How to Beat a Cold ASAP! Naturally.

Everyone and their brother has a cold remedy. Most of the time, they sound crazy and then don't work because they are taken with an over the counter cold medicine that suppresses the symptoms and makes the whole thing take WAY longer.

This isn't a remedy. At least not in the sense that I'm about to suggest taking this crazy thing because my grandmother's brother's wife's second cousin swears by it. This is giving your body everything it needs to kick that cold to the curb :-)

First of all, the immune system is pretty complex. It has a whole army whose sole job is to defend you from viruses and bacterial infections. The very first thing you need to do to get rid of your cold quick is to feed that army!

1 - Take a dose or two of Fermented Cod Liver Oil. I actually recommend the liquid - Cinnamon Tingle flavored, chased by milk - but as you'll see, the link is to capsules so that you don't have to taste something you think is going to be icky. This stuff is HIGH is vitamins A and D - and other fat soluable vitamins - that are vital to a healthy immune system.
2 - Take a spoonful of Acerola Cherry Powder. The Acerola Cherry is nature's most potent source of vitamin C, and we all know how important Vitamin C is when it comes to healing a cold.

If you are anything like me, you get frustrated easily when your nose runs and makes your throat sore. At this point, you might be VERY tempted to take a decongestant or other over the counter drug that suppresses your symptoms. RESIST THIS URGE! It will only make your body have to work that much harder and longer to fight off the virus or bacteria! If you must do something to clear your nose, try using a Neti Pot.

Instead, arm your army. Give your body the tools it needs to fight the cold/flu/sinus infection.

3 - Buy a bulb of garlic, preferably organic. If you can have sugar and prefer to drink a warm and soothing drink, make garlic lemonade. If you can't have sugar (which works better anyway), chop a clove of garlic up as finely as you can. If it's a small clove, chop two so that you have enough to fill a spoon. Insert the spoonful of garlic in your mouth and then immediately chase it with milk - preferably organic and whole, or better yet farm fresh - swallow the garlic like it's a pill. This gives your immune system nature's antibiotic, antiviral, and antimicrobial as a weapon it can use to kill the cold. It seriously works on any invaders, and better yet, it doesn't kill all the good guys (probiotics) that are trying to help your immune system. (You can also take some BioKult to give your body even more support in fighting the invader.)

If you don't like or are allergic to garlic, use ginger. Fresh, dried, or powdered. Swallow it like a pill like the chopped garlic - use it like the Acerola Cherry powder, or drink it like a tea. Combine it with raw honey and lemon for extra weapons in your arsenal :-)

Now that your body's army is fed and armed, take your temp. Are you running a fever? If yes, good! Cover up so that you are warm and comfortable and let the fever do it's job of killing off the infection. Seriously, viruses are picky about temperature. That's why a virus will make your nose run, give you a fever, and make you sweat. The body is responding to the threat by trying to kill it in an oven too hot for it to handle (and trying to get it out of your body as quickly as possible via your nose). Pick a temp you are comfortable with - such as 102 or 103 - and so long as you are under that temp, let the fever do it's job. Do NOT mess with it!

4 - If you are not running a fever, induce one. I did this by covering up with my blanket, layering my husband's blanket on top of mine, and then putting a heating pad under (actually between since I was laying on my side) my feet. It took a while, but when I first lay down, I felt miserable. I couldn't stop coughing and it was hard to breathe. The heat slowly cleared up the stuffiness in my nose, got rid of my headache, and stopped the coughing. After I started to sweat, I let it continue until I just couldn't take it any more! Now I'm cooling down as I write this blog, but I have not taken anything to lower my temp. I started with a fever of 99.6 - so it was very low grade - and after cooling down for an hour, my temp is only 100 degrees.

REMEMBER to keep hydrated! Drink plenty of water, especially once you start to sweat. If you happen to have on hand, or have the inclination to make some broth, drink the broth to give your body yet another weapon to use to fight the cold (flu, sinus infection, whatever you've got). If you don't have broth, stick with plain water. Anything with sugar in it is just going to feed the virus or bacteria and make it stronger. Seriously AVOID all sugar as much as possible!

