1. First, I gave her some homeopathic Apis Mellifica underneath her tongue. This is the same homeopathic remedy I suggested using when a friend was stung by a bee recently.  I recommended she take a dose immediately, then a second thirty minutes later, and if needed for discomfort, a third two hours after that. My daughter’s fierce mosquito or spider bites required one pastille of Apis that night and a second the next morning before breakfast.

2. For topical relief, I rubbed in some homopathic Florasone, a remedy helpful for skin irritations in general. If I could have located it in my house, I would have applied some homeopathic SssstingStop gel, but the Florasone worked quite well, as it usually does.

3. For bee stings and spider bites, it’s helpful to place a drying masque over the area to draw out the poison. Mud works great and is easily available, as does tooth paste (not gel). A clay facial masque will do the trick, too.

4. Finally, disolving about 2 cups of Epsom Salts into a warm bath for a soak will help reduce swelling and relieve itching.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

It looks like “natural fragrances” may mean as much as “natural flavors” do on a label in terms of the chemical load they bring to your body.

The study found 38 unlisted chemicals in the testing. The average fragrance tested contained 14 secret chemicals. Among them are chemicals associated with hormone disruption and allergic reactions, and many substances that have not been assessed for safety in personal care products by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the industry’s own safety panel.

How many secret chemicals do such popular fragrances like Chanel Coco and Old Spice contain? Check out the full report on chemicals in fragrances and you’ll see that Coco has 18 distressing chemicals and Old Spice has 16 ingredients not reported on the label.

In 1973 Congress passed the federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. The law, which requires companies to list cosmetics ingredients on the product labels, specifically exempts fragrances. Since then, the vague word “fragrance” is all you’ll find on the label. If there’s anything to be grateful for in this, it’s that “fragrance” is a recognizable word that is easily avoided by label readers.

Personally, I avoid all synthetic “fragrances” whenever possible, including in laundry detergents, shampoos, body products, and non-organic-based candles. I believe most air fresheners are some of the worst toxins that you can add to your environment — and they’re designed to encourage you to smell deeply and carry all those chemicals deep into your lungs.

I think dryer sheets are bad, too, and I encourage you to stop using them as they infuse your clothes with these synthetic fragrances so that you can be continually exposed to these dangerous chemicals each and every day.

The FDA has not assessed the vast majority of these secret fragrance chemicals for safety when used in spray-on personal care products such as fragrances. Most have not even been evaluated by the safety review panel of the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) or any other publicly accountable institution.

Of the chemicals that have been tested, there isn’t a lot of good news. The vague term “fragrance” covers chemicals that can be linked to reproductive damage, hormone disruption, and can trigger allergic reactions.

Fragrances may be designed to make us smell better and feel good about ourselves, but as the EWG points out, “we don’t know how you can feel good when you don’t know what you are putting on your body.”

So what’s a girl to do when she wants to float in a sweet smelling cloud without taxing her body’s tolerance levels?

Chemical perfumes add to the air pollution we breathe in every day. Take steps to minimize your exposure when possible.

Be sure to check out my upcoming post on custom-blended pure aroma perfumes, look for soy or beeswax candles scented with natural tinctures, and consider practicing aromatherapy using only quality uncontaminated oils and tinctures.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

Much of this has been blamed on Elvis’ deep-fried, Southern-comfort diet and well-known penchant for opiates. Lots of fatty and highly processed foods mixed with motility-slowing drugs will surely affect a body’s ability to purge, but what if there were other factors as well?

“All the medications he was taking wouldn’t have caused the degree of constipation he had,” claims Dr. Nick, who noted that at the autopsy pathologists found barium in Presley’s stool that had been there for three or four months.

“The nerves have to stimulate the colon to propel the material out,” the Dr. notes. “Either there were no nerves or there was a viral disease that affects the nerves. I’m just using this as an example, but polio, for instance, is a virus that affects the nerves.”

Of course, I have my own theory on the matter. Did you expect anything less?

As much as Dr. Nick is being accused of presenting this theory now as a way to exonerate his role in Elvis’ death as his drug prescriber, I do think he’s spot-on about the nerves of the colon and that they were obviously not functioning in normal peristalsis, the muscular contractions that propel waste matter through the colon and out of the body through the anus.

In a healthy colon, the sensations of peristalsis signal that it is time to get thee to a toilet. In a chronically stopped-up colon, peristalsis slows or ceases completely, and the colon becomes so stretched and distorted that the sensation that you “have to go” is muted or nonexistant.

