Then I Guess I'm A Quack

           When you go against the flow on most things, people are going to criticize. They are going to label you a “quack.”  They can’t help themselves. It’s something I have gotten used to. I think the thing I have gotten the most criticism on is the way I raise my kids, which is pretty funny considering you can just look at the evidence and see that obviously I’m doing something right. By no means are my kids perfect and I have my fair share of screw ups, but my kids are very well behaved, healthy, happy kids. That doesn’t just happen on accident.
            Sean and I have worked really hard to keep the kids both mentally and physically healthy. I know we are told by mainstream doctors and the media that our health is mainly determined by our genetics, and I am sure that is true in some cases, but the fact is, your health is determined primarily by what you put in and on your body.
           When my daughter was a born, we started bathing her with Johnson’s baby wash, and applying Johnson’s baby lotion to her whole body directly after her bath. We noticed when she was only a few months old that her skin was getting very dry and flaky. At first we wrote it off as genetics because I have always had dry sensitive skin and thought maybe she just took after me, but it got worse and worse and I started questioning whether it was something she was having an allergic reaction to.
           Around this time, my mother happened to be doing a lot of research on chemicals in products. She gave me a list of chemicals to look out for. I checked the Johnson’s products and sure enough, they contained some of the harmful ingredients that were on the list. These are baby products. I mean, they advertise them as being “gentle on baby” and “tear free” for crying out loud!
            I got on Google and started looking up each of these chemicals and seeing what they were exactly and how they affected your health. I was astonished. Turns out that a few of the most harmful ones are in almost every shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, bubble bath, powder, moisturizer,  toothpaste, and deodorant on the shelf and have side effects that range from dry itchy skin all the way to cancer.  Here is a list of most of those hazardous ingredients:

• Diethanolamine (DEA), found in shampoos, body washes, bubble bath, and shaving cream.
• Triethanolamine (TEA) , found in moisturizers, cosmetics, deodorant, toothpaste, body oils, and washes.
• Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS) , found in shampoo, bubble bath, shaving foam, and cleansers.
• Sodium Laureth Sulphate (SLES) , found in shampoo, bubble bath, shaving foam, and cleansers.
• Propylene Glycol, found in the anti freeze for your car radiator, hand sanitizers, moisturizers, shaving creams, deodorants, and baby products.
• Sodium Fluoride, found in toothpaste.
• Alcohol, found in mouthwash, toners, and baby products.
• Talc, found in baby powder, make-up, and foot preparations.
• PABA, found in sunscreens.
• PEG, found in cosmetics, make-up, and shaving cream.
• Artificial flavors, found in toothpaste and mouthwash.
• Artificial colors, found in make-up, toothpaste, and shampoos.
• Benzalkonium Chloride and Benzethonium Chloride, synthetic germicides belonging to the large group of germicides known as “Quats, found in numerous household disinfectants, sanitizers including hand sanitizers and personal care products - long term use may affect immune system, cause asthma and should be especially avoided if you have COPD, or any other form of pulmonary disease.
• Ether, found in nail treatments, shampoo, and conditioner.
• Coal Tars, found in shampoo, conditioner, hair dyes, soap, skin care and cosmetics.
• Aluminum, found in antiperspirants.
• Acetone, found in nail polish remover.
• Formaldehyde, found in antiperspirants, nail treatments, and perfumes.
• Fluorocarbons, found in hair spray.
• Dioxins, found in shampoo.
• Petrolatum or Mineral Oil, found in baby products, washes, and moisturizers.
• Sodium Hydroxide, found in soaps and detergents, is a caustic poison, corrosive to skin.
• Triclosan, found in anti bacterial soaps, hand sanitizers and even toothpaste. It use is so widespread that it is being linked to lowering the immune system and is now being detected in breast milk. (Overuse of hand sanitizers with Triclosan is not good for your children)

