Although I have the ability to, I don’t do much tracking of my blog traffic.  I periodically glance at the numbers, but since my intent when starting to blog is share things I’ve found helpful with other moms, whether the numbers are staggeringly huge or staggeringly small, as long as someone is helped by something, then to me it’s worth my time here.

Sometimes I wonder, though, about when I see huge spikes in traffic, like today, how did you find this blog?  There are currently blog readers from all over the U.S., as well as the U.K, Canada, Israel, Brazil, Colombia, and Australia – isn’t that nice?  I don’t know how people find their way here, but however it happens, it’s nice to have you all there! 

With the winter quickly approaching, if not already here for most of us, I thought you might find it helpful if I shared some ways to boost immune funtion for children.  Winter too often is a time of non stop visits to doctors, sniffles, coughs, if not worse.  We can’t always ward off everything, but there are ways to strengthen our children’s systems so that they are less susceptible, or if they do catch something, to help it run its course faster or for a shorter intensity.

There are two aspects to this: what you do before your child is ill, and what you do once his is feeling unwell.  The biggest thing I think a parent as regards to prevention is to boost the nutritional quality of the child’s diet, and limit sugar consumption.  Sugar lowers the immune function for something like thirty minutes after eating it, and is connected to a host of other bad things.  Along with this I’d suggest taking out as many artificial preservatives and additives that you can.  None of these do anything positive for your health. 

Here are some more specific suggestions that we’ve found helpful:

Chicken soup – this isn’t just an old wive’s tale – it’s been tested in laboratories and found that there’s a natural penicillin like quality about chicken soup.  Not only does it taste great, it’s warm and soothing, and makes a person pychologically feel better after drinking it.  It’s also a great way to get some solid nutrients into a child who doesn’t feel like eating anything. 

Echinacea – echinacea is great to take when you’re feeling unwell, but shouldn’t be used as an ongoing health support.  I prefer not to use chewables because of the sugar content, but I do use the echinacea leaves in the Supertonic tincture I make (look in recipes category if you missed it and are interested), and have more loose leaves to brew into a tea if I feel it would be helpful. 

Liquid Advantage concentrate – grapefruit seed extract – I have a friend who swears by this – she gives her daughter four drops every morning before she goes to school.  She told me that whenever she forgets it, her daughter gets sick.  I have another friend who is extremely knowledgeable about natural healing, who also uses this all the time – when she sent her daughter to stay with us for a couple of days several years ago, she sent along a bottle of this with her.  The taste is pretty strong (horrible, my kids would say :)) so either drink it with some juice or be prepared to kill the flavor left in your mouth with a cracker or something like it afterwards. 

Vitamin C – I prefer to use sodium ascorbate (SA), and since almost all of the kids (and adults) vitamin c tablets or chewables are in a different form I don’t use them.  I buy the powdered form and put it in some juice for them.  They are best taken with bioflavanoids for ideal absorption, but my kids don’t like the look or taste of the powdered bioflavanoids that I bought (neither do I!) so the bioflavanoids have ended up sitting in my cabinet, mostly unused.  I use very large doses of SA as soon as one of the kids is feeling under the weather, but don’t use it much otherwise.  There’s no problem with taking it daily, it’s just that I don’t do it. 

Garlic – I sometimes think the smell alone of garlic could drive away germs, but seriously, it’s a powerful antibiotic and can be easily used in cooking to a health advantage.  It can be added to chicken soup, roasted, or sauteed, but is most potent eaten raw – chopped up and added to a salad or some yogurt is the easiest thing (I remember having yogurt, raw chopped garlic, and honey when I was a kid).  I have to confess that although I like the taste and smell of garlic, once it’s on my child’s breath I can’t stand it.  I literally have to turn my head away when they come too close to me.  I would use this with caution only as a point of sensitivity to those around you.  So around here, I stick to cooked garlic, and again, it’s one of the Supertonic ingredients. 

Apple cider vinegar – by this, I only mean raw, and the only one I know of that fits the bill is Bragg’s.  You can find it in your local health food store, and I’ve seen it recommened for a variety of things.  A tablespoon of this vinegar added to a warm cup of water with a tablespoon of honey, first thing in the morning, is the perfect way to take it. 

