Country Bee - Better Health, Mind & Life!

Everybody has heard of Echinacea. It is a flower and is used in many herbal products. The traditional use is for the soothing the common cold but it can also be used to treat snake bites and old or difficult wounds. In fact, any situation where the body is suffering from attack from infection, can be suitable for the use of Echinacea

The use of the plant as a remedy was very popular in the 19th century. Nowadays it is still used for its antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial properties. Even AIDS patients have been given herbal remedies based on the plant.

You may be surprised to know that your body’s pH balance is your first defense against aging and disease. The balance of acid and alkaline in your body directly affects your health. Osteoporosis, for example, is the result of a pH balance problem. As the body becomes more acidic, it takes calcium from the bones, teeth and tissue as it tries to remain healthy. The bone mass becomes depleted, causing osteoporosis. We need calcium to bring the alkaline pH up and the acid levels down.

Although we need an alkaline-based diet for proper health, the typical American diet is full of acid-forming foods: manufactured, processed foods; high fat foods; mucus forming foods; and foods with toxic residues. In addition, stress and lack of exercise create acid-forming conditions. This is a recipe for disaster, and the reason that so many people feel unwell and lethargic.

The good news is that you can improve your health and well-being by choosing a healthy lifestyle. In the process, you’ll slow down the aging process and increase your energy levels. The six keys to vibrant health are:

1. pH Body Balance - Work on a daily basis to maintain your body’s pH balance. There are products available that are tasteless and colorless and can be added to water in order to restore your body’s pH balance by neutralizing acids and allowing your body to detoxify.

2. Water - On a daily basis, ingest at least eight 8-ounce glasses of spring water or water pH balanced at 7 or higher.

3. Release Toxins - Every six months to a year, have a liver/gallbladder flush; have a monthly colon cleansing; and have regular, daily bowel movements through eating a diet high in fiber.

4. Digestion - Eat five to seven small meals a day. Chew slowly and completely, and stop before you are full. Take digestive enzymes and probiotics as needed.

5. Nutrition - Follow a pH balanced diet of 80 percent alkaline and no more than 20% acidic-forming foods at each meal. Eat organic foods in their natural state. Supplement your diet with a natural health supplement containing calcium, vitamins and minerals.

6. Skin Care - Your skin is the body’s natural barrier to infection and it needs to be pH balanced. Clogged pores can cause toxic conditions inside the body. Choose a skin care product that cleans the skin and maintains the body’s natural pH level, and that contains no animal fats, harmful chemicals, or preservatives.

Achieving natural health doesn’t require a miracle; you simply must adjust your body to its proper pH balance, and provide it with the correct amounts of calcium and minerals.

Natural herbal skin care has been the choice of beautiful women the world over for thousands of years. It has only been recently that cosmetic companies have formulated makeup and skin care products that contain chemicals and artificial additives in an effort to improve on the natural herbal skin care regimens that have been around for centuries.

Most people have used Vapor Rub to treat cold symptoms but few people are aware that it can also be used to treat toenail fungus symptoms. Actually Vapor Rub has been used to treat nail fungus symptoms for many years.

Vapor Rub can be applied directly to the affected toenail. The oily substance in the vapor rub makes the toenail soft. The other ingredient, methanol, penetrates the soft skin and kills the fungus. This treatment is most effective if it is used in the early stages of a toenail fungal infection. It may not be effective for some types of nail fungus infections. It is important to understand the type of nail infection you have before beginning treatment so that the most appropriate healing methods can be used.

One of the best things about Vapor Rub is that it is inexpensive and easy to find. There are no negative side effects and most people find the menthol scent soothing. Because it is so safe if you have a nail fungus, Vapor Rub is certainly worth a try.

Other home remedies for nail fungus infections include Listerine, household bleach, hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. Although most people associate Listerine as a mouth cleanser, it has been other uses as well. Listerine can be used as a foot soak that kills germs and helps relieve the symptoms of nail fungus disease. If you use Listerine as a foot soak, then this should be done twice a day as long as symptoms persist.

Vinegars acidic qualities make it a good treatment for nail fungus disease because fungi cannot grow and thrive in an acidic environment. Vinegar can be used in a soaking solution or it can be applied directly to the affected toenail. A small amount of household bleach is sometimes added to the soaking solution for more germ killing and healing action. Some people take two teaspoonfuls of apple cider vinegar every day to help prevent and cure nail fungus infections.

