Homemade Chicken Stock

One of the easiest things to do to stay – or get – healthy in the winter is to make your own chicken stock, or bone broth. Some people like to claim that healthy eating costs a lot of money, but broth is something you can make from the bones of a chicken you already ate, plus some apple cider vinegar and veggies (see recipe below).

The result is a protein-rich and mineral-rich healing liquid that can be drunk on its own as a tonic for upset tummies, as a base for soups, or as an addition to a stir-fry or any kind of cooking of veggies. If you make your own baby food, use stock instead of water to add fat, which will help your child absorb any vitamins & minerals in the veggies (and the stock adds nutrients and protein of its own).

Our house is gluten-free by necessity, but I also avoid processed rice pasta most of the time preferring to cook whole grains like brown rice and millet in broth. It’s so much tastier and healthful. And, often, cheaper!

I recently attended another great cooking class with whole food chef and holistic health educator Monica Corrado of Simply Being Well. If you’ve never made stock before, watching it done in person might be a good motivator to get on the homemade bandwagon. It’s instructive to see the process done in person, and learning in a community is fun and rewarding.

But if you’ve got a carcass just about picked clean and you’re ready to go, here is the simple recipe to get you started.

It’s best to have two chicken carcasses or one carcass and a bunch of wing bones (or other bones if you can get them from your farmer or butcher). If you have only one carcass, you might cut the recipe in half to avoid a weak broth. It’s fine to store one carcass in the freezer until you have a second ready.

Starting ingredients:

• 4 quarts (filtered) water
• 2 Tablespoons raw, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar (or another kind of vinegar if necessary, the milder the better. Try rice vinegar before grain vinegar. I don’t think balsamic works for this purpose).
• Chicken* bones (two carcasses if available)

* Use good quality chickens that have been bred on pasture. Organic or “pastured” from a farmer you trust is best. Be sure at a minimum that they are hormone & antibiotic-free. Organic chickens at the store might be pricey, but you can get them directly from farmers at markets or through co-ops for $3.00/lb.

Step 1:

Mix the above in a stock pot.

Step 2:

Let sit for 30-60 minutes at room temperature.

During this time, the vinegar is pulling out the calcium and other minerals from the bones. It might help if you’ve cut up or snapped some of the bones.

Step 3:

While the water/vinegar/bones sit, cut up one onion, three celery stalks and two carrots. Big pieces are fine.

Note: celery and carrots are both on the “dirty dozen” list, meaning they are among one of the foods it’s most important to eat organic.

Step 4:

Add the veggies to the pot and put on heat to a boil.

Step 5:

When the pot starts to boil, try to skim off anything that looks like scum – tiny particles and bubbles that are impurities. If you don’t do this, life will go on, but you’ll notice that your final product will look not so pure.

Step 6:

After skimming, lower the temp of the pot to a low simmer. The top of the stock-in-progress should be relatively still while there is rolling going on under the surface. Cover for the remainder of the cooking.

Step 7 (aka “Wait”)

Let this roll (covered) as long as possible - no fewer than 6 hours. The closer you can get to 24 hours, the better. The flavor will be rich, and it will be a wonderful healing food full of gelatin. You can turn it off if you go to work or to bed and leave it on the stove to bring back to a boil hours later. Skim the scum each time you bring it back up to a boil, and then turn the heat back down each time.

Step 8:

When you’re ready to call it quits, put a bunch of parsley in for last 10 minutes for an extra wallop of minerals (and flavor).

Step 9:

Now you’re ready to strain the stock into a big bowl (using a mesh strainer and going slowly so your bones and veggies don’t fall in).

Any remaining meat and the veggies have all been stripped of their nutritional value by now. Toss them out or feed the meat to the cat.

If you did a short run of this stock, you might save the bones for a second use.

Step 10:

Let the stock cool some before you ladle it into jars for storage. Whether you cool it in a bowl or in smaller containers, it’s nice to let the stock completely cool in the fridge before you use it so you can take off the top layer of fat if you wish and so that you can see how solidly the stock “set up” – how gelled it got.

Don’t put warm stock in the fridge; it will just warm up your fridge! Let it sit out and get to room temperature first.

Future use:

If you don’t plan to use the stock right away, you can store in Mason jars (be sure to leave at least an inch at the top so they don’t burst in the freezer) or freeze in cube trays for small uses here and there. Stock keeps in the fridge for a few days; use your nose, but I’d feel very comfortable with 3-4 days, and some folks would go up to a week. Bringing to a boil again is a good idea.

Enjoy this wonderful, delicious healing food that is far superior to anything you could get in a box or can!

For more on this and other traditional foods, see Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions and the Weston A. Price Foundation.