To be honest, the fever is really all you need to get rid of a cold (or other invader). The fever kills it. End of story. Then the white blood cells come in and clean up the dead viruses or bacteria. Giving your white cells the food and weapons I mentioned simply makes them the strongest army they can be so that if any invaders survive, they can make short work of them.

I felt better in a matter of hours, but my body still has some work to do. Even so, clear sinuses and no coughing is the best progress ever! Good luck and hopefully you'll be feeling better in no time too :-)
\
Lastly, while you are waiting for your fever to kill your cold, try reading up on why fevers are actually good for you. Here's a book that takes about one man's experiences running a clinic that used all natural healing - back before all natural healing was the latest trend, lol! It's called Back to Eden, and is very inspiring to read, even if it does advocate vegetarianism - which I don't.

Have a happy day :-)

Getting Sick... Or Not!

Recently, I boasted to my sister, "When was the last time you seen me get sick?" To which she replied, "When was the last time I saw you?" She has a point in that she rarely sees me, so I changed the question. "Ok, so when was the last time you heard about me getting sick?" I asked this because she was so sure that eating a piece of garlic bread that had been sitting out on the counter overnight would make me violently ill. I wanted it because it was nice and crunchy, and I was in the mood for crunchy. I did not get sick from eating it. My POINT is that I was certain that my boast would actually invoke Murphey's law and I would then get sick from something else. Here it is, almost a week later, and I am still as healthy as can be :-)

Earlier today, I was reading an article about fevers. This reminded me that the last time I did get sick was about this time last year... I think. (I'd have to reread my notes to be sure.) I didn't have a cold or the flu, I just had a fever that lasted about 3 days and I couldn't get out of bed long enough to even make food for my boys. I think that allowing my fever to work through my system untampered with is what kept me from getting sick the entire rest of winter.

Also, my boys haven't been sick in a while either. They got the sniffles for a couple of days last winter, but nothing else. This actually does not make me as proud as one might think. To me, their lack of sickness indicates lack of exposure to those things that make our immune system stronger. This differs from me since I actually do get out and about more often then they do. Plus, I used to get sick constantly when I was younger, so I'm sure my immune system is functioning the way it should.

The reason that I am posting this is that - while most people would probably be overjoyed by not getting sick - I actually hope that me, my hubby, and my boys all come down with a fever soon. Why? Because right now none of us have anything going on, so it's a good time to get sick. Also, a fever is a good test of how well an immune system is working and - much like a test of an alarm to make sure it's working properly - it's a good idea to have one from time to time. Lastly, getting sick now while it's convenient is much better than getting sick later on when we're swamped with errands and running around.

So... how do I contract a fever? I really don't know, and I don't plan to stand outside for an hour in the freezing cold just to catch one. My guess... I'm thinking that it would be best to make some homemade chicken noodle soup and bring it to a friend who is sick, except I don't think I have one of those off hand either. It's a head scratcher to be sure!

Have a happy day :-)

My Journey

I just read a blog post from Jenny at Nourished Kitchen in which she describes what she went through over the years getting sick, and then recovering from her various diseases. Her story is different than mine, but in a way, it is exactly the same. So, I decided to write my story. I have said most of this before, but I don't think I have ever written it down.

My journey begins at about age 8. When I find them I will post a picture of what I looked like at age 7 and at age 8. At 7 I looked exactly like I should, thin... perhaps even scrawny. I am not entirely sure what changed in that one year, but by age 8, I was pudgy. I had budding breasts... at 8! The kind that already needed a bra, and a B cup at that, if I remember correctly. I don't remember this part clearly, because to me, I woke up one day at age 12, and magically had a DD cup, but I look at pics of myself at 8, and I see them growing. This really isn't normal. A girl should not be overweight with B cups at 8.

