Sam's Formula

Several years ago when that "non-polio" enterovirus was going around, Sam had it bad. He had a breathing treatment at the Dr's office and was prescribed an inhaler. The inhaler didn't do much good. I prayed and just "knew" what herbs to put together. Later, after it worked, I realized this is an anti-inflammatory formula. 

Last night while saying I needed to try anti-inflammatory drugs for my migraine, Clark asked don't I have anti-inflammatory herbs? I remembered this tincture, tried it, and it worked! This morning I woke up headache free, though my ears were still ringing. I worked out and still no pain. 

Since God gave this formula to me freely, I will pass it on. I can't promise it will work for you, but so far so good here. Don't give up your regular medication before you know if this helps you though!

Sam's Formula:
4 parts each elderberry and mullein;
2 parts each plantain, peppermint, red raspberry leaf, spearmint, marshmallow, chamomile, rose hips;
1 part each alfalfa and nettle

Mix together then use 1 teaspoon of the mixture per 1 cup of water to make a tea. I made a tincture with vodka as a base. Fill a jar half full with herb mixture, then pour vodka in the jar to 1 inch from the top. Label it with what it is (a sharpie works great on glass and washes off later) and the date. Shake every day for 3 weeks. Strain it and put in in a tincture bottle (available on amazon) with a dropper. 1 dropper full has worked for us for asthma, coughs, and now a migraine.

If anyone tries it I would love to hear results.

Plantain Sticks

Back in 2010 I gave instructions on how to make Plantain Oil. I'm going to give those instructions again because I want to update a few things. But since then I started using that oil to make Plantain Sticks. That allows me to have them handy in my purse all the time. They really come in handy!

Once we were at the zoo and my daughter collided with a bee. It stung her right at the bottom of her lower eye lid and it immediately began to swell. We were heading home anyway, but by the time we got to the exit, which was only a couple of minutes, it was swelling quite a bit and I was worried it would swell shut. So we stopped and I grabbed the Plantain stick out of my purse. I carefully applied a tiny bit to the sting being careful not to get it IN her eye. Then we walked about 2 more minutes to our van. I turned to look at her and it was gone. You could still see the red spot, but the swelling was gone and she felt better.

I have a daughter who seems to be allergic to mosquitoes. They love her and bite her often and she swells up with huge bumps with each bite. Plantain brings them down to normal bug bites for her. They've also helped us endure fire ant stings and spider bites. I used the oil one night to draw out a deep splinter and it brought it to the surface by morning.

So if you want to buy Plantain Sticks from me, you can email me at GodMadeMeds@gmail.com. They're $1 each plus shipping. But even better is to make them yourself. If this is popular I'll figure out how to do a cart and you can just order, but for now, email me.

The first step is to obtain Plantain. You can buy it dried at Bulk Herb Store, but it's kinda pricey. And if you have weeds in your yard, you likely have some out there. This is a great article on how to identify it. and that link should open in a new window so you won't lose these instructions.

After you find fresh plantain, rinse it off if it's muddy and pat it dry. Then set it on a towel or paper towels and put it in a window or somewhere to dry for a couple of days. This is important. I made the oil with fresh plantain once and it just got moldy. So once it's dry, put it in a clean jar and cover it with oil. It will float, but you want the oil to be about an inch higher than the plantain was before it started to float. So if you just want a little, you don't need much plantain, but make a lot. I haven't seen it go bad yet if I used dry herbs and it's great stuff. Shake it up every day for about 3 weeks, strain and label. I don't bother straining it until I need it.

To make the Plantain Sticks, you'll want to have empty tubes and beeswax handy. Use 7 parts plantain oil with 1 part beeswax and melt them together in a pot.  Test it by letting a bit harden on a spoon. If it's too soft, add more beeswax. If it's too hard, add more oil. When you get it how you want it, use a pipette to pour it into the tubes. Let it harden and label it. I found that it takes about 1/2 tsp beeswax and 3 1/2 tsp oil to make 2 tubes.

I found a similar product on iHerb. It's not in a tube but in a tub and I haven't used it. It's the same ingredients. I think it would work, just messier. The sticks don't require touching it to apply it. If you purchase it from there please use my link as it contains my referral code and I earn a bit. It's like I get a little coupon the next time I check out and that makes me smile.

