Probiotics, Probiotics, Probiotics

I have always heard probiotics are good for you.  I have the opinion that they are absolutely NECESSARY for you.  I have my kids on them, my husband and myself.  And...if you ever absolutely HAVE to take antibiotics, you should definitely be on them during the course of treatment and twice the length of time you were on antibiotics.  That is, of course, unless you are smart and take them daily.

When you take antibiotics, you are killing all the bad bacteria in the gut.  This is good.  BUT....you are also killing all the good bacteria in the gut, as well.  That is B-A-D bad.  When the good bacteria is gone, it allows for multiple things, including Candida Yeast to overgrow.  When Candida Yeast, which is naturally occurring in our bodies, turns into an overgrowth situation, your body will start to fall apart.  I don't have references right now, but when I was researching it years ago, I read that they think that 85% of the population has Candida Overgrowth.  It causes every symptom in the book:  stomach pain, cramping, swelling, weight gain, migraines, foggy brain, itching, yeast infections, food sensitivities, skin issues, joint pain....I kid you not.  EVERYTHING.  I know this because when I went on the Candida Diet, I had all of those symptoms and more that disappeared when I killed off the yeast.  We are raising kids on antibiotics.  It only makes sense that all the good bacteria is gone!

Probiotics help to keep the good bacteria in the gut.  All probiotics don't work.  I ask every doctor and health professional their opinions.  All doctors will tell you to get the ones in the grocery store that have had studies to prove they work.  A naturopath or someone else will tell you a little more.  

1-ALWAYS get a probiotic that is found in the refrigerated section.  Probiotics are live cultures and keeping them cool keeps them alive for longer.

2-ALWAYS get a probiotic that has the most billions of cultures in them.

3-ALWAYS get a probiotic that has the most variety of cultures in them.

Understanding all of that, I have lots of people ask me what I use.  I have found that I really like the GARDEN OF LIFE brand of probiotics.  I have found them at our local grocery store, HEB and at any nutrition store.  Take note that it has 100 Billion CFUs....I take as much as I can get.  Most are around 20 Billion.  And there is a list of all the different cultures included.  When I take this supplement I feel a difference.  If I have had to take antibiotics, what would usually cause severe stomach pain and issues, never happens when I am on my daily probiotics.  They also have a great one for KIDS.

Supplement Facts
Service Size: 1 capsule Servings Per Container: 30
Ingredient	Amount	% Daily Value**
Replenish Blend - 100 Billion CFU
-ISS Bif Bifidobacterium lactis (SD-5219), Lactobacillus acidophilus (SD-5221),
-Lactobacillus paracasei (SD-5218), Bifidobacterium lactis (SD-5220),
-RAW Whole Food Probiotic Blend: Bulgarian Yogurt (milk) Concentrate,
-Eastern European Wild Kefir Culture containing Bifidobacterium lactis, Bifidobacterium longum,
-Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus brevis, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Lactobacillus casei,
-Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactobacillus helveticus, Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens,
-Lactobacillus kefirgranum, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactococcus lactis, Lacoccus cremoris,
-Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus kefir, Lactobacillus parakefir, Lactobacillus plantarum,
-Lactococcus lactis biovar diacetylactis, Leuconostoc lactis, Leuconostoc mesenteroides,
-Leuconostoc cremoris, Leuconostoc dextranicum, Kluyveromyces marxianus, Brettanomyces anomalus,
-Debaryomyces hansenii, Saccharomyces unisporus, Saccharomyces turicensis, Saccharomyces cerevisiae,
-Saccharomyces exigus, Torulaspora delbrueckii
Protein-Digesting Enzyme Blend	50mg
-Protease, Acid Protease, Protease S
Eastern European RAW Fruit and Veggie Blend	45mg
-Red Bell Pepper (Fruit), Green Pea (Seed), Carrot (Root), Plum (Fruit), Cherry (Fruit),
-Strawberry (Fruit), Raspberry (Fruit)

Hope this helps!

Thieves Oral Care Update

Returned to dentist today s/p 3 months of using Thieves Oil as a swish each night. She said that my teeth were so slippery it was like they were cleaned yesterday. (i.e. no Biofilm for those who know what that is) When she looked in my mouth she said there was nothing to clean. She brushed and flossed and asked where she could buy what I was using 

Sadness, Hopelessness, Anger, Strength, Wisdom, Power

I don't know the exact cycle of processing emotions, but this comes close to the feelings I have felt thru my health battle.  When I was younger, I was knowledgeable of how I felt, but not knowledgeable of my disease completely.  Having a medical background, I could definitely communicate effectively with my GI doctor, whom I loved.  Back then, I trusted my doctors to provide the proper medication and medication was the only way in my mind to treat myself.  I had never been exposed to the thoughts that diet could change how you feel nor did I ever believe "natural healing" would touch my problems.  I was sick, really sick.  I never thought drugs would hurt me. I needed bigger guns....or so I thought.