Mama gets the sniffles

Here is a health-focused piece cross-posted from my main blog, Crunchy-Chewy Mama. I had been putting more health-focused pieces here and more snippets from life on the alternative mainstream divide over there, but I now that I am writing for The Washington Times Communities at "Reading Ingredients: Tales of a Health-Conscious Mom," I'm re-evaluating my blog strategy (which includes looking for someone to help me upgrade them all or combine at least these two blogs.)

Here is my tale of a recent illness and how I fought it off the pharma grid.

***

We've got 60 degrees here in Metro DC and I think I'm finally getting over a cold that started two weeks ago. I never get sick and stay sick. This was annoying. Not so bad that I had to make the husband stay home or back out on a major event I was planning, but bad enough that I sounded like the woman from "The Nanny" if she had a sinus infection. Not pretty!

We don't do drugs in our house, so I did my best to self-medicate. This starts with food -- lots of nutrient-dense homemade (from pastured chickens) bone broth and a limit on refined carbs. When I look back, the weekend before I got sick I had hot rice cereal for breakfast one day and French toast another day (GF millet bread, but still) and a bunch of rice crackers. That's way more packaged food than usual. So I cut out what I could but still allowed myself some antioxidant-rich raw cacao.

When I started to feel an illness on I restarted the flower essences I maybe should have been taking all season long from Perelandra. On Tuesday the 12th, I tried the homeopathic remedy Hepar. Sulph. Calc. and promptly got worse with a sore throat and swollen glands. I think I honestly fell asleep on the floor of my bathroom while my son played with toys in an empty bathtub. A homeopath said it was most likely that this reaction was just pushing the natural course of events forward and that now I just had a cold I might as well let run its course. So I gave up on the homeopathy - none of the indications seemed 100% right on anymore,anyway - and just tried garlic & ginger in hot lemon water in the morning, eating well, getting sleep, staying in bed even if I couldn't sleep well (instead of getting up to work), and putting some eucalyptus in my shower. I kept meaning to get even just a basic saline nasal spray but didn't, and we found our humidifier but never got it working.

Well, all that, and a lot of water and a lot of bodywork. My head was killing me with major sinus pressure, so I looked for whatever healing hands had openings. On Wednesday, the day after I felt terrible, I had a chiropractic adjustment and acupuncture. On Saturday morning I had a massage, primarily of craniosacral therapy. On Monday afternoon I had another bodywork session, a combo of craniosacral therapy and lymphatic drainage massage. Each time I handed over my credit card after a session, I did feel better. But it didn't last to the next day, not as much as I wanted. I still had a lot of nose-blowing and some coughing.

Then, on Wednesday when I'd been sick for a week, my eye looked red in one corner, which I thought was from not sleeping well until the next morning when it was sticky and red all over. This was the day of my event. None of the many homeopathic remedies for conjunctivitis sounded spot-on for my symptoms, but I got so weepy when my friend rang the doorbell while I was trying to have my son nap, that I decided to take pulsatilla. And I found some homeopathic eye drops at CVS, which I think helped, for sure with the redness. The eye was cleared up a day later. (The second eye got it too and also cleared up after a day).

Friday I saw an osteopath who worked a lot on my head in general, my sinuses and even in my mouth and upper palette. I sounded like a different person after that appointment -- much less nasal. But the next morning I slept in and still felt like I'd regressed. Maybe shopping for a sofa, meeting friends for coffee and walking a mile in mild winter day were too much. But we did get a new rebounder, which I used twice, hoping that it would help my lymphatic system clear out. And I did fit in a little yoga.

Sunday I had to drag myself out of bed but felt a lot better after starting the morning off with Vitamin C before my lemon/ginger/garlic drink, to which I added turmeric and elderberry. And then I had a full breakfast and set to work on some reorganization of the house, which felt great. I even had a little decaf coffee and some GFCF sugar-free (maple syrup only) chocolate cake my son and I had made as a celebration of my successful event Thursday night (adaptation of this cake recipe but using mashed cherries instead of applesauce and adding cacao and coconut flakes).

Despite this indulgence, I could tell I'd turned the corner Sunday afternoon. It's now Monday afternoon, and though I still am not ready to go out and do a full run in this gorgeously warm day (or to be too far away from a tissue), I am glad I was able to ride this out and that so far, no one else in the house seems to have any symptoms.

Craniosacral therapy for my son

Originally posted at my other blog, Crunchy-Chewy Mama.

I don't claim to understand exactly what craniosacral therapy (CST) does, but I believe in it. I've read some books by Dr. John Upledger, and I've talked a whole lot with my practitioners about my body and my son's body.

And I've seen its results firsthand.

I've been getting CST for six years, since I first started pursuing alternative therapies, which ended up including diagnoses of celiac disease and autoimmune thyroid disorder en route to dealing with infertility.

