Homeopathy Help

It has been a rough year or so for Isabella.  It is hard for me to remember how much I have shared here.  Ever since we got very sick from a stomach virus two years ago, things have never been the same for some of us, Isabella being one of the hardest hit.  This past year has been such a struggle.  I won't go into all the details, as they are not mine to share, but I will say that the anxiety that Isabella was dealing with was interfering with her every day life.  She had some other, very significant symptoms that added insult to injury.  Needless to say we were at a loss for what to do.  Medications were not going to be our long term solution, though she was using some herbs and over the counter meds to help deal with her issues.

Going to a conventional doctor would have resulted in prescription medications which would have led us down a path we didn't even want to consider.  Of course, diet was one of the first things I considered.  It took some time to convince her that changing her diet would be a help to her.  However, the diet backfired, in a very scary way.  Her anxiety went through the roof, and it led to other things that we needed to take very seriously, which led us to immediately take her off the diet.  We were stuck, very stuck.  But then I remembered Sarah, who helped me in the beginning of my pregnancy with Merida.  At the time she was just trying to help family and friends with homeopathy.  She was seeing a homeopath herself.  I emailed her to get her homeopath's information.  Long story short, it ends up she became a lay homeopath!

I scheduled an appointment (all appointments are by phone consultation) with Sarah, which took place three weeks ago.  Sarah is a classic homeopath, which means she uses only one remedy at a time.  You take one dose, and wait.  You wait to see if there is any change.  I have read about this many, many times.  Our beloved homeopath, who I still highly recommend (he is just out of our price range right now), practices homeopathy in a different way.  So I was excited, and nervous, to see how this would all pan out.  Isabella, who knows that homeopathy works, was totally skeptical that it could help her with all of her severe symptoms.

The first consultation was very long, four hours long!!!  That was after sending her 6 pages of information.  Sarah was very thorough.  She then spent the rest of the week finding the ONE correct remedy, that would match all (as close to all) of Isabella's many, many symptoms.  We are not talking just physical symptoms either.  We are talking mental and emotional as well.  No small task, I can assure you.  Sarah assured us that she would get the right remedy, but said it may take a try or two.  She said we would try the remedy in the 30C potency (the common, "over the counter", strength) first to see what results we would get.

I eagerly awaited her response.  Her email came in, and her choice of remedy was Nat Mur (this is abbreviated).  It was right in my home remedy kit.  I read the instructions on how to make the remedy (totally different from how our other homeopath does things), gave her the one dose, and we waited.  We were to wait 48 hours, looking for any change.

Can I just say AmAzInG?!?!  This one little remedy has been in my house for the past year, and I give her this one remedy, just one dose, and the change was astounding!  Ok, relatively speaking.  Isabella has a long ways to go to being 'cured'.  BUT, the fact that she didn't need to take two of her meds, something she has taken almost daily for the past year, is nothing short of miraculous in my eyes.  I am always in awe of the power of homeopathy.  Blows my mind every time.

We have had to make a few tweaks as a few things came up and we were not sure if they were related to the remedy or not.  Homeopathy is so individualized that it takes a while to find the right "groove".  I can totally handle that, seeing the changes we've seen so far.

Jeremiah said that after we take care of Isabella, that I can set up an appointment for myself!  My food intolerances are really getting out of hand.  I have some other things I would really like to see if they can be helped with homeopathy.  Right now, I am just so happy to see Isabella going in the positive direction health wise!  She has a long road ahead of her, but we will get there one step at a time....or in this case, one remedy at a time :-)

Please pray for continued success.  Thank you!

Some unexpected improvements on GAPS

Maybe these should not have been unexpected, but they were.  I am still walking a tight line of yeast symptoms (sinuses), mostly because I can see a difference in my milk supply when I try to follow mostly intro.  For the past few days I've let up, and boom, my sinus 'markers' are back.  Ugh.  Soooo, I am going to try something a bit different than what I've been doing.  I will go to mostly intro. For me this means all 3 main meals are soups with fermented veggies, and kefir smoothies inbetween, with some kombucha as well.  However, this time I am going to take extra doses of the fermented veggie juice throughout the day.  I am hoping this will push my body into the 'healthy' side of the fence.  I will also drink Mothers Milk tea to help with possible supply issues.

In the meantime I've been enjoying two unexpected improvements.  A couple of years ago my left wrist started hurting.  I think it may have been after a fall I had, and the brunt of my weight was caught by my outstretched arms.  It only hurt to put pressure on it, so I made it a point to be careful not to put my wrist in a situation that would mean putting weight on it.  It helped if I made a fist and pushed off with my fist instead of a flat hand (getting up off the bed for example, or the floor, etc.).  After about two weeks the pain went away.  However, over the course of the past couple of years, this pain keeps returning.  Sometimes there seems to be no reason or correlation.  I could go months without any pain, and then, boom, there is again.

