The Importance of Using Castor Oil

Ladies and gentleman, let me tell you a story. This story is about my hips, which have been a source of trouble for about 10 years (nearly half my life) and castor oil, the best thing that ever happened to my health, after Moringa. Once upon a time, I used to get hip pain that would sometimes be so bad, I couldn't leave my house. Being someone who has a life and has stuff that needs to be done outside of my home, not being able to leave home at times was quite problematic. Most recently, my hips were hurting last month when I needed to do fieldwork for a class that I was taking. In order to keep up the pace with what I needed to do, I decided to rub castor oil on my hips each night, the same way I did with my tail bone (healed! :D) after I fell down the stairs in January. I've been rubbing the castor oil on my hips for about two weeks now, and it has seriously helped to strengthen my hips. This hip situation has been a HUGE problem for the past 10 years, as I could not always rely on being able to walk. How could I when my hips were giving out on me every now and then? But with rubbing castor oil (often I used the one that I've mixed with cayenne pepper) on my hips each night, I feel a noticeable difference in the amount of strength that is in my hips, and there is decreased pain in my hips since I've been using it nightly. This is HUGE!!!!!!!!! Castor oil really works!!! I had no idea what to do about the whole hip situation, and along came the castor oil and boom, positive change, results! I'm so very happy about this :) I just completed a 25 minute gentle workout on this little upper and lower body cycle, and there was barely any protest from my hips! :D Castor oil has really made a difference in my life, a really big one, and I will keep spreading the word about it so it can keep helping others as well. I'll soon be posting a little tutorial on how to make a simple Cayenne Pepper and Castor Oil mixture, so stay tuned!

Blood Building Foods - Increase Your Red Blood Cell Count

Read here about foods you can eat to build your red blood cell count!

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/8/prweb10997151.htm

Read About Even Flo - Yet Another Natural Supplement to Manage Sickle Cell!

I just noticed that SS Natural Healings, which I have a subscription to but almost never read (lack of time/I forget) just posted about EvenFlo, which is a natural supplement to treat sickle cell. I have copied and pasted the first paragraph of the original post, and there are links to the post here as well. 


Post copied from:
http://ssnaturalhealings.blogspot.com/2015/05/even-flo-natural-supplement-to-manage.html

"Even Flo - Natural supplement to manage Sickle Cell disease! 

Even Flo is a natural pain reliever, which contains the highest quality herbal extracts and nutraceuticals, was created to manage pain in sickle cell patients and decrease the frequency of crisis they experience. The product has undergone rigorous clinical tests and has shown none of the side effects usually associated with prescription pain medications. EvenFlo can also be used to alleviate arthritis pain, ischemia in varying locations of the body, PMS, muscle pain, hypertension, nerve pain, low energy, and anemia..."

Read the rest of the post here!

 http://ssnaturalhealings.blogspot.com/2015/05/even-flo-natural-supplement-to-manage.html

I don't know much about Even Flo, except what's mentioned from the post on SS Natural Healings, but it sounds good so far, I'm definitely going to look more into it.

Doing More Harm Than Good? Royal Jelly Update

There have been points along my journey where I've had to stop and take inventory and wonder if the new thing that I've added to my diet hasn't been doing more harm than good. Currently, the thing that I'm wondering about is the Royal Jelly. It's a super-food and has many beneficial properties... however, it doesn't seem to be benefiting me as much as I thought and hoped it would. As I wrote in my original post about Royal Jelly, I was hoping that it would be a cure for my ulcers. However, during the first week I took the Royal Jelly, I started experience stomach pain again! My sister said that I should continue taking it for at least another week to notice its effects. However, we ran out and I was a bit reluctant to continue taking it, as I wasn't sure what the side effects were.

So I took the Royal Jelly for about one week, beginning on March 20th. And let me just say, I started by taking like 2 TABLESPOONS of the stuff at a time. I really really wanted my ulcers to heal. I was getting some weird types of reactions from my body, like with my stomach hurting and also I felt like my asthma symptoms were starting to increase. Adding Magnesium to my diet (which I did around January or maybe the end of December) has greatly helped reduce my asthma symptoms as well as my monthly cramps, to the point where I rarely ever use my inhaler anymore. Before January/December, I was using my inhaler quite often, and taking lots of pain killers each month for my cramps. After adding the magnesium, I noticed that my need for the inhaler decreased overall, as well as my monthly cramps. Jump to the end of March, and I started to feel again that I was having some difficulty with breathing at times (but not enough to necessitate the use of my inhaler again. That stuff has side effects too, it's a steroid! I only use it when necessary.). This need would arise especially when I was coming up out of the subway after taking a lot of stairs and when trying to run to catch my breath. I thought it was strange, but it took a while for me to connect this problem with my intake of the Royal Jelly. I stopped taking the Royal Jelly around March 27th, partially because I was wary of it, and partially because we were running out of it quickly because I was gobbling it down. On April 2nd, we received the second shipment of Royal Jelly that my sister ordered. This time, what was ordered was the regular Royal Jelly as well as one that had a mixture of ginseng in it. I resumed taking it that same day, and again I started to feel those asthma symptoms as well as tummy trouble. I had looked at many different websites talking about the side effects/benefits of Royal Jelly in the interim period of not taking it, and also continued my research after I resumed taking it. Some of my sources are below. One of the best pieces of advice I found on a website about Royal Jelly was that I should have introduced it to my diet slowly, and increased the dosage from there to avoid any side effects of it. After reading that, I decreased my dosage to about 1 TEASPOON at a time. On April 2nd, I had started with about 1 and 1/2 teaspoons, but afterwards I decreased it. I began to notice that soon after taking the Royal Jelly I would feel like I had to go potty (diarrhea :( ), so of course I did more research about it. One article I came across said that Royal Jelly could send your body into "crisis mode" as it begins clearing out your body, with this crisis mode including the need to go potty. So I started thinking that maybe that's what it was. However, I was also beginning to get chest pain again in my sternum, which was also a big problem for me before I began taking the magnesium. On Sunday night into Monday, my body was feeling kind of strange, but I also have to add here that I have not been eating very well lately, and that has been negatively affecting my health as well.