I learned about the therapy through my sister and her work with her son, who is on the autism spectrum. CST has been immensely powerful for me, helping me to let go of a whole lot of energy I'd been holding onto, which caused physical and emotional problems. (For more, see my article in the Winter 2008/2009 issue of the Journal of Attachment Parenting).

I had my craniosacral therapist there at my son's birth, which was supposed to be all-natural in a birth center but instead was a c-section due to my baby's breech position and extremely short umbilical cord (see my poem about that in Exhale magazine). So instead, the therapist videotaped the birth, which gave her great insight into how to treat my son hours later. "There's a lot of unwinding in his hips," she said; I later learned breech babies sometimes need to wear harnesses because of their in-utero position (hip dysplaysia).

My son is now 3.5 years old. I schedule CST for him every few months, when it seems like he's just kind of off or working on something I don't know how to address. I'm so grateful that she's been seeing him since he was an infant -- really since even before he was born.

A few months ago I asked the therapist what might have been different if he hadn't been seeing her. I trust her with my life. She does tell some people they don't need to come back. She's never said that to me. "It's hard to tell. Maybe speech or other development issues. Maybe ADD or sensory integration problems."

I've had several different practitioners work on him, and they all say the same things about tight parietal bones and jaw intensity. Lately, E has been chewing on his shirt in a way that disturbs me. A lot of kids have oral fixations, but this one is causing my son's skin to be chapped, and, well, it just looks like an anxious reaction. So I made an appointment.

Usually she just plays with him on the floor with toys while they work in a gentle way. The appointment lasts a full hour. Today, after a while, she invited him up to the table, where she tucked him in. It was the first time I'd ever seen him laid down like a patient. It was a little freaky, but he looked so nurtured and cared for in the soft glow of the massage center room.

She said her recent sensory disorder training recommends letting kids follow their interest/obsession while they are getting treatment. So she did. He chewed on a toy and then, when she felt a big release, he was done with the mouthing and just sort of flopped into relaxation.

After seeing him so manic and wound up recently, it was a real gift to see him so calm under her hands. She explained some other physical things and gave me more ideas for ways to work with his particular needs, including broad and heavy strokes on his body and heavy weight on his legs in front of him, and offering him straws and other mouthing options. Her questions about other behaviors -- "does he seem to need to run full boar into things?" -- seemed so spot on. He's never gotten any kind of diagnosis, and I don't understand all the ins and outs of sensory integration issues and proprioception. But I do feel very good that I have this therapist on my team.

She said that it felt like a phase but like there was also an emotional component that was not yet resolved. His neck and chest were pouring off heat, she said.

I left a little poorer but more resolved to model and live the grounding, solidifying presence he and I both shun but deeply crave.

For more information on CST and children, see "Craniosacral Therapy and Scientific Research, Part II" by John Upledger, DO, OMM. The website for the Upledger Institute is pan style="font-weight:bold;">http://upledger.com/. Find practitioners at http://www.iahp.com/

Healing a Face Wound (and more?)

Almost a month ago, I went to the grand re-opening of Holeco Wellness Medi Spa, the first holistic/wellness medispa recognized by Green America as a Green company and listed in their Green Pages. The owner is a wonderful woman who recently spoke at a Holistic Moms meeting. They are in a building that just underwent some lobby renovations, including new glass doors. On my way into the event, where I hoped I might win some fun beauty or energy door prize, I got instead the most ironic of injuries -- I walked right into the glass door that I thought was open, cutting my nose bridge with my glasses and giving myself a huge blow that resulted in a mild black eye a few days later.

As someone who has gotten a ton of craniosacral therapy, I knew that this blow was going to be with me for a while. The knowledge that I was setting myself back hurt more than the immediate physical trauma, though that was pretty bad, too. I was so upset that I was not aware enough to prevent this injury. Honestly, a perpendicular piece of glass did sort of look like the door, but I still should have seen that the door was closed before I rammed into it.

So after I bled all over the ground, went up to the open house and got some ice (and got looked at by a nurse), I drove home as soon as I felt it was safe to do so. When I got home, I immediately took Emergency Trauma Solution and then later Arnica. This was a Tuesday, and on Friday I had a previously-scheduled craniosacral appointment. The therapist said there was quite a bit of trauma, and he recommended Traumeel cream and anything to help with lymphatic drainage.

The next Tuesday, a week after the incident, I saw an acupuncturist and chiropractor who, before he did acupuncture, used an activator on my sinuses, which kind of freaked me out. But some stuffiness cleared up right away, and when I saw the craniosacral therapist again on Friday, he said I seemed much better than he would have expected. He gave props to the acupuncturist. Two weeks later, I saw him again, and he said that the intense jarring of energy actually let him work more deeply into my birth strain than he's been able to before.

So even though I really hadn't planned to spend that much money on treatment and time without exercising (even after three weeks, I still felt the injury in my nose when I first went jogging), I am trying to believe that there is/was/will be something good to come out of this injury, as the spa owner suggested when she kindly called me the day after the injury to check up on me!

