1. What affect does Tea Tree Oil have on beneficial insects?

If you have fusarium problems, best remedy is to use kinds tolerant to that problem. Your county's extension service office can offer reliable advice. Locate your county's office with this map. http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/ Here is a link that might be useful: locate your county's extension service office