After my body began having all these strange pains and I began to feel those asthma symptoms again, I began to wonder if whether or not I would be better off without taking the Royal Jelly. I took it for a few days more and then I discontinued its use entirely. Having taken it out of my diet, my overall health began to return to its new normal. So, it was a failure of an experience for me. I think that the ginseng also contributed to the symptoms I was feeling, however, I was still getting those symptoms on the regular Royal Jelly. The point is, I tried. Maybe I should have done more research before trying. I'm just thankful that the outcome wasn't worse and that I was able to put 2 and 2 together quickly enough about what the Royal Jelly was doing to my health. I no longer take it, but I think that it may actually have benefited my stomach to some extent, because it is now the end of May, and I no longer feel like my stomach is as much of an issue as it was. Also, I no longer take Cayenne Pepper daily for my stomach, only as needed. So something along the way, or multiple things along the way, have helped! My stomach still gives me the occasional pains, but I can live with it!

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Truth-About-Asthma-and-Bee-Pollen-and-Royal-Jelly-Should-You-Take-Them-If-You-Have-Asthma&id=5236442

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8835130

http://www.livestrong.com/article/121419-dangers-royal-jelly/

http://www.bee-pollen-buzz.com/side-effects-to-royal-jelly.html

http://www.wisegeekhealth.com/what-are-the-side-effects-of-royal-jelly.htm#didyouknowout

Lavender Oil! An Oil with Similar Benefits to Castor Oil

So I've had some lavender oil laying around my room for the past several months. It was recommended to me as a sleep aid (people with SCD often also suffer from insomnia... talk about adding insult to injury!), as the smell of it helps the mind and body to relax. Unfortunately, it did not help me as much as I would have liked, and so the bottle was just hanging around, out of use. Lavender essential oil smells really fantastic, and one day I decided to see what I could use it for, besides being a sleep aid. It turns out that Lavender Oil has benefits to it that are very similar to Castor Oil! It's an ant-inflammatory, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial that stimulates hair growth, and among the many other benefits it has, it makes things smell nice! Being as how it's an essential oil, it needs to be diluted, so I added it to my Castor Oil to make it less smelly (even though the cold-pressed, cold-processed Castor Oil is already low on odor... it needs all the help it can get! Lol but please don't be deterred by the smell of it! It works!!!). Naturally, after I found out the amazing benefits to this oil that has similar properties to Castor Oil, I wanted to share it with you all, so here I am, writing about it and sharing my sources with you. Enjoy reading! :)

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-7769/13-uses-for-lavender-oil-the-only-essential-oil-youll-need.html
https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/essential-oils/health-benefits-of-lavender-essential-oil.html

Even More Benefits of Castor Oil

Lately, I've been wondering if I can take Castor Oil internally without the laxative effect. A few months ago, the thought of taking Castor Oil internally would have really grossed me out, because as a kid, I was forced to drink it as a laxative (any other Caribbean kids out there who went through the same thing?). However, since I've discovered that Castor Oil is basically God's gift to humanity for things such as minor burns (I used it to treat my relaxer burn that I got on Saturday. It was mild, didn't pierce the skin but just hurt. The Castor Oil cleared the pain up in about 2 days. Gotta love it!), hair growth (my eyelashes have gotten thicker & longer since I've been using it on my face! But be careful though ladies, if you have a naturally hairy face, it'll only make it hairier! Lol ;-) ), acne (I use it almost every single night to treat my acne and I mix it with Cayenne Pepper to make it more potent. It's a powerful anti-inflammatory! Has saved my face from painful breakouts on countless occasions!), joint/muscle inflammation (like 2 days after my wisdom teeth extractions, and I went in twice for surgery, the swelling was all gone!), etc. I could go on. I really could. I love Castor Oil so much, I just have to keep extolling its benefits, because THIS STUFF REALLY WORKS. So, back to my main point. I was ordering stuff on Swanson Vitamins (my favorite website of all time!) and getting my new 16 oz bottle of Cold-Pressed, Cold-Processed Castor Oil, when i saw that it was available in pill form. Naturally, I looked into the benefits of taking it internally. Apparently it's good for the gastrointestinal system! I could definitely use benefits in that area. I'm no longer taking Cayenne Pepper Pills everyday, only as needed, and I usually don't get stomach pain anymore (YAYYYYY!!!! CHEER WITH ME FOLKS, MY STOMACH HAS BEEN A PROBLEM AREA FOR OVER 3 YEARS!!!!), but it would be great if the occasional stomach pains would go away. I'm thinking that maybe if I take the Castor Oil internally it will help my stomach issues out even further. In any case, here are some resources on the benefits of taking castor oil internally. Enjoy reading! :)

http://www.homeremediesweb.com/castor-oil-health-benefits.php

http://www.castoroilhome.com/health-benefits-of-castor-oil

http://www.stylecraze.com/articles/amazing-benefits-of-castor-oil/ 

http://castoroil.org/uses-and-benefits/

A Few Warnings About Using Castor Oil - Always Good to Know!