Traditional, GFCF, and Low-Carb Eating 101

I just attended a local hospital's women's health expo and spoke to a diabetes nutrition educator who was horrified that I would pursue a low carb diet. "Why would you do that?" she asked. I dropped a lot of names, none of which she was familiar with. I just wrote her an email and decided to post it here and at my other blog for my own (and anyone else's) future reference.


Dear health practitioner,

Different people find health and wellness through different means, but it is through a gluten-free, casein-free, low-carb, low-grain “traditional” diet that I personally was able to reverse autoimmune hyperthyroidism, regain my fertility and address chronic depression.

A powerful book about the wisdom of limiting or avoiding grains is on the site of author Melissa Diane Smith. She wrote a book called Going Against the Grain that explains connections between grain intolerance and other health issues and explains why grains give so many people problems.
http://www.melissadianesmith.com/

I recently saw two speakers talk about avoiding grains at a Gluten Intolerance Group gathering in Richmond, VA.
Dr. Stephen Wangen, author of The Irritable Bowel Syndrome Solution, has written a new book called Healthier Without Wheat. Information is available at www.HealthierWithoutWheat.com
Dr. Rodney Ford makes the case that gluten has neurological impacts on people who do not have celiac disease. Information is available at www.DrRodneyFord.com
These men both gave fascinating presentations.

In terms of traditional eating, the group I referenced is the Weston A. Price Foundation
http://www.westonaprice.org/
Some quick information from the WAPF on healthy vs. unhealthy fats is at
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html
An article on proper preparation of grains is at
http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/be_kind.html
and in Sally Fallon’s book, Nourishing Traditions

A growing number of people are finding better health through increasing their intake of vegetables and decreasing their carbohydrates. Some people even point to a theory of food combining that claims putting carbohydrates with animal proteins inhibits proper digestion of food and leads to an acid/alkaline imbalance, which contributes to inflammatory conditions and to an overgrowth of Candida (yeast).

Some of this information can be found at The Body Ecology Diet - http://www.bodyecologydiet.com/ and in the BED book by Donna Gates.
Some general resources on the benefits of limiting carbohydrates can also be found at
The Gut and Psychology Syndrome - http://gapsdiet.com/
The Specific Carbohydrate Diet - http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/

A great read on why follow the wisdom of our ancestors is Nina Planck’s book, Real Food: What to Eat and Why. A farmers' daughter and a proponent of farmers markets, Nina also has a new book out for fertility, mom and baby. See her website at http://www.ninaplanck.com/

I hope you’ll get a chance to look into some of these resources and share this information with your patients.

In health,
Crunchy-Chewy Mama
http://crunchychewymama.blogspot.com/

Balancing action with rest

I had a fabulous week last week of attending three (partial) days of the NVIC conference and then all day of "Perinatal: A Symposium on Birth and Reproductive Rights." But now, instead of volunteering at the Holistic Moms Network table at the Green Festival, I'm home with a slight fever. I don't feel that bad, but I'm taking the advice of the health gurus I saw at NVIC that when the body is responding to too much stimulus, you need to give it a rest. Plus it wouldn't be very nice if the germ theory is really true and I get other people sick while I'm talking to them about holistic health!

It's humbling to be side-lined, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my body went on strike after such little sleep (and some sugar). I ate pretty well, packing in all my food and not buying anything other than a decaf, and I've been good about immune-boosting supplements and tonics, but it still was a stressful week. Now I've got all day to roll a new batch of chicken stock (and catch up on laundry).

I might not have paid as much attention to my own health as I needed to if my son hadn't been having a really hard time this morning. He is only a little stuffy and doesn't seem feverish, but he was really weepy, which prompted me to go up and take my own temp. After one dose of pulsatilla, he seems to be doing better -- less weepy and less surprisingly changeable in his moods. I need to buy a homeopathic kit so we have everything on site.

For more on the birth symposium, see my other blogs Crunchy-Chewy Mama on a woman being threatened with a court-ordered c-section instead of what would be a second VBAC and Mama's Mouth on art as activism.

Vaccine conference: Dr. Lawrence Palevsky

Seeing Dr. Lawrence Palevsky made me appreciate my pediatrician even more than I already do. The basic message of both is that we want symptoms to be expressed because they are a way for us to understand what is going on in our bodies. It's crazy to expect kids to be well all the time. When they are ill, the immune system is working because it's getting something out of their bodies that doesn't belong there.

What I especially liked was how holistic Dr. Larry was in his description of what that stuff is we might want to get out. He pointed out that we receive info in the following ways:
-genetics
-in utero info from our mothers
-air - what we breathe
-nervous system including all of our senses and anything that affects the senses, including electro magnetic fields
-skin - what we put on it
-intestines - what we eat
and then, through what we insert into the body via injections, if we choose to do so.