Many readers of this blog have commented that fiber and water can help clear occasional constipation, and they are correct when you are looking at a normal colon in a healthy person. Adding fiber to a diet can actually  make constipation worse if there is an underlying inflammatory condition that is not being addressed.

In untreated Celiac disease sufferers, for example, the continual and chronic irritation of the lining of the bowels and intestines can cause permanent damage to the nerves and tissues of the gastro-intestinal system, including the sensitive fingerlike villi lining the gut that are responsible for breaking down and absorbing nutrients and assisting peristalsis.

Scientific American magazine reported in the August, 2009, issue that Celiac sufferers and in fact most, if not all, autoimmune disease sufferers, have unusually permeable guts due to constant inflammatory response to environmental substances, i.e., undiagnosed food and chemical sensitivities. Because this inflammation negatively affects the assimilation of nutrients, symptoms can manifest that are as diverse as anemia, arthritis, bone loss, depression, fatigue, infertility, joint pain, seizures, and numbness in the hands and feet. Etcetera, etcetera.

As Celiac patients know, the only  way to heal the bowel and feel better is to eliminate the cause of the inflammation and irritation, in this case gluten in the diet, and allow the tissues to calm down and recover. If identified early enough, the bowel can completely heal and regain normal function. After too many years of continual inflammation, however, the damage may become permanent.

While only 1% of the global population actually suffers from gluten intolerance, the numbers unknowingly afflicted with gluten or other food or chemical additive sensitivities could be exponentially higher. These “Type IV delayed hypersensitivity reactions” spark a histamine/cytokine/chemokine mediator release that can manifest as inflammation localized in the bowels and producing constipation and/or diarreah or as a general system-wide inflammation that can look like anything from migraines to  fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, ADD/ADHD… and on and on.

Perhaps Elvis suffered from undiagnosed food sensitivities that instigated a constant inflammatory response in his colon, effectively closing it to excretions and causing the stool to back-up and expand the colon exponentially in diameter to contain all that rotting fecal matter, and hence lose muscle tone and sensitivity in the villi.

In my experience, once you cross that tolerance threshold for one substance, the thresholds for others drop lower as well, causing a cascade of substances which you can no longer tolerate and so that you become constantly inflamed internally. Returning to a point below these lowered tolerance thresholds takes information, time, and dedication, but it is possible.

What can we learn from these revelations into The King’s toileting life?

First, it’s probably wise to lay off the opiates, especially if you’re already constipated. They’re not going to help.

Second, a deep fried diet laden with processed foods and famous for peanut-butter-banana-and-bacon sandwiches is not conducive to robust health.

And, third, don’t wait until it’s too late to act to save your colon — and your body — from permanent damage like the kind seen in Elvis. Dr. Nick offered Elvis a colonectomy while he was alive in a desperate attempt to find a solution to his chronic problem. Elvis demurred (it would have meant wearing an external colon bag). It’s infinitely more preferable to change your diet than lose your colon, don’t you think?

If you are suffering without finding relief, you might want to consider looking into possible food and/or chemical additive sensitivity issues (not food “allergies” that create IgE antibodies, but “sensitivities” that cause the release of mediators like histamines and cytokines and cause inflammation).

We can’t all be “The King,” but at least we can rule over our own bodies and take control over our own health!

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

Putting an 8-year old on Acutane, a serious acne medication whose side effects include photosensitivity (easily sunburned), depression, eating disorders, joint pain, seizures, cracked skin, and causes such severe birth defects that you must sign a waiver if you are of childbearing age (not that this 8-year old is likely to become pregnant, but this is one strong drug) is simply irresponsible, in my opinion.

Drugs.com says: Accutane is used to treat severe nodular acne. It is usually given after other acne medicines or antibiotics have been tried without successful treatment of symptoms. Acutane has been linked to Inflammatory Bowel Disease and may have other long term effects.

Truly, these little whitehead pimples don’t really even qualify as “acne”.

When I was 7 or 8, I noticed the same little white bumps splayed across my cheeks. My mother took me into the dermatologist, too. The difference was that my dermatologist recognized the benefits of exfoliation over medication for these little clogged pores.

He sent me home with my first Buf Puf and a recommendation to switch to Dove soap because it was less drying than the Ivory we had always used. I was to wash my face every night before bed and use the soapy Buf Puf to gently exfoliate my cheeks.

