Wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium)

I've been reading in Heinerman's Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs & Spices lately. This is something I'm always doing with my various herb books. And I find out interesting items all the time. I thought I'd pass this section on Wormwood on to you.

I haven't found wormwood in the wild here yet. But I happened to see some at the wine supply store I visited recently. They had some wormwood there for flavoring for beer, I think. Or to make absinthe with perhaps. So I bought a couple of packets since the herb looked nice and green.

Here's what Heinerman's had to say about a few uses for this herb:

Overpowering Relief for Pain

The team of Simon, Chadwick and Craker in their Herbs--An Indexed Bibliography (1971-80) mentions that "wormwood has been used as a pain reliever for women during labor and against tumors and cancers." An alcoholic tincture of the same applied externally often has a profound effect in relieving the soreness of aching muscles, the hurt accompanying swollen, arthritic joints, and the terrific pain felt with a bad sprain, dislocated shoulder/knee or fractured bone.

The following episode was related by the eldest son of the Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr. The prophet's son was a teenager residing in Nauvoo, Illinois at the time he had his experience with wormwood.

"Our carriage had stopped by the roadside for lunch and to rest the horses. Upon getting back into my seat after the brief interval, I thoughtlessly put my hand around one of the carriage posts, and as the driver closed the door, two of my fingerts were pretty badly crushed.

"The wounds bled freely and Mother (Emma Smith) bound them up with some cloths from her bag, and we traveled on. My fingers became very painful, and after a while we stopped at a farmhouse. Mother unwrapped them, soaking the temporary dressing off with warm water and rewrapped them with fresh cloths. Taking from her trunk a little bottle of whiskey and wormwood, she turned the tips of my fingers upward, and poured the liquid upon them, into the dressings--at which, for the first time in my life I promptly fainted! It seemed as if she had poured the strong medicine directly upon my heart, so sharply it stung and so quick was its circulatory effect.

When I returned to consciousness I was lying on a lounge against the wall and Mother was bathing my face most solicitiously. I soon recovered and we proceeded on our journey, reaching home in good time and without further mishap."

To make an effective tincture for relieving excruciating pain, combine 1 1/2 cup of finely cut herb or else 8 tbsp. of the powdered herb in 2 cups of Jim Beam whiskey. Shake the jar daily, allowing the wormwood to extract for 11 days. Let the herbs settle and then pour off the tincture, straining out the powder though a fine cloth or paper coffee filter. Rebottle and seal with a tight lid until needed. Store in a cool, dry place. When using this tincture to relieve external pain, remember that because of its strong potency a little bit goes a long way! Wormwood oil used externally can relieve pain too.

End Excerpt

Hmmmmmm. Now that sounds like a handy tincture to have around, doesn't it? So, I used the wormwood I had purchased from the wine supply store and made a tincture with it as directed. I'm not sure of the quality of the wormwood purchased, so this one may not work out, but I'll let you know. If wormwood grows around you, you might want to give this a try. Heinerman also says that the wormwood tincture can be used internally to rid people of intestinal parasites: "Using an eyedropper, put 10 drops of tincture in with 1 tsp. of honey or molasses. Mix well before eating. The honey or molasses helps to alleviate the bitter taste of the tincture."

Onwards,

HM

"Our Vanishing Landscape"

This is just a few meandering thoughts. There's a conservation organization in a city near us. You don't need to know the name--but you know the type, the kind that asks for donations of land for them to hold in perpetituity in order to escape the dread evil of "our vanishing landscape." That line has always made me laugh--WHAT vanishing landscape? Hell, I live out in the sticks and we got veritable TONS of landscape and as far as I can tell, it is all still there. So, like, what's the problem?

I mean, it sounds like you'd be driving along, and all of a sudden, you wouldn't see fields or farms or woods or trees, you'd just see gray blank walls of nothingness. Right? The landscape would have "vanished." That's what makes me laugh.

