Secrets to Treating Infections Without Antibiotics
How Selenium Boosts Your Immune System
Thought of the Week
More on Microwaves
Xylitol (an artificial sweetener) Can Poison Your Dog (and Maybe You Too)

For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on remedies which do the job of antibiotics, only much better.

Firstly, I’d like to say that it is perfectly normal for your body to have bacteria. If fact, you’d die without them. And you don’t just have a few, you’re teaming with bacteria.

Bacteria is absolutely vital to life.

Sometimes, when you’re sick, when your immunity is down, the bacteria proliferates into much larger than normal numbers, so you can be mistaken for thinking the bacteria is the cause of your problem.

But, it ISN’T!

It’s only the EFFECT.

The sickness came BEFORE the proliferation.

Focussing on the effect of something, rather than the cause is a bit like trying to mend a broken window frame in a house which is falling down due to rotten foundations.

So antibiotics will never cure a tendency to be sick, even though they appear to clear up symptoms.

When bacteria proliferates into larger than normal numbers, they have a purpose. This purpose is to try to make your body healthy again. And often, given time, will succeed. Particularly if you take time out and rest.

Unfortunately, the pace of modern life puts pressure on you and so you tend not to listen to your body and so don’t recognise when you need to rest.

There is a third alternative. And this is to take an appropriate homoeopathic remedy. When a homoeopathic remedy works, it always works in a healing direction, so works with your body, as opposed to against the body, as do drugs.

So the remedy will rectify the cause, rather than focus on the effect.

But as a budding home prescriber, you may not be able to see the cause of an illness. All you can see is the sickness, the soreness, the discharge, the weariness.

And as practitioners, we can’t always see the cause, either.

Luckily, you can also go by the symptoms.

Many of you will have heard of the remedy Echinacea, because it’s freely available as a herb. And it’s one of those herbs which works just as well as a herbal tincture or a homoeopathic remedy.

The most important healing property of Echinacea is that it works on the blood. It’s called a blood purifier or helps “bad” or “weak” blood.

What does that mean?

Well, infections can arise from open wounds, where blood vessels have been broken. Echinacea has a cleansing effect in open wounds, preventing infection.

Deep bites, which draw blood, can go septic as a tooth or fang has penetrated into the blood stream.

You can take the remedy or diluted tincture orally or wash the wound with the diluted tincture, or preferably both.

As far as the body is concerned, there is no difference between a vaccination and a snake bite. Both can be fatal. So any ailment from a vaccination can be helped with Echinacea.

The uterus can become infected after childbirth, if any part of the afterbirth has remained inside.

Sepsis can result from any infection spreading through the body. The early symptoms are of fever, ie. chills, hot alternating with chills, bleeding, foul smelling discharges, pain at point of infection, general body aches and a great weariness.

Malaria comes from the bite of a certain mosquito and results in fever. Both this cause and the resulting effect point to Echinacea as being a strong contender for malarial treatment.

Gangrene can occur after an infection has gone septic.

This remedy can not only prevent gangrene and sepsis, but can heal them too.

Boils and carbuncles (groups of boils) are often a sign of an infection and this remedy can really help here. Recurring boils, itching, burning, redness of skin all come under its action.

Those needing this remedy will generally be cold.

Although anaemia is a blood disorder, Echinacea heals blood disorders from an invasion of the blood. Anaemia isn’t from an invasion of the blood, it’s more from a genetic imbalance, so is unlikely to help.

Colds and flus are a sign that your body is reacting to being invaded by something, and it’s trying to prevent its entry. So Echinacea can be really helpful  here. It will raise your immunity so your body just isn’t susceptible and you’ll notice your cold fades away.

There are a few different healing properties in the different Echinaceas. We’re talking primarily about the more common angustifolia here, rather than the purpura.

The keynotes of Echinacea are:

• blood purifier, blood disorders, blood poisoning
• keeps open wounds, bites from going septic
• helps with ailments after vaccination (Ledum)
• post partrum infections such as puerperal septicaemia
• sepsis, gangrene from infection
• boils, carbuncles, abscess
• colds, flus
• chilly

Depending on the severity of the malady, the dose of the tincture is 5 - 20 drops in a glass of water. Take 2 - 4 times a day. The more serious the problem, the more the drops and doses. The dose of the remedy is as described in the right hand panel.

If this is the right remedy for you, you will feel relief quickly. If you don’t feel some relief quickly (within the first few doses), move on to the next most appropriate remedy or treatment, as otherwise the consequences can be too drastic.

By the way, capsules aren’t as effective as the tincture or the remedy, as they have been processed. Whenever something is processed, it loses some of its effect. So get the tincture (preferably certified organic) or the remedy. I stock both.

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Talking about your immune system, selenium (from the Greek word moon) is essential to a healthy one. It’s an important trace element, which can be toxic if over consumed - something easily done when taking an isolated and/or synthetic supplement.

Deficiencies can cause all major health problems, including ageing, cardiovascular disorders, diabetes and cancer.

Good selenium sources are most fruit and veggies, but only when they're grown in selenium-rich soil. In much of the chemical reliant agricultural world of today, the soil is poor in selenium. So certified organic or bio-dynamic produce will be much richer in selenium (as well as other minerals).

A good quality spirulina or blue-green algae, such as that indicated in the right hand panel, is rich in selenium in a balanced and easily utilised form.

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Thought of the Week

Stop Being A Glass. Become A Lake!

The Master instructed the unhappy student to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.

'How does it taste?' the Master asked.

'Awful,' said the student.

The Master then asked the student to take another handful of salt and throw it in the lake. The two walked to the nearby lake and when the student swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the old man said,

'Now drink from the lake.'

The student did so and the Master asked, 'How does it taste?'

'Good!' remarked the student.
 
'Do you taste the salt?' asked the Master.

‘No,’ said the young man.

The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, 'The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the 'pain' depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things..... Stop being a glass. Become a lake!'

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Jan sent me this, which I’d like to pass on. Thanks Jan.
Microwave Ovens Need a Government Health Warning
We disregard the health hazard caused by microwaves because of convenience. Scientific research proves that the dangers of microwave ovens include cancer through food conversion to carcinogens.....

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Angel Animals - Sweetened with Xylitol
We want to draw to your attention a request from long-time newsletter subscriber Marcia Wilson.

Marcia's letter told about a harrowing experience a woman had when her dog got into the purse a visitor left on the floor of her home. The dog gobbled up some mint gum that had been sweetened with Xylitol.

This woman did some quick-thinking and induced vomiting in the dog....