But seriously, have you ever thought that there might be a different approach to glasses in dealing with a child’s eyesight problems?

Never in my life had it even entered my mind that putting on glasses or putting in contacts was only treating the symptom and not the problem!

The longer I walk down a natural path to healing, the more amazed I am at the incorrect thinking that I still hold on to!

I was recently at the library and found this book by Janet Goodrich about helping children regain their eyesight naturally.  We discovered that my six-year-old daughter is having trouble seeing far away.  A friend mentioned that glasses will just make things worse because they make the eyes lazy.  It made sense and I wanted to know more!

In her introduction to the book, Dr. Goodrich starts out with stories of frustrated parents trying to get their children help for their eyesight and then delves right in to her personal story.  It sounded like a typical story of a little girl who needs glasses … typical until she said that at age 27, after wearing glasses for twenty years, she got rid of her glasses and passed all vision tests without any visual aids!!

WOW!  I was hooked and wanted to know more!

The book is divided into four parts:

1. A Fresh View of Children’s Vision
2. Keen Eyesight for Every Child
3. Specific Programs for Specific Problems
4. Home and School Environments

In Part 1, Dr. Goodrich briefly touches on a history of treating eye problems and talks about those from whom she learned this natural method of healing the eyes.  It is so interesting to me that so many “natural thinkers” were prosecuted, bullied, and abused by the medical community as they tried to scare them into abandoning their theories and hypothesis for more conventional ways of doing things!  The same is true in the field of human optics!

She then gets into the science of the eyes and all the components of why the eyes are experiencing symptoms – from the optical industry to parents to the child himself.

By Part 2, she is already introducing us to some natural ways to improve our children’s vision with reflex points and muscle massage.  These are loving ways to help your children while holding them and touching them – a parent’s favorite thing to do anyway!!  The interaction time with your child as you sun together, play games together, talk about feelings and so much more are so much fun, it’s amazing to think that you also get the added benefit of strengthening their eyes.

Adults can use this book for healing their own eyes as well, but the games and songs were developed for children to use in a fun, interactive way while improving their vision.

Part 3 is where we start to talk about specific problems that your child might be displaying.  She talks about the how’s and the why’s in relation to each symptom and issues natural methods to help cure the eyes.

And, Part 4, addresses the child’s environment, both at home and at school.  For my kids, they are one in the same and so the issues that are brought up hit me with a double whammy.  It made me really think again about the way some things are done in our home environment.

Would you be surprised to know that sugar, and the extreme intake of the substance, is linked to sore eyes?  I was not and it was a good reminder for me!!

This book is chock full of useful pieces of information to begin helping and improving your children’s eyesight immediately.  But, on top of that, there is also a website that has many more resources! Unfortunately, in 1999, Dr. Goodrich passed on but she left her legacy and her work to her daughter to carry on.  From videos to newsletters to audio lessons, Carina has put together a ton of resources that support the book and support those seeking to improve their eyesight.

The website, entitled Natural Vision Improvement – The Janet Goodrich Method, will have you well on your way to better eye health.

If you would like to purchase this book and support HomeGrownMommy at the same time, please click on the photo of the book above.  You will be directed to amazon.com where you can find the book, new, for under $15 which is 30% off the list price!  You can also find it used for $5 or less.

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I’m glad I can share this remedy with you, but I am certainly NOT glad that we had to go through the experience to get the learning!

My youngest is two years old and as cute as any little girl can get!  I hate to see any of my children in pain and she definitely experienced a good bit of it this week with an infected finger.

With some garlic, some salt or epsom salt, herbs and neosporin we are looking at the end of this ordeal!  We aren’t completely done with it yet but she is much better.  I was so happy with the results that we saw as we treated her at home, that I wanted to share what we learned in the hope of helping someone else.

Background Story

Friday last week, I was helping my daughter into the van.  She put her hands on the floor of the van, only to retract her hands back and say Ouch!  She showed me her index finger and I didn’t see any sign of injury whatsoever.  No blood, no scratch, nothing that would indicate a problem.  I assumed she bumped it or touched something a little sharp.  The rest of the weekend, she was fine and so was the finger.