This nasty cold going around

There is a nasty cold going around. You get a fever, really runny nose, headache, sore throat, stomach ache, or all of the above. It's hard to know if you have it since this time of year many of those same symptoms hit all the ragweed allergy sufferers. But if it's the cold, we've found some herbs that are helping.

What has really helped my family is to combine licorice, ginger and echinacea with whatever other herbs I'm using to make tea and drink lots of it. Even the kids who don't like the taste of those particular herbs are saying it did help a lot.

Licorice is good for sore throats and coughs and is a natural antibiotic. Ginger helps all sorts of tummy aches. And Echinacea boosts your immune system and helps with the stuffiness. It will make your nose run which is good if you want to avoid the sinus headache and earaches that could go along with the stuffiness.  Be prepared with lots of tissues!

Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disorder

Many years ago I was experiencing a lot of pain whenever I ate.  I also had a lot of aches and pains in my back, shoulders, and one hip.  I went to the doctor.  They told me those were different and I needed a second appointment to deal with both things so I had to choose which one to do first. (And people wonder why I don't care much for doctors.)  I chose the abdominal pain since eating seemed to be more important to my survival than sitting comfortably.  I was actually not nursing a baby at the time (the one break I've had in almost 22 years) and I didn't expect to have any more babies ever (boy was I wrong!) so I was able to take medication without worrying about it.

They did a blood test and found there was no way it was an ulcer because I didn't have the h. pylorii (or something like that) bacteria in my blood.  So they decided it was Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disorder aka GERD or Reflux.  They ran through the usual "try to lose some weight and eat right" stuff with me.  Yeah.  I weighed 115 lbs.  I don't think I had much to lose.  Then they prescribed something.  I can't remember what it was.  I just know it gave me horrible horrible headaches.  I have survived migraines for the last 22 years without any pain medication because I don't want to even possibly harm the babies I am carrying or nursing.  I give birth without pain medication.  I'm not a wimpy person who cannot handle pain.  But this was awful.  I went back and told them it caused bigger problems so they took me off that and put me on another.  This one also had side effects.  My stomach would knot up like a rock.  You could feel a hard little rock right where my stomach was supposed to be.  I stopped taking that and decided I must need to live with this pain and consider Tums to be a regular part of every meal.

Then I was talking to a friend who asked if I would consider doing anything natural.  Of course I would!  So she sent me to a health food store to talk to the woman who ran it.  She said I had a yeast overgrowth and put me on Oregano Oil and Acidophilus and told me no sugar including fruit and milk.  I decided to try it and was amazed to find that not only did my stomach pains go away, so did all those other aches and pains I'd never made another appointment to discuss with the doctor!  I have to admit though, we gave up fruit, but not milk.  And several years later my symptoms came back and I did it again without giving up milk or fruit.  It still worked.  But other sugars really should go.

Through the years I have helped several other people with similar problems by telling this story.  It has helped people with back pain (especially that ache between your shoulder blades, just off from the center) and people with reflux.  I never experienced any reflux sensation.  Basically I just had a really bad case of heartburn. But it has worked for others who had that reflux sensation.

There are other things that work too.  My favorite, because we always keep it on hand and it works for so many other things AND is safe enough to give children and babies, is Nutribiotic Grapefruit Seed Extract.  A dose for an adult is 1 tablet.  But you can get the liquid and the dose for ANY size person can be calculated by taking 1 drop per 10 pounds of body weight.  Never take the liquid straight.  It has to be diluted.  You can mix it in juice, applesauce, or whatever.  It is bitter and seems to taste less strong when cold.

For Reflux, take 1 dose in the morning and another dose at night.  Along with that, take acidophilus.  We like the yummy chewable tablets and have found we're more likely to remember to do this if there's something yummy involved.  But you can take whatever form of acidophilus you want.  Just take it when you take the GSE--one in the morning and one at night. 

The way it works is that the GSE kills the yeast, the acidophilus adds to the good bacteria, and avoiding sugar starves the yeast. 

How long to continue depends on you.  If you stop and the pain returns, it was too soon.  If you stop and feel great still, you don't need it.  Figure at least a couple weeks.  I did it for 6 weeks the first time, stopped and needed to re-start pretty quickly.  Then I just took it once daily for about a year.  I only need it now if I start eating a lot of sugar again.  Then a couple doses later I feel great and quit.