I'm poking fun at this silly environmentalist thinking, of course. And I have to say, it seems to me that most "environmentalists," especially those who consider themselves tree-huggers, that they all live in cities. They see sidewalks, streets, buildings--in other words, lots and lots of cement. And that apparently causes a bit of brain dysfunction, because they will believe things like "our landscape is vanishing." They also probably have no idea exactly how much work it takes to maintain cement, to restrain rampant vegetation from simply taking over.

Because, folks, it WILL. All you have to do is STOP all maintainence work on roads, highways, bridges, etc. and pretty soon the whole damn mess of it will simply disappear from view. All you will see is a plethora of, well, "landscape." Vines, trees, loads of my buddies, the weeds, grasses, you name it. Vegetation alone will easily overcome anything we might call a city. Just look at those ruins of cities and temples in South America, easily returned to the jungle by victorious landscape.

If you live out in the country, you've seen dandelions poking their bright, yellow heads right up through pavement on a back country road. In the cities, you see dandelions poking out through cracks in the sidewalk. Of course you have, if you're alert. There's your landscape returning, folks. And if you're a city environmentalist, come out into the country. Hell, we'll be happy to show you that landscape ain't disappearing nohow. It'll rule in the end.

Well, OK. I AM thinking about the "national emergency" Obama just declared to handle the not-a-big-deal-government-produced-and-directed swine flu. And that's bad news. But I can't think about bad news all the time. That's my husband's department. But crisis or no crisis, world-ending or no world-ending, dinner still has to get to the table somehow, and since the sun is shining and it is a beautiful October day, I'd rather be grateful and cheerful, and nothing cheers me up more than to think about dandelions taking over the world after us damn-silly human beings have done ourselves to dirt.

Dandelions Uber Alles!

HM

Teasel for Lyme Disease

Teasel basal rosette--first year plant

First of all, my apologies for not blogging much this past week. I was under the weather as they say, dealing with various physical problems. And I was busy researching Lyme disease, as Joaz, our Amish friend and farmer, had been diagnosed a few weeks ago as having Lyme. He'd been ill for 2 weeks, going on the third week, which is quite a long time for a very active, usually healthy young man. He had all the usual symptoms for early Lyme, headaches, fatigue, bright lights hurt his eyes, fever and chills, muscle and joint pain, swollen glands, etc. And Fred and I were worried and praying for him and his family.

Lyme disease is rising in the US, and it can be a devasting disease. Google Lyme Disease to find out more than you'd ever want to know about Lyme. In fact, you can read up on it here, but there is lots of information out on the web about it. A few years ago, I had a tick bite and it had gotten infected--the bite was on my back and while I was aware of it itching, I couldn't see the damn thing and so didn't connect it with a tick bite. Anyway, a quick search around the web for info on Lyme disease and I called my allopath MD for an appointment. While I normally avoid antibiotics (not to mention doctors), this time I thought I'd better get right on it; my doctor agreed and I did a course of some sort of expensive antibiotic that did the trick. I did NOT want to have to deal with lyme disease. Fortunately for me, the antibiotic therapy worked. Other folks are not so lucky, or they don't have the rash and the lyme gets diagnosed as something else or it goes untreated and all hell breaks lose.

So, Joaz and Lydia and their kids believe in natural health, herbs, and use naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, massage, etc. and avoid the general allopathic medical world as much as they can. Since Fred, Michael and I do pretty much the same, that makes sense to me. But in this case, for lyme disease, I told them my story with lyme and what I did and suggested that a course of antibiotics might be a good idea.

I don't know if they did that (I don't think so but I didn't ask) but yesterday when Fred and I were there for our normal Saturday morning visit, Joaz was feeling much, much better. He looked better, more energetic and almost his normal self. Thank you, Lord! I gave them some materials on herbs and alternative therapies for lyme, with a list of herbs that some herbalists had recommended. I'll be bringing a few that I have on hand for them next week.

We discussed teasel root tincture for lyme. I am most emphatically not a doctor, nor even a certified herbalist--just an ol' wild food/medicine forager, but I feel OK about mentioning various herbs/plants to people as perhaps being helpful, and if they are interested, I can mostly find the plant and make some sort of simple preparation for them. I had not known teasel until this summer when I noticed this interesting plant growing down by the pond, and what seemed to be the basal rosette of it growing on our hillside, which, upon on a closer inspection and checking all my herbal books and using google, etc., turned out to be the mysterious teasel himself.

