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The End of MRSA.

Posted by on October 13, 2011 2 Comments

Somewhere around 19,000 Americans die of MRSA infections annually these days. That means MRSA kills more people than AIDS in our country. The World Health Organization says antibiotic resistance is one of the leading public health threats on the planet.

On the flip side, in Norway, a country where tissue packets have printed on them public service messages like, “Penicillin is not a cough medicine,” their citizens enjoy some of the lowest incidences of MRSA in the world.  What do they do differently?

 

MSRA antibiotic link

They have stopped the insane reliance on antibiotics and instead are using very simple, intelligent measures of disease control. Most cases of MRSA in Norway are brought in from people travelling abroad. They are using simple techniques like testing people for MRSA upon admittance and having healthcare staff stay home with the are carrying the bacterium.  When MRSA is introduced to their hospitals from the outside, that patient is treated separately from the rest of the hospital and great care is used to prevent further spread.

And while you can find random studies blaming the Norwegian methods for an increase in MRSA, the perspective in those studies is skewed in my opinion.  A simple map of Europe and it’s distribution of MRSA shows the real facts that are substantiated by a plethora of studies replicated in small scale, all over (even here in the US.) The map below shows just how well the countries that make up the Netherlands compare to the rest of Europe as they continue their reliance on antibiotics:

Norway antibiotics

Take a look at the strategies Norway has implemented that have allowed them their boasting rights during what can only be described as their “post-antibiotic era.”

antibiotics cause MRSA deaths

My favorite part is where it quotes the doctor saying, “We don’t throw antibiotics at every person with a fever. We tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel better.”

That statement also got me to thinking though. Imagine if you married this concept of not abusing antibiotics with medical use of herbal remedies. The FDA can not approve the use of herbal remedies for medicinal purposes though because of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA.) This act (meant to protect herbal remedies and supplements against over regulation as well as consumers from being tricked into buying expensive herbal treatments that may or may not work) has backfired and tied our natural healing hands behind our backs. Now, herbal remedies are not allowed to be reviewed by the FDA and consequently, they are not allowed to be used as medicines. The FDA will not approve anything to be used as a medicine if they can not regulate it, and they are not allowed, because of the DSHEA act to regulate herbal remedies. So, we’re caught in a trap.

BECAUSE…

If our general medical community was allowed to treat infections with herbal medicines, MRSA and MSSA related illnesses and deaths could come to a screeching and immediate halt.

In just ONE MONTH, the hospital in Oslo, Norway referred to above saw MRSA virtually eradicated within their facility. If we implemented the same kind of strategies and married them with natural antibiotics, imagine the potential…

Tea Tree Oil has been seen to be a potential super power against Pulmonary Tuberculosis. Parts of Oregano and Thyme Oil have been shown in various studies to eradicate staph. Cinammon Oil at just 1-2% is effective to prevent biofilm expression Staphylococcus epidermidis (2009, American Society for Microbiology.) After just hours of exposure to colloidal silver one study showed both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria can be killed at the very low and highly safe concentration of 10ppm. Head on over to our National Library of Medicine and see for yourself. There are countless studies about natural remedies and their potential to be used when antibiotics, due to their over use, are finally rendered pointless. To find the good information, you will have to use their science lingo. Merely typing the common name will give you limited results. For substantial results, you will need to know the name for each oil’s active component or its scientific name.

Search terms for the US National Library of MedicineNational Institutes of Health:

  • Instead of Oregano, search for CARVACROL.
  • Instead of Clove, search for EUGENOL.
  • Instead of Tea Tree, search for MELALEUCA .
  • Instead of Thyme, search for THYMOL.
  • Instead of Cinnamon, search for CINNAMALDEHYDE.
  • Instead of Turmeric, search for CURCUMIN.
Then imagine a world without antibiotic reliance… because we’re going to have to soon enough.

 

 

 

 

 

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My Battle With Acne

Posted by on June 1, 2011 12 Comments

My skin has never looked clearer.

Not even kidding. I’ve never seen my face look this healthy since I was a child. Anyone want to know what I’m doing?  Well, wait, first… let me give you some back story.

When I was in middle school, I got acne. It wasn’t so bad I was embarrassed all the time, but I always had many pimples on my face. And some of them, though you couldn’t really see them, were cysts, beneath my skin. The dermatologist suggested accutane, but I declined because of the toxicity of the medicine and my mother supported me.  Their second runner up medicine was tetracycline. So I took it.

