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Vitamins and Teenagers: A Personal Statement
by Stephen H. Brown, PhD

(OMNS, Jan 26, 2010) In our house, vitamin supplements sit on the counter in open bowls like nuts, dried fruits, or jelly beans.

Colds, respiratory illnesses, intestinal viruses, mono, and other infectious diseases are constantly present in American schools. In response, my teenage kids have placed four bowls on the kitchen counter - a large one in the middle full of vitamin C surrounded by three smaller bowls of niacin, vitamin D, and thiamine tablets. They help themselves to the vitamins when they feel the need, and many of their friends have adopted the idea as well. Regularly, the kids report that the vitamins actually work. The most frequent comments are, "Wow, I can breath through my nose again!", and "I was sure I was getting sick yesterday but I feel fine today."

How did this start? My father introduced me to vitamin C as a teenager and I was further inspired by Linus Pauling's "How to Live Longer and Feel Better." (1) In order to safely raise my kids on extra vitamins with maximum effectiveness, I started actively researching orthomolecular medicine. As a result, I advised my teenage children to focus on responsive dosing of four vitamins that are underrepresented in modern diets. I provided the following suggested daily doses as a starting point:

6000 mg of vitamin C
4000 IU of vitamin D
200 mg of thiamine
250 mg of time-release niacin

There is an obvious association between vitamin intake and poor health. Teenagers can understand this. Some might think that it is not good parenting to let teens have unfettered access to nutrients. We need to constantly remember that these and other vitamins are non-prescription for a reason. (2) As previous Orthomolecular Medicine News Service articles have pointed out (3), vitamins are remarkably safe. They are far better then sugary candy, fast foods loaded with sodium and fat, or caffeine-laced soft drinks.

Vitamin supplements have been widely available for only a few decades. For the first time, families have the ability to independently control intakes of essential nutrients. A very large amount of research has repeatedly shown that proactively controlling micro-nutrients is necessary to optimize health.

Easy access, peer acceptance, and occasional obvious usefulness, in that order, appear to me to be important motivators for teenagers. I am hopeful that my kids are more sensitive to their own health and the health of their friends, and are looking for an association between supplement use and improved health.

The kids know I'm the family "expert" on vitamins and I have occasional in depth conversations. I rarely maintain their interest. Vitamins have not, in my opinion, taken health care's center stage because this theory is not particularly exciting. But you can prove it works by giving it a fair trial.

The vitamin revolution is about behavior. I don't care why the kids take vitamins B1, B3, C, and D. I just care that they take them, and stay well as a result. Watching my children and their friends independently control their vitamin intake has been a turning point for me. I believe that my kids are ordinary kids and that most kids will respond similarly.

Media scare stories aside, the overwhelming scientific evidence is that we are living in a time of epidemic vitamin deficiency. Supplements correct that when food groups eating does not or can not. Deficiency of just these four vitamins is often responsible for the multitude of disorders that qualify children for special education and asthma medication. Later in life, inadequate vitamin intake clearly contributes to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, excessive dental cavities, anorexia, depression, dementia, and sleep disorders. Persons wishing to confirm or question this statement are encouraged to look at the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service archive, freely accessible at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml .

With the stakes so high, all methods of increasing consumption of these four vitamins are worth consideration. My kids have definitely benefited from supplemental vitamins. I'm hopeful that other parents will find this simple option equally useful.

(Stephen H. Brown received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale. He has worked for industry in the field of heterogeneous catalysis since 1988 and has 80 patents. Dr. Brown has been blogging at www.cforyourself.com since 2006, and contributing to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service since 2007.)

References:

(1) Reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/livelonger.html .

(2) Bronstein AC, Spyker DA, Cantilena LR Jr, Green JL, Rumack BH, Giffin SL. 2008 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers' National Poison Data System (NPDS): 26th Annual Report. Clinical Toxicology (2009). 47, 911-1084. The full text article is available for free download at http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/Portals/0/2008annualreport.pdf . Vitamins statistics are found in Table 22B, journal pages 1052-3. Minerals, herbs, amino acids and other supplements are in the same table, pages 1047-8.

(3) More than 75 OMNS news releases are available at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (Canada)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (United Kingdom)
James A. Jackson, PhD (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D (Sweden)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Canada)
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

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Wednesday, January 6

Be the Expert On Vitamin C

by Barb Kaiser on Wed 06 Jan 2010 09:51 AM CST

I know of 3 people who have recently come down with pneumonia. Being low in Vitamin C increases ones risk for contracting pneumonia, so it makes a lot of sense to take higher than normal doses of vitamin C when you have pneumonia. The recommendation for the average healthy adult is about 3 grams a day. But that is just an average. And it is for healthy individuals. Need goes up with illness and the duration of the illness is related to what nutrients you have on board for you body to work with to heal you. Many people need more, much more!

I try to take 6 grams a day, and when I don't I have back problems.
Yes, that's related too! (but another article)

The goal for taking the right amount of vitamin C is reaching bowel tolerance. Take increasingly higher doses of vitamin C throughout the day until you develop loose stools or an upset gut, then back off to the next lower dose. At this point I just don't take anymore until my gut has calmed down. Think "titration." Remember high school chemistry? You want to continue taking regular doses of vitamin C without ending up with diarrhea or a really nauseated feeling. You will be surprised at how much vitamin C it may take to reach bowel tolerance.

Don't expect your doctor to know this or " believe in it". (See article below) The studies are out there, but why would he/she look for them when they can write a prescription for an antibiotic? Unfortunately many cases of pneumonia are viral, in which case antibiotics will not work on the pneumonia, though they might prevent a secondary infection.

Vitamin C & vitamin D taken in recommended higher doses go a long way in protecting you and your family from "what is going around."

Thanks again to Orthomolecular Medicine for pointing out in the article below a great irony of contemporary medicine's attitude about vitamin C today.

Two other great references for learning about all the incredible things vitamin C can do for a body are as follows:
"Clinical Guide for the Uses of Vitamin C" by Frederick Klenner MD
The Healing Factor: Vitamin C Against Disease by Irwin Stone

You may want to load these onto your computer to keep or even print them off. Both are lengthy, but well worth the read.

Other articles by other researches are listed at the bottom of the following article. Just follow the links and you too will become and expert in Vitamin C!

Wishing you great health in the New Year,
Barb Kaiser RN BSN, Holistic Health Consultant
High-Dose Vitamin C Therapy Proven Effective

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, January 5, 2010

High-Dose Vitamin C Therapy Proven Effective
"My doctor doesn't believe in vitamins." Since when is medicine based on belief?

(OMNS, January 5, 2010) The medical literature has virtually ignored 75 years of physician reports and laboratory and clinical studies on successful high-dose vitamin C therapy.

Effective doses are high doses, often 1,000 times more than the US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) or Daily Reference Intake (DRI). It is a cornerstone of medical science that dose affects treatment outcome. This premise is accepted with pharmaceutical drug therapy, but not with vitamin therapy. Most unsuccessful vitamin C research has used inadequate, low doses. Low doses do not get clinical results.

Investigators using vitamin C in high doses have consistently reported excellent results. High doses were advocated almost immediately after ascorbic acid was isolated by Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, M.D. (1893-1986). Notable early medical pioneers of high-dose vitamin C (ascorbate) therapy are Claus Washington Jungeblut, M.D. (1898-1976); William J. McCormick, M.D. (1880-1968); and Frederick R. Klenner, M.D. (1907-1984). More recently, important work has been published by Hugh D. Riordan, M.D. (1932-2005) and Robert F. Cathcart III, M.D. (1932-2007).

It Was 75 Years Ago Today

Dr. Jungeblut, Professor of Bacteriology at Columbia University, first published on vitamin C as prevention and treatment for polio, in 1935. (1) Also in 1935, Jungeblut showed that vitamin C inactivated diphtheria toxin. (2) By 1937, Jungeblut demonstrated that ascorbate inactivated tetanus toxin. (3) Between 1943 and 1947, Dr. Klenner, a specialist in diseases of the chest, cured 41 cases of viral pneumonia with vitamin C. By 1946, Dr. McCormick showed how vitamin C prevents and also cures kidney stones; by 1957, how it fights cardiovascular disease. Beginning in the 1960s, Dr. Cathcart used large doses of vitamin C to treat pneumonia, hepatitis, and eventually AIDS. For more than three decades, beginning in 1975, Dr. Riordan and his team have successfully used large doses of intravenous vitamin C against cancer. The use of doses of tens of thousands of milligrams of vitamin C per day may be the most unacknowledged successful research in medicine.

Heard this one before? "If vitamin C was that good, doctors would tell their patients to take a lot of it." It is surprising how many physicians have done precisely that.

What's that? Your doctor still doesn't?

Why? Decades of physicians' reports and controlled studies support the use of very large doses of vitamin C.

References:

(1) Jungeblut CW. Inactivation of poliomyelitis virus by crystalline vitamin C (ascorbic acid). J Exper Med 1935. 62:317-321.

(2) Jungeblut CW, Zwemer RL. Inactivation of diphtheria toxin in vivo and in vitro by crystalline vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Proc Soc Exper Biol Med 1935; 32:1229-34.

(3) Jungeblut CW. Inactivation of tetanus toxin by crystalline vitamin C (l-ascorbic acid). J Immunol 1937;33:203-214.

For More Information About:

Dr. CW Jungeblut: Claus Washington Jungeblut, M.D.: Polio pioneer; ascorbate advocate. J Orthomolecular Med, 2006. Vol 21, No 2, p 102-106. http://www.doctoryourself.com/jungeblut.html

In addition to (1) above, Dr. Jungeblut's other polio papers include:

Jungeblut CW. Vitamin C therapy and prophylaxis in experimental poliomyelitis. J Exp Med, 1937. 65: 127-146.
Jungeblut CW. Further observations on vitamin C therapy in experimental poliomyelitis. J Exper Med, 1937. 66: 459-477.
Jungeblut CW, Feiner RR. Vitamin C content of monkey tissues in experimental poliomyelitis. J Exper Med, 1937. 66: 479-491.
Jungeblut CW. A further contribution to vitamin C therapy in experimental poliomyelitis. J Exper Med, 1939. 70:315-332.

Jungeblut's research published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine is available for free access at http://www.jem.org/contents-by-date.0.shtml

Dr. FR Klenner: Hidden in plain sight: the pioneering work of Frederick Robert Klenner, M.D. J Orthomolecular Med, 2007. Vol 22, No 1, p 31-38. http://www.doctoryourself.com/klennerbio.html and http://orthomolecular.org/hof/2005/fklenner.html

Dr. WJ McCormick: The pioneering work of William J. McCormick, M.D. J Orthomolecular Med, 2003. Vol 18, No 2, p 93-96. http://www.doctoryourself.com/mccormick.html and http://orthomolecular.org/hof/2004/wmccormick.html

Dr. RF Cathcart: http://orthomolecular.org/hof/2008/cathcart.html; http://www.doctoryourself.com/titration.html and http://www.doctoryourself.com/biblio_cathcart.html

Dr. HD Riordan: http://orthomolecular.org/hof/2005/hriordan.html; http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n09.shtml; http://www.doctoryourself.com/riordan1.html and http://www.doctoryourself.com/biblio_riordan.html

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
Damien Downing, M.D.
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D.
Steve Hickey, Ph.D.
James A. Jackson, PhD
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D.
Erik Paterson, M.D.
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D.

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

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Sunday, December 27

Two Great Health Secrets

by Barb Kaiser on Sun 27 Dec 2009 04:37 PM CST

Two great things you can do for your health are:
1) become part of something bigger than yourself
2) help someone else.

These are not suggestions you will generally hear from your doctor, (though perhaps you would from a therapist) and yet these are vital for health.

View Video

Using the computer can both increase isolation or broaden your world. Studies show that human connection is a vital component of health. Hours spent on line, excluding real people can diminish health. Conversely, the ability to establish community on-line can help others as we share common experiences, differences, problems, & triumphs.

The Internet can also help you take action to help others right from your own home. Feeling good about helping others changes your chemistry, which changes your vibration. Healing is about changing your chemistry and increasing your vibration.

There are lots of ways to do that; healthy food, water, supplements, herbs, exercise, meditation, prayer, community, EFT, laughter, love.....(& more) Thankfully, the list is extensive and possibly limitless!
You have more control and hope than you may be aware of!

Just a reminder folks-- if you have received information that you found helpful on this site and would like to show your appreciation, I would ask that you consider passing along the benefit you received by considering helping to support Elimu Africa, which supports schools in Tanzania.

My friend Kristy went there to work a few years ago and was so moved by the people there that she came home, and with the help of others started ElimuAfrica, a non-profit organization to help the many children who grow up in great poverty and would otherwise not receive an education. She like many others who have been there fell in love with these "lovely, joyful people" and was inspired to help to create something bigger than herself.

We so often take for granted what we have: schools, availability of paper, pens, books, computers, easy access to online information. Our kids can even get tutoring right through the computer at sites like StudyBeat.

In the abundance that surrounds us,
let us not forget the many who have so little,
And that the school, teacher, homework, and books that our kids grumble & complain about,
make up an education that is highly prized around the world;
not something to be dreaded at the end of Christmas vacation.

As you are placing your end of the year donations, please consider Elimu Africa.

Donations can be made by check or on line.
Even small donations are helpful to these families who live on a a dollar or two a day.

Thank you,
Wishing you good health in the New Year,
Barb Kaiser, RN, BSN, Holistic Health Consultant

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Tuesday, December 15

Oh Say Can You C

by Barb Kaiser on Tue 15 Dec 2009 12:56 PM CST

I am a big fan of Vitamin C as you can tell from many of my articles including the last one.
I thought I would pass this great article from Orthomolecular.org along because it further explains the wonders of Vitamin C. The baseless fears of Vitamin C held by many in the medical community are also explained away. The bottom line is many illnesses could be handled at home and without dangerous pharmaceuticals if more people understood the need for increased levels of vitamin C both as a preventative and a cure.
The article contains a nice guideline for using vitamin C during illness.
I've used less and still gotten great results. I like Natrol's Ester C.
Remember: bowel tolerance.

Thanks to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service for this article.

Wishing you health though out the holiday season and beyond,
Barb Kaiser, RN, BSN, Holistic Health Consultant

Putting the "C" in Cure: Quantity and Frequency are the Keys to Ascorbate Therapy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, December 15, 2009

PUTTING THE "C" IN CURE:
Quantity and Frequency are the Keys to Ascorbate Therapy

Comment by Andrew W. Saul
Editor-In-Chief, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service

(OMNS, December 15, 2009) What is it about a little left-handed molecule of six carbons, six oxygens, and eight hydrogens that ticks off so many in the medical community? Maybe it's cases like this one: Ray, a health professional I know, had an 11-month old son who was very sick for over a week. No one, and I mean no one, in their family had had any sleep in a long time. They were up night after night with this child, who had a high fever, glazed watery eyes, tons of thick watery mucus and labored breathing. The child would not sleep, and did little else but cry. The baby was under the care of a pediatrician, who, in the infant's eleven months on earth, had already prescribed twelve rounds of some very serious antibiotics. That they clearly were not working was all too apparent to Ray, who out of desperation decided to try something he previously had been taught to not try: bowel tolerance quantities of oral ascorbate. Ray and his wife gave their baby vitamin C about every 15 minutes. As a result, the baby was noticeably improved in a matter of hours, and slept through the night. With frequent doses continuing, the child was completely well in less than 48 hours. Ray calculated that the child had received just over 2,000 mg vitamin C per kilogram body weight per day. This is even more than what vitamin C expert Dr. Frederick Robert Klenner customarily ordered for sick patients. Remarkably, at 20,000 milligrams of vitamin C/day, that baby never had bowel-tolerance loose stools. (1)

With such a little body, you have to marvel at where all that ascorbate was going. Of course, it is the opinion of those who promulgate the US RDA and related nutritional mythology that almost all of that baby's vitamin C went uselessly into the toilet. Ray and his wife would tell you differently. They would say that their sick child soaked it up like a sponge, and then promptly got better. You choose the answer that works for you.

Quantity of Dose

Dr. Frederick Robert Klenner earned his MD from Duke University School of Medicine and was subsequently board certified in diseases of the chest. (2) A working summation of Dr. Klenner's therapeutic use of vitamin C is 350 milligrams vitamin C per kilogram body weight per day (350 mg/kg/day), in divided doses. (3) Since a kilogram is about 2.2 pounds, this translates to:

mg of Vitamin "C" Body Weight Number of Doses Amount per dose

35,000 mg 220 lb 17-18 2,000 mg

18,000 mg 110 lb 18 1,000 mg

9,000 mg 55 lb 18 500 mg

4,500 mg 28 lb 9 500 mg

2,300 mg 14-15 lb 9 250 mg

1,200 mg 7-8 lb 9 130 - 135 mg

Although these quantities may seem high, Dr. Klenner actually used as much as four times as much for serious viral illness, administered by injection. The oral doses listed above are, for the doctor, comparatively moderate.

Frequency of Dose

For those unable to obtain intravenous vitamin C, it is essential to pay special attention to one of the most important aspects of vitamin C therapy: dividing the dosage improves absorption and retention of vitamin C. High oral doses of vitamin C yield higher blood levels of the vitamin, and dividing the oral doses maintains those higher levels. Although initially seeming almost too obvious to mention, these are not self-evident concepts. Many a medical website and government-based dietary recommendation hinge on ignoring them. Hilary Roberts, PhD, writes: "Stressed and even mildly ill people can tolerate 1,000 times more vitamin C, implying a change in biochemistry that was ignored in creating the RDA. In setting the RDA, unsubstantiated risks of taking too much vitamin C have been accorded great importance, whereas the risks of not taking enough have been ignored. Real scientists understand that 'no scientific proof' is a fancy way of saying 'we don't like this idea.'" (4)

And there is ample proof to not like. Vitamin C, in very high doses, has been used to successfully treat several dozen illness (5), with a published, peer-reviewed literature spanning the last 60 years. Therefore, the effectiveness and safety of megadose vitamin C therapy should, by now, be yesterday's news. Yet I never cease to be amazed at the number of persons who remain unaware that vitamin C is the best broad-spectrum antibiotic, antihistamine, antitoxic and antiviral substance there is. Equally surprising is the ease with which some people, most of the medical profession, and virtually all of the media have been convinced that, somehow, vitamin C is not only ineffective but is also downright dangerous.