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/28/castor-oil-to-treat-health-conditions.aspx

Cayenne Pepper: The Miracle Spice

Can we just talk about how much I love Cayenne Pepper? I've been taking it consistently for the past year and a half I think, maybe only a year, I forget. But I've been taking it for my peptic ulcers, as it is the only thing that has given me consistent relief from the pain and allowed me to live a normal quality of life again with eating food. My ulcers have been a real pain over the past 3-4 years, and the medicine that the doctors gave me only made me feel worse rather than better, so I gave up on those and looked for natural treatments. So, Cayenne Pepper is good for peptic ulcers. Among many other things!!! It is great for circulation. Every time I take a few pills, I get a warm feeling in my stomach (sometimes a bit of pain if I don't eat too much, I have to be careful with it too! But most of the time I don't get pain from it because I eat enough) and the rest of my body starts to get warm too. It helps to open up those blood vessels so that the blood can flow more easily through them. Of course, that should have led me to realize that meant it is an anti-inflammatory, but somehow that escaped me. It was only recently that I realized that Cayenne Pepper is an anti-inflammatory, because after I would take a few pills, I would get a really strong urge to pee (sorry, too much info! Lol). That made me realize the work that the Cayenne Pepper is doing in my body besides giving me relief from ulcer pain. Of course to be sure of its anti-inflammatory properties, I looked it up online (research is my favorite :) and my suspicions were confirmed. Apparently, Cayenne Pepper is also great for stopping pain signals throughout the body as well! Yet another score for the fantastic Cayenne Pepper :) I also added Cayenne Pepper to some Castor Oil as a muscle relaxing/pain relieving treatment for my jaw after my wisdom teeth were removed. The combination was really helpful in terms of getting my face back to normal! You can check out for yourself the benefits of Cayenne Pepper at these links:

http://www.cayennepepper.info/health-benefits-of-cayenne-pepper.html

http://www.natures-health-foods.com/Cayenne.html

http://commonsensehome.com/home-remedies-for-sore-muscles/

Enjoy reading! :)

Moringa for Sickle Cell Anemia

Ladies and gentleman, it is now time for my long awaited testimony about the benefits that Moringa has provided to my life. How did I discover Moringa? I read about it in passing on Facebook, one of the Sickle Cell awareness pages that I was following at the time, and briefly looked into it, seeing that some people used it to treat SCD effectively, before writing it off as impossible to obtain. Where would I get this foreign, exotic leaf that was so highly touted and had all these great benefits? I couldn't afford it. I put it out of my mind.

One fateful day, in August 2013, The Vitamin Shoppe sent me a coupon (those manipulators! lol jk) giving me 20 or 40% off if I were to go spend money at their store (see the manipulation?). That coupon proved to be a Godsend, and even the guy at the store remarked to me that the coupon I had received was very rare (yet again, a sign that it was the working of God Himself. Thanks, God :). I browsed The Vitamin Shoppe with my friend SSW (her nickname), and as I searched the shelves for something worth my hard earned money (I try to spend wisely always, lest I end up broke), I came upon a small, 8 oz can of Moringa. I was a bit intrigued, as I had previously read about this leaf on the internet, and here it was, before my very eyes in the store that had drawn me in with their lovely, rare coupon. Before I spent my hard earned dollars on this little can of green powder, I asked if the guy at the store would help me look up information about the leaf online, and he ended up letting me use the store computer because I needed more help than he could give (there were other customers to get money from). At that time, I didn't have a smart phone (that came along about 8 months later, when my poor dumb phone got damaged). After doing some research and talking about the Moringa with SSW, I decided I would purchase it. That warm day in August, I walked out of The Vitamin Shoppe with a can of Moringa and less money in my bank account.

That was the beginning of yet another new lease on life. Moringa has changed my life dramatically, as it helps my blood cells to stay round and healthy, which is all that you need with Sickle Cell Anemia in order to have a higher quality of life. When I first began taking it, I started to feel better. About a month later, I went to work at a daycare with kids ages 6 months to 4 years (that position only lasted 6 weeks, I love kids, but the position was too physically demanding for me). Since I was working with little children (germ machines) I started taking more Moringa in order to boost my immune system. I think that I originally started with 1/2 a teaspoon daily and I upped it to 1 teaspoon to a teaspoon and a half. I also would take Vitamin C, and I'm telling you, the combination helped me to kick some colds that would have turned really nasty had I not been taking it. I have asthma as well (due to the SCD), so when I get a cold, the cough tends to stick around for ages, which makes it even more unpleasant.

Since the day I purchased my first can of Moringa, I have gone never a day without taking it (I think. I might have missed 1 or 2 days when I ran out and was waiting for a new order). The reason why I take it so faithfully is because I notice that when I take it, I feel stronger. My body feels better, less achy. It's been so long that I've been taking it, it's become such an important part of my diet that I can't remember what it's like to not take it. During the winter time, I take less painkillers because the Moringa helps my blood cells so much. My blood cells don't speak to me, they don't tell me they're staying nice and round, but I know they are because I feel less pain overall, and I'm better able to bear the cold. I do NOT do well with cold weather; in fact, this winter, with having hurt my tail bone and with the mounds of snow, ice, sleet, rain, and slush that have been falling from the sky, I've just been staying home whenever I don't have to go out. But, when I do go out, I can deal with the cold weather better and with taking fewer painkillers. Also, I rarely ever get colds since I've been taking Moringa (also since I stopped drinking milk, but that's a different story).