An UN-Natural Remedy for Acne:

Tetracycline is an antibiotic. I really didn’t think anything of it. When I was in middle school, we were at the peak of the whole “antibiotics are the greatest thing ever” mindset. There weren’t all of the antibiotic resistance issues.  Nobody told me about candida and how antibiotics tied in with that, but in retrospect, some of my sugar craving issues and bloating issues make a lot more sense.  Tetracycline seemed perfectly safe. So, I was given a low dose of antibiotics and was on it every day for a couple of years. I was warned about not going out in the sun with them, and I did suffer one horrible sunburn, where my face became a giant blister and then turned hard, like plastic. It peeled several days later. In the meantime, we were concerned that it may have been a bad enough sunburn to actually cause scarring.  All in all though, from my perspective, it worked. I got a couple of good years out of it. But then, it stopped working. Which, I now understand happened because the bacteria causing my acne became resistant to tetracycline.  When it stopped working, I stopped taking them.

My Initial Natural Remedy for Acne:

After that, I became a guinea pig for nearly every acne system I could find. Nothing really worked at all until I found tea tree oil. That worked awesome. (Though it’s awesomeness has not been evaluated by the FDA. Tea Tree Oil is absolutely not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition, because only drugs can do that.) Except that, using tea tree oil for acne got expensive. See, I knew you couldn’t over dilute tea tree oil because if you do, similarly to tetracycline, bacteria becomes resistant to tea tree oil if you dilute tea tree oil more than 4%. I explain all of that in a previous blog. Even though it was costly, it worked awesome, so I kept using it until money got tight.

My next idea: Clove Oil!

My New Favorite Natural Remedy for Acne:

You barely need any clove oil to be enough for an entire face. Clove oil is so strong! One drop in a carrier oil would be enough for an entire face, I thought.  First I tried clove oil mixed with virgin coconut oil and that worked awesome on my complexion. However, now it’s summer, and having virgin coconut on your face gets kind of slimy. So I kind of gave up on it for awhile. Meanwhile, my complexion paid the price.

One day, while putting makeup on, I saw my liquid foundation sitting right beside the clove oil on a shelf. (I imagine this is probably how the first peanut butter and jelly sandwich happened.)

Freakishly excited about my new invention, I dropped 15 drops of clove oil into the bottle of foundation and mixed it vigorously by shaking. I then, put my foundation on my face like normal and started my When I washed my face that night, my acne was far better than it was when I started my day.

I’ve been at this for some time now, and one thing that the tea tree never did manage to fix all the way that the clove oil does is the deep down cysts. Which, is not really of much concern for my vanity because you can’t really see them much, but those are the ones that hurt the most.

Almost twenty years into this battle with acne, that I assumed I would grow out of, I finally can say I have clear skin. The other day a complete stranger told me I had beautiful skin. When I was a very, very young girl, I was told that often. Then, the acne came. I don’t believe I’ve been told that I have beautiful skin in nearly twenty years.

DISCLAIMER ABOUT NATURAL REMEDIES FOR ACNE:

It’s important to note that clove oil is so strong, it has to be put in a carrier. That is straight from me and very true. You won’t explode or anything, I have done it myself, but it burns like you would not believe if you put it right on yourself.  (It’s also what makes it my cheap natural remedy for acne, because I hardly use any at all.)

The FDA would have my hide if I didn’t tell you that clove oil is not an FDA approved medicine and that I am not a doctor. Clove oil, cannot be regulated as a drug and is, of course, not a drug. They want me to tell you that it’s not a medicine at all. So, apparently, it’s not a medicine at all. It can not, of course be used to treat or cure any actual medical condition, because only drugs can treat and cure medical conditions. They also need me to make sure you know that clove oil is not FDA approved to treat acne. They pretty much want me to tell you not to even bother trying it. So, don’t even bother trying it. I of course didn’t write this so that you would try it, I just enjoy writing about my repulsive personal challenges and exercising my freedom of speech within the guidelines of the law.

 

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Antibiotics? Try Oil of Oregano instead!

Posted by on January 15, 2011 1 Comment

Oil of Oregano is a MUST HAVE for every single family. It is documented in several medical studies as having the ability to rival the strength vancomyacin of one of the strongest antibiotics available, only Oil of Oregano isn’t a drug or a medicine, simply a nutritional supplement. Hospitals regularly use vancomyacin intravenously when oral antibiotics fail. (pubmed.org) This is of course in test tubes and petri dishes, and the FDA says that I’m not legally allowed to tell you my personal victories over staph infections with OOO, hopefully you’ll be able to make your own informed deductions. According to the FDA, only a regulated drug can make assertions of healing. And OOO is not a drug or a medicine, it’s a nutritional supplement.