Bias against Ascorbate Therapy

When you pick up a health or nutrition book and need to know really fast if it is any good or not, just check the index for "Klenner" and three other key names: Cathcart, Stone, and Pauling. Robert F. Cathcart, an orthopedic surgeon, administered huge doses of vitamin C to tens of thousands of patients for decades (6), without generating a single kidney stone. Irwin Stone, the biochemist who first put Linus Pauling onto vitamin C, is the author of The Healing Factor: Vitamin C against Disease. (7) Pauling cites Stone thirteen times in his landmark book How to Live Longer and Feel Better (8), a recommendation if there ever was one. The importance of vitamin C's power against infectious and chronic disease is extraordinary. To me, omitting it is tantamount to deleting Shakespeare from an English Lit course.

Because of such bias, the primary way patients (and through them, their physicians) have been exposed to Dr. Klenner's work has been through Dr. Lendon Smith's 68-page Clinical Guide to the Use of Vitamin C: The Clinical Experiences of Frederick R. Klenner, M.D. (9) Upon discovering this book, one of my undergraduates submitted a paper to another class discussing a substantial number of medical references she had found on vitamin C as a cure for polio. That course's instructor told me privately that the student's work was absurd, and he literally described her as a "dial tone." I recall a nutritional presentation I made to a hospital staff. All was going well until I mentioned using vitamin C as an antibiotic, as Dr. Klenner did. The mood changed quickly. And how many of us have heard this old saw: "If vitamin C was so good, every doctor would be prescribing it!"

Cardiologist Thomas Levy, MD, explains: "I could find no mainstream medical researcher who has performed any clinical studies on any infectious disease with vitamin C doses that approached those used by Klenner. Using a small enough dose of any therapeutic agent will demonstrate little or no effect on an infection or disease process." (10)

Preventive Doses

Dr. Klenner recommended daily preventive doses of 10,000 to 15,000 mg/day. He advised parents to give their children their age in vitamin C grams (1 g = 1,000 mg). That would be 2,000 mg/day for a two year old, 9,000 mg/day for a nine year old, and for older children, a leveling-off at about 10,000 mg/day. As for me, I simply say, "Take enough C to be symptom free, whatever that amount may be." It worked for my family. I raised my children all the way into college and they never had a dose of any antibiotic. Not once.

It is high time for medical professionals to welcome vitamin C megadoses and their power to cure the sick. Cure is by far the best word there is in medicine. It would seem that you cannot spell "cure" without "C." I do not think Dr. Klenner would dispute that.

(Andrew W. Saul taught nutrition, health science and cell biology at the college level, and has won three New York State teacher fellowships. He is the author of Doctor Yourself and Fire Your Doctor! and, with Dr. Abram Hoffer, co-author of Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone and The Vitamin Cure for Alcoholism. Saul is featured in the documentary film Food Matters.)

References:

(1) Bowel tolerance as an indicator of vitamin C saturation is discussed by Dr. RF Cathcart at http://www.doctoryourself.com/titration.html and http://www.doctoryourself.com/cathcart_thirdface.html

(2) For more about Dr. Klenner's life and work: http://www.doctoryourself.com/klennerbio.html

(3) Klenner FR. The significance of high daily intake of ascorbic acid in preventive medicine, p 51-59, in: A Physician's Handbook on Orthomolecular Medicine, Third Edition, Roger Williams, PhD, ed. Keats, 1979.

(4) Hickey S and Roberts H. Ascorbate: The science of vitamin C. 2004. ISBN 1-4116-0724-4. Morrisville, NC: Lulu.

(5) http://www.doctoryourself.com/vitaminc.html

(6) http://www.doctoryourself.com/biblio_cathcart.html

(7) The complete text of Irwin Stone's book The Healing Factor is posted for free reading at http://vitamincfoundation.org/stone/

(8) Pauling L. How to Live Longer and Feel Better, revised edition, 2006. ISBN-13: 9780870710964. Reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/livelonger.html

(9) The full text of Dr. Frederick R. Klenner's Clinical Guide to the Use of Vitamin C is posted for free reading at http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/198x/smith-lh-clinical_guide_1988.htm

(10) Levy TE. Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins: Curing the Incurable. Livon Books, 2002. ISBN: 1-4010-6963-0 and 978-1401069636

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

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Friday, December 4

Sinus Infections? Quick Relief on the Way

by Barb Kaiser on Fri 04 Dec 2009 12:14 PM CST

Are you to prone to getting sinus infections?

There are a number of reasons that this may be, but if you are coming down with a sinus infection or already have one, you maybe looking for some fast but natural relief. The article at the bottom of today's blog is from Orthomolecular.org & is about Vitamin C which can be used immediately to help your sinus suffering.

Vitamin C has been bad mouthed by the parts of the Medical and Pharmaceutical Establishments over the last few years(again), but what remains true is that Vitamin C is a remarkable nutrient that most of the animal kingdom makes in abundance. It helps them to both prevent illness and quickly overcome illness when sick.

Somewhere along the way our human ancestors and thus modern man lost the ability to make vitamin C. ( Corey Holly and I jokingly call it "Humanity's Fall from Grace") and now we must consume it to stay healthy. But consuming it in the amount that the rest of the animal kingdom makes naturally would be impossible with out the help of supplementation.

The average adult should have a minimum of 3 grams (That's 3000mg in case you forgot how to convert) daily. Many people need more than that, much more.

The Traditional Approach: Expensive, Ineffective, & Time Consuming
Several years ago I had a sinus infection and did the traditional route...went to the doctor and got a prescription for Zithromax. It had worked well in the past. But this time, while my symptoms cleared, the day after I stopped the medication the symptoms began returning. So back to the pharmacy for another Rx... at $70 dollars a pop. $140 dollars later, plus, the cost of decongestants and tissues-- so upwards of & $150...My symptoms again returned. Desperate, frustrated, & annoyed, I turned to a Vitamin C Flush.

The Royal Vitamin C Flush: Effective, Fast & Cheap

I began to take vitamin C (500-1000mg) hourly the first day( while awake). Every 2 hours the 2nd day , every 3rd hour the 3rd day and every 4 hours the 4th day. My symptoms were reduced by 50% the 2ND day and 98% by day 4. This was not the typical flush, but I gauged it by bowel tolerance as explained in the article and it is easy to remember. I also drank at least 8 glasses (12 oz each of water) & eliminated sugar. ( Today I would add a pinch of sea salt to that water)
Note: There are other flushes on the Internet that follow a different protocol, that require less vitamin C. I had been sick for 3 weeks and felt I was pretty depleted.You may want to look at the others before trying one.

Precautions for Natural Antibiotics and Prescription Antibiotics

I don't use the Flush on a regular basis & I have not used prescription antibiotics since then either. I actually have worked to increase my immune system and root out the cause of the frequent sinus infections. Sometimes I do use natural antibiotics such as olive leaf extract or grapefruit seed extract. These work very well and quickly. But, be sure to treat them as you would an antibiotic-- in other words- ttake them consistently and for a full course, generally a week to 10 days.

Follow them up with a probiotic or a good live culture, no-sugar-added yogurt to replenish the good bacteria killed off in your gut. Take the probiotic or yogurt a minimum of double the number of days you took the natural antibiotic. Staying on the probiotic yogurt or cultured food will only enhance your immune system. So incorporating it into your daily healthy eating and supplementing is even a better idea.

I also have a series of other methods I use when I feel a sinus problem coming on that I think work quite well to nip it in the bud. I would rather prevent the onset of a sinus infection than have to do the flush or antibiotics( natural or otherwise)

Keep a Netti at the Ready!

Using a Netti pot has been a great boon to my sinuses. I boil filtered water in a tea kettle, both to sterilize it and to get rid of chlorine, & then let it cool to room temp. or slightly warmer. I measure out 2 cups of water in a Pyrex pitcher and add 1/4 tsp of regular non-iodized table salt (not sea salt) & 1/4 tsp baking soda. Mix . Pour into Netti Pot and irrigate sinuses.

Basic Solution for Irrigating
1/4 tsp table salt (non iodized)
14 tsp baking soda ( bicarbonate)
2 cups of warm water

Irrigating your nasal passages can take a little getting used to, but it is not hard to do. Directions come with the Netti pot. The fluid is about the same salinity as your nasal passages and the bicarbonate is alkaline, which is good for healing. The fluid will moisten and plump up any cells that are dried out, due to low humidity (your heater provides that) or even dehydration. If your tissues are swollen it will help to decrease that. It cleans out the bacteria, virus or fungi, any of which can cause an infection. Flushing your sinuses also clears out allergens which can mimic some symptoms of infection and set you up for a real infection.

So, you don't have to know what is causing your sinusitis; infection or allergy. Flushing or irrigating your sinuses can provide relief for both.

Also, something else I do that I find easy, inexpensive and effective is that while irrigating my sinus passages with the basic solution, I also frequently add some alternating components:

I will add a drop or 2 of SSKI ( iodide) to the Basic Solution of a full Netti pot and irrigate.
Then a few hours later I will add 1/2 a tsp of Xylitol( which you may find at your local grocery or healthfood store, if not go to Swansons) to the Basic Solution and irrigate. The reason I don't do them together is that the Xylitol causes the cells in your nose to become slick so that the infective agent or irritant cannot stick to them. It's just my theory, but it makes sense that if you use the Xylitol first the iodine may pass right through without connecting to the receptor sites on the cell walls.. I like to get the iodine in first because iodine kills, bacteria ,virus, and fungi.
All cells in the body have receptor sites for iodine, not just the thyroid as was previously thought and is still espoused by mainstream medicine.

Travel Tips to Stay Healthy

You can go out and buy a product called X-clear which contains Xylitol and spray it in your nose, but I feel that irrigating sinus passages reaches a larger area. X-clear is convenient to use before and during travel to help prevent all that bacteria/viral laden recirculated air on airplanes from setting up business in your nose and making you ill on your trip. I would recommend too that you increase your vitamin C and vitamin D prior to, during, and for a few days after your trip.
See videos at left side and read article to learn more about Vitamin D

Okay, now to really learn about Vitamin C don't miss the Orthomolecular.org article that follows.
If you are home from work dealing with sinus problems, read it today because if you did what I do for my sinuses, tomorrow you're going to feel like going to work! :)

If you found this article helpful & would like to show your appreciation, please remember Elimu Africa (read Get Some, Give Some) as a way to continue the circle of giving. Thank you!

To your Good Health,
Barb Kaiser RN, BSN
Holistic Health Consultant
<studio4moms@gmail.com>

Thank you to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service for the following article:

This article may be reprinted free of charge provided 1) that there is clear attribution to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, and 2) that both the OMNS free subscription link http://orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html and also the OMNS archive link http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml are included.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, December 3, 2009

Vitamin C As An Antiviral:
It's All About Dose

(OMNS, December 3, 2009) One of the most frequent questions from Orthomolecular Medicine News Service readers is, Just how much vitamin C should I take?

Our bodies cannot make vitamin C (ascorbate), although most animals can. We must get it from our food and from supplements. But how much do we really need? Persistent arguments on this question may be settled by looking at how much vitamin C animals manufacture in their bodies. The answer is: quite a lot. Most animals make the human body-weight equivalent of 5,000 to 10,000 milligrams a day. It is unlikely that animals would have evolved to make this much vitamin C if they did not need it and use it. Indeed, cells in many human body tissues concentrate vitamin C by 25-fold or more over blood concentration.

Each person's need for vitamin C differs because of differences in genetics and individual biochemistry [1,2,3]. Further, our bodies undergo different stresses, and we certainly eat different foods. Therefore, the daily need for ascorbate to maintain health for an adult varies between 2,000 - 20,000 mg/day. Linus Pauling personally took 18,000 mg of vitamin C daily. Although he was often ridiculed for this, it is interesting to note that Dr. Pauling had two more Nobel prizes than any of his critics. He died at age 93. Abram Hoffer, MD, a colleague of Pauling's, took megadoses of vitamin C and successfully gave it to thousands of patients over 55 years of medical practice. Dr. Hoffer died at age 91.

Antiviral Function
When we are challenged with a viral infection, our need for vitamin C can rise dramatically, depending on the body's immune function, level of injury, infection, or environmental toxicity such as cigarette smoke [4,5]. Ascorbate at sufficiently high doses can prevent viral disease and greatly speed recovery from an acute viral infection. Surprising to some, this was originally observed by physicians in the 1940s and has been verified and re-verified over the last 60 years by doctors who achieved quick and complete recovery in their patients with ascorbate mega-doses [5]. The effective therapeutic dose is based on clinical observation and bowel tolerance. Clinical observation is essentially "taking enough C to be symptom free, whatever that amount may be." Bowel tolerance means exactly what you think it means: the amount that can be absorbed from the gut without causing loose stools. [5,6]. Very high doses, 30,000 - 200,000 mg, divided up throughout the day, are remarkably non-toxic and have been documented by physicians as curing viral diseases as various as the common cold, flu, hepatitis, viral pneumonia, and even polio. [4,5,7]. On first reading this may sound incredible. We invite interested persons to read further, starting with the references listed below, and especially Dr. Frederick R. Klenner's Clinical Guide to the Use of Vitamin C. This short book is posted in its entirety at http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/198x/smith-lh-clinical_guide_1988.htm .

Mechanism For Ascorbate Antiviral Effect
Several mechanisms for vitamin C's antiviral effect are known or suggested from studies [4,8]. The antioxidant property of ascorbate promotes a reducing environment in the bloodstream and tissues, enhancing the body's response to oxidative stress from inflammation [9], thereby helping to fight microbes and viruses that propagate in stressful conditions [10]. Ascorbate has been shown to have specific antiviral effects in which it inactivates the RNA or DNA of viruses [11,12,13], or in the assembly of the virus [14].

Vitamin C is also involved in enhancing several functions of the immune system. Ascorbate can enhance the production of interferon, which helps prevent cells from being infected by a virus [15,16]. Ascorbate stimulates the activity of antibodies [17], and in megadoses seems to have a role in mitochondrial energy production [18] . It can enhance phagocyte function, which is the body's mechanism for removing viral particles and other unwanted debris [4]. White blood cells, involved in the body's defense against infections of all types, concentrate ascorbate up to 80 times plasma levels, which, if you take enough vitamin C, allows them to bring huge amounts of ascorbate to the site of the infection [4]. Many different components of the immune response, B-cells, T-cells, NK cells, and also cytokine production, all with important roles in the immune response, are enhanced by ascorbate [19-23]. Additionally, ascorbate improves the immune response from vaccination [24,25].

Summary
Vitamin C at high doses is effective in preventing viral infection and enhancing recovery. Several mechanisms are known, including specific viral anti-replication processes and enhancement of many components of the body's cellular immune system. When taken at an appropriate dose in a timely manner, ascorbate is our best tool for curing acute viral illness.

References:

[1] Williams RJ, Deason G (1967) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 57:1638-1641. Individuality in vitamin C needs.

[2] Pauling L (1986) How to Live Longer And Feel Better, by Linus Pauling (Paperback - May 2006) ISBN-13: 9780870710964

[3] Hoffer A, Saul AW (2009) Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone: Megavitamin Therapeutics for Families and Physicians. ISBN-13: 9781591202264

[4] Levy TE (2002) Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins. ISBN-13: 9781401069636

[5] Hickey S, Saul AW (2008) Vitamin C: The Real Story, the Remarkable and Controversial Healing Factor. ISBN-13: 9781591202233

[6] Cathcart RF (1981) Vitamin C, titrating to bowel tolerance, anascorbemia, and acute induced scurvy. Med Hypotheses. 7:1359-1376.

[7] Klenner FR (1979) The significance of high daily intake of ascorbic acid in preventive medicine, in: Physician's Handbook on Orthomolecular Medicine, Third Edition, 1979, Roger Williams, PhD, ed., p 51-59.

[8] Webb AL, Villamor E (2007) Update: Effects of antioxidant and non-antioxidant vitamin supplementation on immune function. Nutrition Reviews 65:181-217

[9] Wintergerst ES, Maggini S, Hornig DH (2006) Immune-enhancing role of vitamin C and zinc and effect on clinical conditions. Ann Nutr Metab. 50:85-94.

[10] Kastenbauer S, Koedel U, Becker BF, Pfister HW (2002) Oxidative stress in bacterial meningitis in humans. Neurology. 58:186-191.

[11] Murata A, Oyadomari R, Ohashi T, Kitagawa K. (1975) Mechanism of inactivation of bacteriophage deltaA containing single-stranded DNA by ascorbic acid. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 21:261-269.

[12] Harakeh S, Jariwalla RJ, Pauling L (1990) Suppression of human immunodeficiency virus replication by ascorbate in chronically and acutely infected cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 87:7245-7249.

[13] White LA, Freeman CY, Forrester BD, Chappell WA (1986) In vitro effect of ascorbic acid on infectivity of herpesviruses and paramyxoviruses. J Clin Microbiol. 24:527-531.

[14] Furuya A, Uozaki M, Yamasaki H, Arakawa T, Arita M, Koyama AH (2008) Antiviral effects of ascorbic and dehydroascorbic acids in vitro. Int J Mol Med. 22:541-545.

[15] Gerber, WF (1975) Effect of ascorbic acid, sodium salicylate and caffeine on the serum interferon level in response to viral infection. Pharmacology, 13: 228.

[16] Karpinska T, Kawecki Z, Kandefer-Szerszen M (1982) The influence of ultraviolet irradiation, L-ascorbic acid and calcium chloride on the induction of interferon in human embryo fibroblasts. Arch Immunol Ther Exp (Warsz). 30:33-37.

[17] Anderson R, Dittrich OC (1979) Effects of ascorbate on leucocytes: Part IV. Increased neutrophil function and clinical improvement after oral ascorbate in 2 patients with chronic granulomatous disease. S Afr Med J. 1;56476-80.

[18] Gonz lez MJ, Miranda JR, Riordan HD (2005) Vitamin C as an Ergogenic Aid. J Orthomolecular Med 20:100-102.

[19] Kennes B, Dumont I, Brohee D, Hubert C, Neve P (1983) Effect of vitamin C supplements on cell-mediated immunity in old people. Gerontology. 29:305-310.

[20] Siegel BV, Morton JI (1984) Vitamin C and immunity: influence of ascorbate on prostaglandin E2 synthesis and implications for natural killer cell activity. Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 54:339-342.

