160210 Oils Specific to My Needs

If you know me, you know that I dislike chemical medications. Instead, I use essential oils, and have been happy with their properties. What follows is a list of the specific oils I use daily in my own life. Research you own conditions to discover what methods work best for your medical needs. In no way, nor in any fashion should this be construed to medical advise.

1. Diabetes - After an attack of pancreatitis in 2010, I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. I consulted a doctor, who told me that I can avoid Metformin if my blood glucose readings remained between 80 and 100. This reading was to be taken as soon after waking as possible. Between diet and these Young Living Essential Oils, bg has remained within range. I take four drops of each with meals, three times per day. Every diabetic is different and will respond differently! I found through trial and error that these oils work for me.
   1. Clove
   2. Fennel
   3. Ocotea
2. Despite strict adherence to calorie counting and exercise within the framework of TOPS, I kept gaining weight after the incident in 2010. Smelling one of the following oils as needed helps to curb cravings. It's not a magic bullet, but usually helps my resolve just enough to stay on the diet.
   1. Black Pepper
   2. Ginger
   3. Grapefruit
   4. Spearmint
3. Cataracts are starting to develop, so I put a drop of Frankincense around my eye-sockets three times per day. 
4. Hypertension. All my life, I've had low-average blood pressure. It was amazingly consistent until several years ago, when the other medical problems started to present themselves. For high blood pressure, I place a drop or two of Ylang-Ylang over my heart, and another drop in the center of my left foot, which is the Vita Flex point for the heart.
5. Cedar Fever brought a terrible ear infection this year. I lost my hearing and suffered great pain. The doctor prescribed antibiotics, ear drops, Flonase, Albuterol, and Prednisone, but they did not end the infection. I diluted Basil Essential Oil 1:3 with sesame oil and put three drops of the mixture behind my ear and down my jaw line. My hearing has greatly improved. The Basil makes me feel better. Peppermint and Wintergreen help me to breathe without all the chemicals. 

If you want to know more, visit Oil-Testimonials.com/1217697

151207 Oils For This Winter

My Winter Oils Nov/Dec 2015

Eyes:

Uplifts and strengthens. It contains the essential oils of rosemary, juniper, lemongrass, nutmeg, Idaho balsam fir, clove, and black pepper. These have been used traditionally for mental alertness, but the combination also has properties that make this blend beneficial in the fight against cataracts. Which brings me to:

Also uplifts, strengthens, and fights cataracts. It has so many wonderful healing properties, that it is no wonder than it was one of the gifts given to the Christ child. The combination of frankincense and myrrh covers every possible childhood illness. I alternate En-R-Gee and frankincense for my eyes.

Broken Bone Blend:

contains basil, marjoram, lavender, peppermint, and cypress to make a blend that soothes and relaxes. Its constituents also encourage the regrowth of bones.

High Blood Pressure:

contains ylang ylang, (a Chinese flower), cypress, helichrysum, and majoram to energize and support one's life force. This combination also reduces blood pressure. I apply it over my heart and on my left foot at the Vita Flex heart point.

Diabetes:

lowers insulin needs for diabetics while stabilizing blood sugar. It also addresses high blood pressure. I need both. We used to have this growing in our front yard!

has many good uses, but I chose it for its anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory properties.

is anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory. It also helps with obesity. I used to chew the seeds for bladder infections.

These are all the oils I'm taking regularly this winter. I add others as needed, such as Thieves. I thought I was getting a cold, so diffused Thieves over night, and the scratchy throat is gone. :D

151120 What Helps With Winter Illness?

Jewish penicillin helps, and I force it onto my children. Another thing that really works are Young Living (R) essential oils. In 1976, I caught my first case of bronchitis in my first year of college. It was horrible and I received penicillin for it. Every year thereafter, I caught a case of bronchitis, and doctors treated it with antibiotics. Antibiotics give me the runs. By 2005, I was getting bronchitis twice a year. Sometimes, it escalated into walking pneumonia. Antibiotics were no longer eliminating the disease after the normal course of ten days to two weeks. The side effects became worse. I also developed a continual case of asthma. I suffered from the side effects of the drugs, but ignoring the disease made it last for months instead of weeks, and it still took a two week dose of ever stronger antibiotics with their side effects to stop the horrible chest infection.