Every day, we all eliminate toxins through breathing, through our skin (sweating), through our intestines (bowel movements) and through our senses showing up in things like sleep issues and mood changes.

What we don't know is how kids eliminate the information they get from vaccinations, which contain not only chemical compounds and adjuvants but viruses, which are protein-coated pieces of RNA or DNA from some other being.

Vaccines aside, Dr. Larry described chronic illness as the failure to allow the symptoms of acute illness to cleanse our bodies -- for yucky stuff to leave. When we give kids drugs to lower their fevers or in some way change their symptoms "for the better," we're overloading them with information. The stuff stays inside and on top of that they have to deal with more chemicals and more info that confuses their body. This leads to a loss of resilience.

Dr. Larry also noted that there are trillions of viruses around and that we have more microorganisms in our bodies than there are people on earth or cells in our bodies! We fear and so vaccinate against 15 bacteria and 20 viruses -- 35 out of trillions. Doctors are taught in medical school that vaccinations "teach" us to recognize these organisms before we encounter them, but Dr. Larry says we are more likely to encounter them naturally (and that 98% of polio is cleared out through gastroenteritis).

Kids get sick because there is inflammation that their bodies are working to release/resolve. Dr. Larry pointed out that kids often make a developmental breakthrough after a fever, including one 10.5-month old who had a fever for 5-7 days and then, when it broke, got up and walked. My son had a high fever and ear infection (which we did not treat) just after he turned one. He was exclusively breastfed and had, before the illness, almost zero interest in food except for amusing crunchy items like lettuce and celery. After the fever broke and he was back in good health, he was suddenly ready to eat solid food.

It's great to hear people present a paradigm of health that views illness as one piece of the picture and not as some fire to be extinguished.

Dr. Larry works with patients in a way that sounds a lot like our doctor -- talks to them, emails with them, looks at photos. He told the audience that we should demand this kind of attention from our doctors. He said he works with patients to help them decide what is right for their family with regard to vaccinations. In 2000, the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics acknowledged that reductions of most diseases went down before vaccines were introduced, and that contributed to Dr. Larry's understanding that diseases come and go on their own and in response to other factors (like what's in the water and in the air, etc.). In the debate with Dr. Bob Sears that followed, Dr. Larry called for a rethinking of the allopathic model of medicine.

So much to learn and think about!

Fighting the flu naturally

I haven't been pro-vaccine for a long time, since I got the flu vaccine in my 20s and felt terrible.

Now that we're facing a potentially bad flu year, there is a lot of talk about vaccines for flu and specifically for H1N1/Swine Flu. I'm hoping that the alternative folks are right that the best way to avoid getting seriously ill is by avoiding refined foods -- especially sugar and flour -- and generally eating a healthy diet, along with giving our bodies assistance in fighting things naturally by getting chiropractic work, acupuncture or craniosacral therapy.

But we don't always get the sleep, exercise, or nutrition that we need, so I've ordered from Perelandra the 2009-2010 Flu Season Balancing Solution from the Microbial Balancing Program and also FSBS+, which is supposed to address pandemic strains of the flu. These bottles are $10-15 and from a farm local here in Virginia. I know some folks are hoping their homeopaths can make a homeopathic version of the standard vaccine.

I hope that we can do okay, as we did last winter on health and wellness except for the week after the Holistic Moms chapter launch (and the Inauguration, which was an exciting but very long day). The following week, my son came down with an ear infection that I'm pretty sure was his system's response to his mom's stress. That lasted over a week but cleared without drugs. We were still nursing at the time, though, and this year, he won't have that protection.

This season, I hope we can find the inner balance we need and can count on the Perelandra solutions (the above, as well as the Immune and Lymphatic solutions) to stay healthy.

Dropping some silver on supplements

I just spent $132 at the Vitamin Shoppe. Wow. My husband has an eardrum that has been ruptured for over 48 hours and still hurts a lot. I bought some tea, colloidal silver supplement and nasal spray, grapefruit seed extract ear drops and nasal spray, some probiotic (on sale), calendula tincture (seemed like a good idea) and some more homepathic remedies (including something that my son grabbed because it came with a little Curious George pouch - even the alternative stuff markets to kids! He's been sick, too, so I cut him some slack, especially after he agreeably put several items back on the shelves and since he'd been whining a whole lot before we got into the car).