Yesterday afternoon was so glorious, I couldn't stay inside, so I went out to see if I could get some teasel roots for Joaz. I found the old dried plants from this summer, and then, to my delight, I saw the basal rosettes just across the road on the hillside. Perfect! Ok, it IS on a hill and it won't be easy digging out the roots, but certainly I could get some. Eureka!

While I was there, I saw some young mulleins starting, so I sat by them for a while too, asking for their help and feeling so grateful to live in this place where so many herb friends grow and thrive. Then I took some leaves and dug up some roots as well. Also harvested some black walnuts, to use the hulls for a decoction for diarrhea and a few other things. It was a short, but blessed, foraging trip.

You can find out more about using teasel for lyme disease at Lady Barbara's website. Clicking here will tell you how she used teasel root tincture to cure her nasty case of lyme. Or do a google search on teasel root for lyme disease and you'll get all the same links I did. To dig the roots, you want to find the basal rosette (pictured at the top). You'll find them near the older, dried teasels of the summer or close nearby. Dig roots in the spring or fall.

Happy foraging!

HM

Flu Vaccines: Pure Quackery

There are 3 or 4 alternative health sites I visit regularly. I always read Bill Sardi if an essay of his shows up at LewRockwell.com. He's excellent. Then there's Dr. Mercola, also excellent. And Mike Adams, the Health Ranger of Natural News. Each of these are good, reputable critics of our current medical system.

Lately there's been some very interesting articles on flu vaccines. If you're interested, read the following articles. In my not very humble opinion, we HAVE to be interested in our health, because it takes effort to keep it these days. If you're the sort of person who runs off to the doctor, takes whatever pill or potion they give you, believes in their diagnosis without question, takes whatever test is recommended, then I'd say you are in Big Trouble and your health will suffer greatly. We must question "authority" on this and everything else. Frankly, I lost trust in the medical system years ago. Like most people who lose trust in the system, I think I was more harmed than helped by their treatment. That lack of trust has served me well since.

Anyway, the first article on this list is from Mike Adams, of Natural News. In his piece, he summarizes and explains/comments on a current article in The Atlantic. Mike is biased in favor of natural medicine, and opposed to the medical system as it is. With that in mind, however, here's his take on the topic of flu vaccine:

http://www.naturalnews.com/027239_vaccines_flu_vaccine_.html

Then, if you are like me and have the time, you'll want to read the original article in The Atlantic. The authors did a great job of showing the empty science behind the vaccine industry:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1

And last, over at Dr. Mercola's website, you find this article on how getting a seasonal flu vaccine doubles your chances of getting swine flu:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/15/People-Who-Get-a-Seasonal-Flu-Shot-Are-Twice-as-Likely-to-Catch-Swine-Flu.aspx

Pretty amazing, isn't it? In the past few days I've seen the hordes of people lining up to get their seasonal flu shots at $24 or $30 a pop. My bet is most of those folks get a flu shot every year. They probably and reliably get the flu every year as well. Sigh. Well, there are good people challenging this vaccine "science" this year.

I want to leave you with a paragraph from the Atlantic article. It is a real eye-opener. It will show you exactly how deadly modern medicinee can be:

The annals of medicine are littered with treatments and tests that became medical doctrine on the slimmest of evidence, and were then declared sacrosanct and beyond scientific investigation. In the 1980s and ’90s, for example, cancer specialists were convinced that high-dose chemotherapy followed by a bone-marrow transplant was the best hope for women with advanced breast cancer, and many refused to enroll their patients in randomized clinical trials that were designed to test transplants against the standard—and far less toxic—therapy. The trials, they said, were unethical, because they knew transplants worked. When the studies were concluded, in 1999 and 2000, it turned out that bone-marrow transplants were killing patients. Another recent example involves drugs related to the analgesic lidocaine. In the 1970s, doctors noticed that the drugs seemed to make the heart beat rhythmically, and they began prescribing them to patients suffering from irregular heartbeats, assuming that restoring a proper rhythm would reduce the patient’s risk of dying. Prominent cardiologists for years opposed clinical trials of the drugs, saying it would be medical malpractice to withhold them from patients in a control group. The drugs were widely used for two decades, until a government-sponsored study showed in 1989 that patients who were prescribed the medicine were three and a half times as likely to die as those given a placebo.

