BioCoherence: The Wellness Tracker
Using healing tones taken from the electric impulses of your own heart beat can reveal more information than most people realize.
When my father started at Tulane Medical School he was 32 and his classmates were in their early twenties. They were the last of the true “fix it; and then you are done doctors”. Alton Oschner and Michael DeBakey were in his class. Oschner taught surgery, my Dad taught anatomy and physiology. Michael DeBakey specialized in heart surgery and later he was known world wide when he went to Russia to perform Boris Yelson’s heart operation. During the 1940s war effort, my Dad was in the Naval Reserves and specialized in treating tropical diseases like malaria - a parasite that destroys the liver. He trained the Marine and Navy medics about first aid and protocol for treating diarrhea, hepatitis and malaria before they were deployed to the Pacific theater of the war. In those days Oschner made a big name for himself when said “cigarettes were bad for your health and could lead to cancer.” Those were times when it was “macho” to smoke and inhale like all the movie stars; so publicly announcing that cigarettes were dangerous, Oschner definitely went against the status quo trend. Big tobacco and the AMA did not like it. They colluded and tried unsuccessfully to publicly smear his reputation. Soon Oschner worked hard to successfully petition the Surgeon General to put a warning label on all tobacco products. Because of this, the medical field got polarized and political in New Orleans in the late 1940s after the war. This was also the time when my Dad got physician of the year and Oschner wanted him as his partner to start a clinic. During that same time while my Dad was vacationing in Northwest Florida in 1949, the US Military wanted a doctor in the area. A city consul contingency with a group of military brass approached my father to be locally available for any medical emergency dealing with their pilots and government personnel. He accepted and moved to the area in 1950. This was a good option with his internship already done and he would be moving away from the politics in New Orleans. My father was highly trained in diseases, surgery and internal medicine. He stood shoulder to should with the most gifted physicians of that day and was the “right stuff” for what the military wanted. In early 1950s rural Florida there were no hospitals; there were just military bases and small fishing fleets. My Dad had his black bag and made house calls, whether it was on the military base or on a local fishing boat. So anytime a President like Eisenhower, Kennedy or Johnson came to one of the military bases in Northwest Florida my Dad was notified to be on high alert and on call 24/7. He was the go to doctor for the local fisherman and the military in the area, including Eglin Air Force Base and the Pensacola Naval Air Station. My Dad’s reputation grew. In town he was the old fashion family doctor practicing what he and his classmates believed - the Hippocratic Oath - that they all took at graduation. “Do no harm; let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.” They strongly believed and practiced that. It became part of their DNA core as physician healers. Their first regiment was good nutrition, exercise and practical solutions; these were all part of their health protocols with surgery and meds administered only when needed; usually second or third in the diagnostic consideration process. Oschner and my father knew the key to sound function was good liver health and the key to healthy structure was staying fit. So to this day the Oschner Clinic has the best record for liver transplants compared to the rest of health care industry in the whole nation. Why? Well one reason why is Oschner like my Dad pushed the holistic philosophy that they call complementary medicine today. They followed all surgeries and treatments with extensive rehabilitation and adjunct treatments including massage, exercise and nutrition programs. The result is their patients live longer and feel better. At his clinic in Ft. Walton Beach, FL, my Dad practiced this too. Some of the most important aspects of liver function I learned from my Dad, wisdom gained only from experience and not in any books.
Reason Number One - SIDE EFFECTS This is the first thing people are wary of with medical therapy are the side effects of the prescription medications. News headlines abound about lawsuits of drug side effects. You see the advertisements of ambulance chasing lawyers that will fight for you to get a settlement for certain medical failures and complications. Lawyers now bank on the fact that people will experience side effects from medication that can be uncomfortable, harmful and even fatal. Some lawyers even specialize in certain drugs or particular invasive treatments because they know there will be health problems sooner or later that show greater chances to get cash in a settlement.
