To Our Health

This is a variation on the first ear drops recipe I posted, which has cured several ear infections of mine. However recently my mom got an ear infection for a while that she said made it feel like something was in her ear. I gave her my ear drop recipe (from this post :http://mamajacquelyn.blogspot.com/2014/07/ear-drops-recipe.html ), but she felt like it was too drying for her ear. She told me that when she was little her parents would put warm olive oil in her ear as an earache remedy.   She decided to try mixing the vinegar with olive oil instead of the rubbing alcohol (or putting one drop of vinegar and 1 drop of olive oil in the ear at the same time). She did this daily and it cured her infection. Olive oil has many soothing emollient and skin barrier/protective properties, and also contains a naturally occurring antibiotic called squalane .  Vinegar is also a strong anti-microbial. So, to make this ear drops recipe, combine equal amounts vinegar and olive oil, and put a dro

My baby was perfectly diaper-rash free for her first 7 months or so of life, and then all of the sudden one day this wicked-looking rash popped up that formed a red circle/ring around her bum with little white bumps.  I did some researching online and found out that such a rash is likely caused by a yeast infection. I found out from reading in forums online (and later had it confirmed by my dermatologist), that is is okay to put Lotrimin (or a similar brand with 1%  clotrimazole ) of Athlete's Foot/Jock Itch Cream on a baby's bottom to treat a yeast infection diaper rash (note that this is the exact same ingredient found at 2% strength in many vaginal yeast infection creams). I bought some and put it on every time I changed her diaper.  It did cure the rash, but as soon as I would stop using it the rash would come back.   My dermatologist said to keep applying the cream 7-10 days after the rash disappeared in order to make sure any leftover germs had died.  However, even af

Thought I'd share this remedy a doctor gave me to cure a fungal infection when I was a teenager.  When I was sixteen or seventeen my fingernails started disappearing right before my eyes.  It was the weirdest thing. They didn't turn hard or thick or yellow or anything, just started disappearing, like, as if they were getting gradually cut shorter and shorter, but some of them sideways at the nail bed so that on one hand all of the sudden I only had half a nail coming out of the bed.  My mom took me to the doctor. He took one look at it and said it was a yeast/candida infection, and his directions were to buy some Acidophillus and take it every day, as well as to soak my fingers twice a day for 15-20 minutes in dish soap water.    I did this for a couple of weeks and the infection went away completely and I've never had it happen again. Acidophillus is a friendly type of bacteria. When our bodies get low on friendly bacteria for one reason or another (antibiotics can cause

So it turns out that I have a VERY sensitive and allergic baby on my hands.  She started out getting hives a couple of months ago, and I didn't know why. I thought maybe it was something I was putting on her, and it was, partly (I'll have to write another post about that later) -- but what I didn't realize was that it was also what I was putting IN me, and was coming into her, through my breast milk.  In addition to a lot of contact allergies, she also has food allergies (she got that from her mother, I'm afraid...).  Some hives on my girl's cheek from another day: I've been gradually working on figuring out this tiny girl's MANY allergies... So far I know for sure she is allergic to dairy/eggs, as well as fragrances/chemicals/dyes. Lots of other things are still unknown because I'm almost never 100% certain of the cause of her reactions (hard to isolate just one variable in life!).  Yesterday I got a new mattress for my bed, and after layin

I started having this earache last week and it felt like the inside of my ear was getting some sort of bubble in it, which was very painful and did not make me happy.  I remembered seeing a recipe in the newspaper once for home-made ear drops that help prevent swimmers' ear infections, so I googled and found this recipe, posted by a pediatrician.   I am happy to say that my ear started feeling better almost immediately after I applied these drops to the infected area, and after the next couple of days (after a few more applications with a Q-tip to the infection) it completely disappeared.   Swimmers Ear Drops Recipe (from:   http://www.food.com/recipe/swimmers-ear-drops-62628  )  Yield: 1  bottle Units: US | Metric Ingredients:  1 fluid ounce vinegar 1 fluid ounce rubbing alcohol Directions: 1 Mix the vinegar and alcohol in a small dropper bottle. 2 After swimming or bathing, dry the ears well and add a few drops to each canal. 3 Remember, don't put anything into your

I started using hydrogen peroxide a couple of years ago as an experiment to whiten my teeth, which it did.  I bought regular 3% pharmaceutical solution of hydrogen peroxide from Walgreens (hydrogen peroxide diluted to only 3% strength in 97% water).   I followed the directions on the bottle and mixed the solution half and half with water (so the solution was now only 1.5% strength), and swished with it once or twice a day for 30 seconds or so.  My friends started mentioning my whiter teeth after a couple of weeks. That was a couple of years ago, but more recently I had a friend to whom I suggested the same thing.  He tried it, and actually didn't dilute the hydrogen peroxide any further, but just swished with the 3% dilution from the bottle.  After a few weeks he told me that he was really happy because his gums had stopped bleeding when he brushed his teeth.  He said his gums had been bleeding a lot every time he brushed for a number of years, but that it had now completely sto