[21] Jeng KC, Yang CS, Siu WY, Tsai YS, Liao WJ, Kuo JS (1996) Supplementation with vitamins C and E enhances cytokine production by peripheral blood mononuclear cells in healthy adults. Am J Clin Nutr. 64:960-965.

[22] Campbell JD, Cole M, Bunditrutavorn B, Vella AT (1999) Ascorbic acid is a potent inhibitor of various forms of T cell apoptosis. Cell Immunol. 194:1-5.

[23] Schwager J, Schulze J (1997) Influence of ascorbic acid on the response to mitogens and interleukin production of porcine lymphocytes. Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 67:10-16.

[24] Banic S (1982) Immunostimulation by vitamin C. Int J Vitam Nutr Res Suppl. 23:49-52.

[25] Wu CC, Dorairajan T, Lin TL (2000) Effect of ascorbic acid supplementation on the immune response of chickens vaccinated and challenged with infectious bursal disease virus. Vet Immunol Immunopathol. 74:145-152.

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

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Thursday, December 3

Get Some; Give Some

by Barb Kaiser on Thu 03 Dec 2009 04:20 PM CST

If you have used this site to help you deal with a health problem over the last few years I would like to ask you a favor:

Studio4moms site gets about 3500 hits a month, of course all of you aren't here because you want to be, but a lot of you are. You are reading about nausea and vomiting, lice, preventing the flu and how to get the most out of a doctor visit and numerous other topics.

If you have enjoyed reading these articles &/or have derived benefit from some of the suggestions and would like to show your appreciation, please head over to Elimu Africa where my friend Kristy has been working hard to help support schools in Tanzania to educate a number of children in the hopes of breaking the chains of poverty..

I know there is some helpful information for free at Studio4moms. And it is because of this it is my hope that you will feel compelled to donate to Kristy's cause. I am no sort of sales person for myself, but I don't mind asking for someone else. Heck! I don't even mind using a little guilt (must be my Catholic upbringing)

Even a very small donation would be helpful. Elimu Africa is a legitimate non-profit organization. Their tax number is available on the site along with instructions on how to donate.

When you read about the kids being helped through Elimu Africa you will really feel appreciative of what you have and what we take for granted... like being able to look up health advice for free from the comfort of our own homes.

Please remember what you have freely received; you now have an opportunity to continue that circle of giving...

Hope you all had a wonderful and healthy Thanksgiving!

Barb Kaiser RN, BSN,

Holistic Health Consultant

studio4moms@gmail.com

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You are Probably Vitamin D Deficient

by Barb Kaiser on Thu 03 Dec 2009 10:14 AM CST

Just when you think you know it all.... you don't. This is a good thing for us all to remember and especially our medical and nutritional communities.
(and of course the government goes without saying!)

The Take Home Message is:
1) We need much more vitamin D than previously thought.
2) One sized does not fit all! Age, weight, health, body size, activity, location affect the amount you need.(and possibly other considerations not yet known!)
3) We could wipe out Vitamin D deficiency in a year and thus reduce many illnesses.
4) I bet that would do more to help health care than all the plans devised in Washington & it would be a heck of a lot cheaper!
5) Consider joining the study of vitamin D available at Grass Roots Health

The following video is about the need for vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin. Turns out we need a lot more than previously thought because Vitamin D may help prevent many more health conditions than we were aware of. The information on the benefits of Vitamin D is coming out fast and furious. Your doctor and certainly your insurance company ( and our government) are not keeping up with it. So that leaves it up to you .... mostly moms. It is too important to ignore.

This is a bit long but certainly entertaining and very informative. So blow off the nightly news (if it is really important-- you'll hear about it tomorrow and the day after) and sit down and watch this 58 minute video) Because unlike most of the news, this will affect your life, your children's, your spouse's, your friends', and family's.

Here are some other resources to learn about vitamin D.

Mercola on vitamin D: ( another very good video!)

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/12/16/my-one-hour-vitamin-d-lecture-to-clear-up-all-your-confusion-on-this-vital-nutrient.aspx

Grass Roots Health

Vitamin D Health

Here's to Our Collective Good Health,

Barb Kaiser RN,BSN, Holistic Health Consultant

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Thursday, October 15

Vitamin Deaths Can't Compete With Medication Deaths

by Barb Kaiser on Thu 15 Oct 2009 03:21 PM CDT

With all the bad press that supplements still get ( amazing!) in the news media and even still within the "hallowed halls" of medicine or medical research, I thought I would pass this along. What's even more remarkable is that those who would attack the safety and efficacy of supplements often hand out medication with little regard to the statistics that showed that properly and improperly prescribed medication reached the third leading cause of death in America within this decade. I am researching what the statistic is today, but I am guessing it isn't much better... so far no luck. If you find something up to date, please pass it along.

I gotta ask, do these guys live under a rock?

To Your Good Health, (Remember to take your vits!)

Barb Kaiser, RN, BSN, Holistic Health Consultant

No Deaths From Vitamins or MineralsThis article may be reprinted free of charge provided 1) that there is clear attribution to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, and 2) that both the OMNS free subscription link http://orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html and also the OMNS archive link http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml are included.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 14, 2009

No Deaths From Vitamins or Minerals
Poison Control Statistics Prove Supplements' Safety

(OMNS, October 14, 2009) There was not even one death caused by a vitamin or dietary mineral in 2007, according to the most recent statistics available from the U.S. National Poison Data System. The 132-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers published in the journal Clinical Toxicology shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin. (1)

Furthermore, there were zero deaths in 2007 from any dietary mineral supplement. This means there were no fatalities from calcium, chromium, zinc, colloidal silver, selenium, iron, or multimineral supplements. There was one death from chronic overdose of magnesium hydroxide, commonly known as the laxative/antacid milk of magnesia, and it was inappropriately listed in the "dietary supplement" reporting category. Nutritional supplements do not contain magnesium hydroxide.

Over half of the U.S. population takes daily nutritional supplements. Even if each of those people took only one single tablet daily, that makes 154,000,000 individual doses per day, for a total of over 56 billion doses annually. Since many persons take more than just one vitamin or mineral tablet, the numbers are considerably higher, and the safety of nutritional supplements is all the more remarkable.

61 poison centers provide coast-to-coast data for the U.S. National Poison Data System, which is then reviewed by 29 medical and clinical toxicologists. In 2007, NPDS reported 1,597 fatalities from drugs and other ingested materials. Not one death was due to a vitamin or dietary mineral supplement.

If nutritional supplements are allegedly so "dangerous," as the FDA and the news media so often claim, then where are the bodies?

References:

(1) Bronstein AC, Spyker DA, Cantilena LR Jr, Green JL, Rumack BH, Heard SE; American Association of Poison Control Centers. 2007 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers' National Poison Data System (NPDS): 25th Annual Report. Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2008 Dec;46(10):927-1057. Full text article available for free download at http://www.aapcc.org/DNN/Portals/0/NPDS%20reports/2008%20AAPCC%20Annual%20Report.pdf Vitamins statistics are found in Table 22B, journal pages 1027-1028. Minerals are in the same table, page 1024.

For Further Reading:

Download any Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers from 1983-2007 free of charge at: http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/NPDS/AnnualReports/tabid/125/Default.aspx The "Vitamin" category is usually near the very end of the report.

For more information:

-->

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

OMNS is a service of : www.orthomolecular.org, 3100 N Hillside Ave, Wichita KS 67219

To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

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Tuesday, September 1

Barb's Buying-a- Dishwasher-Guide Update

by Barb Kaiser on Tue 01 Sep 2009 02:16 PM CDT

Well I have had my new KitchenAid dishwasher for about a week and I am happy to report it does an excellent job.

I am still not thrilled about the tall tub. I did put my wooden cutting board in there just to try it out & it does fit nicely. However, it also dries out the board and required a lot of oiling, so I won't be doing that again. I will add that I think that adding two inches rather than 4 to the height of he tub would have allowed a number of other slightly larger items to be placed in the dishwasher, but would have not lowered the appliance to such an extent that it required more back strain. It would have been a happy compromise. Perhaps that will change the next time dishwashers are redesigned.

An added note about LG dishwashers; a well informed source, who shall remain nameless ( to protect his job) told me that LG has had nothing but problems with the LG Dishwasher. In the short amount of time it has been on the market it has been redesigned 3 times! I believed he termed it " he worst dishwasher on the market." I don't know if that is true, but it didn't do a good job on my dishes and there were, of course, the rest of my complaints in the last article. He wouldn't have one in his kitchen nor would he put one in for his mother.

Good enough for me. And I fell vindicated!

One thing I forgot to mention in the previous article is the new design for the placement of the dishwasher controls. Some companies are putting them on the very top 1 & 1/2 inch band that closes under the counter. On my counters it fits right out of sight and that can be a problem both to program.. you always have to open the door to program the washer and if your dishwasher happens to be very quiet. When you barely hear it run and you cannot see any lights or lack there of, if your dishwasher isn't running it may not be apparent to you. Three hours later after you thought you ran the cycle through and you are getting ready to unpack the dishwasher, you may find that you have a tub full of dirty dishes yet.

Barb Kaiser,RN, Holistic Health Consultant
( & chief disherwasher @ the
Kaiser Haus with over 40 years of experience doing dishes, and therefore expert)

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Sunday, August 23

Barb's Buying a Dishwasher Guide

by Barb Kaiser on Sun 23 Aug 2009 05:18 PM CDT

1) It can't be Green if it's built with "planned obsolescence"
2) Buying new racks for your dishwasher is a real racket.
3) Let's not Tip-Toe
4) Not all change is good- Tall Tubs
5) Prong Spacing Changes Ahead: Beware
6) Optical Illusions Happen- Don't Believe Everything You Read
7) How to Stem Wine Drinking - A New Goal in Dishwasher Design?

1) It can't be Green if it's built with "planned obsolescence"
Our house & thus dishwasher are 6 years old this October. We already need a new dishwasher. This really bugs me because I grew up with the same dishwasher that worked for over 10 years for a family of 8. That means it ran fully loaded, 3 times a day. Today's dishwashers, and I expect tomorrow's dishwashers cannot and probably will not keep up with that kind of performance. I'll tell you, if "green" is really important to these companies then they will stop building appliances with planned obsolescence. An appliance should last more than 6 years. Our 6 year old Whirlpool was used at most twice a day and often only once a day. That tells you that the appliances built today have about one third the life( and that's being generous) that they could have or used to have. We need to change that to be a green, sustainable society.

2)Buying new racks for your dishwasher is a real racket.
If a dishwasher is going to break down by year six, you can expect the decline to start earlier and our Whirlpool dishwasher was noticeably deteriorating after one year. The plastic on the dishwasher racks started to come off and the prongs eroded away leaving a rusty stumps. We had the low end version of Whirlpool put in by the builder Wilshire Homes. Thanks again, Wilshire.

I looked into replacing the racks, but found they cost in the vicinity of $200! Please! The dishwasher probably didn't cost much more than that... so we waited till it stopped doing a reasonable job of cleaning to replace the whole thing.

3) Let's not Tip-Toe Around it:

Tip#1: Tip #1 is very important, but like the manufacture and probably you, I forgot it.
It is this: of all the appliances you use in your house, this one is probably the one that is used the most and is the most labor intensive. Because of this you should plan on looking even a little longer for and being prepared to pay a little more on this particular item than you might with other appliances. Make sure it fits your needs and you will be happy with it. You are going to be spending a lot of time with it, hopefully ( kind of like a spouse- you probably don't want the first thing that comes a long, right?)
Tip #2: Don't by the low end product. In a year you will wish you spent a bit more.
Tip #3: Buy a model with the nylon racks; they last longer
Tip#4:If you are building, pick out a better dishwasher than what the builder will put in or hold off having the builder put one in & have it put in later. Don't forget that if you have the builder put in a higher end model you will pay dearly for it, but you'll never see the price tag. You will just pay interest on it for the next 30 years.
Question:What is the interest on a $700 dishwasher paid over 30 years?
Answer: I don't know, I am still wondering how much I actually paid for the cheapo- version plus 30 years interest.
Tip#5: bring a tape measure on your shopping trip.. Measure your dishes and wine stem diameters before shopping if you plan on buying an LG and/or possibly other brands. Be sure and write them down because you will most surely forget such forgettable information.
Tip #6 really goes without saying: but I'll say it anyway : don't believe everything the salesman tells you, even if he is really nice& really knowledgeable. Check for yourself
Tip#7: Is as important as Tip #1: shop at a store that has a good return policy just in case, because unlike your spouse, you can't divorce your dishwasher.

4) Not all change is good- Tall Tubs
Dishwashers today have changed since 6 years ago and not for the better!
I can tell from the design of today's dishwashers that the people who design them either
a) never do the dishes or b are midgets! (no offense to midgets) They have designed what is call a "tall tub" which is on average about 4 inches taller than the previous tub. Sounds like a good idea until you actually use it, or for that matter stop to think about it.
Here's the problem: 4 inches means having to bend over another 4 inches and not just once, but every time you put something on the bottom rack. They have also made dishwashers deeper ( which is actually a good idea).( Hey, I am not all about complaining. I can recognize a good idea and give credit where it is due) The dishwasher of yesterday held about 12 place settings I was told... I really think they are wrong about that though. I suspect it was more like 8, based on my family's usage. None the less, I was told that today's dishwashers hold between 16 and 24 place settings. Again I don't know if that is actually true, but you get the picture. They are suppose to hold more.* However, adding 4 inches to the height of the tub doesn't really increase the number. It is the depth to the back of the tub which is responsible for the increase in number. The depth has changed from 20 inches to 22 inches. The width has remained stable.
* I checked the booklet-- even the drawing shows only 11 dishes of one kind. Point taken. It holds more but it does not hold 16-24 place settings. (See tip #6)

Here is what adding 4 inches of height does: it provides 4 more inches of space vertically and you could conceivably put a platter or larger cutting board in the dish washer.

Barb's Barb? Well, I rarely have anything that big to put in the dishwasher. My cutting boards are wood and I don't put them in the washer. It's not good for them.
For the rare occasion of putting something that large in the washer ( and I still haven't figured out what it would be) here is what I have sacrificed:

My back. I now have to bend over 4 more inches each and every time I put something in the dishwasher. At the extreme end that is 24 large dishes , 24 small dishes, 24 bowels, 24 forks, 24 knives, 24 spoons, & various preparation and serving stainless ware. I 'm not going to do the math, but I can see that's over 100 times of bending over another 4 inches. So to recap: an extra 4 inches 100 times a day, 365 days a year and let's say at least 6 years!
It doesn't take a rocket scientist nor even an ergonomic specialist to know that that much bending over ( and twisting is always involved too) is bad news for ones back! And if you don't believe that that actually makes a difference then you might also take note: If you buy a machine with a nice arched handle on it, stand in front of your dishwasher while wearing flip-flops and open the door, it will slap down the tops of your feet( where you have more nerve endings than in your shins. Ouch! I was just getting the hang of not hitting my shins with the door.

I am flexible. I can bend over with my hands flat on the floor, knees perfectly straight, but that doesn't mean I want to do it over a hundred times while packing and unpacking the dishwasher!
It is incredibly annoying. I have spent over $600 on machine that every time I bend over I am reminded how much I don't like packing & unpacking the dishwasher. Before I never even thought about it. Imagine how much I enjoy the thankless, never-ending-job of cleaning the kitchen now! And my back is feeling it. If ever there was a recipe for a back injury this is it. I predict a rash of repetitive back injuries9 called dishwasher back , of course) complicated by the emotional upset and aggravation of a stupid design by a possibly well-meaning, but thoughtless-and- unhelpful-around-the-house-and-especially-kitchen design engineer, (most of whom I feel fairly certain are men.) Sorry guys... my husband and my dad excluded... I know a lot of you don't help pack the dishwasher. I am guessing the designers don't either. Or perhaps they are just a sadist. In any case probably for the next 402,000 times , that's me packing & unpacking the dishwasher for the next 6 years I am going to think how much I don't like the designer( ooh...bad karma) and since I don't know who he/they is/are, I will just blame LG. You may, of course, insert the name of your dishwasher's maker since they all bought into this stupid idea of a design.

Even the sales man had to agree with me, but unfortunately that is all that is available in the stores, except the low end Whirlpool which I started out to replace! argggh!!!

Now let us not forget the last change to which you should be cautioned:

Not All Change is Good-Prong Spacing Changes Ahead: Beware

Hey! Look the prongs on the dishwasher rack are closer together. I am sure the designer thinks that means you can fit in more dishes.Wait! This is the same guy who doesn't do dishes. Should we believe him??? Have you learned nothing?

Most of us who buy dishes know that dishes come in a variety of thicknesses. I have had dishes as thick as Stoneware in the past, but now own thin, shatters-into a million-tiny shards-when dropped-on-tile-but-otherwise-are-indestructible Correlle. Guess which fits better (not great) into the prongs that our now closer together?
My LG dishwasher is the one with the close prongs. The others, fortunately, have not caught onto this short sighted change.( no pun intended) And this is a big reason why my LG is going back to Best Buy. Thank Goodness Best Buy has a great return policy. (See tip #7.) You can avoid this problems if you buy just about any other brand, unless they all get on the same band wagon.

5) Optical Illusions Happen
The picture provide by the manufacturer about how to pack your dishwasher's top rack is very possibly not based in reality. Even though we have all seen a comic book with Superman lifting a train engine, we also know that it does not actually happen. And likewise, you shouldn't be surprised when you are unable to place 10 bowels on the top rack flanked on either side by cups, as depicted by the manufacturer's guide.

6) How to Stem Wine Drinking - A New Goal in Dishwasher Design?
Not only does the guy who designed the machine not do the dishes, but very likely does not drink wine because the rack that settles over the wine stem doesn't fit our wine glasses. It begs the question why he put it there in the first place. Maybe his boss is a wine drinker and told him to put one in. But again, like the dishes -he didn't realize that not all wine glass stems are not the same diameter. I actually pulled out a tape measure just now and measured the discrepancy for accuracy sake. I own several styles of wine glasses.. The diameter of the wine stems vary from 3/8ths of an inch to 1/2 inch and sometimes that variation occurs on the same glass if the stem is tapered, for example. However the slot to hold the wine stem is an incredible 1/4 inch. I dare say I have never seen a wine stem that thin and if there are they would be broken in short order!

