Something Pinched Me!

We were at the beach a few weeks ago and my 4 year old had walked toward the water. She came running back whining that, "Something pinched me!" I looked at her foot and saw nothing. I figured it was a grain of sand in her shoe or something. She stood by me for a few minutes and after a few minutes, she got very agitated insisting that something had pinched her. I took off her shoe again and found a large stinger with the bum of a bee still attached! Poor thing. When she saw the stinger she began to wail. Her foot had begun to swell and the site was reddening. I got the stinger out and immediately called for my other two children to search for plantain. They brought me a pile which we crushed and placed on my daughter's foot. I changed it literally every 30 seconds for about 5 minutes- basically as soon as the leaves were hot I changed them. After about 5 minutes, I kept a wad of leaves on for a few more minutes. Within 20 minutes, she had scrambled off my lap, foot restored to perfect health with no indication of a sting, no swelling, and no pain. The day at the beach was saved by plantain!

Spider Bites- OUCH!!!

Over the last couple of weeks, I received a few spider bites. OUCH. I am convinced that one of them was a black widow bite because of the sickness and toxicity I experienced as well as the localized pain and intense itching... thank goodness for herbs though! Now on to my experience.

I was at the park for a picnic and after sitting on a bench for a while, I noticed a very itchy welt on my calf near the back of my knee. I figured it was a mosquito bite because it resembled a fresh mosquito bite with its raised whitish welt appearance. I quickly grabbed some plantain leaves and crushed them up to place on my bite. It gave a little relief but not the relief I am used to with a mosquito bite. I got more plantain and crushed it up and placed it on the bite. A little more relief followed... it was time to go home and I had to put kids to bed so I wasn't able to deal with it much. I can't remember if I put some old plantain ointment on it or not but the next day it was worse. All day I kept plantain ointment and fresh plantain packed on it but it still got worse. Over the course of the day, my calf swelled up, my leg got a bit stiff, and it hurt to walk! Boy did it itch too. By night, my calf was totally red, swollen, and hot. It still hurt and it itched. I kept at my plantain and added a little BFC to it. That seemed to ease some of the itching. I had to keep off my leg and use some ice to bring down the inflammation. I ended up resting all day because it was so miserable of a bite. On the fourth day, I remembered the Immucalm or Kid-e-Soothe formula. I took a couple droppers of Kid-e-Soothe (that is what I had on hand and it is the same as Immucalm with marshmallow and astragalus). Almost immediately the swelling started to go down. Now it looked like I had a weird old bruise surrounding a bite site. I kept at the Kid-e-soothe as well as more Complete Tissue because I figured there was some tissue damage given the looks of the bite site. By the fifth day, that weird bruise look had shrunk and I just had an occasionally itchy red dot. Over the next few days I used the Complete Tissue and Kid-e-soothe as needed. Success!

Fast forward a few weeks. I was sitting in a chair at this old amusement park and all of a sudden my ankle was itching HORRIBLY! I looked down and there was a bite (looked like the same swollen bite I had had a few weeks before). We rushed home to get some plantain for me. This time it was unbearably itchy immediately. Worse than a mosquito. I downed some Immucalm and kept at it the whole time. This time my ankle did swell up but not as much. As long as I kept the immucalm and some plantain ointment that had some comfrey in it on the bite, I was mostly itch free. Thank goodness for that Immucalm!

Traci's Bread

The video of making bread and the recipe was posted.

Sprouted Grain Bread

I have been playing with sprouted grain bread lately. I finally got up the courage to tackle it thanks to some recipe help from Traci Sellars. Her blog is listed on the right side of my blog. Prior to using her bread recipe, I hadn't had the guts to try with my dehydrated grains. I know that dehydrated sprouted grains work great for baked goodies, but bread can be so finicky. I first tried making some pizza bread by substituting the flour with my ground dehydrated sprouted wheat. Then I made Traci's bread. WOW it is fabulous. It calls for both moist and dry sprouted grains. She said she will be posting a video bread lesson including the recipe soon which will cost $1.50. It will be well worth it! Anyway, the bread was fluffy, toothsome, and so tasty. Needless to say it did NOT last long in my home. It also took less time than traditional bread since it only needed to rise about 30 minutes in the pan and then bake. No multiple risings and punching down.

Yummy kale sauce...

For dinner the other night I used a recipe for a kale "pesto" sauce on Veg Web. Super yummy! I used brown rice pasta (not the best in terms of mucusless diet but FAR better than wheat pasta). You could put this over a baked potato (with skin) or over some quinoa, etc. Yum. I think for my family we will double the recipe next time.

Welcome 2010

Everyone gets excited about the new year... New Year's resolutions (that rarely stick) and starting fresh. I always thought it was lame to start a resolution just because it was the beginning of the year and then quit by January 15th! As a result, I have never really been one for resolutions. That said, this year, I am working on more exercise- I am a brown belt in Karate and that is good, but I want to get out and workout more than twice a week. I know that karate was helpful in me staying healthy through my pregnancy (yes, I trained until I was 6 months pregnant and even earned my 2nd level brown belt 5 1/2 months pregnant!). 3 months after my baby was born I was back in the Dojo.

The other thing I am working on this year is to use more wildcrafted herbs. I want to get in the habit of being out in nature more and wildcrafting.

The last thing I am working on, as it relates to herbs and natural healing, is I have enrolled in the School of Natural Healing Iridology course!!! I am so excited. I started yesterday.


What are you going to do in 2010 to help yourself and those you love be more healthy?

BTW, I got an email from the School of Natural Healing. They have now raised the tuition on the Family Herbalist class. It is $295. However, they also said, if someone enrolls in the course through an affiliate link (like the one on my site to the right), tuition will be discounted to $195. The Family Herbalist course will give you the basics of natural healing. It will help you in assessing what to do to help yourself and your family. I highly recommend it!