My computer is still down so I’m sorry I can’t post more often – I miss being here daily!  We’re going to call another computer expert in since the first one can’t figure out what’s wrong. 

I got my most recent order of herbs, and I got something new this time (well, actually I always get something new :)) that we’re putting to use today – I ordered kosher capsules and a capsule ‘machine’ to make filling them easy.  These are already lending themselves to more uses than I expected!

I got the capsules to make using powdered herbs easy, basically the food herbs that are hard to take in large enough amounts when using as more than casual spicing.  But after getting it, I realized that we could use them for the powdered vitamin C (sodium ascorbate) that we use – until now we mixed it into juice but I use pretty massive doses when the kids are under the weather and they don’t  love taking it.  They don’t hate it, either, but finding a more pleasant way that works for everyone seemed to be a good idea.  And when dd14 started to fill them, she asked me if she should add some bioflavonoids to the mix.  (I bought the powdered bioflavonoids last year because it was the only form I found them kosher, but it is nasty tasting.  So none of us ever use it, even though you’re supposed to take the sodium ascorbate with it to maximize absorption.)  I thought that was a great idea, so now the kids have made over 300 capsules of this vitamin C mix – they used 4 parts sodium ascorbate to 1 part bioflavonoids.  Each capsule is about 500 mg and easy to take.

The next capsules they prepared today were: ginger, tumeric, and cinnamon.  Dd14 has an extra bone in her foot that is causing her pain when walking, and I’ve been taking her to the podiatrist every 3 weeks since she got back from camp this summer.  He has been trying low intervention ways to deal with the issue, but at the last visit he said the inflammation is interfering.  He prescribed a local anti-inflammatory patch, but my insurance wouldn’t cover it and I’m not so sure I want to use it anyway.  (It would be over $200 every couple of weeks, if I do choose to try it.)  Dh asked him why he doesn’t just tell dd to stay off her feet for a week, and the doc said that wasn’t realistic.  I couldn’t believe I didn’t think of anything so obvious!  Instead I started researching natural anti-inflammatories.  Some of those are tumeric and ginger, and she’ll start taking the capsules today.  I think that this will take longer than the medical patch, but I’m more comfortable with it and so is she.  And of course we’re encouraging her to stay off her foot as much as possible.  Hopefully this two pronged approach will be helpful.

Since I know someone is going to ask, I got the capsules from Mountain Rose Herbs – a bag of 1000 was $23 (I got size 00), and the capsule filling machine was $13.  You  can buy less, but this size bag was a good idea – my dd9 (her birthday is today :)) told me that if each of us has 2 vitamin c capsules a day, all that they prepared will last us just a month.  🙂

Avivah