Lo and behold: no more white bumps!

Ok, this was in the 70s and soap technology has come a long way from Ivory and Dove, but the need to exfoliate remains. That visit to the doctor started me off early on caring for the skin on my face through daily exfoliation. As I got older I followed with a toner and moisturizer.

It’s still the same today, albeit with different products.

Aside from scattered, random clogged pores here and there, my face has always been smooth and blemish-free. That I’ve yet to find a wrinkle in my 40s I attribute to a combination of good genes and a lifetime of constant, dedicated skincare, including regular exfoliation.

Lately, we’ve noticed the same white bumps on my 7-year old son’s cheeks. I picked up a Buf Puf for him and taught him how to use it with a gentle, petroleum-free, fragrance-free soap. While he’s not a daily Buf Puffer yet, the once or twice a week that he uses it is enough to keep his cheeks smooth and bump-free. He may need to exfoliate more frequently as he enters his teens, but he already knows what to do and is accustomed to doing it.

All predictions point toward clear-skinned teen years and beyond if he keeps up this easy skincare routine.

Be sure to rinse your Buf Puf well, squeeze well, and allow to dry fully between uses to avoid mildew or bacterial growth. Replace frequently as needed.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

It started when we noticed that Blue, a 13-year old Russian Blue, was peeing all over the house. She had done this once before, almost 5 years ago, after we moved into a new house and she was too frightened to go to the bathroom outside, as she had done her whole life up until then. We set up a litter box but she would only use it some of the time.

That time, after we paid for a battery of tests to find out she was healthy, we found the answer in a helpful booklet by animal behaviorists. (Turned out she did not appreciate the flushable, biodegradable cat litter I had found. As soon as we switched to a different brand, the problem was solved.)

This time switching the kitty litter hadn’t worked. The vet said she had a bladder infection, so we put her on a round of antibiotics (now, there’s a recipe for a fun time!). That settles that, we thought.

Wrong. She was continuing to pee around the house. It was almost bad enough to make you wish you didn’t own a cat.

She has feline chronic renal failure, the vet said, looking at her blood work. She just can’t hold it long enough to get to the litter box all the time and she’s dehydrated because her kidneys are starting to shut down. She will need subcutaneous fluid injections regularly, he warned, and a low protein diet can help.

She’s old and it will just be downhill from here, he said.

Hhhhmmmmph.

Some friends have shared with me that it was at this point in their cat’s saga that they simply decided to put the cat down. I wasn’t ready to take that step yet, even though I’ve promised the kids can get a dog when the cat dies.

I refused to believe there was nothing more I could do for her — or for us, who were dealing with finding cat pee all over the house.

I got online to do some research. I found the rec for the low protein/low salt/low phosphorus diet to reduce the amount of waste processed by the kidneys, and also a suggestion to increase the wet food to dry food ratio, giving her more moisture with her food. That made sense since dehydration stresses the kidneys, too.

The vet had prescribed Hill’s Prescription Diet k/d for kidney health. At first it gave her diarrhea, but we integrated it into her old food and gradually switched her over completely. She’s happy because she’s getting a lot more wet food than she used to get.

But there had to be something else I could do to help her. What would I do if she were a human? I wanted to support and nourish her systems.

Kitty Probiotics
I found some probiotics for pets at Vitamin Cottage and began opening a capsule onto her food at dinner. She doesn’t seem to mind the powder and eats it right up.

The probiotics help her body recover from the antibiotics and nurture overall health through digestive health. She seems to have an overall sense of wellbeing these days, and a spring in her step.

Cranberry for Urinary Tract Health
Even more than probiotics, though, I wanted to help support her kidneys and bladder. Cranberries are great for solving chronic bladder and urinary tract infections, and help keep the kidenys clean, I thought, but how do you get cranberries into a cat?

That’s when I found the CatBerry cranberry treats for kitties. She gets two at snack time at mid-morning every day.

If she acts fussy, she’ll get a regular kitty treat alongside the cranberry, and that usually gets her to eat them both.

The result?

The kitty is back to using her litterbox and we are all happier for it.

Hooray! I feel like trumpeting it from the rooftops!

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

It can be overwhelming to do such a major overhaul of all the products in your life, but one line that I can recommend without hesitation is Moondance Botanicals.

They make all of their products by hand in small batches using pure ingredients. Drop by their little shop on 6th Avenue in Denver and you might find them bottling or labeling behind the counter.