I have had some say I am crazy for rolling my own oats, when I can buy them right in the store. Why go to the trouble? Developing my new methodology and diet I found it to be much more healthy to eat fresh rolled oats. Ok, I admit it, just like I said in the earlier letters, I became obsessed with recovery; I became a fanatic because I hit a healing plateau and was not making enough progress. So looked at everything, tore everything apart to find what made some techniques and diets successful and others not. Mainly I was obsessed why I stopped making any further progress. I wanted to get well. Let me ask you this: What if the doctors, family and friends all called you delirious and said you were going to die? I had so much ridicule. If you don't know how this happened I will share with you. If you do know, please bare with me for a few paragraphs. In 1992, I was sick and went to stay with my brother in Jackson, MS and there at the University Mississippi Medical Center I had an extensive physical. Complete blood work showed a high liver enzyme level of over 1500 and Hepatitis C. More test were run. Then the viral load came back at over 12 Million HCV. The head of gastroenterology soon performed a liver biopsy that revealed 96% scar tissue. They said with only 4% liver function, I was in trouble and gave me 6 to 8 months to live and that a liver transplant was my only hope to survive. And yes, after studying all their information on transplants, hepatitis C and interferon, a decision was made. At that time one of the articles I read was about a baboon liver transplant and how the medical community declared it to be such a break through. Well, I was not particularly impressed. Why would anyone want a baboon liver? I guess that is just me. But let me ask you, honestly, would you want a baboon liver? All I heard from them at the medical university was “you need a transplant.” I said ok, show me your research. Then she got angry with me, I guessed because I questioned her recommended course of treatment and wanted to read up on it. I said; “this is the University Hospital and you are professor of gastroenterology correct?” She said, “yes”, so I said, “well show me the studies, maybe you have a text book about this, get me the book, I want to read it”. She did not expect that. I remember a prepper friend of mine said they are dumbing us down and don’t want us to think on our own; they want us to be robots. The head of gastroenterology got upset because in reality I just did not do as she said and get the transplant. Oh yea, I believe my prepper friend now and I am glad I got that material on transplants, the drug treatment, hepatitis and cirrhosis. If they were going to take my liver, I felt like I had every right to know more about what they were going to do. Wouldn’t you? After all I know that once you are under anesthesia everything and everyone follows the doctor’s orders. What if the doctor said; “Ok, this first liver is not working, call the zoo and bring in Camba the baboon, we need his liver, to save Johnny.” Oh no, not for this kid! I was not going to take any chances. I came back in a few days and picked up the material and went home and studied it with a fury of a wild hungry dog finally eating his long awaited meal. Remember, this is back in 1991 and I read in the documents that most transplant recipients do not live longer than 6 years. One quote really stood out for me and said - “Patient B rallied in the beginning of year 6 before he died, what a miracle.” Well to me that is not a miracle, the guy died! The drug therapy interferon research had a quote I will never forget, it said "on the good days, the patient may suffer flu like symptoms and suicidal thoughts were common." My first thought was "what were the bad days going to be like? Cause I am thinking I am pushing daises 8 feet under after 7 years for sure.” I just was not keen on this course of treatment. To me, it was stupid. Presently, I did not feel good and they said I could die from liver failure at any time. Here is my big question; why would I want to take something that made me feel worse? Flu like conditions on the good days, huh. Plus, they said I was an O positive blood type and I would have to wait longer for my O positive liver possibly for 14 to 16 months. When they gave me 6 to 8 months to live, the math does not work for me, it just did not make any sense. You see I had no insurance. I went back and told my doctor that I decided not to do the transplant or the interferon. Well she got angry, her face turned from ivory to a pink glow. She said “so what are you going to do?” I said “I was going take herbs.” She started yelling at me saying "you’re just too sick to make these decisions, you are just delirious!" Then her interns start fussing at me too; I