Hydrogen peroxide may be used a foot soak or it can be placed right on the affected toenail. A hydrogen peroxide soak is needed twice a day for thirty minutes each time. Hydrogen peroxide should never be ingested except on the advice of your doctor.

It would be wise to try Vapor Rub and other home remedies to treat your nail fungus infection before investing in expensive treatments.

One antidote to cancer is information

In general our responses to cancer are converging, but very slowly. Presently all cancer authorities are agreed on only one thing:

cancer cannot take hold in a healthy immune system

The World Health Organisation (W.H.O.) is promoting prevention as a better option than treatment and particularly targeting smoking as the highest recogniseable risk area. The Cancer Research Institute (C.R.I.) is seeking vaccines that support the body’s own ability to heal. Alternative and holistic approaches seek to do the same with diet, nutrition, lifestyle and other choices.

Different philosophies of medicine achieve ‘immune support’ in various ways not considered by orthodox Western medicine, which concentrates mainly on ‘drugs and surgery’ as an afterthought to disease, often just adding more toxins and stress to an overloaded system. Alternative treatments take many forms to support the body in its own healing process.

Although we have constant new biological treatments promised, they usually only apply to a small percentage of cancer types. Change in this field is agonisingly slow and in some cases utterly stuck. Medical science is failing to adapt to the new ‘quantum theory’ sciences that see the human body from an energy or ‘vibrational’ perspective. Western ‘allopathic’ medicine continues to refuse integration with other, older medical philosophies such as Chinese, Ayurvedic, Tibetan, Homeopathy, Herbalism or vibrational treatment.

In truth we don’t even have a research methodology that will cope with assessing different treatment forms and levels tuned to an individual patient. So far it is much easier for the orthodox to just deny the effectiveness of alternative ways of healing because they do not make rational scientific sense, than it is to extend their model to include other healing models. The fiscal interest of pharmaceutical companies is also a factor in our lack of access to holistic treatments

The complex cancer situation effects us all directly. One in three people in the ‘West’ now gets cancer at some point. Many factors are combining to aggravate acute degenerative disorders such as cancer or heart disease, the two top killers in the Western World. These expose the unwary to dangers and this includes the toxic side-effects of allopathic treatments - it is emerging that the third biggest killer may be ‘allopathic medicine’ itself !

The Cancer Research Industry

Research shows that in UK every year somewhere between 450 to 500 million is spent on cancer research by the pharmaceutical industries, charitable organisations and government. In US an estimated $14 billion dollars (7.72 billion) are spent. A hard-hitting report published in March 2004 by Fortune, an American business magazine and written by Cliff Leaf, himself a cancer survivor, suggests that for several reasons much of this funding and research is misdirected. He claims that despite a total of $200 billion spent on cancer research since 1971 that mortality rates are basically unchanged. The report was all but ignored by mainstream media.

What if he’s right? What is much of this money is wasted? What if the research is misdirected? What if much of the work serves no real purpose beyond the generation of profit? That would mean that the cancer research industry is one of the biggest bandwagons ever. Despite many more billions spent world-wide on cancer research there seems very little to show for it. After seeing friends and family cut down in their prime by cancer, and its allopathic treatments, this researcher believes that there is something seriously wrong with accepted wisdom on cancer treatment. The author’s local health authority has a twelve million pound overspend this year - the major expenditure? The cost of cancer drugs. Several situations are combining to make cancer a big risk for us all at this time, despite the hard work of many dedicated health service professionals.

Cancer and Orthodox Medical Science

Although medical science has created miracles in dealing with infectious diseases, solving many of the medical problems of the 1940’s and 50’s, the new weapons against acute degenerative disorders are not yet ready. Genetic testing and counselling, gene therapy, nutrigenomics, advanced (subtle and tuned) radiotherapies, cell therapies, therapuetic cloning, cancer vaccines and even anti-aging therapies are a seemingly constant 10 - 15 years away. This is the 21st century and we are still getting 20th century treatments. This leaves us at the moment in a time of high cancer risk with treatments that are often the medical equivalent of cracking a nut with a sledgehammer. The orthodox treatment of cancer is too often as dangerous as the disease itself.

Alternative treatments for cancer are not given a fair hearing. Information is still actively repressed or marginalised from many sources. The subject of Cancer and alternative treatment must be the original can of worms! Its never a good time to get cancer but there are more options than you might think or even be advised from orthodox treatment centres. For example there are many things one can do to supplement (and ease) orthodox treatments with complementary ones. It is unlikely you will be given information on this unless you seek it out yourself.