What to Do?
I can't do anything about the "tall tub" except warm up my back with stretches to keep up with the demands of filling the dishwasher and (continue taking extra vitamin C which helps prevent back injuries and do some EFT to help reduce my anger at the designers), or just have my kids always fill the dishwasher (I like that I idea!)

I will encourage you however, if you agree with the extra 4 inch problem to complain to manufacturers. I am sending a copy of this letter to several of them. I'll let you know if they respond Ha!
Not that it will do me any good anytime soon. They are delivering the new Kitchen Aide dishwasher and taking away the other new LG dishwasher this Wednesday.

I found myself envious of my mom's old Kitchen Aide. It is 6 years old, runs great, does not have a tall tub, doesn't have rusted out stubs for prongs. It was the deciding factor in my replacement dishwasher. I hope they haven't gone the way of Maytag.

Hope that helps( you from making the mistakes I made)
Barb Holistic Health consultant & Frustrated Dishwasher Shopper

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Friday, August 21

Barb's Barbs Update

by Barb Kaiser on Fri 21 Aug 2009 02:18 PM CDT

Well I went back to the ATT store today because my phone still wouldn't hold the voice mail number.Ii was told by a different sales associate that if that happened I should assume the problem was with the account and that I should come back in again( that's the third time) and they would deal with it.

Fortunately the sales rep. I dealt with yesterday was not there. I had come to suspect that he was more the problem than ATT.

First of all a couple of corrections: My phone cost $29.99 not $39.99 after discounts and rebates, and the rebate was $50, not $70. This made me think that the cost of the box valued incredibly at $50 might have something to do with the coupon on the box.
I was assisted by a very knowledgeable and friendly sales rep who informed me that some of the things I was told about ATT's policy were incorrect. for instance; if my or my daughter's phones continued to have problems the restocking fee would be waived after the third trade out. And while that is an inconvenience, it is definitely better than being told that I could continue to trade out the phone for the same model as many times as needed.

I still have issues with a restocking fee for a product that does not do what it should, but I can understand that it can take time to adjust to the complexities of the phone and the company would rather not rush in and replace it with a different brand when the problem is the customer adjusting to the new technology. Some things may not be actually functional problems. For instance finding the "zoom" on the camera took the sales rep. quite a bit of time, but she did find it. I was beginning to think that the phone only brought it up occasionally & was malfunctioning. I was wrong.

On the other hand, $50 for the box? That still baffles me. Perhaps Best Buy absorbs some of the costs because their sales reps don't work on commission or they have enough other products that they can absorb the lost costs associated with now having a "used phone"
Even the ATT manager whom I discussed my frustrations with admitted that actually understanding the thinking behind the policy was complicated and not all that clear to him. I can live with that. What I had difficulty with is an uninformed, impersonal sales rep. passing along erroneous information and seeing my frustrations and questioning him multiple times it never occurred to him to seek out a higher authority to offer another,better explanation or possibly admitting that he did not understand the policy himself.

Acting like the automaton extension of the company will bring down reactions some people might otherwise save for the faceless corporation they do not trust and or like, but feel they must do business with occasionally.

My daughter did a job very similar to his so I restrained myself from coming really unglued, but the man across the counter from me did not. I don't know what his beef was but he did tell that sales rep. to cancel his account even if it was going to cost him more.
He said he was fed up with coming in a dealing with his problem. At least he didn't curse at the rep. That does happen and that is unfortunate.

So, so far things are working ok.
I will delay the details of shopping for a dishwasher for the next entry.

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Thursday, August 20

Barb's Barbs

by Barb Kaiser on Thu 20 Aug 2009 08:11 PM CDT

On the list

1) LG cell phone

2) LG dishwasher

3) ATT- the store

I haven't done a Barb's Barb since I first started this blog, not that there haven't been things to complain about, but today was an expensive, exasperating day, so I am letting loose.

And who will be the target of my barbed tongue and furious fingers? None other than the same company I purchased both my cell phones and dishwasher from; LG. And not to be let off the hook the company that sold me the phones, ATT. I have nothing but high praise for the company who sold me the dishwasher however; Best Buy. I May save the dishwasher barbs and warnings for tomorrows blog so if you are looking for a new dishwater, hold off till you read some of my tips. You will be surprised to hear what has changed (and not for the better) in dishwasher world.

Back to the phone. Our cell phone plan was coming to an end and we decided to update our phones. I was perfectly happy with my old phone. It had no camera ( I have two already; a nice 35 mm and a digital) What do I need a camera phone for? And the family and friends con viced me that texting would be very hand. It is scary how much I use it now.

The problem? We bought 3 LG phones and none of them function without flaws of one kind or another. My phone will not hold the voice mail number for more than 24 hours. It is a nuisance, but not terrible. It also doesn't delete things when it says it has. No... I can assure you I was doing it correctly . It WAS the phone that malfunctioned. It takes a very long time to start up and sometimes it will not shut down even when I hold the button for near a minute. Those are just the things I know about and since I am not a kid who is on it all the time it is very possible that I have just scratched the surface of what is wrong with it. Is there something wrong with me that I expect the electronic equipment to work?

My daughter's phone would turn off while she was texting. Considering that all our phones take up to 45 seconds to start up, that is a considerable problem when it happens repeatedly. The other daughter says hers isn't running properly either, but neither did her other phone so she is used to it. ? It destirbs me that her generation or maybe it is just her thinks its oka y for it not to function properly whe it is new. My husbands phone ( it isn't LG) wouldn't turn off either. He finally had to take the battery out of it.

Now what gives? If it isn't functioning properly now is it going to get worse over time? That is my concern. So it is only 3 weeks since we bought the phones and I took 2 out of the 3 back. Really now, if you brought 3 of the same items from any company and none worked properly wouldn't you assume that that company had put out a poor product? and more than likely yo would think you are a fool to buy another one. I am thinking lemons.

Remember: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me?

I was shocked when I was told I would have to pay a $35 restocking fee, if I wanted to change brands. Excuse me? but a $35/phone fee for a phone that doesn't operate correctly and to top it off, because we had tossed the box there was another $50 fee for the box!!! OUTRAGEOUS! The box is worth $50?!!*&^%$%#$#@!!! ( that was what I was thinking) and pretty much said without the expletives. I was very bluntly and rudely told that was the policy and the young me slapped down the card board cut out that stated the policy. I asked if it was on our paper work and he replied it was on the sales receipt. Hello? you only see that after they have your money. And it does not tell you how much you are going to be in for if you throw away the damn box.

So if the 3 of us wanted to trade our phones for something that might actually do what it says it would do, it would cost us $255. That is quite a racket( I mean business model) you have going there. And at this point I don't know if it is LG or ATT or both.

Give me a break. In what world do you have the right to a) charge a restocking fee for something that is not functioning properly and needs repair? and at lone shark rates?

Believe me I will be checking into the lemon laws of my state after I post this blog. That is quite a business model you have going for yourself. Following that plan any scheister who sells a piece of crap but posts a notice that there is a restocking fee like yours could do a pretty good business.

I was also told that everyone does that. To which I informed him that Best Buy does not charge a restocking fee. I don't think he believed me, but right after this encounter I did go to Best Buy and not only do they not charge a restocking fee, but they don't have the stupid rebates that you require you to send in all the documentation in order to get your $70 savings. They just charge the same low rate without rebate. So my phone at ATT was advertised for $39.99, but that was after you deducted the rebate. The upfront cost was $109.99

Best Buy sold that phone for $39.99 when you sign up for the plan. Same phone, same carrier; ATT. Go figure?!

Needless to say I won't be doing business with the ATT store again, unless I have problems with my cell phone. The young man assured me that I can bring that cell phone in as many times during the first year as I needed and we can change it out an unlimited number of times. Thanks, just what I want to spend the year doing.

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Wednesday, May 6

Is EFT Just the PLacebo Effect?

by Barb Kaiser on Wed 06 May 2009 06:26 PM CDT

View Videos:1) MD Praises EFT
2) EFT & Knee Pain

Trying EFT for the first time seemed like and exercise in the ridiculous & I guess it might have been if it hadn't helped my problem. The moment I finished tapping through the protocol, I felt nothing different. I still felt the same anger I had fumed over for the last 5 hours, 3 of that on a long walk. But then...

I went out to the kitchen to talk with my daughter. When I got there I saw a can of garbanzo beans and thought, " I'll make some hummus. John likes hummus." That was when it hit me. The thought of John-- who had been the object of my stomping around the neighborhood, no longer made me angry. In fact I suddenly realized his point of view had some validity, and further I recognized that I was pulling something from our past and plopping it down as a "done-deal" into our future. I was afraid something that happened long ago was going to happen again. "That's not fair," some distant, wise part of my brain said.

I made the hummus and offered it up as 'truce hummus". It went over better than expected; it was a hit.

Normally in the past our struggles have resulted in 5 days of silence, eventually working the problems out, but at great expense of energy and peace. I don't have those kinds of reserves anymore, & I have decided that that way of relating is not making either of us happy.

Enter EFT. Emotional Freedom Technique.

What is it?
EFT is a way of tapping on certain acupuncture/pressure points while focusing on a specific feeling and in doing so helping to release or reduce that feeling. That's the simple explanation.

You can use it on all sorts of things like physical complaints, such as backaches, head aches, bruises, joint pain, allergic response, just too mention a few.
You can also use it on emotional issues. It is even being used successfully on dieters, addictions, for clients with PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,and other emotionally charged areas.
You can use it on your pets, and babies. There are no side effects, and it is free to use on yourself. There are individuals, oftentimes therapists, councilors, etc that are certified in using EFT and they will charge for the service. The results are often quite dramatic.

I use a lot of supplements and they can do amazing things for the body, but they can be expensive too. And like medication, sometimes they don't really address some issues.

Recently a friend of my daughter's got poked in the eye. Not that serious, but she has an odd reaction to her own tears and gets very red and blotchy around her eye. She says it feels like lots of pressure and I think there may be some burning and itching. This happened when we were at a festival. Homeopathic remedies would have been helpful for such a thing, but they were all at home. So I offered to do some EFT. A couple of minutes later her eye had returned to normal.

My daughter said that the friend thought it was "just the placebo effect" and perhaps it was.
But is there anything wrong with that?

What is the placebo effect? Wikipedia defines it as a "sham medical treatment." How unfortunate, but that does reflect the general attitude.

It's a funny thing that medicine often scoffs at the placebo effect..
.... Oh its just the body doing what we hope it would do. Heal itself, comfort itself. Darn body!

My feeling has always been surprise, amazement, & dismay that so many in the medical community berate the placebo effect when I think they should be pouring millions of dollars into studying how it works and how can we elicit a placebo response all the time.

Wouldn't that be great? No meds? fewer surgeries, your body in its top peak healing-machine-mode. Let's not forget that the body heals itself without our intervention much the time. Sometimes it needs some assistance from a specialist, like a doctor or therapist...
Oh... there's the catch. If we could get our bodies to heal our illnesses, reduce or get rid of our pains and discomforts... what would the point of medicine be and the drug industry in particular? Perhaps that explains the belittlement of the placebo effect.

When I was in nursing school I learned that the placebo effect accounted for up to about 35% of the positive outcomes for medical treatment, including medication & surgery.
Imagine my surprise and yours too, to learn that in some cases up to as much as 70-90% of positive outcomes have been attributed to the placebo effect.!

When a medication is getting a 70 % positive response rate that is considered excellent. However, it begs the question, how much is caused by the placebo effect? You won't hear much out of the drug companies about that.

So frankly it doesn't concern me that my daughter's friend thinks that "it was just the placebo effect" If EFT provides a reliable way to tap into the placebo effect (no pun intended), then so much the better.

However, the placebo effect explanation does not explain why it works so well on animals and babies.

If you go to Emotional Freedom Technique Website you can down load a basic instruction Manuel for free and start after you read it. There is a low cost DVD course also available. But you don't need it to get started. This is the founder's site (Gary Craig) and should be your first stop.

If you have a specific problem you may want to Google the problem and EFT and see if you come up with a video, usually on You-Tube of a person doing EFT. They will walk you through the steps and help you find the words to say. There are a lot of videos can get stared quickly.

Here are some other websites that may be helpful.
Emofree.com
Try It On Everything.com
Tapping.com
EFT-Therapy.com

Wishing you the Best in Health,
Barb Kaiser RN/BSN/ Holistic Health Consultant

PS. I tried it on nausea and it helped

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Tuesday, April 7

Is Fluoride Discoloring Your Child's Teeth?

by Barb Kaiser on Tue 07 Apr 2009 12:45 PM CDT

Video on fluoride in water

This is such a disturbing video and there are several books out by reputable people about the dangers of fluoride in our water. Discoloring teeth, though dismaying and possibly unsightly, may be only the tip of the iceberg. And it is on the rise.

I am very sorry to say that despite our efforts, both my daughters have fluorosis. When I asked the dentist about it he said it was from Amoxicillin, however, the link remains weak. Fluorosis seems to be more related to supplementing with fluoride in water, dental treatments, and toothpaste.

Our oldest daughter was on Amoxicillin frequently during her early years, but in retrospect, the younger one was not. The dentists did do fluoride treatments on both of them long before I was aware the the dangers. I am convinced that fluoride in water and dental treatments are the culprit behind their fluorosis.

Fluoride, Who Needs it?

We have used fluoride free toothpaste for years and have had great check ups. I attributed cavity free checkups to healthy diet and supplementation. I noticed that many of my friend's children had many cavities. They went to the dentist regularly, used fluoridated water, and tooth paste, but did not use supplements. The only thing we did differently was to supplement with high quality vitamin/minerals and fish oil.

Both my husband and I grew up with fluoridated water and using fluoridated toothpaste. I know for a fact that I had a healthy diet and his was pretty good too. However, neither of us supplemented with vitamins as children and as a result, we and all our siblings had our fair share of cavities. My daughters have had no cavities. They are now 14 & 21. I would even go as far to say that I took a lot more care for my teeth than my daughters did while brushing as a child too,but still had some cavities. So what accounts for the difference?

Nutrition, Nutrition, Nutrition

Dr. Weston Price Would Agree

I still believe that diet & supplementing was & still is the greatest factor in cavity-free teeth. I know my daughters have had a healthy diet as did we their parents, so it boils down to supplementing with a good high quality vitamin and mineral supplement &/or fish oil. I wouldn't narrow it down to one or the other; vitamin or the fish oil. It could be a combination of both.

I have found that taking supplements seems to increase the effects of medication, and I wonder if taking supplements also increased the effect of the fluoride. I see no reason why it could not. Fluoride is listed as a drug on the back of toothpaste tubes, complete with warning for overdose. This could certainly pose a problem for the upcoming generations as more and more people realize they need supplementation to be healthy. Could this be why fluorosis is on the rise?

Fluorosis can ruin a beautiful smile, and you have to wonder what it is doing to other parts of your body that you cannot see. Surely nothing good.

If you and your children take supplements and drink fluoridated water you may want to find another source of water, such as bottled water without fluoride or a filtration system that removes fluoride. Cosmetics aside, fluoride is not needed in our water supply, nor toothpaste, and can have some really negative health consequenses. It's a shame and ethically a crime that two entire generations have passed and the public is just now becoming aware of the dangers of fluoridating the water system.

Please get educated about this health threat and sign the petition against adding fluoride to our water. Go to Fluoride Alert for more information and resources. Get your neighbors involved and perhaps you can get fluoride removed from your water systems.

Please, sign the on-line petition:

To Your Good Health,

Barb Kaiser RN, BSN, Holistic Health Consultant

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Monday, March 30

Nausea & Vomiting II

by Barb Kaiser on Mon 30 Mar 2009 03:19 PM CDT

My first article on nausea and vomiting is my most read article on this blog so I thought I would add to the list of possible things to do for nausea based on my latest successful experience.

I spent last week so far under the weather that I started to think there was no sun. A viral sinus infection complete with migraine, left me sitting up in bed for two nights with miserable nausea.. My local pharmacy no longer sells the cola syrup I referred to in the first article. I had checked a few weeks ago just to keep some on hand. Two cups of my all-time best remedy for me, ginger tea, did little to help relieve the nausea, though chewing on some of the root did help a bit. You won't get a child or many adults to do that though.

In my desperation to distract myself, I grabbed my IPod and started listening to some enjoyable music. I had to adjust the music so that I didn't find it too loud, nor too fast,(Gypsy Kings, you made it worse) and within minutes I was dropping off to sleep..( Thank you, Dixie Chicks!) I did wake up several times that night and did still experience nausea especially when I tried to lie down, but as long as I kept propped up with pillows I was comfortable enough to get to sleep.

One of the links in the first article states that nausea is really in the mind.That makes some sense. There is a very strong mind gut connection. However there are times when the turmoil is definitely the stomach and the mind has nothing to do with it.

But when it seems that you are dealing with nausea that you feel you would be better off going ahead and vomiting, but cannot, you might try listening to some soothing or just plain music you love.

Best,

Barb RN,BSN, Holistic Health Consultant

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Sunday, March 29

Health Insurance? Bah-Humbug!

by Barb Kaiser on Sun 29 Mar 2009 05:50 PM CDT

Dear Humana,(and other Health Insurers), Scott & White( and other Health Care providers), & Members of the Senate & House, and (what the heck) President Obama, and you too readers,

Wouldn't you think that a health insurance company would want its clients to stay healthy? So why won't mine, and possibly yours, pay for 2 tests that could help save your life?

These two tests would help your doctor determine your risk for certain illnesses, help you lower that risk for and possibly prevent some expensive and painful illnesses: cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes. Aren't these among the very things that are helping to break the back of our health care industry?

Wouldn't this help everyone's bottom dollar

....except, perhaps, the drug industry?

Doctor My Eyes

I went to the doctor recently and asked to have my vitamin D level and also my homocysteine level checked. Both of these blood studies have shown to begood early indicators of numerous future health problems. I was told by the Scott & White physician that, "We don't do those tests". When I asked, "Why not?" since information abounds on these important health markers, I was told that insurance doesn't pay for them.

I'm Willing to Pay

Because I and so many other voices in the health community think these are important tests to have yearly, I said I was willing to pay out-of-pocket for them. To my astonishment I was flatly told that they didn't do them. And besides, she said, there is nothing you can do about elevated homocysteine anyway.