Keep in mind: when dealing with the medical system, it is definitely Caveat Emptor!
HM

Diatomaceous Earth

I got the pix above from a website that sells DE for ridding birds of parasites. And I got the idea for researching DE from Kellene Bishop's nifty and useful blog Preparedness Pro. She discusses using DE in your food storage; that is, when you go to store a 5 gallon bucket of wheat or rice or beans or whathaveyou, you add a tablespoon of DE to kill insects. We've been using DE in our food storage for about a year now and we have very little bug problems, if any. We also use bay leaves. I highly recommend it for this purpose. However, Kellene also mentions that DE can be a good source of trace minerals, it absorbs nasty heavy metals and toxins in your system (and disposes of them), rids you of worms and other parasites, regulates digestion and elimination, and gives you stronger, healthier skin and hair. Wow. Sounds like a good deal!

Since I didn't know any of this prior to reading Preparedness Pro on the subject, I thought I'd better do a bit of research. Let's look at each of the benefits separately.

Absorbs Heavy Metals and Toxins

Diatomaceous earth (DE) Fossil Shell Flour has been reported in scientific literature to absorb methyl mercury, E. coli, endotoxins, viruses (including poliovirus), organophosphate pesticide residues, drug residues, and protein, perhaps even the proteinaceous toxins produced by some intestinal infections. Pyrethroid insecticide residues probably also bind to diatomaceous earth, since pyrethrins from Chrysanthemum flowers bind to and are stabilized by this material.

This excerpt is from an article on the benefits from a website that sells food grade DE from Canada. I haven't checked prices at various vendors, but I would before I buy. However, this website includes a lot of useful information, and I always like that. I'd certainly consider buying DE from these folks if the prices were equivalent to other vendors. The entire article is very good. Apparently, DE binds to all these toxins, including pharmaceutical drugs and other poisons, and takes them out of the body via elimination. Activated charcoal and benntonite clay can do the same, however, DE has so many other uses and benefits to make it even more attractive.

Trace Minerals

DE is essentially silica, which performs a host of good things in the body. You can't easily absorb calcium without the presence of silica. See this article on the benefits of silica/DE on health. It all sounds great, although I take everything I read with a grain of plain old sea salt. DE contains calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper, zinc....well, check it out here. That's a LOT of trace minerals, which, lord knows, are difficult to get from our basic foods these days (see my previous entries on the nutritional value of food--and look under the label for it).

Kills Worms and Other Parasites

DE is used to rid animals, both livestock and pets, of worms and parasites. Of course, it works for humans as well. I have read that 80% of the entire human population on earth has parasites, which can cause a host of nasty diseases. The parasites in your gut will eat YOUR nutrition, eliminate their toxic waste in your gut, and cause many other problems, even kill you. Frankly, I don't know if I have worms, but if I do, I'd want to get rid of them. I don't like any parasites, including lawyers and politicians, but at least I can take DE to rid myself of the less evil kind (HAH!).

Over at Wolf Creek Ranch, they feed everyone DE: humans, kids, pets, livestock, feral rescue animals, birds, etc. You may want to read all the information on that page, it's excellent stuff.

On final note on this topic: if you care to read one woman's diary of how she uses DE to rid herself of worms, read here. A word of warning: it's not very pretty. But it is very enlightening.

Regulates Digestion and Elimination

If you read all of the articles at the links mentioned here, you'll find a lot of mention how DE helps nearly everyone with constipation and other digestion problems. You'll find more here.