Honestly, Moringa is such a huge benefit to me that it's extremely hard for me to sum it up in one little blog post. I'm trying to put it into words, but words fail to express how much this little leaf powder has helped to turn things around for me in a healthier, better direction. Moringa HELPS with Sickle Cell Anemia, my life is a living testimony to it. It helps to reduce the sickling, whenever I feel my body going into crisis mode, I take my painkillers and I also take more Moringa. My body bounces back a lot faster than it used to. Last semester I missed two days of school from having Sickle Cell pain, and it was pain in my hip that made it hard to walk. It wasn't pain that required a hospitalization. I managed at home with Tylenol Extra Strength and that was good enough. When I was working last year at a school, I never missed a day of work from November to June (I was late plenty of times, but that's a different story. MTA troubles >.<). I haven't had a lingering cold in ages and I used to get them quite frequently.

And the pain!!!! I haven't had a serious Sickle Cell Crisis requiring hospitalization or emergency room treatment since October 2012 and the Moringa has only helped me in that direction.

The cost for my healthy Moringa habit? $17.99 for one pound of the stuff, and I get it with free shipping on Ebay.

I cannot stress enough how much this little leaf powder has changed my life. This little leaf is now a staple in my diet, I take two teaspoons of the stuff daily, and it helps keep me on an even keel. Don't get me wrong, there are still those days when I need to rest and what not because I still have the disease. But because of my dietary changes, and because I've added Moringa, it rules my life less and less, and I get to have a more normal quality of life more and more.

Moringa has been a tremendous blessing to my life and there are a ton of links throughout this post that attest to the benefits of this plant. Look into Moringa, see what it can do for you. I hope that this post will encourage someone to give this green leaf a try. It can work for you too!

Benefits of Moringa:

https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/vegetable/moringa.html
http://moringaphilippines.blogspot.com/2012/06/why-moringa-can-reduce-sickle-cell.html
http://ssnaturalhealings.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-miracle-plant-moringa.html
http://imaginezambia.org/3281/sickle-cell-anemia-moringa-news/
http://www.moringasource.com/pages/moringa-health-benefits
http://moringa4health.com/Moringa_-_Benefits.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/037735_Moringa_superfood_health_benefits.html#
http://www.reshapeyourbody.org/incredible-moringa-nutrition-story-sickle-cell-anemia/

Battling the Flu

Five weeks ago, right at the start of my very busy winter semester (my second in grad school, yay?), I caught the flu from my poor old mom. This was only about two weeks after having fallen down my front steps on an icy, rainy, horrible winter day, and hurting my tail bone, so needless to say, I was miserable. Oh, and did I mention I was just coming off of antibiotics for Strep Throat when I picked this thing up? So my immune system was totally down. I picked up the Strep Throat from one of the kids at the preschool where I did my fieldwork in January, she coughed right in my face (gotta teach the kids not to share germs!). I started feeling sick on Thursday night, but unfortunately for me, I was half in denial, and half didn't realize why I was coughing. On Friday I was coughing a bit, and since my mom was sick too, I figured I better up the ante by adding Vitamin C, honey, and Echinacea to my Moringa in the mornings. I took about 3,000 mg of Vitamin C on Friday, so I thought I was good. Unfortunately for me, Saturday rolled around, and though I took my Vitamin C, Moringa, honey, and Echinacea that morning, I felt awful by the middle of the day. I took my temperature and it was running at 100.7ºF. I felt like I was going to pass out. My body felt as though I was getting some aches and I felt chills as well.

Now, when I was younger and I would get the flu, it would automatically set off a Sickle Cell Crisis and I would also throw up and be bedridden, useless, and in pain for three days. This time was different. Yes, I felt awful on Saturday, but my aches were pretty minor, and I managed my fever with Tylenol Extra Strength 500mg. As well as a bit of bed rest on Saturday and Sunday, but I wasn't bedridden and useless and in pain.b Also, my lovely, delicious combination of Vitamin C, Moringa, honey, and Echinacea restored my immune system in about a day and a half, I kid you not. Saturday was my worst day, and I can't recall how many milligrams of Vitamin C I took that day, probably about 6,000. I drank my lovely Vitamin C, Moringa, honey, and Echinacea concoction about three times on Saturday, probably once on Friday about probably about 2-3 times on Sunday. So by Monday, my flu was just a lingering cough (bronchitis) and by Tuesday I felt like a real person again. All natural remedies (plus Tylenol). They really do work! Also, I had my mom taking the same concoction and she got better within the week as well. My whole house was either sick or getting sick, my poor dad was coughing and I think my sister too. We were all drinking honey like crazy, we ran through about 48 ounces of honey within a week. Sweet stuff! :)

So, my lovely concoction, for anyone who would like to give it a shot (make it sweet!!!)
I poured honey into the bottom of a mug, added about 2 teaspoons of Moringa, opened a capsule of 400 mg of Echinacea into it, and opened 2 capsules of Vitamin C (1000 mg each) into that, and added hot water. Smelled good, tasted interesting. Lol, again, make it sweet, add more honey if you need to. I only opened up the Vitamin C capsules to give my poor ulcerated stomach a rest from having to do the work of absorption. I opened the Echinacea capsule because it's a herb and I personally think it works better when mixed with hot water, but however you want to take your Echinacea or Vitamin C is fine, I just like to have mine this way.