started thinking how much I did not like these people. If I was going to die no matter what, I was better off without them, at least I would avoid suicidal bad days! With everyone fussing, I wanted to cover my ears to tune them out and I started thinking, I have to get out of here. In my mind I thought I was going to die anyway, but I want to do it my way and keep my own liver. It was like I was marching off to the Civil War when so many died and I started singing out loud, "when Johnny comes marching home again hurrah" just to tune them out and started walking away, when I opened the door to leave, the head doctor yelled back at me "alright Johnny Delirious you go out that door, you’re a dead man, you are going to die." Now you know how I got my name. If you decide to live like I did then you would look at everything to heal, right? Well I sure did. Then in 2009 I published my bestselling book Hepatitis C, CURED and pen named Johnny Delirious as the author. It’s funny, now my new friends who call me Johnny Delirious are great supporters. All the ones before who ridiculed me and called me delirious before, however now they HATE my pen name. Isn't that hilarious! My supporters love my name and I do too. The ones who first called me delirious are still stunned when I had full recovery over 22 years ago. Well I have to make it fun since there are always people in this world who will criticize anything and anyone. But my story is all true. Life is good, I still have my own liver and no virus and no cirrhosis! If you are part of a nutritional CoOp like I was or you have a source for bulk whole grains you can order raw oats. I keep them in the freezer and when I eat oats for breakfast, I put some out the night before in the refrigerator. The next morning they are thawed and I roll them through my mill. I found that they are so much sweeter tasting than the rolled oats you buy at the store. You see the oils in the store bought rolled oats have dried out. To make them store longer and not spoil most of the rolled oats you buy go through a baking oven when first rolled. Then they sit on the shelf. But they have a bitter taste. Most people do not even notice it. The only way you would know that is true is if you were to roll fresh oat grouts yourself and then taste the difference. Not getting those baked bitter oils is so much better for your health and your liver. Because fresh rolled and is never bitter. The oils are sweet and good for you. It turns out that I stopped using sweeteners altogether because I did not need them and with just cinnamon it made it sweet enough. The same was true with other grains like rye. Winter wheat was too hard, but if I got the light summer wheat sometimes I could roll it, compared to winter wheat, the summer wheat was a little easier. But generally I do not eat much wheat. Rye and oats were my favorite, they are rich and fulfilling fresh rolled for breakfast. Many times I would roll several different grains to change it up and give more variety to my breakfast. You would be surprised how filling and satisfied a meal like this is.
Our lives are bombarded by the advertising media wanting to sell us a product that will cure our problems and diseases. They really push hard. Bottom line is - just buy it. Many of the sales occur out of impulse and I think everyone can relate to what I am talking about. It always amazes me to see the “new and improved product, now with spearmint flavor!” Most of those new flavors to make the product taste better are artificial. Regrettably, its not real spearmint; not what my mother and grandmother used from the back yard. As a Master Survivor I don’t think my body wants more chemicals, it wants wholesome meals and nutrition. I know I feel better when I eat foods that are free of chemicals. Maybe that is why I have so many good memories visiting my GrandMa; everything on her dinner table was from her garden and free of all chemicals. She did the garden just the way her daddy taught her to do. Today, they would call her garden organic. The key is not to burden the liver and keeping it balanced and healthy. Long ago they called it the liver because it helps us live. Modern times has lost the appreciation for the most important organ. The simple maintenance to be healthy is gone, not seen since long ago. I rediscovered this simple maintenance when I found the liver could save my life, when at my lowest ebb it was the one thing that was going to kill me. This article is for the fighters who are serious about good liver health in tough times. Many in our society today are being taught not to think on their own. Recently at the Prepper Expo, I heard the expression, "They are dumbing us down." The guy said to me, "They don't want us think on our own." Ironically, that really got me