I'll refer to acv, colloidal silver, essential oils, elderberry syrup, and tinctures often. ACV is apple cider vinegar. It needs to be organic, raw, unfiltered and "with the mother". Bragg's is a popular brand, but there are many brands available that are just as good...many are even sold at wholesale stores. Colloidal silver - I use the Sovereign Silver brand, because it is so readily available. Walgreens, health food stores, and basically any natural grocer carries it. I use doterra essential oils, but plant therapy is also a good brand, from what I hear. I've also used mountain rose herbs, but their shipping cost is outrageous. I make my own elderberry syrup, using a variety of herbs, elderberries, local raw honey and filtered water. You can also buy elderberry syrup at health food stores, most pharmacies, and online. Try to find a local momma near you that brews it! It is generally much cheaper from her, and helps her make a little money too ;) Tinctures are essentially extracts - just like vanilla extract. You soak an herb or root in alcohol for a long time, and you've made a tincture. Health food stores and natural grocers have many of them in dozens of different herbs/roots.
Headaches- headaches can be caused by a variety of things.
Causes:
Tension in the neck - see a chiropractor! (usually caused by tension in the back and as far low as your feet. Literally, a tight foot muscle can effect your legs, up to your butt, to your back, and then your neck/head)
Mineral imbalance -Take a bath with epsom salts and some good quality watered down juice or coconut water. Replenish those electrolytes!
Dehydration - drink coconut water, watered down juice, or just plain water! Don't just chug - drink about a cup every 15 minutes or so. Chugging usually just gets flushed out.
Food - please don't downplay this option. Many MANY foods cause me headaches. Pay attention! Aspartame and sucralose BOTH give me horrible headaches! Daniel also gets headaches from certain foods, we're pretty sure we've determined it is erythritol (in stevia products). Drinking water and caffeine to help flush it out are helpful.
Don't know the cause? Just take some willow bark tincture to help take the edge off. A full dropper dose is equivalent to a baby aspirin - enough to take the edge off. Take two or three doses if needed. A cup of coffee or tea is often helpful too. Try to rest as much as you can and take good, deep breaths. A drop of essential oil - like peppermint or lavender - rubbed in the palms of your hand and inhaled is helpful too!
Fevers:
Please...please stop lowering fevers. I'm over it. I can't yell it loud enough. People do not combust...if you are at risk for febrile seizures, then you know what is best for your family...for the rest of you...just stahp! A fever is the way that your body is fighting off the illness and essentially detoxing yourself from the other side effects. If you lower the fever, that is like taking the sword from the knight, and the rifle from the soldier. Stop. Just.don't.do.it. Tylenol is a MESS. Read the ingredients...most sodas has cleaner ingredients than infant tylenol! Parabens, food coloring, splenda, high fructose corn syrup, propylene glycol(also found in antifreeze)... Tylenol is actually so toxic, it takes glutathione to detox it out of the body, and the fever is lowered because the body is so preoccupied and driving all of its energy to remove the tylenol! My favorite blog, written by a doctor, on the matter.
If you need help managing the sickness associated with the fever:
Willow bark extract will take the edge off, epsom salt baths, lavender essential oil - VERY diluted (1:100) and rubbed on feet, lots of fluids, elderberry syrup, hot tea, time and rest. Yes, your child/yourself will be cranky, tired, and over it. But you'll recover much quicker. More and more research is showing the benefits of the fever. Stop getting "scared" because you have one, or it goes "too high"...research, be informed, and stand strong in your decisions. Samuel has had a handful of fevers in his life, and I haven't lowered them ever, and one was over 104 - no brain damage! After that time, I stopped even taking his temp if he got a fever. We hydrate and let him rest - this is the same thing I do when I have a fever, as well. I had dengue a few years ago with a raging fever and I mainly stayed in bed, with water, and nursed Samuel as needed. This is an amazing book on children and illness I highly recommend you read! It is short too, and very easy to get into it.
Ear infections:
Let's get some things straight - ear infections, 80% of the time, are viral. Please reread the former sentence. VIRAL....when you go to the pediatrician or the doctor, what is the first thing they tell you? "Here's your script for antibiotics". Antibiotics are for bacterial infections ONLY. They do nothing for a viral infection, except to make it worse. It lowers the immune system by destroying your gut flora and fauna, and allows for the virus to get worse.