Hope this helps someone kick the flu!!!

Let Us Now Address Castor Oil: Pain and Inflammation Treatment

Castor oil has saved my life, many many times. And I'm not talking about the stinky stuff, I'm talking about the cold-pressed, cold-processed, low on odor stuff. (But the stinky stuff would work just as well, I just can't stand the smell! lol.)  How did this story begin? Again, I have to thank my second oldest sister, who purchased Castor Oil off of Swanson Vitamins. I must also thank my cousin, who once recommended using topical treatments for joint/muscle pain. Well would you know that Castor Oil is great for treating joint and muscle pain? Among a bunch of other benefits that it has? There was that one day that I had some joint and muscle pain, I'm guessing it was in my hip, which has been a continuous source of trouble for me over the years, but a source of trouble that has shown improvement since I changed my diet, thank God. That one fateful day, I decided (probably out of irritation, annoyance, and desperation) to rub my hip or whatever joint it was with that sticky Castor Oil before I went to bed. Yes, it was a bit sticky and it had a bit of an odor, but who cares? Because by the time I woke up, the odor was gone. AND SO WAS MY PAIN. I call Castor Oil "God's Magic Oil" now. I cannot tell you how much I love the stuff. I was getting frequent pain in my ribs, a dull, annoying ache most of the time, and what did I end up treating it with? Castor oil. (The pain is mostly gone now, hasn't presented itself in months, I'll write another post to address that. :) I fell down the icy stairs in front of my house on January 18th, as I was on my way to class, landed right on my tailbone. If I hadn't been wearing my two coats (yes, two, I CANNOT deal with the cold weather) I probably would have broken my tailbone rather than bruised it. Let me tell you, I cried like a baby, it hurt so much. What reduced my misery and gave me back a normal quality of life after that great fall? Massages with Castor Oil (which I had to give myself, what an embarrassing place to have to get a massage, right near the tush! I still get some pain in my tailbone, but that's usually when I sit in a bad chair, and I can easily help that with a coccyx cushion. I am mostly 99% tailbone pain free!) I had two wisdom teeth pulled last Monday, and what did I use to treat the swelling once I got home? Warmed up Castor Oil. It took me a while to learn, but from the tailbone incident, I learned that Castor Oil works even better when it's warmed up! I put some in a little bottle, and place that bottle into a container of hot water, and voilà. A few minutes later, my Castor Oil is ready to use and ready to heal my pain once I massage it into the area that's bothering me. My neck also received a Castor Oil massage after my dental extraction, and so did my wrist, where my IV went, because my wrist was sore as well. I cannot say enough how much this stuff really, truly works."God's Magic Oil" is fantastic guys, and I would love for you to benefit from it too!

Of course, here are some lovely links where you can purchase your own bottle of Castor Oil, aka "God's Magic Oil." Hope this helps someone!
This is the one I purchase: http://www.swansonvitamins.com/home-health-castor-oil-cold-pressed-cold-processed-16-fl-oz-liquid
And here is one with free shipping. You gotta love Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CASTOR-OIL-USP-GRADE-COLD-PRESSED-ORGANIC-PURE-HEXANE-FREE-16-OZ-/111453859391?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19f32aee3f

Cherry Juice & Cherry Extract for Your Pain

There are natural alternatives to treating the pain of Sickle Cell, as well as natural alternatives to treating the condition overall. One thing I've never liked about taking painkillers is this: though they may treat the pain, desensitizing our bodies to it, they don't give us the strength that our bodies need to keep the pain away. They only treat a symptom, not the cause. And of course, there are the ever present side-effects! The Ibuprofen that I was told to take by my doctor ruined my stomach and it still hasn't healed completely, to my knowledge. I was prescribed a medication  to "treat" my stomach lining, which has been compromised by the formation of peptic ulcers (I have a post about it somewhere on this blog) and it made me feel worse!!! I decided not to take it, and instead take Cayenne Pepper in capsules daily (450 mg/80,000 Heat Units. Talk about hot!!!). The Cayenne Pepper pills have given me a sense of normalcy again, as they allow me to mostly eat without any trouble. Except, unfortunately for me, I must still avoid citric and acidic foods. Though I do break the rule occasionally to eat pasta or pizza. A girl's gotta live!

So, the Cherry Extract! For years, my second oldest sister kept telling me, "Try Cherry Extract, it's good for inflammation! It will help you with your pain!" For years, I was too skeptical, hurting, and miserable from  SCA to even bother trying her ridiculous natural pain remedy. I mean really, who on earth would ever consider Cherry Extract for pain? It's made from cherries for goodness sakes. Well, one fateful day in Sept. 2014, when I was feeling somewhat miserable with pain and had dragged myself to school only to find out I had no class that day (thanks, professor!), I came home and my dad and I decided to visit the Vitamin Shoppe, because they had mailed me a coupon and I just had to use it (see the manipulation there?). At the Vitamin Shoppe, I finally decided to ask where I could locate the Cherry Extract, which was so much cheaper with my lovely coupon (cheap, but not free! lol). Thus began my journey with Cherry Extract as part of my life. I found out that it really does help with pain and inflammation. I took several of the pills that day, as I was having some pain in my hip, besides my other dull, generalized body pains. I also took some Tylenol Extra Strength that day, which is my go to painkiller these days (just more proof of how my life has changed because I changed my diet).