When I first went on my Save-My-Adrenals-and-Thyroid health kick starting in early 2004, I spent that kind of coin on capsules often. A lot was at the Vitamin Shoppe, where you get little coupons every so often if you spend a lot, and I also shopped at Village Green Apothecary in Bethesda, where they carry brands usually only practitioners have but at a better price. Since my thyroid has stabilized and my nutrition is so much improved, I haven't been as much of a supplement junkie. And certainly in this economy with a one-income family, I'm usually more reserved before throwing $25 bottles of dried mushrooms into my basket (my sister-in-law swears that one helped her). But since the hubby isn't of a mind to get energy work and is still in a lot of pain, he told me to get "whatever looks good." After a week at home with my sick son, who was on a nursing binge to fight his fever (which also turned into an ear infection), I was ready to jack up the credit card for our health at the supplement store (and I already have with craniosacral therapy and an acupunturist who used some cute little tools on my boy to open his meridians and did a few needles on me when I mentioned his clinginess. It always comes back to me!)

Considering a possible run for reconception, I'm also thinking that it's probably time for me to actually see a doctor -- a holistic-minded one for sure, and preferably one who starts with some energy work, but someone who can make sure I'm in a safe place to possibly go forward with trying for a bigger family. That will cost a pretty penny, too, I'm sure!

"Feed me" said the Fever

I've always intended to learn more about both homeopathy and herbalism, but I don't get serious about either until an illness prompts me to drag out some books and to poke around online.

When my son woke the other night before 9:30, we could tell something was off. He'd had a small cough and looked a little peaked, and his dad had been fighting off a cold for a few days. E was so out of it and resistant to going back to sleep in his bed/alone, I brought him downstairs, and he snuggled in and fell asleep, staying asleep as we finished a rare night of actually watching a movie (actually, we'd started the movie the night before and were really hoping to finish it this time!). The boy had some twitching and seemed mildly delirious, as though he was having vivid dreams and thinking he was awake.

But still, it wasn't until after midnight that I felt the heat radiating off of him and started to smell on the acrid tinge to his breath that told me his body was becoming a bug-killing cooking machine.

Even eHow has an article that explains a fever is a body doing good work. We have never tried to artificially lower our son's fevers with Tylenol or Motrin, even when it once went up to 104.7. I'm sure we'll have to resort to allopathic medicine at some point, but whenever possible, I hope to let his body's immune system do its job and help it out only with natural means.

Our doctor said he thought frequent applications of belladonna might help. That I actually had at home, so we started it a few hours later when the boy woke up from drowsing on the couch with his dad. He did seem to perk up a bit, and he ate some. I put him in the Ergo and we all took a short walk in the unseasonably warm, 50-degree afternoon.

The night was a little smoother, but he still had lots of desire to be near me, and I nursed him in bed even though we'd stopped that weeks ago (we also are using diapers during this illness even though we'd had our first very successful diaper-free week).

But still, he was around 102 this morning, and the cough sounded worse. So we asked the doctor to fit us in. E ate a little bit this morning and drank some of his blue Odwalla juice that he'd randomly demanded in the middle of the night, but for the most part, he slept all morning.

The doctor was not worried about the chest sounds and saw nothing in the ears. We discussed symptoms, and he determined that gelsemium might be the new remedy to try.

I used the Ergo again in the grocery store and gave him some pellets once they'd been rung up. The boy was about to check out, too, practically asleep and drooling on my front, all 30 pounds of him.

After we got home and he wanted to be up from resting, he requested coconut juice and then mango coconut yogurt. I put it in front of him after spooning him a few bites and offered that I could feed him if he needed me to. A minute later, he demanded, "Feed me!" a phrase I never thought I'd serious hear from my almost-three-year-old, or from anyone outside of Little Shop of Horrors or a TV sitcom, for that matter.

But he only wanted a few bites and then said he needed to poop on the potty, which I took as a good sign. After that, more rest, more nursing, more rest, more nursing. It's like I have a baby again. It's much calmer and quieter around here than I'm used to, and I can appreciate that, but I sure do hope the little guy is back to his old self soon.

Coconut Oil - new study shows it might help with pneumonia

The Washington Post recently published an article entitled "Coconut Oil May Help Fight Childhood Pneumonia."

The study was only done on folks taking antiobiotics (no group that wasn't on meds), but it did show that the folks who also consumed coconut oil daily had a quicker recovery and had lower levels of the "crackling" sound in the lungs. The kids on coconut oil also showed better levels of oxygen in their blood. One theory is that the antimicrobial properties of the lauric acid are what makes the difference.

We cook with Tropical Traditions oil because we can buy it buy the gallon for a good price, but my favorite for taste -- and yes, eating right off the spoon -- is the much pricier Jungle Products brand.

Check out "The Latest Studies on Coconut Oil" at the Weston A. Price Foundation.

Acupunture and Cupping for Tight Muscles

My neck and shoulders used to hurt all the time. Long before I was diagnosed with Graves' disease (autoimmune hyperthyroidism) or celiac disease, my health problems manifested in a more physical way. I've had some issues on and off since my son was born, especially when I was wearing him in a sling all day, but nothing was like my recent right-should spasm. I think we can blame this one in large part on one weekend of car trouble followed by another of plane travel (including wearing my 30-lb. toddler in the Ergo) and unfamiliar (and harder beds). Of course the lack of a regular home yoga practice followed by a few classes in a row in short succession might have something to do with it, too!