I wish to interrupt and say that if I saw a girl in the same condition I was in, I would assume she was consuming too much soy, because soy is loaded with toxins and plant estrogen. It has so much estrogen in fact, that it has been proven to cause precocious puberty. ( Precocious Puberty: Helping Kids Stay Kids (Home Use))

I look back and wonder where I would have been exposed to so much soy, since it wasn't something that my mom actually bought, but judging by the labels on food today, it's in EVERYTHING... especially bread. Guess what, I ate a LOT of bread. I loved it. One summer, when I was 15, I ate almost nothing but bread. But I'll get to that later.

As I said, at age 12, not only did I have DD cups, but I was overweight, 220 lbs to be exact. Other than that, I was a normal and healthy menstruating preteen, except I suddenly needed glasses. Oh, and I had migraines! My mom took me into the doctor several times for this. I had tests upon tests. The most memorable one involved having goo covered sensors placed all over my head (getting my hair just covered in goo), and then I had to sit completely still for a half an hour or so. Every little movement I made affected the test, so I had to suffer the most excruciating itch! The doctors couldn't find anything wrong, chalked it up to excess adrenaline (because obviously I must not be active or I wouldn't be overweight, right?), and gave me drugs to cope with the pain.

I swear to you, and you can ask my mom, from day one, I only ever used the drugs when I was in so much pain I could not stand it anymore. I did not EVER want to become dependent on drugs! (Go D.A.R.E. program!) (Wish I'd had these books back then! Herbal Drugstore Prescription for Natural Cures)

At age 15, my monthly got all wonky. I had no idea why back then, but remember when I mentioned that I ate almost nothing but bread that summer? I had 4 slices of buttered toast for breakfast, and 4 slices for lunch. I might have had a few more slices as a snack throughout the day, but then I had whatever mom had me make for dinner. Mostly pasta hotdishes. I love how my mom taught me to cook! She was at work, and wanted to come home to dinner, so about an hour or so before she got off of work, she called me up, and talked me through whatever I was supposed to make. I'd put it in the oven, and it would be ready to eat by the time she got home.

That same summer, I got the scare of my life, and the conversation went like this: "Mom, I swear I am still a virgin, but I haven't had my period in 4 or 5 months." Previously, I often skipped a month, so just one or 2 months without a period was normal and ok, but by the 4th or 5th month, I was freaked out! She near rushed me to a baby doctor, which was my clue that she thought I was probably pregnant. At first, the doctor had an attitude like, "Well you wouldn't be seeing me unless you were pregnant," and even though I swore up and down I was still a virgin, she was like, "uh-huh." After she examined me, she actually asked me, "What are you doing here? You're not pregnant. You're irregular, so just keep track of your periods, and if there's something wrong, we can use that info to figure out what." Dismissed. (Why did I never have the books I needed when I first needed them? Green Fertility: Nature's Secrets For Making Babies )

My periods remained irregular, so much so that during my first year of marriage I had a total of 3 periods, one of which lasted 3 months... yeah... that was fun, not! I started seeing a doctor to see what was up, and why couldn't I conceive. At first, I was told, "Well, you're overweight. Eat less fat, and exercise more." I rolled my eyes, and asked to go on birth control because most of my friends got pregnant right after they got off birth control. I figured it was worth a shot. Didn't work. The only thing it did do was give me one crampy painful period a month. Never having had cramps more than once or twice, this SUCKED!

At 21, (in2001) the doctor finally smiled at me, and said, "Your last two glucose tests have been high, and your insulin levels are very high. You have diabetes." I guess this was good news to her, one more patient paying for drugs and frequent doctor visits, plus she could finally tell something to blame my infertility on. She gave me Metformin, and off I went. I went to the diabetic educator with my mom, took my meds and checked my blood sugar dutifully every day for three months. I was assured that after 3 months, my blood sugar would be normal, and that I might even conceive. They weren't and I still wasn't pregnant, so I stopped taking them. Honestly, my blood sugar levels did not change, so I knew that the meds really didn't do anything for me.