The wrist pain started back up after a few weeks after starting up milking the goats.  I wasn't terribly concerned as the problem always seemed to be worsened by pressure.  Well guess what?  The action of milking was making my wrist start to hurt more.  It got to the point that my wrist was hurting without using it.  I knew this could not be good.  On top of it all, my right wrist started hurting.  I was thinking maybe I carpal tunnel syndrome.

Before I had time to think what I should do, besides relegate all milking duties to the girls, I started GAPS.  I am sure you can figure out what happened since then.  Pain free within the first week.  I've been milking as usual for the past 6 weeks now pain free.  This was a sudden stop to the pain.  Usually it takes a couple of weeks of careful use of my wrist, with lessening pain as the days go by.  Not this time. Within two days it went from pain without use, to totally pain free.

The other issue that has seen improvement has been my 'female issue'.  Sorry guys, you can stop reading here.  For those who know about my situation you will understand this is no small matter.  Granted I was feeling 80 to 90% better.  But since starting GAPS I've felt 100% better.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not all better, the muscles still need strengthening.  But, to feel normal doing everyday stuff is wonderful.  Now I just need to make the time to do my exercises!  Since starting GAPS there hasn't been enough time for me to exercise.  It's a combination of having to cook multiple meals for each meal, the baby not napping well, and starting back to homeschool.  I know I will find my groove sometime soon.

I am assuming these conditions were helped because GAPS helps with lessening the inflammation in the body.  As glad as I am with the results, I am still not happy *having* to be on GAPS.  The food restrictions on top of what GAPS allows just makes things worse.  Every day or so someone will say, "oh, let's eat this...", or "you can eat this mom, it's GAPS legal"....um, nope I can't.  I know that time will heal, but it can be discouraging.  We are thinking that after Isabella has her appointment with the homeopath, I may have a visit as well.  Homeopathy can help the gut heal.  I would think with the combo of GAPS and homeopathy I would get there sooner.  We shall see.

Where the horses roam

I seem to talk a lot about my oldest two girls, the boys, and of course the baby.  No one can talk too much about babies.  However, it seems that my younger two girls may end up with "middle child syndrome" if I don't do something quick about it.

These two younger girls, Flannery and Saoirse, recently became roommates in our most recent room switch.  The older two girls were tired of all their horsey stuff mess.  Flannery and Saoirse love Breyer horses.  They love making things for their horses and their riders. They spend a lot of time on youtube learning new ideas to try out.  Wow, did they put some impressive things together. Basically their bedroom has been turned into a miniature barn town.  I wish I could get the whole room in one shot as it's quite impressive.  I was able to get the whole 'town' in pieces, but I think you get the idea.

 When you first walk into their room you are greeted by this site.  I do believe they will need to find a way to vacuum their room with all this stuff on the floor.  Off to the far right you can see the only barn that was purchased (it has the blue box in front of it).  The rest were made out of materials around the house.

Flannery saw that there was a space, gasp, in between the bookshelf and dresser, so she went to town to make a barn to fit in there.  Except it didn't fit cleanly, so she made a stall next to it (where the horse is standing on it's hind legs).

The girls have gone through a whole box of popsicle sticks, and numerous bags of glue sticks.  Glue sticks are the new black around here!  I am assuming they don't need the clothing in that bottom drawer?  Hmm.

 The new wooden barn that Jeremiah and Flannery made.  Let's just say Gorilla Glue isn't the best choice for barn making.  Messy, puffy, and ruined a towel.  Oh well.  There is another barn off to the right that I did not get a picture of.

 Now for some close ups.  Some of the saddles they had purchased, but most of their tack has been hand made by themselves.  They have gotten into trading other people homemade tack for horses or other Breyer things.  I think it's quite amazing.  Take a look at their signs on their barn walls.  You can see the rake top was made from a hair clip.

 They uses wire as well for their things hanging on the walls.  They snatch anything that they feel can be reused for their barn/tack making purposes.  They have gone through some felt, and we bought them a few pieces of faux leather for saddle making.

 See those hay bales?  That is our hay from outside that they gathered, cut down to size and glued it all together to make bales.  They use necklace chains that you find in the craft isle of Walmart for their stall closures.

I love their feed barrels (the white bottles).  Not sure where they got those colored caps for scoops, but their cute.  In case you forget, there is no smoking in the barn area :-)

 This is the housing for their Breyer person.  There is a bed off to the left (the blue print).  They made a bunch of food either from painting dried glue, or they made some sort of water and baking soda mix.  Not sure of the exact ingredients, but it bakes up nicely, and then they paint it.  I wish I got a clear shot of the food on that little shelf for you to see.  It seems there are some pots and pans on the left as well.

Some horses have litter in their stalls.  They reused some blocks of wood, cardboard and of course some popcicle sticks.

Flannery's new purchase of a "real" Breyer saddle in the blue/yellow up front.  The bridle is on the right. The green/red/brown/black saddle is one she made.

Now you can see why their older sisters wanted them out of their room!  All of that horse stuff was taking up floor space in both bedrooms.  Now everyone is happy.  The older girls have their 'big girl' bedroom, and the younger two have their horse bedroom :-)