So I called the acupuncture center I used to go to. I love that they provide a back massage before doing the needles on the back side and then have you flip over so they can do some more massage (especially with the sinuses, but whatever part of the body needs it, too) before placing needles on the front. This is a two-hour ordeal but costs less than most 60-minute massages in my area.

I figured this time that they would want to use the suction cups because my shoulder was a rock. Cupping is supposed to help release tension and free up energy. It essentially feels like a bunch of extra people squeezing your muscles at once. The cups go to work while the therapist is massaging another area.

When I was seeing these folks back four years ago as part of my effort to heal my thyroid and regain my fertility, I was also getting treatments in an oxygen sauna. The sauna woman said I should not be bruising so much, and she claimed that one woman came in after getting cosmetic surgery for the express purpose of minimizing her bruising, and it did. As I got more regular acupuncture treatments and also got more oxygen sauna treatments, the bruising did indeed become much less severe and shorter-lived.

I saw these folks a few times a month when my son was a year old. My thyroid was threatening to go low, and I was exhausted from all the night nursing (and nursing around the clock!). When I made this most recent appointment, it had been many months since I'd been to the acupuncture clinic and maybe months since I'd had any bodywork of any kind (at least several weeks). With a lot of projects in the air and my toddler no longer napping, time has been a hot commodity! But I've felt pretty good physically, until the shoulder flared up. Or so I thought. My body has probably been storing up toxins from my late bedtimes and other unhealthy habits, so it was perhaps only a matter of time until something screamed at me to get me to pay attention.

The treatment felt good. The morning after the presidential election and its late-night results, it was easy to fall into a deep sleep once the needles were in. I asked both the assistant who did the bulk of the massage and the doctor who did some more before inserting the needles about the bruising and what it meant. They both said that someone in good health and with good energy will hardly bruise at all. People whose energy is weak or who are ill are the ones with the more purple, longer-lasting marks. The ones pictured here are much lighter than some rounds I've had, but they certainly followed me out of the office, and they're still there 36 hours later. The pain is not completely gone but is dramatically milder; I don't feel like that section of my body is ruling the rest of me as I did a few days ago.

The doctor put an herbal patch on my shoulder and told me to stretch more by pulling my arm across my body with the other arm. She could have also written a prescription for my son to resume sleeping through the night so that I don't join him on his hard futon!

Who wears short shorts?

It's time to show my knees again.

A year ago, last July 4th, a trip to a friend's pool pushed my skin irritation over the edge. The dermatologist had called it likely psoriasis, and my knees were red, itchy and flaky. It was getting bad on its own, and I was already embarrassed to wear a suit at her pool, but after the chlorine, I reached a new level of ouch.

The rest of the summer, my knees looked so raw, I wore capris all the time. If I knelt on my knees with thin pants or, at home, shorts, they seemed to catch on fire. By the fall, I'd started scratching my knees compulsively a few times a day such that they bled. It was like an addiction with an endorphin rush. I'd tried everything topical I could think of -- vitamin E, aloe, shea butter, calendula, msm, among others. Steroid cream hadn't done much, either, certainly not enough to make me feel okay about the chemicals going into my body and possibly my son's through nursing. There was an emotional toll on my son as well; he was learning to scratch himself as a nervous habit and also started coming up to scratch my knees as though he were helping me out. The pattern had to be broken.

On this Independence Day, I went back to the pool a changed woman. I was still scratching back in early April but now, other than a bruise, my knees look fine, even after the chlorine.

I could write a whole tome on this, but the short version is that my healing occurred, I believe, from work primarily on two levels: emotional/psychological/spiritual and physical (internal) with some assistance from external physical changes. I'll list these in reverse order.

Physical - External
After trying so many products, I think these two actually made a difference:

• Epicurean Ebony Tar Shea Butter Soap
• Miessence Soothing Line Skin Essentials -- cleanser, conditioner, lotion and also couperouse gel and mineral clay mask

Physical - Internal
My body is in a very different place than it was two years ago, a few months after my son was born. Among the recent changes are the following:

• A cleanse that included:
  
• Elimination of fruit and all processed food (including nut butter) and rice products for a short time, followed by limited quantities
• Daily juice of celery, parsley, garlic and lemon
• Lacto-fermented foods
• Sprouts and more raw and cooked vegetables
• Local pasture-raised eggs and more grassfed meat

• Overall more alkaline diet that includes kombucha with most meals
• Less frequent breastfeeding, less night waking
• Somewhat improved commitment to my yoga practice and increased attendance at yoga classes
• Regular exercise, including training for and running a half-marathon in June
  
