Marlakins

Marla's adventure from Aplastic Anemia and beyond

489 Comments

1. Administrator said,

   May 19, 2007 at 5:04 pm

   Hi Patti:

   Just getting a moment to catch up here. I’ve tried Bieler’s broth, too! I like it and still do my version of it from time to time. I first learned of it from Henry Bieler’s book, Food is Your Best Medicine. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it! He describes his broth in his book and in addition to his broth, he recommended a raw egg with it. I “think”just the yolk, but it’s been a while since I read his book. He pretty much promoted a mostly vegetarian diet, but did think that some animal products were helpful to the health, such as eggs, and I think raw meats. It was also from Bieler’s book where I learned of Beaumont’s book, Experimentation and Observations of the Gastric Juices. But anyway, I find that the potassium broths help me, too.

   I’m not familiar with GUNA homeopathics, but I have been introduced to UNDA by another AAer. The link given to me was http://www.seroyal.com/Seroyal/

   I believe that the lymphatics could use help moving, too, and have endeavored to help mine along with rebounding, dry skin brushing, breathing exercises, and some manual massage. I also came across a article that I found very interesting by Bruno Chikly, M.D. The article can be viewed from this link http://www.garynull.com/Documents/Arthritis/Lymph_Drainage_Therapy.htm I admit that more recently I have been very lax about this aspect of my health! Ack! And really should get back into it. If I can get off me lazy butt, I should try that T-tapp again. My problem these days is that after doing all my chores and errands, I want to do some of my “hobbies.” There just doesn’t seem enough time in the day! Ha!

   Good luck with the tests for your kids. Let us know how those come out, if you don’t mind. Also thanks for giving us a little more insight to you problems with Marie. I do agree that feeding her better might make a noticeable improvement for her. The mind really uses up a lot of energy, so I do firmly believe that we need to feed ourselves well to keep our minds strong. Starting Marie out on the CLO sounds like a great idea. I would really like to be kept up to date with her progress on that one. We did increase my middle son’s CLO, B6, and some zinc for a while due to some depression issues he seemed to be fighting for a while. And fortunately, it really has made a very noticeable improvement.

   Regarding your weight, yeah, I heard that you can lose a lot of inches just by losing water. I don’t know how that translates into weight, but if you lose water and gain muscle mass, that could dramatically change the inches on one’s body but without changing the weight much, I think. Definitely would like to see some before and after pics. I still fit in some of my old clothes from 10 years ago, so I don’t think I’ve changed much inch-wise. Maybe give or take an inch here and there, but over all, I’m pretty much the same size and weight. I could do with “firming” up, tho! Doesn’t help when I like to “sit” and “knit! and “sit” and “read!” Ha!

   Okay, I’m off for the moment. Need a break from the computer. . .

   Marla

2. patti said,

   May 19, 2007 at 11:35 pm

   First a brag moment (sorry, just got to!). My daughter had her achievement testing two weeks ago (it’s required in Oregon). We got her results back. In reading, English, English mechanics, etc. she graded out as a freshman in college! Last year she tested 11th grade so I knew she was high. Her math tested grade level at 3rd grade, 9 months. Well, she’s at 3rd grade 3 months in her school year so statistically not significant. But I’m thrilled to pieces. It made me feel much better about all the school they’ve missed this last two years. I think I’m not going to worry so much anymore. My kids daddy is a brainiac and they all go his brains (thank God!). Okay, done bragging now.

   Friday was an interesting day with the naturapath. Both kids did VERY well having their blood drawn. They were scared to death. I went first, then Luke went (he held my hand and looked at my face) and then Grace. Grace wanted to sit on my lap which was fine but she refused to turn her head so when they were done she turned sheet white and about hit the floor. Just had to take some time to work it out of her system. Kassandra was a hoot! So, when Luke was getting done she covered her ears! Then when Grace was getting done, although Grace was calm and not crying or anything, Peanut was bawling! She was so scared Grace was going to get hurt! My kids are so close they can’t stand to see each other get hurt. If one of them falls, the other two are right there comforting them. It’s very sweet. The nurse got a kick out of covering the ears though.

   Things with my oldest were pretty uneventful with Reuter. She said Grace definately has sugar issues just by looking at her tongue. She told me just to continue what I’m doing and that’s basically following Bernsteins book regarding type 1 diabetics. IF (and that’s a big if cause no one knows) she is heading towards type 1 diabetes, she still has some functioning islet cells right now so we’ll do what we can to preserve them by keeping her sugar stable and not requiring a lot of insulin. And, maybe it’s just genetic hypoglycemia. Her daddy was sick for 4 months and in the hospital for many weeks when he was 20 and it turned out to be hypoglycemia. So with daddy and me both having sugar issues it certainly could be genetic. So we’ll just watch and wait. And she’s praying really hard she’s not allergic to dairy (and quite frankly, so am I!).

   My son on the other hand was an interesting visit. When his hives showed up several months about (has it been 4-6 months???) these little dots showed up on the back of one of his legs and two on his forehead. Smaller then pimples but look like pimples in that they have a “yellow” looking head. I squeezed one awhile ago to see if pus would come out and it didn’t. It only bled. I thought there was a connection between those dots and his hives. Guess what? There is. It turns out those dots are a virus. She said what it was but I don’t remember. We started him on CLO two weeks ago and last week we noticed that the two dots on his forehead are almost gone and guess what? He hasn’t had hives in four days. Hmmmm. Interesting. She thinks the virus stressed his body. We already knew when his body gets under stress he gets hives. They did get much much better after having that tooth surgery but he was still getting them. Just not covering his whole body like before the surgery. I guess we’ll never know but I’m thinking the CLO helped his immune system which is helping to get rid of this virus. I’m going to continue watching the bumps and see what happens to them.

   Reuter put four things together for me that I would have never connected. First, Luke has amblyopia and strabismus. He has extremely strong glasses for a kid. +4.75 in both eyes. With bi-focals. He’s blind as a bat. But the lazy eye is caused by a malfunction in the brain’s connection to that eye muscle. That’s #1. #2 is he still wets the bed at almost 8yrs old. He hasn’t had a dry night in his life. This is usually a brain/bladder connection. #3 He has a difficult time spitting out sentences when he’s trying to tell you something. Sometimes it can take him five minutes to say something that’s on his mind. Another brain connection. This last one got me. She asked me what he’s like when he gets up in the AM. Well, he’s a bear. It takes him a 1/2 hr to start functioning. She said that is also a brain/sensory connection. It takes time for his brain to take him the lights and process the start of a day. Seeing a pattern here? She thinks he has a mild case of sensory integration disorder. I have done little research on this although I do understand what it is. She just thinks there are nerve connections that just haven’t happened with his brain yet. Which I already knew for the bedwetting. We will be doing nothing with what she thinks it is because quite frankly, most kids outgrow this. Second, what purpose does it serve to tell someone this (him)? And it doesn’t really matter. None of this affects his functioning in daily life. BUT, we are going to try some non-bone cracking chiropractic to see if we can align his back in such a way that some of those nerve connections can take place. My husband’s chiropractor does this kind of work so we’ll take him to that guy. I’m actually excited at the prospect that maybe, just maybe, he can get some relief. Because honestly, he can’t stand wearing pullups to bed. He’s almost 8. His 6yr old sister is nighttime trained and he just sees that as so painful. Although I will say, no one ever teases him in this house and no one else knows so at least he doesn’t have to contend with that. Nonetheless, it would help his self esteem (not that he needs it!) if he didn’t have to wear pullups. Besides, they’re starting not to fit him anymore. He’s getting too big! We told him we’d also be willing to get one of those alarms to help him wake up if he wants. He sleeps so hard you could let a bomb off in his shorts and he wouldn’t wake up. So, if the chiropractic doesn’t work, we’re going to get the alarm. Summer is a good time to do this since they tend to be a little more dehydrated just from the warm weather. But wow, that was an interesting appt. I learned a lot about my little guy.

   We’re going to keep both kids on the CLO for now but Reuter is pushing me hard to get them on regular salmon oil. She says (and I don’t take this as gospel) that long term use of CLO is bad for you. My contention is what about our grandmothers who took it everyday of their lives? So far, I’ve seen far to many benefits to my family to be willing to just drop it. However, I’ve got 3 bottles left I’ll finish and in the meantime I’ll do my research on the salmon oil. She also said that in Europe people only take CLO from October to March. Months that have “R” in them. Those are months when there is usually less sun so they get the Vit. D from the oil. I’m really not sure about all this. However, she did say that salmon oil can be taken in pill form and can still give a person enough oil in that form as compared to CLO. It took 25 pills to equal my 2tbls of CLO when I was taking that much. So I guess we’ll see on that one.

   She put Grace on the Unda Numbers for her stuffiness. It’s the same stuff I take. It’s called chelidonium (sp?) plex. It works great for drainage. She tends to be very stuffy at night (she sleeps with 3 pillows!). I think this is the dairy thing. Reuter isn’t so sure. She said if these tests come back that they are allergic to dairy but they have no clinical outward systems then she does not consider them allergic. How would you take that? To me, if something shows they are allergic, they’re allergic. But for me, I actually break out in rashes. For the kids, I think it plays out more in stuffiness and behaviors which is hard to quantify.

   So, lots of stuff to digest with their appt. I’m so glad I took them!

   Ah! And this week, my husband and kids entered the land of people with health insurance again. With the business being so new we could not get insurance when we first started. We did try to insure me two years ago and I was turned down by 5 companies because of being a gestational diabetic. Even though I’m fine now. They didn’t care it had been five years. They just see the increased risk down the road. So we decided that we would just insure everybody else and worry about me after we move. We only got major medical because most companies don’t cover ND’s and quite frankly, that’s about all we ever go to anymore. But still, it is nice to have that in the background just in case something major were to happen. Once we hire someone and get a group policy for the business then I will be able to get coverage under the group policy. Stinky way to have to go about it though, huh?

   Marie will be home tomorrow. The kids love having her gone on the weekends. It’s so quiet and they have mom and dad all to themselves, etc. We got a lot of work done at mom’s today. Lord willing, we’ll be able to put the house on the market next week. I’m feeling a little pessimistic that there is no way we’re going to be able to move this summer. We may end up one more year in this rain whole. But God knows so I guess I’ll just have to trust him on this one.

   Better jet, it’s late and we got church tomorrow.

   patti

3. Administrator said,

   May 20, 2007 at 11:11 am

   Hi Patti:

   Congrats with your daughter’s achievement test results! It is a relief, isn’t it? I felt the same way with our kids. And even though Andrew is continuing at one of the local City Colleges, he did really well with his first semester and got on the Dean’s List with a 4.0. My mom snatched his Dean’s List Certificate and has it in her photo albums, ha ha. This semester he is enrolled in Trigonometry, so I don’t know how well he’ll be able to hold on to that 4.0, but I was very happy when his math placement test put him in Trig. We figured since he likes to write, he needs a “day” job to hold him over until he’s established. In the meantime he seems to be interested in getting a degree in teaching. I suggested English since he likes to write, but turns out he’s also interested in logic, so I think he may want to teach logic, too. We’ll see how that goes. For now, the goal is to get an AA degree, then transfer over to a university to get a BS or something. We’ll see, tho. Still have a couple years yet. But yes, much of a relief that finally one of the kids is off and able to run with the college herd (academically and socially) without problems. Not only that, but he was asked to join the college paper as one of their journalists. His first article came out a couple weeks ago, and I’m gonna laminate his article for my personal scrapbook! Ha ha! I feel good that he’ll be okay. Now, we’ve got two more boys we need to help stretch their wings, a couple more years for them, tho.

   Funny about your daughter covering her ears! Ha ha! Cute. Glad that they all did so well. What was their blood being drawn for?

   Interesting about Luke. I would say that I have thought my boys were a little slow at replying myself, but Brian has told me that boys are like that. . . He said he was like that, too, when he was a kid. (He’s still like that as an adult! ha ha!) He would get all emotional inside and couldn’t speak. I, on the other hand, don’t recall having that kind of problem, but then again, I’m a girl and you know how girls tend to be yakkers, ha! But I do notice that when the boys calm down, they can speak better. Although none of them were bed-wetters, nor do any of them have skin or hive problems. I think they were all pretty much potty trained and completely out of diapers by 3 years old. They just didn’t have trouble at all with that. Which reminds me, along my travels, I have read a little (very little) about bed-wetting in Prescription for Healing. Apparently, there are several thoughts as to what causes it. For Luke’s age, I suppose the most common is what you mentioned, the brain connection thing. But according to Balch, they wrote that, “they know of several cases of bed-wetting (among children and adults) that were relieved within a matter of days when supplements of certain nutrients were supplied. Among these were magnesium, vit B2, and pantothenic acid. In addition, all allergy-causing foods were removed from the diet, and a protein supplement was added. . .” Since Luke has the hives problem, it is worth looking into allergies and food sensitivities, if you haven’t already explored that. Or perhaps you’re in the process a the moment.

   My kids haven’t had much trouble with the stuffiness thing either, although my youngest son has had issues with his tonsils, which have improved a lot since we changed our diet and got rid of junk foods. For a while his left parotid gland would swell up, but thank God, that hasn’t happening in quite some time now. But we do keep an eye out on it because I think that is his weak spot.

   Well, got lots of chores to get to, so better dash for now.

   Marla

4. patti said,

   May 24, 2007 at 9:07 pm

   I tried to post on Andrea’s doggie post but couldn’t so I’ll put it here. Hey Andrea! Thanks for posting your flea solution! Yesterday we became the proud owners of a 2 month old lab/blue heeler mix (mostly lab). She’s adorable! One of the first things we talked about was preventing fleas because it’s summer and they’re out now. I did some reading on flea collars and what I found said they are connected with childhood leukemia. Been there, done that. Not interested. I told Ron and then told him about your solution and he agreed to try it. I also talked to a friend of mine that lives on a farm with some dogs and she said tea tree oil is also excellent. She also said vinegar of all things! She said you’d think it would sting them but it actually conditions the skin in such a way that fleas don’t like it. So, we’re going to try all of the above but first the lavendar oil and tea tree oil. We use A LOT of tea tree oil in our home. For everything. Anyways, thanks for sharing what you’re learning.

   Have you tried a raw food diet for your dogs? We will be going to a raw meat diet for Bondo in a very short while. Ron wanted to get her acclimated first because the shelter had her on kibbles.

   My kids are having the time of their lives with Bondo! Yeah, funny name, I know. She sort of goes by Bondo, Bond or Bondi right now. But I think Bondo is winning out. Blue heelers are extremely smart – they are herding dogs. This little girl is no exception. And labs are no slouches either. We are crate training her (never did that with our other labs) so we can take her in the MH with us. I’m already looking forward to our first trip.

   Anyways, just thought I’d share we’re going to try your remedy.

   Patti

5. patti said,

   May 31, 2007 at 10:25 pm

   Okay – I’m finally getting back to this. It’s been absolutely crazy around here. For starters, Marie is no longer living with us. Last Wednesday she was spitting food (cereal specifically) all over my kitchen, herself and me. By the time we were done it ended up being a 4hr standoff and Ron called David and told him to come and get her. So, she’s gone. For now. She’s still in the “honeymoon” period at his house so we’ll see if she gives them the same trouble she gave us after her honeymoon period here. Today I looked at my kitchen wall and realized that there’s still some cereal on it! So much for getting it all cleaned up. And that’s just the finale to the two weeks that led up to it. Our children were so distraught with everything that went on that two weeks we had to call it quits. We are hoping it works out at Dave’s. If it doesn’t, the agreement will be some sort of home for retarded people. We don’t have a lot of choices right now. There are only two the two siblings. Mom would roll over in her grave to know she’s at Dave’s and even worse if we have to place her somewhere else.

   The second issue we are having is with mom’s estate. Parents, do your kids a favor – leave your estate poor. Just leave enough funds to cover your final expenses. I realize this can vary but just leave enough for a funeral. Medical bills will have to get written off if the estate can’t afford to pay them and quite frankly, the infighting that comes with passing on a lot of money is really ugly. That’s all I can say about that. It’s been a very painful few weeks for us.

   On the happier side of life, our new puppy is doing really well. We are loving her to pieces. I’m so glad we got the kids a dog right now. It really lessens the sting of all that happened with Marie. And she’s kind of comforting to Ron and I for all that we are going through right now. So I wonder, should one vaccinate their pets??? I’m really leaning towards “no” but we see the vet tomorrow. I should have asked this question sooner!

   Luke’s and Grace’s test results came back and wow were they interesting!! First, Luke is highly allergic to egg whites, wheat and guess what???? Whey protein! Grace is allergic to egg whites and whey protein. Luke’s level of inflammation was so bad it was scary. His IGE number was 871. Grace’s was high at 129 but nothing compared to Luke’s! No wonder this poor kid is a basket of hives all the time. So, to start, we have cut out eggs, wheat and all dairy but cheddar cheese (there’s no whey in that). Already Luke is feeling better. The virus he’s had for the last six months is continuing to get better and better. I believe that we just hit on a major thing for him. Dr. Reuter also felt that all of the issues he’s having are so connected and she said she’s seen similar issues in kids who got the Hib vaccination. That vaccine is called hemophalus influenza. And why did my kid need that??? The flu??? I’m so angry at myself for not learning sooner about vaccinations. By the time it came to Kassandra I had learned enough I cut way back on what she got. Now, I wouldn’t do any. Guess what’s in influenza vaccines? Eggs… Frustrating, huh?

   This is a very difficult thing to change in diet as it really limits what they can have. We went out to eat today and there was very little they could have. I couldn’t convince them to have a hot dog with no bun. Or cheese sandwich on sourdough bread (fermented breads are okay). Luke hates sourdough. So, this will be really interesting. And I’m going to have to research chinese foods because that is one of our favorites! I’ll have to figure out what they can’t have there. All in all, I think it was a good thing we had the testing done. And we are basically all following the same diet with a few exceptions. I am letting Grace have wheat since she’s not allergic to it. Luke is the only one eating gluten free/egg free bread. My biggest issue with Grace is having to go to pancakes and waffles and french toast for breakfast with her blood sugar because of the flour. My best friend told me the flour is a complete protein so I’m banking on that working. We’ll use a simply fruit spread or mashed fruit as toppings instead of syrup for her. Luke can have real maple syrup.

   So here’s my substitutions in case anyone is interested.

   For eggs – I’m using duck eggs in all cooking and egg replacer powder as needed

   Goat’s milk for cooking – otherwise, no milk

   Gluten free flour mix:

   2 c. quinoa flour
   2 c. brown rice flour
   1 1/3 c. tapioca flour
   1 c. cornstarch
   2/3 c. garfava bean flour
   2/3 c. potato starch flour (not potato flour)
   2/3 c. amaranth flour
   1/3 c. sorghum flour

   Blend well and use in recipes. You have to add more liquid to recipes and a little less flour to get the right consistency. I’m so thankful to my best friend who had to do this for her boys long ago. She gave me a number of recipes using the flour and also the flour blend. This is nice because she has done all the trial and error for me! What are friends for, right?

   Dr.Reuter is currently working on getting a homeopathic remedy for specifically cleansing nutrasweet and splenda out of my system. She said it will come out of CA. I’m pretty convinced that my interstitial cystitis is caused by all the nutrasweet I drank over the years. Particularly the years that I was having babies. It was nothing to drink 6 diet cokes a day. Eeeks! I am now artificial sweetner free but wow, it’s hard! I have this mind set about drinking anything with real sugar (like lemonade) but I’m trying to drink mostly water and tea at home and reserve lemonade or stuff like that for when we go out (which isn’t too often). We’ll see how the next cleanse goes. I’m just finishing up my Guna numbers and then we’ll start on the next one. I so want my bladder healed!!

   Okay – that’s it for now. I gotta go pay bills. It’s the end of the month!

   patti

6. Andrea said,

   June 1, 2007 at 1:33 pm

   Hey Patti–Congrats on your dog!! Dogs are SO wonderful, such wonderful therapy. Too bad about Marie but sometimes we have to make the hard choices. For years I had to neglect my brother and sil because my husband and kids came first. That’s just the way it was. I will say that. here in Maine anyway, many of the homes for the retarded are wonderful places with dedicated staff. And Marie might be better-behaved if she’s not with family. That may indeed be God’s plan, God’s gift. Where your mil is now, she’ll understand if it comes to that.

   Very sorry about the money fighting. Happened in my mom’s family too–very ugly indeed. Maybe in our will we’ll just give it all to charity.

   As I experiment with the flea/tick stuff, I have found that what works best is actually –vinegar! I now spray both of them with a pretty strong–1:4–vinegar/water mixture before they go out. It’s gotta be EVERY time–if I miss a time, they bring in ticks. I need to make sure I get vinegar behind their ears, a spot ticks love. I also rinse them with a vinegar/water solution when I bathe them.

   Still haven’t conquered fleas, but I’m realizing that the major problem is that they live in the house. Fleas only feed on the dog, they breed in your house. I am washing all their bedding and vacuuming the entire house weekly. We don’t have a major infestation, mind you, but I am finding a flea on Missy from time to time.

   If this weekly program doesn’t work, I may look into a certain kind of borax I read about that will get them–the fleas, not the dogs!– out of the house.

   As to food, I think a raw diet would probably be best, but I don’t feel I have the energy for that right now, with trying to feed my husband well and keep my business and church responsibilities afloat. So I give them Wellness kibble. I’ll mix in some leftover vegetables, an organic raw egg, or organic meat juice from time to time, and I give them each a tsp. of vinegar with each meal.

   Now, on to human health! That’s so great that you can get rid of all that nutrasweet and splenda! Here’s to getting your bladder back!

   Out here on the health front in Maine, Rob is interested in something new he discovered which is a case study of a guy who cured his AA via Qi Gong. He has contacted the Qi gong master (named Lim) who taught the AA patient (named Gow) and is going to perhaps go out to study with him (in Minneapolis) this summer or fall.

   Rob and I both love the Qi Gong we’ve learned. Rob does a Soaring Crane (a routine that takes about 30″) every morning–I do one about once a week, being more of a yoga fan. Qi Gong gives you a very balanced, calm feeling. I’ll keep y’all posted.

   Best, Andrea

7. Administrator said,

   June 3, 2007 at 11:15 am

   Hi Patti:

   I’m very interested to follow along with how your kids respond once you’ve implimented your changes for a while. You know I’ve read there are some controversies on allergies. I don’t have any references on hand at this moment, but I recall seeing some banter on other health forums questioning the validity of allergy tests and their results. I think part of it also involves the question of what is a true allergy as opposed to a sensitivity and how our bodies reflect that. I’m not sure what the difference is by memory, but I’ll try to hunt that down and post it. Some say that allergies are caused by defective genes, while I recall reading in Pottenger’s Cats that Pottenger believed that their cats developed allergies due to some nutritional deficiencies. Again, I’ll have to hunt my book down to quote exactly “what” was suspected to be deficient, and what those cats were exhibiting allergy to.

   But thanks for keeping us up to date! Lots going on there at the Steele residence!

   Also thanks, Andrea, for keeping us up to date with Rob. I am interested in what Rob’s experience and opinions will be with the Qi Gong. Do you happen to have the reference of who that was who cured his AA with Qi Gong? I think more detailed information of that would be good to have on Bruce’s forum as well as here.

   I don’t have any doggie notes to compare with you guys, but hopefully one day we’ll be able to add a doggie to our household. I’m having a hard time just keeping up with the human folk around here, so don’t think I should take on responsibility of a dog for now. Would love to some day tho, so am definitely keeping your tips on hand for future reference. That reminds me, there was an article I read last week which mentioned that the U.S. has spent $40 billion on pet care last year based on information from pet supply retailers. I wonder how much that compares to child care? Would be interesting to see that figure.

   Okay! Take care, ladies!

   Marla

8. Andrea said,

   June 3, 2007 at 4:58 pm

   Hi marla, Just a quick note to say that Rob has ordered the book that includes the AA case history (at my request)–I’ll post more info when I have it.

   Andrea

9. Administrator said,

   June 5, 2007 at 2:02 pm

   Thanks, Andrea. Will look forward to your update!

   Hi Patti:

   I pulled out my Pottenger’s Cats book and looked up the reference regarding Pottenger’s observations of allergies in his cats. This is part of what he wrote and why I mentioned that some believe that some allergies are partly due to nutritional deficiencies:

   “In giving cats cooked meat and milk, they develop all kinds of allergies. They sneeze, wheeze and scratch. They are irritable, nervous and do not purr. First deficient generation allergic cats produce second generation kittens with greater incidence of allergies, and by the third generation, the incidence is almost 100 percent. When second generation allergic animals are bred after being returned to an optimum raw food diet, their allergic symptoms begin to diminish and by the fourth generation, some cats show not evidences of allergy.

   “One allergic cat reveals a condition analagous to the human disease pruritis ani, intense itching around the anus. In seekign relief, this animal rus most of the fur off its buttocks and its physical antics leave little doubt about its extreme discomfort. When milk is removed from the cat’s diet, the allergic symptom immediately clears revealing its specific allergen. Milk allergies prove common among second and third generation deficient cats and their regenerating counterparts.

   “One kitten develops asthma. Unfortunately, the animal dies before it is fully evaluated and before treatment is initiated. Apparently, this case of asthma is the first to be reported in the research literature.

   “The intestinal tracts of the allergic cats prove particularly remarkable at autopsy. Measurements of the length of the gastrointestinal tracts of several hundred normal and deficient adult cats are compared. The measurement starts at the epiglottis and includes the esophagus, the stomach, duodenum, jejunum and the colon to the rectum. In the average normal cat, the intestinal tract is approx 48 in. long; in some of the allergic cats, the intestinal tracts measure as long as 72-80 inches. These elongated tracts lack tissue tone and elasticity.”

   Now if you read Pottenger’s cats, the significance of the “cooked” milk as opposed to the “raw” milk is that the cooked milk is believed to be deficient in nutrients because the heating process kills off enzymes and the entire biochemical state of the milk is altered, according to his chapter 10 and the study by Oscar Erf. So this cooked milk is supposedly less nutritious and thus the cats that were fed the cooked milk ended up being nutritionally deficient, and later developed allergies. As I’m typing this I now realise it coincides with Pagano’s belief that “leaky gut” is associated with psoriasis. The gut is “too” permeable in psoriatics, which would seem similar to the cats whose intestines were extra long and lacking elasticity and tissue tone. I suspect their intestines were longer because they stretched out thus leaving it thinner and more permeable. And this is an area I have been working on for myself by trying to eliminate the foods that aggravate my condition while at the same time trying to eat foods that strengthen my intestinal tract and stomach like chamomile tea and slippery elm bark. So far I have made good progress. But my skin issues are likely a bit different from Luke’s hives, but “maybe” it is “part” of his problem. I don’t know, but think it’s worthy to explore.

   Regarding the allergy vs sensitivity thing, I’ll have to hunt that down another time!

   Hope all is going well with you ladies!

   Marla

10. patti said,

    June 15, 2007 at 10:50 pm

    I am so behind getting back to you ladies! This will probably not be as long as it should be, but it’s already late and I still need to pay bills. :\

    We are seeing good changes in both Grace and Luke with eliminating the eggs, wheat and whey from their diets. Luke’s hives are gone. He is MUCH happier when he wakes in the morning. He has TONS more energy. One interesting thing is he never got rashes with his food allergies but once I removed the whey and he accidentally got some from something I made that I didn’t know had whey in it, he broke out in a rash under his arms – just like I do. I thought that was interesting considering he’d never had that happen before. Same thing for the hives. If he gets anything that he’s allergic to he breaks out in hives. Before, his hives were mainly at bedtime. So some really interesting changes. I will say it’s VERY difficult to cook egg, wheat and dairy free! We are all basically eating that way because it’s too difficult to cook two sets of meals. I am noticing a difference being gluten free. I’m not technically allergic to gluten, but it does seem to be the main player in blood sugar issues with bread products. The rice flours don’t affect me at all.

    Marla, the info on Pottenger’s cats is interesting. I do think my kids intestines are a mess because of the dairy. But I’ve known for years they had problems with dairy. I just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. I couldn’t nurse my kids and none of them could have milk based formulas. So, being uneducated about this stuff at the time, I put them all on soy. But that’s another story. Anyways, I wonder if my kids would be fine with raw milk? We drank it for quite awhile and I know my girls did much much better with it. I’ve been meaning for months to read up on leaky gut but just haven’t had the time. There is a thread from one of my health sites about it. Maybe I’ll print it and read it on our trip this next three weeks.

    Curious about your skin – I did some reading on my welltellme site last week about celiac disease and eczema and wondered if you’d ever explored this aspect of it?

    I’m having some up and down days with my bladder. It feels like it’s getting better but there are days when one pain pill isn’t doing it. It seems to be related to me detoxing. When I’m in a detox mode it seems to bug me more. I’m taking that as a good thing and hoping it means I’m continuing to heal. It seems like an oxymoron to me to take pain pills that have to go through my liver while I’m trying to detox my liver. But I have tried everything natural under the sun and nothing can touch the pain and urgency. So, for now, I’m just hoping the detoxing is doing it’s job.

    Okay – I gotta jet. We are taking a 3 week scouting trip to find a new place to live starting next week. Looking at Jerome, ID, Rapid City, SD and Custer, SD. All places we’ve been to and love. I am praying that the Lord will plant us in Jerome, ID. There are a lot of reasons. So, I am quietly praying that God directs my husband thatta way. We’re taking the puppy which should prove really interesting! I’m making the kids do school on the road to make up for the all the time off we’ve had this past few weeks.

    Oh, Marla, I’ve been checking into the makeup thing. When I get back I’ll post what I’ve been using by way of natural products and which ones I like and don’t like so far.

    Chou ladies,

    patti

11. Administrator said,

    June 24, 2007 at 7:12 pm

    Hey Patti!

    I imagine by now you and your family are hitting the road! I hope you’re having a blast! Definitely let us know how it all went and if there are any places you recommend to visit. I have never been to any of those places that you’ve visiting.

    Glad to hear that Luke is feeling much better these days! It is such a relief! Sometimes when you have it bad for so long, you start to think that that is normal, but when you feel good and things start to clear up then you realize how bad it’s been. Did I make any sense there? Ha! Basically for me, I’ve had skin issues all my life, so now that it’s starting to clear up and even my energy and sleep habits are improving, I realize that I’ve been unwell for most of my life, but just didn’t realize it. With Luke starting out with his hives so young, he may not realize what it’s like to be normal, “yet.” Ha! Keep us posted on his progress and for your other two girls as well. How’s the crocheting and knitting coming along? I’d love to see any projects they’re working on! Did Grace finish her granny square scarf, yet?

    Regarding the celiac connection and my skin problems, yes, I’ve considered it and even lurked on some forums. But honestly, I have been “resisting” that it’s celiac, ha ha! Well, I have not resisted the likely fact that my intestines are not in the greatest shape, but I guess I resist the idea that they will never heal. I have been a bit turned off to how they seem to think that celiac is the route to practically every ailment there is (although I don’t discount that it can very well be linked to many diseases). But then again when you check other forums like the candidiasis one, there’s a similar line of thinking there, too, that practically all our ailments are caused by candida yeast overgrowth. Then you have the mercury guys saying that mercury is causing everything, and the iron overload group saying that iron overload causes everything, etc. But bottom line is, I feel that my intestines do need healing and I have been trying to be mindful of what I eat and paying attention to transit time, etc. So I do still like to read some of the ideas/theories for celiac, but I don’t agree with everything they claim. Or at least I’m very skeptical of some of it, not necessarily discount it, tho. I’m sure lots of their info is very useful.

    Now having said that, I have found that I’m able to eat some whole wheat now, such as organic whole grain soft wheat, but “not” regular whole wheat. Hmm. Not sure what’s the difference, but I’ve been testing this since December now, and have been able to eat the whole grain soft wheat since December without problems, but once I have a slice of bread from regular whole wheat, I’ve broken out.

    And this reminds me, I know you’ve noticed that Aaron had been cooking cinnamon rolls. Well, he did it a few times, and I started to have sensitive teeth. This happened to me a couple years ago when I ate regular organic french bread for a month or so. When I stopped, the sensitivity would go away, and this has happened again this time. I’m “suspecting” it has something to do with Dr. Page’s research regarding the calcium/phosphorous ratio and our sugar level. He believed that when the proper ratio is disturbed along with elevated sugar levels we experience bone resorption. I have noticed this with my own teeth that they become sensitive when I eat too much fruit or have too much bread. When I back off, my teeth feel better again. If anyone is interested in reading about Melvin Page’s work, an article can be read here about it http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/ppnf/page.htm

    Okay, look forward to your update when you get back, Patti. Let us know how your bladder is coming along as well as your makeup trials. I realize that we all have different skin types, but still good to know.

    Take care!

    Marla

12. patti said,

    July 16, 2007 at 9:59 pm

    Hey, Marla, congrats on six years transfusion free! Praying you have the rest of your life tx free!

    We are back from our trip and it’s taking me some time to get caught up. Twice I’ve started posting here and had to stop. But tonight, I’m determined to finish!

    We had a great time! We visited Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana. We have narrowed our search to central wyoming (Casper or Buffalo – which is actually north central) and South Central Montana (Billings, Townsend). It’s a real toss up between these two states. Montana is BEAUTIFUL!. BUT, they have higher state tax then Oregon does (11% vs. 9%). Property tax is about 2/3 of what we pay here. That’s a big deal. Housing is cheap cheap cheap. Wyoming has no state tax, a 6% sales tax, very low property tax (like 1/4 of what we pay here) and housing is very expensive. But I think we’ve pretty much decided that it’d be better to pay more for housing in the short run and not pay the taxes in the long run. Sales tax is controlled by personal spending and is also tax deductible in that state and on federal taxes. They are a huge oil state so everything is supported by oil revenue instead of property taxes. Anyways…… lots to think about. We’re actually thinking to take one more survey trip this summer to firm up where we want to be and then move in the spring. Way way fun trip! And the dog did great mostly. We had to give her dramamine to keep her from getting car sick but other then that she did great!

    As for health stuff – lots happening on that front.

    On our trip Luke had the first seven dry nights of his entire nearly 8yrs of life! They weren’t consecutive, but who cares?! He was so so excited (as were we). We were very tight with his diet, really sticking with no eggs, milk and wheat as much as possible. I also think the chiropractic is helping a lot. We’ve scheduled him for another chiro appt. next week because he hasn’t been dry this past week and a half or so. Although, he’s been much better. It looks like he’s only wetting in the early AM hours instead of all night long like he used to. We’re thinking about getting an alarm to train him to get up around 5:00ish and go. So on the potty front, we are very excited to see changes!

    Luke hasn’t had hives related to anything other then heat since we changed his diet. However, he still has this weird bump thing going on on the back of his legs. He has had it for about six months and it hit at the same time his hives started. I happened to be reading an article several nights ago about CA-MRSA bacteria and the markings sound exactly like what Luke has. Also, the youngest has now popped up with one of the bumps (Luke has a lot of them) which makes me think it’s something contagious. We’ve scheduled all three kids for “well child” checks next week. Grace to check her scoliosis, and the other two to test for the MRSA bacteria. Supposedly they just swab the nose for it. If Smucker says it’s something else we can decide how we want to treat it but if it’s MRSA I’m thinking a lot of garlic is going to pass those guys lips!

    On the doggy front, we finally resorted to giving the dog that frontline stuff (or some brand thereof) and it made her insane!! I’m not kidding you. She was lethargic all day one day and the next day she was spastic. Running around, yelping, crying, etc. Ron washed it off of her and I researched more natural stuff to treat fleas. We can flea bath her every 3-4 days (or even once a week would probably work) but I also read that giving them a garlic capsule in a treat once a week or less would also work. So, we are going to try that and we will NEVER give her that flea stuff again. I feel so bad. Oh, one cool thing. Wyoming has NO bugs. It’s too windy there! hee hee.

    We’ve switched a little on my health regimen. I’m taking 30 drops a day of Guna Matrix and Guna Kidney. 20 pellets a day of Guna Liver. 20 drops of Chelidonium. I’m also adding aloe vera to my plan. Oh, and I’m using Guna Lymphadema cream right over my bladder twice a day. I’m still using the bio progesterone cream and armour thyroid. Awhile ago I was taking Iodoral iodine to see if it would help me. I waited to run out and then wait awhile because sometimes you don’t notice a difference until you stop something. I was shocked at the change! I fell flat on my face about a week after stopping that stuff and I’ve not been the same since. So I ordered more and will take 25mg a day instead of the 12.5 I was taking. My thyroid is testing out normal right now so the ND is going to look at pulling me off of the Armour by the end of the summer. One down, a few more to go!

    Marla, the picture you have of Grace and I at Wall Drug in the flowers is the BEST picture I have of me right now that shows how much I’ve lost in terms of sizes. I don’t know if you have another pic of me you can compare it to. I made Ron put that as my wallpaper picture on my computer because it keeps me encouraged. I was off of t-tapp for about a month but I started back at it today. I would like to lose 3 more sizes and I will be what I was before I had kids (albeit, lumpier!!). Oh, Reuter is also working on getting me a cleanse specifically for cleansing nutrasweet out of my system. She said it will probably cost me $300 but it’s a one time shot and I figure it’s worth it. I really believe my bladder stuff was caused by the nutrasweet so may as well cleanse it out of me. I wonder to if losing more weight will help? I guess we’ll see. And the aloe vera. I’ve been doing some reading on it and it seems promising. Reuter wasn’t thrilled but I don’t care. I’m all for trying stuff. She doesn’t like the t-tapp but what can she say if it’s helping me lose?

    Hmmm. Oh, beauty products. I bought some tea tree oil shampoo and was so bummed to see when I got home it has SLS as the second ingredient! I was mad actually that I hadn’t taken the time in the store to read the label. One problem I have is Grace has trouble with dandruff. She had horrible cradle cap as a baby and has never really gotten beyond that. If I don’t use something medicated she has dandruff. I’ve been using the baking soda and vinegar and just using a tsp. or so of dandruff shampoo on her. I was hoping the tea tree oil shampoo would be good. Well, it is, but it has the SLS in it. I have yet to find a dandruff shamppo for her. We tried the Berts Bees, Feeling Flaky, and it worked okay, but not real good. Also, they’ve stopped selling it here. So if you have any suggestions for that, I’m all ears! For the rest of us, we’re still using the baking soda and vinegar and Jasons shampoo when needed. I have pretty much finished up my Mary Kay cleansing stuff and am currently using Berts Bees lemon poppyseed facial cleanser, Berts Bees bentonite clay mask (sometimes an Alba mask) and Berts Bees tomato toner. I wasn’t sure if the tomato toner would be a problem since I’m allergic to tomatos but it doesn’t seem to be causing any reaction. I don’t like the lemon poppyseed cleanser so I’m going to try something new when I’m done with that. I am experimenting off and on with Alba products as well. I like the Alba deoderant. BUT, I have to admit I actually use the solid and if I’m going out that day I spray secret on top of it! I figure if I’m clogging my pores with the Alba the secret can’t get in! How’s that for nievety? I have to go for easy. Also, witchhazel makes my skin burn really bad. I’m still using my Mary Kay makeup as I haven’t had time to research what you sent me. Basically, as I’ve been using stuff up I’ve been switching over to new stuff. For reference: I have oily skin. So products I try are in that range. I’ve also been skin brushing which I can tell has been really good for me! My skin is very tone where I’ve lost weight and my baby belly is actually going away from it. I had read a number of ladies on my welltellme site had the same affect but until I saw it for myself I didn’t believe it. It had to be the brushing because it was mainly during the month I didn’t t-tapp that I brushed and noticed it. I continue to brush daily. Sometimes twice a day. I’ve continued the Berts Bees foot cream as needed for my elbow eczema and it works great! Two days of using it and my elbows look great again. Not sure what causes the eczema to flair.

    Okay – general conversation…. So, I totally understand what you mean when you say some people say yeast is everyone’s problem or leaky gut, or whatever. On welltellme.com their answer to everything is either yeast or leaky gut and I’m just not convinced that those are the cause of all that ails us. I think there’s some validity to it, but I think it’s more in the middle then that rather then an all or nothing sort of thing.

    Because of what you said about wheat, I wonder if you sprouted your grains overnight if that’s all the difference it would take to prevent a reaction? I have a friend that does this nightly and it’s no big deal. Stuff is ready for breakfast the next day for pancakes or waffles or whatever. Just a thought.

    I just got a PP ad for a book about what every kid needs to be healthy. I think it’s a must buy for me! I just haven’t taken the time to get it. Probably tonight.

    I’ll end with some fun stuff. There are places that are worth seeing in this country and I’ll share a few of the ones we went to/have been to (since we’ve been through this route 5 times before!).

    In Wyoming – Yellowstone National Park and Yellowstone Lake is a MUST. It is on the lower looping drive (I think they call it the lower thumb or something like that). It is absolutely beautiful! It’s all rocks for shore. We park on the rocks and set ups chairs. Let the kids play in the water and build stuff with the rocks. My girls are rock collectors so they are always looking for cool looking rocks and find some good ones there. Of course, there’s Old Faithful. But also walking the hot springs walkway is cool. The lodge at Old Faithful is a must see. It’s an architectural wonder like none else. Gorgeous! Oh, and, the ice cream there isn’t bad either! I know, no dairy!

    In South Dakota we love Wall Drug. It’s a tourist trap, but so so fun! Every time we go we get one of those old fashion pictures taken. So I have 5 of them on my wall now starting with when I was pregnant with #3 and the other two were still very very small. We have a few with Ron’s mom and sister in them also. We just love those things. It’s a $75 drop – but worth it to us. The kids love having them on our wall to remember trips by. The history of Wall Drug is fun and the stores are fun to go through. We always stay at the campground that’s a block from it so we can walk to it.

    From Wall Drug we hit the Badlands. It’s an incredible drive through Badlands National Park. Amazing rock formations and just beautiful scenary. Some places to hike. Although, this year, we didn’t because of timing. On the way out of the Badlands, a must stop is the Prairie Dog stop. There’s this old homestead there where they’ve preserved this guys old house (it’s two rooms with a dirt floor!) and some other historical stuff. The prairie dogs come up everywhere at your feet! That is fun!

    Custer, SD is home to a number of things. Custers last stand, and more importantly, Bedrock City! Remember the Flintstones? We stay at Flintsone Campground and spend a day walking through Flintstone City and eating Brontocearus(sp?) Burgers, etc. The kids get a kick out of this place even though they’ve never seen the Flintstones and don’t know who they are. This year, we took the kids swimming at the campground. They’ve NEVER been in a real pool. We started to teach them to swim. That was fun actually.

    Custer, SD is the one place on our trip that we found a good church. We seriously contemplated living there and even looked at a house that was for sale. Decided it wasn’t the right place because it’s very isolated. Although we want to be in the country, Ron does still need to have fairly good access to stuff for the business. The nearest major grocery store was in Rapid City which is an hour away on a very twisty road that is almost always closed during the winter. So, we decided that probably wasn’t the place. But for a town of 1800, we loved it there.

    Not far from Custer is Mt. Rushmore, of course, That’s always a neat spot. Who wouldn’t like to see that?

    For touresty(sp?) stuff I guess that’s it. Our one big disappointment is we visited 4 states and 10 different churches and only one was really preaching the gospel the “old fashion way.” So many churches have watered down the gospel and placated to the world that there are no standards for music, dress or anything. It’s very sad. That’s probably the biggest reason we didn’t find a place to live. For us, when we find the church that we say, “this is it,” that’s where we’ll live. It’s important to us as homeschoolers to have that network for the kids.

    Okay – that’s a book full. Still looking forward to one more trip this year if Ron can escape from the business. I highly recommend renting a motorhome and travelling the country. The US is so beautiful in so many places. You’ll have a new view on overcrowding when you see just how much land we have that’s empty!! When we rented a MH about 6yrs ago I think when all was said and done (gas, rental, campgrounds, etc.) it was $5000. We were gone 2 weeks then. Our trips still cost us about $5k (although we own our MH) but we are usually gone for 3 weeks at a time. Fuel is a big cost. On this trip we went 3500 miles and our fuel cost was $1500. But if you look at flying someplace, staying in hotels, eating out, etc. it’s really not any different. AND, you get to stay on the road longer for that amount of money and see more stuff! I highly recommend it. It’s terrific for teaching kids stuff.