I stagnated for a while, then in 2003, I lived with my grandpa for a little while. I don't talk about my grandpa enough, but he's a genius. When I say that, I don't mean that I think he's really smart and cool, I mean that he is a genius. He denies it modestly, and talks about how his mother was the real genius, and how he always thought she could have done so much more than get married and have kids. He saw the slight spark of genius in me, and asked me not to get married and have kids. Sorry grandpa, but it's all I ever wanted to do. (And for the record, when I tested my genius level, I was a hair or two shy of being able to join Mensa, so no, I'm not actually a genius, damn!)

While living with him, I got to pick his brain everyday for months! It was weird though, I knew he was disappointed that I was married, and Hubby lived with him too... I got the feeling he didn't really like Hubby, so I actually shied away from him (my grandpa, not my Hubby). Even so, he told me something that made my face go white with shock. He said, "You're diabetic? Oh, well in that case, you're supposed to avoid eating carbohydrates."

He said it like this was common knowledge. I had heard of this concept before, that carbohydrates could be bad, but all the doctors firmly tell their patients that this is ludicrous. Doctors tell you to eat mainly carbs, a little protein, and very little fat. THIS was how I HAD been eating, and to hear my genius Grandpa tell me that I needed to avoid carbs... well, it was an eye opener. We moved to a little rental house in Brainerd, and guess what I did? I went on the Atkins diet. Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, Revised Edition

I know I know, everyone and their brother criticizes that Atkins diet, but from a diabetics point of view, it was worth a try. Mind you, I had weighed exactly 220 until I was 21, and by 22 I weighed 240. This seemed to happen overnight, and stayed put no matter what I did until, at 23, I went on the Atkins diet. I went back to 220 within two weeks and stayed there for about 5 months. At the end of that 5th month, we moved back to my mom's house, and I started gaining weight again. I chalked that up to having to stop the Atkins diet. Hubby had lost his job, and we couldn't afford such a meat heavy diet. I still tried to make it as meat heavy as possible, but I had to return to eating tons of cheap pasta. Only, this time, I often picked the pasta out and ate everything else.

I started massage school, and was frustrated that my period was MIA again. It had been regular since going on Atkins. I hopefully took a pregnancy test after 3 months without a period, but it was negative. 5 months without a period had been the most so far, so it was nothing to me when the 6th month went by. By the 7th month, I was getting concerned, but ultimately, I was having too much fun in massage school to really care what was going on.

My symptoms of diabetes returned in full force. I had even developed a new symptom of diabetes. The diabetic educator had warned me about Neuropathy, in which I would experience nerve pain and tingling, but this was the first time I had ever had it this bad. I could barely stand or walk for more than 10 minutes without my leg falling asleep, and my left Gluteus Maximus hurting like a B****! I had my massage teachers working on my butt and legs, and nothing helped. (Though it felt wonderful to have them massaged!)

Meanwhile, my mom was sick of all my emotional rollercoaster. I have said this before, I have emotions, but normally they are about 1/4 the intensity of someone else's emotions. Therefore even having an emotional rollercoaster was worrying my mom sick! She urged me to take another pregnancy test, as she thought I might be pregnant. I got so mad! I had been trying to conceive for year, and it never happened no matter what I tried, and for her to tell me she thought I was pregnant hurt a lot. TEASE ME why don't you! I went to the store, bought a stick, disappeared into our bathroom, and peed on it. I was just waiting to shove it in her face with a smug, "See!"

Guess what, it came back positive, and I was in total shock. I thought back to when the hell this might have happened, and realized that it must have been right after my last period, 8 months before! I called up the doctor's office to make an appointment, and tried to tell the scheduler that I thought I was very far along, but she was like, "Sure sure, the soonest we can get you in is next week." That was way too long to wait! "Well, do you have any appointments to check out this infuriating bladder infection?" She paused. "You're pregnant and have a bladder infection. That can hurt the baby if not treated. How about I squeeze you in today?" I thought so!