The combination worked!!! Tylenol Extra Strength and Cherry Extract pills. Tylenol to treat the pain, and Cherry Extract to treat the pain AND the cause (inflammation!). Let me tell you, there are some moments when I take one Cherry Extract pill and one Tylenol Extra Strength, or even other times when I take two Cherry Extract pills to treat my pain, and they work. One of the things I LOVE LOVE LOVE about Cherry Extract is that IT HAS NO SIDE EFFECTS. NONE. IT'S ALL NATURAL. Now please, join me in my joy and say "Yay!!!!" After I purchased my first bottle of Cherry Extract from the Vitamin Shoppe, I switched to purchasing it online at Swanson Vitamins, a website that sells good quality vitamins and supplements, etc. My favorite thing about this website is that they often have sales, so I often purchase their lovely vitamins and supplements to keep me healthy. Of course, here is a link to my lovely Cherry Extracts, the exact brand that I purchase. I'm telling you, I really really love this stuff, and if you give it a shot, I think it may be able to help you too. Not only do they sell the dried extract from the cherry, but they also sell tart cherry juice, which my second oldest sister recently purchased for me to help me through my worst days. I haven't yet used it, but when the time comes, I will! And to add to this story of cherry greatness, I had 2 wisdom teeth pulled one week ago, and guess what I was taking besides the Codeine to help with the pain? Two cherry extract pills daily. I came off of the Codeine within three and a half days but have still been taking my lovely side-effect free cherry pills :) Anyone ready to give Cherry Extract a try? I hope it works for you too!

Click Here!

Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup

Here is a delicious and healthy recipe for Sweet Potato Soup that is incredibly easy to make. I had the idea to throw this together when I began to get tired of eating boiled and baked sweet potatoes. At the time I first made this, I was also starting to get pain in my eyes again, which first started to happen around the time I was 14, due to the blood vessels in my eyes being obstructed from misshapen cells. Since then I've had treatments on my eyes and they usually don't bother me anymore, but I haven't had any treatments in a while, over a year I think, hence the pain. Sweet potatoes and carrots are a great source of Vitamin A, so they make up the basis of this soup. It comes out pretty tasty, I hope you'll enjoy it! Also, please forgive me, because when I make up recipes, I never use a measuring cup or anything like that, so I'm going off of imprecise measurements for some of these things, but I'm guessing as best as I can. Hope you enjoy and benefit from this recipe!

Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup

Ingredients:
4  Sweet Potatoes*
5 medium sized Carrots
1 very large Onion
Salt (about 1 1/2 tablespoons)**
Water (about 8 cups, possibly more/less, depending on the consistency you want your soup. I actually measured for you guys! :)***

1. Bring the water to a boil. While the water boils, peel the carrots, sweet potatoes, and onion. Cut the onion in half or in quarters. Add the carrots, onion, sweet potatoes, and salt to the water.
2. Allow the vegetables to boil, bringing the fire down to a simmer and covering the pot with a lid while the vegetables cook. Test the vegetables with a fork to see how soft they become in the water. Once a fork can go straight through the sweet potatoes and carrots, turn off the fire and allow the vegetables to cool. Do NOT throw out that veggie water, it's got tons of vitamins in it from the vegetables and you don't want those vitamins going away!
3. Blend the vegetables using the water that they were boiled in. I usually put in one sweet potato to my Nutribullet at a time, along with the boiled water. Once everything has been blended, you're good to go! Serve yourself a nice warm bowl, or have it chilled, whatever makes you happy. Enjoy the soup and the fact that you're having yourself a healthy thiocyanate and Vitamin A filled meal! Bon appetit!

The last time I made this recipe, which was last Sunday, I added an extra onion and brown sugar, and it was even more delicious than the other times I've made it. But the recipe tastes just fine this way too. Experiment and see what works for you! I'd love any comments from anyone who tries or wants to try this out! :)

Also, I wanted to add that I've been taking a Vitamin A pill daily to help with the eye pain, and making sure to drink more water, which have both helped, thank God :)

* I tried making it with only 3 large sweet potatoes and it came out too thin, sorry for the changes!
** I'm still not sure how much salt I used when it tasted best, but just put less salt if you think it'll be too salty. You can always add more later if you so choose :)
*** About 8 cups of water should do the trick, I made it last night and measured the water and it came out to 8 cups.

Barley & Lentil Soup, Anyone?

Yesterday, I decided to make a barley & lentil soup so I could eat my lentils a different way. My former favorite way to eat lentils was to use this Curried Lentils recipe, which is incredibly simple and tasty. You don't actually need all the ingredients on the list either. For instance, I never used chicken broth. Instead, I used plain water and threw a Maggi Cube in the pot along with everything else and let it all simmer. Maggi cubes are a good substitute for chicken broth if you don't have any. The barley & lentil soup I made was super simple and mostly improv. I'm going to write down the recipe here in case anyone else wants to try it. The two foods in the soup that are Thiocyanate rich are the lentils and carrots. I didn't use exact measurements for the water, so if you want a thicker soup, add less water, and if you want a thinner soup, add more.

Barley & Lentil Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

1 Cup of Barley
1 Cup of Lentils
7-10 stalks of Celery
6-8 large Carrots
3 stalks of Scallions
1 Teaspoon Minced Garlice
1/2 Maggi cube (optional)

7 Cups of Water

Salt & Pepper to taste

Servings: Many!