Their Citrus C Vitamin C Facial Cleanser leaves your skin squeaky clean without drying it out or leaving an annoying residue. As I once told my mother-in-law, soap technology has come a long way since Lucille Ball was an Ivory Girl, and if you’re still using old-style cleansers your skin will thank you for switching.

I also really like the Sacred Oils Face Serum, a mixture of a number of essential oils that leaves my skin glowing and youthful. I’ve found it to be a soothing after-waxing salve, since my skin will often hive for days after cosmetic treatments like facials, waxing, etc. I’ll frequently use the Serum as a nighttime moisturizer since it does such a great job.

I’ll admit that the serum can be too oily to put on right before applying makeup, particularly if you’re using mineral makeup, but otherwise, I love how it makes my skin feel so soft.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

A series of hard workouts, excessive sweating, headache, bad breath, fever, vomiting, diarrhea,… any of these can be  signs that you should take steps to prevent dehydration, replace your electrolytes, and help your body recover more quickly and regain its interstitial fluid balance.

That’s why sports drinks and electrolyte replacement therapies can be a great speedy solution. Unfortunately, I have a lot of issues with regular “sports drinks.”

When I read the labels I see some great electrolytes like magnesium, potassium, calcium, and sodium, but I also find artificial sugars like Aspartame, Sucralose, and High Fructose Corn Syrup; artificial dyes (show me where florescent orange appears in nature!); caffeine; and “natural flavors” (Remember the frightening list of ingredients that make up “natural flavors”?).

It’s harder to find a clean, acceptable sports drink/electrolyte replacement than you might think. I challenge you to start reading the labels.

One that I like is Owater and their line of All Natural Electrolyte Drinks.

I think electrolytes by themselves must taste awful, because even Owater needs a sweetener. I’m happy to report that they use only pure cane sugar, and 35% less sugar than typical sports drinks. Without any artificial flavors or colors, Owaters are clear like the purified/distilled water they start with.

I prefer Owater to standard pediatric electrolyte replacement therapies like Pedialyte for the same reasons.

My kids like the Black Raspberry flavor, whereas I prefer Coconut. Find your own favorite!

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

My friend was quite surprised as she hadn’t ever had any eczema patches before on her body, so she knew she wasn’t prone to it. But during her vacation, she was so concerned with keeping her preschooler healthy that she may have overused sanitizer during the week. The drying effect of the alcohol combined with the disinfecting chemicals in the product had severely irritated her skin.

Here’s a natural hand sanitizer she might want to try next time to avoid this problem. But in the meantime, she still had to do something to heal her hands.

The doctor prescribed an anti-inflammatory cortisone cream and vasoline to hold moisture into the skin. Of course, I immediately suggested less toxic alternatives for her.

Instead of a steroidal cortisone cream, I like to use Florasone, a homeopathic anti-inflammatory cream that helps reduce inflammation, provide soothing and healing, and help rebalance the imbalance that is causing the problem in the first place.  I’ve successfully used Florasone for reducing the itching from hives and other skin irritations, including bug bites and cold sores. Because it is homeopathic, you can feel safe about using it as frequently as needed and even on infants.

It only takes a knowledge of the full title of Vasoline Petroleum Jelly to know where it comes from and that I don’t want it anywhere near my body. I certainly don’t want it to absorb through my skin. Instead, for adding moisture into the skin, we have not found anything better for providing immediate relief than Weleda Skin Food. Love this stuff; it’s very powerful.

To promote healing of cracked skin, try mixing a drop or two of antibacterial Tea Tree oil with a carrier oil, such as pure Almond oil, on the affected skin. I like NOW almond oil because it doesn’t contain any vitamin E, which can be an allergen for some people with eczema.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

At almost every multiple sclerosis event where I present a session on natural health and healthy eating, someone approaches me to ask what they can do to help improve their (or more often, their partner’s) sex drive. It makes me think that there are a lot of couples out there who are not doing it more often than they are doing it.

There are some easy, natural things you can do to increase interest in and desire for sex.

Brazil nuts

Brazil Nuts. Brazil nuts contain selenium, the primary ingredient in medications like Viagra used to stimulate blood flow to your nether-regions. Skip the little pink pill and its limited time window and potential side effects, and keep a container of Brazil nuts on your counter instead. Try eating at least three each day and see if you notice a difference after a week.