When I started my health struggle, while I was never ultra-private about my health, it was easy to live with in the beginning and when I suffered was as night, so no one knew.  I was thrust into the spotlight with lots of love and attention when I had my first emergency surgery.  The world knew I was sick if they hadn't before.  I was only 25 and worked in the hospital where I had my surgery.  So then everyone I worked with and around knew I was sick, too.  I was in a teaching hospital, so the med students (who were my age and friends) used me as a case study and I became very comfortable talking about the uncomfortable subject of my bowels with anyone who asked.  Great conversation, I tell you.

Fast forward to being married with kids, we moved to The Woodlands.  I started getting sick again, and my few friends knew or figured out when I had bad days.  Then, the emergencies happened and everyone knew again.  Again, I don't mind talking about my health, especially if I can help someone... anyone!  I had a lot of sadness and definitely hopelessness as a young mother who couldn't keep up with her mothering duties at times.  Then I was just mad.  Mad as I figured out that my doctors didn't know it all.  They were beginning to feel hopeless with me as well, and started to throw painkillers at me with ease.  They wanted to cover the pain instead of helping me get rid of it.

I have said all along that I believe my Crohn's started when I was in high school.  I was on Tetracycline, prescribed by my dermatologist as a prophylactic drug for my skin.  Sometimes I took it, sometimes I didn't.  It never occurred to me that something a doctor gave me could really affect me long term.  Shortly after that, I had my first yeast infection, I got puffy and my first stomach pain occurred.  In hindsight, it was the imbalance of good vs bad bacteria.  The antibiotics had killed the good and allowed the yeast that is naturally occurring in our bodies to take over.  At that time I had never heard of Probiotics or Candida Yeast.  I didn't even have the internet at my disposal.  I did everything my doctors told me.  I took more antibiotics believing it was making me better, when it was really making me worse.

I fully believe that that was the beginning of my downfall and that my Crohns Disease stemmed from the Tetracycline.  I have said it all along, but no one listened.  It's hereditary, its from cows, its bad luck....I have heard every reason.  NOW, they think that treating Crohn's Disease is not necessarily about suppressing the immune system (with Humira and the likes) but about adding good bacteria to the gut.  I had surgeries that could have been prevented if I knew that sugar caused inflammation and that probiotics help the gut.  Now, because of surgeries I had, my body doesn't absorb iron properly and I have additional problems that require iron infusions.  I also now take Humira (begrudgingly) and it is causing gum issues, infections that won't heal, decreased stamina when I exercise, fatigue...and major frustration.

After the anger I draw on my strength in my faith.  With that strength and enduring years of pain there is wisdom.  And there is power in sharing my story.  God has turned every last painful crumb into lemonade for us as a family.  I, unfortunately, have had a very outward struggle with my health that I have learned to talk about more and more.  I learned to be more vocal when I discovered that there are a LOT of hurting people out there.  My friends.  Their families.  We all have a battle going on.  I am amazed that truly everyone has something.  I am NOT alone in this fight to regain my health.  I had to be dragged thru the gutter to be desperate enough to try new and unaccepted methods of healing.  I became an advocate for myself and while I totally respect my doctors and their opinions, I have formed opinions of my own from knowing my body best.

And I will continue to share my story as long as God will let me.  As long as there is someone to help, I am here to share what I have learned along this LONG road to recovery.   That said, I do still rejoice in the thought that my body will be made WHOLE again when I get to Heaven.  No pain, no doctors making wonky faces when they see my X-rays, no more people telling me how sick I am.  I will be healed.  Heavenly healing.  What in the world could be better than that?

A Year of No Sugar {Re-Posted}

Our Year of No Sugar: One Family’s Grand Adventure

By Everyday Health Guest Contributor

Published Apr 1, 2014

YOUR REACTION?

I LIKE IT

SO SO

INSPIRING

INTRIGUING

IMPORTANT

By Eve O. Schaub, Special to Everyday Health

Once upon a time, I was healthy; at least I thought I was.

Sure, I lacked enough energy to get me through the day, but with all the commercials on TV touting energy drinks for America’s tired masses, I always assumed I wasn’t the only one suffering. And sure, everyone in my family dreaded the coming cold and flu season, but again, I thought come January everyone develops some degree of germophobia.

At least, that’s what I thought until I heard some disturbing new information about the effects of sugar. According to several experts, sugar is the thing that is making so many Americans fat and sick. The more I thought about it the more this made sense to me — a lot of sense. One in seven Americans has metabolic syndrome. One in three Americans is obese. The rate of diabetes is skyrocketing and cardiovascular disease is America’s number one killer.

According to this theory, all of these maladies and more can be traced back to one large toxic presence in our diet… sugar.