SYNTHETIC FRAGRANCES	Skin care products often contain phthalates, synthetic chemicals commonly used to stabilize fragrances and make plastic more pliable. These endocrine disrupters mimic hormones and may alter genital development. Avoid products that list fragrance as an ingredient unless the label states that it’s derived from essentials oils
PARABENS	Ubiquitous in skincare, parabens are used to preserve other ingredients and extend a product’s shelf life–but these antimicrobial chemicals also have hormone-disrupting effects.
UREAS	DMDM hydantoin and sodium hydroxymethylglycinate are preservatives that release formaldehyde in very small amounts and are a primary cause of contact dermatitis.
1,4-DIOXANE	A chemical carcinogen created when ingredients are processed with petroleum-derived ethylene oxide. Common ethoxylated compounds include sodium laureth sulfate and polyethylene glycol (often listed as PEG). To avoid it, skip any product with the following ingredients: myreth, oleth, laureth, ceteareth (or any other -eth), PEG, polyethylene, polyethylene glycol, polyoxyethylene, or oxynol.
PETROCHEMICALS (Petrolatum, Mineral Oil and Paraffin)	Derived from crude oil, petroleum-based ingredients such as petrolatum, mineral oil, and paraffin form a barrier when applied to the skin that does not allow it to breathe and clogs pores.
MEA/DEA/TEA	Used as foaming agents, synthetic stabilizers, and to adjust the pH of cosmetics, these ammonia compounds can cause allergic reactions, eye irritation, and dryness of the hair and skin.
SULFATES	The most common sulfates, sodium lauryl and sodium laureth, are harsh detergents that give cleansers, soaps, and shampoos their latherability. Often derived from petroleum, sulfates are so harsh they are commonly used as garage floor cleaners, engine degreasers and car wash. They are often the cause of acne around the hair line.
CHEMICAL SUNSCREENS	Oxybenzone and octylmethoxycinnamate, the main ingredients in most sunscreens, have been shown to disrupt endocrine/hormone activity. Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are safer alternatives.

           There is a reason why these products say, “Avoid getting in eyes. If ingested, call a poison control center immediately.”
           By the time I was enlightened to this information, my daughter’s skin had become so dry and irritated that her entire back was red and scaly and her arms and legs were rough like sandpaper to the touch. Her pediatrician said that she was likely to have eczema and needed to be prescribed a topical cream (which had even more chemicals in it) a couple times a day.
           I decided to ignore her pediatrician’s suggestions. Instead, I discontinued the use of the Johnson’s baby products as soon as I learned this information and started bathing her with Ivory bar soap (your grandparents swear by it) and moisturizing her skin with extra virgin unrefined coconut oil. The plain Ivory bar soap has practically nothing in it (it won’t even sink in the water), and the coconut oil I started using literally has nothing in it but pure organic coconut oil. Within about a week and a half, my daughter’s skin felt soft and smooth again. In my view, that was hard proof that the Johnson’s products were THE cause of her skin problems.
           I became very conscious of what ingredients were in our personal care products after that. We decided to go a step further and switch out our own adult bath products with pure and organic ones, which are sometimes hard to come by. To this day, I cannot find any fully natural and organic shampoos, conditioners, deoderants or toothpastes at the local Wal-Mart.
           Since coming to this knowledge, I have also gained some scary but eye opening knowledge about the food and drug industry that has completely transformed our way of living.
           When my daughter was 9 months old, I stopped having her vaccinated. I researched and learned enough about the potential side effects of the chemicals in the vaccines that I didn’t want to risk it with my own daughter anymore. I cannot include my research here as there is way too much, but I encourage everyone to look up the pros and cons of vaccines, risks and side effects of vaccines, and a list of the ingredients in the vaccines. Check multiple sources and don’t rely only on what mainstream doctors are saying, as their education is decided by lobbyists who are paid by big  business corporations that have an agenda.
           My new found knowledge, coupled with the overwhelming feeling in my gut that something just wasn’t right, forced me to opt out of vaccinations. It was only 9 months later that I stopped taking my daughter to the doctor altogether. She had been on antibiotics 4 times already before the age of 18 months, and I was tired of it. It seemed they were just prescribing her antibiotics willy nilly without even being sure she had an infection. I realized I was compromising her immune system every time I gave her an antibiotic or gave her a fever reducer like Motrin.
           Here is a fact that you might not be aware of… a fever is NOT an illness. We equate a fever and runny nose or cough with “being sick” but that is actually quite the opposite. Your body has a cool little thing called an immune system, and when something foreign enters your body and starts attacking it, your immune system is triggered, thus causing the fever. So a fever is not an illness, rather it is the body’s way of telling you that it is doing its job. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fever
           When the immune system kicks in, there are usually symptoms that go along with the body ridding itself of foreign hosts. Some of these are runny nose, watery eyes, cough, diarrhea, vomiting, and lethargy. In moderation, these symptoms are ok and normal, as they are necessary to cleanse your system.
           Unfortunately we are a society that is more concerned with comfort than actually being well, so we immediately take a fever reducer and decongestant to bring the fever down and dry up our sinuses. When you do that, you are stopping the immune system from doing what it is trying to do, allowing the foreign host to remain in you and continue to attack your body, which usually results in a full on infection or illness that requires (according to doctors) antibiotics or other drugs to cure.