At the doctor's office, the doctor came in thinking that he was going to confirm a brand new pregnancy, and prescribe an antibiotic for UTI. He started by telling us to schedule an ultrasound in a couple of days since everyone was supposed to be leaving for the day. He placed his hands on my stomach, and went white. "You're to term!" My hubby already had a daughter, so he asked, "Wait, doesn't that mean ready to pop?" The doctor then rushed us over to the ultrasound department, and managed to catch a lady who hadn't left yet. The ultrasound showed that I was 32 weeks along, and I had Gryffin exactly 1 month later. 

During that last month of pregnancy, I thought, "Hey, I'm pregnant, so I can eat whatever I crave!" I totally did, eating taco bell like every day on the way home from class. The reason I delivered 4 weeks earlier than optimal is because they induced me once it was obvious that I had preeclampsia. 


You know, even at that point, I didn't connect the dots. I never once considered that what I ate actually caused my conditions. I didn't stop and think that I could have avoided preeclampsia by avoiding taco bell.

Anyway, all of that right there was what led to me discovering that nutrition was vitally important to good health, and since I have already described what I have learned about nutrition in this post, I'll skip that lengthy part of the journey. Suffice it to say that healing my body from my first 22-23 years has taken almost 10 years now, and I am just now seeing progress. When a person needs to heal their body, they want to do it right now which is what pills often promise, but in truth, real healing takes a long time. The benefits start the day you finally find out what your body needs you to feed it, and you do, but with each step forward, something else might pop up. (For a touching look at a family's journey to heal from several severe food allergies, and this phenomenon, read this blog Everything Free Eating ) My massage teachers called this phenomenon "healing in reverse order," or in other words, the last symptoms to present are the first to heal, and then your body works it's way back to the first symptoms. It can feel like you just manage to heal one thing, and something else comes back, grr! If it took me 22 years to get sick, it may take me 22 years to gain true health.

In the meantime, my blood sugar is normal, I've had two kids, and I rarely get sick. Progress looks good!

My Life Pretty Much Revolves Around Books

Well, actually, my life pretty much revolves around my boys, but long before I had them, long before I was married even, my first love was books. I love to read them, I love to write them, I love to discuss the books I read with others. At length. In fact, I'm usually still discussing the books I love long after my discussion partner wants me to stop.

When my discussion partner happens to be Hubby, he fully admits that he tunes me out, but that's OK because I do the same to him. It works for us, lol! Somehow, despite frequently tuning each other out, we still manage to learn new things from one another.

Anyway, back to books. My apartment perpetually looks like a tornado blew through it. Two actually. Their names are Hurricane Gryffin and Hurricane Phoenix, because yes, a hurricane is just a tornado that started over the ocean and got a serious power boost. I have joked, "My apartment looks like it is inhabited by 2 tornadoes, a packrat, and a sloth!" I would be the sloth. Scattered about in this debris is a whole ton of books. About 100 belong to the boys, Hubby owns his fair share, and I own the rest. I honestly couldn't tell you who owns more books, hubby or me.

My book collection has an interesting evolution to it. It started when I was 12, buying all the smut books(AKA historical romance novels) I could get my hands on. Then, around 18, I grew very interested in Wicca. I think this was started when I watched "The Craft" and "Practical Magic" and realized that other people felt the same as I did. My book collection started to look like a pagan's dream library, and my mom bought me my first Tarot deck for Christmas. Ironic, I know, but at least I had her full support.

Then, in short succession, I found out I was diabetic, and went to massage school, so my library expanded to include alternative health books and herbals. One day, I found out I was 8 months pregnant, and the next month I was a mama, so I didn't have much time to add pregnancy and child rearing books. As a result, I have a couple, but not many. These books served me well through pregnancy #2, and are NOT the typical "What to Expect When You're Expecting" books. Rather they are books like, "Natural Pregnancy" by Aviva Jill Romm, and "Magical Child" by Joseph Chilton Pierce.