    Hope you all are well!

    patti

13. patti said,

    July 17, 2007 at 10:18 pm

    Quick side note. Tonight I went to buy flea dip shampoo for the dog (looking for a natural one) and disovered that Sargeants is now putting out a natural flea control that is administered just like the chemical ones. The ingredients are natural oils. Orange, peppermint, lemon, thyme and there are two others I can’t remember. Ron said we could just about put that in our cookies! Ha! Not. Just thought I’d share that for you Andrea. We’re going to put it on Bondo tomorrow.

    ‘Night.

    patti

14. Administrator said,

    July 18, 2007 at 10:07 am

    Hello Patti and welcome back!

    Wow, what a nice update! Thanks for taking the time to share all of that. I had wondered about those places you visited since I’ve never been to any of those states. Wall Drug sounds fun, but why did they have to give it that name? Horrible, ha ha! As I told you, I would like to visit Mt. Rushmore sometime and see other U.S. states. And I do agree with you regarding the amount of land that is empty. I recall several times driving and even flying for several hours seeing empty space. Makes you really doubt the overcrowding scares. I know people say that a lot of land is inhabitable, but I get the impression that some places people populate now weren’t so habitable friendly in the beginning, either. We have to work to make some places habitable. Also farming practices need to be improved so that they don’t deplete the soils and leave them wastelands. There’s a good book called, Farmers of 40 Centuries that discusses that issue. And when we read about how some large fishing industries drag fishing nets 35 miles long! it’s no wonder they are over-fishing the seas! But even so, it’s easy to see how much food wastes are produced every single day. We’ve got markets and restaurants and buffet restaurants up the ying yang, all overflowing with food and spoilage, and people scream we won’t be able to sustain our population. Well, yeah! With all the waste! It needs to be done differently, I think. But *not* just reduce the population, but manage land and resources better. Okay, I’m done with my rant, ha!

    That’s fantastic news about Luke! Sounds like he’s making progress. Sometimes it seems that if you’ve had a problem for a while, you don’t see immediate changes when you make dietary changes, but they may come gradually or in spurts. Good luck with the chiropractic visit as well. You know Pagano discusses chiropractic needs for some psoriatics, too. He claims that when the spine in out of alignment is certain spots, it hampers digestion and seems to be a contributing factor to psoriasis. I thought that was an interesting twist, but makes sense to me.

    I didn’t know that Grace has scoliosis. I’m not too familiar with the details of scoliosis, does it hurt her? I have been exposed to a fair share of back troubles from my dad, my husband, and even myself. So, I do respect the importance of taking good care of the back.

    Yes, I have had the practice of sprouting my grains for a while. I learned about that when I was transfusion dependent, but later I just went off the grains, so stopped all that sprouting stuff. Although I still soaked rice for my family, and more recently I’ve started cooking up some beans for the boys and naturally, those I soak overnight. I have tried soaking lots of other grains and even still have a list of how long it is recommended to soak each type of grain. But once they start to sprout, their consistency is not the same as a nice fluffy bread. I’ve made crackers out of them, which actually were pretty tasty, but for the amount of work and time that goes into making them, I gave up, ha! Plus, my diet program was changing, so that I was not eating as much raw as I had been. My diet pendulum has really swung from one side to the other and places in between. It’ll likely continue to change as I go along. I’ve gone completely vegan, then completely raw vegan, then heavy on the meats, and then “raw” meat diets, juicing, heavy grains, lots of fruits, etc., etc., etc. And “still” there are lots of diets out there that I have not tried. There’s a lot out there. So I’m sure I’ll be experimenting for a long time to come yet until I feel that I’ve come to a place that I’m satisfied. I’ve made good progress, but I’d like more! I will say that my sleep has been wonderful! Now I rarely even get up to pee at night! It’s easy to get to sleep, and I sleep tight! And even dream lots. So different from just a year ago!

    Oop, gotta take a break from the computer, so will continue later. But quickly, I only have one other picture of you, Patti, and it’s a family picture with you “behind” the kids. You can’t see much of you except from the neck up, ha! So if you have a better comparison picture, that would be great, and I’ll post them. The pic size you sent from Wall Drug is good because I can crop out some of the background and still have a fairly close up pic of you. I would rather crop, than to shrink the pic down, otherwise we lose a lot of resolution. And there is only so much space that the blog page allows.

    Okay! Toodles for now! Oh, wait, really quickly, are dogs okay with garlic? Somewhere in the back of my mind I recall reading that dogs and cats can’t metabolize garlic and onions well. Will have to look that one up to be sure. Probably a small amount would be okay, but not heavy amounts like we do for humans! Ha ha!

    Okay, “now” Toodles,

    Marla

15. Andrea said,

    July 18, 2007 at 5:52 pm

    Hi Patti–Wonderful to hear from you again. Thanks for the Sargent’s tip! I used the Frontline too–when it got hot here, the fleas exploded–and it didn’t seem to have any negative effect on the dogs and it did get rid of the fleas–it took about a week. I’m going to see if I can get something nontoxic for the house to kill them in the house so’s I don’t have to give them another dose.

    Sorry you couldn’t find the right church. I agree with you that when you walk into a place you “know” if it’s right for you or not. It’s a gut thing, I think.

    As to garlic, I’ve been giving my dogs a combo of yeast (for B vitamins) and garlic for a couple of years. It hasn’t seemed to bother them AND it did reduce–but not eliminate–the number of ticks they brought home. So, I’m continuing it. BUT my son Tom just worked for a dog-sled place, and they told him you shouldn’t feed onions to dogs. Hm, I don’t know!

    On the same note, here’s an interesting occurence. At the camp where I counseled (where the labyrinth is), the mosquitoes were very plentiful. Everyone was spraying Off and other DEET-based repellants like crazy–talk about toxic!–and still getting eaten alive. I personally counted 5 huge bites on a girl in my cabin who was covered with Deet.

    I used no repellent, and I got one small bite the whole week. Now, why would that be? The bugs used to love me.

    My theory is that it is because I don’t eat sugar and haven’t eaten sugar, or even honey or maple syrup, in a number of years. I had heard that “if you stop eating sugar, the bugs will leave you alone”, but never really believed it. And it’s not a method that works fast, when I first cut out sugar I sure didn’t notice anything. And maybe that’s not really it! But anyway, wanted to report that. I was quite comfortable at the campfire, while everyone was slapping and spraying away.

    Good night! Andrea

    PS–I’ll find that Bible quote for you, Marla! I’m very big on quoting the Bible, but I have a hard time remembering where stuff is.

16. patti said,

    July 18, 2007 at 7:03 pm

    Andrea,

    Sargeants also makes a natural house powder that you sprinkle on rugs and furniture and then vacuum up to take care of the the fleas. hey have a house spray too. I don’t know which oils are in those but they are also supposed to be “natural.” I am so glad to finally see something natural! Decided against the garlic for her since we found that stuff.

    We found that if you take a used or unused dryer sheet and safety pin it to yourself the bugs will also leave you alone. A little yuckier then not eating sugar, but hey, it beats DEET! Actually, we use this on our MH. We attach a dryer sheet at the door of the motorhome and the bugs stay away from it so when we go in and out we don’t get any bugs in the MH. Works great!

    Gotta jet. Tons to do tonight. We are trying to change our household schedule and it’s killing me right now. My body is NOT used to getting up at 6:00am!

    Marla, I’ll have to look long and hard for another picture. I avoid the camera at all costs! You might get stuck cropping my face out of the one you have. At least you can still the difference in my face. But I will look first……

    later,

    patti

17. patti said,

    July 18, 2007 at 7:08 pm

    Oh – p.s Luke had another dry night last night!! We are so excited!

    patti

18. Administrator said,

    July 23, 2007 at 10:16 am

    Hi Ladies!

    Great news about Luke! I hope he is continuing to have more dry days! Woo hoo! Good for him!

    Regarding the onions and garlic for dogs and cats, I remember now how I came across it. Along my travels learning about blood disorders, I came across some info that onions and garlic can cause heinz body anemia in dogs and cats. In other words, it can cause hemolytic anemia in them. Here’s a link which discusses it. http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=1&cat=1935&articleid=2414 Apparently, small amounts of garlic seem to be okay for dogs, but cats seem to be more sensitive than dogs to it. Would be good to know exactly how much is little, tho.

    Laters for now!

    Marla

19. patti said,

    July 23, 2007 at 8:21 pm

    Marla,

    Thanks for the info, Marla. The gal that I read from said one capsule of garlic one day and only every so often after that if fleas come back again. She said it can’t be done daily (now I know why!). However, now that we’ve found the Sargeants natural stuff we won’t be using the garlic. Course, we haven’t put the natural stuff on either yet because she’s still under the effects of the yucky stuff. Funny thing is, Grace cried when we put the other stuff on her. She BEGGED us not to put chemicals into her dog! Isn’t it funny how much our kids learn just from listening/watching us? They say more is caught then taught. When my girls play dolls they always talk about needing to give them “this herb or that herb” to heal their bad cold, etc. etc. It cracks us up!

    Luke saw the chiro again today. It definately helps his nights to make sure he doesn’t get any of his allergens in the day. The chiro did say the underpants alarm is a good thing for training him to wake up for the morning potty run so I think we’re going to go ahead and do that. He turns 8 this Thursday. If he could be dry all night by the end of the summer he would be so so happy. For now, we all do the happy dance when he has a dry night. I’m so glad I didn’t listen to our family doctor. The guy is a christian but is so AMA!

    As for Grace’s scoliosis – Marie also has it. She inherited it as far as I know. It’s mild. One hip is higher then then other. It doesn’t cause her pain but we do check it once a year or so to make sure it’s not getting out of hand. Marie had a lot of trouble when she was in her mid-40’s. She had tons of pain from it. We ended up taking her to 6 weeks of physical therapy and she was fine after that. So for Grace, it’s just a keep and eye on it sort of thing.

    The kids had dentist appts. today. No cavities. Yippee. That doesn’t sound like a big deal but when Grace was younger she has such aggressive bacteria in her mouth that she constantly had cavities! I cut out flouride toothpaste and started having her rinse with ACT flouride at night and she hasn’t had a cavity since. I did some research on liquid flouride and found it’s not the same stuff they use in the water or the toothpaste. The naturapath said it’s much safer because it’s rinsed and spit out so I figure that’s even better then the toothpaste stuff.

    Marla, awhile ago I mentioned the kids were using Tom’s of Maine toothpaste and you said it had SLS in it. I checked and you’re right! But I do have a question about it. It says on mine that the SLS is from coconut oil. Is that still bad??? I found a flouride-less toothpaste I’ve been using but the kids prefer the Tom’s for taste.

    Okay – I am in severe detox mode and it’s killing me. She upped my Guna number drops and wow! I’ve been having to take 2 and 3 pain pills a day. That seems like a total contradiction to me?! I’m putting more junk in my liver just to keep detoxing it? There has got to be something else for the pain. But it’s unbearable so I can’t go without nothing. But for now, I guess detoxing is good. :\

    Better run. More later.

    patti

20. Administrator said,

    July 23, 2007 at 11:08 pm

    Hi Patti:

    More good news for Luke. That’s great! And cute about Grace begging you not to put chemicals on your dog, ha! I know what you mean about kids picking things up from us and using it during play. . . When Andrew and Matty were little, they had one of those little motorized Jeeps. The two boys got into the Jeep and drove around the grass. One time we were sitting there watching them drive around and guess what they yelled as they pulled up to a stop? “Free parking!” Ha ha ha! Hmm. Now where did they get that idea from? Ha ha!

    Regarding the SLS, the most common source for it is coconuts. The “L,” which stands for lauryl refers to “lauric acid,” which is a fat in coconuts. It’s actually a predominant constituent of it. However, SLS is not a natural substance (even though lauric acid is) and is highly processed. SLS does not occur in nature even though it comes from coconuts. SLS is basically a detergent and breaks up fats and oils, which our bodies are made up of. Hence you can expect that it can not only disrupt the fatty acids in your body, but it can also penetrate your body. Who knows what it does when it gets in there. Our bone marrows have a high amount of fat, as do our brains. What happens if that stuff gets in there? Our nerves are also lined with fats and are essential for its proper function. What happens when SLS gets in there? I don’t see any tests or studies done with that. I wouldn’t use it knowingly.

    Regarding fluoride, there’s a big controversy regarding its safety and efficacy for strengthening bones. I have a book called Fluoride: The Aging Factor. http://www.amazon.com/Fluoride-Aging-Factor-Recognize-Devastating/dp/0913571032 This book discusses the various hazards of fluoride to our health including “fluorosis,” a condition which damages the teeth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_fluorosis The book goes into more areas other than teeth such as the skeletal system and the skin, etc. There is another book called, The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluoride-deception.htm He goes into more details about the history of fluoride use and how “sodium fluoride” which is the type used in toothpaste and mouth rinses came into being. Basically, “sodium fluoride” is a waste product of aluminum and nuclear production. It is a waste product that they didn’t know what to do with. Bryson has a fascinating video explaining how it became accepted into society. http://www.fluoridealert.org/bryson.htm Bottom line is that he believes (as do many others) that fluoride is a toxin and not beneficial to our bones and teeth. Personally, I don’t know of any reason our bodies use fluoride and that fluoride is known to inhibit enzyme functions. I’m sure this is another one of those AMA things where they’ll fight tooth and nail to claim it’s safe. I’m sure their watch dogs such as Urban Legends and Quackwatch will claim fluoride is just as safe as mercury, ha ha!

    Now, having said that, “calcium fluoride” does exist naturally in nature. There are some proponents who claim that small amounts of calcium fluoride is okay, while “sodium fluoride” is not. Sodium fluoride is a waste product, while calcium fluoride occurs naturally in nature. Problem is, I’m betting that most products touting fluoride use “sodium” fluoride in the products. I wouldn’t touch it.

    Has your naturopath suggested any natural pain management? What has she suggested you use?

    Better scoot off to bed!

    Night!

    Marla

21. patti said,

    July 27, 2007 at 8:17 pm

    For them to list SLS from coconut oil then seems pretty disingenuous to me. I will have to find another toothpaste for them.

    I’ve known for a long time about flouride being a by-product of aluminum manufacturing. I would have to say there must be some merit to at least swishing with it because until Grace started doing that nightly she literally had 5 or 6 cavities every 6 months when we went to the dentist. Her and Ron have extremely aggressive mouth bacteria and it just attacks their teeth no matter how much they brush. Ron uses tea tree oil drops on his tooth paste and that has fixed his problem. Grace wouldn’t touch the stuff since it’s so gross. I bought Ron the tea tree oil toothpaste and he said it’s so bad tasting he’d rather stick with putting the drops on his toothpaste. So, I’ll have to see if I can find an alternative with tea tree oil in it. It works great for knocking out the aggressive bacteria. Ron got home from the dentist the other day with no cavities! He was the same way Grace was. Always, no matter how much he brushed and flossed had cavities. The tea tree seems to be working well for him. He was thrilled! Oy, Grace is so picky. I’ll have to find something though…. in the meantime, I’m sticking with the flouride rinse over flouride toothpaste. I’d rather that then cavities at the moment. It’s a yucky choice!

    Reuter recommended I take my herbal “knock out” drops that she gave me when mom was sick for my nighttime pain thinking if we can just knock me out the pain won’t bother me. The problem I’m having with that is I usually need them around 8:30pm and I don’t usually go to bed until midnight. Those things knock me out in 20 minutes. Geez, my kids aren’t even in bed at that time. Or they’re just barely in bed and I’m just starting to get stuff done. I checked with my welltellme site and someone is working on an herbal pain reliever that will rival codeine. When she gets it she’s going to give it to me. I’m hoping to find something soon!

    Other then that, not much on the health front. The dog has lost 4 baby teeth this last 24hrs and the poor thing is teething like crazy. I’ve been giving her ice cubes to chew on and that seems to help but she’s chewing on everything!!! At one point she got ahold of one of my bible study books and tore off the cover. Eeeks. Oh well. Puppyhood will be over soon enough. It’s like having a baby though!

    We’ve been giving the dog a raw food diet for just over a week now and she seems so much more active and healthy. It’s not anymore expensive then a good dog food (about $30 a month) but it is more then WE would spend on dog food. Still, we notice enough of a difference it’s worth it. And she loves it! Of course.

    That’s about it. I always have tons to say but can’t tonight. Oh, we got an offer on mom’s house today. Yeah. It’s been on the market for a couple of months now. We’ll see what happens.

    Chou for now.

    patti

22. Administrator said,

    July 28, 2007 at 8:59 am

    Congrats on the offer on your mom’s house, Patti! That was fast! Hope that pans out.

    Boy, when dogs get into that “chewing” stage! Ack! Amazing what they can chew up! Glad to hear that he’s on a diet that’s working well for him and your budget.

    Regarding the fluoride, you mentioned that the fluoride used in the rinse is different from that used in water and toothpaste. Can you send me a link to some literature on that? I would like to know what the difference is. As far as I see, the fluoride used in ACT rinse is “sodium fluoride,” same as in toothpaste, and technically the ones used in toothpaste are also “topical.” We aren’t supposed to swallow toothpaste, either, so I’m wondering what the difference is.

    So am I understanding this correctly, Grace got lots of cavities even while brushing with fluoridated toothpaste, but stopped getting cavities after rinsing with fluoridated rinse? Are you sure it’s the fluoride that’s making this change? I think you are familiar with the Weston Price Foundation. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading Weston Prices’s book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. As you may already know, Price was a dentist, and his studies were originally designed to study dental caries. He made some very, very insightful observations as to what appears to be the contributing factors to cavities. There were quite a few groups of people he studies who didn’t even brush their teeth, yet had no cavities and straight teeth. His contention was that the health of the teeth is an indication of the overall health of the individual, not something just inherited or bad luck. Good, good book! I recommend it for anyone concerned about health and teeth.

    Anyway, better get off the computer for now! Yak more later! Hope you find a better way to manage that pain of yours! No fun. No fun at all! Wah.

    Marla

23. patti said,

    July 29, 2007 at 10:30 pm

    Hey Marla,

    Just a quick note. The stuff I read on flouride was one internet search I did a long time ago. I will search again to see if I can find it. In all fairness to whatever else is out there, I only read the stuff pertaining to liquid flouride being okay. I should clarify my statement about what Reuter said re: flouride. I didn’t mean it to sound like she recommended swishing with it over toothpaste because it was healthier – it was recommended that swishing with it would work better to reduce cavities more then brushing with it would. She felt cavities were a bigger health hazard in the long run to her health then swishing and spitting with the stuff. The change we saw in Grace came after she started swishing with the stuff. Prior to that they were just using regular toothpaste. After a few months (like 6) and a dentist check where she had no cavities for the first time in several years I decided I wouldn’t bother with the flouridated toothpaste since she was getting the flouride from swishing. My other kids don’t swish with the stuff – just Grace. She’s the only kid with major cavity issues. So I can only assume it was the swishing that helped. My only conclusion is that maybe the swishing gets more in between teeth and all over it then little kids bad brushing does? Don’t know. But maybe there’s some other reason. That’s just the only correlation I can make. I didn’t make any other diet changes during that time and her health didn’t change in any way. I totally agree that teeth indicate overall health. I just can’t figure her and Ron out other then the dentist said some people have aggressive bacteria. My mom and sister are both like this also. They’re also not real healthy. So I don’t know. I wish I had time to read all the the stuff you post about! Maybe when my kids get older and it’s too late?

    Anyways, I’ll see what I can come up with for you. I still owe you a picture too. Yeah, I know. I’m getting there. Life is so busy. In the meantime, if there’s some other way to help Grace besides swishing with the stuff, I’d be pleased to find out. I’m still really working at eliminating as much unnecessary chemical stuff out of our lives as we can.

    Have a good night!

    patti

24. Administrator said,

    July 30, 2007 at 8:32 pm

    Hey, Patti!

    Yeah, I’d be interested to read what you find on the fluoride.

    And yep, I’m still waiting for that picture! Ha! It would be better to have at least as much body showing as the more recent one. It’s not much of a comparison to just crop your head out of the other one!

    As far as my experience with my kids, I think I can see the difference with our diet changes. When Andrew was born, we never let him get into the habit of drinking sodas despite the fact that I guzzled the stuff like a fish (My diet was pretty bad although I didn’t realize it at the time!) And we never gave him much candies or treats like that at all. He did get lots of chips, tho! At that time, we also did not give him milk because I was concerned that he might be allergic to it like I had skin problems. . . errrrr I think that was a big mistake, but too late, now! What happened with Andrew is that he only had one cavity in his life. Fortunately, that was on a baby tooth, which has since long gone. BUT he has crooked teeth. . . Now at the time, I thought it was inevitable because I had crooked teeth as a child, as did my sisters. We all had braces. My parents don’t have good teeth, either. And Brian doesn’t have the best teeth, either! So I was pleased with the fact that he had no cavities.

    Now to the second kid. Also the same treatment, but this time we started to get back into milk. Matthew has the BEST teeth, not only of us, but in general. I’m amazed when I look at his teeth because not only are they cavity free, he never even had one on his baby teeth, but his teeth are extremely straight! They ALL FIT. Unlike me, who after braces STILL got crooked when my wisdoms came it. . . errrr. Matthew has never had sodas, very little candies, had milk, eats a wider variety of foods than Andrew. Just not a junk food eater at all. This amazes me because of how lousy my whole family’s teeth are. I can only attribute it to diet. He has not used fluoridated toothpaste since I got AA in 1999 and still has no cavities. When we went to the naturopath to check his heavy metal burden, my doc looked in his mouth expecting to find mercury fillings. His first comment was “Wow! No mercury in there!” And turned and looked at me with an incredulous look.

    Now for the last boy, I had to go back to work after I had Aaron. So my mom got a hold of Aaron a lot more. And she started to feed him like she fed me with treats and soda, etc. His teeth became horrible! Cavities popping up everywhere! And big holes! He even had to have one of his front teeth removed prematurely because it had gotten an abscess in the tooth that had a root canal. A “root canal!” Thank God it’s the only one we had to do for our kids, but that was not pleasant. Then I got AA. Aaron was 5 at the time. I was now home. We drastically changed the diet of all of us, including Aaron’s at 5 years old. He ate all his meals at home, and we packed his lunch for school. No more buying meals out and I could watch him like a hawk. Well, all his baby teeth with holes fell out one by one as they normally would. They came back in with nice clean teeth, no fluoridated toothpaste. His teeth are relatively straight. The top are all good, but the bottom has one tooth pushed in. But overall, nothing like my teeth were, and I don’t think his teeth would have been nice had he continued on his path with the stuff my mom was feeding him-sodas, and all kinds of treats. My feeling is that Aaron was young enough for a diet change to positively affect his second set of teeth. It has been over 7 years now, and Aaron still has no cavities, and I’m hoping that he’s still growing and “maybe” his lower jaw will still grow a bit to let that one tooth straighten out. If not, his teeth are not bad at all and it’s on his bottom jaw. For Andrew, his second set were already in. So although he had no cavities, the bone structure was lacking probably because we withheld the milk, and his diet wasn’t really fortified, just not “horrible.” So I do feel like I missed the boat with Andrew and feel a bit to blame that I didn’t feed him right. But I didn’t know back then. I was “indoctrinated” to think that bad teeth or crooked teeth were inherited or luck of the draw type thing. After reading Price, I don’t believe that anymore. So in my family, I think I’ve seen a little of what Dr. Weston Price documented in his book.

    Years ago, when I was looking into health stuffs, there was someone on one of the health forums I was a member of who wrote about a study using mice. They said that in the study sugar was injected into the stomachs of the mice to bypass the teeth, yet these mice still developed cavities. So it was their belief that too much sugar in the “system” contributed to cavities, and it didn’t even have to touch the teeth at all. If I find that study, I’ll post it.

    I can discuss my teeth experiences too since AA, ha! But that’s another book. . .

    That’s all for now!

    Marla

25. Andrea said,

    July 31, 2007 at 7:11 pm

    This is really interesting. Sugar’s got to be THE biggest cause of ill health of all sorts. And it’s everywhere! I was really a dragon with my kids and sugar, but it still leaked into their lives, via friends etc and then someitmes I’d just break down. I really like it was socially unacceptable, not giving my kids sugary stuff.
    But we never did the soda thing.

    Anyway, they all have gorgeous, straight teeth, no braces, only one grownup cavity in the four of them. I grew up on sugar donuts, my teeth are full of holes.

    Oh yes, I did not give them fluoride. We used ordinary toothpaste with fluoride, though.

    I’m wondering how you all feel about immunizations? I went “immunization-lite”–my youngest didn’t have any until we went to Honduras, we got him polio and tetanus before that trip. That was 9 years ago, so he’ll be due for another tetanus, if he decides to go that way. He’ls 18 and so can decide for himself–but I know he’ll want my opinion. Tom is outdoors alot, getting cut a lot, and I can’t say he’s that attentive to prompt wound care. What do you think?

    Andrea

26. Administrator said,

    August 1, 2007 at 4:16 pm

    Hi Andrea:

    The immunization thing is something to consider. For our family, we have come to avoid them as much as possible. And since you did also, I’m assuming you already read about them and the problems with them. When we first had Andrew, he got all the required immunizations, Matthew, too, for his age (unfortunately, the older kids are usually the “test” of “pilot” runs we make our first mistakes on, wah). By the time we had Aaron, I had started learning about the questionable value of them, including the possible dangers. So Aaron has not received any vaccinations to date. And so far, he has been fine. All three boys actually got chicken pox shortly after I got AA, and stayed at my parents for a couple weeks, ha! I did not take the Hep B vaccines that my hemo recommended for me when I was transfusion dependent.

    Anyway, back to your question about the tetanus vaccine. Here’s a link from Whale, http://www.whale.to/vaccines/tetanus.html It seems that some people who had updated tetanus vaccines still got tetanus. So even if your son gets vaccinated, he still needs to take good care of wounds because a tetanus vaccine isn’t 100 percent effective. Don’t know if I’ve seen any study which actually shows tests on a larger group of people who have had tetanus vaccines to see what the actual efficacy rate is. My suggestion for your son is to have him read up on tetanus, how it’s contracted, what types there are, how it’s treated, symptoms, etc. Perhaps that will help him to decide on what to do and may encourage him to be more diligent with prompt wound care. I should probably do the same because I’m guilty, too, of not providing myself with prompt wound care! Ack!

    Take care!

    Marla

27. Andrea said,

    August 1, 2007 at 4:31 pm

    Thanks Marla. I’ll print out stuff from the link and send it to him. I personally would actually rather see him really be diligent about caring for cuts than rely on the vaccine, which, as you point out, is not 100% effective anyway.

    He is a really solid 18yo, but he does have a bit of that typical young feeling of indestructibility. Which was perhaps modified a bit by seeing his dad so very very sick in ‘05. He was the only child that saw Rob so low on RBCs he started to pass out when he stood up. He was the only child who saw Rob’s seizure. So that may have sobered him up a bit.

    Andrea

28. patti said,

    August 2, 2007 at 10:25 pm

    Very quick note. We did the same thing with vaccines that Marla did. Our first got what was recommended for her age until age 2. The second got less as I began to learn more about vaccines and our third got almost none and the ones she got I controlled very carefully when they were given and did not mix vaccines. Still, today, I’d do none. Not even tetanus. This is NOT scientific, but here’s a thread on one of the forums I’m on that talks about tetanus. I found it interesting. Also, my friend’s ND said it is not necessary to get a tetanus shot even if one “steps on a rusty nail.” The forum thread talks a little about why, etc. http://www.welltellme.com/discuss/index.php/topic,3511.0.html

    Yep, I’d do so much differently if I could go back. Luke and Grace have both suffered the consequences of vaccines. The ND believes both egg allergies are the result of the Hib vaccine. I checked the age that Luke got his and the age/date his hives started. Yup, 14mos. The third Hib vaccine he got overtaxed his immune system and he’s never been the same. I’m thankful God spared him from anything more serious but will enocourage everyone that asks me to not vaccinate their kids.

    Gotta jet.

    patti

29. Administrator said,

    August 3, 2007 at 11:08 am

    Thanks, Patti, for sharing that link. The comments were enlightening, and I also found the link http://nccn.net/~wwithin/tetanus.htm mentioned on that thread to be of interest, as well. I am now more inclined to not want a tetanus vaccine. The discussion also shed some light on the “rusty” nail thing. Several weeks ago, I was at the market, and reached in a “rusty wire” crate of egg cartons. I actually didn’t notice it was rust wire crate until I cut the outside of one of my fingers as I pulled the carton of eggs out. The cut did draw blood, and was about an inch long. I was a bit annoyed and wanted to bring it up to someone at the store that the crates have sharp edges. But the market was busy, and I was also in a rush and had some other errands to run. So I let it go. I had debated at least to bring it up just so I could ask for antiseptic and a band aide because I was not going straight home, but I didn’t. The cut healed just fine. But it was in the back of my mind that the wire was rusty, and being that they carried chicken eggs, feces could have been contaminating parts of the crates. But from the tetanus thread you linked us to, I learned that the cut has to be much deeper anyway. I think that is good to know!

    This topic has reminded me of something–”well baby doc visits.” When our kids were first born, we did the usually rounds of vaccines. They were scheduled doc appts every month. When Aaron was born, we told the doc that we chose not to vaccinate him. Interestingly, then our doc told me that he didn’t need to see Aaron until one year (or once a year from then on). . . Hmmm. That made me wonder why, and perhaps all those monthly well baby visits are really to keep up with vaccines and anything related to them. Otherwise, why would Aaron, who was scheduled to have no vaccines be told that he didn’t need to see the doc, but once a year when both his brothers who had kept on the vaccine schedule were told to have monthly doc visits? Anyway, that was years ago, and fortunately, the boys have been fine for the most part. And just for the record, I did like their pediatrician. He didn’t give me flack when he learned that I chose to go with a midwife with my third son, and also didn’t give me flack when I told him that we chose not to vaccinate him. He was gentle, and I could tell by the way he talked and handled the kids that he loved kids.

    Oh, and now I remember something else, ha ha! I know one other thing the well baby visits check for. . . “child abuse.” You know how the doc looks under their clothes and stuff, checking all around. Well, once I asked the doc what he was looking for when he would turn my babies over and look at their butts. I mean that was like every visit. He said, “Oh, just in case anything has grown there.” ????? Huh? Yeah, I think he saw the wheels turning in my head. “What would grow there?,” I asked. I mean I was genuinely concerned! What should I look out for? And he said, “Oh, well, if it hasn’t already, then probably nothing.” I thought that was odd. Then while working at the courthouse for Children’s Services, I noticed that lots of child abuse cases were reported from docs and hospitals. A sad amount of them being sexual abuse cases against relatives/family members. Ugh, what a terrible thing to remember. Unfortunately, some of the reports are permanently stuck in my head and is a good example of why it is very important to be careful with what we expose ourselves to. There are just some things you never fully forget.

    Anyway, chat laters,

    Marla

30. Andrea said,

    August 3, 2007 at 3:07 pm

    My history is so similar to both of yours, it’s really funny. Noah got fully vaccinated. That was back in ‘79-80, when there were fewer vaccines recommended for babies. No chicken pox, not Hepatitus–just DPT, MMR, and polio.

    My second, Laura, also got fully vaccinated. Almost. I never took her back for her one year boosters. I had lost trust in the medical establishment because of my birth experience with her–the doctor wanted to do something that was VERY high risk to me, and I had done my homework and knew that it was dangerous (pitocin induction on a cesarean scar), and then he got really mad and walked out on me. So, I started doing some homework, and doubting vaccinations.

    With Annie, my third–she was born at home–I took her in for the 2 month vaccines, I was still not sure, and then never took her back again. Tom got nothing. Is it coincidence her was the healthiest of my kids? I don’t know. Noah had pretty bad asthma when he was young, Laura got a lot of colds and pneumonia, Annie and Tom were hardly ever sick.

    But I do feel somewhat haunted by the story of a community in Washington state where nobody vaccinated, and there was a pretty serious outbreak of something–I forget what. Maybe diptheria? So, I don’t know what to think. And, before we went to Honduras, we did get everyone polio and tetanus. Tom was 8 and it didn’t seem nearly as sketchy to be vaccinating an 8yo immune system, and of course all the others were even older. And Noah of course has had to have all kinds of shots to work in hospitals. Fortunately he’s stayed pretty healthy despite this.

    Andrea

31. patti said,

    August 4, 2007 at 3:04 pm

    I wanted to post one more quick note on my bladder stuff. Awhile ago on welltellme.com there was a discussion about DMSO and it’s oxygenating/healing/pain relief properties. I took forever to buy some but finally did and started using it last week. I put some on a cotton pad and rub it across where my bladder and adrenals are. It gets very warm for a minute. But any bladder pain I have is instantly relieved. I did this for a few days and still had to take two pain pills a day to be able to go all night without pain. Well, last night, I made it through on one and just the DMSO. I’ve been putting it on anytime I have pain and in the AM and PM. The instant pain relief seems to last for 1 1/2 hrs. Sometimes longer if it’s usually a good part of the day for me anyway. So, this is very interesting and I’m curious to see what happens in the coming weeks. It would be interesting if I can use strictly DMSO for pain relief eventually. Also, it’s supposed to have tremendous healing properties so we’ll see what happens. My husband was a little concerned since it’s a solvent but I told him that the only medical thing it is approved for is bladder washes for people with IC like me. But my sister told me to stay away from the bladder wash that it will cause more damage. I wonder if it’s because it’s too close to the damage and by doing it transdermally it’s less damaging somehow? Don’t know. Anyways, thought I’d share that.

    Andrea, isn’t it funny how the more kids we have the more we change how we do things? You’re correct about vaccinating older kids being less damaging to the immune system. Although, I wouldn’t recommend it on a regular basis, doing it older when one has to would be better then a baby.

    patti

32. Administrator said,

    August 4, 2007 at 4:05 pm

    Oh, that’s great that you may have found something to help! I used to belong to a DMSO forum, so I had read lots of their testimonies of the benefits of DMSO. Some even used them on their animals like their horses with good results. I personally haven’t used it, but Brian did on his grandmother during her last days here. Close to the end, she developed two small bed sore spots. One spot started to break open, and that scared Brian. So he used some DMSO on it, and it really helped heal it up fast! He was amazed, really. And even when the people came to pick her up when she passed, they commented on how good she looked. I didn’t know, but my RN sister told me that yeah she did look pretty good because elderly people commonly get lots of bed sores and bigger. So kudos for Brian since he’s basically the one who cared for his grandma. But it didn’t smell too good, ack! Her room smelled like garlic. That didn’t really bother me, but I do know others are sensitive. My sister got on my case a few times when I went on my garlic stint for a while. I personally like garlic smell, but my sister does not.

    When I was getting EDTA chelation therapy years ago at the beginning of my AA diagnosis, there was a couple who would also get IV EDTA for prophylactic measures, heh. They were a cute couple, and they explained to me that they always requested DMSO to be added at the end of their infusion. They knew not to go anywhere because they wouldn’t be smelling too good for a while, ha ha! But who cares? They just timed it so they knew when the smell would wear off.

    And that reminds me that just last week I was at the herb shop and there was an article on MSM being good for arthritis. The article was describing how MSM or sulfur is one of the products that come from the breakdown of DMSO. I thought that interesting that they were relating sulfur to helping arthritis because I used to have stiff necks a lot, and after I drowned myself in my onion soup purees, I haven’t had problems with my neck. Onions are supposed to be a natural source for sulfur.  This has been over a year ago now, actually going on two years, I think. I think I did buy a book on DMSO, but I don’t think I’ve read the whole thing, yet. Shame on me!

    Anyway, it sounds like good news that it’s helping you to cut down on your pain pills. Keep us updated on it!

    Regarding the vaccines, yes, I agree that for babies, it’s really Russian Roulette. I heard a woman named Dr. Bonnie Dunbar who works with the creation of vaccines and who also mentioned that a lot is not known about the immune systems of babies and their response to vaccines. So it’s a dicey subject. And the same woman, Dr. Dunbar’s brother, who was also working in her lab took the Hep B vaccine and appears to have developed an autoimmune condition because of it. She said it was called POTS, but I’m not sure what it stands for. Whatever it is, he is disabled. And another one of her colleagues also developed a negative reaction to the hep B vaccine as well. So these are adults whose immune systems were not able to cope with whatever the vaccines introduced. I’m sure there are other factors involved, but it appears that adults are not immune to adverse reactions to vaccines.

    Take care, ladies,

    Marla

33. Andrea said,

    August 5, 2007 at 10:51 am

    It’s scary to contemplate. I thank God that all my kids have stayed relatively healthy. It’s even curious to me–I had a benign ovarian cyst in adolescence, as did my mother and aunt, as did my grandmother, so I was holding my breath waiting for my daughters. . . and neither one did! Is it a recessive gene that’ll pop up in a granddaughter? Or a relatively healthy lifestyle–we kept them as low in sugar and TV as we possibly could, lots of fruit and grains and vegetables, lots of time outdoors. I don’t know. I just know that bombarding little tiny babies’ complex immune systems feels wrong, in a common-sense kind of way.

    My med school son Noah said something interesting to me. He said that the whole idea of “boosting” or “suppressing” the immune system really makes no sense, because the immune system is all about communication and accuracy, more than strength. The communication is the key, the information that this is Good for the person, this is Bad. He also said that the immune system is way way way complex and nobody really totally understands it.

    So–if it is very complex, and it is about quality of communication, accuracy, and if nobody really understands it–wouldn’t it make sense to use a little restraint in messing with it?

    While I’ve got you ladies’ ears, can you recommend something for swollen knees? The soft tissues around and in my knee occasionally get swollen. Time (one-two days of rest) heals this, and careful attention to the alignment of my feet prevents it, but I did NOT pay careful attention at VBS this week, and cavorted around like a 5yo, and now I’m paying. Any ideas for treatment besides rest?

    Andrea

34. Administrator said,

    August 5, 2007 at 10:06 pm

    Oh, ouch, Andrea! I’m not very knowledgeable about joints. But I do intend to learn more, especially since my joints are aging, and just about 3 weeks ago my right thumb is doing weird things. . . wah. It started by locking up in the AM when I woke up. It has been doing that every day since! To make a long story short, I have been trying massage on it. Specifically certain meridian points as indicated in Tui Na massage. I only started a few days ago with it, and it does seem to be loosening back up again, but still not completely “fixed.” And there is a tender spot at the base of my thumb still, so I know it’s still not right. This is very strange to me, since I’ve never experienced it before. But basically according to Chinese medicine, it seems that this type of condition(my thumb locking or perhaps it’s a form of arthritis, boo hoo!), and maybe the swollen knees as well, is caused by stagnation. Something is blocked, and that is why certain meridian points are worked/massaged, and certain massage techniques recommended. I’ll see if there is a section for swollen knees or knees in general and see what it says. In addition to that, I’m trying to eat a little more fruit. . . more on that later. As you may remember, I had cut out the fruit because of skin issues, which I was suspecting was linked to candida overgrowth.

    This massage/meridian stuff is a bit complicated for me, but interesting nonetheless. Brian has been reading up on it to compliment his study of herbs, so he’s really the one more knowledgeable about it than I. Apparently, the meridian points for the yin organs are on the front of the body, while the meridian points for the yang organs are on the back. Examples of yin organs are the solid organs like the liver, heart, kidneys, spleen, while an example of yang organs are the bladder, gall bladder, colon, intestine, stomach, which are hollow organs. And various organs are related to other parts of our bodies, like for my thumb problem, the lung meridian seems to be connected and possibly the colon. And interestingly, in Chinese medicine, the lungs are linked to skin issues, and in western alternative medicine, the colon is linked to skin conditions as well. The thing is, my skin has been clearing up, so what’s with the thumb? Grrr. Maybe stuff is “shifting” about, I don’t know. Just gotta keep plugging away.

    I agree with Noah about the immune system thing. In the AA community, immunosuppression is king because the common explanation given to us by the docs is that our immune system is “too strong” and attacking our own bone marrow. So their solution is to “suppress” our immune system. But really if you think about it, how can one have an immune system that is too strong? A “healthy” immune system is strong enough to kill off cancer cells and other foreign invaders. That’s its job. How much stronger than “kill” is there? Basically, the “wrong” cells are being killed, so it’s not that the immune system is too strong, but rather “misguided,” “malfunctioning,” or exactly like Noah said, “not receiving and giving proper instructions or communication.” And I’ve had my own ideas of what else might be happening, and that is, that maybe the immune system is not malfunctioning but rather actually detecting some foreign material that the docs aren’t detecting. Maybe there is some foreign substance that the immune system is rightly trying to eliminate within our stem cells?

    Anyway, I agree about not messing with the immune system. I prefer not to. And in regard to boosting the immune system, I consider what boosting the immune system means is that we are “improving” immune “function.” Improving immune function, to me, means that it is boosting the immune response or making it more efficient in doing what immune cells normally should do–patrol and defend the body. I tend to think that some others think that boosting the immune system means something else because I know there are AAers who are afraid to take vit C for fear of “boosting” their immune system. I think because they are thinking in light of strong vs weak. My question would be, “what causes the immune system to be faulty?” Does vit C cause the immune system to be faulty? I don’t think so, so I don’t think Vit C would cause more autoimmune reactions. I think something else is causing the miscommunication or attack on the wrong cells. I’m more inclined to think that malnourished immune cells or damaged cells (some cells are damaged through malnutrition, chemical exposures, or viruses, etc.) would misbehave and not have the ability for proper cellular communication. But that’s my layman’s understanding.  I know there are other explanations like something triggering the immune cells to become hyperactive and all, but then we can keep going on with this discussion for a long time, ha!

    Anyway, lots more to talk about, but I’ve got to get up early tomorrow, so better dash.

    Have a great day!

    Marla

35. patti said,

    August 6, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    Hey ladies, dropping in for a quick minute. I totally agree with what you both are saying about the immune system, signals, etc. etc.

    Andrea, I’ve had the best success with my joints using large doses of MSM. I would take 1000mg twice or three times a day. I had surgery on my left hand and my left toe years ago and when the weather changes it becomes very painful and feels swollen internally. I take the MSM and it provides major pain relief and the joint doesn’t feel so “hot” for lack of better terms. Maybe that would help your knee.

    Marla, so far, I’m not sure how impressed I am with chinese medicine by way of yin/yang, etc. Chinese medicine is so spiritually oriented that I’m very careful with it. I use it though! I take my chinese herbs daily for my bladder. It’s just the other stuff I’m more careful with. The “energy,” “yin and yang” stuff. But I think there’s a good place for chinese medicine with careful and eyes wide open use.

    Marla, have a question for you regarding DMSO. I saw Reuter this morning and she is very concerned that I’m using this. She said she has no doubt that it works, her concern is the law of unintended consequences. DMSO IS a solvent and even the pharmaceutical grade stuff (which she doesn’t think I could get my hands on) is iffy. Her concern is putting one of the #1 cancer causing substances into my fat cells via the skin and the possibility of trading one disease for another that is life threatening. We know it’s the sulfur in the DMSO that is helpful so I told her I’d try MSM daily for my bladder for a month and see what happens. But I am curious what you think about what she said. I do understand the law of unintended consequences and I do understand that there really isn’t a lot of research on DMSO and what research there is it is usually distilled DMSO that is being used. And I know what I’m using is not distilled. It says “99.9% pure” but who knows? So, now I’m a little freaked out. What think ye? Also, solvents are known to cause neurological diseases like parkinsons and alzheimers.

    Okay, gotta jet. We’re leaving again to try and settle on a church and home this week so got lots to do.

    patti

    p.s. oh! I found you a picture. At least one that shows more of me. It’s a yucker but at least you can see the weight loss. I’ll send it soon.

36. Andrea said,

    August 6, 2007 at 2:44 pm

    Thanks, ladies. BTW, in Chinese medicine, the knees are related to the heart. I don’t know what that means in my case–just something to think about.

    Glad your thumb is improving, Marla. Patti, what is MSM? I would like to try it.

    As to the “spiritual” element of Chinese medicine–the “energy” and the “yin-yang” bit–my understanding of these terms is not at all in conflict with my Christian faith. In fact, I find it complements and enlightens my faith to understand these concepts. For example, in Genesis it says, ‘In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.” In Chinese thought, “yang” is the energy of heaven, “yin” is the energy of Earth. If we Christians believe that God is everywhere, present in every aspect of Creation, it would make sense–to me, anyway, as a strictly amateur theologian–that His holy energy would be everywhere, too, and that there would be two kinds of energy–one heavenly, one earthly.