In 2009, I became involved with essential oils. I was at work, but had accidentally left my inhaler at home. A friend shoved a bottle of peppermint essential oil at me, so I used it like an inhaler. It worked as well. I could breathe again. I used it once more that day. She told me to keep the bottle. Six months later, I threw away my inhaler, because I no longer needed it. I've had all of one attack since 2009; peppermint quickly took care of it.

The next time bronchitis hit, I used a variety of oils on my feet, covered them with socks, and went to bed with socks in place. I did this every night for two weeks as if it were the old prescription of antibiotics. Bronchitis came only once that year. The following year, bronchitis hit again, but instead of two weeks, it lasted only one. For the winter of 2014, it didn't come at all. I have not had so much as a cold since then. Respiratory allergies do not plague me anymore. I confirm this by regularly checking my vitals. It's wonderful to be well.

When I broke my foot last month, pain stopped with the application of essential oils. I use a "Bone Blend" to speed healing. My diabetes has been under control without chemical medication. I pursue a low carbohydrate diet, perform regular exercise, and apply essential oils. Learn more at www.youngliving.org/mynesdojomom and oil-testimonials.com/1217697.

151116 Nothing New to Say

Usually, when current events inflame the masses, I want to add to it. Instead, while I'm having a hefty dose of "I told you so..." and it seems rather inappropriate just now.

Instead, let me tell you about the oils I'm taking. Young Living had been having some trouble harvesting enough of a certain oil to make their blend, Peace and Calming. It has returned to their supply, but some of us keening missed it. I found others that makes everything better: Grounding and Common Sense. Both have ingredients that are good for high blood pressure, but Common Sense is very good for diabetics!

In case you didn't know, some diabetics live in a precarious hormonal soup. When the blood glucose levels go too high, we can feel euphoric as our bodies eat the protein of our insides instead of the vast amounts of sugar flowing through our veins. When blood glucose drops too low, I personally become testy, paranoid, panicked, and have a migraine-like headache. Either extreme causes me to start writing nasty opinion pieces that attack anyone who disagrees with me.

Since I started sniffing Grounding and Common Sense, blood glucose has been closer to normal and emotional swings have been absent. They even brought me back from a doughnut. I'm liking these oils.

150701 Headache Hunt

150701 Headaches

For three or four days, I have had a headache wax and wane. If I know what causes it, I can change something, but this one is somewhat of a mystery. This mystery hasn’t received my full attention until today. Yesterday, I ate too much protein, so this morning’s blood glucose was 108. Though not really bad, it is more than usual. Right now, (just before lunch), it has dropped to 84, but that is within normal range. The previous days’ readings were also very close to normal. Blood sugar isn’t the cause.

Allergies can cause headaches, but I have not eaten anything unusual. The allergens outside usually cause rhinitis and ear itch, not headaches. Allergies do not seem to be the cause.

 Ah. Pressing on the neck muscles relieves pain. We may be looking at a tension headache! What? Me worry?

Well folks, I need to prepare a teaching for tonight’s fellowship. I usually get Sundays, but this coming Sunday is my dad’s 90th birthday celebration. I’ll be with him. He and I both wanted something private and low-key, but my two sisters decided that he needed a big party with all his friends and relatives in attendance. This means that there will be no peace. Therefore, tonight’s teaching will be on the peace of God. An except:

“It doesn’t matter how much of the Word you know, but what you do with it. Our thought go where we allow them to go. We are the ones to decide what it is we are going to stay our minds on.”