Fast forward to Tuesday of this week.  She woke up acting pretty tired and just wanted to lie around.  That is certainly not like her, but I let her rest because we had two late nights in a row.  After she had slept a while, I went to check on her and it seemed she had a fever.  I figured she was getting sick and that explained the tiredness.  A little while later, I noticed the swelling in the finger she had showed me over the weekend.  It was very red and completely swollen with some discoloration under the finger nail.  The swelling was worse at the finger tip and got a bit smaller and less red as I looked down her finger.

I didn’t initially connect the fever and lethargy with the swollen finger, but once I did, I was very scared.  I was afraid that the infection would move to her blood or that she would get much much sicker.  A few treatments came to mind right away and so the battle began.

I really wish I could have gotten better photos of it to help you treat your own case, but I’ll display what I was able to get.

Treatment Strategy

I can call it a strategy now that I know what to do – at the time, I was just pulling every remedy I could find and using it as frantically as possible.

The very first thing I did was to give her a garlic enema.  I have used this tactic many times over the years for fevers in my children and have never been let down by its results.  Within a few moments of finishing up the enema, her fever was down a little more than a degree.

Right after the enema, I brought her out to the couch and put a baking soda paste on the finger.  Just mix up some water and baking soda to make a thick paste.  I coated her whole finger tip and half way down her finger because I really wasn’t sure what was causing the infection or where the original injury occurred.  It dried pretty quickly and I left it on while she slept some more, approximately 30 minutes to an hour.

(Side Note:  My husband has had several spider bites from a Brown Recluse Spider.  These very dangerous and potentially deadly bites can be treated with a baking soda paste as well.  Coat the area well and let it sit for a while.  If it is working, you’ll usually see some bubbling happen where the venom is being drawn out.  After you rinse the paste off, put Neosporin on it with a bandaid in between baking soda treatments.  He usually does two or three baking soda treatments throughout the day and keeps it covered with Neosporin until healing is evident.)

There was no bubbling at any place on her finger with the baking soda on, so I assumed it wasn’t a bite we were dealing with.  I’m still not sure exactly what happened to her finger, but at that point there was no open wound where the baking soda could have drawn out any venom.

Then, I soaked her finger in warm water with salt dissolved in it.  Afterward, I coated it with Neosporin and put a bandaid over it.  I was pretty worried about her, so I had her sleep in the bedroom by us.

In the morning, I gave her another garlic enema.  The fever wasn’t as bad as the day before, but I figured the antibiotic action of the garlic was exactly what her body needed.  The fever came down even more, thankfully!

I brought out all my dried herbs and put together a few to make a poultice.  I included a large pinch of the following:  comfrey, plantain, lobelia, red clover, and slippery elm.  After mixing them well, I poured some boiling water over the mix – just enough to make a thick paste.

Before applying the herbal poultice, I soaked her finger in more warm salt water.  Once the herbs were cooled off but still warm, I put a round layer of the herbs on a gauze first aid bandage – it was about as large as a silver dollar.  I really wanted this to cover up her whole finger.  I wrapped up the gauze with an ace bandage because I was out of medical tape.  I left her thumb out and wrapped it around ehr hand, fingers and wrist – not tight.  She fell asleep immediately since she still had somewhat of an elevated temperature.

I have to say, I think the herbal poultice was the biggest victory we had in this whole battle with the garlic enema coming as a close second!  After I pulled that poultice off (it had been on about an hour or so) I could finally see some of the infected puss at the surface.  Until this point, there didn’t seem to be any visual change in the finger at all.  Now, I finally felt like what I was doing what making some kind of difference for her.

The next dilemma was to figure out how to drain the area.  There were no holes or scratches that my husband or I could see and the infection was not finding a place to drain out on it’s own.  We soaked it warm water with espom salts and tried to figure out the best way to get that puss out of her finger.  We really did not want to hurt her any further if it wasn’t necessary.  As we mulled over what to do, the finger actually started draining by itself!  I was so relieved!  My husband did actually squeeze it a little bit as gently as he could in order to get more out.  We did another soak and covered it with Neosporin and a bandaid for a while.

By mid-day that second day, her fever was all the way gone, even though I hadn’t given her any more garlic enemas.  The enemas are much harder to do on a child that is feeling better and has more energy.  I wish I would have done a few more, but she seemed to be on the mend.

Before her bedtime, I soaked the finger again in espom salt water and then covered it with the herbal poultice mixture.  I was hoping to have it on over night, but when I woke up the next morning I noticed that she had already taken it off during the night.