Research shows that a fever has several functions in the healing process:

·        Increased mobility of leukocytes

·        Enhanced leukocytes phagocytosis

·        Endotoxin effects decreased

·        Increases proliferation of T cells.

          So we decided to go this route. The next time my daughter got a fever, we let it run its course. We did not give her any medicine at all to bring down her temperature. In fact, I put her in a hot bath that elevated her temp and caused her sinuses to open up and run out and make her sweat profusely. I did some research and found an herbal elderberry syrup that is 100% natural and began giving her a couple doses a day, as well as had her sip on herbal non caffeinated tea before bedtime that aids in immune defense, and added a super food powder called Riceplex (http://www.riceplex.com/) to her cereal or oatmeal every morning. I made sure she got at least 15 minutes of direct sun each day, and plenty of rest. Within a week, she was herself again. The fever gradually decreased and her sinuses cleared up. Her immune system was successful at doing what it was intended to do.

           Each time the immune system is successful at warding off illness without the use of meds, it become stronger, and you are that much less likely to get sick.
           When my son was born, we decided he would not be vaccinated at all. I took him to his 3 day old check up, where his pediatrician scolded me for not having his Hep B vaccine in the hospital when he was born. She said he needed that pronto. I politely refused, and she proceeded to tell me basically that I was an uneducated fool and that it was imperative that I keep him away from places where there was a lot of people. She said he absolutely did not need to be within close range of anyone because he would end up very ill since he hadn’t been immunized. I smiled and nodded and let it go in one ear and out the other.
           I didn’t keep up with his checkups because he had not had so much as a sniffle for the first 3 months of his life (obviously the pediatrician was full of crap), but I decided I would go ahead and take him for a once over when he was about 3 and a half months old. I had also decided that I wanted him to have the polio vaccine only. At his appointment, the nurse actually lied to me and tricked me into getting him a full dose of vaccines which consisted of 4 different immunizations. I was pissed, as you can imagine, and didn’t end up taking him back to the doctor again until he was about 9 months old because of an ear infection.
           Neither of my children have even seen a pediatrician since they were each 18 months old. Since then, they have averaged 2 fevers a year. My daughter is a couple months shy of 5 years old, and my son is 3 and a half, and they have not had so much as a Tylenol since they were a year old. Fevers are always allowed to run their course, and in most cases aren’t even accompanied by any symptoms other than lethargy because they have such powerful immune systems that their bodies start fighting before it progresses to any further symptoms.
           We have not stopped there, however. We firmly believe that diet and mindset are the key factors in physical health. Nutrition is just not focused on enough in society and schools. We have always been pretty smart about what foods we kept in our home and our sugar intake since I became pregnant with my daughter. We ate a lot of whole foods and raw fruits and veggies, and supplemented with Riceplex every day, but we took it even further a couple of years ago when we switched over to buying all organic and eliminated highly processed and fast foods from our diets completely.
            My kids are still kids; they enjoy a cookie or piece of cake like any other child, and I’m not a tyrant on this, but we do not keep those things in our house and they are used as rewards periodically. My children know that isn’t the way you eat normally. We do not keep ice cream, cookies, chips, soft drinks, or sugary snacks in our home. The refrigerator and pantry is stocked with whole organic fruits and vegetables, organic 100% juice and almond milk, lean organic chicken and fish, organic eggs, whole wheat whole grain breads and crackers, high fiber and whole grain organic cereals, and raw nuts and nut spreads. Most evenings after dinner we give the kids organic Greek honey or vanilla yogurt with granola and fresh strawberries or peach slices. The kids absolutely love it and consider this to be dessert. They don’t know any better. Their favorite drink is Bolthouse Farms’ Green Goodness. It is packed full of super foods such as seaweed, algae, wheat and barley grass, broccoli and garlic. Their second favorite drink is their organic herbal tea sweetened with raw organic honey. Both drinks are major immune system boosters. Honey alone has incredible health benefits.