Excuse Me?!

It may be true that there is no drug that the pharmaceutical companies make that will help lower homocysteine (yet), but it is not true that there is nothing you can do about these elevations. ( B-Vits and TMG, thank you, very much). I would bet money that when the pharmaceutical industry finally comes up with a drug that lowers homocysteine, then the tests will be paid for by the health insurance.

My husband assures me that there is no connection between the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry, but it does leave me wondering why does it seem that the insurance industry has been so slow to get on the prevention bandwagon. One would think they would have their actuaries figuring out the numbers and implementing programs right and left to keep their payouts as low as possible.

Back to the Tests

As it turned out, the vitamin D test is available at my health care facility, but only if you showed cause. My mother's osteoporosis was a good enough reason, but really, Doctor, if you keep up with the literature-even your own medical literature, we should all be having our D levels checked. But then we are back with the problem of insurance not paying for the test.

The doctor was obviously annoyed with me for daring to have health information (that she did not) and querying her about it. God forbid-- an informed patient! That's a topic for another day!

Insuring Your Health?

The truth is: I shouldn't have to pay out of pocket for these tests. Nobody should. Health insurance and medical care should be helping us to stay healthy, but it rarely does. It should be required to stay up to date with scientific advancements and incorporate these into prevention programs because it is the right thing to do, but if that doesn't appeal to the types that run the government or business then let's just say it is good business to keep your clients healthy. It's good for the bottom line when you can spend a relatively small amount on a test that may help you not have to pay out enormous sums for cancer care or heart disease, or diabetes, or osteoporosis.

These two tests for homocysteine and vitamin D levels are now thought by many to be far more important than cholesterol & keeping the levels healthy are relatively inexpensive ways to help many of us stay healthy.

Most of my family member's health issues are handled in- house. Nursing care, including allopathic and complementary health, which I provide, is generally what's needed though when a medical opinion is needed my husband is available. We start out with natural health and move up the scale to allopathic health care, if required, but ultimately go to the doctor's office a lot less than most people. We pay a lot for insurance, and thank, God, rarely use it. We also take a lot of supplements, eat right and exercise (some) which is why we are generally healthy. So one would think that my insurer and my health care facility could pay for, or at the very least, make available the tests that have shown to be very important.

Cholesterol is So Yesterday

Cholesterol levels (which are generally paid for), while still informative, do not give the whole picture. As more is learned about the interactions of the body, healing systems, & newer technologies are made available, the markers for health & the tests to access those makers should and will change over time.

That time is now!

How long do we have to wait for change to occur?

High homocysteine is now associated with heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes. It is thought by an increasing number of health care providers as being more important than high cholesterol. By the way, homocysteine as an important marker for health, has been known for over 50 years. Unfortunately, the medical profession as a whole and the insurance industry has bought the pharmaceutical line that "cholesterol is the big bug-a-boo", even when science has shown that it isn't.

Damn the Studies, Full Statins Ahead!

That is the problem when you have so much invested in one test and the drugs to treat it. Cholesterol & statins go together like popcorn and butter(or margarine-- which took just 40 years for us to learn its bad news.) When you eat a whole bowlful, unfortunately, you have no room for anything else.

Plus, it's hard to admit when you are wrong.

Ignore that Man Behind the Curtain!

So when knew information rounds out the "cholesterol picture" of what is really damaging your blood vessels ( inflammation from sugar and other carbs, food allergies, sensitivities, environmental toxicities, etc) and the emphasis and understanding of the role of cholesterol changes(It's your body's band aid-among other things- and the band aid becomes a problem itself, eventually, but is not the initial problem) What can you do?

Ignore it: plain and simple. That, and double your efforts to sell as much of your statin drugs and cholesterol tests to an uninformed public and medical community, hopefully before the word gets out and sales tank. It's easy when you have the long arms of public influence as your back up. You get Madison Avenue to blitzkrieg the airways about "your high cholesterol and its health risk". You get the acceptable limits of cholesterol lowered by showing studies produced by your own sleazy, sell-out scientists (that no one else can duplicate). Then you shamelessly spoon-feed it to overworked, drug-biased educated doctors (that your industry helped to create) and put them on the front lines to dole out your mantra and prescriptions . And in adding insult to injury, turn out a few commercials thick in folksy schmaltz and short on veracity.

The pharmaceutical industry has so much invested in these cholesterol lowering drugs thattheir vested interest is in direct conflict with our using the latest science to stay healthy. And this is just one drug of the industry's many thousands of drugs. Add it all up and their vested interest is often at odds with the health of our our medical system. Can our health afford this?Can the health of our medical industry afford this ? Can Medicare? Can our economy?

But, Back to Simple, Cheap Vitamin D

Low Vitamin D levels are also risk factors for many types of cancer, heart disease, osteopenia, osteomalacia, osteoporosis, increased incidence of flu, increased insulin resistance, increased leptin resistance, increased incidence of obesity -- all of which increase your risk for diabetes, and probably a whole slough of things that they haven't discovered yet, but will shortly. Oh, and let's not for- get- increased risk of MS (multiple sclerosis.)

But really! Isn't that enough?

Cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, & diabetes. These are all big ticket items. Wouldn't you think that medical organizations, health insurance companies, & law makers would be falling all over themselves figuring out how to incorporate these tests/treatments(natural included) for these markers into cost effective, preventative medical care in America? The savings would be dizzying! Ca-ching! Ca-ching!

An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure

But I have heard nothing in regards to true prevention as a way to bring down medical costs. The old adage is still true, and is even more important today with the economy being in the ditch and billion and billions of dollars of taxpayer money being tossed willie-nillie to companies who have proved they don't deserve it.

They Dumped Tea in the Harbor for Less!

Is it too much to ask that my health insurer & yours pay for 2 small tests to see if we have the right levels of vitamin D and low levels of homocystiene to do what we can to ward off illnesses? I am willing to learn. I am willing to make the changes necessary. I am willing to pay for the supplements. I am certain many of you are too. So why will my insurer not pay for the test?

And why does my medical group not make the tests readily available to all?

And why do neither educate the public? And why don't they know and incorporate these advances?

Side Bar:

One Expensive Rat Hole

I voted for you, Mr. President, but please, do not go on a rant about how we will "find a cure for cancer". We have already poured too much money down that rat hole while ignoring the obvious:prevention. Prevention, true prevention, not early detection, which is something very different (please- get informed) includes how we take care of our bodies,(including checking our vitamin D levels and homocysteine levels- until something better comes along) But even more important is how we take care of our environment. Our dirty environment plays and even bigger role in our nationally declining health. Just take a look at some pollution emission maps that graph illness distribution over at your own EPA. The evidence is clear. We should be playing a strong defense because the environment has such a strong offense!( It's offensive!) But instead we are shuttling players to drug dens and knife fights and threatening the referee, then we wonder why we are losing the game or just lying about it.

Environmental clean-up, and enforcement of current regulations, a few more regulations for polluters, and more money spent on researching the effects of the synergistic effects of minute quantities of chemicals will do far more and cost less than another "war on cancer."

Too much carbon dioxide may kill us quicker than heavy metals and other pollutants, but we will be just as dead a little later.

It would be great if attacking global warming would also clean up that in the environment which is destroying our health, but assuming that that is what will happen by pursuing just a global warming agenda would be an assumption of facts not in evidence, and probably a great missed opportunity. It's always cheaper to do it right the first time around. Killing two birds with one stone will take additional thought and research.

Okay, Side Bar Over

Ethics-Do they still exist? Or are they just for the little guy?

Wouldn't you think that by rectifying "off" blood levels the insurance industry could decrease their payouts because patients wouldn't be getting as sick, instead of decreasing their payouts because they hope you are too sick to go through the miserable process of fighting with them? ( Oh, yes, this does happen!) Wouldn't you think they might want to increase their profit margin in this highly ethical way? Or are ethics another vital element in societal health that is in gross deficiency, not just resulting in monumental bailouts, but behind unnecessary rates of illness and death?

Cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, & diabetes-

are all big ticket items for the insurance industry. One would think they would want your medical professional to keep tabs on them by paying for the relatively inexpensive tests for them so together you and your doctor could prevent these illnesses. But they don't, at least not yet.

President Obama, are you listening? Senators? Reps? Health Insurers? Medical Groups? There are several easy inexpensive fixes for some of our most costly health woes.

But you won't see them until you take off your pharma-colored glasses.

Barb Kaiser RN, BSN, Holistic Health Consultant

Vitamin D deficiency in Osteoporosis

Sunlight & Vitamin D for Bone Health, Prevention of Auto-immune Diseases, Cancers, and Heart Disease

The Health Ranger

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Monday, February 23

by Barb Kaiser on Mon 23 Feb 2009 04:04 PM CST

Vitamins: It's Dose that Does It

(OMNS, February 2, 2009) There is a spin to most media reporting on vitamin research. The recent anti-vitamin media blitz, led by the Associated Press and USA Today, provides yet another demonstration. (Vitamins C and E don't prevent heart disease. The Associated Press, Nov. 9, 2008. Also: USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-09-supplements-study_N.htm ) With a paternalistic pat on the head, the media once again seeks to send you off to play with the reassurance that, well, vitamin therapy HAS been tested, and it just does not work.

Nonsense. Thousands upon thousands of nutritional research studies provide evidence that vitamins do help prevent and treat serious diseases, including cancer and heart disease, when the nutrients are supplied in sufficiently high doses. High doses are required. Low doses fail. Says cardiologist Thomas Levy, M.D.: "The three most important considerations in effective vitamin C therapy are dose, dose, and dose. If you don't take enough, you won't get the desired effects."

Effective doses are high doses, often hundreds of times more than the US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) or Daily Reference Intake (DRI). Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., comments: "Drs. Wilfrid Shute and Evan Shute recommended doses from 400 IU to 8,000 IU of vitamin E daily. The usual dose range was 800 to 1600 IU but they report that they had given 8,000 IU without seeing any toxicity." The Shutes successfully treated over 35,000 patients with vitamin E.

All the recent, much touted JAMA study does is confirm what we already know: low doses do not work. The doses given were 400 IU of vitamin E every OTHER day and 500 milligrams of vitamin C/day. Try that same study with 2,000 to 4,000 IU of vitamin E every other day (1,000 to 2,000 IU/day) and 15,000-30,000 mg/day of vitamin C and the difference would be unmistakable. We know this because investigators using vitamins E and C in high doses have consistently reported success.

Low doses do not get clinical results. Any physician, nurse, or parent knows that a dose of antibiotics that is one tenth, or one-hundredth, of the known effective dose will not work. Indeed, it is a cornerstone of medical science that dose affects outcome. This premise is accepted with pharmaceutical drug therapy, but not with vitamin therapy. Most of the best-publicized vitamin E and C research has used inadequate, low doses, and this JAMA study falls right into line.

High doses of vitamins are deliberately not used. Writes Robert F. Cathcart III, M.D.: "I have been consulted by many researchers who proposed bold studies of the effects of massive doses of ascorbate (vitamin C). Every time the university center, the ethics committee, or the pharmacy committee deny permission for the use of massive doses of ascorbate and render the study almost useless. Seasoned researchers depending upon government grants do not even try to study adequate doses."

The most frequently proffered reason is the allegation that "high doses of vitamins are not safe." That is a myth. 25 years of national poison control statistics show that there is not even one death per year from vitamins. Check the research literature and see for yourself exactly who is being harmed by vitamins. Aside from the pharmaceutical industry, virtually nobody. Half of Americans take vitamin supplements every day. So where are the bodies?

Decades of physicians' reports and controlled research studies support the use of large doses of vitamins. Yet to hear the media (and JAMA) tell it, vitamins are a Granny's folk remedy: a buggy- and barrel-stave technology that just doesn't make it.

In the broadcast and print media, vitamin therapy is marginalized at best and derided at worst. Is this merely laughable, or is there method to it? One may start by asking, who does this serve? Could it possibly be the media's huge advertising-cash providers, the pharmaceutical industry? Pharmaceutical advertising money buys authors, ad space, influence, and complicity. Unfortunately, this is as true in the newspapers as it is in the medical journals.

Let the news media begin by disclosing exactly where their advertising revenue comes from. It may explain where the spin on their articles comes from, too.

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
Damien Downing, M.D.
Harold D. Foster, Ph.D.
Steve Hickey, Ph.D.
Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
James A. Jackson, PhD
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.
Erik Paterson, M.D.
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D.

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

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Saturday, January 31

Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup

by Barb Kaiser on Sat 31 Jan 2009 09:42 AM CST

You know the ad:

"You know what they say about high fructose corn syrup, don't you?"

Well try this on for size: "Yes, some of it contains mercury!"

If you read my article "Half-Baked Corn Industry" then you know that I am no fan of High Fructose Corn Syrup ( HFCS). Today I learned we have yet another reason to shun the use of HFCS in our food and to be wary of "fake foods".

It turns out that some HFCS contains mercury! Here is a link to the article detailing the information.

Moms, please, listen up: Some of the companies you trust the most have food products that contained high and moderate levels of mercury. I don't know about you, but I really don't want any mercury in my food and I especially don't want it in the bodies of children, mine or yours!

According to the article from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (c) 2009 by David Walinga, MD, Janelle Soreneson, Pooja Mottl, and Brian Yablon, MD the list of "trusted companies" includes products from Quaker, Hunt's, Hershey's, Smucker's, Kraft, Nutri-Grain, & Yoplait.

You can help put an end to this bastardization of food & the environment

1. forward this to friends and relatives so that they can eliminate these products from their diet.

But don't stop there:

2. Use the 1-800 number on the package to call the companies and complain. Question them about how their HFCS is made. Threaten to boycott all of their products unless they stop using HFCS made from old technology plants. Better yet, don't threaten..just do it.

3. Do not buy products containing any HFCS. Read my previous article and check the links to understand more about what's wrong with HFCS

Wishing you the best in health,

Barb Kaiser RN, BSN, Holistic Health Consultant

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Saturday, January 24

Flu Prevention is the Best Medicine

by Barb Kaiser on Sat 24 Jan 2009 03:11 PM CST

Be Season Savvy

Few times during the year rival the danger to our health more than September through January. I call it the "Fest Season". First are the school festivals, followed by the ethnic festivals which sometime depend on which group or groups of people settled your area. Locally the Renaissance Festival, the new Celtic Fest, Greek Fest, Oktoberfest, & Wurstfest fall both before and after Halloween. This is also the time of year many of us go to carnivals. All this is just a prelude to the real feasting: Thanksgiving. Christmas, & New Years.

That's four months of "festing" and feasting, folks! From September 'till New Years there is candy, soda, delicious desserts (my favorite: pecan pie at Thanksgiving & Christmas), cookies, more candy, candied yams,candied apples, popcorn balls, highly sugared cranberry sauce (great antioxidants, but tons of sugar), jello salads, plenty of high carbohydrate corn, potatoes, breads and alcohol. Who can go to those fests without sampling the fare: (Isn't that part of the point?) beer, pastries,pretzels, sausage, sodas, funnel cake, cotton candy. And for the holidays: mustn't forget the cookies & fudge for the neighbors, red wine for Grandpa, Uncle Ed's favorite vodka, Mom's white wine, Dad's martini, beer for friends, candy canes for the kids. You get the picture. There seems to be one celebration after another serving piles of high carbohydrate, high sugar treats, &/or high alcohol for 4 months prior to & culminating with New Years!

Oh! And I almost forgot those "poorly-timed" birthday celebrations; plenty of cake and ice cream. We had 3 birthdays around Thanksgiving in my family growing up. Now we start the Christmas season with one birthday and end it with another.

Then there are the gifts that come home from work or arrive by mail or carrier, often filled with treats we would never go out of our way to buy. But there they are tantalizing us. And there's almost nothing better than a hot toddy, hot apple cider, or eggnog on a chilly night!

Be Sugar Sharp

Are you beginning to see how much sugar we consume? I bet we consume a large percentage of our yearly intake of sugar during the last 2-4 months of the year. Most of us cannot get through this season without gaining a few pounds (myself included), but forget the weight gain for a minute....Why? Because as much as we are willing to put on a few pounds to indulge, this sugary celebration lowers our immune function tremendously:

Just a mere teaspoon of sugar lowers the function of your immune system for 4-6 hours. A typical soda has 10 teaspoons of sugar!

Read more about the many harmful effects of sugar, besides weight gain, at

Dr. Mercola's website

Do you want your immune system scraping the floor while you are trying to get the shopping done for Christmas? Really, is there any good time for that?(Oh, and the guy who used the cart ahead of you, sneezed into his hands, and then pushed the cart down the next aisle. Later that night he has the flu.) I know you can keep your hands away from your face (if you you really pay attention,) but can little Emily who is 'helping' to push & swinging on the cart? Even when you tell her numerous times not to touch her face? Not likely.

Light(en) Up Stress

Staring down the barrel of flu season again, every year this time, the warning bells alarm: “get your flu shot!” The news media likes to cause panic. So do the pharmaceutical companies. It sells. It creates emotional stress and people tend to act under stress. Emotional stress also greatly lowers the functioning of your immune system. According to some sources constant emotional stress ranks right up there with smoking as being deleterious to your health. Between the sugar we consume and the emotional stress of the holidays coupled with the "fear-the-flu" message from the media, medicine and pharmaceutical companies, it is no wonder people think the flu is inevitable without the aid of the flu shot.

Avoid Fester's Syndrome

Is it really the Flu Season or a season of appalling health habits(SAHH)? It is easier to say flu season (and SAHH is not real catchy). I just don't happen to think it is all that accurate, so I'll call it Fester's Syndrome, (originally from too much feasting or "fest"-ing) But as I look at the original definition of the word "fester" I find, interestingly, that the real definition of fester fits too: a) to cause increasing poisoning and irritation b) to undergo or exist in a state of progressive deterioration. Isn't that what we do during the Fest Season? "Undergo or exist in a state of progressive deterioration": too much food, sugar, alcohol, & stress and not enough, exercise,sleep, relaxation,nutrition, & water?

The observation that the flu is common this time of year has been interpreted as meaning that the germ is there, & people have little or no control over getting it unless they get the flu shot. This is nonsense. This is bad science. It does not take into account the many influences in our environment that chip away at our immune function. It does not look at personal health habits. Science offers a "silver bullet injection" instead of looking at causes. There is plenty you can do to not fall victim to the flu and it doesn't have to include a flu shot. Flu shots do not guarantee that you won't get the flu, and recent studies have shown that they don't even reduce the number of deaths associated with the flu.