A Bright Idea

I took all of this newfound knowledge and formulated an idea. I wanted to see how hard it would be to have our family — me, my husband, and our two children (ages 6 and 11) — spend an entire year eating foods that contained no added sugar. We’d cut out anything with an added sweetener, be it table sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, agave or fruit juice. We also excluded anything made with fake sugar or sugar alcohols. Unless the sweetness was attached to its original source (e.g., a piece of fruit), we didn’t eat it.

Once we started looking we found sugar in the most amazing places: tortillas, sausages, chicken broth, salad dressing, cold cuts, crackers, mayonnaise, bacon, bread, and even baby food. Why add all of this sugar? To make these items more palatable, add shelf life, and make packaged food production ever cheaper.

Call me crazy, but avoiding added sugar for a year struck me as a grand adventure. I was curious as to what would happen. I wanted to know how hard it would be, what interesting things could happen, how my cooking and shopping would change. After continuing my research, I was convinced removing sugar would make us all healthier. What I didn’t expect was how not eating sugar would make me feel better in a very real and tangible way.

A Sugar-Free Year Later

It was subtle, but noticeable; the longer I went on eating without added sugar, the better and more energetic I felt. If I doubted the connection, something happened next which would prove it to me: my husband’s birthday.

During our year of no sugar, one of the rules was that, as a family, we could have one actual sugar-containing dessert per month; if it was your birthday, you got to choose the dessert. By the time September rolled around we noticed our palates starting to change, and slowly, we began enjoying our monthly “treat” less and less.

But when we ate the decadent multi-layered banana cream pie my husband had requested for his birthday celebration, I knew something new was happening. Not only did I not enjoy my slice of pie, I couldn’t even finish it. It tasted sickly sweet to my now sensitive palate. It actually made my teeth hurt. My head began to pound and my heart began to race; I felt awful.

It took a good hour lying on the couch holding my head before I began to recover. “Geez,” I thought, “has sugar always made me feel bad, but because it was everywhere, I just never noticed it before?”

After our year of no sugar ended, I went back and counted the absences my kids had in school and compared them to those of previous years. The difference was dramatic. My older daughter, Greta, went from missing 15 days the year before to missing only two.

Now that our year of no sugar is over, we’ll occasionally indulge, but the way we eat it is very different. We appreciate sugar in drastically smaller amounts, avoid it in everyday foods (that it shouldn’t be in in the first place), and save dessert for truly special occasions. My body seems to be thanking me for it. I don’t worry about running out of energy. And when flu season comes around I somehow no longer feel the urge to go and hide with my children under the bed. But if we  do come down with something, our bodies are better equipped to fight it. We get sick less and get well faster. Much to my surprise, after our no-sugar life, we all feel healthier and stronger. And that is nothing to sneeze at.

Eve O. Schaub is the author of Year of No Sugar: A Memoir. She holds a BA and a BFA from Cornell University, and a MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her personal essays have been featured many times on the Albany, New York, NPR station WAMC. You can join Schaub’s family and take your own Day of No Sugar Challenge on April 9, 2014.

Toxins Go to our Brains!

With all the known toxins and preservatives in our foods, our livers are already working overtime.  Then, add shampoos and lotions and TOOTHPASTE (look on your toothpaste tube and note that if you ingest it, you should call poison control!) that are full of more chemicals like engine de-greaser and the likes.  Guess what happens to the toxins your liver can't process?  They are stored in fat.  Guess how much of your brain is fat?  60%.  SIXTY percent of your brain is fat with loads of toxins in them.  Alzheimers maybe?  ADD? Depression?  I am no doctor nor do I claim to know much, but that seems like simple math to me.  Our society is upside down with all sorts of neurological disorders in our adults AND kids alike.  It just seems possible that this "Sudden increase" in our generation of Alzheimers and Depression and ADD and......might be related to all the crap our bodies have to withstand these days.  Just a thought!

When I had my first Detox that made me want to start this blog, I had a very strange moment.  My detox was so severe that we called it my exorcism.  I say that sort of in fun, but it was really violent.  All I did was stop eating sugar and ONLY eat lean protein and veggies in the strictest of forms. By Day 3, I started getting nauseous and sick and I didn't leave the bathroom for all the vomiting for 3 more days.  I was detoxing from sugar like an alcoholic detoxes from alcohol.  The yeast took over my body and being a living organism it revolted when I wasn't feeding it sugar.  This was all so new to me and my body was so brutally worn out and tired from all the heaving and crying and misery.  I remember hanging over the toilet thinking, "I can eat sugar right now and feel better for a moment.  But live with all my other pain forever  OR I can stick with this and HOPEFULLY be better on the other side forever."  Gratefully, I stuck with it, NOT on my own, but by tons of encouragement from my husband and my family.  I still battle the Candida, but I don't think it will ever be as brutal as that first time.