    Interestingly too, many Chinese are very strong Christians, there was and maybe still is a very strong missionary movement there. Rob’s Chinese doctor is a Christian.

    But of course it is always advisable to keep one’s eyes open, as you say.

    Andrea

37. Administrator said,

    August 6, 2007 at 6:17 pm

    Hi Ladies!

    Brian and I have considered the spiritual influence Chinese medicine may have, also. That was definitely a concern for us, and we had discussed this before Brian enrolled in his herbology course. So far it has not gotten spiritual or mystical, but the Indian portion, according to Brian, had some inferences to spiritual stuff, but very little. I’ll ask Brian if he wouldn’t mind and make a post here regarding herbology and Christianity. I’m sure he would explain it much better than I would, including why he chose Chinese herbology over American herbology. The yin and yang thing is complicated, but maybe Brian can share a little of that, too. I see it in light of “balance” in many aspects of the body be it too hot or too cold, which relates to being over fed or under fed, whether the organ is weak or strong, or damp or dry, etc. Very different from western thinking and terminology, but when explained makes a lot of sense. Nothing spiritual at all at this point either to explain it.

    Andrea, MSM is methylsulfonylmethane. Here’s a little more detail on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylsulfonylmethane One of the common claims benefits is what Patti said regarding joints. It’s also touted to reduce or remove scar tissue.

    Patti, regarding the DMSO, yes, I have heard some controversy about it because since it can penetrate tissues so easily, there has been concern that it can carry toxins in with it (this includes metals and other chemicals). So one of the precautions is to make sure that the skin is clean before application. The book I have on DMSO (which I still have not fully read. . . ) is by Dr. Morton Walker. It’s called DMSO, Nature’s Healer. He has a lot to say about DMSO, but here is one thing he warns against:

    “Many of the industrial grade DMSO solutions have an acid or acetone contamination of several percent. Although this solvent grade is being used for pharmaceutical purposes from one end of the country to the other, there is some hazard involved. Human skin reacts to the contaminants and to too high a DMSO concentration. Acetone contamination can lead to serious medical consequences. Because of its small molecular weight, acetone is readily carried into the blood by acetone-contaminated DMSO. Prolonged exposure to acetone can lead to liver damage and death. So caveat emptor–let the buyer beware–when he buys crude DMSO from his friendly local dealer.”

    His Chapter 5 discusses side effects and toxicity, but I haven’t read it yet, erp! Will do and share what it says later. He does have a section which discusses the positive effect of DMSO on interstitial cystitis, tho. Will have to read his book more carefully, tho. Regarding solvents being linked to neurological disease, interestingly, it seems there is a portion where they are studying the effects with DMSO in helping with neurological conditions. I briefly went over how they explain it helps with neurological problems and also how it relieves pain. . . err. I’m not sure I like it, but I do want to read it better and make sure I’m understanding it properly. So yeah, like Reuter said, it may have effect, but not sure how safe it really is. . . And as I mentioned before, I have never tried it personally basically because I didn’t have any condition for which I felt compelled to try it. Perhaps one thing to do is to understand how your current pain meds work. Then it can be compared to how DMSO works. I think that might help in deciding which is less harmful to you. It may be that they both work through the same channels, so in that case, it would be good to compare side effects and other possible interactions to see which has a net benefit.

    Okay, dinner time! I smell it, so it must be ready!

    Marla

38. patti said,

    August 7, 2007 at 8:13 pm

    Marla,

    Thanks for all the info. So I will do the MSM for a month instead of the DMSO until I learn more about it. Actually, the more I learn the more it scares me. What frustrates me is it works! Of course, marshmellow root used for years will eventually heal me to. I’m just tired to this. I’ve been at it for two years now. I guess I’ll just keep plugging away.

    I did some looking at my kid’s mouths and my friend’s kid’s today and considered what we fed our kids, how straight their teeth are, etc. and you know what? We really pulled our diet tight after Grace was born and Luke has the straightest teeth of my kids! The dentist said there is a chance he may not need braces. Grace, on the other hand, has teeth like mine were as a kid, but not as bucked. Hers are straight but she has an overbite. The peanut; well, she’s hard to say because she only has her two bottom teeth as adult teeth. But with her, her mouth is really small like mine so not enough room for all her teeth. After looking at my friend’s kids also and when they changed their diets, I have to agree that diet is 90% of cavity, straight teeth, etc. Very interesting. The only exception we could see in hers (she has 7 kids) is #5 has aggressive bacteria like her #1 and she didn’t start eating healthy until about #3. So there may be something else that causes aggressive bacteria?

    So I have a new one for you ladies. I have very hard teeth. Very few cavities, etc. However, as I’ve gotten older, my hard teeth are cracking. That is what started me having to get braces a couple of years ago. I had one crack that they ended up pulling because of a bad root canal attempt. It left a space so we used braces to pull it together instead of a dental implant (felt like those were way too risky). So this past two weeks I’ve had three more teeth crack! I had two full porcelain crowns put on two of the teeth and three days ago I cracked another one, but this time on top. I’m a grinder and wear a mouth guard at night. The dentist says the grinding is what’s cracking them but in my reading of Weston Price and some other stuff, I don’t think that’s true. Some people say grinding is the result of yeast, I don’t know. Anyways, I gotta get my teeth to stop cracking!! Any ideas? They’re plenty hard. It’s something else causing it. Good grief. After I’m done tomorrow I’ll have $2400 in crowns in my mouth in 10 days time. Eeeks. We don’t do gold because I found out that gold crowns are only 70% gold and the rest is alloys. I don’t want any metal in my mouth. We just spent thousands getting the metal out of Ron’s mouth. So anyways, ideas?????

    Looks like our trip got delayed. We got an order we have to fill before we can go. Sometimes we can push them off, but not this one. Oh well. Hopefully next week.

    Okay, chat with you later. Thanks again, Marla for all the info on the DMSO.

    Oh, Andrea. Ya know, I really do think God will provide some protection for our kids when we do not know certain things that can hurt them. As a mom, we do the best we can with the information we have and just have to trust God for the rest. Sometimes bad stuff happens, sometimes it doesn’t. But we just have to trust him to take care of them.

    gotta jet.

    patti

39. Husband said,

    August 7, 2007 at 11:55 pm

    Eastern Traditional Medicine vs. Christianity

    I share concerns that Eastern Traditional Medicine can potentially be damaging to following the principles of Jesus Christ in the Holy Scriptures.

    Firstly, I will establish the foundation of my faith in Jesus Christ. I believe in Jesus of Nazareth to be the Son of God, and the exact representation of the likeness of God (Hebrews 1:3). He is the Word, Who became flesh (John 1:14), through Whom all things were made, (John 1:3). He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no man or woman comes to God the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6). He is the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14), and there is no other name under heaven by which we are to be saved unto eternal life (Acts 4:12). Jesus Christ, having died for our sins and having been raised from the dead also ascended into heaven and is at the right hand of God the Father. He now oversees the world, though it is evil and corrupt. God works in the world so that He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:6, Proverbs 16:18, Luke 14:11). He is also patient with this wicked world since He gives chance for the wicked to repent (2 Peter 3:9). It is in the nature of God to do good to evil people, as the passage that says,

    “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? (Matthew 5:44-46)”

    Here as in other profound parts of scripture, we see how God is kind and gracious in providing needs to the unjust as well as the just. These needs are rain, and sunshine, which provide the needs for food and harvest. God has also been gracious to provide healing herbs to people all around the world. China especially has vast treasures of medicinal herbs that have been tested and tried for many generations. The Chinese developed advanced medical theories to treat with these herbs, which, dare I say, are no more evil than modern American medicine is. Taoism is one aspect that has been integrated into Chinese medicine over the centuries, and many Christians fear the Taoism is a dangerous religion. Yet these same Christians will entrust themselves to modern American medicine, which bases its ethics on atheistic Pragmatism, which is summed up in the statement, “The end justifies the means.” That ends up meaning that any evil act of poisoning a weak and defenseless patient can be justified by statements like, “We are doing all we can,” or “If we can just by a few more months of life, it will all be worth it.” American pharmaceutical medicine is primarily based on greed masquerading as philanthropy. And greed is covetousness, which according to the scriptures, is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). Doctors are riding on dying patients backs, pushing highly toxic compounds into very weak and immune compromised people. It would be criminal, evil and unethical to put compounds that originated from chemical warfare into the bodies of well people, but it is medically ethical to do it to the sick. Even the unChristian Hippocrates would be able to see through this evil ethics as he wrote, “First, do no harm.” And “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.”

    Yes, Taoism can be a religion, as much as atheists have made science a religion in the West. But Taoism also contains tenants of scientific observation similar to Western ideals of the electrical properties of matter. Yin and Yang have philosophical counterparts in the West as negative and positive, electron and proton, etc. Just because some people in the west could worship the electron does not mean that the electron then becomes evil. The same should apply with principles of Yin and Yang, elemental theories, life-force energy and theories of the functioning of organ systems, which include meridians. Western scientists and pharmaceutical drug distributors have a great deal of interest in keeping their jobs and enhancing their incomes. They serve money and do compromise ethics and scientific investigation to protect their market shares. As a result, a blind eye is turned so that vast resources of natural and well- tested herbal medicines are ignored. That is their religion.

    Many aspects of Western medicine are highly unethical and are against many attitudes taught by Jesus and His Apostles, and I could expound upon this in greater detail elsewhere. Although there are disciplines of Western medicine that are valuable, the pharmaceuticals are highly toxic. As a result, we must seek effective remedies. If all the time and effort and money spent on toxic drugs were diverted instead to herbs, nutrition, and natural remedies that do no harm, our health would be a LOT better off. Traditional medicine practiced by non-Christians is the greatest resource. Yet Christians should get it through their heads that America is not a Christian nation and that American medicine and its theories are no more Christian than are Eastern Traditional Medicine or Taoist medical theories. Picking the lesser of evils, I will avoid pharmaceuticals.

    Healing was a very important subject in the scriptures. Of course, our Master and Savior, Jesus, healed with touch many times, and with His mere words at other times. He healed the sick and preached to the poor and fed the poor. He also bestowed upon His Apostles the ability to heal miraculously as He did. As the Gospel became established, we notice that not everyone retained the miraculous gift of healing, so that special instructions were given for reviving the sick which involved prayer, anointing of oil in the name of the Lord, the laying on of hands, and the confession of sins (James 5:14-16). Yet even with this prescription for illness given by James, there were also those with gifts of healing (1 Corinthians 12:8, 29). Whether gifts of healing refers to being able to heal miraculously or healing by artfully application of remedies, I don’t know. Yet, healing people is a spiritual concern for those wanting to demonstrate the compassion of Jesus to those we love, whether family, friends, strangers or enemies.

    Luke, who was the only confirmed author of a Biblical book who was neither Hebrew nor Jewish, was “the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14). We can tell by the extensive use of anatomical Greek words in the Gospel According to Luke that he was well educated in the vocabulary of Greek medicine. Greek medicine of the first century was not a “Christian” art, yet a medical vocabulary was of service to the Lord in the writing of the Gospel. It seems reasonable that Luke was called “the beloved physician” because his services of physician were well used and appreciated by the brethren. Also, if Christians today are to reject medical effectiveness of traditional Eastern medicine due to its use of Taoist scientific philosophy, then it should come to their attention that Greek medicine of Luke’s day involved the study of the Four Humors and “spiritual” theories as to the nature of disease. Greeks of Luke’s day practiced many varieties of pagan and occultic religion, yet the Greek language was of service to God in the writing of the Christian Scriptures.and Greek culture was of service to God as a conduit of the Gospel, and Greek medicine was of service to the brethren, buy the beloved physician, Luke.

    Traditional medicine holds vast resources as tools of compassion. It has taken many lifetimes to accumulate the empirical knowledge used by traditional healers, especially in the East. Due to wars and political matters in Europe, the continuance of herbal medicine was quite hampered as compared to other civilized places. Now with the onslaught of industrialized medicine, a destructive science of greed and idolatry, we shall do a grievous disservice to ourselves to neglect the centuries of trial and error medical experimentation recorded in China and India. We need to realize that industrial medicine and chemistry is contributing to the course of our degenerating health and is occultic in its root and practice of pharmaceutical. This was also foretold in the scriptures relating to the great economic nation of the end times, Mystery Babylon, who deceives the whole world with her sorcery (Revelation 18:23). The Greek word for sorcery is pharmakeia.

    Just as Luke would have been able to sift through the truth of natural Greek medicine, leaving behind unprofitable theories for the meat, so the spiritual Christian should be able to do the same with eastern theories to find what is beneficial. All in all, the Christian life is to be guided by compassion, mercy, kindness, wisdom, and self-control. It is my goal to love fellow man, and my family by learning about and using natural healing of the most effective kinds around the world, and I don’t want a little Tao to get in my way.

40. Andrea said,

    August 8, 2007 at 8:27 am

    Brian, aka “Husband”–

    I totally agree with everything you are saying. Thanks very much for the time and thought you put into your writing.

    Thanks to having a son in medical school, I am getting an inside view of how the training of doctors fosters greed rather than service, self-centeredness rather than service, lies rather than truth. It’s not pretty. Fortunately Noah has a good sense of humor and that is saving him. He jokes about the ugly stuff and forges ahead with as much integrity as he can. He is going into emergency medicine, which contains the least amount of deceit and the most real good.

    Good luck with your studies of Chinese herbology. It’s a fascinating topic.

    Andrea

41. Administrator said,

    August 8, 2007 at 9:45 am

    Hi Andrea, I’m glad that it was clear to you that “Husband” is my Brian, ha! Gee, I popped on here this morning to find his post up, so I didn’t have a chance to remind him to “introduce himself.” Ha! But I’m glad he posted, and I’m sure you can see why I wanted him to explain because it’s not a short explanation. And that’s just for starters, too.

    This morning my thumb is actually pretty limber, and I didn’t wake up with it popping in that uncomfortable position, although it was still stiff, and I had to work it a little to loosen it up. Right now, my thumb feels more tired, like it’s had a workout, more than sore like it was feeling a week ago. So that’s the progress on my thumb so far. I hope I’m moving in the right direction with it.

    How’s your knee? I haven’t found much reference to the knee, yet, but Brian says he has other resources that we can check to see what they recommend for the knees. So will try to follow up on that when he shows me which books he recommends.

    I got your picture, Patti! I’ll crop and post it with your short commentary. I hope I do it right, so check out the next post from me here.

    Marla

42. Administrator said,

    August 8, 2007 at 10:51 am

    I’m posting this for Patti, so that we can add “before” and “after” pics of Patti with the T-Tap. Below is a short text Patti sent with her pictures.

    “Okay, here’s the best picture I could find of me that at least shows some
    waist (eeeks!). I think compared to the other one though you can see
    enough waist gone and face/neck/arms, etc. that there’s a difference.
    Most of my loss came in my waist and legs with some in my face/neck and
    arms. I lost a total of 18+ inches t-tapping – it ended up being 3 sizes smaller for me. It took 3 weeks. I gotta say, it isn’t go as fast this time!! But I’m getting closer to where I know my body will go.”

    This first picture is a “before” shot.

    

    This next picture is “after.”

    

    Good job, Patti!  Your recent picture is much nicer!

    Marlakins 

43. patti said,

    August 8, 2007 at 1:31 pm

    Egads! I’ve gone public Yuck! But, I do look better, huh? Of course, it helps to have the braces off. Good grief. Only 2 or 3 more sizes to go. Ugh. But the t-tapp works. I guess that’s why I had you post pictures. Otherwise, only my friend Jennifer that posted would believe it! She’s also doing very well. She’s slender anyway, though.

    Well, two hours from the dentist later and it’s looking like I’m either going to have to have my tooth pulled or a root canal. I’ve read The Root Canal Cover-up. I know what it says. I do know that the doc that did Ron’s does remove some of the bone when he does a root canal. Which I think, if I remember correctly, was the issue in that book. That most docs don’t do that. Nonetheless, do we pull it or root canal it? I have till tomorrow to decide because I can’t take another day of pain. The novacaine is starting to wear off and I’m hurting. Badly.

    Brian, that was the best explanation I’ve heard of being balanced with medicine and where it all comes from. Very well done and very clear. Thank you. I think one just has to be careful and wise. There was a time when Dr.Kou wanted to “transfer his energy” to mom by doing some weird sort of movements around her. He did that once because it caught us off guard but we never allowed it again. Beyond that, most of the stuff has been okay. It’s good to eat the meat and spit out the bones.

    Gotta jet. Okay, Marla, I might only be able to stand looking at these pictures for a few days. Then you might have to delete them! Ugh, ugh, ugh.

    patti

44. patti said,

    August 10, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    So today before I left to get a root canal I told my husband I was praying that I would get there and the guy would tell me I don’t need one. He laughed and said if it were just me he’d think that was possible, but since the dentist thought so too he didn’t think it possible. Well, guess what? I got there and the guy said, “don’t need it right now.” How cool is that?! I had quizzed him really hard on the phone to make sure he would scrape the bone and take some bone and tissue and he agreed to. But when he looked at the x-ray he said the roots look fine and he thinks I need to give it two weeks to settle down first. IF it still hurts, then I should call him. I really feel like this was an answer to prayer! After my experience with mom I just have a hard time justifying getting a root canal. However, my husband and dentist said I’m too young to start losing teeth now so wanted me to get the root canal. So, whoopee!

    I’ve been experimenting with natural face cleansers and toners, etc. Thought I’d share my experience here. I’ve been using Burts Bees tomato toner and Burts Bees bentonite mask up to this point. I’ve been using them for about two months or so and they cost exactly what my Mary Kay did and even a little less in some instances. I was looking at my face last night and realized that I had no shine! My face looked as fresh as it does in the morning right after I go through my routine. Usually, by mid-afternoon/nighttime my skin gets shiny. I have very oily skin and it’s not uncommon for me to blot it in the evening if I have to go out. I have had ZERO excess oil with this stuff. My skin isn’t dry at all. It’s just exactly how it should be. Is that cool or what? So, I’m sold on the toner. I am going to try the Alba gel mask just to see what it’s like. I’m still using my Mary Kay moisturizer but only because I still have it left. I will probably try the Burts Bees of that when I’m out. But so far, I’m impressed. I took away Grace’s Mary Kay and got her started on this stuff also. Heh, she’s been breaking out in blackheads for quite some time but just refused to wash her face other then her shower. I finally just left it alone figuring one day she’d get sick of looking at it. One day she started washing her face. I asked her why and she said because she couldn’t stand how it felt anymore! It’s so smooth and perfect when she takes care of it she decided it was worth the time now. I’m glad. It’s much better for her.

    I also am trying out two new natural kids toothpastes that don’t have SLS in them. One’s a weird gel and the other is all written in a foreign language on the box but english on the tube. No SLS. BTW, is TEA Laural Sulfate the same as SLS? I have been looking for a good dandruff shampoo for Grace and I found one that had no SLS but has this TEA LS in it and I wasn’t sure.

    I keep wanting to tell you guys about Hair Shine. I get it from http://www.beeyoutiful.com. It’s a mix of essentials oils. Man is this stuff great! I use it on my girls and my hair after a shower or if my girls have lots of tangles in the morning and it works so well and smells so good! I order it 4 bottles at a time to make it last longer. The bottles are small but it’s a spray so doesn’t take much. My girls also love it. I occassionally will spray it on my cloths or body also. It’s a definate must try. I also take their Supermom vit. and Ron takes Superdad. I like their stuff so far.

    Not sure I mentioned this above but we found out what sent Luke’s body over the edge 7 or 8 months ago. He has something called musculosum contagiosum. Or something like that. Anyways, his isn’t going away. Kassandra got it and it went away within a week. I got four spots from Luke but mine seems to be disappearing also. But the boy just can’t seem to get rid of this virus. The hives showed up the same time this did so I think it just sent his body over the edge. I started putting oil of oregano on the other day and I just checked and the spots are getting smaller and flatter all ready! This is great as I think it’s one of the reasons he has so much inflammation.

    I think that’s it for health stuff. I stopped the DMSO and have been taking 3000mg of MSM daily. It actually does seem to be helping. I’m also taking 2tsps of aloe vera juice a day. It’s supposed to be a good mucilage. We’ll see what happens.

    Okay, gotta jet.

    patti

45. patti said,

    August 17, 2007 at 10:51 pm

    Hi ladies,

    One more post before we hit the road. I’m going to ask you to pray for me. We are really struggling with my mouth right now. I mentioned above the need to get a root canal. Well, I let my cheek settle down from all the novacaine shots from the dentist and it is all healed. Unfortunately, my tooth is getting worse daily. It’s been a week since I consulted with the endodontist. Well, today we went back to see him because we decided that I was not going to be able to wait two weeks for a root canal. I mentioned last time that I quizzed him thoroghly regarding the procedure I wanted done. He said it was no problem. It has a really long technical name, but basically, they scrape the jaw bone underneath the tooth to make sure they get ANY infection that might be left behind. Well, I got there and they put the q-tip in to start numbing me and I started quizzing and verifying again that he would do what I wanted. I drew a picture and said “this is where I want you to scrape.” Well, he wheeled back and said, “no way. That’s a procedure we only do if someone comes back after a root canal and has an infection.” After consulting with my husband we told him “pull the tooth.” He said he doesn’t pull teeth. Oh for stinking sakes!! I was so mad and he was furious that I wouldn’t let him do it his way. Doctors DO NOT like to be told what to do. And I was being very gentle and nice and asking, etc. etc. Didn’t matter. So we left. We just happen to have an excellent excellent dentist. I wish I could take this guy with us when we move. So I called him even though it’s his day off and we chatted. He told me he could pull the tooth without me going to an oral surgeon but he really didn’t want to since I was so young (it’s nice to still be considered young at 37!). He called his personal endodontist and the guy agreed to go what we wanted. He gives me the guys name and guess who it is? It’s the guy who screwed up my mouth 4yrs ago trying to give me a root canal. I ended up having the tooth pulled and spent 3yrs in braces to fill the space. Ugh! So what now? Ron and I finally decided that we would have him try it. He knows now that I don’t numb easily and he also had new equipment to actually shoot novacaine straight into the bone. And, worst case scenario, it fails and we pull the tooth. I won’t be charged for the root canal and special cleaning procedure (which BTW costs $2100 – if they don’t knock me out). I tried to schedule and the first available is next Wednesday. After we get back the first available is 9/27. We’re talking a month away! I’m taking motrin twice a day trying to keep the pain at bay. How am I going to make it two weeks?

    So my brain is going and I’m thinking God is really not wanting me to get this root canal. Something else is going on and I can’t figure it out. Maybe you guys can. All of a sudden in 3-4 months time I’ve had 3 teeth crack. I’m a MAJOR tooth grinder but I wear a really good mouth guard at night so this shouldn’t matter. When my dentist put crowns on my two bottom teeth that cracked I started having trouble with my upper right above it. It’s #15 on the top. The last molar. I keep thinking I’m missing something. I feel like I’ve got extra inflammation going on right now and I can’t figure out why. My bladder has been a little worse since all this started, my fingers are swelling more (I can tell by my rings), my teeth, etc. Do either of you have any ideas? I keep thinking God is putting me off with this because I’m missing something and He doesn’t want me to do something I shouldn’t. BUT, this tooth keeps getting worse. There is a small cavity in it but nothing that would cause this much pain. And, he put a temporary filling in that cavity spot. Any ideas what could be causing the extra inflammation all of a sudden? The weathers been really weird here so my sinuses have been going up and down. It’s hot and dry then the next day humid and much cooler (70’s). But it’s all over the map right now which is unusual for August here. I haven’t been t-tapping as consistently but have been doing it a couple times a week and still skin brushing to keep the lymph moving. I thought about putting some GOOT on my cheek to see if the garlic going through the skin would kill any infection but Ron doesn’t want me to do that.

    I’m missing something but I don’t know what and I don’t have a lot of time before we leave to figure it out. I told Ron that if it’s much worse through the weekend then I’m going to have it pulled Monday AM and then we can leave. We’d like to leave on Sunday – but I’m afraid of what will happen with it if I leave it. What would happen if I just took motrin for two weeks to see if changing climates would fix my sinuses and then fix the tooth? The tooth sits right under one of the sinuses. I don’t feel plugged. Although, I do in the morning when I wake up. The pain isn’t bad all day but gets worse and worse by nighttime. Which also makes me think sinuses. But what? Ron told me his teeth hurt when his sinuses are plugged also. But I don’t FEEL plugged.

    I’m going to take a major dose of chelidonium tonight and see what happens. Course, I’m full of motrin now but it’s starting to wear off. But if you ladies have any ideas I’m all ears. Also, if you have opinions about pulling this sucker vs. having the full procedure to scrape the bone and do it according to the root canal book I’m open there also. Please pray for God to give us wisdom and reveal to us what to do.

    Thanks.

    patti

46. Administrator said,

    August 18, 2007 at 9:09 am

    Hi Patti:

    Sorry to hear that you’re still suffering! Argh! Well, the first thing that popped into my mind was the curiosity that you don’t have a cavity in that tooth that you are considering root canaling or pulling. . . That would make me wonder if root canaling or even pulling would even stop the pain. Have you looked into “nerve” problems? I know that people who suffer from TMJ have facial pain, and there are other conditions which mimic TMJ. Some of the symptoms do include tooth pain. Here’s a link to give you an example. http://www.drshankland.com/pain_disorders_tmj.html Also, since you mentioned your teeth cracking easily, there is also a “possible” link to nerves there as well. Check out this link regarding “brittle teeth.” http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/aging/gg0005.htm Here’s a short blurb on that link regarding nerves and brittle teeth.

    “Nerve tissue and blood vessels are found in the pulps of teeth. When you were young, these nerves were very responsive to pain or to anything hot or cold. As you have aged, the pulp gradually became smaller with fewer blood vessels and less nerve tissue supplying the teeth. As a result, your teeth have less fluid content and have become brittle. Your brittle teeth may be easily broken or chipped. Fortunately, due to the reduced nerve tissue, little if any pain is experienced when even severe fractures occur.”

    Might I suggest doing a little more research about nerves? It seems worthy to explore that perhaps both the pain and the brittle teeth are related to nerve problems. I just hate the idea of pulling a tooth out that has no cavity. I’ve heard of stories of people having “pains” and the docs taking something out, yet the pain remains. . . One particular story I was told about was having the gall bladder removed, yet the pain persisted. If there is not something clearly wrong with the organ/tooth, then I would hesitate to remove it.

    Okay, gotta get breakfast, and hopefully if I have more time will reply to your post on the “How much should I know” thread. Don’t know if I’ll be able to get it all down before you leave, but I’ll try to at least get started. For ease, I’ll also try to get those two chapters (10 and 11) from Romans you mentioned typed up there from the KVJ, so that you can copy and paste to make it easier for you to reference and explain. I have read those passages, too, and will also comment. But for now. . . breakfast!

    Toodles, and in case I don’t get back on here in time, have a great trip!

    Marla

47. patti said,

    August 18, 2007 at 10:23 am

    Marla,

    Thanks for your help! Especially the stuff on brittle teeth. I will definately research the nerve stuff because my bladder would be nerve related to some extent also. BUT, I DO have a cavity in that tooth. It’s just that it’s small and the dentist didn’t think it could cause this much pain. That is why he wanted to wait to put a permenant filling on it until I got a root canal. He put a temporary filling in it that’s supposed to have something in it to calm down the tooth nerve but it hasn’t helped.

    Thanks again for the info. I’ll try and at least print stuff from those links to read while I’m on the road.
    patti

48. Andrea said,

    August 18, 2007 at 1:39 pm

    Oy, Patti, so sorry to hear about your dilemma, yikes. I’m really drawing a blank here, don’t know much about teeth and mouth things, so I’ll leave it in Marla’s capable hands. And, I will pray.

    I wanted to let you know how the people you have been helping me with/praying for are faring.

    First, my dear friend Lynn. She is doing so so much better. She lost a LOT of weight (about 50 lbs!), but her naturopath stayed with her. She hit a crisis point last March, where she was really falling apart, and we at church sort of conspired to relieve her of some responsibilities, and brought her meals. And she began to turn a corner.

    She has now totally cleaned up her diet–no sugar, no additives, organic meat only etc., and is seeing a homeopath, who her naturopath referred her to, who also is an acupuncturist and gives her exercises. She’s very nearly herself again.

    My daughter Laura is also doing much better. She used that book you recommended, Marla, and switched to a diet of high quality protein and vegetables, lower carbs, and stopped skipping breakfast, and that helped a lot. She did get a pharma anti-anxiety drug prescribed. It at first made her sleepy, but then began to help also. She hopes–and so does her mom–that she can wean herself off it. She said that she feels it’s partly a placebo thing–something about being on a “real” drug makes her feel like she’s doing something powerful and effective.

    She’s exercising regularly–we’re going bike riding together tomorrow–and doing yoga, and every thing together–well, it’s working.

    Finally, thank you for the Russel Blaylock referral. On advice from his book, I bought some Olive Leaf as an all purpose anti-bacterial, viral, fungal agent. I got it before Rob went to the Dominican Republic last winter, so he’d have something to take if he got sick.

    He didn’t, but I still had it when son Tom (my baby–18 now!) came home for a visit Sunday night. On Monday night he went to bed with a backache, and on Tuesday morning he was so sick he could hardly move–high fever, achey all over. I was going to just let it “run its course” with fluids and castor oil packs for his back, but when he started coughing on top of everything, I started thinking pneumonia, which meant I started thinking antibiotics.

    Then I remembered the Olive Leaf. I gave him one 50mg capsule. In a couple of hours, he was sitting up, eating a little. I’ve kept giving it to him and he keeps improving steadily. Last night, I had an ominous sore back and achey feeling, so I took a couple of capsules for myself. This morning, I felt fine.

    Good stuff to keep around, and I learned about it from Blaylock.

    Cheers, ladies,

    Andrea

49. Administrator said,

    August 19, 2007 at 7:55 am

    Hi Andrea!

    That was such great news to read that lots of benefits/improvements have been going on all around! Thanks for sharing your update! You know we try to learn as much as we can, but we never really know how well it will work until it’s just tried. The explanations sound good, but the true test is in the pudding. You know what I mean?

    It reminds me of that movie, The Bear. I think that’s what it was called. The way the story goes is this really wealthy guy flies out to Alaska with a group of his wife’s modeling crew. He goes on a small plane ride with a few people, and it crashes in the wilderness. The pilot dies in the crash, and he and the other two remaining passengers have to figure out what to do. They have to survive the elements, wildlife, etc. (and survive each other for that matter! Ha!) Well this rich guy had a habit of reading lots and lots of books on “how-to” stuff. He never actually did any of the stuff he read about, but only knew about it from reading. So here was his chance to test it out. He found that a lot of the stuff worked, but he only confirmed it through actually living it. That’s why it reminded me of this health stuff. We read of it, the explanations sound reasonable, but the true test of whether it works is living it. The one line I still remember from the movie is, “Why do people die? They die from shame.” I know it’s just a movie, but it was entertaining, ha!

    Thanks again, and may you experience much more healing and happiness!

    Marla

50. Administrator said,

    August 19, 2007 at 8:15 am

    Oh, yes, Patti. I realized you said there was a small cavity in that one tooth, but since it was small and the doc filled it, I considered it pretty normal. That is, “usually” when cavities are filled, the nerves aren’t exposed and sensitive anymore. I’m not a teeth expert by any means, so I’m sure I’m not considering a lot of things. I did read that teeth grinding can wear down the enamel also and make teeth vulnerable to chips and cracks. And then I’ve also read that lack of minerals can also cause the teeth to become brittle. And so that reminded me about sugar again.

    Lots of times we read that sugar is bad for us and causes all kinds of health problems. But less often we get an explanation of “why” sugar is bad for us. Well, one explanation I thought was helpful in understanding it was from Carl Pfiffer’s book on mental health. This is what he says about sugar:

    “Sugar cannot be stored or used in the body without minerals, so sugar stripped of its natural minerals will draw from your stores and increase your mineral needs. Many vitamins and trace elements, including vitamin C, the B complex of vitamins, calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc, chromium, manganese, and phosphorus, are involved in glucose metabolism and the activities of the endocrine glands.”

    I believe this is why white sugar is hard on us because since it has been stripped of the natural minerals that it grows with, then it uses the minerals we have in our bodies to be processed. This increases our need for more minerals and vitamins. If we don’t supply that extra need for minerals and vitamins, then we start to deplete our stores, and depleting our mineral stores translates to deficiencies and health problems. So that is why whole food sources are better such as those naturally occuring in fruits and veggies and even whole raw honey, and dried cane sugars that haven’t been highly processed like Rapadura. When we eat the whole fruit or veggie, there are other natural minerals in the food that helps us to process the sugar. If we eat the stripped sugar that’s just been poured into pastries (usually white flours also stripped of minerals), then it causes the body to work harder to process it. The minerals have to come from somewhere and a good source of minerals is in our bones. So we loss bone mass with lots of sugar consumption. This was also confirmed in another book I read on osteoporosis. People with osteoporosis need to be careful not to overdo their sugar intake.

    Anyway, hope that gives more food for thought. If I happen to come across anything else that I think might be helpful, I’ll share.

    Toodles for now!

    Marla

51. Andrea said,

    August 20, 2007 at 8:47 am

    Hi,

    More health news from Maine. First, my son Tom. I finally took him to a QuickCare place. Although the Olive Leaf seemed to have an initial effect, he sunk again. I thought it was pneumonia, and the doc there–very nice, professional, thorough–agreed. He’s on an antibiotic now (a generic that I was able to buy for $30 right onsite). I’ll keep you posted.

    I think if I had had the courage to give him the huge doses that Russell Blaylock recommends–1000 mg/day–perhaps the Olive Leaf would have been more effective. But I couldn’t stand to watch him suffer any more, and I know antibiotics are very fast.

    Now, as for me. I had mentioned I had been having trouble with swollen, sore knees. To keep them from bothering me, I’ve had to really baby them–no long walks, easy on the bent-knee yoga, etc. Well, that went out the window yesterday when, after church, I started gardening, and just couldn’t stop myself. I have a climbing rose coming, it calls for a 2-foot hole, and so I just kept digging, and sure enough, my right knee really hurt by 6pm.

    So I stopped at the health food store on my way back from running the dog (she runs, I watch), and picked up some Glucosamine. I got the kind that includes MSM, on your recommendation.

    I woke up this morning with NO KNEE PAIN. None! I am elated, and so grateful. Usually after “overdoing” it, it takes about 3 days of pampering to get it comfortable again.

    But I am wondering–should I keep taking it, as a sort of preventive, or would it be better to save it for symptoms only use?

    Thanks ladies!

    Andrea

52. Administrator said,

    August 20, 2007 at 10:01 pm

    Once again, Andrea, thanks for the update! I hope your son starts to feeling better very soon.

    Regarding whether to take the supps for preventative measures or reserve for flares, hmmm. Patti might be able to give you a better answer on that one. I have taken MSM, but never glucosamine, yet. Personally, I don’t use any supps on a regular/daily basis. I do use them from time to time, but generally only do it for a short while then give myself a break. I know some health practitioners advocate doing that. For instance, I’ll take an herbal blend for liver support for a month or two, then stop. Then I might take an herbal blend for adrenal support for 1-3 months, then stop. I’m currently on my off mode and have been for most of this year, actually. Should probably start considering some kind of support. My guess, is that since you got such quick result/relief from the supp, then your body might be lacking in something there. So my feeling is that you could take it for a short time longer to help build up your store or give you a running start. Then take a break and see how you do. That would be my approach, but keep in mind that I’m no supp expert! Perhaps when Patti gets back from their trip she can give more advice.

    Just for a short update on my thumb and massage, Brian has recently tried some Thai massage for my arm in place of the Tui Na massage. I “think” it’s actually more helpful. My thumb is not locking into place as hard or as much as before. The pain is also less. Interestingly, Thai massage works more with the muscles than the meridians. Although they do work along meridian “channels,” but just don’t focus too much on the exact meridian spots. Thai massage is pretty interesting. They twist you up into different positions, then massage the muscles and meridian channels. Basically, they stretch the muscles farther than normal, then massage it. We’ll see how this goes, and I’ll update more when I feel there is some noticeable results and when I give it a bit more time to take effect.

    What I seem to find is that in Chinese medicine conditions like arthritis is thought to be caused by stagnation of mucus. This thumb problem started when I started LOTS of yarn work and I have been hanging my right arm over the back rest of my chair while surfing the net . . . It makes me wonder if I was blocking off some lymph drainage by doing that. Hmm. So with that info, I have been trying to increase circulation by massage, movement, and shaking my hands a bit. Have you considered any types of massage for your knees as preventative measures? If it’s a circulation problem, then maybe working on improving circulation might help. Strengthening vessels and just making sure that lymph drainage is not impeded might be another consideration. That’s what I’m hoping for with my thumb. I realize you are doing yoga which should help lymph drainage, but perhaps you could do different moves which might get to other areas. Just a thought.

    Well, I hope you enjoy that climbing rose! I love those! I used to have two–one on either side of my porch, but one kicked the bucket, so now I only have one. . . Must get another one, but interestingly, the one that tuckered out is growing from the root. Doesn’t look like it’s a climbing rose, tho, just probably from the stock.

    Take care!

    Marla

53. Andrea said,

    August 21, 2007 at 8:40 am

    Thanks, Marla, I think I will take the MSM/gluco for a week or two, then stop and see. Seems like a good, moderate sort of plan. I would be interested in your opinion too, Patti.

    I don’t know enough about meridians to know what to massage, but it seems that would be good to learn. I’m going on vacation tomorrow, I’ll look for some books and give it a try.

    I know that the yoga that I do also “opens meridians” and you can actually feel a kind of very good energy going through you as you practice. It occurred to me that the routines I am doing are possibly not opening the correct meridians to adequatley nourish my knees. I’ve also had a “hunch”–just a hunch, nothing more–that perhaps my heart isn’t in the best shape it could be. And, I know that in Chinese medicine, the knees are the joint that is related to the heart.

    On the same note, my daughter Laura went to a makeup yoga class with a different teacher than usual. She said the class was more vigorous, which she liked, but the really interesting thing is that “the class was based on opening up all the meridians.” She got a handout connecting poses to meridians, that I’d like to get my hands on.

    She said that after the class, she felt “fantastic.”

    I’m going on vacation tomorrow, so I won’t be checking in for a couple of weeks. Bye!!

    Andrea

54. Administrator said,

    August 22, 2007 at 6:38 am

    Oh! I’ve probably missed you already, Andrea, but in case I haven’t, “Have a wonderful vacation!” Hope your knees behave while you’re gone! Let us know!

    I wish I could go on vacation! Sigh. . .

    Marla

55. Valerie Kambeitz said,

    August 29, 2007 at 11:28 am

    Thank you ladies for such interesting and informative blogs. I can across your site looking me information on musculosum virus. My son, too, has had those little bumps on him for many months and I wanted to get more information about it. Patti, did you ever get the nasal swab performed on your child? I would appreciate any information on what it is and how to treat it and is it contagious.

    Valerie K.
    Alabama

56. Administrator said,

    August 29, 2007 at 3:02 pm

    Hello Valerie:

    Patti is out of town, so likely doesn’t have internet access right now. I think she should be back in a couple weeks. Hopefully you can touch bases with her when she gets back.

    In the meantime, regarding the musculosum contagiosum, I checked the Merck Manual to see what they had in there. They didn’t have much! I found the internet has more information on it. Maybe you’ve already come across this link, but in case not, I thought it was informative http://dermatology.cdlib.org/92/reviews/molluscum/diven.html What I wanted to find out, but didn’t see answered there was if the virus was the type that goes dormant or if it’s the type that the body can actually eliminate like a flu. It seems to indicate, tho does not outright state it, that the musculosum contagiosum can come on in immunocompromised patients. In that case it leads one to believe that it does remain in the body dormant unless the immune system gets lowered a bit, similar to warts. And it does appear to be contagious so long as the lesions are there.

    Commonly the lesions go away on their own, but if they don’t there are some medical interventions to help. Preferably, I would try some more natural things. I would be good to get Patti’s update on how the oil of oregano is working on Luke. If that doesn’t work, I’m sure there are other natural topicals that might help speed up the healing process. Have you tried anything for the lesions yet? Are there just a few or is it extensive? And does your son have any other health issues which might affect the virus? Like known immunosuppression? Considering these things might help you decide how to go about treating the lesions.

    Okay, take care, and nice to have you drop by!

    Marla

57. patti said,

    September 1, 2007 at 10:08 pm

    Hi everyone,

    I’m back! Finally! Can’t take too much time to update tonight as we just got home today. BUT, I wanted to respond to you, Valerie, because we just started treatment on my son tonight when we got home. I tried the oil of oregano but didn’t seem to have too much luck with it on my son’s M.C. I did some web research on natural remedies for it and came up with this website: http://www.molluscum.com. After reading through their website my husband and I decided to order the smallest bottle we could of the silvercure. It was $45.50 with shipping. When we got home, it was waiting for us. One of the things we got from the website is that MC kind of has “mother” or “queen” type cells. So if you remove the queen cells then the others die off as well. The paperwork we received said to find the spots that have a core. They will have white or yellow (or both) centers. Put a finger on either side and sqeeze HARD. It says to pull the core out and it will bleed profusely. Wash with antibacterial soap (we did not do this – we just cleaned the areas well) and use a q-tip or finger to apply a small amount of the Silvercure. Supposed to apply twice a day for several weeks. Longer if the person is immune suppressed (my son is). My husband did the squeezing because his nails are much shorter. Wow! When you squeeze hard enough you can see a hard, white core pop out. And yep, it’ll bleed pretty darn good for awhile. We did all of the back of my sons legs that had the spots and then we applied the silvercure. You only have to “pop” them once and then just use the silver. From what I understand the silver is more to prevent further infection from opening the spot so it won’t spread from the popping. Not all of the MC spots will have a core. On my son though, most of them did. So I guess the best I can do is update in a few weeks and let you know if his have gone away or are at least getting better. We were unwilling to wait the several years that we’ve been told it could take for an immune suppressed person to recover from this. It was adding to his immune malfunctions and we did not like that.

    Marla, Andrea, everyone else, I’ll have to update the rest later. Tired, but had a great trip and bought a house in Idaho. But not without first buying a house in Wyoming and having our offer countered (we didn’t like their counter). Okay, ‘nough for now.

    Patti

58. Administrator said,

    September 2, 2007 at 7:59 pm

    Hey Patti! Welcome back! I didn’t expect you back so soon. But good news that you found a house! Wow, that was fast. Now did you live in Idaho before? I think you mentioned something about living somewhere else before. I’ve never been to Idaho.

    Anyway, thanks for the update on Luke, and when you get a chance let us know how it all went.

    Take care!

    Marla

59. patti said,

    September 3, 2007 at 7:48 pm

    Hi Marla,

    We were gone for two weeks. And we were ready to come home. It’s always good to sleep in your own bed. Even with a motorhome, there’s just no place like home.

    It was a wild and weird trip. We spent 8 days in Sheridan, WY looking for a house, visiting the church, etc. We found a house we really liked on two acres with a nice shop for our business. It was in a subdivision with strict covenants so we worked our way through the paperwork. In the end, we decided not to buy it. Everything is expensive in Wyoming, except the taxes! Go figure. We about choked when they told us house insurance would cost $1400 a YEAR! Good grief, we pay like $350 in Oregon. Also, registering vehicles is anywhere from $100 on up per year. We pay $80 every two years here. So all of the tax advantages would have been sucked up in other costs. We also felt very restricted with the subdivision rules. We wanted ducks for duck eggs and wouldn’t have been allowed to do that. So, we headed home and stopped in Idaho to visit close friends. We had parked the MH outside their house for the night one night. The next day Ron took the dog for a walk and went past this house that had a 1700sq. ft. shop, 2100+ sq.ft home on one acre with no covenants. We’d actually be allowed two horses if we wanted. The house isn’t laid out perfectly for us but with a few interior walls put up it will be perfect. And the price difference is so huge it won’t matter. We’d still be saving money. The only thing Idaho has that WY didn’t is more people. The trade off is there are more ammenities, easier to find health foods, business stuff, etc. So, we made an offer. We’ll see what happens. We actually both feel much better about this move then when we had an offer on the WY house. Maybe it’s the thought of moving 1500 miles that is overwhelming. Especially with a business. 500 miles is so much easier. We’ve done that before. We’re hoping to get moved by the end of October if all goes well. I guess it will be nice to move to a place where we know people also and not have to start completely over. Both of us lived in Idaho from ‘90 – ‘95. We met in ‘93 and married in ‘95 and moved right away for Ron’s job. It is high mountain desert which we love, conservative, cheap living, low taxes, etc. etc. The only difference is just the size. We can deal with that. Like I said, it just makes it easier to find some things.