My insurance company sent out an email which gives the basics about flu: what it is, how it differs from the common cold, and of course, (sound the alarm), "Get your flu shot!"

It’s an okay article for as far as it goes. But it minimizes the importance of a healthy lifestyle and completely excludes what I think is one of the most important things to do to avoid the flu & a host of other illnesses: supplements.

I used to be one of those people who would get the flu shot. Working as a nurse I was exposed to a lot of illness. It seemed reasonable. Then as a young mother I had what I thought was the flu and it lasted for months. The residual effect was asthma symptoms and had me using an inhaler. I truly believed I needed that flu shot. I definitely needed something. I certainly wasn't very healthy then, despite my efforts.

I tell you this because now my family and I have been “flu free” for 10 years since 1997,

ever since we made a few simple changes. So what did we do?

1) We started taking vitamins (good ones, not the cheapo ones we had been taking) with optimal level of nutrients; not the outdated, old fashioned ones that have RDA level of nutrients. We could see and feel a difference within 2 weeks of starting. (Mind you we had been taking vitamins for years before that. )We continued to mark improvements in our health a year out. Having not had the flu in 10 years I think I can point to taking good vitamins as a large reason as to why we have avoided it. There are a several of other things we do as well.

2) I like to add some extra vitamin D, as many studies now say that Vitamin D may be the key to helping to prevent not only the flu, but also cancer. Low vitamin D levels lower your immune function. You can ask your doctor to check your levels.

At Atuscedero State Hospital significantly lower levels of flu were found among inmates living in the same wing of the prison. It was later found that those inmates had been receiving supplemental vitamin D that the other inmates had not been receiving.

When you consider that many people start out with low levels of vitamin D, then stay inside bundled up during the winter, never seeing the sun, and further develop lower vitamin D levels, it makes sense that they might be more susceptible to infection during the "flu season." 1000IU/day is the recommended amount of vitamin D by some sources. Others say we need more, much more. Dr. Jay Rowen who writes Second Opinion recommends up to 5000IU/day year-round, but especially in the winter months. He reports that he has not seen any evidence of toxicity at levels even higher than that, but that few people are getting even a 1000IU/day.

It is actually difficult to raise your vitamin D levels. Milk is an inconsistent source of vitamin D and we don't drink much at my house. Our multivitamins have some, as do the calcium supplement we take, but I also have some liquid drops that contain both water-soluble and fat-soluble formulations of vitamin D. My parents and grandparents took cod liver oil for vitamin D & it is still a good source. The Life Extension Foundation feels that low levels of vitamin D constitute a national health emergency. They make a good case. Read more about the urgent need for Vitamin D supplementation in Life Extension Foundation.

3)Get Enough Sleep Science has finally found a link between your immune function and sleep...it's about time. Most adults need between 7-8 hours of sleep. Your children probably need more depending on their ages.

4) Eat Balanced Meals (& Listen to Mom) Fruit and veggies are still as important as Mom & Grandma said they were, & remember, they said it first, before science "proved it". Mom also wanted you to take vitamins and the AMA only within the last couple of years acknowledged that need. So listen to your mother!

5) Drink Plenty of Water- not just liquids. Liquids generally include fruit juice, sodas, coffee, tea, and alcohol for some, especially around the holidays.The last 4 liquids

can act as diuretics, causing you to lose more fluid than you drank. Not good. Dehydration is a big cause of physical stress and lowers your immune function, besides a causing a number of other health problems. With the heat on in your home and lower humidity, you will need to keep your consumption of water up.

6) Use a Humidifier&/or vaporizer You don't want your nasal passages drying out.This is a portal for germs. Moisture in the air also helps keeps the secretions in your chest loose and fluid.(Yuck!) This allows you immune cells to move around easier and do their attacking & clean-up job more effectively. It also helps you stay hydrated at night when you don't necessarily want to be consuming a lot of water. (Hello! Sleep is important..see #3?)

7) Limit sugar Intake. You should have figured this out by now.( If not, you are skimming & not very well!) Another reason to choose water over juice & soda, is that juice and soda contain high amounts of sugars. I am not saying don't ever eat sugar, though it does have numerous negative health effects. I am a realist. I am saying cut back. Don't make as many cookies. Cut the amount of sugar you use in a recipe. You can usually eliminate up to half the amount. You'll have to experiment. Offer treats that are not sugar based. Try some new(healthy) appetizers, nuts, red pepper or roasted garlic hummus. Yummm! Make sure you are eating enough fruits, veggies, high quality protein, fats and carbohydrates(the ones with fiber) so that you are not hungry and tempted to over- indulge. There are plenty of sources on the Internet and of course there is always a book available on the subject of how to cut sugar from your diet.

I do not recommending using sugar substitute except for stevia, Lo-han, and perhaps Xylitol (although there is even some controversy surrounding it. Darn!) All the other well-hyped sugar substitutes have a number of negative effects on overall health and can be particularly problematic for certain individuals and groups of individuals. Excitotoxins: the Taste that Kills, by Russel Blaylock MD, (professor of neurosurgery) goes into more detail, if you are interested.

8) Practice Stress Reduction: exercise, yoga, tai-chi, whatever appeals to you

Think of all the physical stressors you encounter during the holidays: the shopping with crowds, driving with roads packed with cars (and idiots, I meant to say, distracted, stressed-out, and possibly sick drivers), crowded airports, & tight schedules. There is nothing like a holiday celebration to bring out emotional stress brought on by visiting family and in-laws. Ask any therapist. And let's not forget the newest stressor: elevated terrorist threats. Is it any wonder it can be difficult for many to stay healthy this time of year?

By the way, stress and sugar use up your B vitamins so taking an extra B-Complex vitamin might be beneficial. You could take a Valium (if you could get one) but why? Your body is screaming out for more nutrition., not drugs Low magnesium levels also result in more stress and anxiety too. I like to sit down with a cup of "magnesium tea" to relax. It's raspberry-lemon flavored, sweetened with stevia (Peter Gillham's Natural Vitality. No, not paid for that.)

9) get fresh air- Fresh air does not have the high concentration of germs that indoor air has & getting out in it and breathing deeply is a great way to reduce the stress, not to mention, it let's you get away from some of your greatest stressors. You know who I mean!

10) I also keep extra vitamin A, vitamin C, and Zinc on hand always, as they are the foundation of nutrients needed for fighting off viral and bacterial infections. You rip through these nutrients the way a puppy rips though newspaper. So stalk up on them and remember to take them when you feel the first tingling of illness. I take 50,000 IU of vitamin A the first few days, 1000-2000mg of C every 4-6 hours (I like Ester C) and suck on a zinc lozenge every other hour for the first day. In doing this I have successfully limited colds to a day or two or nipped them in the bud completely.

Vitamin C itself is worthy of more discussion about it's role in your immune function. If you take nothing else, take vitamin C, at least 500mg twice a day. I take about 6 grams/day. Individual needs vary greatly. If you bruise easily or get sick easily, you probably need more vitamin C.

11) Eat yogurt with live cultures or take a probiotic. At least 70% of your immune system is located in your gut. A lot of our eating and drinking habits (including drinking chlorinated water) kill off these incredibly important microbes. Antibiotics greatly reduce the numbers of good and bad bacteria. Supplementing them helps repopulate your gut, which protects you from other undesirable microbes. It is a constant battle. You can help support the good guys! Studies show that children who take probiotics after a course of antibiotics have fewer relapses.

Understanding just how important these microbes are constitutes a relatively new area of research. Just a few years ago medicine taught that there were under 50 different kinds of microbes. The latest count has identified more than 1000 different kinds of microbes. They appear to do many complex things such as make vitamins, extract energy, and nutrition from food. They may play a role in maintaining your weight, among other things, and have been known to turn on and off cancers. Research has just scratched the surface on their role in your health.

Research doesn't always filter down to the frontlines of care quickly, so don't wait for your doctor to recommend a probiotic. Start taking them now. My own gastroenterologist said that if more people knew about probiotics, it might put him out of business. Well, I don't know if he was serious about that, but the point is they are important to health. We may never understand their complete complexity.

12) Zycam

Another thing we do is add Zycam to our small arsenal of medications. The original Zycam states that it is a homeopathic gel that is placed on mucous membranes- nose /mouth at the first signs of cold or flu. They took "flu" off the label in the last few years, so I guess it works best for colds, but sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. You don’t have to call the doctor. You just have to have it and use it. It is absorbed quickly and acts fast. There are many different preparations of Zycam now. My favorite is still the original. It can unplug a nose that feels like a block of wood on your face faster than Afrin. It can shorten the duration and severity of a cold and possibly the flu. I think it is great stuff! I tell everyone I know. ( & no, the company doesn't pay me).

Tip: I use the original and squirt a small amount on the end of a sterile Q-tip and gently put it inside the nose close to the nostril opening and rotate so that the gel covers the nasal tissues. Remove the q-tip & turn over the q-tip using the other sterile end. Squirt out another small amount on it to apply the inside of the other nostril.(a large drip will do). The point of this is to not contaminate the tip of the bottle. Teach other family members this procedure if they are old enough or do it yourself so that a) other family members can also use the same bottle & b) you will save money and c) prevent discomfort.

A bottle runs about $12 and you can get through a season with one or 2 if you are careful not to contaminate the tip. (You and your other family member might not have the same illness, so you don't want to trade germs.) The other reason to use the product sparingly is that if you use the amount recommended by the manufacturer, I (and other members of my family & some friends) have found that over time the gel starts to burn. This may be an allergy to something in the gel. Using a smaller amount still did a fine job and did not cause burning. Zycam is a great product.

It took my husband and my mother 2 years of me telling them "Try the Zycam." Finally they both tried it and then, they both told me that I should try it! ARGG!! I guess in those 2 years they forgot I had recommended it to them two years ago! ( Do you see why I blog!? A written record is a means of sanity) You will want to keep some Zycam on hand and remember to use it at the first signs of cold and flu.

Flu? Who Me?

I haven't seen lines around Walgreen's on the news this year & people complaining that they haven’t gotten their shot, but I have seen constant reminders at my grocery store to "Get your Flu shot here!" I have also seen it at Wal-greens, CVS, on a billboard outside a doctor's office, & in the newspaper. More personally I went to see a doctor recently and had a procedure most over 50 are familiar with. That night I began running a fever and had chills. Whatever I had was coming on like gang-busters. A half hour into it, wearing two bathrobes, two blankets and a hat, (& looking ridiculous!) it occurred to me that this was a lot like the flu. My joints were achy too. I called the doctor. He said, "Sounds like the flu. Did you get your flu shot?" NO? Why not?!"

I like this guy. He did a good job and I would recommend him to anyone, but I don't believe that everyone should get a flu shot. In fact there are a lot of reasons you may not want to get a flu shot, reasons that the makers of flu shots don't go out of there way to share with you, and I certainly didn't want to get into them right then. I told him that I don't get the flu and if I did, perhaps then, I would consider the possibility of getting a shot next year. Was that politically correct? Not bad for a gal with 102 degree temperature!

Unsuspected Stress

I know I said we hadn't had the flu in years, so why did I have the flu, or at least the beginnings of the flu? Have you ever had the prep they give for colonoscopy? If you have then you know you are cleaned internally from stem to stern. Even though I drank fluids continuously as suggested, by the morning of the procedure I was dehydrated enough that I was dizzy. Dehydration, as I mentioned earlier in this article, is a tremendous stressor to ones system. Added to that fact is the understanding that at least 70% of one's immune system is located in the gut & that gut has just been chemically scrubbed; another tremendous stressor to the immune system. Lastly, part of the protocol called for consuming 64 oz of Gatorade. That's a lot of sugar. Just 1 teaspoon lowers one's immune function for 4- 6 hours. Imagine how much sugar is in a gallon of Gatorade! The effect of all those things together makes it is easy to see how I could start getting the flu after that kind of assault on my immune system. Chances are good that we all get exposed to the virus during "flu season" even if we feel fine. The germ is there just waiting for an opportunity. Destroying our lines of defense are the just the breaches needed to give the virus the foothold it needs to spread.

Flu? NOT!

13) Oscillococcinum

The other flu remedies I like to keep on hand is either Oscillococcinum (a mouthful to say & kind of pricey) or Flu Care, (cheaper and effective), or Gelsinium. All are homeopathic remedies that help with flu symptoms ,or if taken earlier enough, can knock out the flu. This is what I took the night I was bundled up 4 layers deep and still shivering hard enough to make my teeth clatter. First I took the Gelsinium. After about 15 minutes I could tell my temperature was still going up fast, so I broke into the box of Oscillococcinum. I took one dose and I could feel that that my temperature was not going up as fast. A couple of hours later I took another dose and went to bed. I took no aspirin, Tylenol, or Motrin. Sometime during the night my fever broke and my achy joints subsided. The next day I felt kind of weak, as if I had been really sick, but no signs of the flu...fever, joint aches, headache, sore throat, cough, no appetite. I feel like I dodged the "flu-bullet". So I stand by my 10 year flu-free record. Oscillococcinum is also a terrific product and they sell it in family packs of three. ( No... don't get paid for that either)

14) Be sure and wash your hands frequently, especially after shaking hands with anyone, and after being out in public places (remember the grocery cart?) as soon as you get home (besides the usual times: bathroom, before eating, preparing food, after sneezing or coughing into your hand)

15) Train yourself to cough or sneeze into your elbow. This reduces the amount of infective agents you spread by touching objects and exposing yourself to. This is shown in the the video from Studio4kids.tv

16) Keep your hands away from your face!! This keeps the germs from entering your mucous membranes, ie mouth, nose, eyes. Coughing or sneezing into your hand, while protecting those immediately around you, also exposes you to whatever else you have picked up on your hands as you clasp your hand to your face.

17) Certain herbs can help build your immune system. A friend recently sent me

Martha Stewart's website.(Thanks, Carolyn!) It has a list of herbs and homeopathic remedies to help you out. These are good, & some I have already mentioned. I suggest you pick only one or two to try. The cost of using all would be substantial and their use confusing. You may not know which one helped you if you use several of them simutaneously. I have concerns about using the Chinese derived herbs because of the apparent lack of quality control coming out of China. If you are already taking medication for a health problem there is always cause for some concern about mixing herbs and medication.

18)Change your toothbrush. Since the flu virus mutates quickly it is prudent to change your toothbrush after being ill. Perhaps not changing out a toothbrush is part of the reason family members relapse with the flu & pass the flu back and forth. This is recommened for individuals with Strep infections too. And is a good idea in general after any illness.

If you take nothing else from this article remember this: the flu virus is only a small part of the equation of actually "getting the flu."

Stress + lousy diet + dehydration + high exposure to other people's germs + sugar + sugar + sugar + low Vitamin. D levels + even more stress+ lack of sleep+ the actual flu virus =

( lack of /or reduced personal health habits + the flu virus) = The Flu

If you stuck with me this long you may be wishing that you read this before Christmas. Well I had hoped to put it out then too, but things happened, (but not the flu) But remember, "flu season" is still with us...even though the the "fests" have all played out. The resulting flues probably occur because of the health choices made, holiday stressors, and maybe unforseen circumstances within the last few months. Don't despair: Clean up your act now. Work on your immune system. A strong immune system will help you avoid the flu and other illnesses too.

The Flu is not inevitable.

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Saturday, October 11

Toxins in the Environment= Your Body's Pollution

by Barb Kaiser on Sat 11 Oct 2008 01:30 PM CDT

Click here for video

One of the greatest threats to our health is something we won't hear about at the doctor's office or from our political leaders: The accumulation of toxins in our bodies plays an increasingly important role in our struggle to maintain health. Since WWII over 60,000 toxins; heavy metals, pesticides and man-made chemicals, never before seen on Earth, have been dumped into our environment. To think that we aren't effected by them is both naive and dangerous to our health.

There is Good News, So Keep Reading! (meanwhile)

Toxins only do 3 things:

1) Alter or disrupt the immune system

2Alter or disrupt the neurological system

3)Alter or disrupt the hormone or endocrine system

Are these important? You bet! Our bodies can detoxify some of the things it comes in contact with, but they were never designed to handle the amount and variety of contaminants we encounter everyday. Besides the toxins in medication we consume, we eat toxins in our food (yes, even organic), drink them, breathe them, and absorb them through our skin day in/day out, year after year. And every year 1000 new chemicals, mostly untested for safety in humans, are dumped into the environment. You may not see them or smell them, but they are there, and you are taking them into your body. Many of them are not coming out.

We have rising numbers of degenerative diseases, auto immune diseases, re-emerging diseases, new unclassified diseases, more learning disabilities than mankind has every had, & they are happening to younger and younger people. This is certainly a reason to look closely at our environment.

How Do We Get Rid of the Toxins?

Cleaning up our environment is important & good nutrition and exercise help, but it may not be enough. Regular detoxification can help lessen your body's burden of many of those chemicals that you have acquired over the years and will continue to acquire as long as you live on this planet. People have reported amazing benefits.

Testing is available to see what your body is holding, but the tests are very specific and the lab has to know which chemicals/heavy metals to look for. The average adult has 700 contaminants in his/her body. The newborn has 200. Testing is usually done on between 30 & 60 heavy metals. That's a lot of unanswered questions.

Is Detoxification Right for Everyone?

Some of the time honored methods of detoxification are not appropriate for all people. Illness, weakness, & gut problems are just a few of the reasons why some may not be candidates for more traditional methods, and yet some of those people might benefit the most by detoxing. By eliminating heavy metals, the essential minerals needed for good health can go where they are suppose to go, and do what they are suppose to do. This is essential for health. some of the older methods of detox are also unable to get at certain elements. fortunately there are newer methods of detoxification that have been shown in studies to be effective, safe, and gentle on most individuals.

The Really Good News!

If you would like more information on gentle, effective & safe detoxification, that can easily fit into your lifestyle, talk to your holistic health care provider or contact me. I make it my business to know.