Isaiah 26:3  
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”

150630 Last Day

Today, the PO Box keys go back to the postmaster. It's a small town, so she'll ask where I'm going and we'll talk awhile. Then, everyone will know that I'm gone. I won't even need to announce it on Facebook. ;) Then, I'll go to the bank. With electronic banking, I can keep my small town bank, but I'll miss the face to face service. Maybe, I can switch to Frost. They also have a reputation for service.

My younger daughter, whom I shall refer to as "Agent M" until she passes 18, will join me in the move. She and I plan to check out a rental today. The elder will be transferring to her best friend's apartment. Some of us still call her by her code name of "Moon".

Why the code names? I started programming in 1976. At that time, there was no Internet, but there was an intranet. Learning security started back then. We chose user names because they were short and used less memory. In those days, a few characters did make a difference. (This is one of the reasons that Y2K was important.) In the early 1990s, the very first Internet-based child predator showed up on AOL. My first child was born shortly afterwards. I was so concerned with security, that I became expert at it. I drilled it into my children. Advise on Internet security that one can find on some popular sites is terribly wimpy. Go to komando.com instead. I've been using methods similar to hers since the last century.

I've been somewhat lazy about checking my blood glucose. This may be because the menus have been recorded. I can do only so much! This morning, my bg was 95. :D The low-carb diet pays off again!

150628 Feet and Frostbite

My feet and ankles feel a little better. Did I mention that I injured them a week or so ago? That makes it hard to exercise, but wheelchair exercises can burn a few calories. I have to continue wearing my pair of SAS in this heat because my Birkinstocks do not have enough stability to keep my feet from twisting as I walk.

Swimming could be a good exercise option, but that involves driving to the pool. In six months, I plan to live where a pool is.

Why is it so hard to wear shoes? I grew up barefoot, then in my 20s, I started hiking and camping in CO. One weekend, we were surprised by a sudden snow storm. The truck wouldn't start and my feet froze. The frostbite messed up the nerves in my toes, so when they get a little warm, it feels like my feet are on fire. When they get chilled, they ache like day they froze. They feel best when free, enjoying soft grass and a warm breeze, or while swimming in warm water.

Shoes are jail for my feet.

So, I posted this story on Fat Secret, and someone targeted my diabetes and suggested a series of expensive pharmaceuticals. Well, the frostbite came thirty years before the pancreatitis attack in 2010. The pancreatitis attack caused the diabetes. The problems with my feet have nothing to do with diabetes. She just wanted to help, but sometimes help is not helpful.

I suppose I should make this into a site for stories of healing only, and start another site for personal stuff. This will entail actual study on how to make good links and how to get actual traffic. Here are some oils I use. Between limiting protein and carbohydrates, and using these oils daily, my fasting glucose levels have been steady and under 100. This is very good news.

150116 Would You Take This Drug?

For the Consumer

Applies to metformin: oral solution, oral tablet, oral tablet extended release

In addition to its needed effects, some unwanted effects may be caused by metformin. In the event that any of these side effects do occur, they may require medical attention.

You should check with your doctor immediately if any of these side effects occur when taking metformin:

More common

• Abdominal or stomach discomfort
• cough or hoarseness
• decreased appetite
• diarrhea
• fast or shallow breathing
• fever or chills
• general feeling of discomfort
• lower back or side pain
• muscle pain or cramping
• painful or difficult urination
• sleepiness

Less common

• Anxiety
• blurred vision
• chest discomfort
• cold sweats
• coma
• confusion
• cool, pale skin
• depression
• difficult or labored breathing
• dizziness
• fast, irregular, pounding, or racing heartbeat or pulse
• feeling of warmth
• headache
• increased hunger
• increased sweating
• nausea
• nervousness
• nightmares
• redness of the face, neck, arms, and occasionally, upper chest
• seizures
• shakiness
• shortness of breath
• slurred speech
• tightness in the chest
• unusual tiredness or weakness
• wheezing

Rare

• Behavior change similar to being drunk
• difficulty with concentrating
• drowsiness
• lack or loss of strength
• restless sleep
• unusual sleepiness