    We’ve been doing the silver cure on Luke now for 2.5 days and his legs look MUCH better! I’m very impressed. He says the silvercure hurts when we put it on the spots that we took the cores out of and is just cold on the spots that haven’t been opened up. I’m very hopeful that this stuff will do the trick. Valerie, if you’re reading this, I would highly encourage you to try their stuff. We are seeing very positive results. I don’t know how bad your daughter’s is. My son’s wasn’t awful like some of the pictures but it was really zapping his immune system.

    I have continued to have trouble with my one tooth that needs a root canal but I did learn some interesting stuff. I took a small clove of garlic and put it right on the chewing surface of that tooth and bit down hard. Then I chewed the garlic only on that tooth and the one below until I couldn’t stand the burn on my tongue anymore. I should have swallowed it, but I couldn’t. I just spit it out. But the cool thing is, the pain went away instantly! I had total pain relief for 12hrs at a time when I did this. So I did this most of our trip except for a few times when we were seeing a realtor and I didn’t want to embarrass my husband! He was very understanding to my new garlic smell. Eeewwww. Later he told me the smell lasts for days. So much for not wanting to be embarrassed with the realtor! But I was able to minimize how much motrin I had to take for pain relief which was my goal. I also thought that IF I did have any infection in there the garlic would do a good job of helping to clear it out. The tooth is getting worse and still needs a root canal, but I was thankful for the more healthful pain relief while we were gone. My dentist’s endo guy agreed to do my dentist a favor and do the full procedure of scraping the bone that I requested. So I was scheduled for that this Wednesday. Mysteriously, half way through our trip they called and said they wouldn’t do it now and not only that but they wouldn’t do the root canal either. I’m thinking the guy must have read my chart and realized he’s the one who failed at my last root canal and I spent three years in braces from!! I wasn’t thrilled about going to him but I figured worse case another failure would mean pulling the tooth. Since it’s the back tooth it wouldn’t matter this time. So I’m back to square one with getting a root canal. It pretty much seems like no one will do the bone scraping procedure because of the location of the tooth to the sinuses. I’ve decided to have the root canal and ask God’s protection from any infection in it.

    I was able to do very little research on teeth cracking before we left and one of the things I found floored me. Guess what one of the biggest things to cause teeth to crack long term is? Flouride! I’ll have to go back and find the links I found that on. I couldn’t believe it. I will once again be going through everyone’s dental routine here to make sure no one is getting any flouride. I’m pulling Grace off of the ACT rinse and we’ll see what happens to her teeth in 6 months. IF she has cavities then I’ll have her rinse maybe a couple times a week with it instead of nightly. My kids almost never get sugar and we eat a pretty clean diet (especially with the allergies) so hopefully that will help. I’m also going to get her using tea tree oil toothpaste. I know she won’t like it, but I also know it works.

    My bladder did very well on this trip. I made extra efforts to drink a lot of water and it really helped. I also took along my Guna numbers this time and tried to use them daily. I did miss days, but I think it helped to keep the lymph moving. That really seems to be the key for my bladder.

    Andrea, I know you’re gone now, but I wanted to respond to the MSM thing. I use it for about a month when I’ve had pain and then only on an as needed basis if I have a day that is more painful. I’m using if for my bladder now instead of the DMSO and I am noticing it helping. I’m glad you got relief from it! I think that stuff is great. MSM is actually a derivative of DMSO. It’s the sulfur that is helpful in relieving pain. Which makes me think we aren’t getting enough sulfur. What foods have sulfur in them, Marla?

    Okay, I guess that’s it for now. I’ve got to respond the other thread and get back to work here.

    Later,

    Patti

60. patti said,

    September 5, 2007 at 3:37 pm

    Day 5 of the Molluscum Silvercure on the boy and his spots are 50% smaller with a few of them actually totally gone. We started him on a bedwetting alarm last night. Oh, that’s fun when it blares at 5:30AM!

    Please pray for me today. I had a root canal this morning on my tooth and I’m absolutely nauseus (sp?) from the novacaine. Already been sick once. They used a long acting and lots on me because I have a history of not being able to get numb. It makes me shake, sick and weak. I barely made it home. Great. Somehow I’m going to have to cleanse this out of my system.

    patti

61. patti said,

    September 6, 2007 at 8:15 pm

    Hi Andrea,

    I thought I’d answer your why we’re moving question over here instead of the “war” thread.

    The short answer to why we’re moving is, we do not like Oregon. We came here because God told us to twelve years ago. God has made it clear we can go now. We have always believed (and still do) that the Lord brought us here to be a witness to my family who is all lost and on their way to hell. So we’ve spent 12yrs being a testimony to my family and their rejection of Christ is in their hands now. We have prayed for years for the Lord to give us clarity as to when we could go. We thought it would be before mom died, but alas, it wasn’t. She always wanted to move with us.

    The long answer to our move is we hate the rain, we hate the rain, we hate the rain, we hate the politics (liberal as anything), horrible taxes, their pushing homosexuality down kindergardners throats and it’s only getting worse. People ask us why schools matter to us since we homeschool. The answer is because in ten years those kids will be out about town on their own and we will have a whole new population whose been convinced they’re queer when they’re not. We do not want to subject our kids to that. It’s bad enough when we have to tell them about the staple heads they see at the grocery store. Eeeks.

    Okay, so that’s the political and climate stuff. We need to hire someone in our business but Oregon is very business unfriendly unless you have 20,000 employees (Intel). Because of taxes it’s expensive to hire anyone here. So, we picked states that were low in taxes, conservative, were high mountain desert so we’d have cold, dry winters and hot, dry summers. Pretty much brought it down to Wyoming and Idaho. What we found in Wyoming though is it’s EXPENSIVE. Taxes are cheap but housing is very expensive. Registering a vehicle is outrageous and house insurance is incredible. We pay $450 a year for house insurance here and in Wyoming they wanted $1400 a year! I was a licensed insurance agent for 5 yrs and I about choked. I understand all about insurance and I was still shocked. The one advantage Wyoming had over Idaho was not very many people which we also wanted. But with that, means not very many services. The nearest Costco was 2 hrs away in Billings, Montana. I couldn’t find a health food store that had organic anything. So while we ended up going back to Idaho (lived their for 5 yrs in the 90’s) where there’s more people, there’s also more services. I shouldn’t have any trouble getting organic everything and I should have a good selection of raw, organic cows milk. I guess in life, everything’s a trade off. So the only thing we’re giving up in Idaho is the small town thing. Although we’ll live in a town of 13K, it’s so close to a couple big cities that they really run together.

    Okay, there’s my long and short answer. I’m sure, way more then you wanted to know!

    I’m not sure if this will double post. I tried to stop it. If it does, Marla, will you delete the first one?

    I forgot to answer your Marie question, Andrea. No, Marie is not going with us. She is currently living with Ron’s brother and they are having the same difficulties with her that we were. It is still not clear if they will try to keep her or if we will all sit down and try to find a home for her. It’s a very difficult situation and one that everyone is pretty broken hearted about. Ron’s brother is pretty adamant he does not want her in a home so he may try to stick this out. For her sake, I hope he does. We just couldn’t do it with little kids. Their kids are mostly grown.

    Okay, now I’m done.

    Patti

62. Andrea said,

    September 8, 2007 at 11:05 am

    Thanks for the update, Patti. My daughter-in-law is from Spokane, they’re pretty familier with Coeur-d’Alene, so I’ve heard some “Idaho talk” from time to time. What’s the name of your new town?

    So sad, the situation with Marie. It’s so hard to change someone’s behavior at that age. My sister-in-law is not in a home, she has paid staff come in every day and give her her insulin and drive her places and so on, but she would have to be in a home if it weren’t for my brother (Asperger’s but able to drive and look after her a little). There is no way we could care for her.

    I think about my mom, too. Medicare doesn’t pay for in-home help, and all she’s got is social security and us. Right now, with us bringing her meals, and city rec. program, and a cleaning lady, she’s fine, but if she starts to need more care, if she has a long, slow decline, then what? We need my income, I couldn’t quit and take care of her. I am adamant, too, about “no institution” for her, but I pray God will show me how to make this possible.

    Adios, Idaho gal!! Andrea

63. Administrator said,

    September 9, 2007 at 8:21 pm

    Hi Patti:

    Had a busy week with school starting and all. Today I went with Andrew to a writer’s convention. Was interesting, heh, so apologies for delayed response.

    From Prescription for Nutritional Healing by Balch, sources for sulfur are Brussels sprouts, dried beans, cabbage, eggs, fish, garlic, kale, meats, onions, soybeans, turnips, and wheat germ.

    Heat may change the action of sulfur in the body, so you may want to try to get it from different sources depending upon whether you have to cook it or not.

    How’s the root canal coming along?

    Crazy stuff about the fluoride, huh? The book I have on it has pictures of bone deterioration due to fluoride, eek! (spine) And to think that some medical drugs use fluoride in some of their compounds. . . I know the info from Christopher Bryson also mentioned how fluoride negatively affects children mentally. There was a woman who had done studies on it in his video interview where she discussed her findings on it, then got black listed when she tried to expose it. I can see here a perfect example from the Bible that sometimes “knowledge is for ourselves.” Sometimes we can’t help others when they don’t want to see it, but at least we can help ourselves. Anyway, since reading about the asbestos problem in Libby, Montana, I was doing some book searches on Amazon and found one on the Donora plant Bryson mentioned. I think that one has to do with fluoride. I’m gonna try to check that one out, too, and see what else I can learn from it.

    I don’t know anything about Idaho except they have “Idaho potatoes,” ha ha! Maybe some time you can share pictures with us. I imagine that some places up in that neck of the woods is beautiful. Hope all the moving stuff goes smoothly!

    Marla

64. patti said,

    September 10, 2007 at 10:26 am

    Marla,

    Very quickly; can you recommend a good toothpaste for my kids? Personally, I think the tea tree toothpastes would be best but they won’t touch it because of the taste. I’ve tried about ten different kinds so far and I’m tire of throwing out $4 tubes of 2oz. of toothpaste because they won’t touch the stuff! The gels make a HORRIBLE mess with little ones so I have to avoid those. After trying two of them I learned by lesson. Any suggestions here? I’m starting to lose hope I’ll ever find anything flouride free and SLS free that will keep Grace from getting cavities. That’ why I like the tea tree stuff, cause I KNOW it works because of Ron.

    I’ll have to share root canal stuff later. Gotta jet right now.

    patti

65. Administrator said,

    September 10, 2007 at 9:27 pm

    Hi Patti:

    Our family uses Weleda. The markets I go to carry it, but you may be able to order it online. You can see their website here http://shop.weleda.com/SearchByCategory.aspx?CategoryCode=OralCare I use the Calendula Toothpaste. If you’ve been using the regular toothpastes, this will take some getting use to because it doesn’t lather or bubble up. But it works fine for us. You might want to remind the kids that toothpaste isn’t for eating, so it shouldn’t matter if it doesn’t taste good. Just use it to brush and spit it out.

    If you recall the observations of Dr. Weston Price, there were many groups of people who had very nice teeth who didn’t use toothpaste like we do here. Some didn’t even brush their teeth, yet didn’t have cavities. People in different countries have used other sources like neem, and even charcoal (not the kind for BBQ, but the activated charcoal which is also used for emergencies for accidental poisonings. I think they’re made from coconut husks). Those can be found in the health food stores. I doubt your kids will want to use those, but just keep in mind that humans have existed for centuries before “toothpaste” as we know it was marketed. It’s not toothpaste that keep teeth healthy. It’s mostly systemic, I believe. Did you ever check out the article on Dr. Page at the Pottenger Price website? I think that’s a good article to read, too.

    Okay, take care!

    Andrea, I meant to say welcome back! Where did you go on vacation, anyway? I hope you had a nice time.

    Marla

66. patti said,

    September 11, 2007 at 10:27 pm

    Hey Marla, thanks for the info. I’m pulling up the site right now. Um, yeah, kids aren’t supposed to eat toothpaste but if they don’t like it they won’t touch it. The not foaming doesn’t seem to bother them so much as most of them seem too “spicey” to them. At least that’s what they tell me. We don’t eat ANYTHING spicey in our house so if something has the least bit of spice (or whatever it actually is that they call spice) it drives them bonkers. Guess I should have learned to love chili peppers when I was pregnant, huh?

    Okay, my root canal. I talked to 3 endos and requested that they do the procedure recommended in the root canal cover up book and they all flat out refused. Whatever it’s technical name is (it does have one!), it’s considered surgery and they only reserve it for patients who end up with a second infection AFTER a root canal. I even used the “my mom seems prone to these infections so I may be” line and they weren’t going there. So my dentist (what a nice guy) talked to his endo and that guy agreed to do the procedure (it’s an extra $1500 I might add). But for whatever reason (we still can’t figure out why), half way through my trip I received a call from them saying they would not only not do the procedure but they wouldn’t do even a straight root canal. So, all I can figure is this guy read my chart and figured out that he screwed up the last root canal he tried on me (yep, just so happened to be that guy!) and decided he wasn’t going to do it. I remember the root canal book said there are only a handful of endos in the whole country that will do a root canal correctly the first time. I’m guessing it wasn’t likely I was going to find one in Portland. So I ended up getting a regular root canal but to be honest, I cried. I just prayed and prayed and asked God to protect me from getting anything as a result. I’ve already got a compromised immune system….. After Ron’s mom and the mess hers was, I’m a little freaked out. But neither Ron nor the dentist wanted me to lose this tooth at 37yrs old. It’s been a week now and I’m still in pain. I’m still having to use garlic for pain relief. It IS getting better, but wow, it’s taking a long time. The endo said the root was completely inflamed when he pulled it out. The guy did manage to get me numb enough (which is a real problem for me for some reason). However, he said I should be numb for AT LEAST 5-6 hours and I was tingling and wearing off 1.5hrs later. Which means I barely made it through the procedure before that stuff started wearing off. What’s with me and numb stuff wearing off so quick/not working? Weird. Anyway, I’m trying not to think about it anymore ’cause I’m still freaked out about it. I’ve got to find someone who will do it right in case I ever need another (my husband assures me I probably will as I age – lovely).

    Luke’s muscullosum continues to heal beautifully! It’s almost totally gone now. Just a few spots left. It’s been hot here this past few days and the poor guy has been getting heat hives. Wish I could help him but at least I know it’s caused by heat.

    I’m finding with my bladder if I drink large quantities of water at night that I can go all night on one pain pill again. So that’s a good start. That just goes to prove my toxic body theory of IC.

    Okay, gotta jet. My computer time is going to have to cut way back. I’ve just got too much to do and I’m losing my t-tapp time to this black box! Thanks again for the toothpaste info, Marla. I’m going to get the pink stuff and give it a whirl. The kid’s stuff is a gel – yuck.

    Patti

67. Valerie Kambeitz said,

    September 12, 2007 at 8:26 am

    Patti,
    Thanks to you all for the info and update of MC. I have been away for a few days and just got your messages. I am going to order the Silver Cream today!!! I am so excited for your little boys resutls!!!
    I will keep you posted.
    Valerie

68. Administrator said,

    September 12, 2007 at 2:32 pm

    Hi Patti:

    That’s good that the no foaming won’t put the kids off. The Weleda Calendula toothpaste isn’t spicy to me at all. If they don’t mind the no foam, then I think that one is pretty mild in regard to flavor. Course I’ve been using it for a while now and don’t even notice the flavor at all. I suppose tea tree probably isn’t too pleasant to have in one’s mouth! I haven’t tried that one, tho.

    I hope your root canal settles down soon. I can certainly understand your concern and am just as surprised as you are that the dentists refused to extract that tooth even upon your request.

    Interesting about your resistance to painkillers. I know some people build up resistance to them if they use them a lot. But I think there are other reasons that can make people develop resistance. For instance alcoholics tend to have resistance to painkillers, so it does take extra dosage for them to numb out. I’m not sure what else causes it, but I would think if alcohol can do it, then likely something else can, too. I’m wondering if all the pain pills you have been taking for your bladder has made your body build up a resistance to other pain meds. Just a thought.

    Fabulous news on Luke’s MC! Thanks for sharing that with us. Valerie, I hope your child also gets relief, and I would be happy if you would update us with his progress on it. I’ve learned a lot from other people’s experiences and thank everyone who is willing to share! So I am very pleased that you may be able to help your son through Patti’s experiences!

    Patti, I understand about computer time! I have been having the same problem! So much to do, and where does all the time go? Ha! Even I let the blog go at times, too, so definitely do what you have to first, and then come and share with us as time permits.

    Take care!

    Marla

69. Andrea said,

    September 12, 2007 at 4:24 pm

    Hey Patti–I just remembered someone once recommending simple sea salt–just a sprinkle on a wet toothbrush– as a dentifrice. Salt kills bacteria. I use baking soda. Some people hate this, but maybe your kids wouldn’t?

    So sorry about your root canal! Hang in there–you are building your health, and that’s a long process. I second Marla’s support for not spending too much time on the computer. We’ll keep praying for you until we hear from you!

    Andrea

    PS–We were going to go out on our boat for our vacation. But our dogsitter fell through. So we stayed home, turned off the computer, went swimming alot and out to eat whenever we felt like it. Quite nice!

70. patti said,

    September 12, 2007 at 9:32 pm

    Hi Valerie!

    I too am glad our experience might help someone else! I’m curious, does your child have the MC really bad like the pictures on the website? My husband and I were talking about this tonight and said that if someone did, you’d have to take the spots in sections and do a little bit each night because they bleed like anything when you remove the core. We actually had to put little bandaids all over the back of my son’s leg because he was bleeding so much. So, you might stock up on those little round bandaids or just the small ones ’cause you’re going to need them no matter how many cores you have to remove! Maybe buy some stock in bandaid brand at the same time.

    Okay, so yesterday I did not put the silver stuff on my son because of whatever reason I didn’t and we definately noticed there was no positive change in the leisons today so you have to make sure you’re faithful with it twice a day (and they say 3x’s if twice isn’t working). Also, IF your child has it bad, you might want to invest in their whole kit for the whole house. It’s just over a $100 but would be worth it if the MC is really bad. I am thankful ours has just been an annoyance. Mine is gone now (I only had five spots) and I noticed my little girl still has two little spots (no cores) on her.

    Please do keep us posted!

    Andrea, your “vacation” still sounds nice! Anytime away from the world is nice. Computer and all.

    Ya know what, Marla? Before I became a christian I was a huge alcoholic in college. It runs in my family big time and it didn’t take me long to hit there too. I wonder if that’s why?? My first root canal attempt was before I had IC and had to take pain pills so that wouldn’t have affected me then. Hmmm. Interesting. Oh well. Whatever it is, I just have to warn dentists that numbing me requires a bomb of novacaine first. :\

    See you ladies. Oh, oh, oh! Mom’s house sold. Did I tell you that? We got an all cash offer, close in two weeks pending inspection. Yippee! Our contingency on the Idaho house is removed. It really took a lot longer to sell mom’s house then anyone expected. It’s a fairly new home and really in perfect condition (they bought it brand new) since only two old people and one older adult lived there. And the grandkids weren’t allowed to touch the walls. We knew God’s timing would be perfect and it is.

    Okay, now I really gotta go.

    patti

71. Administrator said,

    September 13, 2007 at 5:17 pm

    Ah, Patti, you lush, ha! Well that just might be why you need extra strength plus plus and a half. Glad you were able to lick the alcohol problem. It’s not that easy for lots of folks!

    And congrats on selling your MILs house! So looks like things are a go for Idaho! Woo hoo!

    Yes, I agree with Patti, Andrea. Any time away from the world sounds nice! And actually there are lots of local places to check out right by home, so it is funny sometimes that we would spend so much money to leave far from home on a vacation, heheh. I know there are still lots of places here that I haven’t seen. . .

    Okay, have a nice evening, ladies!

    Marla

72. Andrea said,

    September 14, 2007 at 4:54 pm

    Patti–Kudos to you for licking the alcohol problem! I know it’s not easy. My aunt died of malnutrition due to alcoholism, but not before she had done a lot of damage alienated her entire family. Very sad. My mom also struggled with it, and won the battle, good for her. Ditto my brother-in-law.

    Patti, did your newfound faith help you overcome the bottle?

    Andrea

73. patti said,

    September 14, 2007 at 9:11 pm

    Well, keep in mind, I started drinking recreationally when I was 16 and when I went away to college I joined a sorority an well, you sort know how that goes. I only drank during parties but anytime I drank I would drink to the point of alchol poisoning. I can’t even remember the number of times I was hauled to the ER for that. I actually stopped drinking mostly when I moved from OSU to Portland State. I lived with a saved lady and her daughter and I got saved shortly thereafter (I was 20). So I didn’t have a ton of time under my belt drinking and I was fine so long as I didn’t touch the stuff. But if it was there, I’d help myself and it always ended in disaster. I think I drank alone twice that I can remember. But it was that feeling inside of, “I can’t stop this train.” Even though it wasn’t often, it was ALWAYS guranteed I’d over drink. Coming from an alcholic family I had enough knowledge to know I was “supposed” to be careful. So for me, stopping drinking was not “hard” per se. I got saved, I had one drink after that and it was just one. Not to get drunk. Never drank again. I actually have such an aversion for it today that I can’t even cook with cooking wines. Although, mom had some in her cupboards I thought I might try someday. ha! Anyways, it was no major feat for me. It was harder to get a handle on being anorexic and bulimic then it was to stop drinking for me. But I knew that feeling was in me and I felt it every time I drank.

    Boy, I’m so glad God saves us out of the trash of this world! I love being a new creature in Christ and I’m thankful I was able to avoid the road that so many of my family took. My oldest brother (the oldest child also) killed himself because of it when he was 38. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” and I can’t remember the bible address for that one!

    ‘Night ladies. I’m exhausted. I have not slept well this week. So much going on with moving…..

    patti

74. patti said,

    September 24, 2007 at 9:41 pm

    Hey ladies,

    This will probably not be long but I wanted to update on some things. First, Luke’s muscullosum is gone. Praise the Lord! I’m so thankful for that Silvercure stuff. Unfortunately, now my peanut has it. :\ It shouldn’t be hard to treat on her and we don’t see any cores so I think her body is probably fighting it pretty well. Still, I started the silvercure on her tonight.

    I had a temporary crown put on top of my root canal tooth today. I think I must be the only person on earth that requires novacaine after a root canal. Actually, the dentist said it will take a lot of time for the inflammation to go down. I’ve been really good taking my CLO trying to help with the inflammation. Drinking lots of good H2O, skin brushing, etc. So, I suppose it will just take time. I really think I should continue chewing on the garlic daily but it’s really hard to subject my husband to that smell all day and night! The dentist was laughing and telling his new assistant today that when he saw me last he had to wear two masks because of the garlic smell. :\ Oh well. Beats motrin.

    I have been reading a book I bought from PP called the DMSO Handbook. It starts back in the 1960’s when DMSO was discovered. I’m into the 70’s and so far after ten years of use and research they saw no indication of any side effects of DMSO except pain relief and healing for people. There’s a bunch of stuff on the FDA and how they black balled DMSO once it was discovered that it would only work in it’s purest form. Drug companies thought they could mix it with something to get a new drug and thus patent it and make millions. As several drug companies were doing their research they discovered that DMSO worked all on it’s own and would not work with something else so they dropped all studies and all of a sudden the FDA took a disliking to DMSO. In the 70’s they started allowing clinical studies of it again. So up to now, I haven’t seen anything that would scare me away from it. Except for Dr. Reuter’s “law of unintended consequences.” Which could be huge if it means cancer. Or, it could mean nothing. So, I’ll keep reading. For now, I’m continuing to take large doses of MSM in pill form and it seems to be working.

    I also added a liquid form of MSM that goes on as a roll on. It’s infused with some essential oils. I checked over the ingredients pretty carefully and didn’t see anything that looked bad. It’s called Stopain. They also make a cream and I DID find bad stuff in the cream. A friend bought it for me after being with her mom who was using it for pain. It seems to work very well.

    So, between those two forms of MSM and LOTS of water, I’m making some progress on my bladder. Tonight, I am attempting no pain pill for the first time in several years. We’ll see if I make it. The roll on MSM is really nice right before I hit bed for the night. It’s got menthalatum (sp?) in it and I can really feel it through the skin. The first hour when I lay down is my worst. If I can get to sleep during that time, then I should be okay. I’m also going to take a dead sea salt bath with eucalyptus oil before bed to help my bladder relax further. I’ll let you know what happens.

    I’ve also started doing research on enzymes for healing after reading some stuff on welltellme.com. In particular, lipase. It seems from my symptoms I am definately deficient in this particular enzyme. It would help explain the pancreatitis not having an “identifiable” cause. Although, nutrasweet would still be high on the list. I also have naturally high triglycerides and really work to keep them down. When mom was sick, Keith Barton had her taking high high doses of Intenzyme Forte. I think she was taking 15 pills of enzymes a day. I’m thinking to try adding some to my diet and see what happens. I’m wondering if I’ll notice a difference in weight loss (I seem to have stalled despite t-tapp) and also if my next blood test will show a better triglyceride count then last time. My trig. were down to 65 at one point and my last test they were back up to 145. Of course, there was a lot of stress in there with mom dying and all. So, we’ll see what happens with that. I’ll list some links on enzymes next time.

    For now, I’ll need to run. Still so much to do to move. We laughed and told the kids we’d be eating thanksgiving dinner off of paper plates and plastic silverware this year. They didn’t think we were too funny. But, we’re serious!

    Until next time……..

    patti

75. Administrator said,

    September 25, 2007 at 4:56 pm

    Hey Patti!

    Thanks for the update! Great news that Luke’s MC is gone! Hopefully your peanut will clear up in a jiff. It’s tough when one person has something contagious in the house. Commonly everyone else will eventually get it. I know that’s what happens in this house! Ack!

    So, so far it seems that you have to just wait until the inflammation goes down with your tooth? You know, I went on a garlic stint for a while, too, and I know what you mean about smelling of garlic! Ha! I did that for several months when I was on a candida diet. I think it did me some good, tho. And now I only take it periodically just prophylactically. They say it’s a good anti-parasitic.

    How did the pain go last night without the pain pill? Hope you made it okay without it!

    Sorry to hear about your older brother! Wow. I only had one uncle who was an alcoholic. He is gone now, tho. As far as I know, he also never got rid of his addiction.

    I didn’t know you were anorexic and bulimic! Yeah, I’ve read that THAT is a tough one to beat! How did you beat that one? Did you have to get treatment for that? Or did you get over it on your own?

    Okay, thanks again!

    Marla

76. patti said,

    September 25, 2007 at 8:17 pm

    Hi Marla,

    Yeah, I just have to wait for the inflammation to go down on the tooth. I was told it could take as long as 8 weeks. Ugh. I go back in two weeks for a permanent crown. Man, we’ve put more out on my teeth this past two months then I have in years. I think braces five years ago was the last big expense I had. I hope this is the last!

    I actually did pretty good last night pain wise. I took a bath in eucalyptus oil and sea salt to make sure my bladder was really relaxed. I put on quite a lot of the MSM via the skin over my bladder and went to bed. I had no trouble going to sleep and actually made it till midnight. At that point I woke up and it was obvious I wasn’t going to make it all night. BUT – it didn’t take long for me to be comfortable enough after taking a pain pill to sleep again. The reason this is significant is because normally, once I can feel the pain it’s almost too late. It takes double the pain pills and much longer for the pain to go away. I cannot let the pain get away from me. But this time, I just started to feel it, took something and had no trouble going right back to sleep. So I didn’t make it all night but I feel like I’m making pretty good strides. I’m still very hopeful I will be pain pill free by the time we move. I have spent a lot of time in prayer asking God to flat out heal me and I believe he can if he wants to. I’d take an outright healing at this point!

    As for the eating disorder – I did spend some time in treatment at a hospital when I was 15. It didn’t do much for me. I had already been fooling with it for 5 yrs by that point. I struggled and got worse until I got saved. As soon as I got saved God literally took it away from me (okay – mostly). I stopped struggling with the behaviors but I still struggled with the mindset. The mindset slowly got better and better. I struggled a little bit when I was pregnant with my first and was gaining pregnancy weight (which I lost all of). My husband told me if I ever threw up again he’d start smoking cigars. Okay – I don’t really know if he would, but he usually means what he says so I haven’t taken any chances. Okay, maybe now and again if I’m already feeling flu like just to get it over with – but that’s it! For me, by far, the eating disorder was harder to get rid of. Especially the mind set. I still struggle with the “I’m fat” mind set and thinking if I were bone skinny life would be so much better. I find if I keep my mind stayed on Christ then I do fine. If I stray and start looking inward I start freaking out. It’s been hard being overweight since after the last baby because I have always been so fit. I actually lost my baby weight from all my babies (even after gaining 50lbs – I gain LOTS AND LOTS of water). I gained when my adrenals almost washed out right after my last was born. But it took me 4 years to figure out why I couldn’t lose it which just allowed my body to get more unhealthy at the time. I can tell things are healing by how hard or easy it is for me to lose weight. And yes, sometimes I do plateau. But as long as my cloths continue to change in size I’ll be fine.

    Okay, that was a long story. And that’s the short version! I’m going to continue to try going without the pain pills and hopefully one of these nights I’ll stretch all night. You all will be the first to know! (okay, next to my husband).

    Gotta jet. Finally got permission to start packing my house. Got tons to do!

    patti

77. Administrator said,

    September 26, 2007 at 8:50 pm

    Oh, good news about your bladder pain, Patti! That does sound like improvement. Some things just don’t fix right away, but take time. That has been my personal experience.

    Speaking of teeth, Brian just picked up some India powder used for brushing teeth. . . It’s called Monkey Brand Black Tooth Powder, ha! It’s got a bunch of herbs in there that I’m not familiar with and charcoal. Ordinarily I would try to find out what those ingredients are first, but I already tried some tonight, heh. Brian has been having trouble with sensitivity with his teeth, so has been experimenting with some things including tea tree oil. Since this new product he got has charcoal in it, I wanted to try it because I’ve read that charcoal is good for whitening teeth. And I need that! This is what the ingredients are in case you’re interested:

    Haritaki
    Saurashtri
    Ajwanka Phool
    Nilgirika Tel
    Wood Charcoal
    Sangjira
    Pudineka Phool
    Kapur
    Iavangka Tel
    Excepients

    Hope there’s nothing bad in there! But I do plan to find out a little more about it. In the meantime, it does feel like it cleans well, and since charcoal is known to absorb organic toxins (not to be confused with organic foods, ha ha! but rather toxins which have carbon bonds in them), I feel okay with it. Probably not something your kids will want to use because your mouth is all black when brushing! But it does feel clean afterwards.

    I’m glad that you’ve got a good handle on the bulimia thing. Sounds like you and your hubby are on a buddy system to keep each other in check, heh. I’ve never been one to throw up much, so it’s a hard concept for me to grasp.

    I gained lots of weight during my pregnancies, too–around 50lbs each time. I’ve pretty much lost all of it, tho, but could use a lot of toning up. It’s amazing how much weight we gain during pregnancy, huh?

    Okay! Talk laters!

    Marla

78. Andrea said,

    September 28, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    Patti-

    You’ve overcome so much. Thank you for sharing that story. I had to smile at your husband’s threat of cigars! Guess he knew how to get you!

    Marla, is Brian still studying Chinese herbology? I’ve started studying Chinese medicine with Rob and I’m really loving it. Rob bought a bunch of DVDs of Qi Gong exercises–we’re learning the Five Animal Frolics together. There’s an exercise named after each of five animals and associated with the five organs–lungs, kidneys, liver, spleen/pancreas, and heart. (Tiger, Bear, I forget, Monkey, and Crane) Quite fascinating, and a lot of fun. I really like the exercise component of Chinese medicine, because I find that they make me feel so good.

    Rob is flying out to Portland OR Wednesday to help our son and dil with their kitchen remodeling. He’ll also see Dr. Kou while he’s there and get another prescription for herbs. He sees an acupuncturist here 2x month. And . . . . (drum roll) . . . his last test, his platelets were 34K! That’s the highest they’ve been on his own, first time in the 30s. Everything else was about the same. So we’re feeling that slowly, but surely, he’s moving in the right direction.

    Sounds like your bladder issues are improving, Patti. Take care everyone, Andrea

79. patti said,

    September 28, 2007 at 8:26 pm

    Hey, Andrea, that’s fantastic news about Rob’s platelets!! Ya know, Dr.Kou always told us that platelets were the last thing to come back and took many years. Marla, didn’t you say even your platelets run a little lower then normal? For some reason I think I remember you saying they ran in the low 100’s???

    Tell Rob to bring his umbrella, rainy season has started here. Ugh.

    Um, yeah, Marla, I’m thinking the kids won’t brush with that stuff Brian’s using.

    When I was pregnant with my first I didn’t worry one thing about gaining weight and I gained 50lbs. I literally lost 40 of it having her. It took me several months to lose the last ten. With my second, I tried not to gain too much weight and I still gained 50lbs. Same thing afterwards, lost it all – most of it in the hospital. The last one they put me on insulin because of the gestational diabetes after the pancreatitis and I only gained 35 – no trouble losing that. It was nearly all gone by the time I left the hospital. So my crazy way of getting rid of all that water I collect? I make the nurses bring me a half a gallon of cranberry juice. I mix half juice/half water in 16oz. bottles and literally drink that half gallon of juice in less then 24hrs. And I LIVE in the bathroom. But but the time I leave the hospital, I’d lost all of the water weight I gained and only had body weight that I gained left to lose. It worked everytime. I know cranberry juice is full of sugar, but all I wanted was to get rid of all that water. That scale number still bugs me (ED left overs).

    I have accomplished almost nothing this past few days. My two olders have change of season colds and my youngest has a very high fever. Today she hit 104.8! Last night I called the on call nurse at my doctors office to find out how high I could let her go without getting her checked. She told me 108!! 108!! Have you ever heard that? Don’t seizures usually start at 106? She lectured me about not vaccinating my kids, she chided me for giving my daughter a cool bath with eucalyptus oil, she chided me for alternating tylenol and motrin trying to get the thing down. She told me to let her fever go – it’s productive. Okay, yes, fevers are productive until around 102. But 103.9 (where she was last night) is no longer productive, it’s just scary. I usually will let a fever go if it’s under 102. I called the doc today when she hit 104.8 and told them about last night and that I wasn’t alternating the tylenol and motrin anymore because the lady told me I was going to hurt my peanut. They were furious. Well, duh. They said 105 is the absolute top before you get a child checked. They told me to alternate and oh yes, it was fine to give her a tepid bath. I can just barely get her to 102 and keep her there for 3-4hrs before she goes back up higher again. I’ve been trying to get her to take black elderberry syrup to boost her immune system but she’s totally unreasonable anywhere above 102. Whatever she’s fighting, it’s yucky. If she’s not down below that tomorrow I will take her in and have them pull a blood test. My mothering intincts tell me she’ll crack tonight. So we’ll see. In the meantime, I’m not getting much sleep which my adrenals do not like and no packing done either ’cause I’m to beat. Oh well.

    Ohhh, I learned something with my son’s allergies the other day. I was making buckwheat pancakes and only had one duck egg. I figured since they’ve had a fairly clean diet (and zero regular eggs) for some months I would just use one regular egg this time. Well, within an hour my son was back to slogging around like he did before we took eggs out. AND, he had no energy for two days, just like before. I was amazed at the difference that that small of an amount of egg white could make for him. It will also make me more diligent when we go out somewhere to double check stuff doesn’t have eggs in it. It’s hard to get anything to eat out that doesn’t have eggs and wheat. If I have to give on something, I usually give on the wheat because it’s his weakest allergy and it’s pretty mild (like 2.8 on a 100 scale). The eggs and dairy were in the 80’s and 90’s. I can only get duck eggs 30 minutes from here so I’m going to have to be more diligent in having them on hand. Good night man, with duck eggs at $4.29 a dz and goats milk at $14 a gallon I’m gonna go broke! I’m looking forward to getting ducks when we moved. We are going to get a few chickens for eggs for the three that can eat them and then Ron said a year later we can get a few ducks. I need to do some reading on taking care of them. We already told the kids they will lose their kiddie pool ’cause the ducks will need it. They’re all thinking the dog is going to eat the ducks and chickens so that will be interesting.

    Okay, all the farm talk has me exhuasted thinking about all the work ahead! Ha. Better call it a night.

    patti

80. Administrator said,

    September 29, 2007 at 8:53 am

    Yes, Andrea! What great news about Rob’s platelets! I know how stubborn those little guys can be! It took months for mine to start inching up, and like Patti said, they’ve only reached to 118K at the highest that I know of. I haven’t had a CBC in over a year now, so I don’t know the exact count now, but they had been pretty stable in the 118K range for about 3 years. I’m hoping they’re higher now, heheheh.

    Yes, Brian is still studying Chinese herbology. Actually there is a little in his courses to with Ayurvedic herbs as well, but so far more on Chinese and even a little with Western herbs. Your course sound neat! I’ll tell Brian about it. The names you mentioned reminds me of a book Brian just bought called “A Tooth From the Tiger’s Mouth”. It regarding how to treat injuries using herbs, massage, and meridian points, I think.

    Anyway, today is Matthew’s 17th birthday! So I’d better cut this short and continue later.

    Patti, I hope your daughter’s fever broke last night! And hope the rest of the fam stays well! Oh, and BTW, my youngest son actually got a kick out of the “black” tooth powder, ha ha! I hadn’t expected that he would get a kick out of it and brush “longer” ha ha ha! There’s boys for ya. . .

    Toodles for now!

    Marla

81. patti said,

    October 17, 2007 at 12:12 am

    Ladies,

    I have soooo much to catch up on here. I’m not even sure where to start. It’s a little overwhelming.

    A few weeks ago we changed out from Guna numbers back to Undas because the ND said she was involved in a writing project and didn’t have anymore time to commit to learning the Guna system. I spent two weeks on the Undas and noticed they just are not near as good as the Gunas when it comes to cleansing. So this week she put me back on the Gunas and agreed to stock just the ones I’m taking and not learn any others for herself. I’m going to finish out the Undas and then restart the Gunas. How’s that for confusing??? I’ll continue to work with her via phone when we move as long as that works out.

    Tomorrow I’m planning on starting the master cleanse. It’s a ten day lemonade cleanse (using real lemons). I read about it here http://www.welltellme.com/discuss/index.php/topic,334.0.html . After reading about it there I did some web searching and studied it some more. It seems to me, that if my bladder can handle it, this would be a good cleanse for me. I mentioned it to Reuter and she said I would only lose muscle because when there’s a lack of calories and amino acids the body will go after muscle. While there’s a part of me that knows that principal, everything I’ve read about this thing says that doesn’t happen. So, who to believe? I thought as a precautionary I might take some powdered aminos every other day so as not to lose muscle. Although, the cleanse says you should take no supplements. Although I would love to lose 20lbs (that would put me close to my goal), my main goal for the cleanse is to reset my pancreas (sugars), reset my hormones and cleanse my body a little more hoping to heal my bladder. Knowing what I do about how cleansing affects me, I’m resolved to having to take a few more pain pills this next ten days if needed hoping on the other side that I’ve helped my bladder and not damaged it further. And of course, I will stop if it appears to really be causing damage. So, this should be interesting.

    We had our peanut (age 6) looked at for a mitral valve prolapse as her lips were turning blue and she was having heart pain. The pain has been going on for several months off and on but the lips turning blue started when she got roseola and then continued even after she got better. For now, I’m just going to keep her diet tight (we have been mostly anyway) and start her on cal/mags to see if that helps. I have two brothers with MVP and heart problems run really deep in my family so it wouldn’t surprise me if she shows up with it someday. Although, I’m hoping her grandma’s constitution holds out for her. She definately is like grandma that way.

    Luke has made great. strides with his health. He’s been on a nighttime alarm now for 6 weeks and each week he has added another dry night. We’ve had 7 dry days in a ROW now. That is literally a record for him. He is getting good about getting up at night to go potty without the alarm having to go off. We need two dry weeks then we’ll do a water challenge for two weeks and see how he does. If he still stays dry then, we’ll take the alarm away. He is so happy to be dry and wearing undies and no pull ups to bed anymore! He really hated that he was the only one not nighttime trained. I love this alarm. It’s the best $106 we every spent. It’s taken some time to train his bladder and brain to connect, but it seems to be working.

    We had his IGG and IGE numbers retested yesterday. These will measure his level of inflammation in his body to see if it’s coming down now that we’ve removed the allergens from his diet. I WANT to see this improved. If it’s not, I’m not sure what we’re going to do next. I will start juicing when we get moved, but right now the juicer is packed. But I think we’re going to see improvement because we notice it in him physically. He has energy like an 8yr old boy should have energy. It’s obvious when he’s gotten his hands on something he’s allergic to because he slogs for two days after that. He can barely get himself off the floor. Funny how allergies affect everyone differently, huh? For me, I get underarm rashes.

    Moving is, well, moving right along. We found out our house will open up Nov. 1st instead of the 20th so if we could get our acts together we might be able to be there by the 10th. But Ron still has a ton of orders to fill before we can shut the shop down. So we’ll see what happens. I will be stopping school early (original plan was 11/1) and get my packing going full force now in hopes of being able to get out of here sooner. We will be offline until late December at least.

    I got a 1/2 gallon of raw cows milk today. I drank a glass today and we’ll see if I rash by tomorrow. I’ll try the kids tomorrow. It usually takes 24hrs for us to tell if they’ll be affected by the whey. I’m hopeful they’ll be good with all the good enzymes and stuff. Oh, this raw milk was soooo good. And what’s funny is, I’ve always craved more milk after drinking a glass. But after a glass of raw milk, I’m totally satisified. Amazing, huh?

    Okay, this is long overdue and lacking in so many details but at least it’s an update.

    chat later.

    patti

82. Administrator said,

    October 18, 2007 at 4:31 pm

    Wow, Patti, you do have lots going on right now! But at least there sounds like good news in that you’re making good progress.

    How’s the cow’s milk coming along? I tried organic raw cow’s milk, and loved it, too! But my skin issues just couldn’t handle it, and so far I’ve been staying away from dairy for quite some time now. I can’t even remember now how long although I did break it for about 2 weeks when we went to Turkey. They had so much lovely cheeses and yogurts there, that I had to part take, ack! Which is a major bummer for me because I LOVE CHEESES and YOGURTS, wahhhh boo hoo! But more recently I have tried a “little” without any noticeable breakouts! So I’m encouraged that one day I’ll be able to eat them again.

    Regarding you loosing muscle on the 10 day cleanse. . . hmmm. I also question that, too, because I would think you would loose fat first before muscle. Fat, as far as I know, is stored energy (unlike muscle), so your body will use it in time of need. Well, the proof will be in the pudding, so I look forward to your results once you’ve completed your 10 day lemonade fast. One of these days I want to try a broth fast or some sort of juice fast. I’ve never done one, yet, but I notice that I’m much better at missing a meal then before. I’ve even been able to miss a meal and not realize it until the next meal! That’s really saying something for me! It’s unheard of for me, ha ha! And my sleep is soooo good these days! Many nights I don’t even wake up to pee, now. I’ll go to sleep and wake up at 6AM or after! Something has definitely changed for the better for me. My skin has been behaving pretty good, too. So I think I’m getting closer to where I think some sort of periodical fast might do me some good!