What I do: first thing I do, is colloidal silver drops in the ears. You can find this in the vitamins and natural remedies section of Walgreens and basically any health food store. If you have access to breastmilk, alternate drops of breastmilk with drops of silver. Putting a garlic clove in the ear might help (if it is bacterial) as well as taking elderberry syrup (antiviral), taking fresh chopped garlic (antibacterial) and vit c. I also tend to drink copious amounts of apple cider vinegar too. If I come down with anything, I want to hit it with everything so it goes away faster. Some people use essential oils for ear infections, I have had nothing but bad luck with that, resulting in rashes behind my ears (with diluted oils) and you can't put oils IN your ears. I DID have some pain relief from putting a drop or two of wintergreen on a cotton ball and shoving that in my ear. Here's an excellent article by one of my favorite practitioners about treating ear infections without antibiotics.
Pink Eye:
This is easy - breastmilk or colloidal silver in the eye every couple hours, or as often as needed. The end.
Flu:
I wrote a blog about the flu already...see here.
Strep:
Everyone says you "need" antibiotics for strep, because of the risk of acute rheumatic fever(ARF). It seems that this is not really a risk anymore, though. I encourage you to take a long hard look at this article and the sources. What we do for possible strep/sore throats, is apple cider vinegar - gargle 1:1 with water(I mix in small glass, like a shot glass or aperitif and gargle every hour or so. Also, drink 2 tbsp in a large glass of water, with honey and cinnamon. Do that as often as possible. You can also take tsp of colloidal silver. (Do not take with the acv- alternate.) Again, this has worked for my family. Taking chopped garlic would also be helpful, as it is a powerful antibiotic. Rubbing extremely diluted oregano essential oil on the feet will also be helpful as it is extremely effective as an antibiotic as well.
UTI:(urinary tract infection)Again, I defer to acv! I would basically follow the strep remedy, except the gargling of it. Just drink lots of glasses a day. Also, you can take something called D-mannose. It is the sugar found in cranberry juice that kills off the UTI bacteria. Also, I usually dose up on lots of organic green tea, to help me eliminate lots of fluids. This method worked in 24 hours for me...no antibiotic fixes THAT fast! You can also use straight up cranberry juice - the real deal - but it is quite bitter and rough to take down in large quantities. You can add it to the acv mixture, drink it on its own, or mix in cherry juice (very helpful).
Anxiety: overlooked health issueAnxiety is overlooked as something that is just purely stroke of luck. Some people have it, some don't. But this simply isn't the case. Yes, medication can treat it...however, in some cases, so can the consumption of certain foods, vitamins, and the avoidance of others. I would definitely start on a probiotic to start healing the gut, avoid processed foods - like hot dogs, soda, and pre-packaged sweets, take a B-complex (as that has been shown to help restore proper brain function), and a high dose omega 3 supplement (Garden of Life Oceans 3 "better brain" is what I would start with). There are also essential oil regimens that would be helpful. PastTense from doterra is excellent, as well as lavender, frankincense, all citrus oils, and Peace and/or Cheer (from doterra).
(DoTERRA has an emotional roll-on kit for about 100 bucks - ask me about wholesale pricing...with 6 different oils, already in roller bottles. If that is something you are interested in.)
Constipation:While pregnant, I get constipated pretty easily...it's unpleasant....like, REALLY unpleasant. I used magnesium, and it made me regular, as well as helped my morning sickness! My infant daughter was also "constipated" as much as a breastfed baby can be...I used probiotics on her first - and we aren't able to take to her to the chiro right now. And when that didn't work, because I believe the constipation is due to teething anyways....I used magnesium oil on her belly, and 10 minutes later - voila! We had a crying baby, ready to be changed, near blowout level poop! :)
Prevention of illness:I can't say this often enough...stop getting flu shots. Yes....it might build up flu antibodies - science says it probably won't do so very well. The Cochrane Collaboration said that it is about 1% effective. See my flu blog for more info - in the flu section above. Plenty of science says that it'll contribute to worse sickness - like upper respiratory infections, and make you more susceptible to flu as the years go on. I have never had the flu, as long as I can remember...I've never had a flu shot either. I have been in food service and a teacher and lived in extremely cold weather conditions. Maybe I have a ridiculous immune system, or maybe I just nourish my body properly. Yes, I'm sure I'll get the flu one day....if so, I know what my game plan is. When I see tons of people I know, get a flu shot, and subsequently ill about a week or two later, and on and off ill for the rest of the year, I know I've made the right choice.