Directions: 

Rinse barley and lentils. Chop celery, carrots, and scallions. Add everything together, the barley, lentils, celery, carrots, scallions, minced garlic, and Maggi cube together in a pot. Add about 7 cups of water. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down the fire and let the soup simmer for about an hour, or till all ingredients are tender. 

That's it! Hope you enjoy making it! Bon appetit!

Cabbage Juice!

In my research about what is good for healing ulcers, I read about red cabbage and how it can help the stomach in the healing process. Today, I finally bought a red cabbage and pureed it and drank a cup, and have a good sized container to last me the next week and a half. I'll be drinking at least one cup a day on an empty stomach and will continue for at least a month, maybe two. Cabbage is also a Thiocyanate rich food, so I may just continue drinking cabbage puree as part of my daily routine until I get tired of it. Yet another easy way for me to stay healthy (as well as help my ulcers heal)! :D

Discontinued Use of Liquid Chlorophyll

One thing that I haven't considered as a factor in my health for a while is Liquid Chlorophyll. I discontinued my use of it a few days before I returned to the USA, not because I wasn't pleased with it, but because moving was interrupting my daily patterns. I would say it's been about 5-6 weeks since I last took any. What I will do is first commence this new treatment with Mastic Gum for my ulcers, and once that is through, I will once more purchase LC to begin using daily. I also need to work on making sure my diet is well rounded, with enough essential building blocks such as Calcium, Iron, Folate, etc. to keep my whole body in good health instead of feeling like one part of my body (usually legs, arms, or ribs) is weaker or hurts on certain days and not others. What I want to remind everyone is that though what I am doing is not a cure, it  is a new way of eating and treating my body that has worked incredibly for me, and that's why I'm sharing it with you, that way someone in your life may also have positive results and begin to feel better in their bodies.

Life without Serrapeptase/Nattokinase

I must admit, part of the reason why I don't update more often is because I've gotten a lot of page views, but very few comments, which makes me wonder if this is helping anyone at all. But maybe some people prefer to read and not comment. If so, this is for you guys!

March 15th was the day I stopped taking Serrapeptase regularly, since then I've barely taken it at all. It was making me feel like my ulcers were still bleeding, so it definitely had to be dropped from my routine. However, my body still feels good, and I still do take my Liquid Chlorophyll every morning, sometimes in the evening. I also continue to stretch every morning which has greatly helped my body. In the past, the muscle in my right leg between my pelvic bone and thigh was very weak and would sometimes cause me to limp. The muscle would sometimes get so stressed throughout the day that it would get to a point where it felt like it twisted, and then I wouldn't be able to walk for about a week. This, of course, was at times the bane of my existence. Stretching helped change all that. Since I started stretching, I noticed the muscle wouldn't hurt as much when I would walk, and over time it's become more limber and flexible, and it now feels like it works with me, as opposed to against me. All in all, stretching has helped my existence become easier! And it's such a simple thing to do, my basic routine can be done in about 5 minutes, though I'm sure sometimes I take longer with it by taking deeper breaths and just getting oxygen into my lungs. Trust me, it's a relaxing way to help start your day! Experiment with stretches and see what works for you :)

As usual, I have to put a reminder here about eating a diet high in Thiocyanate. It's simple to do once you get the hang of it, I promise! For instance, last night's dinner was beets, lentils, and roasted chicken. It was healthy and delicious! This morning's breakfast was Golden Grahams and warm milk. Variety in the diet is essential so you don't get bored and hop off the wagon like I did when I first started my new way of eating. A good suggestion for adding Thiocyanate filled foods to the diet would be to add a little bit at a time. For example, experiment with different recipes and find what works for you. Over the summer, I would make smoothies out of frozen strawberries and coconut milk ( with a bit of brown sugar and vanilla essence for extra flavor!) The smoothies were delicious, filling, and high in Thiocyanate! There are tons of things you can try, such as fried, baked, or boiled plantains, baked sweet potatoes, stewed lentils, steamed broccoli, raw carrots, bananas, and almonds just to name a few! Try them out consistently and get your Thiocyanate in large  amounts as well as your other vitamins from foods that are as close to their natural state as possible. Try these out and let me know what works for you!

Steamed Broccoli and Plantains

...that is what I am having for dinner. There is some cauliflower on my plate too, actually more cauliflower than broccoli. I brought a frozen mix and the great thing about my dinner is that everything on my plate is high in calcium. I cut way down on my intake of Nattokinase. I was also able to get my hands on some goat's milk, which I rather like, and my ulcers seem to be doing a lot better. I am not sure how long it would take for the goats milk to completely heal my ulcers, I am also not sure how strong pasteurized goat's milk is in healing them because I'm sure the raw version has more nutrients in it, but I will keep drinking some everyday until I go back home. The fact that I haven't been feeling any stomach pain that feels ulcer related since I began eating more foods that would help heal them has been very encouraging to me. 