    Well, let us know when you get a chance regarding the progress with your kids. That’s just fabulous news about Luke, and hope that peanut’s heart issues will clear up soon. Check out magnesium, tho. I believe there’s quite a bit out there on magnesium and heart health. Course the heart also needs magnesium, potassium, calcium, vit C, etc. ha ha ha. Oh, that reminds me that there is a book called, The Heart by Matthias Rath. It’s his belief that many heart patients are deficient in vit C. In his book he shows studies where people with arteriosclerosis were able to reverse or reduce it with increased vit C intake. Which also reminds me that at the cancer convention I attended back in 2005, a speaker spoke on how garlic also has shown to reverse ateriosclerosis. As usual, so many angles to try. . .

    Okay, take care, and hope the move goes smoothly!

    Marla

83. patti said,

    October 18, 2007 at 5:33 pm

    Ladies,

    Please pray for my peanut (and me!). She keeps having transient fevers. They run from 100.6 to 102.0 and they keep coming off and on for what we can see is no reason. She’s complaining the bones in her chest are crushing her heart and that the bones in her hands hurt. If she had growing pains, it’d most likely be in her legs (my others have had this). We have decided to get her blood tested tomorrow to see what her white cell count is doing. Can you even guess what we’re thinking? We’re scared to death. I have no idea what’s causing these fevers to come and go but I want to hear that it’s nothing and don’t worry about it. Unfortunately, our doctor does not do CBC’s in his office so I will have to wait out the lab results.

    patti

84. Administrator said,

    October 18, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    Hi Patti, you bet I’m praying! The crushing chest pain worries me and makes me think that perhaps this may call for a crisis medicine ER check. Not sure what’s up with that recurring fever, but I would want to have that crushing chest pain looked into very soon in case there is any damage occurring that needs intervention. Just my suggestion. . .

    Take care,

    Marla

85. patti said,

    October 22, 2007 at 10:10 pm

    Hi,

    A very quick update as I’m exhausted. Peanut’s CBC came back fairly normal. Her neutrophil count was at 79% (high) and her lymphocyte count was low (16%). But still, no real reason for the fevers. Doc decided to do a blood culture just to see but felt like it was a virus I needed to ride out and also told me he thought I was working off of my experience this past two years with mom. Arrrgghh. I did appreciate that he ran the blood work stat and I actually got the results on my way home from his office via phone call.

    At 3:30 AM (yep, AM) Saturday morning our phone rings. The doctor on call received a call from the lab stating that the blood culture was growing bacteria very fast and Peanut had a full blown blood infection. She was septic. He told us to get her to Emanuel Children’s ASAP. I made it there in 30 minutes flat (it’s an easy 45 minute drive) and then we sat in ER for 5 hrs while they decided what to do. Her blood work was at another hospital system which complicated matters. We finally got to a room around 9:15am. They started some weird high powered antibiotic that only required dosing every 24hrs via IV because it’s so strong. They ran another blood culture to see what would happen and a urinalysis. Bingo. She had an undiagnosed bladder infection that went into a kidney infection that went into a blood infection. Why her doc never thought to run a UA is beyond me. He’s really a good doc, but sometimes just a little too laid back. Especially considering that this child has literally never had anything that required an antibiotic nor have I ever taken her in for anything more then a well child check. Anyways, it took two days for the culture to come back. It was e-coli (as they suspected) and she was sent home today on Amoxicillin. They said the fact that she’d never been on antibiotics was a huge plus because it meant the bacteria was easily killed off with a fairly “minor” antibiotic.

    I did learn a few things about bacteria. So this e-coli was feasting on lactobacillus. I have no idea how they determined that. That’s what they told me. I give my kids a good probiotic daily which has lactobacillus in it. I am surmising that she managed to go this long without getting deadly ill because the bacteria was eating off of the lactobacillus from the probiotic BEFORE it was aiming for what was in her blood. The doc actually thought that was plausible. Eventually, it would have caught up with her and she would have gotten much much sicker but we thank God we caught in when we did.

    Hindsight is 20/20 and now we understand that the chest pain hurting around to her back was actually her low back hurting (kidneys). We kept looking for upper back pain. When she complained her stomach hurt, it was growling like crazy because she hadn’t felt like eating so we figured she was hungry – that would have been bladder. But she had no burning or anything otherwise. They did say it’s not uncommon for a child not to have symptoms.

    She did start running a fever again tonight but they said I only have to take her back to the hospital if she goes over 101.5. So for now, I’m assuming this is still just the infection creating issues. I will say it’s very unnerving to watch your child cry and scream about an IV. But by far the removal was worse because of the tape. She screamed for 20 minutes!

    And to end this in a little bit of gross kid humor….. I looked at her yesterday and asked her what was on the skin under her nose. The nurse was right there and said it looks like she needed a kleenex. I went to give one to peanut and she says, “no mommy, I’ll just leave it there and eat it later.” Eeewwwww, gross and oh my goodness!! I thought the nurse and I were going to end up crying we were laughing so hard. Only a 6yr old could get away with that one.

    Thanks for praying, Marla. It’s been a longgggg weekend. I noticed tonight that she really overdid it today when we got home. We’re going to have to keep her down for a few days until she gets this kicked a little more.

    Need sleep. Chat later. That EZ chair wasn’t so comfy.

    patti

86. Administrator said,

    October 23, 2007 at 12:05 pm

    Ack! Dried buggers! Eeeekkk! Ha ha ha! Yeah, only a 6 year old could get away with that one, eeeekk!

    But buggers or no, I’m so glad to hear that the problem is found and is being resolved. Wow, how would you have known that was going on? Now did they say how they think the e-coli got into her bladder? As far as I know, e-coli is generally in the intestinal track and colon, but that some UTIs are caused by e-coli. I “think” e-coli is one of those bacteria that naturally thrive in the colon or intestine w/o causing trouble until some imbalance occurs, similar to candida overgrowth. And I have read that UTIs can move up into the bladder. I had figured that since the female urethras are so short and close to where e-coli can come from that may be the mode of entry, but I am not familiar with the e-coli starting in the bladder. And the short urethras is why I think some believe females get UTIs more than males (because we know how much longer the male urethra is, ha ha much longer road to travel to get to a nice nesting place for the bacteria to grow). I am interested to learn how else e-coli gets in places like the bladder, tho. Need to watch out for that one! So much to learn, huh? You definitely have me curious and will have to add that to my list of things to check out.

    A gal I knew years ago mentioned that her mom passed away from septicemia. I knew very little about health back then, so didn’t even think much about it except that she was the first person I had heard about who had blood poisoning. That was completely out there for me because at that time I knew practically nothing about blood except that it was red and it clots! Ack! Now you make me wonder how her mom got septicemia. . .

    Okay, gotta dash for the moment. Thanks for the update, and much relief that it is now under control!

    Take care and send peanut my hugs! No need to share any boogies, tho, she can keep those all to herself, ha ha!

    Marla

87. Administrator said,

    October 23, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    Okay, well I’m learning something, ha! Apparently, it’s common for people to refer to bladder infections as UTIs. So that’s where part of my misunderstanding was. “Bladder infection” is one of the more common UTIs. So saying UTI is actually a more broad term, and “bladder infection” is more specific. I didn’t know that, erp! I should know to use that term more properly in the future. But along my searches I did see that UTI’s don’t normally cause fevers, but since untreated UTI’s can move up into the kidneys, then once a fever develops that is a sign that the UTI has moved up into the kidneys. And e-coli is the most common bacteria that causes UTI’s. There are others, but from what I’ve read, e-coli seems to be responsible for about 80% of the UTI infections. So my recommendation? Onion puree soup! Ha ha! It has definitely worked for me without antibiotics. But I was diligent with it and still take it every so often for prophylactic purposes.

    I also found that there are many other bacterias which can cause septicemia and can enter the body in various ways including cuts and stabs, etc. particularly if the stab punctures the intestinal tract and spills it’s contents into the rest of the body. Oop, I can feel that this topic is causing my mind to meander into other areas, so I’ll stop here and maybe continue on another fresh post some other time.

    I’ve got a late dinner going on, so better get to it.

    Laters!

    Marla

88. patti said,

    October 23, 2007 at 9:47 pm

    Interesting stuff, huh? Yep, she had a UTI. I believe that’s actually an infection in the ureters, not the bladder isn’t it? Boy, I would totally go with the onion soup if this stuff wasn’t in her blood. I’m feeling like it’s a little to dangerous to not do the antibiotics for this. Maybe I’m just a naturalist weenie. Would onion soup puree work on the blood??? My thought is no, but maybe I’m wrong. However, if I ever hear her complaining with the same stuff again I will go straight for the onion soup puree because hopefully it would just be contained in the urinary tract and/or kidneys.

    Peanut still isn’t 100% . We can see her energy is not what it normally is as evidenced by the fact that she isn’t as mischevious as she usually is! Ha! You think I’m kidding, don’t you? If she’s not getting into something she shouldn’t then it’s not a normal day around here. I have to watch her like a hawk! Since the day she was born. Keeps me on my toes or my house ends up in disarray.

    It was so nice to be home as a family today. I never realized how much one can get used to being with their kids and hub all the time. I felt like half of me was missing while we were in the hospital. And I didn’t leave Peanut’s side there. Not unless you count taking a 5 minute shower in her room. She even walked down to the cafeteria with me. I just can’t leave my kids anywhere alone. I don’t trust people these days. It’s sad, but that’s how it is.

    In other parts of life, I got a ton of packing done today! Yippee. I’m FINALLY making progress. On box #31 and counting….. So anxious to get out of here.

    As for my cleanse, it was cut short because of Peanut’s hospital stay and doc appts. I HAVE to eat if I’m going to drive. I can handle having my blood sugar be a little low at home. But if I’m driving I literally will fall asleep at the wheel if my BS is off. Too high or too low, I’m out at the wheel. It is truely God that has protected me all these years (and protected everyone driving around me!) because so much with mom and other times I’ve all but been out while driving. Very scary. Drives me nuts. Hub calls it a lack of discipline. I just know that I’ve always been that way. Since I started driving I was like that. I think some people just get in the hum of the car and it knocks them out. Okay, now you know never to drive in the same state as me! Ha! Really, I don’t drive if I don’t have to and I make great effort to make sure I’m well ready to drive when I need to. I am a little concerned about driving to Idaho but I’m bringing along lots of preaching tapes. They keep me awake. Music puts me to sleep.

    So, Marla, I want to go back on this cleanse. You think I’ll be okay without taking amino acids for ten days or do you think I should? I don’t want to lose muscle. That is a big deal for me. I actually have very strong leg muscles (thank you ballet dancing) and I don’t want to have flabby legs! Thoughts?

    I found I have to be careful with the lemon as it aggravates my stomach. So I was switching with lime juice as needed. Here’s where I first read about the master cleanse. http://www.welltellme.com/discuss/index.php/topic,334.0.html . This is an old cleanse from what I’ve read. After reading at that link I did some minor web searching to read a little more. One thing I noticed is that day one was AWFUL. I never realized how much of eating was not just filling a hungry belly but it was the hand going to mouth routine. Once I got past that then I was fine. By day 3 I felt great and I wasn’t having hardly any trouble with my bladder. I think this tells me that the gentle cleansing I’ve been doing for 2 yrs has worked and now my body can handle a good, long cleanse. I think if I could have gone the ten days I would have been fine. So, I’ll have to pick a time to start again. BUT, I am pleased that I was able to do the three days without my bladder wigging out. I think that’s a good sign!

    Okay, need to go for the night. Might not update for awhile again. Still praying that peanut continues to a full recovery.

    patti

89. Administrator said,

    October 24, 2007 at 9:43 pm

    Hi Patti:

    Yeah, when I used the onion soup, I believe I was only having UTI problems that did not extend up into my kidneys. So I couldn’t say how well the onion puree would work in the blood. Sepsis is very serious, so this is not the time to be experimenting with it when you are already on a course of treatment. I tried it for myself because I already have a history of bone marrow suppression, so didn’t want to take anymore antibiotics. Since Kassandra is dealing with infection in her blood, I imagine it could take a bit of time for her to start feeling back to her old self. Consider it takes us about a week or more sometimes to get fully over a flu, and Kassandra just started getting treated on Sunday.

    I have read about the Master Cleanse before. I never tried it though because of my problems with fasting. To be honest, I have not researched fasting much because so much of my focus had been on rebuilding and trying to get enough nutrients in. My detox program pretty much consisted of avoiding all the baddies and putting in tons of goodies, ha ha. I’ve read that if we don’t have the proper nutrients then our bodies are not able to detox properly. Our detox pathways need energy to do their jobs, and that is why some healing modalities don’t recommend fasts at all. I never really thought much about losing muscle or even fat for that matter. But at one point I did loose a bit too much weight and was down to 108 lbs. When they started commenting on it at the hospital, then I decided to add some cooked foods back in. I dropped a lot of weight just going completely raw, but not fasting. So I can’t really tell you what to do in this instance. I do know I’ve read about people losing weight but still having flab or cellulite. So that does seem to be a problem. There was even a book I read called, “Why Am I Always So Tired” by Ann Louise Gittleman. The book had info on copper overload and zinc imbalance, but I think it is in this book were she wrote that we have two types of fat. I’ll have to find my notes and see if I wrote any of this down, but IIRC she mentioned we have white fat and brown fat. There was something about us having to active that brown fat to lose weight. I’ll have to find that info again to give the proper details. I’m thinking that in this light, it does seem possible that we could lose muscle if this brown fat isn’t activated properly. But I can’t say for sure because I haven’t really studied weight loss much at all. The only references I’ve seen have been stumbled across. And IIRC, what activated this fat were things like oils, not fasts. I’m not sure if it was sesame oil or sunflower oil or what. but it was stuff like that. This one is really escaping me! I think too much copper slowed down metabolism, and too much estrogen (such as in estrogen meds) contribute to copper overload, and thus slow metabolism and thus weight problems. (Therefore liver health was also important because the liver helps to regulate our hormone levels). But I’m going off on a tangent here because I think you were doing the master cleanse for your bladder, not weight. Just the side issue that you didn’t want to lose muscle. And I still can’t answer your question! Ack! But considering these things does seem like people have had problems with not losing fat while on fasts. I can’t imagine that happening, but now that I think of it, it does seem possible to loose some muscle. The next thing to consider is how long your fast is going to be and how much muscle can you possibly lose in 10 days, right? Hmmm. Hopefully not too much. And another thought would be if you did lose more muscle than you wanted, how long would it take you to build it back up? I would think with good nutrition, it shouldn’t take long to build muscle back up.

    Whew, did I ramble on again? Ack! Okay, that’s all for now! Yak later! And good luck with the packing and moving! Don’t forget to give me your new address!

    Marla

90. patti said,

    October 25, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    Peanut is continuing to heal. Ya know, I realize now that God used this illness as a chance for her and I to bond again. I mentioned in an email that she was really affected by my MIL’s illness in that she lost a lot of critical time with me. 3yrs is a long time to have mommy gone half the time! I’ve been so busy since mom died that I really didn’t notice how little time I was giving to her. I spent the time in the hospital playing Uno with her, reading to her, cuddling, etc. Now that we’re home from the hospital I’ve been trying to really pay attention and make sure she gets some “mommy” time everyday. She’s so content to go play by herself and leave everyone alone that it’s easy for her to get lost in the shuffle. Anyways, there’s a side note to our hospital time.

    Hee hee. Well, your tangent gives food for thought. Right now I can’t start the cleanse again just because of time. I have to juice the lemons fresh daily and we are scheduled to eat out a few times before we leave. I am looking into doing a candida type diet though because I am so yeasty it’s awful. I’ve decided to get William Cooke’s book on Candida to see what it has to say. I KNOW this is a problem for me. I just can’t stand the thought of not having my sweets.

    Hey, how’s Andrea and Rob? Haven’t heard from her in awhile. Everyone okay????

    patti

91. patti said,

    October 26, 2007 at 5:19 pm

    I wanted to post the results of Luke’s latest allergy testing. The tests we run are the ELISA tests and can be found at http://www.arup.com.

    Here they are:

    IGE – measure of total body inflammation on 5/07 was 817, and now 179

    Egg whites on 5/07 was 71, and now 61

    Whey (part of dairy products) on 5/07 was 91, and now 32

    Wheat on 5/07 was 2.68, and now 2.79

    Look at the total inflammation numbers!! THIS is what cod liver oil will do for people. I will probably swear by the stuff till the day I die. Well, at least reasonably until I find some reason not to. Obviously, removing milk from his diet has done wonders! I don’t have the ranges in front of me. I will post those a little later. His wheat went up a little because if we are out and have to give him something he’s allergic to, we give him the wheat. It’s his least affecting allergy. But I can see we still need to be careful while we’re at home.

    Just thought I’d share that with you all. We are absolutely thrilled with the changes in him. Both energy level and hive related. He hasn’t had hives in ions. In January the plan is to start supporting his digestive system and trying to heal leaky gut. I’ll have to do some reading on it. I know that drinking homoginized and pasteurized milk can cause leaky gut and he drank a gallon a day for years. He was my huge milk drinker. Same as me. They say that what you crave the most of you are probably allergic to. So far, I have found that to be true for my family.

    Okay, that’s it for now.

    patti

92. Administrator said,

    October 26, 2007 at 9:39 pm

    Wow, Patti, all his number look much improved! Good job! Isn’t it so satisfying when you start seeing results! I love it! Thanks for updating us with that.

    Keep up the great work!

    Marla

    P.S.  Andrea commented earlier this week on the “Milk and Stuff” thread.  I think she’s busy, tho.  She did mention that she was going to go visit her son, so I’m guessing she might even be out of town?

93. Andrea said,

    October 27, 2007 at 9:36 am

    Yes–I’ve been in NH visiting my 92 yo aunt and son Tom—-Whoa, Patti!!! I’ve been away, not able to check in SO I WASNT ABLE TO PRAY which troubles me but I am SO glad your little one is OK!! How scary!

    I’ve been around the bend and back with UTIs–I had them very frequently as a teenager — here’s what I learned–Teach Peanut that at the first little abdominal pain she should drink tons and tons of water or unsweetened cranberry juice (pretty intense). That will dilute the bacterial colony and help her fight it off. Another little tip is to be sure she is wiping front to back. Wiping the other way can spread the E coli into the urethra.

    People tend to get these things repeatedly, so its a good idea to both educate her and keep an eye on her.

    I LOVE the bugger story! My goddaughter commented to me once, at the age of 5, “I love my snot–it has a lemon flavor.” She was absolutely serious.

    It makes a lot of sense about the illness being a chance for you and she to bond. I think that was one reason Tom got pneumonia. When Rob was sick, he got zero mothering, Rob got it all, and Tom was a support person–at 16. So, he comes home for a visit, and God gives us pneumonia and he gets a big dose of mothering–and I get a chance to care for him, which I had been longing to do.

    I just got back from visiting Tom at Kroka where he works. It was wonderful. They have a book there called “Nourishing Traditions” which is a Weston Price book and which they use a lot to feed themselves. They make something called “kombucha”, a fermented drink that is said to have an enzyme that is very very beneficial for liver cleansing Either of you know about it? I had a bit. Fizzy, not bad.

    Marla, I found your most recent post on transplants extremely thought provoking and you can expect to hear from me, toodles for now, hang in there Patti, moving is stressful!

    Andrea

    PS–Hey you Bible scholars, when Herodias danced for Herod, would that have been belly dancing do you know? I’ll tell you why I want to know later, gotta go now.

94. patti said,

    October 27, 2007 at 5:09 pm

    Marla, I need you to correct my date above. I just double checked and found out that his first test was done in May of this year, not January. Can you change that for me? Thanks, and sorry.

    I said I’d post the reference ranges for different allergies so here they are:

    Less than .10 —— no significant allergy detected
    .10 to .34 ————- clinical relevance undetermined
    .35 to .70 ——— low
    .71 to 3.50 ——— moderate
    3.51 to 17.50 ——– high
    17.51 or greater ——– very high

    Whey has a different range —

95. patti said,

    October 27, 2007 at 5:12 pm

    Okay, this is weird. I had a whole post and only half of it posted???? Grrrr. I’m going to have to go back and redo it later. I’m such a computer idiot.

96. patti said,

    October 27, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    Okay – so I’m going to try and “finish” the post that only half posted above.

    The whey has a different range.

97. patti said,

    October 27, 2007 at 9:08 pm

    Marla,

    I’m stuck in the spam filter.

98. Administrator said,

    October 28, 2007 at 8:37 am

    Okay, Patti, I changed the dates to May of this year, but I didn’t see you in my spam filter. Sorry that you keep losing your posts, yikes! If you’re gonna type out a lengthy detailed post, perhaps you can do it first in Word and then cut and past onto the blog. That way you can save it first before this stupid program decides to drop it or something? Just a thought cause I know what it’s like to spend so much time typing something only to lose it! Grrrr.

    Welcome back, Andrea! Bet you had a great time! Kroka sounds like a fun place to visit. Your son is lucky to be working there. I remember you mentioning that a Weston Price speaker came to speak to your son’s group there (I think they talked about fermenting foods? I remember at the time you mentioned your son was experimenting with making his own yogurt or something like that, which is a very Weston Price group thing, heheheh). Sally Fallon, the author of Nourishing Traditions, is the founder of the Weston Price Foundation. That foundation is based upon the research and type of research Dr. Weston Price worked on in the 1930s. He’s the dentist who wrote the book on dental caries that I was suggesting Patti to read when we were discussing the possible causes of teeth problems. His book is called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. It was from his book which helped me to understand the importance of animal products, and made me go back to animal products. Although I did have to back off on the dairy because of my skin issues, I still eat lots of butter today, ha ha. The Weston Price group is also very big on cod liver oil. I do have a copy of Sally’s book, Nourishing Traditions, and have tried several recipes in there, particularly the raw meat dish section. Also, Sally’s book includes that Bieler Broth recipe that Patti mentioned up around the start of this thread. That Bieler Broth I think is also referred to as a potassium broth and is recommended for people with fatigue. Bieler was a popular physician among the movie stars here a while back, ha! He wrote a book called, Food is Your Best Medicine. His broth recipe is in that book, too. I recall there were comments/reviews of Bieler’s book from movie stars who spoke highly of him.

    I’ve tried the kombucha, too! I like the taste of it. To me it’s actually like a carbonated drink. I used to make my own, too, a while back, but boy do you have to keep up with it because that fungus thing that grows really grows fast, and pretty soon you have jars and jars of the fungus everywhere, ha ha ha! And I couldn’t keep up with it, plus I didn’t feel that it was helping my skin at the time (it seemed everything had my skin breaking out). Part of the recipe to make kombucha is “sugar.” Regular refined white sugar. . . I couldn’t get myself to use regular refined white sugar, so I settled for sucanat (I think that’s what I used, it’s been years ago, now!) which actually worked. The fungus (I call it a fungus, I think others call it a mushroom) feeds off of the sugar and converts to kombucha. There is a book on it by a German man. His name and his book escapes me at this moment, but he has lots of good, and interesting things to say about kombucha. Maybe when I feel that my skin is “solidly” good, I’ll try the kombucha again. It is considered a health food. I’ve noticed that the health stores around here carry kombucha now, too, and I can see the little “fungus” forming in there. Have you seen the fungus thing? It grows, and then you can use it for another culture to start another batch.

    Well, all this talk about food is getting me hungry! I’m gonna go grab breakfast. Have a nice Sunday, ladies!

    Marla

99. Andrea said,

    October 28, 2007 at 10:04 am

    Yes, the woman, Liesl, who works at Kroka with Tom showed me the fungus-y thing and she said, yes, they grow fast and people are always needing to get rid of them. The use of sugar took me aback as well although then I realized that the sugar actually converts to something else, so presumably is not as harmful.

    So isn’t it interesting that you have used the book, know about Sally Fallon, and kroka too uses her work in feeding itself and its students? Whaddaya know? I, too, have to stay away from dairy products, not for skin issues but because of lung issues–asthma and recurrent bronchitis. I tried adding organic homemade yogurt about a year ago–the results were not good. But maybe I’ll try some butter. I’ve been strongly craving it lately. i know sometimes cravings can be for things you do NOT need, like sugar, but maybe this craving is one of the good ones.

    Well, gotta run, Andrea

100. patti said,

     October 28, 2007 at 10:24 pm

     Okay – so I’m going to try and “finish” the post that only half posted above. This is try #2. I saved the last one! I’m learning…..

     The whey has a different range.

101. patti said,

     October 28, 2007 at 10:29 pm

     Arggggh. Marla, it did it again. It’s only posting the first few lines of my post. I cut and pasted the whole thing into here. Your blog hates me now.
     

     what now?

     patti

102. Administrator said,

     October 29, 2007 at 8:53 am

     Oh boy, I don’t know what’s happening there, Patti. Maybe you can send me the info via email, and I’ll put it up for you. Let’s try that. Glad you saved it this time, tho, so you didn’t lose it, yikes!

     Yeah, Andrea, I think that’s neat that The Price Foundation is involved with Kroka’s program. My feeling is that they’re on the right track. That type of place fits right in with the types of things Price promoted. I don’t know if you’ve already checked them out, but there is also a Price-Pottenger Foundation, which deals with health and nutrition by focusing on what natives traditionally ate and how it affected their teeth and health. Here’s a link to them http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/ppnf/ Francis Pottenger was the man by whom the book Pottenger’s Cats’ info came. He learned quite a bit about nutrition from studying cats. He wasn’t originally studying cats and foods, but rather he was studying adrenalectomies. But from that he was seeing the difference in the cats based on what they fed them and also how nutritionally deficient cats would pass down health deficiencies to the next generation of cats. Likewise, the very well nourished cats also passed down good health to the next generation. Lots of good info, and it was along the spirit of Price and Pottenger’s work that I also came to read up on Stefansson, McCarrison, and King. You can even actually read some books online from the Soil and Health Library. http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/ppnf/ I have had their link on my blog roll for a while. Some info from McCarrison’s work was documented in G.T. Wrench’s book, Wheel of Health. Here’s the link to it if interested. http://soilandhealth.org/02/0203cat/020301wrench/02030100frame.html

     Okay, breakfast time again! Oh, BTW, regarding whether Herodias’ daughter belly danced for Herod and his guests, I don’t think the Bible specifies what type of dance she did. Dance isn’t mentioned a whole lot in the New Testament, either. Why did you ask?

     Laters, ladies!

     Marla

103. Andrea said,

     October 29, 2007 at 5:12 pm

     Patti, Can’t wait to see those posts when they finally get through! Thanks for the links, Marla–I’m getting really interested in this stuff, can’t wait to see them. I’m quite intrigued by the idea of health deficiencies–and strengths–being passed down. I am of the first generation–the Baby Boomers–that ate a lot of refined, chemicalized foods, and it is in my kids’ generation that we’re seeing so many “learning disabilities”, allergies, “bipolar” kids, anxiety, depression and the like. So, this makes me wonder.

     The reason i got curious about Salome’s dancing is that i’m taking middle Eastern drumming classes–I’ve always wanted to learn drumming, and the class was available a time i could do it, and inexpensive–and it turns out, the major use of Middle Eastern drumming is for belly dancers! We went and saw my teacher play for a dancer Friday night, and a bell rang in the back of my head and I thought–I betcha this is what Salome did for Herod! It’s very ooh la la sexy dancing (although I didn’t find it offensive or lewd), and I can see how Herod, after a few drinks, might have made his impulsive promise. Makes the whole thing come alive somehow–I like this when it happens, when Bible stories start to feel really real to me, when I’m able to picture them.

     OK, I’ve got alot to do–need to comment on the transplant post, then go to those links.

     A.

104. Administrator said,

     October 29, 2007 at 9:02 pm

     Oh fun, Andrea! I love drums! I took lessons a while back, but I kept bruising the underside of one of my knuckles on my right hand (the middle finger). Then I noticed that I would get petechia on my knees, ack! So I haven’t played them for about 3 years now. . . I never got very good or very far. Brian started it because he wanted a djembe. So I bought him one for Christmas one year. Then I started with the djembe and got one for myself. Next thing I knew I got a kenkeni, then I bought a congo and a quinto, ha! Matthew actually got much better at it than I ever got. He’s basically taken over my drums. So two Christmases ago I bought him a doumbek hoping that he would learn that. I love the sound of them and watching the guys play them. It amazes me the sounds that they can get out of them! Ha ha! Have fun with it! He’s not disciplined with it, tho, and likes to do his own thing.

     I think the deficiency thing is so interesting, too! And speaking of deficiencies, one of the observations that Pottenger made of his cats was that some of the deficient cats developed allergies or sensitivities to milk. It was Pottenger’s belief that they were missing the ability to digest milk properly because they were lacking in proper nutrients. And that is one of the reasons I’m “hoping” that as I nourish myself better and heal various parts of me, that I’ll eventually be able to go back to dairy again. Do you know that I’m able to eat some beans now without breaking out? Strangely, I’m okay with the lighter colored beans, but seem to still react to darker beans. For instance I’ve been just fine with pinto beans, but seem to react to black beans. I’m able to eat white rice w/o noticing any problem, but I’m still breaking out if I eat too much brown rice. I think that shows me that my digestion is still a bit weak, but I think it’s improving. But I’m no spring chicken anymore, so I wonder how far I can take this. . .

     Take care!

     Marla

105. Administrator said,

     October 29, 2007 at 9:28 pm

     Andrea, speaking of drums, I realized that I still had an old picture in my computer of when Brian took of me when I first bought my quinto and conga. . .  Too bad I never learned to play the way I had “dreamed” I could, ha ha ha!
     

106. Administrator said,

     October 29, 2007 at 9:49 pm

     Just found your email, Patti! Here’s the continuation below from Patti after the blog started misbehaving. . .

     Okay – so I’m going to try and “finish” the post that only half posted
     above.

     The whey has a different range. <2 is normal. So, as you can see,
     Luke's is still quite high. Nonetheless, the changes are positive. I do
     have to admit when I looked at the lowest number in the high range again
     and realized we are still very much ahead of that, I was shocked. BUT,
     time. We're figuring another year or so and he should be down to the
     normal range. Enough so he can have eggs maybe once a week or something.

     Andrea, where do you find unsweetened cranberry juice? My husband felt
     like he was getting a kidney infection last week and asked me to get him
     cranberry juice but I could only get him the yucky store stuff. I've
     never seen unsweetened stuff. Thanks for all the good info on UTI's. We
     have really worked with her on the wiping thing but at 6 it's really hard
     to get her to describe pain to us. My naturapath said on Friday that's
     it's really hard for kids below a certain age to put words to their pain.
     But you are right, the doc warned us to watch her as these could be
     recurring. I'm also going to work on using the onion soup puree if this
     happens again also (for her and my husband).

     Andrea, I had a whole post on kombucha. Oh well. Nourishing
     Traditions is a book worth having on your shelf. I've read through it
     and found a lot of it very good. I would have a hard time eating totally
     like she says to but I have tried to do more fermented foods and such.
     We stopped using regular breads and only do organic whole wheat sourdough
     bread now. I actually just got my first Bob's Red Mill sourdough starter
     to try my hand at homemade sourdough bread. It should be interesting.
     But at $3.79 a loaf for the store stuff, I'd love to try and make my own.
     Luke seems to do well with the fermented stuff also. Definately, that
     book is worth the buy.

     I'm on a forum where LOTS of the people make kombucha. My best friend
     brought some to me awhile ago to taste but she accidentally let it sit
     too long. Oops. It was like alcohol to me. Yick! But hey, what are
     friends for if not for trying out your kombucha? hee. Here's a link
     where you can read all you'd ever want to know about it. If you do a
     search of welltellme.com you will come up with ten threads or more on
     every aspect of it; from how to make different flavors to people willing
     to send you free scobys to start it.
     http://www.welltellme.com/discuss/index.php/topic,832.0.html. Some of
     these folks swear by it for energy. It didn’t do a thing for me, but
     then again, what I tasted was a little too alcoholic for me.

     Not sure about the dancing before Herod. I think people speculate it was
     belly dancing because that’s what’s always been shown in movies, but I
     don’t see anything in the bible that really says. There may be some
     history about dancing in that era that could provide a clue. There may
     also be some historical reading of that time that could provide info.

     I’m with you on the transplants. Tons to say…. so much of what you’re
     reading, Marla, is stuff Ron and I have talked about. Just very
     interesting to have it validated.

     Getting the packing done. Hubby thinks we’ll have a moving company here
     in 2-3 weeks. E-gads. I’m making progress but it feels so slow. Most
     of the main floor is packed. Just need to do upper and lower now. Very
     excited to get moved, and anxious. Just want to get there and get
     settled. Although, that is relative because it will be several months of
     putting up walls, etc. Marla, I tried one time to post a link to our new
     house. Did that come through? It may have been on a post that blinked
     out on me. I can’t remember. I know when I typed it I said to look at
     the link and then delete it so the whole world doesn’t see it.

     Okay – better jet. Boy, cold weather has hit here. In the 30’s.
     Brrrrrr.

     patti

107. Administrator said,

     November 3, 2007 at 7:41 pm

     Hey Patti, I hope your fam is doing okay with the kidney infections and UTIs. I did try using frozen cranberries and blending them up (just add a little spring water), but I found that there is a brand available to us here called Just (and whatever fruit is being juiced). So, for their cranberries, they call it “Just Cranberries.” There’s a whole line of different fruits. It is from concentrate, tho, but at least they don’t add any sugars or anything else to it. Basically, the fruits are dehydrated or the liquids evaporated, then reconstituted to make the juice, but no artificial colors, flavors, etc. There was another brand that I forget the name of that’s available that was organic. I preferred that, but then the price just shoots up like crazy and when you’re fighting a UTI, you go through lots of bottles easily, ha! But I decided to switch to the onion soups and at one time I also took dandelion root. You can also up the vit C. When I went on vacation, just for precaution, I took along some cranberry tablets that was recommended by the candida group called Cran Clearance by Jarrow Formulas(because I couldn’t take my onion soups with me, ha ha, and I didn’t want to get caught with a UTI so far away from home).

     Okay, hope that helps and that your packing is going smoothly! I agree with Andrea, tho, that supposedly once you get a UTI, your chances of getting another one increases. That’s what I keep reading. So do keep an eye on little Kassandra (as if you don’t already, ha ha ha!) And I haven’t forgotten about Grace’s legs, heheh. I got the yarn, but I have not been able to start on them yet. I’ll try to make sure I get them done before too much of the cold weather attacks!

     Take care!

     Marla

108. Andrea said,

     November 4, 2007 at 12:29 pm

     Hi ladies–Rob gets unsweetened cranberry juice from the local Whole Foods store (it’s a big chain)–I forget the brand name, he actually only got it once (he does the shopping). It was VERY sour, to get it down a 6yo you would have to dilute it. I would imagine that you’ll spot symptoms of a recurrence pretty quickly, now that you know what to look for.

     I’ve made sourdough whole wheat bread from time to time–it is very delicious and satisfying. I used a recipe from a macrobiotic cookbook that recommended you make your own starter by just leaving some flour and water around, uncovered, at room temperature, where it can ferment from the “local” yeast in the air. I was so thrilled when it worked! My bread was pretty dense, so Rob and I would steam it in a vegetable steaming basket. Mmmmm, it was really yummy! I’d like to start again, I’m not even sure why I stopped!

     At church today, one of my sopranos and I started talking about milk, she said how her mom will only drink raw milk, one thing led to another, and, whaddaya know, her mom is follower of the “Nourishing Traditions” book too! She said she doesn’t need to buy one for herself, she’s heard it all from her mom! This book just keeps coming up!

     Andrea

109. Administrator said,

     November 4, 2007 at 10:05 pm

     Yes, I got most of my cranberry juices from our local Whole Foods, too, although we do have a couple other stores that carry Just Cranberries. And I forgot about it being sour, as Andrea mentioned. I’m so used to not having fruit juices that I didn’t even notice! But yes, I remember my sister noticed! And she couldn’t finish her glass. . . Funny, but now I think those other juices are just way too sweet. I don’t think I’ve had bottled juices other than the cranberry juice for over 8 years now! Not since I got AA in 1999. Wild though, but all the juices I’ve had since then were freshly squeezed at home or a few times freshly squeezed at juice bars, so I know none of my juices have had added sugar or other additives.

     Yes, Andrea, I’ve got a macrobiotic book which gives instructions to make sourdough bread like you mentioned w/o a starter. I think the book is by Madeline Kushi.

     Okay! Hope all is going well with you ladies!

     Marla

110. patti said,

     November 9, 2007 at 11:59 pm

     Hi Ladies,

     Quick update. Peanut finished her antibiotics one week ago today. On Monday she went in for a recheck and was fine. Last night she came to us ashen white and in total pain in her kidneys, swollen lymph node under her right arm. I hauled her into the doc today. Her urine is clear and although he said people usually only get kidney pain with a kidney infection, he refused to treat her. I was so spitting mad I almost slapped him. Keep in mind, this guy is our friend, he’s a christian, we’ve been to church with him. I finally talked to my sister and her husband (he’s a family doctor) and they both recommended we immediately start her back on the antibiotic for another seven days. Thankfully, we had a full bottle left. She took it for a full 12 days plus 3 days of strong antibiotics in the hospital. My BIL thinks several things might be going on. Maybe her ureters are swollen causing urine to back up into the kidneys. It’s possible she had two different bacterias. One in her blood and a different one in her bladder/kidneys. Maybe the probiotic I was giving her interfered with the antibiotic even though I made sure I was giving them 3hrs apart. I talked to the ND and she said the probiotic I was giving her would not interfere with the antibiotic so that theory is out. I was giving her HMF Replete because it’s a really high powered pb and I wanted to make sure her gut was okay. So now, we’re going to hold off on the pb just in case and give her the a-b for the next week. Tonight she was in so much pain she could hardly walk. I’m so so angry. I don’t think this is a second infection. I think this is the first one that never really went away. However, if after this round she gets another infection we will have her looked at by a pediatric urologist/nephrologist.

     I found the Just Cranberries juice and am trying to dilute it with water to taste a little better. She’s doing okay with it but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get enough down her to help. I may have to go to the sugar stuff just to get the cranberry into her. We’re really pushing the fluids tons right now. Lots and lots of water.

     Packing is moving along. We finished what business orders we had and shut down the shop. Moving truck pulls up on the 20th and we move the 24th. Gotta jet. Much to do and it’s getting late.

     patti

111. Andrea said,

     November 10, 2007 at 10:17 am

     Oh boy, Patti, you’ve got your hands full! Just a tip on the cranberry juice–diluting it with apple juice or better yet unpasteurized organic apple cider is less harmful than sugar and yet disguises the intensity. Another thing to remember–antibiotics don’t do the healing. Her body does. The antibiotics give her immune system a leg up, a boost. So, rather than thinking about the antibiotics not completely wiping out the infection, think about her immune system not being quite up to the challenge yet.

     So, anything you can do to strengthen her emotionally or physiologically will help. Moving is a stressful time for everyone, so you want to work to counteract that. You as her mother will know what would do that for her.

     Heat helps out the immune system. How about hot packs on her kidneys? A hot water bottle, or you can heat sea salt in a castiron pan, put it in a pillowcase and lay it on her back. Castor oil packs are messy but also helpful.

     In Chinese medicine, kidneys have to do with fear/courage. She may be really afraid of the move. Maybe tell her stories about kids that have moved, been afraid, but everything worked out fine? (As my daughter used to say, “Tell me a scary story that ends out good.”) If it’s a made-up story by her mom, it will have more power than a book.

     In Chinese medicine, kidneys also have to do with ancestors, with the legacy from our ancestors. If you pray about this aspect, maybe you’ll get a still, small piece of advice. I have had some remarkable experiences working with my ancestors’ legacies (more later when you’re not so stressed).

     Meanwhile, I will pray for you both! Hang in there!

     Andrea

112. Administrator said,

     November 12, 2007 at 4:39 pm

     Oh my, Patti! I’m so sorry to hear that Peanut is going through that! I’m a bit late in replying, so hopefully she’s much better now. As Andrea mentioned earlier, UTIs have a tendency to recur. And that’s what happened to me when I had the bout of them. My first occurrence I used the cranberry juice, which did clear it up, but was back again in a couple weeks. Then I did it again, with the same results. When it came back again, I started to take other things like the dandelion and then the onion puree soups. For me, once the UTI gets in, it moves fast! Starts with a slight irritation, but in a few hours I’m in pain and shaking. . . And not long after that, I’ll start to spot blood. Fortunately, the last one I had has been over a year and a half now. But that one was the worst one. What I did for that one was boil up some onions and made a poultice out of it. I strained the onions, and placed it right over my bladder area and put a towel over it to help keep it in place and keep the warmth in. I let it sit there for as long as it stayed warm. My purpose for that was not only taking in the onion soups internally, but also tried to direct some of it through the skin to the area that was suffering. I don’t imagine Peanut will want to lie flat that long, but I was determined! And any bit extra counts, so I would do it. And of course, I took my onion puree soups every hour. If you make a big batch like the recipe I have on my pages, it’ll be enough for a while. Just make one big batch and just keep taking from that one until it is all gone. That would last me the whole day and even go into the next day.

     Andrea gave a good suggestion to mix the cranberry with fresh organic apple juice to help make it more palatable. The problem I found was that you’re gonna go through a LOT of juice like that, and that’s a lot of sugar. Since I was also trying to deal with candida overgrowth, I wanted to minimize as much sugar as possible. (But likely not an issue with Peanut). When I took the cranberry juice, I drank a cup every hour and right after each time I urinated to make sure that the cranberry was constantly in my body. Apparently, one of the properties in cranberries is that it prevents the bacteria which causes the UTI from sticking to the linings. So keeping the fluids up while taking cranberry is recommended so that you’ll flush out all the bad bacteria. And so that is why I wanted to make sure my body constantly had a supply and I drank after each urination. I wanted the cranberries right back in, ha.

     As far as the Chinese belief of the kidneys being a legacy from our ancestors, what I have understood from it is that they believe that the kidneys govern the “chi” or “qi,” which is our energy. How good our kidneys are are passed down to us by our parents and their parents, etc. It’s kind of like the idea of having good or bad genetics. As I understand it, as we age, we run down and we lose energy (our kidneys weaken). So that is one reason so much emphasis is placed on healing or improving the kidneys. And as you read more about the kidneys, I can see why they think that because so much of our health is related to how well our kidneys work or doesn’t work.

     Okay, let us know how things are coming along. I’ll be praying for you all! When Peanut gets over this, it may be a good idea to have her take cranberry juice every so often as a prophylactic. I do that with my onion soups. I don’t take it near as much as I used to, but I still do make up a batch every so often and make sure I finish up that big pot just to keep me clear, “hopefully.”

     Take care!

     Marla

     P.S. I do agree with the heat that Andrea mentioned, too! The kidneys (and adrenals) are instrumental with how our body regulates temperature (as well as the thyroid). If the kidneys are a little weak, you can run on the cold side. So Peanut might need a little help with staying toasty. Oh, and interestingly, when I started my bouts with UTIs, it was this time of year! Cold season. . . hmmmm.

113. Administrator said,

     November 12, 2007 at 4:52 pm

     Oh, I forgot to ask, Patti, why didn’t your doc want to treat Peanut? What was his concern?

     Marla

114. patti said,

     November 30, 2007 at 11:20 pm

     Hi folks,

     We have internet up, albeit still on dial up. Our modem was supposed to be here today, alas, it is not.

     Our move went smoothly and we are very happy to be “home.” It’s been extremely cold here. 17 right now. Brrrrr. It will take some getting used to the cold again. The kids are LOVING playing on our acre. There just aren’t words to describe that. They fall into bed exhausted every night. It’s wonderful! We’ve been so grateful for the cold, dry weather.

     Moving in was interesting. Our moving van was supposed to arrive at 7:30am on the 27th. It arrived at 4:00pm. Right after they unloaded our piano and copy machine (which is heavier then the piano) it started snowing. It was quite a sight watching those guys load up dollies and literally slide down the ramps. They did that for 6hrs. They worked in the freezing cold in short sleeve shirts! Oh my!

     I have my kitchen unpacked but have way tons more to to do in the rest of the house. Working on getting new window coverings right now. All in all, things are going well.

     Marla, to answer your question about why our doc wouldn’t treat Peanut…. he said that although there is normally not pain in the kidneys unless there’s an infection he felt like her pain was left over from the swelling and not from an infection. As a follow-up to how all that ended up…. I finally called my sister who talked to her husband (he’s a family physician). He was none to happy with our doc and felt like Peanut had one of two things – either a resistant bacteria or two different bacterias (one in the blood, one in the kidney). He called in a 10 day course of Septra (she had been on amoxicillin) and told us to finish it out and watch her closely. After ten more days of the antibiotics she has been perfect. No trouble at all. So, he must have been right. I’m so mad at our doc there that I’m tempted to email him and tell him we put her on another round of drugs and she is fine now. I have continued her on the HMF Replete and will until I finish this round out (about another week). I just want to make sure I get her gut good and back to normal.

