Home Health Remedies

Since I don't have insurance, I use home remedies all the time. I find I'm healthier overall than my friends who run to a doctor for every sniffle and sneeze. I've noticed that the more insurance people have the more their medicine cabinets are stuffed with drugs. I think health starts with what you put in your body, food can be medicine or poison. Things like smoking or excessive drinking equal a painful decline and early death. Processed foods can cause obesity and malnutrition. If you grandmother wouldn't recognize it, don't eat it.

I'm not against the use of proven drugs, but I believe we should first try something simpler and see if it works. The best thing a mother can do to prevent illness in her child is to breast feed, if she can't do that she should make sure the child gets a healthy, organic diet from the earliest age. If an ear infection occurs, try garlic juice before the antibiotics. Let children play in a little dirt and throw out all the harsh soaps and cleansers. Expose them to animals at an early age so they are less likely to get hair allergies. Give children raw honey to prevent pollen allergies. Everyone needs to eat their fiber foods, free range meat, green/black tea and lots of colorful veggies. Throw out the white carbs and anything that Con-Agra has it's stamp of approval on. If you can buy it without getting out of your car, keep driving.

If I think of more specifics I'll be back.

I see it the same as you. I just got in and need time to gather my thoughts before posing much.

When we were on vacation Mo woke up one night with an earache.

From past experience with the same symptoms I knew that the doctor used a (needleless) syringe to squirt water in his ear to dislodge whatever was obstructing it.

I used bottled water with a sports cap to wash the darn clog out -- worked like a charm!

Quote: "Give children raw honey to prevent pollen allergies."

If the honey is locally produced, it will better target the pollen allergies common to your neighborhod.

Common duct tape is one of the best ways to remove warts.

More info.

Quick pimple eliminator:

Place into a jar:
2 tablespoons of green clay,
1 tablespoon of goldenseal powder (Hydratis canadensis)
2 to 3 drops of tea tree oil
Enough water to form a paste.

Apply the paste to your blemish at bedtime and leave it on all night. The clay dries up pore-clogging oil, and the goldenseal and tea tree oil kill the bacteria that cause infection.

All the ingredients can be found at health food stores. The paste keeps for about 6 months. This mixture also works to heal cuts.

To release chest congestion due to cold or flu:

Saute a couple of yellow or white onions in some olive oil and add at least 1 teaspoon of curry powder. Eat them as is or over rice. Onions contain quercetin and sulfur, two plant compounds that break up mucus and increase circulation. Curry helps to loosen phlegm. You can add a little salt and pepper, if desired.

Pteridium esculentum
common bracken fern.
applicable to: Australia

The juice from bracken fern can be used to relieve ant bites.
source: Personal experience.
Source: Aboriginal pharmacopia

Bracken fern is reputed to be Anthelmintic and astringent.

Leaves contain tapeworm killing taencidal saponin pteridin.

source: Australian Medicinal Plants, EV Lassak & TS McCarthy

Saline nasal wash - this takes a special little pot, but works like saline nose spray (but better). It clears the sinuses of mucous and pollen. The salt helps reduce infection. Add baking soda for soothing effect (debatable).

For minor gum disease and as a preventative: use a rubber dental pick and a paste of baking soda and food-grade hydrogen peroxide - work the paste into the gum line (gently).

I have whole books about this stuff.

Nobody's mentioned Bag Balm yet. It seems great for skin irritations.