Barb Kaiser RN, BSN Holistic Health Consultant @

512-250-5844 or studio4moms@gmail.com

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Tuesday, October 7

Half-Baked Corn Industry/HFCS

by Barb Kaiser on Tue 07 Oct 2008 09:33 AM CDT

Either the corn industry or advertisers or both think you are stupid. Remember that when you watch this ad on TV -click here for video

This ad really ticks me off. It is deliberately designed to mislead.. I guess that is nothing new in the advertising world. It's no wonder people are confused by nutrition, not to mention being overweight or obese. They read or hear things about the latest studies maybe once on the news cautioning them against a particular food, ingredient, or supplement but hear an opposite message 5 times a day (at least) on the TV. Guess which message has a better chance of getting through?

How many times does Madison Avenue have to repeat something for people to get the message? That is the $64,000(now-million- dollar) question. In the classic book 1984 , Big Brother used to repeat the same line over and over because after something like 27 times of hearing it , what ever it was became a "truth". Consumer advocates must be making some headway though, & people must be getting the message & looking for products that don't contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), otherwise the corn industry wouldn't feel the need to put these ads on at all. So pass this along to your friends so they won't fall for the corn industry's ploy. And stick to your guns if someone asks you what's wrong with it (and you forget). Just know that your gut instinct is correct & tell them to Google it.

With over 2/3's of the population overweight or obese & many of those struggling to lose weight, billions of dollars spent in weight loss programs and way more than that spent in health care costs related to obesity: Shame on the corn industry for putting this ad on TV.

HFCS is safe- like sugar

Sugar? We all know that sugar isn't good for you. What mom wouldn't prefer that her child eat an orange rather than orange candy? Sugar only sounds safe when you put it next to something unsafe to eat. Sugar: safer to eat than nails!

Some would argue that sugar is at the root of all illness or a great portion of it. Historically where ever the sugar trade moved to during the middle ages The Plague quickly followed. That was a real eye opener for me! But when you consider that just consuming 1 tsp of sugar lowers the functioning of your immune system for the next 4-6 hours, it really isn't that surprising that historically public health could track some epidemics with the addition of sugar to the human diet.

The problem today is that we get so much sugar and so much HFCS that medicine doesn't even try to tease out the relationship between our declining health and sweeteners, except in a few cases... diabetes,dental health, yeast infection (but even that often gets neglected) When was the last time your doctor told you not to consume sugar in order to help prevent the flu? I'll bet never.

But this is not sugar. This is High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)& it shares all of sugar's problems & then some.

There may not be anything artificial added to HFCS(that's the definition of "natural" to the FDA) but don't kid yourself... there is nothing "natural" about HFCS! There are an awful lot of things are made from corn that you wouldn't want to eat: construction material, for instance, & glue. So saying it's natural & from corn does nothing to ally my fears that there is something funny & potentially dangerous about HFCS.

Most of the corn grown in the USA is now genetically modified so from the git go you have to wonder about it. GMO foods are being pushed on us whether we want them or not.That's a whole other problem. And whether they are good for any of us or the environment is bound to be a long fight to see the real effects. Industry has decided that they know what is best for their bottom dollar and using flawed trickle down psycho-economics means it must also be good for us. Science and health be damned!

Remember when we thought that margarine was a good substitute for butter? Well it took 40 years for scientists to understand that margarine(trans-fatty acids) were worse for you than butter. And now the food industry is shedding trans-fats faster than a snake sheds it skin, and replacing them with inter-esterified fats which may be far worse that trans-fats. Recent studies show that they lower your HDLs( the good ones) and increase blood sugar levels by 20%. You won't find them on the label if the food industry can help it for another 40 years & by then another generation will probably be suffering new illnesses related to yet another artificial food.

The take home messages:

1) Eat from perimeter of the grocery store: That's where most whole foods are.Eliminate or limit processed food.

2) Do not get your health information from the food industry & Madison avenue: Seems like a no-brainer, but like 1984 the more you hear something, the more you get used to it, and the more you start to believe it. I liken it to fashion: When a new fashion comes out you may think it is hideous or ridiculous, but the more you see it, the more you get used to it, and eventually you may even decide you like it well enough to buy something and where it. Much like the Stockholm Syndrome( identifying with those holding you hostage) isn't it?

Okay, I do fall pray to Madison Ave on the fashion front occasionally, but that isn't ordinarily going to effect my health... (there are a few exceptions though! another time another article!) I don't think I want to wait another 40 years to find out that, hey! that artificial food you are eating is bad for your health and that includes artificial sweeteners made from sugar. Food scientists can do some very quirky things with food, but that doesn't mean your body is going to like them.

3) Go with your Gut

I identify with the people in this ad with the stupid looks on their faces and are at a loss for words. How many times have you heard something, it leaves an impression, but you can't quite articulate your thoughts? Plenty if you are like me.. then invariably I will hear or read that something again and I think, "I knew it!"

I suggest that if you have some intuitive sense that something should not be consumed you should listen to that. So what if you are wrong? You can always consume it later. But if you are right and you consume it you tend to identify with it... oh it tastes good... oh it can't be that bad, I see the ad... I drink the KoolAide .. That is just what they want you to do.

4) Not All Change is Bad or Good

Look, we have evolved with natural foods and the more we have gotten way from the food in its raw form, the more health problems humans around the globe have had. Sure there have been some improvements.The Native Americans in the southwest processed corn with lime which helped release the niacin, thereby preventing them from suffering from Pellagra that others who subsist on corn get. Much of the southern United States suffered from Pellagra until the 1930s when Vit B3-niacin was discovered and added into back into the diet in cereals. But releasing nutrients by a simple process is much different than changing chemical structures within a food.

5)Do Your Homework

Changing the structure changes the effects and often comes with side effects...just like medication does. Whenever the pharmaceutical industry takes a naturally occurring herb or component of food and tries to synthesize it, they have to change the structure other wise it remains a supplement and cannot be patented. No patent, no profit. There is no pharmaceutical drug that doesn't have side effects and the same is true for artificial food. (Always, always read the insert.)

But food doesn't come with inserts so you need to read the label and check with other sources. Nutrition Action is a good place to start. Chemical Free Kids also has good resources. There are plenty of others on the Internet. I usually google whatever I am looking up and the word "controversy." That is usually an excellent way to zero in on the information, both pro & con.

Leave it to the corn industry, producers of high fructose corn syrup, to obscure the truth about their ubiquitous product, that increasingly has been understood to be a major health risk.

When asked what the problems are with corn syrup Joan Q Public is stumped for words... she knows she has heard something but advertising seeing a vacuum likes to fill it with sweet words, down home feeling, & humor to convince John Q public that HFCS is okay. Will it work? Maybe. But the fact that these ads are running suggests that the real story is penetrating the US consciousness that there is something inherently wrong with HFCS.

So ? What Is Wrong With It?

Here is the short list:

1) It raises blood sugar more than table sugar. You won't see this issue raised on the website promoted by the corn industry. Other such sites are wishy washy or misleading. This is important because it can lead to insulin resistance which is a prelude to diabetes-- Diabetes is rampant and leads to all sorts of health complications: heart disease, glaucoma, blindness, skin ulcerations, loss of limb- just to name a few. You don't want it.

2) It uses up stores of needed minerals in order to process it out of the system, Chromium and magnesium are both needed to help prevent obesity, insulin resistance and ultimately diabetes. Magnesium is used in over 300 enzymatic processes.We hardly get enough as it is. When you have a heart attack the first thing they do is hook you up to a magnesium drip. The last thing we need to be doing is using up our precious stores of Mag. to process sugar and HFCS

3) Provides empty calories to young children whose developing bodies & brains require lots of nutrition but not necessarily lots of calories. Every calorie counts. That's also true for the elderly, the underweight, the overweight and undernourished, the ill, the athlete. Did I leave anyone out?

4) Because it is a liquid it is also easy to consume too much. It is in a lot of juices. Kids especially are subject to getting too much through this route.

5)And It is everywhere, not just in juice; it is in many processed foods. Unless you are conscious about how much you consume, you will probably consume more than the recommended amount.

6) It's made from genetically modified food which presents a whole slough of other problems for individual health & potentially the health of our environment.

I don't know about you, but that list is long enough for me to want to eliminate it from my diet.

To your good health,

Barb Kaiser RN, BSN, Holistic Health Advocate

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Saturday, July 12

Milk Mayhem, the r-BGH Controversy

by Barb Kaiser on Sat 12 Jul 2008 02:05 PM CDT

Would you let your children drink chemicals that have been shown to increase their risk for cancer? How about just once in a while? How about 3 times a day?

Welcome to rBGH

Non organic-milk producing cows in the USA are given an artificial hormone that has been banned in other countries and by the World Health Organization because it ends up in the milk that our kids drink and increases their risk of cancer.

Mayhem: needless or willful damage or violence

I think this sums up what is being done to the milk in this country. Many of us grew up drinking 3 or more large glasses of milk a day. We were taught it was good for us, in fact so good that we were not allowed to leave the table until we had at least finished our milk. This video more than calls into question that outdated idea.

Although today many people find they are sensitive to the sugars and proteins in milk and don't drink it, many still do. We started drinking less milk at our house and we changed over to organic milk, butter and sometimes cheese, as the news reports of the unnatural hormones added to milk and their damaging effects seeped into our consciousness.

Ask Your Physician

My husband actually took the lead on this. In the course of his practice, he recommends that teens suffering with acne not drink milk because it has high levels of natural hormones which can negatively effect the already rapidly changing hormone profile of a teenager and aggravate acne. (It is from a mammary gland after all.) The hormone levels of milk sold today have even higher levels of unnatural hormones, genetically engineered hormones called rBGH that the companies who sell you the milk don't have to label it. This really is an outrage.

This to me is a dark subject, but an important one. I usually reserve my video portion to show case videos from Studio4kids.tv and on several occasions as I did the last several months from Studio4Learning.tv I think these are bright spots in parenting information. But I refuse to shy away from such an important issue as our milk supply. It effects all children and adults who drink it.

But Doesn't "Milk Do A Body Good?"

If you cannot afford organic milk, and lots of families can't, you might be interested in knowing that there is great disagreement about how good for a body milk really is anyway. It's looking more and more as if the marketing of milk is really more important than the drinking of milk. Certainly many cultures around the world do fine without it.

If milk were such a good source of calcium why do we see ever increasing rates of osteoporosis among women and men? 1 in 3 women and 1 in 7 men, as of 2005. And just the other day I heard that the statistic for osteoporosis in men was 1 in 4! In 1983 it was 1 in 7 women and virtually unheard of in men. These people grew up drinking milk 3or 4 times a day and that was the milk without hormones added. Obviously there is more to healthy bones than drinking milk.

The biggest offering toward bone building in milk is calcium and Vitamin D.( which is a supplement and found in the form of D2, a less desirable form). Milk contains no magnesium and magnesium is the second most prevalent mineral needed.

Building bone is like baking a cake: it takes more ingredients than just flour. That may be the largest ingredient, but flour alone does not a cake make. Nor can you make bone with just calcium. It also takes magnesium, boron, vitamin K, vitamin D, & phosphorous. It also take the right hormone combinations at the right time. ( and to be honest, probably other things that have yet to be identified) Many people in this country are deficient in magnesium and vitamin D3. If you are missing some of the necessary elements to build bone, either bone won't be built fast enough or it won't be built properly. That's why the doctor looks at bone density. Experimenting on our children with artificial hormones is a risk I am not willing to take.

Other Options for Strong Bones

Other sources of calcium are fortified foods such as bread & orange juice. I like serving the orange juice fortified with calcium because the citric acid helps with the bio-availability of the calcium. Almonds, greens of all sorts, salmon, soy grains like quinoa & chia are also good sources of calcium. And supplements. Make sure your supplements have a good mix of the things I mentioned.

A ratio of calcium to magnesium should be a minimum of 2:1 some sources think we should have even more magnesium than that.

One more immediate reason you may not want your kids drinking milk, besides the risk of cancer ( if that isn't enough): it can be the culprit and aggravating factor behind many earaches. As it turns out many children are sensitive to milk and milk products. The proteins and sugars can cause inflammation in some people which causes fluid to build up behind the eardrum and like stagnant water becomes a setup for infection. If your child suffers from multiple earache consider a food allergy or sensitivity. Wheat and milk are often the most likely culprits.

If you must give them milk opt for organic. And don't forget about organic yogurts, cheese, butter, and ice cream or at least diary products that don't use the r-BHG. These concentrated sources of milk also concentrate the hormones in milk making them as big or bigger of a problem if you use a lot of them to get milk into your child.

So you can stop worrying about whether your child is drinking enough milk, and start worrying about what sort of franken-chemicals are in the milk you are giving your child.

The hormone that Monsanto has been adding to the milk rBGH has been banned by Europe & Canada. There is a growing list of physician organizations, concerned parents, schools, hospitals who are alarmed at this nation wide hazardous experiment.

Make your dollars count. Don't by conventional milk and ask your school not to serve it either. If your school is uncooperative, as I have found they can often be, (see my lice article) educate your child not to drink the school's milk or send them to school with their own drink.

Moms, you are the gate keeper to your family's health.

In a world of large corporations with lots of money-- children, health and safety often get the short end of the stick. Vote with your dollars We are making a difference.

To your health & your child's,

Barb

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Thursday, June 26

Yeast infection? Free Home Treatment

by Barb Kaiser on Thu 26 Jun 2008 03:52 PM CDT

You know the signs...itching, burning, discharge, and odor. Not too long ago you had to go to the doctor to get something to to get rid of a vaginal infection (candida albicans) & to relieve the discomfort associated with it. Fortunately, today you can get an over-the-counter product, and they work pretty well. But some are still messy, & you still have to drive to the store to get it and pay for it.

But even those don't work all the time.

After having used two weeks worth of the standard treatment back when it was a prescription, I still didn't get any relief. That was followed by two courses of the oral medication, Flagyl. Still no relief!

The doctor was stumped... What to do now? Well for starters let's change the diagnosis to "non-specific vaginitis" Yeah, that will help!

When your doctor doesn't know the answer:

Frankly, I think the doctor didn't believe my complaints. Sound familiar? The medication doesn't work so that makes you wrong, or a kook who needs a psych consult or " a difficult patient." He told me he didn't have anything else but stronger anti fungals and I was already having side effects I didn't care for. I declined harsher medication. I guess I hoped it would go away on its own, but after almost 4 week I wasn't all too sure that it would.

Well quite by accident I stumbled across a treatment right in my own pantry and probably in yours and every household in America (and the rest of the world too!) & my treatment didn't care whether the diagnosis was candida albicans or "non-specific vaginosis or vaginitis"

What is it?

It's fast, easy, effective, safe, tasty, and dirt cheap!

What more could you ask for?

Email me at studio4moms@gmail.com & I will send the remedy to you for free.

Just put the word "yeast" in the title line.

If it doesn't work, I'd like to hear back from you!

To Your Good Health,

Barb

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Saturday, April 26

How to Stop Nausea & Vomiting

by Barb Kaiser on Sat 26 Apr 2008 08:08 PM CDT

A dear friend called me the other night because her daughter was writhing in pain with nausea and vomiting. What could she do for her daughter, she wanted to know? There is nothing worse than standing by helplessly while our child suffers. I went through a very similar thing with my 20 year old recently and believe me, it doesn't get any easier the older they get.

It was easier for me to think since I wasn't in the room with this girl I have known since she was 6 weeks old. Here are a few things I recommended that evening and several more I have come upon since. The bottom line is that if you have kids, you will have need of these at some time and often it is at the most inopportune times. (Think: 2 a.m.- Who wants to go to the store then?) If you live by yourself- even more reason to "be prepared."

OK Scouts.....

1) Sip small frequent sips of water

- Mix in a couple of pinches of sea salt and a pinch of sugar. (Gatorade or Pedialyte if you have it) Helps prevent dehydration and electrolyte imbalance

-Don't make it too cold or too warm unless the patient wants it that way.

-This treatment resulted in one last rush to the bathroom for the sufferer and then she slept the rest of the night. Was it the treatment? Or had the illness played itself out? I don't know. I have reason to think it may have helped. It can help prevent dehydration.

2)Try hot, cold, warm or cool

-I offered my daughter a hot water bottle or heating pad. She found some comfort in the hot water bottle.

-The other daughter prefers a cooler approach since she used to say that her tummy "felt hot" before these events. She preferred a cool wash cloth, one on her forehead and one on her stomach.

-If your child doesn't want either heat or cold, do not force her to try it. Move on to something else.

3) Try Gripe Water

-Gripe Water is an herbal remedy used in Europe (and this country many years ago) It seems to be making a comeback, as I have seen it in several stores here.

-It contains sterile water combined with several herbs, usually ginger, fennel, dill, chamomile. It is good for colic, but would also be worth a try for nausea & vomiting.

4) No Gripe Water?

-You may have any of the herbs from Gripe Water(what an awful name!) in your kitchen cabinet and try making up a tea with those.

-Try 1 tsp herb to one cup near boiling water: steep, cool, strain, serve. It should be room temperature generally before serving.

5) Raspberry Leaf or Mint Tea- can be helpful in relieving nausea.

6) Coke or Cola Syrup- My mother used to give us Coke Syrup for both nausea and vomiting.

-Walgreen's still sells this, though they call it Cola Syrup. It runs $3.49 for 4 oz.

-Children can take 1-2 teaspoons/ hour. Adults take 1-2 tablespoons/hour.

-CVS pharmacy said they didn't have it (actually the person I spoke with didn't know what it was/or for) but then neither did Walgreen's at first.

-Have the clerk ask the pharmacists. He or she should know

-It lasts a long time so you can purchase a bottle and store it on the back shelf till you need it.

7) Try a flat soda-(soda-pop, pop, or cola- whatever your region calls it). Coke, or Pepsi, or Ginger Ale, I got through my 1st pregnancy with Mountain Dew and though it helped with the nausea I wonder what impact it had on my child who later developed ADHD- Don't do it

-Stir with a spoon till all the fizzy is gone.

-The gas from the soda will aggravate nausea and vomiting in most, so get rid of it.

-Again room temp is usually best

- Use decaf- especially if you are pregnant

8) Unisom mixed with Pepsi???

The Pharmcatalyst website explains how the vomiting center is controlled by the brain. That is partially correct. Your body has many triggers for nausea and vomiting. Some of those triggers are psychological,(seeing another person vomit can trigger the same response in you). But if you are vomiting because your have a gastro-bug or food poisoning, your body is vomiting as a defense mechanism. Just because modern pharmaceuticals may be able to stop the vomiting, doesn't mean it is good for your body to do so. In holistic health it is better for your body to rid itself of the poisoned food rather than to have it go through your system. When the body has emptied itself of the offending food, and continues to be stuck in a pattern of nonproductive vomiting, it is appropriate to intervene and stop the vomiting.