Take quality vitamins. I use Garden of Life brand vitamins for virtually everything. I have found them to be very effective, and often have a variety of options, depending on your need. They have a vit c spray that my 3 year old LOVES. They have a chewable vit d that he will take also. I love their women's prenatals and fish oil supplements also. If you have a need, they probably have the solution.
Heal your gut. HEAL.YOUR.GUT. 80% of the immune system lies in the gut - not the blood stream. Eat/drink fermented foods, take probiotics, eat fermentable starches...whatever you need to do...get your gut in order! This may take an overhaul on your diet, it might require cutting out certain foods or adding others...or even a detoxing cleanse. You SHOULD be pooping 2-3 times a day. Even your moods are often dictated by gut imbalances. It is enormously important you get your gut under control. Antibiotics ruin the gut. If you have had antibiotics recently, you absolutely need to start doing this. Sucralose also kills gut bacteria, as well as foods sprayed with harsh pesticides(specifically glyphosate "Round Up") - drinking conventional tea, having that sugar free lemonade at Chick-fil-a, that diet pepsi, etc...this also effects the gut because of the ingredients - seen and unseen - that lurk in those foods. And this brings me back to vaccines...if your gut bacteria isn't optimal, you won't respond as well to the vaccine, you won't be able to detox all of the toxins (yes, there are toxins in vaccines...it's not vitamins and nutrients they put in them! There is no health benefit in injecting aluminum and polysobate 80...and the slew of other things in shots). All this to say, the gut is extremely important in immune function and protection from environmental sources.
Eat a balanced diet - I'm actually a poster child for what you should NOT do in diet. In the last 24 hours I have had - taco bell, five guys, homemade organic whole grain oatmeal, and Marco's pizza...see the disconnect? When I eat well, I eat REALLY well, when I eat bad, I eat really bad. We stay healthy though...so I'm lazy about our diets more than not. Samuel eats better than we do...we're pretty careful about what he does and doesn't eat. We recently completed a round of the Whole30...and it was awesome, but then we got super busy and very lazy and went right back to eating normally again....*sigh*....part of the problem lies in that I have a potty training 3 year old, my husband works from home, 7 days a week, and we share a car...and I work too. Getting to the grocery store isn't always possible, neither is finding time to cook...I know these are all terrible excuses, but we make it work somehow. I'm just being honest with you. I also haven't had any vaccines in 14 years, and no antibiotics in over 10 years...It's been even longer for Daniel.
Try to lower your toxin load - use more natural soaps, cleaners, water, etc. The better the quality of the things in and around your body, the better your immune system will work. Stop using antibacterial soaps as well...you keep killing off the bacteria that is protecting you on your skin! Even the FDA is now worried about the effects of triclosan (used to be in most antibacterial soaps) because, by their own admission, they haven't ever thought to study the effects of in...it is now banned....but I wonder, what other soap ingredients should be banned also. I use the Think Dirty app for a resource to know how potentially dangerous a cleaning product is(you'd be surprised the things that end up on our shelves...). We don't ever use hand sanitizer. We use soap nuts for our clothes, shea moisture and Dr. Bronners for our skin/hair, Dr. Hauschka for makeup, and if we use sunscreen, we use Absolutely Natural. We try to eat organically whenever we can, and we drink purified water (we get it by the gallon at Aldi. Another affordable way is to get refillable pitchers and refill at your grocery store as well. We intend to buy a home filter one day...but it is a huge investment up front.)
Take and leave what you want from this blog...but this is how I stay healthy and the go-to remedies I turn to in the event that I feel like something is coming on and need to nip it in the butt.
In health,
Becca H.