     We ate like garbage for almost two weeks because of everything being packed and the move and all. We tried to be careful with the kids but it was hard. Needless to say, Luke broke out in hives again. I also noted that we stopped taking the cod liver oil a week before we moved and I wonder if that had something to do with the hives returning. CLO is such a good anti-inflammatory. I still haven’t found the box it’s in. That might take awhile. Luke’s hives are gone now that we’ve gone back to our usual diet. Tonight I cooked our first real meal in our new home. It felt so good to eat real food again!

     Surprisingly, my bladder has been doing really well. I’ve been almost tempted not to take an ultram one night to see what happens. I’m a little scared to do that because if the pain starts it’s hard to stop and can take several hours and lots of hot bath water just to tolerate it. BUT, I might try.

     I am determined to start t-tapping again as soon as our blinds are up.

     Okay, gotta jet. Hope you all are well.

     patti

115. Administrator said,

     December 1, 2007 at 10:01 am

     Hey Patti!

     Welcome to your “home!” I haven’t been able to do much on the computer lately and update my blog, and on top of that, I got a UTI after Thanksgiving! Ack! I’ll write more about that one later cuz I have to go soon. But just wanted to say welcome to your new home and glad to hear that all is well! Especially that Peanut is better!

     My UTI put a damper on my shopping and other stuff I normally do, but I think I learned more and so far I have been able to deal with it again without conventional antibiotics. This time I did some things different. Today is the 3rd day that I feel normal again, so I have to keep up with treating myself for a couple more weeks for good measure. Whew, how long can I keep that up? Ha! I don’t want to have a problem during Christmas! And Andrew and I are planning a trip to the Philippines for a couple weeks from Jan 16-30 provided that all our health here holds up, Lord willing! I need to be back to my old self by then w/o recurrences! And Christmas will be busy enough.

     Okay, thanks for checking in with us! Enjoy that dry weather!

     Toodles!

     Marla

116. Andrea said,

     December 1, 2007 at 2:53 pm

     Patti–So good to hear from you! So glad Peanut is better! Marla, sorry to hear about your uti, glad you could defeat it . . . and thanks for all your kindness to Annie, she thinks you’re wonderful.

     It’s really cold here, too!

     Andrea

117. Administrator said,

     December 2, 2007 at 10:36 pm

     Andrea, Annie is so sweet and vibrant! You did good, Andrea. I’m sure she’ll do really well with what she is pursuing. I have been meaning to get back to her regarding homeschooling. She asked a question which I had not thought to ask my kids! So I did, and when I have a moment I’ll get back to her on that. I also wanted to forward her a copy of the chapter I wrote in Bruce’s aplastic book, so will also try to get to that as well.

     Okay ladies, I’m gonna try to continue my UTI saga, ha! No one likes to get UTI’s, and I’m no exception. So naturally I looked up some more info on it when I was sure that was what was happening. A few things I found was that, as Andrea mentioned in a previous post, UTI’s can occur whenever there is a change in the immune system. So I started to think about what was going on, and I’m gonna admit my bad. . . Brian started cooking pumpkin pies about 2 1/2 weeks before Thanksgiving. When he cooks them, he cooks several pies at a time–4 or 5. So I had been eating pumpkin pies every day for almost 3 weeks before Thanksgiving arrived, at which time Brian cooked another set of pumpkin pies–8 this time, ha! And they’re so good that I kept part-taking. You’d think I’d exhibit more self-control, but I’ve been deprived on “many” desserts for years now, that I convinced myself that it was okay because all the ingredients were organic. Wrong, and I know that just being organic isn’t everything, but “what” and “how much” we eat of things matters a lot, too. Anyway, part of what makes the pies so good is that they have lots of sugar. . . What I know from sugar is that it can deplete the body’s mineral stores more rapidly. And with depleted mineral stores, the immune system is weaker.

     About a week prior to Thanksgivings, this is about a week and a half of daily pumpkin pie binges, I started to wake up with “kinda” sore throats. It felt like it was a bit sore in the AM, but would clear up as the day went on. The feeling wasn’t like a full-blown sore throat, but more of a slight discomfort like when you accidentally swallow pool water and it goes up your nose. But it would clear in the day, but that feeling continued for about a week, and then after Thanksgiving, the sore throat was still present in the AMs, and I started to feel that I was getting a UTI. BUT, I have to back up again. Just prior to binging on the pumpkin pies, I noticed that I had developed a small cold sore on the side of my lip. It would heal, then it would come out again repeatedly. My feeling was that my body must be a bit weakened in that it’s allowing the cold sore to surface, but strong enough that it would heal it. Problem was that it wasn’t fully healing, but just breaking open again. It wasn’t a big cold sore, but annoying enough that it would pain me.

     So here I had two things going on, something was already challenging my immune system as evidenced by the recurring cold sore, and then I started to dump a bunch of sugar into my body, which likely weakened me further. Then by Thanksgiving with all the extra gobble-gobble, I think that made me open to a UTI.

     So treatment wise I went to my first resource which was the onion soup. I started to feel better shortly, but by the next day I was getting souped out! Ha! So I wanted to add it something else like the dandelion leaves. Well the markets I went to didn’t have the fresh or the supplement dandelions, so I picked up some Stone Free by Planetary Herbs. The reason I thought that might help was because one thing I read was that one “possible” reasons for UTI’s is stones in the bladder which allow bacteria to get caught and grow. So I figured taking something to help me clear any possible obstructions would help. The other UTI formula’s we a bit to costly, so I just looked at what ingredients they had, ha! I don’t mind buying some supplements, but when one bottle costs $27 and up for something I know I’m going to be popping like candy and going through I don’t know how many bottles, I prefer to compound my own! And that’s what we did. Brian looked up some herbal formulas for UTIs in his herb courses, and we packed pills for me with echineachia, goldenseal, licorice root, elencampane, gotu kola, and a little powdered ginger. Okay, so it was Saturday when I was sure I had a UTI. I started the onion soups, and by Sunday I wanted extra punch so I added the Stone Free and the packed pills with the above ingredients. I took them every hour on Monday and felt restored UTI-wise. Throat was still scratchy in the AMs and cold sore was still struggling. Anyway, since I felt so good on Monday, I got lax with taking the pills every hour and went to every 3 hours, then at night I skilled even longer while I slept. By Wednesday, I could feel that I was having a recurrence. So back onto the strict every hour with the pills. Occasional onion soup, and then we found the store had fresh dandelion leaves, and I also read about Uva Ursi. So I made teas with those. By Thursday I was feeling better again, and since I also read that low pH in the urine could contribute to UTI, and the way to “fix” low pH was to increase mineral intake (which I was probably depleting with all my pumpkin binges), I decided to add it calcium citrate and magnesium citrate. While I was digging in my stash of supplements (I tend to collect them along the way and forget I have them cuz I don’t use them a lot), I found zinc citrate. Seeing the zinc made me think of my sore throat, so I took that, too! Ha! Well, the “next” day, my sore throat was gone AND my cold sore! So here we are Sunday evening, and I’m still feeling good, no sore throat, no cold sore recurrence since it “finally” healed up last Thursday. Whew, anybody still with me here? Ha ha ha!

     Okay one other thought since Andrea mentioned the kidneys begining affected with the cold. I believe that it true and may be why I tend to get the UTI’s during the cold season. One thing I had read a while back is that cattle tend to need more iodine in the winter because metabolism increases in the cold season because the body has to work harder to stay warm. Another thing I read regarding animal care (and I think these studies on animals are valid because we humans also can learn about nutrition studying animals) is that darker skinned goats need more copper than lighter skinned goats. My skin is fairly dark, and my hair is jet black, ha! It may be that due to my pigmentation, I need higher mineral supplementation. So my thinking now is that as the cold weather approaches, I likely should supplement or fortify my diet to increase mineral intake and be careful with all the sweets in the cold season, so that I don’t deplete my stores.

     Okay, I think I’ve gabbed enough, so I’ll save my comments on antioxidants for another time. That’s another one that I think may be related to certain weaknesses for certain ethnic groups. I find it fascinating that some ethnic groups have a higher rate of certain diseases like high blood pressure than other groups, etc. But maybe that should go on a separate post.

     Okay, hope all is going well with you! I’ve got to get back to working on my projects that being down with a UTI actually helped me buckle down and get to. I still haven’t gotten to my Christmas socks! But I’m almost finished with the 30 little bears that I was asked to make! Ha ha ha! I’m still going to try to keep up with the pills and onion soups for another week or so to make sure I’m clear, but I seem to keep getting distracted. My friend called me to go to the gem show today, and being out most of the day makes me lose track of taking my pills. I have to remember to be disciplined. . .

     Toodles for now!

     Marla

     P.S. Patti, while I was reading about UTIs and kidney infections, it did say that if the infection went as far as the kidneys, it’s standard to treat with antibiotics for “3″ weeks, not just the one week for a simple UTI. So yeah, Peanut likely stopped the antibiotics too soon.

118. Administrator said,

     December 2, 2007 at 11:45 pm

     I forgot to mention that I’m also taking chapparal. And that at the point I mentioned that I was “slacking” off on my herb pills on Tuesday, I also ate some baked beets, which I “think” are pretty sweet. I had wondered if the slacking off on the pills and the eating of extra beets (adding sugar to my system) allowed the UTI to make that short come back. Thus I upped the pills again, and stopped eating cooked beets and cooked carrots and staying back on my low carb diet.  Oh, and adding seaweed to my food, too for trace minerals and iodine.

     Marla

119. patti said,

     December 3, 2007 at 10:09 pm

     Hey Marla,

     Wow, good info! I think one of the reasons Kassandra might be starting to get a second kidney infection is we ate like crap for two weeks and now it’s affecting her body. I found my CLO today!! I told the kids and the older two groaned. Peanut was thrilled as she believes it will help her. What I am stumped about is why her kidneys are giving her trouble when her bladder isn’t. I *thought* that in order to get a kidney infection one has to have a bladder infection first. Maybe that’s wrong? Also, I am very concerned about her going on any antibiotics again. I started giving her very concentrated grapefruit seed extract in water today and she seems better tonight. She hasn’t run a fever since this morning when I started giving it to her. I’m going to continue that for several weeks to see if I can strengthen her between healthier eating again and the GSE. One thing Ron and I discussed last night and we both think is valid is having her tested for the same allergies the other kids have (eggs, wheat, whey). IF she were allergic to those things and she’s been eating them regularly then any weakness she might have in her kidneys could be a problem. Obviously the weak spot in her body is her kidneys/bladder. That doesn’t surprise me. With both my sister and I have interstitial cystitis there might be some tendency toward a weakness there. I haven’t done the onion soup mainly because of time right now. Pathetic excuse when it’s your own kid, huh? But it is crazy right now trying to get unpacked. I feel like I’ve accomplished something healthy if I’ve just fed them healthy all day again. I have to say, I felt like crap eating white sugar and white flour this past few weeks. I imagine my kids did to and are just not able to verbalize it. Obviously it was an issue for Luke with getting hives again. Tomorrow we meet the kid’s new doc (actually a PA that’s a friend of mine) to set up charts for them. Peanut will get a UA to make sure it’s clear and we are having blood drawn for testing the food allergies. I have a feeling she’s right in line with the other two. I’m going to hold off any antibiotics until I see how the GSE works and pulling any food allergens out of her diet.

     Boy, Marla, I think sugar is just a killer in every way. Which really sucks when a person likes sweets! I love dark chocolate and every once in awhile will treat myself to some but I feel like crap afterwards everytime.

     Oh, my raw milk source is now available. I’m actually thinking of skimming the cream and making my own butter. So, do I just throw in a little sea salt when I do that? Anyone know how much? I’m thinking paying $5.00-$6.00/lb for butter could get much cheaper if I make my own.

     Marla, my girl’s saw the box of bunnies you sent me the other day. I had it taped up and marked, “girl’s christmas.” Oh, they’re dying to know! hee hee. We have a 24′ long master closet (yes, you read that correctly – it’s 24 feet) with some shelves in it. I stuck it high on the top shelf and I find them sneaking in there trying to figure out how they can climb that shelf! ha ha. Kids are so fun at christmas.

     Way too much to do these days. We got DSL today and wow, I can’t believe how fast it is! Welcome to the real world, huh?

     I think I’m going to actually have most of my unpacking done by the time school starts back up in January. I’m not unpacking all of my books, wall pictures, etc. because we’ll be starting to remodel then. Once we’re done painting the inside I’ll put those things up. It’s starting to feel like home again. Today we found out that where we used to live got 8″ of rain just today!! There is a creek behind our old house so we called our neighbor and it did back up into the street. Fortunately, our old house is high enough it doesn’t get flooded but the others in the cul de sac do. We haven’t sold our house there yet so it’d be nice if our new roof does its job and keeps the rain out!

     Better jet. I’ll be curious to see how your UTI does, Marla. What do you think about me not giving Peanut antibiotics for a kidney infection but trying to do the natural stuff instead? I can give her uva ursi and dandelion (I have dandelion on hand), etc. I keep getting nervous that it might go back into her blood easily so I’m not sure what to do. My husband is totally open to me doing the natural stuff for her. I just need to know what to do. I guess I could schedule a phone appt. with Reuter to see what she thinks. Any ideas? Also, I’m wondering about long term supplementation with GSE right now to try and prevent something from popping up.

     Take care all.

     patti

120. Andrea said,

     December 4, 2007 at 11:08 am

     Hello ladies–I don’t have a lot of time, but had to say hi. Yes, Marla, Annie’s a keeper all right. Living proof that God’s got some projects going that we never could have conceived of–Could I have thought of an Annie? Answer–no. She could use a coupla prayers right now–she’s trying to find someone to take over her lease and having a hard time of it. She was so stressed out Sunday, that when I hugged her, she started crying, you know that state where a hug makes you cry? Since I can’t be with her and hug her every minute, a few extra angels would not be amiss.

     I read every word of your saga Marla. The really interesting thing to me is how is shows that healing needs to be a comprehensive effort, not just a one-shot deal, like, I’ll just take this herb. The causes are many-sided–Prevention, too, needs to be many-sided. We are complex creatures!

     Patti–I had to chuckle when I read “I found the CLO!” In the midst of the chaos which is moving, these findings are always such joyful events! The can opener!! The shampoo!! And as to moving being a sufficient excuse for eating crap–yes, it’s completely adequate in my book. It’s the long haul that counts, not the little blips.

     Tom has made butter. I think you add salt at the end. BTW, just leanred that commercial unsalted butter has “natural color and flavor” in it–that can make some people sick. Commercial salted butter does NOT have these things.

     I think with Peanut you might want to take a “both-and” approach. Find someone who can write you a prescription FAST if need be. But meanwhile, do everything natural you can to build her up to prevent them. With the severity and persisitence of the last one, and given that, having just moved, there is no way you can give her a perfect, stress-and-toxin-free life for awhile, you might have to go big guns again a time or two, but with diligence I am sure you can build her up to the point she won’t get them any more–except maybe if she marries a good pumpkin pie cook???!?

     take care ladies,

     Andrea

121. Administrator said,

     December 5, 2007 at 9:20 am

     Hi Ladies!

     I’m gonna try to pound this out quickly before I have to get my day started.

     I prayed for Annie, Andrea! And will continue to do so. I certainly know what you mean about being so stressed that something like a hug will make you cry! I’ve had a similar thing happen years ago where I was so stressed out and a friend of mine looked at me and asked, “Are you all right?” And that’s all it took! I was fully composed until she asked me that, and then I was blubbering like a baby, ha ha! Make sure she’s eating well at this time because stress will make her body work overtime.

     Patti, I wasn’t familiar with using grapefruit seed extract with UTIs, but doing a quick google showed me that others have recommended it, so it seems worth a shot. My recommendation, tho, is to hit the UTI with a variety of things AND persistently/steadily because you never really know which natural remedy will be most effective. Supposedly UTIs are commonly caused by bacteria (I think there are a few which are viral), and if you don’t hit them hard so that the body gets a good upper hand, then the bacteria can become resistant and take more work to eradicate. That is one reason why docs get on patients’ cases when they stop their antibiotics prematurely. The concern is developing antibiotic resistance, thus making the infection more difficult to get rid of. That’s why they say to keep taking the antibiotic even if the symptoms go away so that you can make sure you get rid of most or all of the bacteria so that the body can deal with the rest. Supposedly, each UTI infection is caused by a slightly different bacteria. The idea being that once our bodies develop antibodies to an infection, our immune system already has warriors out that can fight that infection and thus you don’t generally get re-infected by the same strain of bacteria. It’s generally a “new” strain or “mutated” strain which causes re-infection. At least that’s my current understanding. I think there are some cases where a person is re-infected by the same strain, but I “think” they may have other issues that allows that to happen.

     Okay, so here’s my update. After last Sunday being out most of the day, being on my feet most of that time, and then going out and sitting with my friends in the cold while they drank coffee, Monday morning I started feeling a little niggly feeling that I wasn’t completely over my UTI. . . I had not fully relapsed. By relapse for me, I mean burning pain at the end of urination and some bleeding. I had not gotten back to that point, but I could feel pressure after urination, I didn’t feel quite empty. So that was a sign to me that I still needed to be very diligent and get more rest. So I got back on the onion soup and this time I added in the cranberry juice even if the natural sugar of the berries might cause my skin some grief. My thinking was this. What I have been doing has definitely kept my UTI in check. There are definite improvements since I’m no longer having the burning sensation at urination, and no more bleeding. But the pressure seemed to be low near the same are where the burning normally would occur. So I wanted to add the cranberries in because cranberries have a property which prevents the bacteria from sticking or clinging to the lining of the bladder or mucus membranes. And since the common mode of infection is for the bacteria to climb up the urethra into the bladder, I gave myself a trim, ha! to make less places for the bacteria to cling to, and also started to swab myself after each urination with apple cider vinegar to keep the outside area clean and avoid any more bacteria from climbing back up. I was already changing my undies 2x a day, but apparently that wasn’t enough. I thought using the apple cider vinegar is easier than jumping in the shower to wash off after each urination because with all the fluid increase and the added increase to have to urinate, I would be jumping in the shower every hour, ha! So that was on Monday. By Monday evening, I was much better again (thank God, UTI’s respond quickly with symptom relief, but they also can come on quickly, too, tho). Yesterday I was good all day, and this moment as I type, I feel very normal, no pressure at all. Still no longer having trouble with my throat in the AMs and also the cold sore has still not returned.

     So as of yesterday, I cut some things out, and added some things in. I cut out the packed pills of echineachia, goldenseal, elencampane, licorice root, and powdered ginger. I’m currently doing dandelion tea, uva ursi tea, cranberry juice, onion puree soup, chapparral, and those stone free pills(which actually already contains licorice root and dandelion root, too). Then after urination I wipe with apple cider vinegar, and of course continue with changing undies regularly. Now that all might sound like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. I think reading and trying to understand explanations makes things look like more work than it is. Basically, I alternate with the dandelion tea and the uva ursi tea. I cook up one batch of tea which lasts most of the day, and then I mix in some cranberry juice with the tea as I’m ready to drink it and take the chapparral and the stone free at the same time. The chapparal tastes horrid, and I found that the cranberry juice really helps to mask that. I personally like plain cranberry juice, so I have no problem getting that down. The onion puree soups, I take with my meals or if I feel like having a snack. And the onion soup only takes 15 minutes to get started so is another example of something that’s not that much work to do. I’ve timed myself many times on how long it takes to make because I’ve quickly started a pot before my regular chores and found that it only takes 15 minutes. Just take out a pot, unwrap a stick of butter, wash and chop your ingredients and in the pot and on the stove they go. Stir occasionally, and then add in the spring water when all the ingredients are well mixed. It’ll be done within the hour and it will last the whole day and can be eaten as part of your meal. Just blend it all up in the blender and you don’t even have to re-heat it if you’re okay with eating room temp or even cold soup. I have found it effective no matter the temp. For me, the onion soups are a charm. I can feel the soothing effects almost immediately.

     Okay, that took me longer to type than I thought! Ack! Better dash for now. But so far, I’m feeling good again, and “hopefully” third time is a charm! Ha! I’ll keep you posted.

     Toodles!

     Marla

     P.S. I have noticed that resting helps to heal it faster, so if you can get Peanut to rest a bit, I think that is helpful. However, being a mom and being responsible for all the cooking and most of the house chores here, I don’t get to just lie around all day. My family wanted to go out this Thurs, and I asked to postpone it to Sunday so that I would have more time to fully recover. I didn’t want a recurrence like after I went to the Gem Show on Sunday. Thankfully it wasn’t a full recurrence, just a “reminder” that I need to stay on top of this.

122. patti said,

     December 14, 2007 at 11:19 pm

     You know how it is when I start a post with, “this will have to be short.” Ha! There’s so much health stuff going on and things I’m learning in other areas and compromises I feel like I have to make in still other areas that I don’t think I can get it all down before midnight.

     Kassandra was retested last week for a UTI as she had started running a fever again. Yep. Sure enough, she had white cells in her urine and when they cultured it, it grew e-coli very fast. She was put on ten days of 500mg of Septra. So, double the strength of the last round. She is supposed to be retested on the 28th to see if she’s clean. The unknown at this time is if she’s never gotten rid of the e-coli or if it keeps coming back. The first would be better (in my opinion). The second will require trips to a urologist to determine if she’s got reflux or something. So far, I’ve read it can take up to 90 days to actually get rid of a bad kidney/UTI infection like hers. So with all of this, I talked to the ND via phone this week about what to do naturally. One thing she really hit on (and I agree with) is Peanut’s bowels. She has awful bowel habits and has since she was a baby. She is always always constipated no matter what I do. We were making her eat 2 prunes a day (anymore causes a gas explosion) and lots of greens, etc. Dr. Reuter told me to add Benefiber daily as well as two pieces of whole grain bread. We’re not big starch eaters here because of the sugar issues. But that seems easy enough to do. She also put Peanut on a probiotic from Natures Sunshine (can’t remember the name exactly). Lacto retori or something like that. It’s supposed to actually seek out bad bacteria and kill it. So she’s on that in addition to HMF which is a really strong probiotic that mom used to take. I’m also doing the GSE drops daily in water. Reuter also wants me to get this squatting bench thing to put on the toilet for Kassandra to squat when she potties. Hmmm. Not sure about that one yet. We’ll see what hub says. I tried to get Peanut blood tested for allergies but she would have nothing to do with that so Reuter said to treat her like she’s allergic to eggs and whey because those could also cause UTI’s if her immune system is low.

     I, on the other hand, have experienced a radical change in health. My bladder is better, but my hormones are significantly better! All of a sudden I’m not getting the facial hair (particularly my chin) that I used to get. I still have it, but not nearly as bad. I’m supposed to take my bio-progesterone cream twice daily from days 15-29. Normally if I don’t do the twice a day I’m a real witch (I know – who woulda thought?! Ha!). Well, I’ve been doing just in the mornings and sometimes not even that and I’ve been totally fine. So Ron and I are now wondering what was in the environment we came from that changed? Well, mold is a biggie. Our house was older and we lived in a wet state. My son had trouble with mold. But tonight as I was doing some research on flouride (still trying to find an acceptable toothpaste) I discovered that one of things it fools with is hormones. When we moved here I switched from a Crest sensitive teeth toothpaste (that was just mine) to a Jason’s non-flouride toothpaste. So that’s interesting. I’ve also not had any trouble with my teeth being sensitive like I used to. Hmmmm. So, this is all interesting stuff I’m learning. I’m also focusing now and trying to get healthier skin cleansers, etc. I found this website http://www.cosmeticdatabase.com/browse.php?category=facial%20cleanser that I started reviewing to see what I could try that didn’t have bad chemicals in it. I’ve been slowly changing over my skin care system as I’ve run out of stuff. I still have my Mary Kay moisurizer but I’m almost out so I need to start looking for something more natural. I’m discovering Burts Bees might not be the best either. A 4 on a scale of 10 for toxicity. I’m looking for something 0-2. Of course, zero would be better.

     I have had to make one compromise health wise for most of my family this past few weeks. Deoderant. I have tried and tried everything but the reality is, I sweat and yes, I know that’s good for the lymphs, but I can’t stand wet, sweaty, stinky cloths and quite frankly, neither can anyone else. For awhile I was spritzing my underarms with ACV right after I showered and that seemed to help the Alba work better but even that didn’t help on really busy days. So, I’m back to using Alba as first layer and a spray deoderant as the second layer for wetness. I figure at least it’s not soaking into my skin. Of course, it’s now allowing my lymphs to breathe either. But I do skin brush daily so hopefully that will help those nodes. I’ve had the same problem with my oldest that is going through puberty. Pewwwwwwwww. Unfortunately, if it’s not quick and easy she won’t even do it. I have to fight her just to wear the stuff so we can all stand to be next to her. So, I went to a regular solid for her. I know – bad stuff. But what does one do? I’ve “jusitified” it in my mind by telling myself I’m trying to make everything else she does/eat healthy so this little bit will matter less. I suppose that doesn’t matter though, does it? If you guys have any suggestions, I’m all ears. I’m just finding this one area a real sticking point with the stinkies in my house.

     I guess that’s it for now. Loving our new home to pieces! Still have lots of boxes but we have to get rid of lots of stuff too. We’ve started construction on the interior of the shop (building a room within a room). The framing will be done tomorrow and then they can start framing out the addition to our house.

     Oh, did I tell you guys about Marie?????? She’s here with us again. Last Saturday David rented a plane and flew her here and dumped her on our doorstep. Literally. He spent a 1/2 hr signing papers for me and then left her crying in the driveway. I felt so bad for her. However, I’m thinking she thinks our place is Tahiti after living in their house. I won’t go into details but suffice it to say they abused her badly. Not physically necessarily. She’s lost 30 pounds and when we ask her if they fed her well she’s puts her head down and doesn’t answer. She’s a very tall, skinny girl anyway. She looks awful!!! She’s been here a week. Eating 3 meals a day and three small snacks a day. She’s already gained 5 pounds back. That tells me they weren’t even feeding her normal meals because she’s just eating normal here, not overeating. What infuriates me is their whole family are fat pigs. Including the younger kids. Oh, we are so angry. There are so many other things.

     We did find a group home for her but you know what? We haven’t had a lick of trouble with her. She’s been kind, pleasant and helpful. Even apologetic about her behaviour in our old home. So, she knows she was wrong. Maybe it’s a second honeymoon. We are keeping the group home as a backup and we have told her so. She’s scared to death of it but we won’t put up with any garbage here. Not like we did before. So with our addition we are adding a 4th bedroom for her. For now, I am thankful she’s with us. God showed me compassion for her during her time with Dave and just in having these few days with her here. I have a renewed love for her and a new understanding of what she really can do. I have thrown out everything mom told me she could do and she and I started from scratch. No, she did not know how to shower. So now I help her and she’s done in 15 minutes with not a single argument. This is huge. She would take 2hrs and not shower before. Duh. She didn’t know how. But no one knew. Now I do. So in some ways, God has also given me a second chance with her.

     We have some real concerns that she has low platelets or low clotting ability and will be blood testing her in a few weeks to find out. Their house in Philly had high high radon for the whole time they lived there and they didn’t know it until they sold it 10yrs ago and it was tested. Both parents have now had blood disorders. We don’t think that’s any coincidence. I’ll post her results when we get it done.

     Okay, I’d better jet. Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and enjoy the time with your families.

     patti

123. Andrea said,

     December 17, 2007 at 3:06 pm

     Well, Patti, as usual you’ve got your hands full! .. . . .As to deodorant, have you tried Marlene’s witch-hazel-plus-baking-soda combo? I find it works quite well. ‘Course, everyone’s different in the, shall we say, strength of their sweat.

     Hope things continue to go well with Marie, and that Kassandra heals quickly.

     Just a note on constipation–according to Chinese medicine, constipation is a symptom of too much yang–that would include meat, cheese, salt, noise, and stress. (Diarhhea is an overly yin condition.) Good quality yin includes an orderly schedule, whole grains, vegetables, fruits, soft music, calm, and low lights at night. Just something to think about.

     Have a wonderufl Christmas, Andrea

124. patti said,

     December 20, 2007 at 1:20 am

     Hi Andrea,

     I have tried the witchhazel and baking soda for myself. I burned really bad with the witch hazel. I used to use it on my face years ago and had the same problem. Not sure if it’s an allergy or just sensitive skin. I can forget it for my daughter only because it’s not easy enough. I have a hard enough time getting her to wear deoderant (pewee going through puberty!) without throwing in mixing those two in her morning. I’m hoping as she gets older she’ll be more diligent and I can just get her to use the Alba and put it on twice a day or something.

     That is interesting about chinese medicine and constipation stuff because our diet consists of mainly meat, fruits and veggies with very little breads/pasta stuff. She loves her cheese sticks and sea salt (not together!) and it is noisy in my house with three little ones! My ND had me put her on Benefiber which is a grain fiber vs. a veggie fiber which I think is interesting in light of what you’re saying (she’s a chinese practioner also). That must be what she was thinking.

     As for her bladder, it appears she may have bladder reflux and it’s congenital. Still working on this one. I am trying to minimize the testing/radiation exposure so am hoping an ultrasound of her kidneys will be enough (although they assure me it won’t be). I’m working with the ND because I do NOT want her on prophylactic antibiotics. One of things they can do is an out patient surgery that puts this stuff in her ureter that fixes the valve. I haven’t researched that stuff yet but I’m wondering if it’d be better to do that then be on antibiotics long term. Even with a good probiotic I just don’t think that is good for anyone. Still researching though. She has a recheck on the 28th and we are scheduling a urinary/kidney ultrasound then. Unfortunately, my little sister has this same thing. The joke in my house has always been that anything bad my kids have comes from my side of the family and it has been true about 99% of the time. Only the stubborness comes from my hubs side!!

     Marla, I wrapped up the girl’s bunnies tonight. To really tantalize them I’m going to put my kitties out on my window seat tomorrow. They will look so cute! Ah, finally unpacking enough to actually decorate.

     Have a great Christmas with your families.

     patti

125. patti said,

     December 30, 2007 at 11:39 pm

     Hey Marla,

     I can’t see your post on my computer. Are you stuck in your spam filter? hee hee.

     I just read some more on deflux for Kassandra. This is what it said:

     “DEFLUX consists of two types of sugar-based molecules (polysaccharides) called dextranomer and hyaluronic acid. Both substances are well-known from previous uses in medicine. Both materials are also biocompatible1, 2, which means that they do not cause significant reactions within the body. In fact, hyaluronic acid is produced and found naturally within the body.”

     So it doesn’t sound like it’s teflon at all. Which is a plus.

     Peanut had an ultrasound yesterday. While I could see the nephrons on the US I was unable to tell if her kidneys were still swollen. Our doc will have the results this week and will let me know. They are sending us to a urologist. Unfortunately, there aren’t any ped uro’s in Boise so we will be working with an adult one until we determine exactly what is wrong. Any treatment, other then antibiotics that she receives will have to be done in Portland. Ha ha. I just can’t get away from that place! Fortunately, our house hasn’t sold yet so we could stay there although we would probably just stay with my best friend and her family. Just me and Peanut. Daddy will have to stay here and work. Currently, we are waiting for the results of a urine culture to come back. She had protein in her urine on friday but no white cells which is good. However, her kidneys are hurting very badly.

     We are working hard on the constipation issue. I’m giving her benefiber daily and we’ve started juicing. Yesterday I made apple, carrot and pear juice. Although it was orange, they all liked it! I’m hoping the fresh juice will really help her. Dr. Reuter actually believes it’s the constipation causing the infections. Bacteria migrating because she’s not eliminating daily. So we are working hard on that. In the end of all this, both our doctor (who happens to be a good friend that’s a PA) and the ND agreed that surgery is by far a better option then long term antibiotics.

     I gotta tell you though, sometimes I feel like we just get through one medical thing and another pops up. It’s getting a little frustrating. But God knows.

     It’s late so I’ll leave things there. I think by the end of this week they will start tearing into our house. That should be interesting with school! Marie continues to do very well. Although my scale says she hasn’t gained any weight she has gone up one full clothing size. So I’m thinking I need to buy a new scale?! I have managed to get her psoriasis (sp?) in her hair very well under control. I am convinced that is nothing but a yeast issue. We have her on a good probiotic and cod liver oil and we are seeing good results. Although we’re continuing to go through the motions with a group home, it is just as a back up. Once this addition is done she’ll have her own room, the kids will have a play room, we’ll have a 3rd bathroom (mainly Marie’s but also the guest bath) and a loft for whatever purpose suits us. And then we can start on the kitchen…….. oh, I can’t go there right now. If you’ve ever done a remodeling project you know how stressful it can be. I finally backed off and told my husband to do anything he wants, just let me choose the colors! ha ha.

     Okay, enough for tonight.

     patti

126. patti said,

     December 31, 2007 at 6:38 pm

     I’m answering some of your email here, Marla, because it sort of all relates. Maybe…

     So today I juiced straight apples to take to a New Year’s Eve function at our pastor’s house. I figured I may as well provide something healthy for my family to drink. I’m sure there will be lots of soda pop there. Ugh. My husband walked up behind me and saw all the pulp from the apples and tasted it and decided that I must make applesauce with it. So, on the stove it went with water, honey and cinnamon. It’s cooking right now. It really doesn’t need much sweetner because the apples were pretty sweet. I juiced 25 med. apples and got a 1/2 gallon of juice. I’m thinking I will have about 10 quart jars of applesauce when I’m done. Maybe a few less. Um, I don’t know how to can. Ha ha!! I called a friend that lives around the corner and asked if she could help me can them tomorrow. So we’ll see. Otherwise, I’ll be giving away A LOT of applesauce! I’m not too worried though. There’s a family in our church with 8 kids that lives on the street in front of ours so I’m sure they’d be thrilled to have it. That’d be one meal for them! Anyways, as I was watching the pulp from my carrot juicing the other day I wondered what I could do with that stuff. I was thinking I must be able to mix it with something to add color, flavor, texture, something! I’m thinking by the time I’m done I will have that all figured out.

     Marla, eggplant is something I’ve really been wanting to try on my family but I haven’t found a good recipe that will “cover” it yet. My ND said it does not really have a taste and has a weird texture so it might be hard to get by my crew. Your thoughts? I was thinking if I did something with tomato sauce and parmesan and make it sort of italian like they would do okay with it. But I don’t know how to cook it. Ideas?

     I liked your ideas for our garden. Yeah, corn doesn’t ever get much per stock. I usually just freeze mine right no the cob so it takes lots of freezer space also so I don’t mind not getting a ton. Not to mention I can’t even eat the stuff. Oh well.

     Oops. Back to juicing. My husband asked why not just eat those apples instead of juicing them. I don’t have a good answer except I thought juicing fruits and veggies was somehow better for you then eating the whole food. Is that not correct? Or is it just that by juicing you can get several fruits and veggies at once which is even better for you? See how little I know even though mom juiced for those years? BTW, I’m using her champion juicer. She always hated to clean that thing but I can’t figure out why. It’s a piece of cake to clean. The parts clearly come off and cleaning is easy. Am I missing something? Or maybe it’s just because she was so tired and juicing beets made a bigger mess.

     I’d better go. My applesauce just went over it’s edges! Arggh..

     patti

127. Andrea said,

     January 1, 2008 at 3:45 pm

     Patti, With the experience you;re getting with your family, you should open a clinic!!

     There’s a wonderful spread called Baba Ganouj made with eggplant. You steam the eggplant and add lemon, garlic, and maybe tahini? I forget. but you can probably find a recipe online.

     If you dip it in egg, then in breadcrumbs or seasoned flour, it fries nicely. Tastes sort of like meat fixed that way, might be a winner with the kids, especially with ketchup.

     Will be following Peanut’s story . . . interesting about the witch hazel, you must have v. sensitive skin . . . . we’ve got snow here again!!! Happy New Year everyone! A.

128. patti said,

     January 1, 2008 at 8:14 pm

     Hi Andrea! Happy New Year! Hee hee. Yeah, my husband laughs and says he’s going to buy me a white coat and stethoscope one of these days. Not.

     Ohh. That eggplant recipe sounds good. I will look it up online and try to get one the next time I hit the co-op. It’s downtown so I only go about every two weeks or so. I’ll have to read up on how to tell when an eggplant is just right to buy. Ripeness, etc. I’m determined to give it a try and mentioned it last night. Hub was open to it and that’s half the battle!

     Oy, poor Peanut. She feels so rotten today she wouldn’t even eat all day. She said she hurts from her stomach all the way around to her back. I feel awful. I have a prescription I can fill for her but we were waiting for her last culture to come back. Ron said to fill it tomorrow and we should hear from the doc’s office by then too. It breaks my heart. Nothing I could do could make her feel better and everything is closed today so I couldn’t even fill this thing today and start her on it. We are expecting to go to Portland for treatment but have to wait until May 28th before she can have surgery. Otherwise we have to suck up the cost ourselves (which we may still do).

     They slapped a 6 mo. pre-existing clause on our new Idaho policy because she had a kidney infection in October. Oh yeah, and we have to pay $20 more a month for her because of that one infection. Nevermind that she’s never been to the doctor for being sick for anything else in her little life. Grrrr. We’ll have to have a good insurance discussion and solve the world’s problems because I’m toasted about health insurance right now. We bought a family policy 6 months ago with a $7000 deductible because we only go to the doc when we’re practically dying or there is something major wrong. Otherwise, we see the ND and just pay cash. Peanut’s hospital stay was $7000. As far as we’re concerned the policy did what we wanted. We’re willing to put more out for major stuff not to have to pay in premium for doctor visits we almost never use. So we were fine with that. And, if you call the hospital and tell them you’ll pay the whole thing at once they knock off up to 15% because their just happy you’ll pay. For us they knocked off over $600. Hey, that’s a months worth of groceries. We were good with that. BUT and this is a MAJOR BUT – no one will insure me because I was a gestational diabetic 7yrs ago. I’ve been turned down by 5 companies. So the rest of my crew has insurance. When we moved to Idaho we had to re-apply here so then they rated Peanut’s policy AND now they are telling us they want us to pay and extra $300 a month because my son wears glasses and has strabismus. So what? He wears glasses. He’ll never have to have surgery, etc. for it. But it’s considered a medical condition and he has to be seen by a medical doctor for it. We were furious. I wrote a letter to the insurance company pointing out to them that this new policy has a $5000 deductible and the chances of my son EVER hitting that are unlikely unless he has some sort of accident. At best if they ever had to cover his once a year vision appt. it might cost $120. But they want $300 extra a month? Oh, we were fried. So for now, we’ll see what they say. Ron has said we will take this one to the insurance commissioner because it’s so riduculous. Ya know, when I was kid, they used to “exclude” coverage for ear infections for me because I had them all the time. Why not just “exclude” coverage for his eyes instead of making us pay through the nose for them? We only want catastrophic coverage in the first place. Can you tell I’m hot??!! I used to be a licensed insurance agent. I understand they have to weigh the risks vs. the premium, etc. But they’ve now made it so unaffordable for me to get insurance (they offered to cover me for an extra $237 a month in addition to everyone elses premium) what’s the point? I am totally opposed to nationalized Hillary care but what I do think is reasonable is fee for service. But that’s not likely to ever come back. But it’s what works. And the care was much better. I’d even still give seniors their medicare (although personally opposed to it). But people love their entitlements and it’s not likely we’ll ever see changes unless it’s nationalized healthcare which just scares me to death. I’ve read too many horror stories on the MDS and leukemia forum from people in other countries (even Canada). Okay, you weren’t expecting that diatribe were ya?! Sorry. This all just happened yesterday so it’s still frying my gizzard today. ha!

     So, what’s your guy’s ideas of fixing the system? Curious what you all think.

     Guess that’s it for now. Hope you all had a great day! We did. Our new addition plans are done and drawn and we should be getting permits this week. We’re now adding a second story instead of our original plan. Wow! What a change. So much for my one level house staying that way!

     Chow for now.

     patti

129. Administrator said,

     January 1, 2008 at 8:16 pm

     Hello Ladies!

     Happy New Year! Just got in, and brrrrr, is it cold in here! Yikes!

     Anyway, Patti, my where shall I begin? Ha! Okay the juicing. . .

     I’m a bit surprised that your apple juice is thick enough for apple sauce. Makes me wonder if you were using the right fixtures. Were you using the screen or the blank plate? The blank plate is used for mincing stuff like cabbage for slaw. I can see that making apples into apple sauce consistency. I know I have used an additional screen for my juices, but even without it and using the one that comes with the juicer, you should not have apple juice thick enough to make apple sauce, UNLESS you didn’t use the screen. The pulp should come out in the front, and the juice should pour out from the bottom, thus ending up in separate containers.

     I love eggplants, but unfortunately, they are part of the nightshade family, and I have been avoiding those. Andrea’s suggestions sound yummy, but the way I’ve had them are either in omelets (Filipino style, I’ll explain), eggplant dip similar to hummus (instead of using garbanzo beans, eggplants are used. I think that’s the Baba Ganouj Andrea was talking about, also yum!), various stir fry dishes, BBQed, and also in soups. Can you tell I like eggplants?

     Basically, you have to cook them well for the best taste. I’ve seen recipes to pickle them raw, and I’ve tried them, but I don’t like them that way. All the ways I like them are cooked. The Filipino omelet is made with eggplant, ground meat, onions, garlic, and whatever you want to add into the omelet, and of course scrambled egg. First you place the eggplant over the fire so that the flames are actually touching the eggplant. You turn it so that it cooks evenly. It’ll soften up, and the skin will peel right off. When it’s nice and soft, peel off the skin and part it in the middle and lay it flat. In a separate pan, place a little oil in a skillet, then add some crushed garlic. Let the garlic get slightly brown, then add in minced onions. When the onions start to get translucent, then add the ground meat and whatever veggies or ingredients you like in the omelet. When those ingredients are finished, then put that aside. In a bowl scramble a couple eggs. In another warm skillet with a little oil pour in the scrambled eggs. Gently place the eggplant in the scrambled eggs spread open, then add the cooked meat/filling ingredients on top of the eggplant. When the bottom starts to look cooked enough to flip, then flip it over. In a couple minutes, the eggplant/meat omelet is done. Of course salt to your taste during or after cooking.

     If you like hummus, you might also like the eggplant version (Baba Ganouj) which is eaten with pita bread just like hummus.

     You can also cook eggplants in soups, just chop them up the size you like and add them early in the soup processing because they do take time to cook. Filipinos commonly use them in beef soups mostly.

     If you BBQ them, then just place them directly on the grill, turning them until they are nice and soft. Then just peel the skins of and eat them with your steak. Filipinos like to have a vinegar/soy sauce dip with the eggplants when we eat it this way.

     If you know how to stir fry, then the common way is with oyster sauce and peppers. Yum! But alas, I’ve been avoiding spicy foods, wah, for my skin’s sake. . .

     Just curious why you want to can? My girlfriend used to do a lot of canning, but her way used lots of sugar. I know she used those ball jars and boiled whatever she was canning up in there. They made yummy spreads, but after seeing how much sugar she added, I got scared, ha ha ha!

     Oh, as far as why juice. . . it depends on what you are trying to achieve. The idea of juicing is to separate the fiber from the juice so that your body doesn’t have to expend much energy to digest. According to Norman Walker, one of the early juicing gurus, we assimilate about 30% of the nutrients in the foods we eat. The rest passes through with the fiber and stuff. When we juice, we assimilate around 90% or so of the nutrients in the foods, plus our bodies don’t have to expend energy digesting. AND the nutrients supposedly goes almost immediately into our blood stream because there’s not much digesting to do. This is one big reason why juicing is highly recommended for “sick” people with compromised digestion. You want to absorb a much nutrients as quickly as possible.  Also, you get in a lot more veggie by juicing that what you can possibly eat.  I mean one cup of carrot juice is about 4 or 5 large whole sticks of carrots.