• Physical therapy, acupuncture, craniosacral therapy, and Muscle Activation Technique (MAT) to heal from sprained ankle last August
  

Emotional/psychological/spiritual
Two years after my son's birth, I started to reach a place of acceptance about my c-section and a sense that it's not up to me to control everything in my life. Strategies that helped me on this journey include:

• Work with BioSET allergy elimination, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), and Byron Katie's The Work through the Center for Natural Cures
• Applied Kinesiology with chiropractic
• Work (reviewed) I previously did with Landmark Education
• Work with Bach flower essences, including Crab Apple, Gentian and Holly
• Work with Young Living Oils, including the blends Joy, Gentle Baby, and Valor
• Increased time writing
• Craniosacral therapy that included somato-emotional releases
• Reading (recalled) related to Buddhism, including Pema Chodron, and some meditation
• Reading (recalled) by Caroline Myss
  

I came to see that this health challenge was just part of a necessary process and that the itching would subside when it was time for me to be done with it. This skin problem was, at least in part, my way of processing my shame and guilt at having had to have a c-section, which gave me a sense of failure for not starting out my son's life in the drug-free, gentle way I'd hoped. Part of the reason the c-section was so jarring for me had to do with a longstanding belief -- a belief that has ancestral roots -- in the idea that something always has to be wrong with me. Going to the source to address this core belief -- through the strategies above -- helped me release my hold on this problem and its hold on me.

What bruise?

"What did you give him?" This was my friend's question after she saw my two-year-old son a few days after her son rolled a rock down a slide onto my boy's head. There was hardly a mark on my son where we both expected a goose-egg or at least some royal shades of blue.

First I gave him two pellets of Arnica, a homeopathic remedy for bruising and soreness. I started with this because he is keen to take "pellets" as though they are candy (which he never has!). Then, as I searched for the Emergency Trauma Solution (ETS) from Perelandra, I put on some topical Traumeel lotion, a homeopathic ointment that contains arnica and a number of other things. Since I couldn't find the ETS, I gave him some drops of Rescue Remedy then and a little while later. This combination of five Bach flower essences is supposed to help his electrical system recover from the shock and give his physical body the freedom to use all its energy repair itself. I added individual essences of Star of Bethlehem and Rock Rose for fright and shock. Later I found the ETS and gave him a few doses.

In my interactions with my son and our friends, I tried to stay calm. I remember very clearly a scary incident from my childhood. It was the first time I removed my new earrings, and in all the excitement, I rinsed my mouth out with hydrogen peroxide instead of water when I was brushing my teeth. I now know this is absolutely no big deal, but I was scared at the time, and when I told my parents, my father shouted to my brother, "Start the car!" I thought I was going to die on the way to the emergency room. Poison Control set us straight, but my father's overreaction caused traumatic fear for me. So when my son got hit with the rock, I didn't want to belittle my son's pain or shock from the blow of the rock to his head, but I wanted to be sure I didn't add unnecessarily to his feeling a lack of control. Children look to parents to decide how to read a situation, and I figure that if I overreact, my son probably will, too.

I calmly accepted my friend's apology while looking at the injury site and saying, "I'm sure that hurt. That was probably scary. We'll take care of it, and it will be okay." I kissed my son's head and walked at a normal pace back into the house. When I asked EJ if he was okay, he said through his tears, "Yes, I just bumped my head."

He wasn't very excited about the ice, so we made a game of it by holding the pack to his head to the count of ten a few times. I doubt this helped much, but at least we gave it a shot, and he giggled. I also took some responsibility without turning it into blame, acknowledging to my friend, "I could have made a no-rock rule for the slide, and that probably would be the thing to do." Before the incident happened, she was going to tell her son to stop and looked to me to set the rules, since it was my house. I said I didn't mind kids learning about gravity, as long as no one's head was at the bottom. Then I failed to notice when my two-year-old's noggin was right in the middle of Rock Central. I reassured her we were fine and apologized to my son for not seeing what was going to happen. I didn't belittle her apologetic overtures to us. I just said, "I know he didn't mean to hurt EJ. Accidents happen, and that's how we learn." Fortunately, she did not castigate her son or spiral down a cycle of blame, either.

Of course, I was upset that my son was injured, and hoped he would recover. I took some Rescue Remedy myself to remain calm. My friend told me to look at his pupils later, but I knew the bonk was just on hard bone and was unlikely to have done any serious damage.

Later I asked EJ what happened, and he was able to articulate that his buddy had put the rock on his head. I replied, "Yes, he was playing with rocks and didn't realize your head was in the way. He's sorry that he hurt you. We will all be more careful next time. Let's remember this the next time we are playing with rocks.

I hope that my son can learn to accept his pain and fear but not let it define him. I want him to be compassionate with himself and others to take time to heal and to apologize but not to live in the land of regret and blame.