The upshot of all this is that food grade diatomaceous earth is very beneficial. One website even includes some nifty household uses (besides ridding the house of pests). It cleans metal, you can use it as a face mask and toothpaste, etc. With all this good stuff going for it, I think incorporating DE into your normal healthy routines is a great idea. I just started taking it a few days ago. I will let you know how I feel in updates (although I don't think I'll share all the worm elimination details if it is all the same with you :).

If anyone currently uses DE and has good (or bad) things to say about it, I'd like to hear about it. Thanks!

HM

Update on Canned Butter

Reader Andrea emailed me to ask if the butter we canned was of good quality, that is, worth it. Did it taste the same, was it the same texture as regular butter? Here's some observations:

We opened one of the jars of butter. The three of us (husband, brother, self) agree that it tastes fine and the texture is about the same. That is, it is not gritty or gravelly or crusty. The butter stays solid at room temperature, but it is a bit more runny/moist than what we were used to. See, I keep our butter normally in the fridge when it is not in use. When I take it out, the butter is hard until it warms up and softens. The butter in the jar is soft and melty. As I said, it tastes just fine, just like normal butter. I haven't noticed a difference.

Keep in mind that we just canned that butter a week or so ago. I don' t know how the butter will be 1 year, 2 years, 5 years out. Can't tell til we get there. However, the reason we canned the butter in the first place is so we would have butter to hand if our regular supply wasn't available. Lower-quality butter would be acceptable if it was the only butter around, I think.

Normally we get our butter either from the Amish farmers (purchased as "pet food") or I buy some from a store. I love the Amish butter as it is fresh churned from a cow milked that morning, but store butter is OK too. I have never used margarine or oleo or any of the fake butters. For me, I'll take the healthy if a bit fattening butter over whatever margarine is (one molecule away from plastic) any day.

Folks who have been canning butter for years using the method we used say it is fine at 3 years down the road, and fine at 5 years too. I'll take their word for it until I have another opinion to go by. So if you're wondering whether to "can" butter, I'd say go ahead. That way you have some in hand if supplies dry up.
Onwards,
HM

Oil of Oregano for Flu

A friend sent me this in an email:

Everybody, remember to get your Oil Of Oregano to protect yourself against the swine flu (and any other illness) this season. It's not expensive ($20 for a month's supply) and can be found online or at Good Earth in Broad Ripple. It's an extremely effective antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial agent that you just drop 2-3 drops of into your mouth twice a day- just like taking a vitamin (which I presume everyone already takes). It can be a little strong tasting, but you'll get used to it. It's just a concentrated oil that's made from a certain type of Mediterranean oregano (similar to the Italian spice) that comes in little one ounce bottles, anywhere from $18-40, depending where you go and how strong it is. I urge everyone to at least look it up and read about it, and you'll see what I'm talking about. I've been taking it since April, when the first round of swine flu hit, and haven't been sick since!

I have some oil of oregano, an essential oil from Young Living. It is very expensive ($40 or so). Yet I've had this same little bottle for years and years, since I only use a drop at a time. It is also very strong, almost too strong-tasting to use straight. I usually will put a drop in a glass of water and take it that way. I take my cayenne tincture that way too.

Other items recommended for flu in general: Netti pots for washing out the sinuses (you see these in regular drug stores these days), cold season teas, humidifers. All will be beneficial if the flu season gets bad this year.

On the other hand, part of me feels this whole swine flu thing is just another government sideshow, meant to keep our little minds busily terrified and thus not thinking about the sticky hand in our pockets, or bailout ripoffs. CDC has certainly blown what seems a mild flu all out of proportion. I imagine most readers are familiar with all the funny business of this "swine flu" "pandemic" and I won't get into it here. Suffice it to say I find the whole thing suspicious, possible big gov/big pharma driven (gov gets more control, potential martial law, big pharma gets billions with no responsibility for safety of vaccines), CDC/media collusion in calling the thing a "pandemic"--it all seems crazy to me.

And of course, the govt will never tell us to do the sensible things, the common sense things or to look for nutritional aids to help our bodies prevent disease or cope with disease if we become ill. No, for what profit in that? Well, this whole point has been discussed by much better writers than I. Read Bill Sardi's archives at LewRockwell.com. There is a great deal of very useful information there.