pondering. One good reason I have found that convinces me that is true is when I was remembering a primary school book my grandmother showed me when I was very young. I believe it was from the 1920s when my mother went to elementary school. It was called the "3 Rs" - Reading - Writing - Arithmetic." She said I was the right age to start with that book. I could not believe how difficult it was. The sentence structures and concepts were way more complex than those I was used to. No illustrations and no side bars made reading this book a task, and frankly, I gave up on it. During those times growing up, I just followed the latest trend in school because it was the new thing. More and more as I got older I learned that in order to stay out of trouble, we were supposed to comply and essentially become a society of robots. Coming up with new ideas was something to keep to yourself in order not to be ridiculed or stay out of trouble. Maybe my Prepper friend at the Expo was right. Society is dumbing down. Once I became a teenager I thought I knew more than my parents. This was the rebellious 60s. Nothing made sense to me to just follow along like a sheep, and soon after that I began to question everything. In my first year of college, I made "A"s in my philosophy course but in that first year, it was down hill in all the other subjects. So as a thinker, I dabbled in just about every subject, lifestyle and chemical. How I made it through alive is beyond explanation, but what I learned is that survival is the key. The rest is history. After I went straight in 1991 I got the death sentence in 1992. Then they wanted to take my liver, but I walked away and studied my own way of healing. In those days, I remember what my sponsor in AA in Jackson, Mississippi, told me, "You should not worry about how the body works or study all these remedies. That is why we have doctors. Let them worry about all that; just do what the doctor tells you to do." Well, the doctor told me to get a liver transplant or I was going to die. I made up my mind that I was not going to do either one. My determination to get well outweighed the popular notion of just following the Doctor's advice. I guess I just did not make a very good robot in order to be normal in a dumbed down society. But more importantly, I found a way to live and to be free of the virus and cirrhosis. At work here were two important strategies: one was following through with my determination to survive and the other was to find what therapies worked. Determination was the drive for my mind and I found the healing protocols and put them to work for my body. I knew the key was a harmony of body, mind and spirit. Sounds simple enough but how often do one of these two hold you back from your goals. Have you ever been depressed and not wanted to follow through with things that needed to be done? Or, have you been too tired and did not want to do anything? Gosh, I sure have on both of those. So what kept me going? The short answer was the ridicule! With 96% scar tissue and over 12 million viral load they said I had only 6 to 8 months to live but I refused the drug treatment and the liver transplant. The head doctor said I was not thinking right and that I was delirious. From then on everyone said I was delirious and I was going to die. To them I was a zombie. At first it made me angry, but then in my spirit I found peace. I decided and knew I was going to live! Growing up I heard my father say the patients he helped in the hospital who were the fighters survived. Bruce Lee, a true fighter and one of my greatest mentors, said, " The "body follows the mind." I also learned from many miracle recovery survivors that being happy was the most important thing. I had to put it all together in what I called Johnny's 80/20 Rule. The 80 percent was attitude; making a decision to live, being happy while you are fighting, and becoming your body's best friend. The other 20 percent was the new protocol I developed in my Master Survivor Therapies--practicing the diet, cleansing and exercise to raise the immunity response. When I fully applied these new protocols, I went from 5.4 million viral load to non detectable. I was so happy! Heck, I started out at 12 million viral load and 96% scar tissue! Everyone said I would die. I just could not listen to them anymore. Now I had a road map to recovery, something that made sense to me. It provided a clear path to a long life without hepatitis or cirrhosis and a healthy liver. It was a path that I traveled and came out successful on the other side. Today I am over 67 years old and may have lost most of my hair and hormones, but I can still run 6 miles in less than an hour and have vibrant health from my delirious recovery. Do you think it is worth it to be delirious? You bet it is!
