@amandajeffersaz, thanks for posting this question. With the popularity of essential oils increasing, I suspect you aren’t the only person who is wondering about the safety of using these after you have had a transplant.

We spoke with our pharmacy staff today about this topic. They recommended that all patients check with your transplant center about adding any herbal, dietary supplement, or essential oil to your medication regimen. Unfortunately, there are very few over the counter herbal preparations that have been studied well enough and deemed safe for use after transplantation.

Our pharmacy staff says there have been reports of essential oils used on the skin interacting with prescription medications in unsafe ways. There is not a lot of science done yet on essential oils and prescription medications, so in most cases we do not know if mixing them together is safe or not. If you are using these or wish to do so, you should talk with your transplant care team and your pharmacist. For those who are using the oils, our pharmacy staff recommends always diluting them before putting them on your skin. They also recommend that transplant patients do not use these orally, meaning do not ingest any of the essential oils.

Does anyone else have any thoughts about essential oils? Has anyone asked their care team about these? What was their response?