     Now for other people, they use the Vita Max which uses the whole fruit or veggie. No peeling or pulp to toss. But your body still has to separate the fiber from the other stuff since we can not digest fiber. Which brings me to the constipation thing. Some claim that just adding fiber is not enough to produce regular bowel movements, but rather the proper bacteria in the gut which properly breaks down food and allows the rest to pass. My feeling is perhaps both. I think we do need some fiber (but not too much as that can also cause constipation), and we also need the right bacteria in there to properly break down our food.

     Oop, I’m gonna have to break for now, but I too will be closely following Peanut’s progress. I wanted to get a better idea of the Deflux before much commenting. Did your younger sister use it, and did it work well for her? The little bit I’ve seen seems to indicate that some people grow out of the reflux condition. But I have not had any experience with that, nor have I known anyone else that had to deal with it.

     Okay, yak later! Happy New Year!

     Marla

130. Administrator said,

     January 1, 2008 at 8:30 pm

     I forgot to mention. . . the eggplants I’m used to using are the Asian/Japanese ones. You know, the log narrow ones, not the big fat bulbous ones. That would make a big difference when using them in omelets and cooking them directly over the fire, ha! I think it’s okay to use the big bulbous eggplants when chopping them up for stir fries and soups and also for the Baba Ganouj. But our Filipino soups also use the smaller narrow eggplants for soups cut into strips or wedges.

     Marla

131. Andrea said,

     January 2, 2008 at 7:25 pm

     Hey Patti, I’m with you with insurance gripes. It’s a real mess.

     I got a catastrophic policy with a 14K deductible for myself. Rob has Medicare because he’s still on disability, which has Medicare automatically.

     Noah and his wife have a cheap ($60/month), decent, state-subsidized policy because they live in Oregon! Did you know about this when you lived there?

     My 3 younger kids are uninsured. Not a good state of affairs, but it’s just not affordable for them or for us on their behalf.

     If anything happens, there’s Mainecare, which is Medicaid. That’s what paid Rob’s bills when we got caught uninsured when he got sick. (I had started looking for a policy at the time of his diagnosis.)

     On the basis of our experience with Mainecare, I don’t think a government-run medical system is a bad idea. It seems to work well in Canada, in the UK.

     Will be praying for Peanut. Hard on mom, too. Take care of yourself,
     Andrea

132. patti said,

     January 2, 2008 at 7:56 pm

     Hi Marla,

     I confused you. Sorry. I used the pulp from my apple juice to make applesauce. It was VERY thick. I added about 8 cups of water to my pulp (I juiced 25 med. size apples) and cooked it for a little while with some cinnamon and honey crystals. I added 1/2 c. of raw whole cane sugar to the whole batch. It was a huge pot so I figure the half cup was okay. I might have been able to get away without it but I wanted to make sure it would get eaten. It’s not too sweet at all.

     As for canning – yep, some people use a ton of sugar. I do not. When I can peaches or pears or things like that I use either organic pear juice concentrate as my sweetner or plain organic juice. Even then, I use very little of either. For jams I just do straight fruit (something similar to an all fruit jam). My husband loves that thick sugar syrup but yuck! I can’t stand it. And what’s the point of canning your own if you’re not going to make it healthier to begin with? Alas, I did not get my applesauce canned. By the time I washed my jars is was already time to make dinner. I froze a quart and we had some with dinner tonight for dessert. We had some last night too so that pretty much took care of most of it. I just froze the one quart I have left. Not worth canning that.

     The only eggplants I’ve seen around here are the big, oblong purple things. I will have to try out some of what you ladies mentioned when I buy one. I’ll let you know how it goes over. So far, our experiment with a new fruit and new veggie weekly is working okay. About half no one liked and the other half we all liked. So, that’s not bad. It at least expands our food options.

     Thanks for the info on juicing. I was trying to explain to Ron the difference and had a hard time putting it into words. I read him your explanation to which he replied, “yep, God musta got it wrong. He meant to hang juice on the trees instead.” Catch the sarcasm. Actually, he’s been enjoying the juice also. Even the carrot apple juice even though it was orange. Although, I admit, he was a little leary of it until the kids said it was good! ha ha! I did use the screen you are talking about. I wondered what that plain piece of plastic was for. hee hee. Thanks for sharing that! I love this juicer. Very easy to use and easy to clean. Heavy, but I just leave it on my counter.

     Kassandra’s last UA came back clean for e-coli. That’s the first clean test she’s had since October. However, she’s having severe kidney pain right now so I don’t know what to think. We test her (by touching her back over he kidneys whens she’s not expecting it) every few days so we can tell when it’s real and when it’s not. So for now, we’re just going to wait and see. Her US will be back tomorrow. We’ll see how her kidneys look. She’s scheduled to see the urologist on the 22nd. She’ll be scheduled for a cystogram after that.

     Marla, you’re right. Most kids do outgrow reflux. But there are a few exceptions. Most kids that outgrow it are dx before age 6 (usually around age 2). Those who are dx later tend to have more severe forms of it and don’t outgrow it. With Kassandra being 6 1/2 she falls into the latter category. My little sister was dx when she was 8. She’s had bladder problems her whole life. She also has IC besides the reflux. So even at 36 she still fights the reflux. Unfortunately there’s a hereditary component as well as a congenital component (those two are related obviously). My sister did not use deflux because it wasn’t an option back then. She had pig valves put in when she was 10 and again when she was 15 they replaced them. Back then they said she had the bladder of an 80yr old and would some day have to have it replaced. She’s starting to get to that point now.

     Okay – bath night. Gotta jet.

     patti

133. Administrator said,

     January 3, 2008 at 12:19 pm

     Hi Patti:

     Ah, good point about the canning, “why bother if you’re not gonna make it any healthier?” I like that, and it’s so true. Come to think of it, I have seen preserves that don’t add sugar and are just fruit. Those are healthier, and even better if you pick the fruit yourself. You can use organic or biodynamic, etc.

     Thanks for clearing up the pulp thing, ha ha! I was thinking, “gee, I don’t remember ever having apple sauce consistency.” But great idea to make apple sauce with the pulp. I don’t think I ever juiced that much apples at one time, so it hadn’t occurred to me. I juiced mostly veggies, and LOTS of carrots, especially during the beginning of my ordeal. Too much for our compost pile! Ha! It’s been years now since I juiced that much, but I remember it well! Ha ha! Even the rabbits couldn’t keep up with the pulp.

     Regarding Ron’s comment. . . yeah, that’s the attitude I’ve had with bottled supplements that are fractionated. I still have personal issues with that, although I do take them from time to time for various reasons. HOWEVER, there are many angles to consider. One is that juicing whole foods are not fractionated. They merely separate the fiber from the rest of the nutrients, which are still intact in all their variety within those veggies/fruits. This helps those of us with compromised digestion and those of us who have been severely ill and need the extra help. You want the body spending energy “healing,” not expending energy digesting when trying the heal from very serious illnesses. Perhaps Ron can consider his cod liver oil and the benefits he has gained from using it? Why not just eat the cod livers? Truth is, he’d have to eat a lot of liver to equivalent his therapeutic dosage of CLO. CLO is basically “juiced cod livers.”

     Another thing to consider Biblically speaking, is that things changed once sin entered the world. We weren’t supposed to die originally before the fall of man. Our bodies were much healthier and able to digest properly. I don’t think Adam and Eve ate animals like we do, either. AND once man fell, God told us that were were going to “toil.” I take that to mean that we had to work to live including working for our food like harvesting, cooking, canning, pickling, etc. Now if we are supposed to eat everything right off the tree or just pick it and eat, then why don’t we just start munching off raw, freshly killed animals, and not bother cooking them? Cooking helps to “pre-digest” our food. So, cooking is also a similar concept to juicing. You’re not fragmenting the foods so that you only get “vitamin X, Y, or Z,” but rather making it easier and sometimes more palatable to eat. All the nutrients that you haven’t cooked off are still there. Some foods are not digestible raw. Do you eat raw pinto beans? They must be cooked to make them digestible. Juicing is a similar concept for those who need help digesting. It’s much quicker and simpler to drink a glass of juice, than to eat and chew a whole head of lettuce or 5 sticks of carrots. Hope this helps Ron to see the purpose of juicing. Even Noah made wine.

     BTW, I don’t juice much at all anymore. Maybe I’ll pull out my juicer and do a little here and there again just for maintenance. I’m glad you’re finding it easy. People seem to think it’s so hard, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy.

     I’ll be praying for Kassandra. I do think you should keep fortifying her diet, tho, as I truly believe that can only help. I’ve heard a good share of stories of people overcoming conditions others tell them is not possible to overcome. So just keep giving her good stuff to try to get the upper hand. But I also do realize that it’s more difficult when it’s your child and not yourself. I remember when my son got bad nosebleeds, and boy I remember the fear that welled up inside of me when the thought of what I had (AA) might happen to him. Such a relief that his plt count came back in the 300K range. That reminds me, how’s Marie’s blood counts looking? I remember you mentioned you were concerned that she might have issues there? Also great that you’ve helped with her scalp! That’s great! So much to talk about, and so little time!

     Well need to go for now! Take care!

     Marla

134. patti said,

     January 4, 2008 at 7:21 pm

     Hi Marla,

     I juiced a lot of apples that day because I had hoped to take a 1/2 gallon of juice with me to a New Years party we were going to. As it ended up, we left it at home. Oh well. The family enjoyed it. Ya know, we all liked the apple juice, but we liked the carrot apple much better. I’m going to have to experiment with lettuce and carrot and apple or something like that. If I don’t have the fruit in it for sweetness no one might drink it! The applesauce ended up being really good and LOADED with fiber. Ha ha! Let’s just say it even helped out Peanut’s tummy.

     I don’t worry too much about what hubba says. He’s pretty good about it. He just likes to make comments to be funny about it.

     Do you have suggestions for specific whole foods that might be helpful to the bladder/kidneys? Right now we are doing lots of veggies and fruit. I already do everything organic. She is taking 1tbls a day of HMF Replete or Super Powder for her gut flora because of the antibiotics. She is also taking 1 tsp. twice a day of benefiber. Both of those seem to be helping with the constipation. The one unfortunate thing she got from Ron’s mom was she is chronically constipated. I mean badly. Reuter thinks some of the infections may be caused by constipation and that bacteria is migrating to the bladder causing infection. So we are really working on the constipation factor. I can’t think of anything else to do for it then what we already are. That was one of the reasons I was juicing fruit, because that does seem to help. Our goal is to get her going poo at least once daily. That sounds easy but we were lucky if she was going once a week! And even then, it was hard for her to go. So anyways, anything else you can think of I can do to tackle that problem?

     You know, with everything going on with Kassandra, I have not yet gotten Marie to a doctor. Is that awful? It’s just so busy. With school going again it’s even worse. I also just found out I’m going to have to have a different doctor for Ron and Marie then I have for myself and the kids. Very frustrating.

     Okay, I’d better jet. It’s game night.

     patti

135. Andrea said,

     January 6, 2008 at 11:46 am

     According to macrobiotic medicine, aduki beans are excellent for the kidneys. They are quite delicious and appealing, even to some bean-haters. Also they are small and fairly quick to cook–about 45 minutes if you soak them.

     I fix them in the “classic” way–a piece of kelp in a pot, a cup of soaked adukis, 2 cups of water. Cook for about a half hour on low, keep an eye on them, add water if you have to. When beans are tender, add sweet winter squash cut in hunks, cook for another 20 minutes till squash is done, then take the top off and let the liquid slowly boil off. At the end, you can stir in some sweetener–rice syrup, barley malt, something mild works best.

     Another thing the macros say you need to be careful of with kidney issues is salt. The kidneys need some, but too much will cause them to “contract” and make them vulnerable. If she likes salty snacks, you might try to find some substitutes. Caffeine is bad for weak kidneys but I doubt she’s having any!

     That constipation problem seems like a good one to really work on. All branches of medicine emphasize regularity as very important. Again, the macros teach that constipation is a symptom of an overly tight, contracted, “yang” condition. So you want high-quality yin–which is fruit and vegetables, which you’re already doing. (Low-quality yin would be sugar, alcohol, caffeine.) Nine servings a day is the goal if you are trying to regain health.

     Have you thought about massage??? Acupressure? Foot relexology? Increased exercise? A mini-trampoline for the living room is cheap and very motivating. We had one and when I was spent in the late afternoon I would put on rowsing music, say Motown, and the kids would jump until they were laughing and exhausted.

     Good luck with everything. WE just had our Christmas pageant at church–late because we got snowed out of our original date–and I’m pooped. Time for a nap! (Sleep is yin–is she getting plenty?)

     love yas, Andrea

136. Andrea said,

     January 6, 2008 at 11:47 am

     According to macrobiotic medicine, aduki beans are excellent for the kidneys. They are quite delicious and appealing, even to some bean-haters. Also they are small and fairly quick to cook–about 45 minutes if you soak them.

     I fix them in the “classic” way–a piece of kelp in a pot, a cup of soaked adukis, 2 cups of water. Cook for about a half hour on low, keep an eye on them, add water if you have to. When beans are tender, add sweet winter squash cut in hunks, cook for another 20 minutes till squash is done, then take the top off and let the liquid slowly boil off. At the end, you can stir in some sweetener–rice syrup, barley malt, something mild works best.

     Another thing the macros say you need to be careful of with kidney issues is salt. The kidneys need some, but too much will cause them to “contract” and make them vulnerable. If she likes salty snacks, you might try to find some substitutes. Caffeine is bad for weak kidneys but I doubt she’s having any!

     That constipation problem seems like a good one to really work on. All branches of medicine emphasize regularity as very important. Again, the macros teach that constipation is a symptom of an overly tight, contracted, “yang” condition. So you want high-quality yin–which is fruit and vegetables, which you’re already doing. (Low-quality yin would be sugar, alcohol, caffeine.) Nine servings a day is the goal if you are trying to regain health.

     Have you thought about massage??? Acupressure? Foot relexology? Increased exercise? A mini-trampoline for the living room is cheap and very motivating. We had one and when I was spent in the late afternoon I would put on rowsing music, say Motown, and the kids would jump until they were laughing and exhausted.

     Good luck with everything. WE just had our Christmas pageant at church–late because we got snowed out of our original date–and I’m pooped. Time for a nap! (Sleep is yin–is she getting plenty?)

     love yas, Andrea

     PS–Patti, with all you do, not getting Marie to a doctor is absolutely NOT awful. EXTREMELY understandable. First things first!!

137. Administrator said,

     January 6, 2008 at 1:15 pm

     Hey Ladies!

     Lots going on with all of us, it seems. My mom got admitted to the hospital Friday. She was complaining on and off of chest pains since the first of the new year. Oye, what a way to start the new year. When she finally went to ER, they found that her hgb was at 8.4. . . After one unit, and scopes, they still don’t know what’s up. Actually there’s more to this, but suffice it to say that she’s still in the hospital today. Not sure yet if they’ll discharge her today or not. They were hoping that her hgb would rise or stablize after the one unit, but this AM her hgb was 8.7. So she’s losing blood somewhere. Knowing how it is at hospitals, I took some knitting, and at least got one leg warmer done for Grace, ha! I’ll write to you more about it, Patti, later.

     So again, I haven’t been able to look up a lot of stuff that I’d like to look up before making any suggestions, but as Andrea mentioned, I have also read that beans are supposed to be good for the kidneys. Although, I thought “any” beans were good. Some might be better than others, but I’ve been eating pinto beans quite a bit, since I find that they do agree with me and my skin. This has been one of the things I’ve been trying to work on since I’ve been trying to build my adrenals, and the kidneys and the adrenals are closely linked.

     As far as cooking adzukis, I used to cook those, too. I cooked them with brown rice and sesame seeds. Basically, I’d soak the rice with the beans for a few hours, then cook them together. Then I’d roast some sesame seeds, and sprinkle it over the rice and beans when I ate it. Course that was only part of a meal, so you would have other things, too, like other veggies or meats. At the time I cooked that way, I was also into pickling. I really like pickled foods and think those really taste good with rice and adzukis. Adding seaweed towards the end of cooking sounds like a good idea, too. I’ve actually been doing that with my soups more recently. When I ate the adzukis, I was more into the saltier side, than the sweet, so didn’t add sweet stuff. My pickled stuff made up for the salt, so I didn’t really have to add any to the rice and beans.

     I do think the Rueter may have something there regarding the chronic constipation and Peanut’s UTI/infection issues. I recall reading that when one organ is suffering, then the extra work starts to fall on other organs. For instance, if your liver isn’t working properly, then some detox functions might be carried over to the kidneys and vice versa. Sometimes if the liver isn’t functioning up to par or is overburdened, then you might experience darker urine because the toxins are going through the kidneys instead of the bowel. So you can see how there might be a relation to what Rueter was saying. Once a week bowel movements does seem a bit much. I don’t think I’ve ever been that constipated, but I do know that I’ve heard of others like that, so don’t feel bad!

     Regarding what to do to relieve the constipation, there are lots of things to try, but since Peanut is so young, I’d start with the easy stuff first. You seem to be making progress with what you’re doing now. If you still feel that you need more guns, you might look into ground flax seeds. Since you’re starting to juice, you could ground up some flax seeds in a coffee grinder, and add a teaspoon in her juice. If that’s not enough, there are other herbs to use as natural laxatives. I’ve tried some of these, and let me tell you that they work! I didn’t originally take them knowing that they were “laxative” per say, but basically, I was on them while I was doing colonic sessions, and even with colonics, those herbs had me going! Ha! It amazed me how much “stuff” could be stored in our intestine. During that time, I “lost 5 lbs!” And I’m not a very heavy girl, normally around 115 lbs or there abouts. Anyway, it’s good that you try to get an upper hand on it now, since all that constipation could cause her colon to become disfigured. A whole week’s worth of food is going to have to get lodged and “packed” somewhere if it’s not coming out in a timely fashion. With time that could potentially disfigure her colon and make it flabby. So regardless if it is linked to her kidney issues (which I think there has to be “some” link), it’s a good idea to work on getting her a bit more regular, even if it means going every other day. If the flax seeds and whatever else you’re doing doesn’t help to move her along, there are herbs and herb combinations that help with that.

     Well, I’ve got to get some stuff done here soon, and find out what’s happening with my mom. If they don’t discharge her today, then I’m planning to go visit her this afternoon there. Regardless, I plan to see her whether at her house or at the hospital. Yesterday they said that if her hgb was above 9, then they’d discharge in the AM, but it wasn’t, and it’s now noon, and she’s still there.

     Okay, toodles for now!

     Marla

138. patti said,

     January 6, 2008 at 10:19 pm

     Wow! Marla, what a surprise. I am sorry to hear your mom’s in the hospital. Her hgb is so low! You know what my first thoughts were, I’m sure. Are her other cell lines okay? We will pray for her heartily this week and for wisdom in finding out what’s wrong. Will she listen to you with natural stuff to help her once you find out what’s wrong?

     Stuff comes in three’s, right? My sister called this morning and my dad is in the hospital also. He has a very bad heart and extremely poor circulation. He had way too much fluid around his heart and in his lungs and was sufficating. He’s had congestive heart failure for awhile now. The frustrating thing is they will not doing ANYTHING we suggest naturally to help except take mega quantities of lasix and whatever other drugs get thrown their way. It’s so frustrating. My mom’s theory is when one is old if you’re not on a boat load of medication there is something wrong with you! Arrgggh. Okay, my goal is to be on NOTHING when I grow old. That will be success for me.

     Thank you, thank you for the ideas for Peanut. We do eat quite a bit of beans right now but I will definately add in the adzukis. The funny thing is that on a health forum I’m on they were having a big discussion about them not long ago. I will have to go back and read that thread as it also had recipes for them too. I will try each of the recipes you guys gave me and let you know which we like best. Daddy likes salty over sweet so I’m guessing right off that will be his preference. Do you think I can get them at my local HFS? We have a pretty good HFS co-op here.

     Today we added Heather’s Tummy Fiber to Kassandra’s regimen. It is acacia and usually used for IBS but Reuter thinks between juicing, the acacia and benefiber that should really help. I am seeing improvement with the constipation with the things we’re doing. I just have to be really consistent. I have a feeling she will always have to keep on top of the constipation. The salt thing is interesting because my kids love sea salt and Peanut uses her share. I told Ron tonight we have to not let her salt her food anymore. I do cook with it, but not a lot. Today she is miserable. It’s interesting about the sleep, Andrea, because one thing I’m noticing is that when she doesn’t get enough sleep her kidneys hurt really bad the next day. It’s been especially bad since New Year’s as her lack of sleep has been compounding. She’s at an awkward stage in that if she naps she can’t go to bed until 11:00pm even if I only let her nap an hour. If she doesn’t nap she’s a total grump by 7:00 but won’t go to sleep until her sister is in the room with her around 8:30 or 9:00. So Ron and I are going to work on making sure she sleeps in in the AM’s and try not to wake her up early. She has been steadily going downhill for the last week with pain and tonight Ron made the call to start her on the antibiotic we filled last week but did not start. Her urine was also extremely cloudy today which usually is how it is if she’s got a bad infection. Usually we start to see relief after about 24hrs. I am going to try and get on a cancellation list with the urologist to try and get her in earlier then the 22nd.

     All of that leads me to Jen and Samual. I wanted to order some new stuff from her so hit her website. I have spent way too many hours this past two days catching up on Samual’s relapse recovery. I am intrigued like crazy about the baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) killing the leukemia. Oh, how I wish I had known that with mom! I know we can’t look back and I do have to wonder if it would have made a difference for her. My heart aches so much for the trials that family has endured. I don’t even know what else to say. Except I keep learning from her what things work. I hope in my lifetime I never need that info, but if I do, I am thankful she has tracked Samual’s treatment schedule.

     I am having to admit something to myself, ladies, that I have been avoiding for MONTHS. Without tracking my blood sugar numbers but watching symptoms, I believe I’ve hit the diabetic track. This is frustrating on two realms. One, I can’t get life to settle down enough to get back to my t-tapping to try and lose more weight. If I could dump 20lbs I think that would kickstart my insulin sensitivity again. Weight loss is the absolute key to getting a handle on this now and it’s becoming very frustrating for me. It doesn’t help that genetics aren’t too friendly to the women in my family. I’m in better shape then my mom and little sister and my big sister has to kill herself 7 days a week to stay at the edge of normal and I don’t have that kind of time. Second, I already can’t get health insurance. Can you imagine now?

     I’ve decided I need to do the master cleanse again but get the full ten days in. That will jump start weight loss and it may reset my insulin senstivity again. If you recall, the last time I did it I felt great for 3 days and ended up with Kassandra in the hospital and unable to continue juicing, etc. So I am praying God will give me ten days with no meals out, no one coming over, etc. for me to get this done. I also believe my bladder will do well with it again and that can only help. I feel like I’m at a critical point with my health. It’s so much harder to lose weight after turning 40 and while I have two years before I get there, time is going faster. Ugh. Just one more thing to deal with. I’m afraid to check my blood sugar because I can feel what it is after meals.

     Okay, that’s enough for tonight. So much to work on and I feel like I have got to get Marie to a doctor. Why do I feel like the healthier we eat the more problems crop up? We changed our eating habits a lot 3-4yrs ago and I’ve been trying to heal everybody’s bodies since then. Frustrating. My husband frequently comments on this. I keep reminding him that we’re trying to fix years worth of damage to our bodies but it doesn’t always get through.

     Marla, hope to hear good news about your mom! Glad you finally got to do the christmas play, Andrea!! We’ve had a lot of snow here too and are expecting more the next few days. I love it! So do the kids!

     Night ladies,

     Patti

139. Andrea said,

     January 7, 2008 at 5:06 pm

     Whoa, Patti, when it rains it pours! Here’s some quick thoughts–

     As to your health, forgive me for being blunt, but you gotta put yourself first. NOT in a selfish way, but because if you go down, your family goes down. So that t-tapping needs to happen every day BEFORE school, and I know what it’s like cause I homeschooled, remember?? There’s Bible support for this if you need it–”Put your own house in order.” You could even say that getting the log out of your own eye isn’t just about sin–it’s about health, too!

     As to symptoms cropping up MORE when you’re eating better, IMO that’s actually highly predictable. Problems that went underground in your family’s bodies now are having a chance to come to the surface as you regain health. This happened to me when I cleaned up my diet and lifestyle, and continues to happen when I make improvesments. SOME symptoms are evidence of you doing something wrong, but SOME are evidence of things moving in the right direction as you body rebalances and discharges.

     Interesting that K.’s sleep affects her health. Something to really pay attention to. A lot of healing happens while we sleep.

     I thought of something else that might be helpful to your peanut. It’s an exercise, simple, and one that a child would probably enjoy. It’s a Qi Gong exercise specifically for kidneys.

     You stand with feet slightly apart, about hip width, knees slightly bent. Now, start to turn from side to side, keeping your feet where they are. Let your arms swing naturally around. When you turn your upper body to the left, let your right hand gently hit your left kidney area, and your left hand swing around your back. The back of your left hand will hit the right kidney area.

     Then swing around the other way, reversing the process. Get a rhythm going, back and forth, swing, swing.

     I hope you can understand this from the description. It’s very easy. The “hitting” brings more circulation to the kidneys and helps them out. The twisting of the spine is good for all aspects of our health. I do 27 of these every morning, and they feel great. A little girl might call them “helicopter swirls” or something.

     Gotta go, GOOD LUCK with everything, my prayers are with you, Andrea

140. patti said,

     January 7, 2008 at 5:25 pm

     Andrea,

     That is a great suggestion and very easy for her to do!! I will start her tonight. You’re right, you’ll get a kick out of it.

     I was thinking that sometimes the stuff that comes out when we clean up our eating can be detox coming out in all forms?

     Peanut is doing better today after two doses of a very strong abx. Obviously, she has another infection. We’ll run her on a ten day course and we’ll talk to her doctor tomorrow to let her know we started it. Her ultrasound report came back and all of the swelling she had is gone, so that is good. We got her uro appt. moved up to the 15th so that is also good!

     Thanks for the good info. Yeah, I know momma is supposed to get taken care of, but she rarely does!

     patti

141. patti said,

     January 7, 2008 at 5:27 pm

     Ha! Edit – should say “she’ll get a kick out of it.” duhhh

142. Administrator said,

     January 9, 2008 at 12:04 pm

     Hey Patti:

     I had not realized that you were having so much trouble with your sugar levels. I know you mentioned you had trouble before, and that you had been following the guidelines of that doc (I don’t recall his name at the moment, but he was the engineer who managed his own diabetes, then became a doc), and were doing well with his guidelines? Or have you stopped following his suggestions? But I do want to comment that if your sugar is not controlled well, then I “DON’T” recommend that you drink fruit “juice.” That’s just too much sugar. Eat the fruit instead. Even root veggie juice can be too much sugar for a diabetic. Depending upon how bad your diabetes is, just one glass of “root” veggie juice a day OR even “dilute” the veggie juice, half water and half root veggie juice. This is especially for “starters” when your body is not used to all this juicing. And “particularly” for diabetics. Do you mind sharing what kinds of symptoms you’re having? When my mom first found out that she had diabetes, she was losing lots and lots of weight. That’s what brought her to her doc for a check up and they found her sugar level out of whack.

     Regarding Ron’s comment about more health problems cropping up after going with a more healthful diet, there’s lots to look at. Certainly, if you’re health is not improving, then it’s logical to look at the changes you’ve made and re-evaluate. Also keep in mind what was the reason you started to change your diet in the first place? Did you and your family have health problems “before” changing diet, and were these escalating health issues coming anyway? Has the diet changes helps slow down problems, speed them up? Cause them? Certainly, there are lots of things to consider. You can always go back to non-organic, but I wouldn’t recommend it, particularly if you can afford it. Not all foods, even if they are organic, are suited for each person. Some are sensitive to grains, even if they are organic, some conditions as I mentioned above, should take caution not to overdo the sugar content particularly in the beginning. Once your body starts to heal more, then you can increase a bit, but not too much. I’ve had to make lots of adjustments myself particularly for my skin, even though I had been 99% organic since 1999. I’m not as strict now, partly because I think my body is stronger than before, and my healing has progressed and I’m kinda feeling my way around.  And with detoxing symptoms, you can expect some crisis, but then see over all improvement or an upward trend.  It can be difficult at times to tell between a healing crisis and disease progression.
     Anyway, I’ve got a late start in the day, so better dash for the moment. Will try to hop back on later tonight. I’m planning on packing some herbal stuffs with me when I go on my trip on the 18th (it got moved over from the 16th, to the 18th). If I get a chance I wanted to take pictures of how I pack my herbal supps. This is what I used to get over my UTI last Thanksgiving. For precaution, I want to take some back up on my trip. Perhaps I’ll make a post on my daily blog with a recap of the stuff I took this time around to get rid of the UTI. Or add it to my “pages” section. BTW, those things are considered helpful to the kidneys, too, and appeared to consequently help bowel movement (unexpectedly, ha!) Not that I was having problems with bowel movement that I knew of, but it sure got bulkier. They were already well-formed and easy to pass, but the size and amount really surprised me, ha ha ha! Maybe it was all that added fiber in the herbs.

     Okay, now I go for real, ha ha! Toodles!

     Marla

143. Andrea said,

     January 9, 2008 at 6:05 pm

     “It’s difficult to tell the difference between a healing crisis and disease progression.” That’s the truth. You really do have to “feel your way around”, as Marla put it.

     You don’t know what diseases you might actually be preventing, what would be happening if you and your family weren’t pursuing a health program. So you sort of have to go on faith I think as well as observation. I personally think I would not be alive now if I hadn’t changed my ways starting in 1996, but I have no way of proving that. And Rob–he just got another blood test back, everything’s about the same. So, is that good or bad? Does that mean he’s doing the right thing or not? Well, if he weren’t doing Chinese herbs and good food etc, it’s not unlikely he’d be transfusion dependent and up for a BMT, is it?

     So in your and your family’s case, Patti, you have to look at what might have been. Your diabetes could be worse than it is, Peanut could have some awful cancer instead of kidney issues etc etc. You have to proceed on faith.

     Take care, and Marla how is your mom? Andrea

144. Administrator said,

     January 10, 2008 at 5:19 pm

     Hi Andrea:

     My mom is home now. She staying in the hospital for 3 days. They gave her two units of reds. What they think happened was that she had some GI bleed. They’re not sure “where,” but it appears that her stools were very dark, and seemed to point to old blood from higher up in her GI tract. They did an upper and lower scope, but found nothing. So she’s scheduled for an x-ray study of the middle part of her GI tract to see what’s going on in there. The hope is that whatever was bleeding stopped, and that she just has to regain the blood that she lost. She had a couple test done yesterday, but has another test coming up this Tues along with a CBC to make sure that her blood is rebounding. We’re supposed to go on a trip on the 18th, so this is cutting it really close. Oh, well, how’s that for the start of the new year? Ack!

     Speaking of that, it seems that our family isn’t the only one who had to make a hospital visit. Apparently Patti’s dad, and one of my previous blood donors! She had heavy female bleeding and ended up in ER after passing out. They found her hgb at 4! Yikes! After 4 units of reds, she’s back at work, oh my! Then her mom starts vomiting up this “black” stuff. Oye, sounds like GI bleed, doesn’t it? So off they go. I hope that takes care of the hospital visits for the rest of the year!

     But thanks for remembering my mom!

     How’s Anne’s lease thing going? Did she find someone to take it over?

     Take care!

     Marla

145. patti said,

     January 10, 2008 at 10:48 pm

     Okay ladies. I’ve been digesting all this stuff and have some comments, questions.

     As for what feels like increased sickness, it does sometimes feel like we’re having more major illnesses but not as many colds/flus, etc. Honestly, I believe we are all detoxing. Ron and I talked a lot while we were painting today (what else ya gonna do for 8hrs?!). He actually understands and thinks that’s what’s happening too. It’s just sometimes it gets frustrating. But we both agreed that in general, we are all much healthier and better off. Right now, with several kids fighting viruses and Peanut’s bladder stuff, it’s just seems like it’ll never end. You ever play that game, “when X gets over things will settle down?” I guess that’s sort of how we saw things with mom. God always has other plans though, doesn’t he?

     Re: my blood sugar. I do follow Bernsteins diet loosely. I almost never eat any grains, no potatoes, corn, carrots, etc. Mostly meat and veggies with some fruit. I’m only juicing a couple of times a week for Peanut and at most I get 1/2cup of that. So generally speaking, I don’t think I’m getting too much sugar that way. Right now I think it hinges on my body losing 20 more pounds. Funny though, I started losing this week. I haven’t done anything different but I know my hormones are really straightening out. Maybe that’s helping. Right now my biggest symptom is wound healing. They say that people don’t notice that until advanced diabetes but I can tell you that’s not true. I can get a very small cut (maybe 1/4″) that’s not much more then a deep scrape and it will take weeks to heal if I’m using my herbal miracle salve and even longer if I don’t use it. Other then that, I crash badly if I eat anything with carbs. Almost non-functioning. I could be wrong, but I can usually tell where my blood sugar is at just by how I feel. I will not go get tested at this point. I don’t need anymore strikes against me for insurance. I’m just going to double my efforts with what I eat (or don’t) and continue trying to drop 20lbs. But it is frustrating because I have no way to gauge what is caused by pancreas damage and what is weight.

     Okay – ladies I need your expertise on colloidal silver. I’ve been discussing this with Jen Backus and she thinks if I give Kassandra CS daily that it will help prevent anymore infections until we can get her bladder fixed. I researched a lot on the web last night (hours and hours) and could not find anything that indicated it wasn’t a good idea. Jen said they used it on Samuel for a year but stopped because they thought it was hurting his gut. But he has gut issues anyway. So I don’t think that will be a problem here. I ran these thoughts by the ND today and this is what she sent to me:

     “I am not, and never have been, a big fan of the stuff. Silver can definitely be toxic, and I have long had concern about the safety of micro-particles. Silver is not primarily cleared through the kidneys anyway, so it is pure speculation to say that you will see an anti-infective effect in them. In a kid it’s not difficult to pass the toxic dose, and it can cause a nasty (and permanent) discoloration of skin and gums. Oh, and neurological damage. If she was my kid, I’d do the antibiotics. I know you don’t like ‘em, but the consequences are worse.. She could potentially suffer all her life from kidney damage if this isn’t treated properly. That’s my 2 cents worth!”

     First, I am considering changing ND’s. Partly because she is so medical that I think she too quickly throws out stuff that would work simply because she does not have any clinical research on it. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned that she’s an ND that practices only what can be proven with research. Well, tons of health stuff that will help can’t be proven with research. The only research I’ve found on DMSO is good stuff yet she freaked on me. I’m still thinking about using it. Nonetheless, I guess I’m concerned that we could be throwing out a potentially helpful thing by not using the CS. Do you ladies have any thoughts or knowledge to share? I would need to start Peanut on it by this Saturday because it would need to be in her system before she finishes this latest antibiotic. I’m also going to add some slippery elm tea to her diet to try and help with the constipation. Today I gave her all three powders at all three meals and NADA. Nothing. That kid just confounds me. Anyways, any thoughts on the CS, ladies?

     Okay – gals, I gotta jet. Marla, still praying they figure out what happened wtih your mom. We’ve been praying for her.

     Marla, hope you have a good and safe trip.

     patti

146. Administrator said,

     January 11, 2008 at 1:04 am

     Hi Patti:

     I’m no colloidal silver expert, but I have never been too thrilled with it. I have never tried it personally, nor have I been tempted to try it. I have read of the claims from various people on other health forums who stand by the stuff, but like the DMSO, I have also read of concerns. Enough concerns that I have developed my own personal feelings on it. Since both those substances aren’t technically natural, but just alternatives, they don’t rank high in my book. I don’t completely discredit them because I have not personally tried them and others claim good stuff. BUT. . . there are always two sides to everything, huh?

     I think Dr. Rueter brought up some good concerns. Although I like to look to alternative treatments, I don’t like to experiment with myself on “alternative” “products” that are not based on whole foods just because they’re alternative. To me that’s not much different from using conventional meds. But back to the CS, here’s an example of some of the concerns I’ve read and heard:

     Taken from this link: http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=586469

     “For External Use
     Colloidal Silver
     Colloidal silver is a suspension of submicroscopic metallic silver particles in a colloidal base. Although colloidal silver can be an effective anti-pathogen, I have several concerns.

     Concentrations can vary wildly from company to company, and even from batch to batch within the same company
     In many products, the silver particles are too big and are not a true colloidal suspension. That means that over time, they drop out of suspension, and the concentration in the liquid lessens.
     When it is at sufficient strength to be effective, it is indiscriminate — that it is it kills the good intestinal bacteria as well the bad.
     And it can indeed, if taken in sufficient quantity, cause argyria, an irreversible blue/gray discoloration of the skin. (Although rare as the result of using colloidal silver, it has nevertheless been documented.)
     My bottom line recommendation, and I know this will anger many colloidal silver advocates, is to restrict colloidal silver to external use. And if you do decide to use it internally, use it only on special occassions, and be sure to follow up with a good probiotic supplement.”

     The author of the above quote was by Kristen Barron
     Baseline of Health Foundation

     Regarding my personal feelings on internal use of CS, I’m not completely sure that it wouldn’t go through the kidneys, and if it did, I’m not sure that I’d want any metals that shouldn’t be going through there, going through there, anyway. There are other natural antibiotics, which are more body friendly. Some of the detox protocols for mercury is to detox through the skin via sweat in saunas to prevent having the kidneys work hard to pass the mercury. Why would you want to put another metal through there? Plus, Rueter is right that silver does have a level of documented toxicity. Regarding the discoloration of the skin, I don’t know how rare that it, but when I went for colonics, my therapist and I discussed colloidal silver, too. She also was not a fan of the stuff, and even mentioned that she had one client who was sold on the stuff, but she looked strangely colored. I don’t remember if she said this woman had a blue tinge to her or a gray tinge. But whatever the color, it was not a nice one. I didn’t know that the color was irreversible, tho! Yikes!

     Okay, now having said all that, you mentioned you were using GSE. I’m taking it that it was not as effective as you’d hoped, but here I found an article which seemed to indicate that GSE was more effective than CS for e.coli and other bacterial strains. If that’s true, then why bother with the CS? Here’s a clip from the article:

     Bio Research Laboratories of Redmond, Washington, USA, tested GSE, a commercial chlorine bleach, and colloidal silver against Candida albicans, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, Streptococcus faecium, and E. coli. GSE proved superior and the test report concluded:

     “All microorganisms tested were inhibited with moderate levels of GSE liquid disinfectant. High levels of chlorine bleach inhibited the test organisms, but moderate levels were not effective. Because the GSE liquid was inhibitory at much lower levels, it may be assumed that it is ten to one hundred times more effective than chlorine against the organisms used in this study. On average, GSE proved to be ten times more effective than the colloidal silver.”

     The above was clipped from http://unitedparrotbreeders.co.uk/Holistic1.html

     Now the question is “what’s the therapeutic dosage for Peanut?” Is it possible that she wasn’t dosing enough with it? My suggestion is to use a combination of herbal stuffs with antibiotic properties. You can see what I used in my posts above when I got my UTI in November.

     I have used slippery elm for tummy upset, but not for constipation, so not too familiar with how effective that would be for constipation. But slippery elm is known to be good for the intestinal linings, which should be helpful with constipated people. You need good intestinal integrity and muscle contraction, so slippery elm would definitely be a good part of your arsenal.

     You know one thing I do, Patti, is to look at the already formulated herbal blends on the market for the various ailments and see what herbs they use. For instance, take a look at some bowel cleansing formulas and see which herbs and minerals they blend. Then look up each ingredient for their known uses. This helps me to pack my own herbal pills, and to choose which ingredients I want and which teas and such I want to try. This can give you a hint where to start looking. Some bowel cleansing formulas or liver detox formulas have all these good stuffs in them, but then also have a couple ingredients included that I’m not comfortable with like NAC. So I forgo those formulas, but end up having to figure out my own. I like Gaia Herbs and Herb Pharm. I’ve used their liver support and adrenal support. You know, I’ve tried both Herb Pharms’ adrenal support AND Gaia Herbs’ adrenal support formulas. I think they’re both good products, but you know what? They both contain different herbs, but they treat the same organ. Another example of “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

     Okay, this has gotten long enough, but my bottom line is CS has not been used in traditional herbal medicine for very long, from my understanding. I don’t know anyone “personally” who has benefited from it. Even Jen (from what you wrote) stopped using it on Samuel, and she would be someone I knew a “little” more about than just those others posting on various forums. I would stick with the more traditional herbs, which already have documented effectiveness and of which side effects are already known to be minimal, if any. I guess now you’ve got three different advice, huh? Alternative product, conventional antibiotics, and traditional herbals. Andrea might have a 4th suggestion? Yikes.

     Okay, it’s late must snooze. . . zzzzz

     Marla

147. Administrator said,

     January 11, 2008 at 10:48 am

     It’s me again, Patti. Just had a quick moment before I get my butt out the door to do a little more searching. I wanted to look up more history on CS,and found an interesting website. Have not verified the sources or anything, but I was interested to see mention of Becker, author of The Body Electric, being quoted regarding the silver. Lots of interesting things to consider, but also there was this blurb in there, too, which caught my attention:

     “The following is a documented list of silver-resistant bacteria:

     Citrobacter freundii Enterobacter cloacae Enterobacteriaceae (some strains) Escherichia coli (some strains) Klebsiella pneumoniae (some strains), P. stutzeri (some strains) Vegetative B. cereus spores (some strains) ”

     The above was cut and pasted from http://true-colloidal-silver.com/history.html

     So it appears while one claim is that it’s a great antibiotic, there appears to be some bacteria (namely some strains of e.coli, which has been one of the culprits in Peanut’s condition), which are known to be resistant to silver. So this is another thing to consider.

     There are a few other discrepancies I see in the article, but I would like to read more sources still to get a better feel for it.

     Okay, must dash!

     Marla

148. patti said,

     January 11, 2008 at 8:10 pm

     Thanks, Marla. Pretty much, the handsdown negatives are strong. Ron is going to read what you all wrote (Reuter, you, Jen) and the sources listed and decide for sure tomorrow but he’s leaning no because of the strong concerns. I will do the GSE but I’m just not confident that any dose I give her will be strong enough to fight it. It is an e-coli strain that’s got her and it appears hard to kill (ie. taking long doses of antibiotics (10 days vs. 5-7).

     Anyways, I’ll keep you posted!

     Ohhh! We got your box today. Thank you so much! The excitement! They fit beautifully (okay, this probably belongs on your other thread – you can move it if you want) and she loves them! God bless you.

     night

     patti

149. Andrea said,

     January 11, 2008 at 8:58 pm

     Hi ladies . . .I know nothing about CS but read your discussions with interest . . . glad to hear your mom is at least home, Marla. Annie did find a subletter and she’s leaving tomorrow on her road trip!! She’s packed all kinds of boxes with all kinds of stuff and is pretty psyched. She’s been living here for a few weeks and it’s been great to reconnect with her, also get to know her boyfriend a little.

     More things keep bubbling up in my mind about kidneys and diabetes, Patti. One is, do you know about Jerusalem artichokes? Also called sunchokes, they are a yummy vegetable that is supposed to do wonders for blood sugar regulation. Have you considered looking into medicinal yoga? I think there are poses that specifically help the endocrine system. I could find out what they are if you want.

     Do you know about the Native American population and diabetes? It’s rampant, 50% in some communities. Do you know if you have any Amer. Indian ancestors? Well, whether you do or not, you might find it interesting that some diabetic Navajos switched to a traditional Navajo diet–and their diabetes disappeared. Especially if you do have some Native ancestry, some of those ideas, probably available online, might be helpful to you.

     Did you also know that it’s been shown that getting enough sleep is an important component of weight loss?

     For constipation–there is an herbal tea called Smooth Move that Rob claims works fantastically. Might be something to try. One thing I feel is true is that everybody’s physiology is slightly different, so what works for one person, might not work so well with another. You have to keep trying stuff.

     God keeps sending challenges–that’s for sure. My fave quote–”God will never send you anything you can’t handle–but He will definitely push the envelope.”