Some of the side effects that can occur with metformin may not need medical attention. As your body adjusts to the medicine during treatment these side effects may go away. Your health care professional may also be able to tell you about ways to reduce or prevent some of these side effects. If any of the following side effects continue, are bothersome or if you have any questions about them, check with your health care professional:

More common

• Acid or sour stomach
• belching
• bloated
• excess air or gas in the stomach or intestines
• full feeling
• heartburn
• indigestion
• loss of appetite
• metallic taste in the mouth
• passing of gas
• stomachache
• stomach upset or pain
• vomiting
• weight loss

Less common

• Abnormal stools
• bad, unusual, or unpleasant (after) taste
• change in taste
• difficulty with moving
• discoloration of the fingernails or toenails
• flu-like symptoms
• joint pain
• rash
• runny nose
• sneezing
• stuffy nose
• swollen joints

This is why I am taking these instead:

Coupled with changes in my diet, my blood glucose levels have been consistently below 110.

141216 Holiday Food Crosspost

141216 Tamales, Turkey, and Pie

TexMex tradition = tamales at Christmas. I have already ordered mine, but won't get to eat any. Masa (corn flour used in tamales) has too many carbs. The rest of the family will enjoy them while I munch on tortilla-less barbacoa. Why is food so infused into all our traditions?

This year, I bought a turkey, too. Turkey is carb-free. I won't make any dressing for it, and the soup I make from the leftovers has no flour, no potatoes, and no corn. I usually add broccoli and spices to the broth and enjoy.

I discovered that pumpkin thickens like flour, so maybe I'll add that to the broth.

Pumpkin brings me to pie. My favorite is not pumpkin. Mincemeat is, (sigh). Pumpkin is sweet on its own. Because of gluten problems, I gave up pie crust a long time ago. Two decades ago, I started making custards instead of pie. My children LOVED pumpkin custard. Use the pie recipe and put in custard dishes instead of a pie pan. Cut the bake time in half, or monitor until done. The can of pumpkin has the recipe on the inside of the label, and one just needs to make the appropriate substitutions.

I quit making the custard, and just eat the pumpkin. Every year, a local church sells pumpkins for less than what the grocery store charges. The smallest ones make good pies, and the big ones are good with butter. Not everyone is good with cooking and storing fresh pumpkin, so look for the cans with no added sugar nor spice. My grocery store sells cans of pumpkin in the baking isle. 

When I keep my carbs evenly spread among the meals, I can have 1/2 cup of pumpkin mush a couple of times a week. I usually put it into my chicken soup, which will be turkey soup in January... 

141203 Not Writing Much

Must be all the writing I did last month. ;)

Not much going on other than the diet. I went off after Thanksgiving, and it has been difficult to return to the restrictions. I have tried, however, to keep to the glycemic stuff to avoid another blood glucose horror. It worked. Mango is all sugar, but when I mixed it with chicken, I did not have another episode.

Today, I really must find me a doctor who will fill out the forms for free testing supplies. They cost way too much for me to keep up with them. It's $50 a bottle, or a dollar a strip. At this point, I need to test six times per day, so fifty strips last about eight days. I ran out just before the holiday, and have been flying by the seat of my pants. This gives me all the more reason to get back on the diet!

Get back on the diet!

141127 More Thanksgiving Posts

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and it's more than just food; I am truly thankful for many, many things! I have your average dysfunctional family where hurt feelings arise and people say stupid things. That's why we confine our festivities to my dad and my sisters. Extended family has their own thing where they devour each other. They might even unite on occasion and say nasty things about us, but we don't care anymore. I get that from my dad. He never said this, but his body language indicates, "You harpies are not going to give me indigestion. Goodbye."

Several years ago, I reconnected with my cousins. We were all hugs and laughs until someone mentioned the dreaded twins: politics and religion. I refuse to lie about my beliefs, so by answering a direct question, I discovered why my father stays as far away from my mother's family as is humanly possible. To my dismay, they found me on Facebook and continued the argument. Oh, how I enjoy those new privacy settings!