Morning Sickness

I am 7 weeks pregnant with our 12th child.  At almost 43 yrs old, I consider the nausea to be a good sign since I keep hearing of women my age miscarrying.  But it's still hard to keep going when I feel so yucky.

I've experienced morning sickness with every pregnancy, but other than the time I had the flu at this stage, I've never thrown up so I know this isn't nearly as bad as other women get.

I've found a couple of aids so far.  We went on a long drive to go meet our first grandson.  Each time I'd start to feel nauseous I'd fall asleep.  When I woke up, the nausea had passed.  So sleep is apparently a good help.  This was the ONLY day out of 12 pregnancies that this was a possibility though.  Life doesn't let many people just doze off and on all day.

I know that peppermint is supposed to be good for upset stomachs.  So I bought some Altoid mints.  The curiously strong ones.  I LOVE mints, but these aren't my favorite.  They're so strong they hurt my tongue.  In other pregnancies I tried mint candy and mint gum and they work okay and taste good.  The Altoids are working great so far.  Why does it have to be the one I don't care as much for?  But relief is relief.

I will say, nothing seems to take the nausea away completely.  This just helps it be more tolerable.  Ginger is supposed to work well, too, but I haven't tried it yet.  Maybe I'll make some ginger tea this weekend and see how that works.  I'll keep you posted if I find anything. 

Cough and Sore Throat tea

We survived a virus that caused everyone to cough and have sore throats.  Some of the kids had a dry, hacking cough and others got wheezy with it.  At least 3 of my children lost their voices.  (Sadly, that didn't seem to create a quieter atmosphere here since it was only one at a time.)  The first to catch this virus was my son Samuel.  He seems to end up with asthmatic symptoms whenever he catches any cold.  One morning he was struggling so much he couldn't even make it up the stairs to his bedroom.  I had to leave, but made him some tea and instructed Grace, his babysitter for the morning, to push the tea.  She said she had him sip it every time she could--maybe every 15 minutes or so.  When I returned 4 hours later, he was fine and went to play outside.

So what was in the tea?  I will share my list of ingredients.  But if you don't want to make it yourself I have now made a HUGE bag of it and would be glad to share.  $5 for a 2 ounce bag.  In about 3 weeks I'll have a tincture made from it and will want to test that on somebody. :)  I'll need a local person with a cough to test so let me know if you feel bad about 3 weeks from now.  Not wishing it on anybody, but just letting you know I'll be glad to share my tincture free for the first person who is sick and willing to test it out.  FYI it will be alcohol based.

My cough and sore throat formula is this:  1 part each of mullein, licorice root, echinacea, peppermint, spearmint, stevia, dried elder berries.  1/2 part lobelia.  Sometimes I throw in an extra part of mullein.  It doesn't seem to make a difference though.

Oil Cleansing Method

 I've been on a quest to find ways to cleanse my hair and skin without using commercial products.  So far I've tried baking soda and vinegar for my hair which I didn't like, coconut oil as a moisturizer or lotion which I like, coconut oil as deodorant which I like, and oil to wash my face which I LOVE.

I mixed 1 T castor oil and 3 T olive oil.  You can find castor oil on the bottom shelf with laxatives in the pharmacy section.  But this won't work as a laxative.  I promise.  I saw one website suggested them at the opposite ratio, but I think this would actually dry out your skin.  The ratio I gave you is great for me and my teenage daughters.  I think the person who suggested more castor oil and less olive oil just got mixed up.

I put it in a little plastic container I got over by the sample size stuff in Health and Beauty Aids at Walmart.  $1 I think.  The castor oil was maybe $3?  Olive oil I already had in the kitchen.

Each night I use about 4 drops.  I put it on my wet hands and rub together.  Then I massage it over my whole face.  It removes make up too.  Get a washcloth wet with water as hot as you can stand it.  Lay this over your face and hold it until it cools.  Then wipe off the oil.  Do this again.  It takes me about 3-4 rinses.

In the morning I just rinse with warm water.  That's all it takes.  Sometimes I forget and wash my face in the shower out of habit.  Then I need to moisturize.  I use coconut oil for that.

My daughters and I have been doing this for a couple months now and still love it.  Their acne is improved.  My dry patches and blotchy spots are gone.  I even had a mole disappear and another one shrink!  I'll be trying straight castor oil on my moles and let you know if that works.