In the meantime, do some research on oil of oregano. It is another beneficial tool for your own flu protocols.
HM

Fred's Foot Infection

Fred, our 81 year-old friend, had a sore on his foot that became infected about 3 weeks ago. That's where this saga begins. His foot was slightly swollen, with what looked like an infected corn that had been aggravated by being rubbed against with his shoe. First step, change the shoe so the corn is no longer aggravated.

Second, clean the infected area really well. He used hydrogen peroxide. Then Fred spread moistened clay on the sore, hoping the clay would pull out the infected matter and then it would heal.

He called me a few days later. He was keeping the clay on his foot at all times. His foot was now swollen, toes swollen, hot, and very tender to the touch. Now, I'm not a doctor, or trained nurse, or trained anything but a wild food forager who has read a lot about herbal and alternative medicines. I didn't have any suggestions, really, but it seemed to me that the clay treatment wasn't doing much for him. I suggested letting the clay dry out a bit, see if that changed things.

Fred then decided to try using activated charcoal on the sore. Activated charcoal can be used as a compress on wounds, so it seemed a worthy idea to me. And the foot seemed a bit better, but not really healing. I brought over plantain tincture to see if that would help. So Fred used a few drops of the plantain tincture with the charcoal. The foot started looking worse.

Oh dear. In fact, the next day, his foot looked so bad I told him to call a doctor or that I'd take him to emergency or the walk-in clinic. I told him it was far out of my ken or abilities at this point. But Fred is very stubborn and dislikes the allopathic medical system as much as I do. Besides, the medicos charge an arm and a leg for those without insurance. We joked that at this point, Fred might well lose a foot to them. Hah. As much as I dislike the system, I argued with Fred that he needed some professional help at this point. I said I'd settle for him calling Anna, a nurse who lives in the valley. And I said that if a red line started up his leg from the sore on his foot he was in big trouble and then must go to a doctor.

I called Anna. She went over that night and also told him to get to a doctor or the clinic, but that she didn't think the infection was systemic or in the blood (yet). Fred still refused to go to a doctor. She told him to keep his foot elevated, so he did.

Next day I went and gathered plantain leaves. We soaked his foot in Epsom salts, then put on a plantain leaf poultice, and stopped with the charcoal, clay, and plantain tincture. Finally, his foot swelling went down, the foot became less red and hot and Fred became a bit more comfortable. But the sore still wouldn't heal. In the midst of all this, regular life went on of course. I had lots of home and garden chores, food preservation to accomplish, meals to cook, rooms to clean, work to do. Anna also came by a few times and said she thought Fred's foot was getting better.

But I kept fretting about it. I remembered reading somewhere that raw honey was effective on wounds of all kinds as an antibiotic dressing. I quickly did a bit of research, and then Fred and I put a small amount of pure raw honey on the sore. Fred said that at first it stings, then it feels better. He still would get shooting pains from the foot occasionally, but the honey was helping the sore to heal.

And that's where we were yesterday when we went to the Amish as we normally do on Saturdays for our "pet food," and other produce. While there, we asked Lydia if she could think of anything else we could try. Lydia's niece and nephew were visiting and helping out because Joaz had been ill. Lydia's niece (also named Lydia) said to try the tonic bitters that her parents make. She said it can heal sores and is very useful in any number of ways. This tonic bitters is made by the recipe for Swedish Bitters. So Lydia gave us about an ounce of what she had and we made arrangements to purchase some from the niece next week. I've also found the recipe at the link above, but it would take time to gather the herbs and other ingredients.

So we get Fred home and soaked a gauze pad with some of the bitters and put that on the sore. By this time, with the plantain leaves and the raw honey, Fred's foot was looking almost better, but still a bit swollen and warm to the touch. Fred agreed that he'd alternate using the raw honey and the bitters and see what that does. He had the bitters as a dressing last night and reported that his foot hurt all night. I suggested he use the honey at night instead, as the honey helps with the pain.