On day three, things were definitely improving!  No more fever at all.  We were able to get the finger to drain again, and this time the fluid was a little cloudy at the beginning and then was a clear fluid.  No more infection!  The finger was still red and swollen, but not nearly what it had been two days earlier.  After two nights of sleeping in the bedroom with us, I was finally ready to let her sleep in her own bed that night!

I kept soaking the finger with warm epsom salt water and the covering it with Neosporin and a bandaid from here on out.  This lasted another four days.

Then, on Tuesday, exactly a week after all this started, her fingernail showed signs of being ready to fall off.  It seemed like it was just hanging by the cuticle.  We put some more Neosporin on it with a bandaid so that she wouldn’t catch it on anything while playing.  I am hoping that, if the nail does fall off, we’ll be able to get a better look at what happened under there.  We’re all too familiar with what a spider bite looks like so I’m sort of suspecting to see that – but we’ll see!  I plan to use the herbal poultice one or two more times to help the area heal more quickly.

Treatment Overview

Garlic Enema – three times a day for fever and to get antibiotics into the system

Herbal Poultice – three times a day for drawing out infection and healing the wound

Epsom Salt Soak – several times a day

Neosporin – any time you are not otherwise treating the infection, cover it with Neosporin and a bandaid

I sincerely hope this helps you treat an infection and fever very quickly and with great results like we had!

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http://homegrownmommy.com/2009/05/06/the-wonders-of-coconut-oil/

We love coconut oil around this house! I recently had another success using coconut oil as a diaper rash cure when nothing else would work – and I mean NOTHING! I thought I would share some other ways that coconut oil is a great home remedy.

For many years, coconut oil and other tropical oils have gotten a terribly bad reputation due to many different factors. Some of the studies were done with hydrogenated coconut oil. We know that hydrogenation removes most of the nutritional value, including any essential fatty acids. This, in turn, caused bad outcomes in many studies.

In order to refute these bad findings, more studies have been done to show the effectiveness of coconut oil on many ailments and diseases. Cancer, high cholesterol, and heart disease have all shown to respond very well to treatment with coconut oil. Rather than detail all the studies that have been done here or the higher level diseases that coconut oil is good for, I would really like to get into the nitty gritty of how coconut oil can be used to help you at home on a day to day basis.

• Body Oil. Coconut oil absorbs very quickly into the skin when you rub in little at a time. It is a fantastic moisturizer and leaves your skin healthy and your pores open – not clogged with unnatural chemicals. If you want the oil to smell a little more like perfume, it is also a great essential oil carrier.

• Diaper Rash Ointment. This is the home remedy I mentioned above. Baby #4 had a pretty bad case of diaper rash and I used a few different things that I had and bought some new stuff at the store and nothing worked. I finally remembered the coconut oil after the skin was broken and bleeding a little. Within 24 hours there was no more cracking and most of the redness was gone. I used it three days total and her skin looked healthy and perfect.

• Sunblock. The best way to employ the sunscreen benefits from coconut oil is to take it internally, from 2 to 3 tablespoons per day. You will get a natural sun defense that never wears off in the water! You can also apply it 30 minutes before going into the sun and reapply regularly to see benefits. I will say that it takes a little more work than the store-bought stuff because you have to remember to keep reapplying. It just depends on how much you want to stay away from the chemicals in regular sunscreen.

• Metabolism Boost. “Research shows that the medium chain fatty acids found in coconut oil boosts the body’s metabolism, raises body temperatures, and helps provide greater energy which can lead to weight loss.” I experienced this benefit first hand while I was pregnant with Baby #4. I took 2 tablespoons of coconut oil every morning and only gained 25 pounds during the entire pregnancy. I had more energy than my previous pregnancies and really felt great.

• Antifungal. I haven’t had first hand experience with this issue, but I’ve seen reports of people having success with treating fungal infections on their skin with coconut oil.

• GOOT. This is a homemade salve that helps with a number of issues such as coughs when rubbed on the chest, sinus infections when rubbed inside the nose, and so much more. It is a combination of coconut oil, olive oil and crushed garlic and, boy, does it work wonders when the kids are sick. We put it on chests, feet, noses, and the house smells like a real Italian restaurant!

• Deodorant. This is another area that I haven’t had personal experience with but in one of the forums I visit frequently, I have read about people using this and vinegar to keep the smell away.

