Herbal medicine has been around for centuries but it lost favor as a treatment for ailments when modern pharmacology became the norm.  Modern medicine definitely has it’s place but for those of us who prefer a more natural alternative, there are many plants or “medicinal weeds” that are very effective. Just walk out your front door and you would be surprised by all the medicine that is around you.  I did just that and found medicine growing in multiple places in my yard.  Let’s explore the more common ones and a few you may not have heard of. Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale): Consume either the roots or the leaves as…

How often do you wake up in the morning feeling like you haven’t slept at all, even though you did sleep for 10 hours.  How often does this make you feel like you’re walking around in a fog, almost surreal? How often do your muscles ache all over with no explanation as to why?  How often does all the fatigue, brain fog, muscle pain with no relief, no matter what you try, pull you down; barely able to push through the day? These and other subtle symptoms that some of us feel can sometimes be attributed to inflammation brewing in the body. More and more research today is pointing to…

Ongoing extensive research on the human gut microbiome and it role in our health and disease prevention is a subject few people are aware of.  According to The Human  Microbiome Project: Extending the definition of what constitutes a human – National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI),  “The microbiome is defined as the collective genomes of the microbes (composed of bacteria, bacteriophage, fungi, protozoa and viruses) that live inside and on the human body”. Jul 16, 2012   What this means is that there are about 10 times more microbial cells as human cells*.  With this knowledge, it makes sense to take care of the “good bacteria” because it’s these microbes…

None of us want to see this in our homes but many of us do.  It has nothing to do with how clean our homes are.  It can be hidden behind walls, under the carpet, in the corner of the ceiling or in the basement behind fixtures.  Ridding the home of this menace is best left to professionals.  Ridding the body of the exposure to the toxins can be done also. Molds are fungi that grow best in warm, damp and humid conditions. They can spread and reproduce by making spores. These spores can survive very harsh environmental conditions. Some of the common indoor molds are Cladosporium, Penicillium, Alternaria and…

When our hormones are not quite in balance, we feel it.  Many inconspicuous signs or symptoms can be directly linked to hormonal imbalances.  A few of the more common symptoms some of us experience include breast tenderness, mood swings, mild depression, irregular menstruation, weight gain, low stress tolerance, fatigue and many more. Testing may still come back within the normal ranges but this does not mean all is good.  For instance, many women will feel the common symptoms of thyroid imbalances although the TSH is normal.  Fatigue, weight gain, fluid retention, hair loss and cold intolerance can be related to low thyroid levels.  Many people can not efficiently convert T4 to T3 which is the more active…

Winter is upon us.  The Christmas season is coming to an end.  A glorious New Year ahead, promises great opportunities to challenge ourselves to improve whatever is most important to us. Today I am concerned about dry, winter skin; that itchy, scaly, flakiness that seems to affect my legs and arms the most, but also the abdomen and lower back.  There are days I have long streaks of scratches from the intense itching.  Not a pretty picture.  Skin becomes  dry and irritated when the air is cold outside and the heat is on inside causing low humidity that sucks the moisture right out. Fortunately, there are steps we can take to manage winter…