So, what's with this long, drawn-out story, HM? I've told you all these details to show a picture of what many of us might have to deal with IF there is no medical system for us to rely on (and complain about or avoid). There will be many people dealing with situations outside of their limited medical experience in a time of chaos or disruption of normal life. This somewhat confusing story presents some ideas you might find useful in the future. This saga of Fred's foot isn't over yet, but I think we're past the danger point. It'll heal, if slowly. There are no miracle herbs or tonics--although at times some herbs and tonics can seem a miracle.

So far, the raw honey has worked the best. In this case, I don't think the clay or activated charcoal helped much, although both are excellent treatments for other situations. Here you have two people basically stumbling around trying to figure out what to do, what might work. And both Fred and I have read extensively about alternative health treatments and medicine. We have ideas of what might work, not what WILL work. And that's not bad, at least since this situation wasn't life-threatening. We came up with other ideas, a garlic foot bath, for instance. (Before I googled it, I didn't know that bit about a garlic foot bath helping the lungs clear from mucus!)

I'm sure this post doesn't show me in the best light--but that's good. It is TOO easy to think that someone is an "expert" because they are a bit knowledgable about a subject. I've always said in this blog that I'm a beginner, an amateur, more a forager than an herbalist. In the future, however, I expect that many of us will be called upon to stretch our skills and learning, and by stretching, to become more skilled. The doctors I have respected most are those who still consider themselves students, that is, they are still learning.

Who was it who said that the more you learn, the more you learn that there is ALWAYS more to learn?

I'd love to hear from any of you who have dealt with stubborn infections, especially in the elderly. Thanks for tuning in...

HM

Our Flu Protocol

My husband and I have decided to do these things every day (or as near as possible), in order to give ourselves a growling good immune system and to combat whatever flu bugs might accidentally wander into our environs.

Take:
Vitamin C (1000 mg base amount, more if needed)
Vitamin D3 (1000 - 50000 mg base amount)
2-4 droppers of elderberry extract (more if needed)
Multivitamin/mineral mix (Michael takes this; I skip it as I prefer to get my nutritional needs met via eating wild plants. I just go outside an nibble on whatever I find--wood sorrel, plantain leaves, yellow dock leaves, gnaw on some sassafrass leaves, a couple of spice berries here, couple of wild grapes there, the classic nibbler diet)

Eat:
Clove garlic a day
Kimchi at least one serving a day
The usual good diet of meat with veggies galore, a minimum of sugar or white flour products, very little to none processed foods

If necessary/as needed
Goldenseal/Echinacea extract with a Cayenne extract for booster

And getting out into sunshine, getting some exercise, swinging our arms, praising God's gifts. The last mentioned is without a doubt the most important, praising God and being grateful. And if by chance we get a flu--we normally don't, nor have we ever taken flu shots, then we'll live with it and let the elderberry extract deal with it.

Another fairly important element in this is to avoid those who are ill. Be very careful when you go to stores, wash your hands so often you'll feel obsessive/compulsive, all the usual stuff.

I put by a lot of elderberry extract this year. I filled quart jars 1/2 to 3/4 full with elderberries, then add vodka to top it all off. The six weeks I usually allow for extracts is nearly over. I have offered the extract to everyone in the valley, and I hope they'll use it and wisely. I don't charge $$ for this, but donations will be accepted to cover the cost of the vodka.

I've also laid in some OTC pharmaceuticals--mucinex and sudafed in particular. Someone who'd already had the swine flu recommended those. So, on a just in case basis, I got a few of those. We also have gloves and masks, and somewhere I have a whole biochem suit (complete with gas mask) that someone once gave me. It'd make a great Halloween costume...

So that's our basic flu protocol. I don't know if we'll need it, but it can't hurt to give your body extra nutrients for combatting illness. It's very important also to detoxify--try to get rid of the crap in your system, fast one to three days every once in a while, take hot baths and sweat out toxins, don't eat processed "food" poisons, and move around a bunch.

If anyone has other/different ideas, I'd be glad to hear them. Thanks,
HM