Because everyone was calling me delirious and said I was going to die, I decided they were wrong; I made up my mind that I was going to live, plain and simple. Matching to the beat of my own drum I made a point to study everything I could find about people who healed from degenerative diseases without drugs or surgery. In my research I found an enormous number of people like me that had to go on their own. None of them did the same thing. They all found different resources and diet to recover, but there were some common denominators in their daily routine. When I studied those miracle recovery pioneers and learned how they healed, nearly all of them were drinking some sort of fresh vegetable or fruit juice everyday and most of them practiced fasting. They all said juicing daily was the most important practice in getting well. Some said fasting was the most powerful thing they did to help their body. Since then, in the last 25 years it has been widely claimed that juicing fresh fruits and vegetables provides the most dense and abundant nutrition available and fasting can help the body rest, tone and recuperate. An important reason I found, was juicing and fasting help boost your immunity system. Then - a eureka flash! I got an intuitive idea to do both in a better way. What compelled my finding further was the fresher the fruits and vegetables, the more nutritious the juices are and the better my juice fast will be. It was a priority to get my garden productive so I could juice as many fresh vegetables as possible. I would drink fresh juice daily, but experimenting with juice fasting became instrumental in my recovery. I tried different ways of juicing and different ways fasting in many different combinations. Soon I found the right combination that worked. I juiced nearly every day, but decided to juice fast only one day a week. By mid-summer of 1994, I started juice fasting every Friday when my garden was in full swing. I drank fresh juices all the other days but Friday was special, I only drank juice and water on that day. In my garden. I had a loquat tree, blueberries, collards, chard, spinach, peas, carrots, beans etc. I had plenty to get my juicer going. Carrot and apple combination with a lime I found was a nutritious juice for the liver. What most health professionals never talk about is water melon, cantaloupe and honey dew rind to make some of the most powerful and nutritious juices. They are so abundant, because if you eat melon you will have a lot of rind left over. It makes nutritious juice, but like the 100th monkey they just throw the rinds away. Well NOW you heard it from Johnny; juice your watermelon rinds with a carrot, beet and lime. These rinds pack a powerful mineral punch and should not be over looked. After making the fresh juice I took the pulp that was left and put it right into my compost pile, along with grass clippings from my lawn. This made a fibrous loam. All of this vegetable and grass fiber helped make my soil soft and spongy. This was really beneficial for the micro root systems of the plants. Rapidly my viral load went down and everything was thriving; in my compost, in my garden and in my health. Whenever I was hungry on Friday, I would just juice more fresh fruits and vegetables and I did not eat any solid food on that day. In the mornings I juiced the fruits and in the afternoon and evening I juiced the vegetables. I learned that consuming only fresh juices all day once a week as a protocol would work best to raise my immunity response and maintain my stamina. My body got strong. Nearly everything I grew had wastes of stalks or vines after I harvested the vegetables, leaves or the fruit. Many of these stalks were perfect for juicing or they would go right into the compost. I juiced the core of pineapples and I would also juice whole lemons and limes. I would cut the center veins out of collards, chard and kale. These all made nutritious juice and were better used that way and the leaves I would cook, which would be soft and delicious to eat like spinach. The Friday fast became a tradition of mine, 2 or 3 times a month. Friday was important to me because of religious and spiritual reasons. It also was the end of the week and the fast calmed my mind. This calming came from my body burning excess fats where toxins are stored. In this mode the body processes both the fats and toxins together and burns them as calories to provide energy for the metabolism. Thus, as a result all the toxins, pathogens and wastes that are in excess and lodged in the system are eliminated. Having less toxins helped me achieve a sense of well being, stress was minimized, no matter what negative circumstance was occurring in my life. Being cleaner, helped me stay in a good mood, my spiritual goals were fulfilled and I was always happy. For healing it is paramount to have a positive mental attitude. I make the best decisions and found that when I did my fast with fresh fruit and vegetable juices my thinking, work and life was so much easier. There were some Fridays however that I did not have the luxury of being at home to use my juicer and fresh vegetables from my garden. Whether I was home or not I would stick to my schedule