Finally, after Hurricane Phoenix was born, my passion turned to nutrition and farming. By this time, the budget was tiny, and the public library was free, so my collection did not explode, but over the years, I have bought those books that are important to me. Such as "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon.

All of the previous rambling occurred so that I could talk about "Nourishing Traditions." THIS IS THE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE! Don't get me wrong, I took a bit of advice from "Back to Eden" by Jethro Kloss and "Patient, Heal Thyself" by Jordin Rubin, namely that food is typically the cause of all illnesses, and that food is also the way to heal most illnesses. AKA we literally are what we eat. If we eat junk food, our bodies turn to junk, but if we eat health food, we enjoy good health.

The problem is that most people have no idea what health food is! They think health food is soy, which is in fact toxic ("The Whole Soy Story" by Kaayla T. Daniel), and that full fat milk is bad for you, which it's not ("The Untold Story of Milk" by Ron Schmid). "Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats" takes the reader, chapter by chapter, through real nutrition. This is the kind of nutrition that allowed our grandparents, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say their parents and grandparents to live long and healthy lives. The kind of nutrition that could not rely on the food industry to make food "safe" for us to eat, because there was no food industry yet.

Above, I mentioned that I was diagnosed with diabetes, and since my mom had previously been Dx as borderline diabetic, I knew that it was definitely in our genes. Like 80% of the women in our family are, or have been at one point, overweight, and shaped like an hourglass that mated with a pear. You know, top heavy, bottom heavy, and just plain fat in the middle. With this in mind, I made it my goal to do whatever it takes to get my boys to the age of 18-21 without being diagnosed with diabetes, borderline diabetes, or, as it turns out, cancer or heart disease.

That's a tall order, don'tcha think? It's actually really easy to do, if you become a Nazi about food and nutrition, but doing that is not so easy, especially when all of one's family and friends have the attitude that "Food is just food, it doesn't make a difference what you eat." Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, "What are you talking about? This food IS healthy!" Simply choosing to eat as organically and sugar free as possible meant that my boys and I no longer ate practically anything that my family eats.

Isolation, sigh...

I must confess that I would have probably given up long before now if I hadn't read "Pottenger's Cats" by Dr. Francis M. Pottenger. Dr. Pottenger conducted a 10+ year study on several generations of cats divided into 3 catagories, and I realized that his conclusion has SCARY parallels with my very own family. One group of cats was taken off of a cat's natural diet (which in the wild is whatever they can hunt, hence RAW meat). The 1st generation placed on a different diet (a diet that was deemed healthy for Dr. Pottenger's human patients at the clinic he ran. Noticing that a few of the cats running around his clinic started to present the same diseases as his patients prompted the Dr. to conduct the study.) enjoyed perfect health until their old age when disease set in. The 2nd generation had health problems in their young adulthood, including difficulty in conceiving and birthing children. The 3rd generation was sickly from the start, and any of them that managed to conceive all had miscarriages and still births.

In my family (in humans in general), I think it is more accurate to describe it in 4 generations. My grandparents (on my mother's side) are the 1st generation cats. They left the farm (their natural way of eating) and enjoyed more or less perfect health until their old age. Grandpa then died of various cancers. My mom and her sisters are the 2nd generation of cats, that were more or less healthy until middle age, when they had things like obesity, heart disease, and cancer. I'm a 3rd generation cat. I was Dx with obesity in my teens and with diabetes at 21. I already went low carb to treat my diabetes, which cured my infertility, and is what I give credit to for the fact that my boys are as healthy as they are.

My boys... they are the fourth generation... I added a generation, so they would correlate to the 3rd generation in the study. The one that has nothing but problems from birth, and cannot conceive or give birth to a new generation. This breaks my heart to think about; but for my careful, strict, and constant attention to nutrition, my boys could be Dx'd with all of the now common childhood disorders that never even existed when my grandparents first left the farm.

Being a food Nazi has been hard, BUT it's been worth it so far, my boys are wonderfully healthy, and I have absolute faith that I will accomplish my goal. It's a long road, but it's the right one...