Just be careful not to do too many Brazil nuts. An overdose of selenium was what killed all those polo ponies recently. It would be hard to overdose on nuts, but 15/day would probably be an upper limit.

Pomegranate Juice. Pomegranates are so chock-full of antioxidents that just the feel-good boost might be what increases sexual desire and stamina. Or, it might be something else in pomegranates that we have yet to identify. Regardless, it couldn’t hurt to add this superfood to your regular diet, and many claim that it works better than Viagra in terms of increasing erectile function.

Natural Lubricant. OK, so this one is not for eating… necessarily. Well, maybe licking!

Most personal lubes on the market contain petroleum products. Since I won’t put petroleum on my skin, I hate to think about slathering it along the sensitive skin down there, and even worse, depositing it directly inside my body, where you want lube to be.

Forget all the mysogynists who insist that a “real woman” shouldn’t need artificial lube. When you’re looking to boost your sex life, a good lube can offer a lot of help by making things much more enjoyable a lot more quickly.

Good Clean Love offers a yummy tasting, petroleum-free lubricant in a cinnamon-vanilla flavor.

Emerita Natural Lubricant with vitamin E is another one that is free from mineral oil yet safe for latex.

Just do it. Mostly what I’ve found to be the key to increasing sex drive is to just do it more often. Seriously. Have sex even when you don’t feel like it because you’re too tired, etc. Tell yourself you’re doing it as a favor to your partner, whatever. Just do it. Because the more you do it, the more you’ll want to do it. It’s funny how it works that way.

Besides, now that you’re getting more sleep, it’s not about being too tired anymore, right?

And for women, too, get some fantasies going and think about sex more. There’s some quality female-centric erotic movies out there (check out anything by Candida Royalle) that can help get the mental juices flowing. Good sex can begin in your head.

Life is too short to go through it without good sex! So eat your nuts, drink your juice, and get going already!

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

Ariana Huffington is on her own quest this month to get more sleep regularly, and one thing she has noticed is that she has more energy for her workouts. “Our sleep consultant, Dr. Michael Breus, has shown how getting more sleep can actually help you lose weight more effectively than exercise, but I’ve been finding the two are wonderfully compatible.”

I hadn’t connected the increased intensity of my workouts with more sleep, but now that I think about it, I think she has a point.

In January, 2009, I was content where I was, wearing my size 6 clothes. I’d certainly been much heavier in my life, and I was feeling pretty strong and fit and glad to be a size 6. I really wasn’t thinking much about my weight, which hovered on a plateau right around 134 lbs.

Our youngest had just turned four and life was getting easier all around because of it. Without so much energy needed to care for the kids, my husband and I were able to focus a bit more on our marriage, which had been on autopilot for the “dark years” of infancy and toddlerhood. My husband’s idea to help our marriage was for us to start going to bed at the same time, instead of him falling asleep at 9 or 10 so that he could leave for work at 6 am, and me working until 1 or 2 am every night.

By mid-January last year, I remember feeling more energetic in my regular workouts. I didn’t change my workout — I still went to Jazzercise three times each week, as I had been doing for two years — but I lifted my knees higher, caught a bit more air on the bounces, and generally pushed myself into a more intense workout.

I was no longer slogging through the workout at a low level. And it felt great.

At the time, I thought I had just randomly made the decision to work harder in my workouts, but in retrospect I can see that it was totally connected to getting more sleep every night.

In July I stepped on the scale at my mom’s house and saw 117 lbs. looking back at me. (I don’t keep a scale at my house to avoid obsession with weight. I really believe its more about how you feel than what you weigh. This is an unusual post for me to talk about weight so concretely, but it’s info I think a lot of people could use.)

Now, almost 6 months later, I still weigh 117-118 lbs., and I’m still working out at a high-intensity in my Jazzercise classes. I’m thinking maybe I’m going to be this weight now, for real. I’ve had to buy all new jeans (size 2 and 0!) and clear out my closet of things I used to squeeze into, even before I had kids. And I’m still getting 7-8 hours of sleep each night.

My workouts are more fun, my body looks better than it did in my 20s, and I feel strong and energetic. I’ve even been out dancing into the wee hours a few times in the last few months… I have a hard time believing that I’m going to be 41 next month.

Who would have thought that you could lose weight just by getting more sleep? It was a revelation to me. I have to say that I feel better all the way around because I’m getting more sleep.

Oh, and my marriage improved, too! 

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.