and do my fast. During those times away from home, I would buy juices from the store and tried as much as possible to avoid the juices that were from concentrates. Even though all juices on the shelf are pasteurized which kills the enzymes, I still got the best juice as I could to get the basic job done of eliminating toxins. Sometimes I would get lucky and find a juice bar or fresh made juice in a store. The body can spend more effort to heal when it is free of the burdens of digestion. With the micronutrients of fresh juice all the enzymes are cleaning away waste deposits throughout the whole system. I always felt better following the day of the fast. The sleep I got was deeper and I wake up with a sense of well being. This is really a great way to keep your immunity response high and keep your mood and spirituality strong, but it was also important to remember how to get ready for the fast to make it more effective. Smart planning for fasting is to prepare for your body temperature to be lower. Remember this during the winter and wear some extra warm clothes on the day of your fast. On these days your body will always get colder. The hot summers works out great because you will not have to turn on the air conditioning so high, if at all. Knowing this in advance helps me plan for the fast day on Friday. On that day if its a cold winter day, I may use that free pass to the YMCA and go to their Sauna or Steam. If it’s in the summer, I will not worry about turning on the air conditioner or getting too cold. Once I get through my fast day, I usually take a hot shower before I go to bed. I sleep so deep and woke up so refreshed. To me Friday is a sacred day. The Juice Fast Friday was the foundation of the maintenance phase of my therapy. In my developed protocol I practice it three to four Fridays a month. On the last Friday of the month I would do my liver cleanse the other cornerstone of my new methodology for the maintenance phase. The real power was to honor our creator since Friday for me is just as sacred as Sunday or any day for that matter. Everyone has their own beliefs, but I honor my higher power that I called God our Heavenly Father and give him thanks. I give the ultimate credit to him, but I have to do my part. After all God helps those who help themselves and I believe he will dwell in my life if I work hard and have a clean and balanced body and mind. So on Fridays it was mostly the juice fast, the liver cleanse and sometimes the water fast. The water fast I do once or twice a year for only 24 hours just like the juice fast. It puts an extreme burden on your body and it will deplete muscle tissue. It is worth it if you are fighting an illness but you have to do it the right way. To make it truly effective, you have to get a supply of potassium during that 24 hour period. A good potassium supplement will help. The rest of the time you drink only water and lots of it. Both for the juice fast and the water fast, I found it helpful to do a colonic in the evening before I go to bed. If you do not have a colonic board, then an enema is the next best thing, it will help. This keeps toxins from being recirculated in your body and you will sleep so deep and heal. Amazingly, you stay healed and happy!.
What to do with bites, cuts, spines or stings? Any injury from a cut, bite or sting that causes unmanageability and immediate extreme stress should be brought to a doctor’s attention by calling 911. Many times minor cuts, bites or stings are not an emergency but they need attention and care. In my early years I was a life guard and took the first aid course offered by the Red Cross. Recently, I was at a friend’s house and saw that same green book from that same course years earlier and they let me borrow their book and study it. It was good to refresh my memory thinking back on those early days when I studied this book for the first time with the first aid and the life saving course. So for management of cuts the conventional wisdom is the wash the area thoroughly with soap and warm water. For bites and stings do the same and after that apply baking soda or meat tenderizer in a water based paste to relieve the pain. On cuts that are not too deep, wash with soap and water and put alcohol on it and cover with a band aid. If the bleeding does not stop then it is not a cut; its a wound and you will need medical attention and possibly stitches. Most of these basic first aid remedies are good, but In some cases these simple solutions of forty years passed can have an improved remedy to achieve the best recovery. To choose the right therapy, it depends on the critter and the cut. Here,I would like to offer more specific recommendations that will be easy to remember and may be helpful in an emergency. I was born and raised on the Northwest Coast of Florida. But I have to admit that when I ran the laboratory in Addison, Texas in the 1980s my car had a bumper sticker that said, “I am not from Texas, but I moved here as fast as could”. Being a newbie, that bumper sticker made the difference blending in with the local folk.Running the laboratory was all part of being in the Lone Star State, however I do miss the ocean. Growing up on the