Sometimes, I get a bit frustrated with my diet and just want to eat anything I want. For instance, tonight I wanted to have frozen pizza and nachos for dinner. Since I had pizza yesterday, and I know that it's not that good for me with all those starches and all that white flour which probably is causing me to break out today and also is probably causing inflammation in my body, I compromised with myself by buying nachos. I will have pizza another day. Knowing that sticking to my diet is essential to my health and well-being is a highly motivating factor, especially on days when I'm feeling down because I'm not feeling well, and I wonder if sticking to my diet that day is worth the trouble. At this point, I probably shouldn't even call it a diet, because I've been making sure that the majority of what's on my plate each week is high in thiocyanate. It is probably safe to call it my new way of life. If I weren't dedicated to my health, I probably would have given up already. But seeing how my diet helped me over the summer, and again seeing how it's been helping me now, where I can mostly stick to my regular activities and be a "normal gal" for the most part is what keeps me going. Looking at my health charts and seeing all the information I've collected so far is also something that continues to inspire me to stay on the path that I am on. Again, I must reiterate that I haven't found a cure, and that if I don't stick to my diet, then my health won't stay as good as it is now. But the fact that I am able to feel a lot better than I used to because I am eating foods that are high in thiocyanate is truly encouraging, and I hope that other people will find the encouragement that they need here on these pages. 

Dangers of Nattokinase

Pretty upset right now. My stomach has been hurting on and off for the past week and a half, it's been doing it more since last night, I actually woke up with a bit of pain last night. Nothing extreme, but enough to wake me up. I mentioned before that I have stomach ulcers, and I think they are what make my stomach so incredibly sensitive to when I eat out, which I've been doing more since last Sunday. It only occurred to me tonight, after I ate dinner and my stomach began hurting, that since I have ulcers and Nattokinase is a blood-thinner, that the Nattokinase is probably what has been contributing to my stomachaches. I looked it up, and lo and behold, the website says, 

"Nattokinase should also not be taken by those who bleed very easily. It should be avoided by those who have recently had a bleeding ulcer, surgery, stroke or heart attack." 

This is all even more upsetting to me because my health has been feeling a bit more poor in different ways as well, and I can't be certain, but I wonder if my elevated heart rate during my work outs was not attributed to the Nattokinase in my system. As I said to a friend last night who said I should live it up more, "my health is a full time job." It gets incredibly frustrating when I have setbacks such as these. I was doing really well on the Serrapeptase and Liquid Chlorophyll alone and I really should have done more research before adding Nattokinase to my diet. It should have popped out at me that it was a blood thinner, but then again, I really wanted to be rid of the clutches of this disease. 

So this is where I am now, my ulcers are once more proving to be a problem when I eat, and it will take several weeks before they heal sufficiently to not bother me anymore. I'm not sure if they will ever heal completely, hence my absolute and essential need to stay away from blood-thinners, Ibuprofen, and anything else that might irritate them. Really can't say how frustrated I am about my ulcer situation, but I gotta press on. My warning to everyone is to really do your research before you add anything new to your diet, please look into the side effects. I still suggest eating a diet high in Thiocyanate and eat healthy in general. Eat as natural as possible because that's always best for your body.

Health Chart Update!

I am really glad that I had the idea to keep track of what I am eating and my supplements daily with a chart! It has been 12 days since I began using my chart and it shows me what I need to eat more (greens) as well as showing me trends in my diet. The first page of my charts is finished (I made 5 copies of the original, which I drew up by hand, no need for complicated computer work!) and I wrote a conclusion at the end to sum up all my data. This weekend I was feeling some mild pain in my legs and arms, which felt like they could have been crisis pain, and yesterday I did take 1000mg of paracetamol (acetaminophen) for it, but other than that, I've been okay. It seems like the Nattokinase has been doing its work to keep my blood from clotting, for which I am thankful! I have been feeling good since I added it to my diet.

I had to stop working out due to what I mentioned earlier, but I walked a lot today. One thing I must note, my body feels different when I drink tap water, and from what I have read about parasites, which I talked about in another post, I feel like I have an infection. For that I am eating carrots on a empty stomach (eat nothing else for 30 minutes afterward) and will be trying the garlic cleanse mentioned on this website. Today, I also started with something I hope to keep up, which is to eat a clove of raw garlic on an empty stomach 15 minutes before a meal (yes, I am worried about how I will smell -_-'). I had to take it with two spoonfuls of honey because it is very strong. Garlic is also good for the flu and many other things! Though it did give me a bit of an upset tummy! I am going to try eating it the way it's suggested on this website. Sorry to have to talk about parasitic infections here, I know it's totally gross, but it's very real and incredibly common and is affecting my health! Definitely won't leave that stone unturned!

Insomnia or Waking Up Too Early

Yesterday was day 5 of my new workout routine, which made me really happy. I was also rather fearful as well, because my health has been very good. Yet this is such an unpredictable disease and it could turn at any moment, so I've been wondering, since last night, if my health will continue to remain in a good condition, or if it may suddenly all go to pieces. Of course, I have been keeping up my daily health practices, but yet the worry still remains. 

A few days ago, I began taking the Nattokinase that I finally ordered. I'm not sure I feel any different from taking it, and I also feel that a few other factors might be masking the effects that I could be feeling. I have a really bad cold with a pretty deep cough right now, that I have been remedying with a tea made of lemons, onions, and honey, but I also have to use my inhaler because of my asthma. The cough that I have gets deeper and more painful if I don't use my inhaler, and I think I could have prevented it from getting so bad if I had used it a bit more consistently, and sooner, while the cold was developing. One of the side effects of the inhaler is that it increases my heart rate (I guess that means it raises my blood pressure?). Because of that, I've been having trouble sleeping for the past few nights and have been waking up around 4am, and I don't know if it's because of the Nattokinase or because of the inhaler (I use Ventolin).