Although much research on alternatives is often suppressed there are people who can guide you through the minefield of misinformation, disinformation, ignorance, applied self-interest, politics and other complexities in the field of cancer, whatever choices you make. Support is a central issue in any disease and there are increasing options here with many groups ‘online’ helping each other with a variety of treatment forms.

An Integrated Approach to Cancer

The cancer discussion needs opening towards a more integrated medicine that is centred on the patient, but even this discussion is presently marginalised. People are finding each other online and comparing notes, even the drug manufacturing industries are predicting that ‘patient advocacy’ forms a strong part of future medicine. But for true patient advocacy to happen, medical consumers presently need to be at least as, if not better informed than their medical doctors.

There are many options in cancer treatment that are not generally discussed through orthodox medicine. For example group therapy is not widely prescribed or accessible for cancer patients despite the fact that studies show it can actually double survival time. There is mounting evidence of the validity of herbal and nutritional regimes that support the immune system and may complement the sledgehammers of traditional, orthodox treatment, chemo and radiotherapy.

Sometimes complementary therapies are allowed with orthodox treatment but are still limited to only accepted medical philosophies - or that which can be measured through double-blind testing methodologies that basically view every person as the same. The different philosophies of ‘medicalism’ and ‘holism’ - which puts people central to their treatment - are still far apart. This is not a situation that is in any way advantageous for those of us who become patients.

Alternative approaches are viewed at best as unproven and are unresearchable using ‘quantitative research methodologies’. There are many people wanting a more integrated approach to health care than the drugs and surgery promoted by orthodox allopathic medicine. This is shown by the huge number of people who seek complementary and alternative medicines without the knowledge of their doctors. The main research into treatments that address every aspect of disease and patient still takes place in secret because practices that fall outside of standard medical practice and physicians who offer unconventional cancer treatments may be vulnerable to the civil charge of malpractice. Given the modern quantum sciences and other feasible medical models such as those mentioned there are many more realistic options for treatment than we are presently being offered.

It is easy to be overwhelmed in this field, different people giving different information, which you may need to find, understand and act upon, often ‘against the clock’. What is needed is an overview that presents comprehensive information from wide sources in an objective manner.

KOMUSO - the healing art of zen shakuhachi.
I purchased this CD a month ago and just can not recommend this enough. It’s great for relaxation, meditation or as they suggest a form of healing. The sound of the wood shakuhachi flute is simply amazing.

For under $16 you can not beat this CD

You will be surprised at this video; it shows a very unusual nature cure for a toothache. It’s a quick, entertaining video. Who knew these simple ingredients, one of which is Garlic would treat tooth pains. Have a tooth ache check this out…. Press play on the video below!

We have always loved Apple Cider Vinegar for many natural cures and health benefits. From natural cures for such as burn treatments, indigestion, bee stings, skin problems, weight loss and so such much more.

This short video will explain what vingears are best and which ones to avoid. Plus learn how many of the common store vinegars lack what is needed for nature cures.

Another great topic quickly touched upon in this video shows that farmers use vinegar for thier live stock and how it keeps them healthy and virtually eliminates birth defects.

The medical community would have you believe that only drugs can treat and heal acid reflux disease. This is simply not true - there are natural ways to heal this condition. PPI drugs (proton pump inhibitors), like Nexium, Prilosec, Prevacid and Protonix should only be be taken for eight weeks, at most. Doctors are aware of this, but most patients continue to take these drugs on a permanent basis. Unfortunately, there are no studies determining what the long term effects of these drugs are on the human body.
PPI drugs actually shut down the pumps that produce the stomach acid necessary to digest food. You have to wonder how the human body digests and assimilates food properly without stomach acid. How does a body remain healthy without the proper digestion of food? Is this natural?

We’ve had a few readers submit home cures & remedies. Quite a few on teeth care. We want to share some of the ways you can whiten your teeth at home safely & cheaply. Please always use common sense when using any of these suggestions!

Misty writes:
Ingredients: Lemon Juice, Baking soda
Instructions: First of all, brush your teeth as usual. Next, take your
wettened toothbrush, put baking soda on it,then put a dab of lemon juice on it (the baking soda will begin to fizz) brush your teeth with it. rinse with water. do this everyday and you will DEFINITELY see the results! GUARANTEED!