Yesterday, I forgot to take a reading after Chinese food (no rice). Then, I blew off readings for the rest of the day. I think my bg was up, because I fell asleep early, and first thing this morning, it was 105. While the menu I made for myself counts carbs and calories, eating out is iffy. I had beef and broccoli, but what other ingredients did they use? What's in the hot and sour soup? I gave the rice and the egg roll to my daughter. 

I count calories, because I have been on the Atkins before, and got hungry. My diet at that time had too few calories, so it became necessary to find carb-free calories and to introduce fats into my diet. My brother-in-law has been an insulin dependent diabetic since childhood, and we go round and round on this. He has a medical degree, and follows the ADA diet religiously. He doesn't like the Atkins and regales me with the benefits of high-carb vegetables and low-fat dairy.

He'll be at dinner today. At least we can agree on the turkey. 

140615 Not Feeling So Good

Perception means a lot to some people. For instance, I took a short trip. For some, that could mean travel time of under a day. This trip took twelve hours one way. I stayed for two nights and drove six hundred miles home. It was fun, and had a purpose or three.

One result I neither planned nor anticipated was that I stopped taking my daily oils! I just forgot to take them with me, and then didn't restart when I came home. All week I have been down in the dumps and tired! Obviously, these oils have been healing me for the last three or four years, because I can document my lack of certain illnesses, the lack of pain in my joints, the lack of pain in my extremities, and the greater range of movement.

So, I stopped taking the daily oils, and I feel tired. My brain feels sluggish. Some people poke at me and suggest a change in attitude. "Use the Renewed Mind of Romans 12," they say. Yes, I will. I will use my renewed mind power to go back to the healing program for my body! Mind, body, and spirit are intricately mixed. I'm using all three to heal my body.

Oils I use:
DiGize
Fennel
Christmas Spirit

I also take a dose or two of NingXia Red every day.

If no one ever buys from me, I still get personal benefits and a better price by being an authorized distributor. If someone does want to buy from me, or to get the benefits of being an authorized distributor, (s)he should contact me by the e-mail listed above.

140415 Diet Pattern

Last week, I received what should be my final copy of AARP Magazine. In another post, I may explain why it is my last. One reason is the misinformation they promulgate. In the latest issue, there was an article on diabetes. In the very first paragraph, it said that "...following a low-fat diet can significantly reduce your odds of getting the disease."

Excuse me? What does dietary fat have to do with blood-glucose levels? Unlike carbohydrates, fat is glucose neutral. Body fat affects glucose, but dietary fat on a low-carbohydrate diet? I quit reading, because they would be quoting the same old spin on flawed study from the 1980s. 

When I do a Google search for diabetes, it gives me pages and pages that vilify dietary fats. This article is a discussion of actual studies from this century of low-carb, high-fat diets.  This diabetes forum has a lot of anecdotal evidence for the benefits of the low-carb lifestyle for diabetics. Natural fats are not evil, but Crisco, margarine, trans-fats, and anything used to simulate real fats are dangerous.

This study done by Temple University School of Medicine has one of my favorite quotes:

He discovered that study subjects did not eat less because they were bored with the food selection, and their weight loss was not attributable to water loss, two common speculations about low-carb diets.

Some people may do well on low-fat diets, but one of the worst parts of being overweight is the constant hunger. It has nothing to do with need, but ends in nausea and pain if not fed. The feeling of hunger demands constant input of carbohydrates. The Atkins and other high-fat diets kill hunger by removing the need for carbohydrates.

So my diet is this:
Breakfast:  eggs and bacon with stewed tomatoes
Snack:       beef and kale salad
Lunch:       chicken with mashed pumpkin, or other vegetables
Snack:       consume with salad greens, Atkins product, or other low-carb snack
Supper:      fish with cooked broccoli or other vegetables

I vary the spices and cooking methods daily to avoid boredom. Sometimes, I switch the order of meals, but this is basically what I have eaten for the last ten days. I have been mentally alert with no more blood sugar incidents. Also, I lost seven pounds in the first week. I weight on Sundays.