As an added bonus unlike traditionally used medical antibiotics, the nutritional and drug-free supplement, Oil of Oregano doesn’t run the risk of bacteria learning how to defend itself against it. (No, resistance issues present themselves in case studies, which is why Big Pharma is so interested in breaking it down to patent it.) Oil of Oregano will be here, fully functional (as a nutritional supplement,) even when in a few more years as many people predict, antibiotics will no longer be effective.

When penicillin was first created, it was known even then that antibiotics, no matter how they were altered had a life span of only several decades. In order to make it last as long as possible doctors were urged to not over prescribe or allow patients to use them improperly (such as when people stop using them before the bacteria is wiped out.) And so, in reading the warnings in medical journals, it has become clear to me from countless studies that our human marriage with antibiotics will be coming to a close shortly. With the rise of MRSA, we can see this already happening. This is why, the absolute RULE for my family is that unless it is a life or death matter, we will refuse antibiotics.

Enter: Oils such as oregano, thyme and clove. Each of these oils have tremendous bacteria killing capabilities. They kill bacteria in an entirely different way. They do it as a nutritional supplement, not as a drug. So, even if the body still has remaining bacteria in it, that bacteria has not been able to “learn” how to mutate to overcome these oils. Each of these oils can be taken internally in a caplet. I use clove on my skin, because it smells nice. I use oil of oregano internally because it has been studied very extensively and seems to be the strongest and most effective of these powerful herbal oils.

WARNINGS:

  • All of these oils need to be diluted, because they can cause irritation if they are not diluted. I generally dilute them in a ratio of 1:4 (medicinal oil: carrier oil.) Planetary Herbals is the Oil of Oregano I prefer to use in a caplet that has the right percentage of the active ingredient carvacrol.
  • Do not use Oil of Oregano if you are pregnant simply because it has not been studies extensively with pregnancy. Oil of Oregano is used in hormonally unhealthy women to bring about a healthy period, so one concern is that it could cause bleeding. It’s not a big concern, but while they study it further, it would be best to use another natural remedy, perhaps a homeopathic one.
  • Do not use Oil of Oregano if you are on any medicinal blood thinners because it naturally thins your blood to a healthy level. It is not believed to be counter-indicated with blood thinners, but just in case, do me a favor and avoid it.
  • I’m not a doctor. No one at Everything Birth is a doctor. While I do guarantee that I have done extensive research in respectable medical journals (as opposed to hippie herbal medicine websites) and wholeheartedly believe everything I’ve written, it’s imperative for the purpose of legality that I mention that this should not be considered “professional” medical advice, that it should only be used for “self limiting” conditions, that it is not an FDA approved medicine and yada, yada.

These are the only warnings you will need to be aware of. (Verses the pages and pages of warnings in almost every single bag you pick up from the pharmacy.) You can learn more on your own by using the term carvacrol (Oil of Oregano) in a search at www.pubmed.org.

Another powerful staph fighter to look into is colloidal silver because this can be harmlessly sprayed in even an infant’s nasal passage, mouth, ear canal, vaginal area or eyes.

For what it’s worth, each of these natural remedies as non-drug nutitional supplements also fight viruses and fungi… so it eliminates the need for “cultures” to find the right treatment. (Of course, given the law, I need to also stress colloidal silver is also not an FDA approved medicine or drug and simply a nutritional supplement… however, many hospitals are beginning to use silver in air filtration systems and linen because of the abilities and qualities of silver that I am not legally allowed to make claims about.)  This really helps to take the guess work out of helping my family get healthy and avoids the wait time for culture tests which are absolutely crucial to responsible medicine when dealing with traditional methods of killing bacteria and viruses. It is highly irresponsible for a doctor to prescribe an antibiotic without a culture. I realize they do it all the time, so, don’t forget to thank them for the MRSA in our communities the next time you catch them doing this.

If you’re hesitant to take my word for it since I’m just a blogger, I don’t blame you. Do me a favor though, meet me half-way. Have a bottle of Oil of Oregano on hand at all times. The next time you’re sick, take one caplet of oil of oregano (of course, as a supplement, not a medicine, because I’m legally not allowed to make that claim either) three times a day while you wait for the doctor to responsibly order a culture (about a day or so.) If you still don’t feel better by the time the doctor has your results,  responsibly use your antibiotics (while they’re still effective that is.)

-Dawn Papple

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