     How true.

     love yas, Andrea

150. patti said,

     January 12, 2008 at 12:16 am

     Well, the virus that got my son and oldest daughter now has me. I can’t sleep. My stomach and head hurt too bad. So I decided to do what I always do when I can’t sleep (and reading hasn’t worked). I got on the web. Guess what I found in my in-box? This link:
     http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/1/19/meet-the-man-with-blue-skin.aspx

     The bible says “in the mouth of two or three witnesses every thought shall be established.” Okay, that’s 3x’s today I’ve read collidal silver is not a good idea for my daughter. I think I got the message! I’m sure my husband will feel the same way when he sees this tomorrow.

     Tonight Ron told me he wants a new POA for Kassandra’s constipation. She is still not going with all of the stuff I’m giving her. What did work before was old fashioned prunes. So we’re going back to making her eat two a day. He also wants me to give her half a cup of prune juice a day. So we’ll see how that does. She still has 3 days of abx left and her back was really hurting tonight. This might be a blessing in disguise though. We want her to have surgery to fix this so we can avoid the long term abx. But they won’t do it unless someone doesn’t respond to the abx. So this may be God setting things up for us to go that route. I actually have that smooth move tea. I will try it tomorrow with her. I know it works okay for me. Not stellar, but it does work.

     We are also going to go back to giving her straight cranberry juice cut with a little bit of water daily to see if that helps with the infection. I can add GSE to it and she won’t notice because of the tartness of the juice. We’ll see what happens.

     Haven’t heard of those artichokes, Andrea but will look for them at our co-op next time I’m there. Hopefully Monday because I need to get the adzuki beans too. I’m taking a number of things that should help with my blood sugar so we’ll see what happens over the long haul. Nope, no indian blood in me. Just lots of russian. ha! You should have seen my eyebrows before I started waxing them! Think Boris Yeltsin! hee hee.

     Okay, I mainly got on to post that link. chat with you later.

     patti

151. Administrator said,

     January 13, 2008 at 8:41 am

     Hey Ladies!

     Glad to hear that Anne found a subletter! That’s great. So what’s with the road trip? Where’s she going? Sounds like fun!

     Patti, sorry to hear that you and your crew have come down with a bug. Hope you get over it soon!

     Wow, that blue-skinned man article pretty much puts the icing on the cake, huh? Yikes. Makes you wonder “why” is the discoloration permanent? You would think that there is some way to move it out. I also noticed towards the bottom half of the article that one of the possible negative side effects is kidney damage. . . So it does appear that the silver does go through the kidneys. It makes sense, tho, why wouldn’t it? I understand that some substances go primarily through certain passages, but I believe “some” will also go other directions. Kinda like how they say that Exjade is processed primarily through the liver, yet the newer warnings warn of kidney damage. It’s reaching the kidneys somehow. The two organs work together in eliminating and processing lots of the substances in our bodies.

     I think that’s a good idea to go back to the prunes if you have found some success with it in the past. BTY, what were the “3 powders” that you mixed together for Peanut that did zip?

     Going back with some of the cranberry juice and GSE sounds good to me, too. Different substances with with different angles. The cranberry will help to prevent the bacteria from sticking to her linings, and the GSE will help to kill the bugs. I used echinecea and goldenseal for the antibiotic properties for me as well as the onion soup and chapparal. The Uva Ursi and dandelion was for anti-inflammatory and to help move the fluid out. The Stone Free was also to help things move along in case there was anything blocking the fluid from moving out. The marshmallow in the Stone Free formula helps with pain, but really once you start on all these, you’ll feel almost immediate relief with the pain and bleeding. It’s basically that full feeling that takes a bit longer to get over. For me about 3 days to feel “nothing,” again. The onion soup purees had other unexpected “good” side effects for me that I noticed when I used them originally. Aside from clearing up my UTI, my skin improved, and my bowel movements were extremely regular. I really do think there are a lot of good things going on with the onion soups. Even another internet friend I have who had lots of skin pain due to lupus started using the onion soups and told me that her skin doesn’t hurt her anymore. I was really surprised with that since originally she started on the onion soups because she thought she “might” be having a UTI. No pain or bleed for her, but just the frequent urination. So she started up on it, and interestingly it seemed to help her skin pain. I do think the onion soup is a good antibiotic as well as good for the liver (the liver needs sulfur) and also good for the intestine (I “believe” is also has inulin, which is healing to the gut and helpful with candida overgrowth).

     Andrea mentioned rest/sleep. I agree. When I went out that weekend and was on my feet all day, I noticed the next morning I was having some discomfort. And also in the beginning, I noticed that lying down to rest as opposed to sitting up to rest help stop the bleeding faster. I have wondered if part of it is the pressure when you’re vertical as opposed to horizontal (less downward pressure on the vessels?) Just a thought on that one.

     You know there is one other thing that Reuter mentioned that I do agree with. And that is the concern of Peanut’s kidneys getting scarred. That can cause her much more problems in the future if that happens. I was just thinking about it, and to my recollection she developed her infection before I did during Thanksgiving. So this has been going on for a while, which as you likely know is not good for her kidneys. I’m no kidney or kidney infection expert, but I do recall reading that “if” the UTI infection reaches the kidneys, the antibiotic treatment is generally longer, like 3 weeks as opposed to the standard one week for a basic UTI infection (I had no back pain, mostly lower pains and discomforts). As I recall, Peanut’s infection went into her blood, so it would seem that she would need a longer than standard treatment. Since her kidneys were inflammed, I’m taking it that she had “pyelonephritis,” and in that case here’s an example blurb regarding treatment for that,

     “The standard treatment for uncomplicated pyelonephritis is a 14-day course of oral antibiotics, usually trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) or a fluoroquinolone. Sometimes patients with uncomplicated pyelonephritis are first given an antibiotic injection, if indicated.”

     This above was cut from http://www.umm.edu/patiented/articles/how_antibiotics_used_treating_urinary_tract_infections_000036_8.htm

     Notice that they are referring to “uncomplicated” kidney inflammation. Peanut had gone past inflammation to infection in her blood. I’m thinking that her doc did not treat her long enough, thus giving her infection a chance to become resistant.

     It has made me wonder if the reason Peanut keeps having a recurrence is because she’s never fully gotten over her first bout. If that’s the case, she may be becoming resistant to the type of antibiotic she’s been using. She may need to switch out. That’s why you really have to attack it hard when UTIs first come around, and continue treating a bit longer for good measure.

     If they have not found that she had reflux for “sure,” then I would not wish surgery on her. Consider your sister. She’s had surgery, yet you mentioned that to this day she “still” has problems. Surgery doesn’t guarantee a fix all. Another article I read stated that,

     “Surgery to place the ureter(s) back into the bladder can be done to stop reflux nephropathy. This surgery results in less frequent and less severe urinary tract infections”

     Taken from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000459.htm
     Notice that they say the surgery results in “less frequent and less severe” UTI. It didn’t say that it permanently eliminates the problem. So I wouldn’t look at surgery as a blessing. If the infections still come back, any infection can be serious if not treated properly and promptly. That would put you right back where you started. That’s my personal take.

     Okay, I’ve yakked enough for a Sunday morning! So, will quit here. I know there’s so much more to yak about, but next time. . . ha!

     Oh! I’m glad you got the package and that it “fit” and that she likes them! Thanks for letting me know! Woo hoo!

     Toodles for now!

     Marla

152. Andrea said,

     January 13, 2008 at 3:38 pm

     Hey Patti–Building on what Marla said about not having antibiotics long enough, it might also be a good idea to make some inquiries about different antibiotics. Changing the antibiotic can maybe take care of some different strains of bacteria that could be troubling her. I agree too about putting too much stake in surgery.

     Antibiotics can be misused, but they also can give Peanut’s body the “leg-up” it needs. If you’re also building her health, it’s not a misuse of the antibiotics, IMO. “Building her health” means working on the constipation issue, tweaking her diet, getting her lots of rest and outdoor time etc.

     Hey Marla nice-looking herbs, you should have a good trip! Annie is taking a semester off to do a cross-country road trip. She’s in Chicago tonight for a few days, then will head to Portland OR to help her brother and sil with their kitchen, then will make her way slowly back to Maine, seeing things she hasn’t seen before . . . shall I encourage her to give you a call if she’s in LA??

     Bye for now, A.

153. Administrator said,

     January 14, 2008 at 9:14 am

     Hey Andrea!

     I just sent you my contact info, so yeah, you can tell Annie that if she’s in town she can give me a holler if she likes, heheh.

     I recall that Rob went to help your son and his wife with their kitchen some time last year? I’m starting to think that this is no ordinary kitchen! Is this a business kitchen or something? It reminded me of our trip to Turkey. We visited some places (lots where various religious groups met), and there was one that had a big kitchen with huge pots and utensils for cooking for visitors. I’m sure I still have some pictures on my computer of some of their pots and cooking stuffs. Had to take pics of some because they were so big! LOL You could fit several people in them, ha ha ha!

     Patti, you know I realize I forgot to mention that I also took some minerals to help raise my pH. I took calcium and magnesium, plus zinc (cause at the time I had that cold sore). But I think the pH level is also a factor with how well the UTI bugs can survive. Just wanted to add that in for an additional angle to consider.

     Okay, better get on with the day!

     Marla

154. patti said,

     January 14, 2008 at 9:40 pm

     Hey Ladies,

     Lots of good info. I’ll see if I can sort through all of this on this post before you actually leave, Marla. Ha! Have I ever written a two day post? Maybe when mom was sick. Anyways….

     Okay, the three “powders” are HMF (big gun probiotic – she also takes a chewable probiotic on top of this one), benefiber, and acacia (Heather’s Tummy Fiber). It can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=blended&field-keywords=heathers%20tummy%20fiber&results-process=default&dispatch=search/ref=pd_sl_aw_tops-1_blended_12743976_2&results-process=default

     Although meant for IBS, Reuter thought it would help. After ONE day of 1/2 cup prune juice and 2 prunes we hit pay dirt today. Peanut had three really good bowel movements! If you had ever told me I would jump around in excitement over someone pooping I would have told you you were nuts. But hey, she’s my little girl. What can I say? hee hee. So anyways, that seems to be the magic combo. Probably daily for the rest of her life anyway.

     I also am giving her Just Cranberry juice but I’d forgotten that stuff was so tart I had to cut it with apple juice, not water last time. So I juiced some apples tonight and mixed it half and half and she did okay with that. Still a little tart but she was able to do it. And I have applesauce again so how cool is that?

     I am noticing sleep is definately a factor. We have her back to a more normal schedule now and she seems to be doing better with pain. I still think that’s weird, but hey, whatever works. Her kidneys still hurt, but they aren’t as bad when she’s not overtired. Tomorrow is her last day of antibiotic.

     She has now had 4 different antibiotics. The first one was an IV one that she had in the hospital for 3 days (some weird unknown name they told me). She was on Amoxicillin after that, then Septra, and now Cefton. That last one was $120 was 10 days. Yeeks! Anyways, as of tomorrow our PA was going to put her on 1/2 of the lowest dose of septra daily until we can figure out what we’re going to do. Stephanie (the PA) said we may have to up the dose depending on effectiveness.

     As for the surgery. It’s not a straight comparison to compare her and my sister. My sister had pig valves installed 20 years ago to hopefully pick up the slack of the regular valves that weren’t functioning. She says they helped but she still has to take macrodatin daily. So in my mind, that was not a fix. To my knowledge, they don’t even do that surgery anymore. The two surgeries offered for reflux now are the insertion of deflux in the ureters and the moving of the ureters up on the kidneys. From the reading I did on the web, the deflux has a 95% success rate and the moving the ureters close to a 100% success rate. I read a lot of different sources but maybe I missed some. Those statistics were the reason we were leaning towards the deflux if she is a stage 1-3 reflux. I guess we’ll have to see. I will do a second search for side effects and failure rates of those two things and see what pops up. While you’re gone we’ll get tested and I’ll have the results posted, hopefully, when you get back.

     Marla, how would I raise her pH? She can’t swallow pills and my cal/mags are monster pills. Should I look for a liquid mineral supplement that has those in it along with other minerals or just a cal/mag. supplement? I think there’s a straight cal/mag supplement at the HFS that I saw that’s a liquid.

     Andrea, my husband took 3 cross country trips when he was single. He loved every one of them and ended up moving to Boise from Philly. He was actually looking for a place to live, but still, Annie will have a great time seeing the country. There is so much too see! Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, etc. are all such beautiful states. Hopefully she’ll take lots of pictures for you! Oh! Tell her if she gets a chance to stop in Wall Drug, South Dakota. It’s a tourist trap but has so much fun stuff to see! Ah, I just realized she’s probably going to travel the southern half of the US isn’t she because of the snow and such? Oh well, maybe on her way back. How long will she be gone?

     Ladies, would you pray for Marie and us right now? We are having some issues with her that are able to be worked out but require a lot of understanding and patience on our part. Things that you and I totally take for granted. She still has cycles regularly and while we were out today she leaked all over. She was convinced she had wet her pants and no matter what I told her (in the middle of Costco mind you) she wouldn’t listen. When she’s embarrassed she just shuts down and won’t listen to anything we tell her to do. Ron ended up coming to get my keys unlocked out of my car (yeah, it was a dandy day) and took her home. I had to sit her down and give her a birds and bees discussion tonight in simplified form to make her understand that she didn’t wet her pants. Mom NEVER explained functions to her and the poor girl was sure she had wet her pants in public in front of my three kids. When we were all done she threw her arms around me and thanked me. But good grief. Getting to that point was so stressful. I try so hard not to be angry with mom, but boy, it’s really hard sometimes. And to not hurt her memory of mom while we’re going through this. Mom also told her when she turned 50 her cycles would stop. Well, she’ll be 50 in a little over 3 months. I had to explain to her that isn’t true. Well, that was no fun. So, please pray we would have wisdom, COMPASSION, UNDERSTANDING, and sweet spirits (especially sweet spirits) as we go through these times together. In the end, we will all be better for them, but going through it is hard.

     Okay, better jet. Peanut sees the uro tomorrow and I’m anxious to talk to him. Maybe we’ll come back and he’ll have something totally different he’ll be checking for. We’ll see.

     Marla, have a terrific trip! And safe. I printed the herb packing page for my herbal files. Very good info. The high sulfur content of the onion soup made me think I need to try it for my bladder as sulfur is a major factor in its healing.

     Have a good night.

     patti

155. Administrator said,

     January 15, 2008 at 7:46 pm

     Okay, so I’m back. . . We lost phone service last Thursday, then today we lost internet, ha! But they found the problem, so we’re back.

     Today I received a book in the mail that Brian ordered for me. It’s a tiny little book called Herbs for the Urinary Tract by Michael Moore. What an interesting book it is! For anyone who isn’t familiar with Michael Moore, this is not the same Michael Moore as the politically charged one, ha! This Michael has been an herbalist for about 30 years or so. They say he’s the “godfather of contemporary American Herbalism.” Anyway, I learned some stuff that I didn’t know! And remember how we were thinking that there was so link to the UTI’s and the constipation? Well, he has this section on the “Lower Urinary Tract.” In that section he discusses a little how the urinary tract works. Basically, the urine drips slowly from the kidneys into renal pelvis. Once there’s enough fluid, then a contraction squeezes the small amounts of fluid down into the ureter and into the bladder. There may be several such urine masses descending toward the bladder at any one time. Now the ureters have muscle contractions which push the fluid down (similar to the parastaltic movement in the intestine which moves the feces down). This muscle contraction is under sympathetic and parasympathetic control. This appears to mean that there’s like a stop and go motion (or a hold and release motion). The sympathetic motion is controlled by adrenalin. This is the “holding” part of the action. Moore writes that lower urinary tract stress occurs because of “adrenalin” stress. As in defecation, urination is inhibited by adrenalin excess.

     Now I do think there is more to it than that, but I thought that was certainly something I did not know! I, for one, have not had much trouble with bowel movements or to my knowledge the amount of urine output. Unless I should be going “more!” Otherwise I’m pretty regular and looks more than before I got AA and changed my diet, ha ha! Anyway, we can see from Moore’s explanation that there is a link to bowel movements and urine movement.

     Oh, another thing he mentions is that like the stomach, the bladder can shrink! That had never occurred to me. That is, if you don’t eat much, then your stomach can shrink. Well, he says that if you don’t drink enough fluids (he prefers water), then your bladder can also shrink. I find this important in light of how we hear how the elderly start to lose bladder control. I have also heard that the elderly tend to be chronically dehydrated and since they tend to not drink enough, the thirst mechanism is low, and they tend not to feel thirsty. Kinda of a vicious cycle. They don’t drink enough, the thirst goes away, the bladder shrinks, and that probably contributes to the loss of elasticity and the triggering mechanisms that signal when to go and not to go. Just a few thoughts running through my layman’s mind, ha! I find these things helpful so that we have an idea what we need to focus on like muscles, hormones, etc.

     Okay, now there is a portion where Moore writes that herbal treatments are very effective with “lower urinary tract” problems, but once it gets to the kidneys, he wrote that it will likely need medical intervention. I don’t know if he writes that to cover his butt or not (cause you know that’s a major issue here in the states). I wish he elaborated more with more details, but there you have his opinion. This guy is one of the herbal gurus, so I think his advice has lots of weight here. He has quite a few other suggestions that I’d have to type out his whole book here, yikes! Like things he recommends, herbal suggestions, what to avoid, etc. It’s a tiny book, but very informative. I still have to finish it, tho.

     Patti, any more news on Peanut’s doc appt? What are their current suggestions?

     Regarding the prune juice and prunes, that’s fantastic news! I bet she felt so good once that came out! Ha! As you know, prunes are stool softeners. One of the problems with constipation is that the stools get too hard partly because they’ve been in there too long. The longer the stools stay in there, the “drier” they become because one of the main functions of the colon is to re-absorb fluid back into the system. So the longer the poop stays in there, the drier it will become, and the harder. That is one reason why flax seeds are supposed to be good for constipation because flax seeds are considered a demulcent. Demulcents absorb fluid, and since flax is a fiber, which you have to pass, the poop holds more fluid and can come out easier. See, you need more than just fiber. As a matter of fact, if you only took fiber like in those dried powders they sell in containers, you could end up more constipated “IF” you took too much of it w/o enough lubrication. You can actually impact yourself if you take too much fiber “alone.” Apparently, slippery elm is also a demulcent.

     Okay, it’s dinner time, so better dash. So much more to chat about, but ya know how it is. . . Sorry to hear about Marie, but I will keep you and her in my prayers. Poor thing. . . For all of you! But thanks for being so patient with her. Yes, I’ll pray for your patience! Ha! It’s not easy! Oye! Hopefully soon we’ll all get the upper hand on our health and we can laugh about all this, huh? LOL But honestly, I find that from chatting with you two, I’ve been learning more. And I still haven’t mentioned anything about what Andrea’s suggested! There’s more to say on those, which I think has some good value! I’ve read a little on the Bikram yoga being helpful for low thyroid function and other stuff like that.

     Thanks, Ladies! Better get food on before my crew rebels, ha!

     Marla

156. Administrator said,

     January 15, 2008 at 7:52 pm

     Oh really quickly, I meant to mention that dosing for children is usually 1/3 of adult dosages. And if a person has trouble swallowing pills, you can get the minerals that are in capsules, so just open up the capsules and mix it in a drink or in applesauce. Just make sure to drink or eat all of whatever you put the minerals in. If you can’t get the capsules, but the pill forms, then you can just crush them up with a pestle and mortar and mix them in food or drink.

     Marla

157. Andrea said,

     January 15, 2008 at 7:59 pm

     Wow, lots going on and I gotta get to bed! But Patti, you are definitely NOT the only one thrilled by Peanut’s poops! I am DELIGHTED with the news, that’s just great.

     As to my son’s kitchen–no, it’s just an ordinary kitchen, but it’s a do-it-yourself operation, so it’s been slow . . . Noah and Debbie are getting pretty impatient to have a real kitchen back, and they can taste it now . . . Annie’s gonna jet cross country, help them finish, make her way back slowly, and yes, Patti she’s thinking south, wants to see the southwest, also she wants to stop in New Orleans and help out with the rebuilding for a week or two. I will tell her about Wall Drug in case she changes her mind, which she often does. And I’ll tell her to look you up Marla! You two’ll love each other!

     Yes, this chatting is very enlightening. It helps me look at health from different angles. Just in the area of constipation, boy have I learned a lot!

     OK, that’s all for now. Marla, if I don’t talk to you, have a wonderufl trip! Andrea

158. Andrea said,

     January 15, 2008 at 8:01 pm

     Wow, lots going on and I gotta get to bed! But Patti, you are definitely NOT the only one thrilled by Peanut’s poops! I am DELIGHTED with the news, that’s just great.

     As to my son’s kitchen–no, it’s just an ordinary kitchen, but it’s a do-it-yourself operation, so it’s been slow . . . Noah and Debbie are getting pretty impatient to have a real kitchen back, and they can taste it now . . . Annie’s gonna jet cross country, help them finish, make her way back slowly, and yes, Patti she’s thinking south, wants to see the southwest, also she wants to stop in New Orleans and help out with the rebuilding for a week or two. I will tell her about Wall Drug in case she changes her mind, which she often does. And I’ll tell her to look you up Marla! You two’ll love each other!

     Patti, I will pray for you. It’s not like you don’t have enough going on in your life, and then re-educating Marie on top of it! It sounds like you have been the very soul of patience already–and truly you will probably need even more.

     Yes, this chatting is very enlightening. It helps me look at health from different angles. Just in the area of constipation, boy have I learned a lot!

     OK, that’s all for now. Marla, if I don’t talk to you, have a wonderufl trip! Andrea

159. patti said,

     January 15, 2008 at 8:55 pm

     Oh man. So much good info. Marla, I’ll have to look that book up. I’ll see if I can condense what the uro said. Basically, he said that chronic constipation puts pressure on the bladder causing urine to be pushed up into the kidneys. Generally, this is not the only problem, but it will make reflux and thus infections worse. We have scheduled a VCUG (basically a contrast cystogram) for the 29th. He said she has to be totally unconstipated for this test to work. He wasn’t real thrilled with me not being willing to intervene medically for this but he said fine as long as we can make it work. He said she “has” to go at least once a day a full bowel movement. Okay, fine. That’s what the medical community says. But I know my husband and son go a full movement after EVERY meal. To me, that is healthy. It means they are processing their food very well. It got me wondering about her digestion. If someone isn’t digesting well then stuff won’t go through them well either. Nor will they absorb enough nutrients. I’m wondering if a little ACV might be in order to help her digestion. The prunes and prune juice worked well again today so that is good!! The uro told me if she’s not going once daily within a week he wants me to start her on Miralax. It’s a stool softener. I probably wouldn’t do it but I’ll put it on the list. I think it’s more advantageous for us to mess with her diet then to give her something else. I’m not giving her anymore benefiber or acacia right now. The probiotic, yes, because of the antibiotics. I want to keep her gut as okay as possible. The other issue that the uro found is her bladder is not emptying. They had her give a sample and she couldn’t. I made sure she had not gone to the bathroom for at least 3hrs and she could barely give a teaspoon. They did a quick bladder scan and there was still 76mL of fluid in her bladder. So, for some reason, she’s not emptying well. He said that could have neuro connections, etc. Alot of that they will be able to tell once they see the cystogram. We go straight from the test to the doctors office to find out what’s going on. I hate waiting. I really wish we could do it tomorrow! However, we have to get a handle on the constipation. He also said that anything they fix with her bladder will not hold if she’s continually constipated. Like I said before, I think this will have to be a life long regimen. Or, maybe after a year her body will function more normally. Who knows?

     Okay, I that’s it. Thanks for the boat load of info. It really confirms everything the uro said today that I would want to be suspicious of just because he’s a doctor. Isn’t that awful? It’s just that my experience with doctors since mom has been less then stellar so I’m so wairy of what they say all the time. Oh well. Now it’s a protection factor for my child.

     Peanut is still doing the airplanes. Not sure if it’s helping but hey, it’s fun!

     Thanks so much again for all the help.

     patti

160. patti said,

     January 19, 2008 at 2:00 pm

     I think I’m writing just as a release right now. Because I don’t know what else to do.

     On Thursday night my dad had back surgery to numb some nerves that were being crushed be two vertebrae. He has degenerative disk disease. For the surgery to take place he had to come off of coumadin for 2 weeks so he wouldn’t bleed during surgery. His heart doctor wanted him back on coumadin on Friday morning. His back surgeon wanted to wait 24 more hours. It was 24hrs too much. Dad went home from the hospital Friday afternoon and by Friday evening was back in an ambulance going to the hospital. He was overmedicated because his anesthesia was not wearing off and he’d had pain killers on top of it. In the ambulance he had a massive stroke.

     They did a CT scan and discovered a very large blood clot in the artery in the left side of his brain. They attempted to use a catheter and some clot busting drugs to break it up and pull it out but it was too large and had been there too long. There is nothing they can do. Apparently he’d had the clot for quite some time and the coumadin was keeping the blood thin enough to get past it. But he was a ticking time bomb. If he’d taken coumadin Friday morning there is a chance he would not have had a stroke. So, lots of blaming going on with my mom – which is pointless. Dad’s pancreas has already shut down and it won’t be long before the swelling in his brain becomes too much for him. He’ll be in the hospital with comfort measures until he dies. They expect a few days – a week at most. I cannot go to say good-bye because doing so would mean not being able to leave again for the funeral. And in my family, that would be the bigger sin (meaning a worse testimony). My dad is unsaved to the best of our knowledge. While I know he’s had lots of opportunities, he has rejected Christ. I am heartbroken. By God’s grace may my mom get saved before she dies. We will be travelling to Portland the funeral probably next weekend sometime. With family dynamics there, is always no fun. Especially in a step family situation.

     My head hurts, my heart is broken, and I’m kind of numb. But writing always makes me feel better.

     patti

161. Andrea said,

     January 19, 2008 at 6:26 pm

     Oh dear Patti, I am so so sorry. It is so difficult to lose someone so suddenly.

     Could Christ be speaking to your Dad right now? “The best of our knowledge” is so limited–God is so so much bigger.

     Take care, Andrea

162. patti said,

     January 20, 2008 at 10:43 pm

     I had an opportunity to talk to my dad last night on the phone. Although he was unable to do more then grunt I could tell he knew my voice. Actually, he did say “alright” twice when I talked to him about salvation. I let each of the kids tell him they loved him and mom said he smiled when they were talking to him. I was able to clearly give him the gospel and my little sister and I talked before she went to see him to make sure she gave him the exact same message (she did). We just didn’t want to confuse him and have him think he was hearing about two different “religions” if you know what I mean. She was also able to clearly give him the gospel and because she was there she was able to see his reaction and attempt to get a response from him (ie, can you blink your eyes, wiggle your toes, etc.). Her assessment was that dad could hear voices and he recognizes them but is unable to understand what is being said or to process what is being said. She also thinks that although he recognizes voices he doesn’t know who they belong to. I guess we will only find out in heaven if he is saved but for all intense purposes, it appears that he is unable to make that decision now. However, we are both going to keep trying as long as his eyes are open and he appears to be able to hear.

     As of this afternoon he was able to say a few words. He says he wants to go home. My mom has not told him he had a stroke and we are furious about this! He has a lot of anxiety right now and it’s probably because he doesn’t know what happened. My little sister has decided she is going to tell him tonight when she’s alone with him because it might ease his anxiety a little bit just to know what happened. If he understands that, then there’s hope he understood the gospel. The flip side is, right before Ron’s mom went into a permanent sleep she had great anxiety for about 48hrs. That’s where dad has been so it’s possible his body is just shutting down and he’s scared. They say that’s very common. Even as much as mom knew she was going to God, she was still anxious to leave Marie. For my dad, he keeps grabbing for my mom. Mom said that if she lets go of his left hand (the only one he can feel) that he reaches and grabs for her. So that is sweet. But breaks my heart also. My mom keeps thinking he’s getting better and she is not listening when she’s being told what’s going on medically to him.

     Medically speaking, they have reinserted an IV line into him and are giving him insulin as his pancreas has shut down due to the stroke. The incision where he had back surgery is open now because they can’t keep him on his side. He keeps taking the pillows off. So that is not good. They have already all agreed to no antibiotics if he gets an infection in the incision. My sister said his lungs are filling with fluid which is probably his congestive heart failure rearing. My mom swears it’s his asthma and he just needs his asthma meds. So it’s really hard to get her to see things the way they are. I’m grateful my sister is so medically oriented. She’s actually her husband’s MA at his office so it’s helpful because she can listen to his lungs, bowels, etc. and hear what’s going on. There is a family meeting with all of the doctors tomorrow morning at 8:30. They did another cat scan today. If there is no swelling on his brain by then from the blood clot they said it won’t happen and he will have to go to a nursing home. No one expects him to live long because he is unable to fight the congestive heart failure and his back incision is going to become a problem. And he’s no longer on coumadin and he’s got blood clots all around his heart. So a heart attack is also a looming issue. But at this point, the doctors are still saying by the end of this week he will likely die.

     I guess not much has changed in 24hrs except both my sis and I were able to give him the gospel. Knowing how he was raised and what he’s always believed, it is really unlikely he is saved. But again, I guess in heaven we’ll find out. I sure hate to wait that long………. the sorrow is too great not knowing. So, even so, come Lord Jesus……

     Kassandra appears to be getting yet another kidney infection. Grrr. We’ve had what I would call decent success with bowel movements this week. She’s had a good one every other day. Still not every day but definately better then the once a week or so we were getting. She’s drinking the prune juice and eating prunes every morning. I do not want to start her on Mira lax but I may have to just to see if it works. She’s on prophylactic antibiotics but apparently not enough. I’ll have to call tomorrow to have it increased.

     Looking forward to getting a firm diagnosis for her next week. Okay, I think that’s it tonight.

     patti

163. Andrea said,

     January 21, 2008 at 6:49 pm

     Oh Patti, you have a lot on your plate, on your mind, on your heart. You and Kassandra will be in my prayers, and your dad and mom, too. Andrea

164. patti said,

     January 22, 2008 at 11:55 pm

     We have added one cup of decaf coffee to Kassandra’s regimen and that seems to be helping tremendously. And today, MY DADDY GOT SAVED!

165. Andrea said,

     January 23, 2008 at 6:08 pm

     God is good.

     Andrea

166. patti said,

     January 28, 2008 at 10:03 pm

     So busy, so much going on. My dad was moved into a rehab unit of a nursing home today. He has a long way to go and is a ticking time bomb with blood clots around his heart. But he’s doing better then anyone would have thought. He wasn’t supposed to survive. He wrote a note to my mom and told her that if he’s going to die, he’s ready. He’s at peace. Only God can do that! He does not know his name, nor the names of his kids. He knows my mom.

     I learned something very interesting about stroke victims this week. Get a load of this…..if someone is right handed they will lose different functions on the opposite side of the body that the stroke was on depending on the severity of the stroke. Most people know that. If someone is left handed their brain is ambidextrous meaning that both hemispheres of the brain control both sides of the body so the outcome from a stroke is much better because the opposite side from the stroke can and usually does take over the damaged side. Weird huh? Well, my dad is left handed. His right side was very affected but he is able to move his right leg now. His right arm is gone totally. It has no function. But I think it was so interesting about the left handed thing. I have two sisters and my mom that are left handed. I laughed at my husband. He says, “so what they’re saying is if you’re right handed and have stroke your hosed.” hee hee hee. Leave it to my humor man. He was kidding, of course. Anyways, new piece of info we learned. My dad’s prognosis is still very poor because of his heart and risk of pneumonia and infection. If they were at least taking care of him nutritionally I’d feel better, but they’re not.

     Tomorrow Peanut goes for her VCUG. I gave her a very basic talk about what they’re going to do. She told me tonight she’s scared but she’ll be brave. She is one tough cookie. At least until we get there tomorrow! She usually does fine until we walk through the doors someplace. Anyways, I’ve promised her a bath in our big master bath tub (my kids use it as swimming pool!). That helped. The good news is she’s had no new infections on the low dose septra and she’s pooping good every other day right now. But I mean good. So we’re continuing to work on the bowel issues daily. It seems like when we find something that works her body gets used to it after a week and stops up again. The prune juice and coffee and prunes were working really well daily for a week and now we’re back to every other. Not sure what’s going on with that. I got the adzuki beans today (I couldn’t find them when I went before – today I did) so I’m going to work on putting those into our diet weekly or every other. I got a book that Jen Backus told me about called healing with food. It looks excellent!

     Oh, Marie goes to the doctor wednesday. I’ve discovered she’s allergic to milk (she gets the same rash I do) and she seems to be doing well with the goats milk. She will be getting blood tested for allergies and a CBC to check clotting factors, etc. One thing we’ve not been able to do is put any weight back on her. She’s literally eating two meals at every sitting and has not gained a stinking pound. Okay, maybe 3. But if I ate like that I’d explode over night. She has a very very fast metabolism but you’d think being nearly 50 she’d gain some weight. So, we’ll see what the doc says. She really needs to gain back at least 15-20 pounds. She’s tall.

     Okay, off for the night. Looking forward to finding out what’s going on with Kassandra tomorrow.

     patti

167. patti said,

     January 29, 2008 at 9:22 pm

     :

168. patti said,

     January 29, 2008 at 9:23 pm

     

     that’s it for tonight.

169. Andrea said,

     January 30, 2008 at 4:25 pm

     Hey Patti what’s going on? Hope to know soon, hang in there whatever it is, andrea

170. patti said,

     January 30, 2008 at 10:02 pm

     Hi Andrea,

     I don’t have time to write out what happened with Peanut’s test but just quickly – we aborted the test. It was incredibly traumatic for both her and I and because of the area we’re dealing with we chose to not go through with it and instead go for full sedation at a later time. There’s a lot of details in there but I’m too tired. I will NEVER put my child through something like that again. I just won’t. If it were anything but in her genital region, I would be fine. Anyways, I’ll write more later. Still no diagnosis and a very unhappy uro.

     patti

171. Andrea said,

     January 31, 2008 at 6:23 pm

     Well good for you for sticking up for her. She will remember that. I’ll be praying for you both.

     Andrea

172. patti said,

     January 31, 2008 at 10:19 pm

     I *think* I can write this out now without crying…. Kassandra was given 12.5 mg of versed to consciously sedate her. This amount was given based her her skinny minny weight of 46lbs. We waited and waited and waited and waited for her to get the least bit sleepy. She said she was getting a little dizzy (but fully awake mind you) so they took us back to the procedure room. As soon as I tried to take her panties off she FREAKED. Screaming, crying, begging me, “mommy, please don’t let them do this to me.” “Mommy, don’t let them hurt me!” I just hugged her close while she was laying down in an attempt to also somewhat hold her down without it appearing I was holding her down. By this point, I was bawling but had to hide from her so she wouldn’t see me. This went one for 10-15 minutes. During that time, no one did anything, we just kept asking her to calm down and tried to talk to her. It was not going to happen. We sat her up, showed her the catheter, tried bribing her with the big bathtub at home full of bubbles, etc. Finally, I stepped back, looked at the nurse and told her we were done. With Kassandra’s personality and because we were dealing in the genital area I was unwilling to cram a catheter into her only for her to not understand and in 5 years have nightmares about what someone did to her. That nurse looked me straight in the face and told me that’s exactly what she would do. She said she’s seen happen exactly what I feared happening to Kassandra because these little ones do not undertstand. Even if she hadn’t agreed I still wouldn’t have let it go on. Kassandra was traumatized for a couple of days. By Wednesday she was okay again but I’m telling you, she was freaked. She would cry when daddy asked her if she was okay. I will NEVER NEVER NEVER let anyone attempt a test like that again in that area on one of my children unless they are fully sedated. It’s not worth the potential damage to their hearts.

     A couple of questions remain.

     1) why didn’t the versed even make her loopy? I mean, she was up running around at home 2hrs later and she never did take a nap from that stuff. She slept good that night, but that’s it. I wondered if it’s because she has Ron’s metabolism and it just ran through her body? Who knows?

     2) What now? Do we keep her on antibiotics with the risk of what that will do to her system until May when our insurance will cover this? What are the risks of doing that? Are they so great that we should just suck up the cost and get it done quickly?

     We are still in recovery mode from the whole thing. On May 28th our insurance will start to cover her kidneys. As such, Ron is thinking it would be best to wait on the sedated test because there are other complications that could come with sedation that at least we’d have our backsides covered. However, if the antibiotics risk is too high, he would suck up the cost. But we can’t get an good answer from anyone. Ideas for us??????? We can afford the testing and anything that gets thrown our way, Ron’s just thinking that we’re going to have a $5K deductible anyway so we may as well have the test and stuff go towards that deductible because whatever treatment is going to be could be potentially more expensive. But again, if the risk of taking antibiotics until the end of May is greater, we’ll move forward. We just will not do this test unsedated.

     On to another wonderful topic. Food and nutrition…..

     I am once again re-evaluating our diet to try and adjust it for healing our bodies. The kids of their food allergies and me of my interstitial cystitis and sugar issues. What does a day of eating look like at your guy’s houses? I decided today we are not eating anywhere near enough fruits and veggies. And maybe too much meat, but I don’t know. Do you eat some form of meat every night? Or do you have vegetarian meals? I just do not think my husband would go for no meat at dinner. I’d have to ask. He’ll listen to you guys — maybe. ha!

     So here’s what an average day at my house looks like:

     Breakfast – Gluten free pancakes with agave nectar or organic maple syrup (for the boys) – girls use the agave nectar. drink lots of water with breakfast (and all day). I alternate with GF waffles, homemade oatmeal with raisins and apples, etc.

     Lunch – usually leftovers from dinner the night before OR nitrate free lunch meat with cheddar cheese, mustard (for dipping!) and fruit or fresh squeezed juice. Sometimes veggies in place of fruit or a veggie/ fruit juice mix

     Dinner – meat of some sort (chicken or beef), brown basmati and a steamed frozen veggie or meat and a salad and a steamed veggie.

     I am trying to get away from a starch at dinner. The only starch we usually have is brown basmati rice but I’m still trying to get way from it. I think the double veggies are better.

     We generally have a bone broth soup at least twice a week and sometimes 3 times. If we have that for dinner then we have it for lunch the next day. My husband loves soup so we do a lot of it. I do barley in the soups almost always too.

     One thing I’ve noticed living in Idaho is I don’t have a decent source for chicken so our meat mainstay has gone from chicken to more beef. I do still get chicken but I can only get whole chickens or thighs. Hard to find organic anything else and it’s hard to be creative with the same types of chicken. BUT, should I go back to a chicken mainstay?

     I’m missing the boat with our diets because my IC should be further along the healing path, I think. Although, I have healed a lot. But after 4yrs of this (or maybe it’s been 5) and 3yrs of working on it naturally, I feel like it should be gone by now. So I’m missing something.

     I know sulfur is huge in the bladder healing so I’m taking lots of MSM, I’m using MSM directly over my bladder and using lots of garlic and onions in all my cooking. Drinking lots of water. I need to do another cleanse. I know that is so key. May have to just suck it up and get started on the master cleanse again. I keep waiting for a better time but there probably isn’t one.

     And finally, we took Marie to the doctor. This is a new guy to us. He is a DO and I loved him! Oh, and Marie informed me he’s handsome. ha! ha! I didn’t even know she thought of those things! He agreed with pretty much everything I told him. He is treating her internally with nystatin right now as opposed to diflucan which I refused for her. But he thought that was an excellent call so that impressed me. He had 5 tubes of blood drawn from her! He is more concerned that she lost 30 pounds and with all she’s eating we can’t seem to put the weight back on her. He’s running a CBC with differential and sed rate. We also allergy tested her for milk, wheat, eggs, and gluten. All suspects. I already know she’s allergic to milk. I put her on goats milk and her rashes went away. She actually likes the goats milk! We only use milk on cereal maybe once every two weeks if I’m in a hurry (organic cereal even though it’s yucky processed!) and I cook with the goats milk when needed. Anyways, I look forward to the test results. I think they’ll tell us a lot. Man, if I ate like her I’d look like the blimp. She’s eating two full helpings at every single meal. Literally. And snacks in between. Not a pound. Can’t budge her. At 5′7″ her 120lbs is a little thin. So we’ll see how that turns out. She did well. She was very scared. And mom was very much on her mind. She asked me if I felt like I did with mom taking her to the doctor. I had to talk to her about how very different those two situations were. She was fine once we got home.

     Okay, it’s late. Time to go. Thanks for hanging in there Andrea while the moderator is gone. Hope you’re having a good time Marla!

     patti

173. Andrea said,

     February 1, 2008 at 7:41 am

     Oh, Patti, what a trauma but thank God you did what you did for Kassandra.

     As to the failed drug, back in the day when I volunteered for a drug crisis place, we learned about what’s called “idiosyncratic responses.” Which is to say, everyone metabolizes a little differently, for everyone drugs act a little differently, it’s not as consistent as one might hope. (For example caffeine puts my goddaughter to sleep!)

     Kassandra must have a physiology that does not react in the usual way to that drug. since her physiology is unusual, it might be a good idea to carefully test different sedation drugs on her before going forward with the actual procedure. It might be a good idea to have a consultation with an anesthesiologist, and have one present at the procedure. (It may be required, I’m no sure, but I would insist on it if it is not.) They are trained to keep a close eye on how a patient is doing under anesthesia, and have saved lives if there are unusual reactiona.

     My gut feeling would be to go with the antibiotics and wait. Antibiotics do carry risks but if they’re keeping the infection at bay you need to remember that her body with God’s help is using the ab’s as a “leg up” and inner healing is taking place. It might be possible for her body to resolve the situation on its own–with of course “natural” stuff as well–with the help of that leg up.

     I also feel that, given the choice between faster and slower responses to situations, we are usually better off with the “slow lane” approach. It gives you time to think, and pray, receive guidance, not be in crisis mode with K., maybe get a few opinions, think and pray. Time and patience can be very powerful.

     As to our diet, here’s what it looks like—

     Breakfast–big bowl or two of miso soup with a variety of organic vegetables, but always daikon for cleansing and kelp for minerals, and whole grain cereal with soy/rice milk (Edenblend). I stay away from sweetening, Rob adds dates and a little maple syrup.

     Lunch–Wildly varies, but a humus sandwich on whole wheat would be typical. We do often eat white bread, which I think is not a good idea, but we do anyway.

     Dinner–Beans, a grain–often whole wheat tortilla–and one or two vegetables. We eat meat maybe once every 2 weeks, lamb, fish, or chicken.

     Snacks–Popcorn is big.

     Looking at what you’ve got, I would say if you can nudge down the meat and dairy and nudge up the veggies, you’d be going in the right direction. Do you include any sea vegetables? We americans are terribly depleted in minerals because of non-organic farming, and sea veggies are a real help in this. My kids loved toasted nori, and dulse chips are also popular.

     We do very little dairy. When I do indulge, I inevitably get sick within a month or so, even if it’s goat, but that’s just me.

     Also with the sugar issues, nudge down the fruit. Baked winter squash can be a nice sweet substitute for fruit.

     We try for 6 servings of vegetables/day, and don’t usually make it, but by trying, we eat more than we would, if you know what I mean.

     So so so glad you got a good doc for Marie. Would he be helpful with Kassandra do you think?

     One more thing just occurred to me about Kassandra and that’s that studies have shown that people are aware of what is going on when they’re sedated. They also hear and register what’s being said. So, if you do have it done, under sedation, maybe talk to the doctor and nurse about kind, gentle and reassuring words to her throughout the procedure. Maybe you could read her her favorite story while it’s being done.

     OK, i gotta go, I think you’re an honest-to-God hero, Patti, keep it up.

     Andrea

174. Administrator said,

     February 3, 2008 at 10:10 am

     Hi Patti and Andrea!

     Glad to see that you two have been able to continue to share and exchange ideas. Patti, I’m so sorry to hear about all that’s been on your plate! Wow! Incredible what can happen in a couple weeks. Good news that your Dad got saved! Kudos! How is he doing now?

     Regarding Kassandra, whew, that’s a tough one. Honestly, since she’s not my child, and I don’t see firsthand what’s going on, it’s hard for me to suggest anything. You already know my stand regarding long-term antibiotics. Herbs have worked for me, so it’s easy for me to stand by them. I don’t know what you’ve tried already for Kassandra on the herb front, so I don’t feel confident to say go with the antibiotics. I’ll say tho that if you are going to go the herb route, you have to be well-informed and it has to be well-executed. I.e. proper dosages, and adhere to dosages “strictly.” Especially with such a serious condition as Kassandra’s. I realize