A Day in the Life of Jami: My Medicine Collection

So I was all excited about this new series... And now it's almost been a month and I haven't written another post in it.  That's what I get for being busy I guess.  I should try to schedule blogging into my day.  It can't be that hard, can it? I mean, I schedule my clients at certain times on certain days of the week, I schedule appointments for the family on my days off, I schedule working out every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday (and add in work-outs as the opportunities arise). That's just how things get done, it's scheduled in.  Aaaaand that's why my laundry piles up... Because I don't schedule it in... But we won't go there.

Justin got sick a couple days ago.  Pretty sure my mom shared it, because she had the same symptoms.  Nothing major like the virus we all got hit with awhile back, but still no fun.  He was tired and achy and whatever this was attacked the digestive system.  So that was no fun.  I got him taking homeopathic FluGuard, which I had never tried before so he was kinda my guinea pig with that one, he was taking shots of oregano (see his strep throat adventure to learn more about that), and I upped his olive leaf extract, vitamin c, and echinacea/goldenseal (good for the immune system - I should probably write a post about those). He also had a low sugar intake, as I've been trying my best to be more strict with Paleo cooking at home, and I know that helped.  Sugar weakens the immune system - it heightens your body's inflammatory response so it more or less steals all the attention from your immune system, which isn't good when you've got a bug or virus needing attention first.  I believe he recovered quicker than my mom did, and I'm fairly certain diet played a big role in that... But I pester my mom enough about needing to form clean eating habits so I won't drag it out here ;-).

In the meantime, I was diffusing Thieves oil all over the house, rubbing it on our feet each night, plus I made a cleaner in a spray bottle - I put half witch hazel and half hydrogen peroxide (I would have used rubbing alcohol but we seem to be out) with several drops of Thieves, Purification, and Oregano and sprayed it all over everything - the furniture, the bed and bedding, pillows, rugs, surfaces, everything.

All has been well.  Until Harlee and I got hit by allergies.  Our noses are like faucets, ugh it's awful.  My throat is getting scratchy because of the drainage too.  And speaking of sugar earlier, I've been bad and stole more than my fair share of Halloween candy... so I'm really not giving myself the best chance at recovering quickly.  Harlee's been good and drinking more water than juice, plus I rub RC and Raven oil blends on his chest and that seems to help clear him up.  I'm sitting here with a cup of hot jasmine green tea with honey and lemon oil.  It's my fourth cup this morning.  I've been using lavender around my nose, which seems to help but goodness gracious does it make me sleepy... I also rubbed oregano oil around my nose (diluted with coconut because it burns) to help dry things up, which also seems to help.  I'm trying to talk myself into gargling a bit of oregano oil in a shot of my tea, but I haven't done it yet.  It's horrible.  Well, it's horrible for like two minutes, then after the hellfire in your mouth and throat wears off it turns out to be a fantastic resolution to a sore throat.  And that's what I need right now.  It's getting past the hellfire part that has me stuck...

All this excitement made me decide this is a good opportunity to share my medicine drawer contents with you.  I also got several requests for that since I posted that picture of my special delivery on Facebook.  A couple weeks ago my iHerb order came in -  I swear I get way too excited about that.  I usually try to place a big bulk order every so often - all our vitamins, immune boosters, general supplements, etc.  Then when it arrives I feel like Christmas came early.

So in this box I got cod liver oil, which is a great source of Omaga-3s and DHA.  Oscillococcinum (don't ask me how to actually pronounce that) which is a great homeopathic remedy for the onset of the flu, as is the bottle of FluGuard, and after our recent bout of that I decided I should be armed in case we ever get hit again.  I also ordered some colloidal silver, which needs a post all its own.  It's a natural antibiotic, again, a great thing to have on hand in the event of a nasty virus.  There's a bottle of vitamin C, a few bottles of liquid vitamins for Harlee (he will not take chewables or gummies for some reason, so instead I put these in his cup of juice or whatever hes drinking and it's been working great.  There's also a bottle of Echinacea/Goldenseal for immune support and pau d' arco, which is also great for the immune system.

All this got added to my medicine drawer:

I'm super proud of this drawer.  It's so much easier to locate different things than it was when I used to have everything in a cabinet, but best of all it's becoming quite full with a great variety of remedies!  I've got my growing supply of essential oils in the bottom left corner (and that's not even all of them - my most frequently used ones are in the diaper bag), my most commonly used homeopathic remedies in the bottom right corner, then throughout the middle-right I've got a bunch of herbal remedies, vitamins, etc like olive leaf extract, vitamin c, echinacea, vitamin d, and so on.  I've got things in here in place of common conventional medicine cabinet items like papaya instead of Tums or Rollaids (and it works way better and tastes better, too), homeopathic eye drops and ear drops, and the multitude of essential oils play roles like lavender for wound healing (to replace Neosporin), peppermint for headaches (although we do have ibuprofen in there, that's the only conventional medicine we've got I think) and also for digestive upset for cases beyond the scope of papaya, Purification oil in place of anti-itch cream, the list goes on and on, and continues to grow as I learn more and find more!  In the back I've got replacement bottles of things like my Juice Plus and olive leaf extract and cod liver oil - basically the things I take daily as a supplement, plus the things I don't want to run out of like Harlee's vitamins and elderberry syrup, which I add in with his vitamins if it seems like he might be coming down with something or if he's been around other people who were sick.  I'm currently giving that to him with his vitamins.  The temporal thermometer is in there, a tub of coconut oil for diluting essential oils, and a bottle of witch hazel for mixing up cleaners, bug sprays, etc.  Oh I also have Little Remedies fever reducer, too, just in case.  Little Remedies seems like a good brand of products for conventional medicines without the conventional additives, so in the event of a high fever striking that my natural remedies aren't strong enough for, I've got a safe alternative.  Luckily we haven't really needed it though, as peppermint has always helped keep fevers from creeping up too high.

Ta da!  That's my collection so far!  I'll say it again, I'm quite proud of it.  It just makes me feel really good that I've got plenty of things to help us stay healthy or recover if we do get sick, while at the same time not pumping us full of harmful chemicals or risking the side effects of conventional drugs.  Justin's learning his way around the drawer too, which is great.  I'm so glad he's open to learning more about alternative medicine, and I've enjoyed watching his trust in it grow as everything we use continues to work.  We're definite in the same boat as parents - we want to keep our kids and ourselves healthy in the safest ways!

I should get back to work now - I'm off on Fridays so this is when I try to get things caught up like laundry, cleaning, and obviously blogging :) (which obviously doesn't always happen).  Have a great weekend!