Cod liver oil – this is something that has been used for many generations, and there’s a good reason for it!  Fish oil is also good, but cod liver oil is the best.

Probiotics – if your child has been on antibiotics at any point, it’s killed some of the beneficial bacteria in the gut along with whatever the disease killing bacteria there was.  Probiotics are crucial for healthy immune systems – yogurt and kefir are great sources and are easily purchased in the store.  Make sure it says it has acidophilus in it. 

Many moms are scrupulous about hand washing and keeping their kids out of germy places.  I’m not one of them.  Being homeschoolers, they aren’t exposed on a daily basis to all the stuff kids in schools are, but even before we homeschooled, our kids were sick much, much less than their friends.  If someone tells me before a playdate that their child or one of the child’s siblings has a cold, it usually wouldn’t concern me enough to keep the kids from playing with him.  Usually – unless I already saw that one of our kids was feeling sick, in which case I wouldn’t be rushing to have my kids playing with other children and spreading germs.  I’m not picky about others spreading it to me, but I do try to be careful about not spreading anything to others. 

I think that anti-bacterial cleansers and hand wipes sound like a better idea than they are, and don’t use them.  We need to have a certain amount of germs in our lives, or we wouldn’t have a chance to develop immunity!  I remember reading several years ago that there was a link between asthma and kids growing up in very sterile environments – to which I laughed and said that wouldn’t be a problem in our home!

By the way, all of these are helpful for adults, too!  I hope some of these suggestions give you a starting point for this winter.   May this be a winter of health for us all!

Avivah

I mentioned in passing a couple of weeks ago that I bought thuja, a homeopathic wart remedy, because my 2.5 year old has several very small warts that I wanted to take care of.  But thuja actually wasn’t my first choice of remedies; it was more like a back up because I ran out of what I really wanted to use.

I’ve read a number of idea to take care of warts, and they all seem to be based on the same principle.  Cover the wart with the substance of your choice, cover it with a cotton ball or bandaid, and repeat daily until wart is gone.  The ideas I’ve seen suggested range from those I wouldn’t be interested in using – cover it with nail polish or duct tape (ouch!), to other ideas that seem like much better options.  They include covering the wart with: oil from vitamin E caps, raw apple cider vinegar, or a slice of cut onion.  But what I used and was very impressed by was vitamin C, in the form of powdered sodium ascorbate. 

We made a paste of the powder with a tiny bit of water, covered two warts with it to test it, and then covered it with a bandaid.  That night, when we peeled the bandaid away, the warts were almost entirely gone!  It was really amazing.  Okay, they weren’t huge warts, but they were warts, and I didn’t expect anything that fast.  One more application and they would have been entirely gone.  But we used the last scrapings of sodium ascorbate (SA) that we had to do this (and I don’t recommend using the commonly found form of vitamin C, citric acid- I think it would be too acidic), and since I buy the SA online, I knew I couldn’t just run out and buy more.  (I buy the medical grade sodium ascorbate from Bronson Lab, in the kilo container – I don’t know if they have smaller containers or not.)  Hence my purchase of the thuja. 

When I was about eight years old, I had a wart on my foot, and my mother got rid of it by applying nightly poultices of hot cornmeal.  I don’t know where she got the idea from – I thought she told me years ago that she saw it in Back to Eden by Jethro Kloss, but when I looked it up there recently, I didn’t see it.  Anyway, wherever she got it from, it worked.  I seem to remember that she heated the cornmeal with some water, until it was very hot, and then put it inside a bag.  She put a towel over my foot, then put the hot cornmeal poultice over the towel (it would have burnt the skin without the towel there), then covered it with a towel again.  She left it on for a few minutes, until it started cooling down, I think.  Amazing how so many years later I can remember it.  Anyway, I don’t remember how many applications it took, but the wart disappeared and there’s absolutely no sign to show there was ever anything there. 

On the other hand, my sister had warts when she was about ten or eleven, and used over the counter wart medicine which was supposed to burn it off; it was painful for her to use.  I remember it leaving white marks on her skin, and after it all, the warts came back.  I definitely would try any and all of the above natural remedies before using any over the counter wart medication.

Believe it or not, I keep forgetting to order the sodium ascorbate, which is an important anti-cold ingredient around here – I must order some more!

Avivah