           Recently, my husband developed a bad infection on the cornea of his eyeball, and he used honey to treat the infection. He literally squirted the honey directly into his eye a few times a day and left it there for a few minutes each time. It burned like a bitch, but within a couple of days the infection was gone. Do some research on honey. You will find that it is a natural antibiotic.
           Another very effective natural antibiotic is iodine, which our thyroid needs for adequate health. The only place in nature to get iodine is from the ocean’s vegetation, but unless you want to eat raw seaweed, you might want to find another way to get it. We should all be familiar with iodine tincture which is a first aid antiseptic. You can rub it on an inconspicuous place on your skin every day for iodine absorption. You know your thyroid has absorbed all it can when the iodine splotch no longer fades on your skin.
          The great thing about iodine, unlike antibiotic ointment, is you don’t have to lance a wound or infection for the iodine to reach it because it is absorbed through the skin into the blood stream. It was only a week and a half ago that a bump on my son’s leg that he scratched at became incredibly infected. We are pretty sure it was staph infection, which isn’t something you mess around with. We only thought that because it looked exactly like the staph infection my husband got on his chest a few years ago. It was the size of a penny, dark red, raised and swollen, hard to the touch, and had fever in it.
          Now most parents would have taken their child to the urgent care, or at least made a doctor’s appointment, but I knew that if I did that, all they would do is look at it, and without knowing for sure if it was staph, prescribe him an antibiotic that may or may not kill the infection, and then send us home with a $75 charge. So instead we started putting iodine on it several times a day. Before bed each night, we covered it with iodine, let it dry, coated it with a thick layer of Neosporin, and then bandaged it. Needless to say, it is completely healed now.
           There is a natural/herbal alternative to practically every drug or mainstream treatment out there. Even cancer (we will touch on this at another time). I’m not saying that all mainstream medicine is bad. Some are absolutely necessary and have their place. If my children were to be critically injured, I would want the doctors doing whatever is necessary to save their lives and prevent them from being in terrible pain. But in most cases, we are just buying into the mainstream information that doctors, big pharma and the media puts out there, and most of it is just plain false.
           I firmly believe that what goes into your mind also will manifest outwardly with your health, so we make a point of telling the kids how smart, healthy and happy they are. If they fall and hurt themselves, I distract them from the pain with something that makes them laugh or puts them in a good mood. We teach them that what they say and believe is how it will be, so when they say they don’t feel good, I always make them shout out loud, “I feel great! I’m in perfect health!” I get them excited about being strong and healthy. When they are falling asleep at night, I whisper in their ears, “I love you my beautiful, smart, healthy boy (or girl).” They need to believe these things about themselves because the body will take its cues from the mind.
           Despite how much what I do actually works, I continue to get criticized from some people, and that’s ok. We are all entitled to our views and opinions. But before you brush me off as being a neglectful mother and quack, research this topic thoroughly. Look at both sides and all the evidence and then make a decision for yourself before you just buy into the lie that you need traditional medicine and vaccines to keep your kids and yourself healthy.

Check out some of these links to educate yourself on what you're putting in your body:
http://www.foodincmovie.com/
http://vaccines.mercola.com/?PageIndex=2