-I am not recommending this, but in case you saw it on either of the following two websites, I think it is worth some discussion:

-On Sethblog.com there is a discussion about whether it is ethical to be selling the information on Pharmcatalyst website. For $5 you can learn about an over the counter medication that eases nausea and vomiting.

-The active ingredients (according to Seth) are Unisom (doxylamine, the active ingredient, is an antihistamine) and Pepsi.

-If your kid is throwing up and miserable you are not worrying too much about the ethics, but you do need to be concerned about the safety!

-The use of this product is not recommended for those under the age of 6.

-Doxylamine has been in a number of Tylenol cold remedies because it helps you sleep.

-I won't pay the $5 because I won't use this, but if you do, make sure there are safety guidelines on how much Unisome to give your child. And be sure to read & heed all the safety warnings. There are a number of exceptions to using this remedy listed before you pay your money.

-And keep in mind that children are not small adults. You can't necessarily give "half the dose" or a "third of the dose" and be sure it is safe for a child even though this is done by the medical community at times.

-The pharmacist who writes this site claims the medication causes drowsiness,but won't keep your child from getting up to vomit...but I am not so sure....

-The last thing you want is for your child to aspirate (breath in) some of the vomit. !!! I don't know if he is a parent, but I don't trust his statement for all children. You know your child and how easy or hard he/she is to wake up.

-Use your judgment and don't assume that the pharmacist is right on this score.

That being said:

9)Unisom During Pregnancy

-The active ingredient in Unisom, doxylamine is used in the treatment of hyperemesis gravidarum (severe vomiting in pregnancy)

-It is used in conjunction with Vitamin B6, which is also used as a stand alone treatment for the same condition by more holistic practitioners.

-Talk to your doctor before using any medications during pregnancy.

-There are risks and side effects in using any & all medication.

-An unborn child is at particularly high risk.

Interesting that both uses of Unisom are mixed with other treatments that are also used as stand alone treatments .... makes me wonder if Unison would even work by itself.... But perhaps the added ingredients potentiate the effects.

9) Raspberry leaf tea or mint tea can help to sooth nausea.

10) Ginger Tea- My favorite for relieving nausea- I know I mentioned ginger under "gripe water". But I feel it deserves its own paragraph. I used this recently when I experienced severe nausea as a side effect of a medication for 10 solid days-

-Yes, all medications have side effects. I can't emphasize that enough. I made ginger tea every morning & afternoon and that is what got me through the day.

-The latest studies show that ginger tea is as good as many of the drugs given for nausea, and unlike the drugs, there is not a long list of side effects associated with ginger.

-So the next time you are at the grocery store grab some ginger root from the produce section.

-When you get home put it in a freezer baggy and toss it in the freezer.

-When you need it take it out and carefully scrape off about 1-2 teaspoons of ginger. Place in a cup and pour boiling water over it. Let it steep and cool before drinking. Add sugar if desired. The sugar can be helpful for the nausea too.

-I love ginger so I also ate the ginger remains in the cup. The tea eliminated my nausea for a minimum of 4 hours. Impressive!

11) Try some Essential Oils This is something you have to pick up at the store unless you happen to have some real essential oils around the home.

-Do not use substances that contain fragrances that mimic essential oil. They are not the same thing, and do not work like essential oils.

-Lavender oil works well at relaxing people and helping them to sleep. The active molecules work on the brain through the olfactory system and it doesn't take much to work- a drop or two. Based on this theory and that of how the Unisom works, it makes sense that the essential oils might also act on the centers that control vomiting.

-Here is a recipe from Aromatherapy, by Valerie Gennari Cooksley:

"1 drop basil, 1 drop of peppermint,1 drop of lavender 2 tsp of vegetable oil. Rub in hands to warm and inhale deeply over the nose and mouth area ( 3 slow relaxed inhalations) then massage gently over the abdomen in a circular motion. Other helpful oils include lemon, anise, and fennel. You can place them on a tissue and breathe."

-If the odor aggravates the nausea be sure to wash hands thoroughly.

12) Homeopathics can be very helpful

-The one I keep on hand is Nux Vomica and that is easy to remember because the name is so similar to that which it treats.

-There are numerous homeopathic preparations that help nausea and vomiting that are accompanied by different specific symptoms. This can make it difficult for the parent to know which is the appropriate remedy for the child.

-The easiest thing to do is buy a homeopathic remedy that contains a combination of individual remedies. It is the shot gun approach and purists ( homeopaths) don't like it. But as parents we learn to be flexible.Look for one that includes "nausea/vomiting" on the list of symptoms.

-It will probably be labled Indigestion" or "Stomach" or "Gastro"- something that will indicate for stomach problems

13) Reflexology from Body Reflexology: Healing at your fingertips, by Mildred Carter & Tammy Weber.

-The authors recommend a point to press between the two large tendons of the wrist and 3 finger widths down from the wrist (towards the elbow).

-They suggest that you press this "button" until the patient experiences an aching sensation.

-It can take 25 minutes of more for severe nausea. It seems this technique was very helpful for two young men who suffered from sea sickness long after they had gone on land.

-It's free, harmless, and requires no drive to the store... definitely worth a try.

Lastly,

You may have your own method that works well for you and your family. We would be glad if you shared it. Or if you try one of these and it works well, please let us know. Likewise, if it is a dismal failure... that's good to know too. But remember no treatment is successful 100% of the time on 100% of people.. not even medications.

Hope this helps, Barb

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Sunday, March 30

Potty Training

by Barb Kaiser on Sun 30 Mar 2008 05:08 PM CDT

This article is about potty training, but I included this video because it is easy to fall into "Mom Envy" during this potty training time. Don't let yourself. Remember that each child is different and therefore so are your interactions.

Potty training seems to be a consistently hot topic for this website judging by the stats.. so I am going to provide several links to view video clips that just may help you and your soon to be potty trained wizard through the process. All videos are available at Studio4Kids. .

1)Potty Training Song,

2)Potty Power: Baby or Big Kid

3) Potty Time: Wipe, Wash, Flush

4) Potty Time for Boys

5)Potty Fun

6) Potty Time: No More Diapers,

7)"I Use My Potty" Song

When to Start?

Children can learn control of their bowels beginning at about age two and two and a half for bladder control. When they are really ready potty training can be done in a week. I am skeptical of parents who say their child is potty trained earlier than this. However that being said my brother walked at age 7 months and my daughter had quite a large vocabulary at 9 months (and hasn't stopped talking yet!) and few believe me when I tell them this, so I suppose it's possible that some kids are potty trained at 18 months or 1 year. But it certainly isn't the norm by any reach of the imagination. Let's try not to get caught up in whose-kid-gets-potty-trained-first competitions, Mom. It does no one any good and just because a kid trains early doesn't necessarily mean he/she is an Einstein. I've never seen any studies anyway.

It's easier if you wait till the warmer months and plan on staying at home. You can put the potty outside while your child is playing so that he/she can get to it quickly. Be sure to dress your child simply, so that they can mange their clothing easily- elastic pants.. not buttons. etc. You may even want to forgo underwear.

How Often?

Have your child go to the potty hourly. You'll be lucky if he sits for 5 minutes. Mine would barely sit two minutes. Make sure she drinks plenty of liquids so that there are plenty of opportunities to practice. You may need to stay with them during this process.

Don't get upset if he makes mistakes( and he will). Just reassure him that he will "get it " soon and have him help clean up. When he is successful let him dump the contents of the pan into the toilet if you have that kind of potty and also let him flush the toilet. Be sure to teach him to wash his hands.

Painful & Costly Mistake: Get with the Program, Dad!

Besides teaching little girls to wipe from front to back, to prevent infection, dads may need a lesson too. I know a little girl who had a very hard time with a urinary tract infection which required extensive, invasive medical procedures. Dad felt terrible when he learned he had been the cause of the infection because he had wiped the wrong way. Moms, teach your partner because a lot of guys are clueless on this.

Hmmm....

I will tell you that potty training was a difficult process especially for my younger child and I have seen some parents really screw this up. One woman I knew, who shall rename nameless of course, provided a diaper for her 5 year old to do his, shall we say solid business in, but he used the toilet for voiding ( the medical term for urinating-I like it a lot better. Don't you?)Her 3 year old was also beginning to potty train-- the same way his brother did.

She seemed to think it was normal and had done this since the older child was 3.

When I asked her what she was going to do when he entered kindergarten, she said that he could hold it till he got home. I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but to me, besides being more than a little weird, seems like a lot of unnecessary work. And the term "anal retentive" comes to mind. Perhaps some deeper issues were at work, but maybe the kid just liked being in control of Mom. I think most moms can tell you ways their little darlings ran them around until they put a stop to it. There is a limit to what you have to put up with and also what you should put up with. At the risk of offending some parents who think that they will scar their child by saying no, let me say that kids are resilient. Limits are good things. As long as the limits are reasonable and not abusively enforced you will not scar your child.

Life is Tough & We all Use the Potty

I am thinking of another mom I know whose brilliant child found a way to train her mom to take her to the potty practically before she could walk! But she also could not make a bowel movement in the potty well into her third year. Mom was afraid of emotionally scarring her child by insisting that she use the potty to poop into even though she felt that her child was fully capable of doing so.

I say ,"Get a backbone!" because you have a lot of struggles ahead of you and you are going to need it. If you let your child dictate to you about potty training, when you know full well she is ready, you will never survive the adolescent/teenage years.This is not to say push them into potty training when they do not show signs of being ready. That definitely is a no-no.

Some kids are afraid of falling in. I read that you can put a doll in the toilet & then flush it to show him or her that the toilet won't suck them down. I have not tried this, but it sounds like a good idea. Just make sure it isn't a favorite doll (and that the head is tightly attached or I dare say, if the head did come off that just may emotionally scar a child, not to mention set your potty training back!)

My own daughter could tell me she needed a diaper change... a definite sign that she was ready to be trained, but insisted that I change the diaper. We were making progress, but it was slow. The day she insisted I change her while she laid on her stomach was the day the diaper came off and the panties went on. A solid "no way" on my part, sticking to my guns, and assurances that she could do it finally paid off. There was much whining and conniving on her part that I should give her a diaper ( Mom #1 popped into my mind- No way!) There was also intense disagreement about the functionality of things: she was certain, "It didn't work!"

Success came during dinner 2-3 nights later as she jumped down from the table, ran into the bathroom, clamored up to the potty, and yelled,

"It works! It works!"

Eureka! Hallelujah! ( My words)

Some kids are easier than others . I suspect the videos will help many parents and kids through the process of potty training. I wish I'd had them. If your child is still having trouble or showing reluctance to cooperate, review whether you may be pushing them too early. If you absolutely know your child is capable, stick to your guns. If you don't believe he can do it, he might not believe it either.

Outside Help

Once potty trained it is a good idea to have your child use the toilet every two hours while awake & whenever you do when you are out. This frequency was recommended by a urologist when I was having problems getting my child to cooperate about when to use the potty. some kids wait too long then there is a made rush...usually with wet, embarrassing results.. Besides, it gets very annoying when you have just gone to the rest room in a restaurant where your child has refused to use the bathroom, then when the food comes she need to use the potty.

Waiting too long increases the risk of bladder infection. After a visit to an urologist he told her, "Your mom is right you need to use the bathroom every two hours. Your bladder just isn't big enough to hold more than that. If you wait longer your bladder, the bag that holds the pee will get sick." Thank you, Doctor. Nothing like third party verification! We had no more arguments after that. If you are having problems with your child a talk with your family physician can go a long way in reinforcing good habits in your child. If need be talk to him/her in private and have him speak with your child.

Summer will soon be upon us. Good luck with your potty training!

Barb

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Sunday, March 9

Springtime in the Garden

by Barb Kaiser on Sun 09 Mar 2008 07:18 PM CDT

Click here to view "Springtime Gardening" from Studio4kids.tv

This is a great little video to interest your little sprout in helping you in the garden. I'd love to tell you that mine get out there and help me every year, but that wouldn't be true. What I can tell you is that my 13 year old will be weeding at least once a week for the next few months at a rate of $5.00 a bucket. The buckets take about an hour to fill so we thought that was fair... although I seem to remember doing it for free... and not just for an hour.

Well what can I say, I just can't carry off a threat the way my dad did.

It's not spring yet, but here in Texas, it feels like it. Our last freeze day is coming up soon and I got out there to clean up the garden and prepare the bed today. Every year I have great hopes of having a tremendous garden that will supply us with unlimited veggies and some fruit. Well- I have a garden and we do have some wonderfully fresh fruits and veggies, but never as many as I would like.

Once I had hopes of interesting my kids in gardening, but they would rather do other things. I blame it on hot Texas' summers. The first year I started my vegetable garden it was consistently 106 degrees in the afternoon. The mornings were also hot, humid, and buggy. The little ones face (she was about 2) would turn bright red in just a few minutes of being outside. When I sent her in to cool off, I would send the older one in to keep an eye on her. They would never come back out. At some point I would realize they had been gone a long time and go in to chase them out. It was even hotter now. You can guess how long that lasted. I finally gave up and resigned myself to the fact that the garden was mine and mine alone. (Maybe if I had started earlier showing them these videos they would be avid gardeners now....?)

One nice thing about not having them in the garden is that I can plug in my radio/CD player and play whatever I want while I'm working in the garden. At 13 and 20 our tastes in music are hardly the same. Today I put on a CD from the back of a guitar and fiddle music book and played instrumentals of Bluegrass and Irish tunes. In my opinion there is nothing finer to work in the garden to. And if the neighbors don't like it... well, it's better than listening to a leaf blower at 7:30 a.m., the lawn mower at 8, or that darn dog across the canyon any time!

The bluegrass band was playing some rendition of "Old Joe Clark" when I realized that a nearby mocking bird was trying to sing along! I kid you not. He did a 3 note riff that fit in beautifully with "fare thee well, Old Joe Clark"-the "old Joe Clark" part -and he did it repeatedly.

Now mocking birds can be annoying. They do tend to chase away other song birds and we always joke about one that lived near our house in New Braunfels. We called him psychotic because he sang about 22 different calls including a tree frog, a squeaky gate, and a single door alarm. He did it very early in the morning and drove us crazy too.

My husband hates mocking birds even though they are the state bird. He calls them the "neighborhood nuisance", "flying pest " and other names I won't write, but I have to say that any bird that enjoys Bluegrass music and sings along (in tune, no less), is alright with me!

I listened to him until the song's finish. The next tune was a lot more complicated with some fancy fiddling. I guess he figured he was out-done, because then he flew off.

Now tell me your little ones and even your big ones wouldn't have enjoyed that spring-time duet. And if I hadn't been in the garden, I would have missed it.

Get your little ones to help you in the garden when they are little and it's still a nice temperature & you'll stand a better chance of getting them to help when they are older Vegetables go down easier at dinner if they have helped to grow & harvest them, too.

For more parenting video tips and fun, educational videos for the kids check out Studio4kids.tv & for help with homework go to Studio4learning.tv

Happy Planting,

Barb

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Friday, March 7

Discipline-Lying

by Barb Kaiser on Fri 07 Mar 2008 01:40 PM CST

Click here to view the video on discipline from Studio4kids.tv. Here was a problem I came across on Mamasource, and on line network of local mom's groups across the country.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

*** 5 Year Old Lies All the Time! ***
Request From:

"In the last few weeks my five year old daughter has started lying. It is driving my husband and I bonkers! We did not have this problem with our son who is now nine. To make it worse she makes what we call a "bad choice" first and then lies about it. For example, I asked her to use the potty this morning. She goes in the bathroom and flushes the potty without going. She comes out and says she's done. I know she didn't go because she has on a pair of pants she cannot snap and they are still snapped shut. When I ask her about it she lies. She even blamed something on her brother the other day rather than admit she did it.

We've been taking things away... t.v., her favorite toys, and giving time out. Nothing seems to be changing the behavior. We've even talked about how lying is hurtful and not a good choice. Usually taking is not as effective for the young ones! I guess I'm just wondering if this is normal and if anyone has had success changing the behavior. Thanks!"

This is my response, and I thought I would share it with you:

Other suggestions are welcome.

Actually lying is normal at this age. I forget the exact reason; It may be because they still want to please you, but also exert their own independence and they have found that this method fits the bill. (Maybe they really do forget and confabulate-make it up as they go along- they have such great imaginations..they have a lot going on in their busy little worlds) It passes with some kids easier than others & I never thought it was a good idea to let it go unaddressed. I found this method in a book years ago and added my own twists to it. Don't have the book anymore but I think it was called When Your Child Drives You Crazy.

What I did was make my daughter write sentences. At 5 she may not be able to do so without some difficulty, on the other hand not only does it drive the the message home & helps her remember. ( Sometimes they do forget!) It takes effort on her part, which is time away from other things, & it has the added benefit of having her practice her hand writing. You have to stick with it and oversee that she does it.

I would try to make the sentences positive such as, "I will use the potty when told to" or "I will tell the truth"

You have to be consistent with this method. I also had to get tougher as we went along. For instance the first few times I had her write just 5 times, but then increased it to 10. She didn't like that. So I told her that from now on when she lied, she would have to do more and more sentences, taking up more and more play time. She really didn't like that, but understood that she was responsible for not only telling the truth but the consequences increasing.

I kept all the sentences in a note book so I could keep track of what number she was on( also years later it is kind of fun to see what she did) but while it is happening; it definitely isn't.

Once I had her draw a picture of what she did wrong. She put a lot of effort into that masterpiece and never stole gum again or lied about it. We still have the picture! This system worked pretty quickly to squelch the misbehaving & lying which had gotten to be a rather large problem.

Just remember after the lying dies down, occasionally you may have to go back to writing and probably it will be a very large number. Don't give in. We did between 50-100 on the last time it was necessary, (she was quite a bit older then) but it worked. (It works with other problems as well) Hope this helps.

By the way, my 20 year old is a very honest kid. ( oh yeah, adult!) And she well remembers writing those sentences and how effective it was.

More parenting tips & fun vidoes for kids at Studio4kids.tv . Studio4learning has homework help for yor older student.

Enjoy them today, they grow up really fast!

Barb

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