coast we did everything on, in and around the water. Fishing, skiing, scuba diving, surfing, sailing, swimming etc. My Dad always had a motor boat and when he would get time off from his medical practice he would take my family on a boat trip to south Florida, the Keys or the Bahamas. During those those ports of call, my brother and I would go snorkeling or scuba diving to see all the tropical sea life and possibly spear a snapper or grouper for dinner. Sometimes I would go surfing. Unfortunately in the wide open ocean there were dangers lurking in the reefs. So whether I was surfing or diving many times I was exposed to predators like els or sea snakes. I knew about their bites and about the poisonous stings from sea urchins or sting ray’s spine and these dangers made us cautious. Sometimes it was unavoidable when I would be coming back to shore and had to walk through the creature infested shallows. If it was sandy, I would poke and prod the best I could ahead of my next step; like searching through a land mind field before proceeding forward. Sometimes it paid off and a hidden sting ray would swim away and I am glad I never had contact with one. Sea urchins are another matter because if you have to walk through rocks it is particularly difficult not to slip into a crack where the sea urchins are plentiful. It happened one time and yes a sea urchin spine got stuck in my foot. Ouch!!!! This is very painful and needs attention right away. Some people are highly allergenic it can cause them to go into shock. I was fortunate not to go into shock and only get a pounding headache and have my whole foot swell up. The best treatment is to remove as much of the spines as possible with tweezers and a needle. Remember sea urchins, jelly fish, coral and the like excrete polypeptide or protein based toxins. Once the wounded area is thoroughly washed with soap and water the standard treatment is to apply vinegar or witch hazel. But there is a better treatment yet if you are in the tropics eating fruit and have fresh papaya or pineapple and have some meat tenderizer from the kitchen. Take the tenderizer powder with some of the papaya or pineapple fruit and make a paste with the juice and rub it directly on the wounded area. This paste will enzymatically break down and neutralize the toxins that will provide instant relief from the trauma. It will still be painful but the throbbing and trauma will dissipate because the protease enzymes in the fruit coupled with the tenderizer will work rapidly to help neutralize and eliminate the painful chemical neuro-action of the toxin. This is what I did with fresh pineapple and papaya juice mixed with some meat tenderizer with that sea urchin spine that was in my foot when I was in the Florida Keys. Once I got all the spine debris that we could see out I rubbed the paste in over and over again for about 5 or 10 minutes, washing the area several times between the light rubbing. It helped. Try to remember this protocol if you happen to be snorkeling in tropical waters like Cancun and come in contact with jelly fish, coral, sting ray spine or sea urchins. This treatment will be the same. What about Texas? Or what about the wooded areas of California? Here I worry about bee stings, wasp stings and snake bites. If you are a cowboy and then you have on a good pair of leather boots when going out in the bush, so hopefully you will always avoid danger and be protected from a snake bite. However, it would be more likely for you to get a bee sting or a wasp sting. I think back during my childhood spending time with my grandparents who had a farm in the country in South Carolina. There were many expressions that they used that made useful practices easy to remember. For poisonous snakes they said “never trust a diamond back or diamond head or you will be dead” and in the case of a coral snake that is very poisonous, it has a small round head and different colored rings on their body my Grandpa said; “red on yellow can kill a fellow.” This was referring to the arrangement of colored strips. So if you see a red strip next to a yellow strip don’t get near this wiggly. For stings my grandmother said “baking soda bees” and “vinegar witch hazel wasps.” Recently looking into the chemistry I found that these were excellent treatments. If you are like me working in my garden or cleaning out my shed, you might run across wasps and bees. Here are several important things to remember. One, is Bee venom is an acid compound so you want to use baking soda that is a base to help neutralize the acid venom and use it along with soap and water. Wasp venom is alkaline, so you want to use vinegar or lemon juice with soap and water when washing the wasp sting site. Whether a bee or wasp sting once the washing procedure is done and surface drys then put witch hazel on lightly. Being a natural astringent this will help shrink the swelling and sooth the wound. My grand parents were right all along.This is an important distinction which treatment to use that most people don’t know. By using this protocol, you will quickly relieve your discomfort. The key is to neutralize the toxin ASAP. Baking Soda Bees! This will minimize the trauma and healing