• Immune Boost. “Virgin Coconut oil is rich in lauric acid, a nutrient that supports the body’s immune system.”

• Carb Craving Suppressor. I am amazed at how well coconut oil works in this regard. When I am not pregnant, I crave carbs. When I am pregnant, I REALLY crave carbs. Not so with Baby #4. I took coconut oil everyday – not only did I not crave the stuff I usually craved, but I ate less than normal and felt full more quickly during meals. (Baby #4 was the only pregnancy that I used coconut oil and she was my only breech baby. Related? Naaaa!)

• Hair De-Frizzer. My hair cannot decide what it is – curly or straight so it freaks out somewhere in the middle! AND, I live in humid, subtropical Florida! Hair Nightmare Extraordinaire!! It WAS a nightmare until I started using coconut oil on my hair when it was wet. I have tamed the frizzy hair beast. I also use olive oil depending on what we have around the house. When I used the store-bought products, it would de-frizz my hair for a little while. By the end of the day, my hair was frizzy AND dry, thereby making the problem worse in the long run, not better.

• Bath Salt. I love to use bath salts! It is wonderfully invigorating to rub on and leaves your skin oh-so-soft! I just mix dead sea salts with some coconut oil and some essential oils without measuring. Stir it up and make sure the consistency is what I want and put it next to the shower.

There are so many uses for coconut oil, I am amazed at how much I have learned about it over that last few years. By far, the most important thing I use it for is metabolism boost and carb craving suppressor. Once I get the container for my blender, I can start taking the coconut oil in my smoothies again!

Do you have any success stories with coconut oil? I’d be so excited to learn more about this wonderful oil.

The next natural, herbal article: Garlic! Until then, keep on growing!

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Garlic! Just hearing the name makes me want some spaghetti and buttery garlic bread! Yum!

But this article is not about the many culinary uses of garlic … it’s about how garlic relates to your health and the health of your children.

Have you ever eaten a fabulous Italian dinner and woke up the next morning to a bedroom that smelled like garlic? That’s because garlic moves through your whole body, killing infection and cleaning things up!

First, I’ll detail the amazing characteristics of garlic and then I’ll let you in on some of the ways we use it in our home. Are you ready? Get out the bread … here comes the garlic!!

Illness Fighting Characteristics of Garlic

When I initially started down the path of natural healing and home remedies, garlic was the first ingredient I learned about. Since then, I have learned about MANY other herbs that heal in so many different ways: the number of herbs at our disposal to heal is mind-boggling! But the one herb I keep falling back on is trusty old garlic.

The healing properties of garlic are almost too numerous to list in their entirety, but I would like to share a little bit to make a good case. I found this description in one of my favorite herbal books, “The How To Herb Book: Let’s Remedy the Situation” by Velma Keith and Monteen Gordon.

Garlic is antibiotic, antiseptic, carminative (causing explusion of gas from the stomach or bowel), digestant (promotes digestion), diuretic (increasing the volume of the urine excreted), tonic (a medicine that invigorates or strengthens), vermifuge (serving to expel worms or other animal parasites from the intestines)

Garlic is called nature’s antibiotic. It contains allicin, a natural antibiotic. 1 milligram of allicin has a potency of 15 standard units of penicillin. It is effective against toxic bacteria, viruses, and fungus. Garlic contains more germanium, an anti-cancer agent, than any other herb. In Russia, garlic was found to retard tumor growth in humans.

• active against staphylococcus (staph infections) and E. coli bacteria
• good to take for all diseases including contagious diseases
• protects against infection
• has detoxifying effect on all the body systems
• improves, tones, and strengthens entire physical condition
• has rejuvenating effect on all cells
• builds endurance and energy
• strengthens body defenses against allergens
• has soft oils that help to emulsify plaque and loosen it from arterial walls
• contains selenium which helps arteriosclerosis
• strengthens blood vessels
• equalizes blood pressure, high or low
• has a sugar regulating factor
• taken internally one of the most effective herbs for killing and expelling parasites
• Garlic contains protein, phosphorus, potassium, vitamins A, B, B2, and C, calcium, sulfur, selenium, germanium, allicin, alliceton I & II, aluminum, chlorine, manganese, zinc, copper, and iron

Whew!! Is there anything garlic does not outright cure or at least help with in some form? I hope I didn’t lose anyone with such a long technical list, but that stuff is so interesting to me.

Read More…

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