By day 5 or 6 I started perking up a little and was definitely over the hill.  Then, somewhere around day 9 or 10 I was sitting at my desk working.  I felt something in my head flutter and I looked up at the wall.  There are really no words to fully describe the feeling I felt, but I can only explain it like the Claritin commercial where the lady's life goes from foggy to clear.  From the bottom of my stomach and slowly moving up to my neck and thru my face and into my head, my brain slowly cleared.  In that 60 seconds or so, I all of a sudden was able to think straight.  My mom told me on several occasions that I wasn't thinking properly, I couldn't make decisions and something was wrong with my brain.  She said it in fun, but kind of seriously.  I agreed, but I had 3 young kids and wrote it up to sleep deprivation.  That moment was a defining moment for me.  I was clear as a bell!  I felt amazing....and I didn't know that I had anything truly wrong with my brain before :)

I quickly Googled Candida and Yeast and all the kagillion symptoms and discovered that Brain Fog is a symptom of Candida!  I realize that is such a subjective symptom and my description lacks eloquence, but Brain Fog I had and I had it because of all the YUCK in my body.  The YUCK of two major abdominal surgeries with antibiotics and sedation and big time drugs and YUCK in my foods and YUCK in my body products.

I am definitely a work in progress.  I still make lots of mistakes and I still LOVE sugar.  But I have made drastic changes in my life to avoid certain foods, lots of boxed/preservative-y foods and I am adding natural healing to my life.  I was already using things like coconut oil and honey products for my kids.  Now the Essential Oils and I feel golden.  It's so empowering to feel like I can help myself and I can do it without causing a bunch of nasty side effects.

One step at a time.  I am getting there!  Love this reference I found online:

www.youngliving.org/pennysampler

Why Does it Surprise Us?

I am just like you and all the other virgin oil users out there.   My first experience with Essential Oils was when Thieves Oil cured the "incurable" issue with my gums last year.  I was SO amazed that this little bottle of oil could be so powerful with such amazing results.  I called it my "Miracle Cure!" After all...had I not cured my gums of the bleeding, I would be facing more pain and bone deterioration and all the issues that come with gum disease.  The irony is that that entire issue was caused by the DRUGS that I am taking to suppress my immune system for Crohn's Disease.  Don't get me started there....a post for another day.

Then, my friend loaned me her Oregano Oil to put on my son's chest for his unceasing nighttime cough of three weeks.  When I say instant....I mean instant relief for my coughing son and sleep for the rest of us.  I was SOLD.  Count. Me. In. and HOW do I get more?

I signed up to buy the oils for just myself with no further intentions of selling them.  Within a few months of using them on a daily basis and then starting with the skin care items, I couldn't keep my excitement in.  This stuff WORKS!  I wanted to share all that I had learned.  My friends that I LOVE need this stuff.  I don't EVER want anyone to go thru what I have endured.  That said, WHY are we so impressed?

The use of oils is documented and well known way back in Bible times....Jesus received oils at his birth, Esther bathed in oils for days.  If they worked so well then, why did we get so distracted by medication?  We certainly are a society that likes to pop a pill and be well quick.  The funny part about our drugs, our skin care products, our shampoos....MANY of these oils are in the products.  They are just so diluted by mineral oil and water and anything to FLUFF it up to be able to sell more for less.  There's no question that essential oils work.  It should be no surprise.  After all, God gave Adam and Eve a garden....not a Walgreen's.

Ezekial 47:12 ...and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.

My thinking has been and is in the process of being reprogrammed to not pop a pill or grab that bug repellent or sunscreen.  We should not trust all that is in our products.  Sad....but so very true.  I found this on Pinterest and love it.  The names we get in our ingredients are so long and confusing.  This can help you look at your ingredients to see what products you have with harmful ingredients.  I am guessing quite a few....

If you have any questions, let me know!  You can peruse the oils on my website.  Here's to getting in better health and CHANGING how we think!

Rose Ointment

Another Essential Oil miracle story to report!  My mother-in-law has dry feet plus being recently diagnosed with Diabetes. She came to visit and showed me a crack at the base of her big toe that sent me crawling to the ceiling! It was SO deep and she was in pain. She tried multiple remedies from the store with little to no healing. She loved my oils and purchased the Rose Ointment made with numerous oils (including Rose which is great for healing). When she received her box she sang the praises of the Rose Ointment after Day One. And do you know that that crack/Grand Canyon on the bottom of her foot healed in TWO days? Praise the LORD that we were able to keep her feet healthy! Rose Ointment is on the list for my hubs callousy feet....he just doesn't know it yet.  I LOVE discovering all the wonderful ways to heal our bodies naturally!

www.youngliving.org/pennysampler