of the wound will occur much faster. I never found any good natural insect repellant, nor do I use the oils or sprays on my skin. Being a Naturopathic Doctor, I try to avoid all chemicals. It seems that I can swat them just as fast as they come or go. On my runs in the mornings when I pass by a creek there are always deer flies or yellow flies that buzz around me and land on my head and bite. This is painful, but not for long; the result is several dead flies every morning. Oh well, they could leave me alone and lived longer. This process definitely wakes me up after I swat a few. Some creatures we just have to put up with. Poison ivy and poison oak are things I avoid with a passion. I never do well once I get exposed. It takes a while for me to get rid of it. There are several over the counter creams to use. The best protection is prevention, so know your plants. Poison ivy is a ground cover plant that will produce runners and have reddish stems with a pattern of three green leaves. Talk to your neighbors if you do not know what these plants look like. Learn to stay away from them and you will be free from itchy swells. Once you know what they look like, you can avoid them. Working in my garden or in the brush I will from time to time pick up a minor scrap or a cut that does not bleed much. The best remedy I have found for the fastest healing is when I am done with my work, I take a long hot shower and soap up my whole body real good including the cut. Once I get out of the shower and completely dry off I pour hydrogen peroxide generously over the cut. Then I pad it dry lightly and cover it with a band aid. I don’t use alcohol because it is more damaging to the tissue than peroxide. Every morning the first thing out of bed I take the band aid off and pour more peroxide on it and put on a new band aid. I do the same before I go to bed. Morning and evening doing it this way is good to always have a fresh dressing whether its a small cut or healing a wound with stitches. Always change the dressing first thing in the morning and right before going to bed. The hydrogen peroxide brings more oxygen to the site that kills bacteria and accelerates the rebuilding process within the cells of the skin. Oxygen is the key.. Fire ant stings are not quite as dangerous however they are quite irritating. They attack everyone and most people I know would like to eliminate them all together. In the past I have used the commercial ant poison powders but it seems like other ant mounds keep popping up. I wanted to stay away from harsh chemicals anyway and started to use the more natural approaches with various products. Some helped but again, in different places, more ant mounds kept popping up. This really did not solve the problem either. Like with my recovery from hepatitis and cirrhosis, I wanted to get rid of them once and for all. Just like I wanted to get rid of the ants, once and for all. Now I have a fool proof and natural way that got rid of my fire ants. It takes about 3 to six months of treating any mounds you will find, but once they are all treated, the ants will never come back. Its been almost a year and not one mound is in my yard. I did not use chemicals. I got rid of my fire ants by pouring hot chicken juice on the mounds. You see that hot chicken juice with those oils flow through all the ant tunnels and slid all the way to the center of the nest and kill the queen. The whole colony is dead in one swoop and I never have a short supply of the remedy, because I cook chicken in my pressure cooker once or twice a week.. Since I don’t eat the skin or the fat that boils off I just pour the hot greasy juice on an ant mound I find and they never came back. Even if the mound is near one of my fruit trees, no worries, the hot chicken juice just kills the ants not the tree. It leaves a brown spot on the ground, but that eventually goes away too. Ants like bees have a group mind and when the severe treatment of the hot juice and complete annihilation of colonies takes place. If any other mound pops up on the property it gets the same hot greasy treatment too, then trust me; word does get around. The message is clear, “his yard is not a safe place to be in, stay away.” This is ant talk : ) Bottom line is they will be gone forever. What about when you or your kids get those tiny cactus spines that are impossible to see in your skin. These are most uncomfortable. The quicker you remove the spines, the less prolonged discomfort you will experience. But sometimes you may have too many and they are so difficult to see. The solution is simple. For the affected area with the spines cut a small piece of gauze or cheese cloth that is big enough to cover the spine infested area of the skin. Then get some water soluble glue, like simple wood glue or white Elmer’s glue will work fine. Don’t use Super Glue or Gorilla glue, use only water based white school glue. Cover the piece of cloth with the glue and put it on top of the area of skin where the spines are. After 20 minutes or once its dry, then pull it off and all the spines will come with it. This is a quick way to remove every spine stuck in your skin.
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