140414 Diabetes Oils

These oils are good for Diabetes, and also happened to be in my stock:



Each day, I take one capsule three times per day. Each 00 capsule contains:

Three drops of Lemongrass
Three drops of Fennel
Three drops of Di-Gize
Four drops of Christmas Spirit

With this capsule that I fill myself, I take one capsule of Chromium Picolinate, which I bought at the Vitamin Shoppe. I chose Di-Gize, Lemongrass, and Fennel because the Essential Oil Desk Reference recommended them. Christmas Spirit simply smells great and has another oil in it that EODR recommended. So, in summery, I take two pills before breakfast, two pills between lunch and supper, and two pills before bed. I am not sure what it is doing, but I have not had any more incidents.

140412 Diabetic Athletes on a Low Carb Diet

From an athlete's discussion of low-carb diets:

What if someone’s afraid of fat, but they understand they need to cut back on carbs.  So they eat a 14 ounce steak at night to get energy from the protein in the steak.  Are they doing what you recommend.The Inuit were not a literate culture, meaning they didn’t write down what they ate.  But people who lived among the Inuit and, I think, accurately recorded it, pointed out that the Inuit avoided actually eating lots of lean meat.  They had a name for an illness that happened if they ate too much protein and not enough fat.  The English translated the name of that sickness as “rabbit illness,” because, if the Inuit had run short of their winter supply of food, the spring rabbits they could hunt were extremely lean, and eating too many made the Inuit feel sick.  If the Inuit killed a caribou that was not yet fattened up in the Spring yet, they would preferentially eat the tongue and the bone marrow and the liver, which are the fattiest parts of the animal.  They would save the roasts and steaks, which we consider the delicacies, those were saved for the dogs, because that was more lean, and a dog’s metabolism is more suited to handling a high protein meal.  The Inuit instinctively understood that.  They saved the fat for themselves, and they gave the lean to the dogs.  That way they saved themselves from gastrointestinal upset, swelling, malaise and in the most severe cases, kidney disease. -- Steve Phinney

Primitive cultures don't have a lot of time for philosophy; they usually stick with what works. Our modern diet is based as much on philosophy as evidence. The latest dietary recommendations put out by the US government cite global warming as a reason to eat or to avoid certain foods. "Nutrition be d*****!" they seem to say. I am not liking this. I used to joke that people of the future would look back at these times, point, and laugh. Now I am sure of it.

The body's storehouse of carbohydrates is limited to about 1500 calories. Fat stores are limited to the amount of fat a person has, which for the average person at his recommended weight is 40,000 or more. This man was talking about how low-carb diets take two weeks to transition the body from burning sugar to burning fat. Once that point is passed, however, one never again 'hits the wall' during extreme exercise. Good to know. That means I have another seven days before I can assume that my blood sugar won't crash during exercise. Yesterday, I ran out of steam after an hour of low impact aerobics. This is still much better than I was a couple of weeks ago.

Two weeks ago, I had another low-blood sugar incident. I was shopping and almost collapsed. I had to be helped to the car. Agent Em said I smelled sickly sweet. It took me three days to recover. After talking with some of my diabetic friends, I learned that all my symptoms were similar to theirs. My last blood glucose analysis some years ago had me borderline. I am proceeding as if I were indeed Type II diabetic like my mom and grandmother were. I've also slipped into Stage III of obesity. More on that later. Time to swim.

130816 Not Liking the Sound of This

At 4am a headache slammed me awake, and increased as time passed. After breakfast, I passed on my TOPS meeting, took peppermint and ibuprophen, and went back to bed. At noon with the headache still present. I decided that I needed water, but couldn't drink. Juice is liquid that goes down quickly, so I had a glass.

Boom! Headache gone. I don't like the implications of this...

Cheap testing costs $50. Last time I was tested, it was part of a medical study with no expense to me.
I'll let you know if I get any.