Natural Cure for Ringworm

The ring on my hand
looked something like this

I thought it was washing my hands more and more that caused the skin to crack and peel.  Then, I noticed it.  This red ring on the bottom of my hand.  I knew instantly that I had somehow gotten ringworm.  I'm itching all over just writing about this!  But, where could I have gotten it from?  And I wash my hands like crazy.  This dry skin had been going on for weeks.  I hadn't been around pets before I got it.  People usually get it from pets.  Did I get it from a play date?  Maybe I got it at the gym the one time I was able to go.  The spots it developed in looked similar to where I would hold the elliptical.  Note to self: wipe down the elliptical before I use it, not just after.  Ugh.  That is, if I get to go to the gym again this year.  Lily's nap time  on a 2-nap schedule is right when I need to leave to hit the gym before work.

Not a parasite or worm, as the name suggests, ringworm is a fungus that is very contagious.  I kept my hand wrapped for while until I got it under control, threw every once-or-more-used towel in the house in the washer, washed the bed sheets, vacuumed, and mopped the floor.  It's characterized by itchy, flaking skin and eventually looks like a red ring.  It looked like it was cutting a hole in my skin. 

Tapering off after 2 days of treatment

The infection is gone, but my skin is still healing now.  I had immediately googled natural rememdies for ring worm, and I came up with this site that gave great ideas.

I tried:

• apple cider vinegar
• apple cider vinegar/salt compress
• tea tree oil

I also bought some garlic, but I didn't need it.  I started out with the vinegar/salt compress 2 times daily and swabbed tea tree oil several times a day.  That was working okay, but I felt like I was still battling the fungus.  Eventually, I switched to straight apple cider vinegar.  I dipped cotton balls in the vinegar and secured them to the infection with bandaids for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes one to two times per day.  That worked like a charm.  BAM.  Take a dose of ACV you fungus!

The Crunchy on Cancer

Avoiding cancer is one of the main motivations to be crunchy.  Cancer pisses me off.  I get all in a tizzy by the pushing of chemo-drugs as the only answer.  I am furious that people with real answers about cancer are shut up by the medical community.  It upsets me that there was this hype about what we call cancer might not even be cancer at all.  You think?  And, this guy.  THIS GUY.  This guy who decided to scam insurance companies by telling people they had cancer when they did not.  THIS GUY is why you always get a second and third opinion.

It angers me, because, from what all I've learned about food and the human body, I believe that we do this to ourselves.  The way we alter our food and the land, we do this to ourselves, and I believe that it's possible to fix it.

Let me tell you a little bit about the some of my crunchy thoughts on cancer:

1. I do believe that we create an environment for cancer to thrive by what we put into our bodies and what we surround our bodies with.  From the chemicals in our beds, in our body products, and in our food, we bombard our bodies with radicals that negatively affect us.  We are surrounded by dead things and we eat things that have no living quality and do not resemble food all of the time. 

2. I believe that there is a life-giving quality to food that 99% of American food is missing.  And, I believe that life-giving food holds a lot of the key towards preventing and curing cancer.  Even in the organic world, this life-giving quality isn't always there.  We need whole food, food that is alive (even if cooked), and food that nourishes us.  This real food is often very hard to find.

3. I do not believe that chemotherapy and surgery are the most effective methods for dealing with cancer.  The body has the amazing ability to heal itself if we give it the right tools to work with.

4. I do believe that doctors and companies make a lot of money from cancer treatment and research, so they would like to keep the system as it is. 

5. I believe that once you actually have cancer, it can be cured with food.  However, it takes a monumental effort for a person living the average American life to go from zero to cancer curing.   This lady, Christina Pirello, is my hero and living testament to the power of food. She went from dead-in-a-few-months to cancer-free a year later.  And there are many stories like this guy, who was told he had "incurable" cancer and went on to get a cancer-free bill of health after using food to cure it.

6. At this point, I think that some radical forms of veganism, such as macrobiotics, are necessary to treat cancer, but it is not the answer to prevent cancer.  I do believe there are many vitamins in animal foods that we need.

The capitalistic nature of the world creates this environment where we have to be so aware of everything going on around us.  We have to watch everything from our food, our make up, our sunscreen to our bug spray, our bubbles, and everything else we touch.  It's hard, and sometimes it hurts, because you can't think about everything all of the time, and things slip through the cracks.  I sometimes get upset that I find something about a product I use all of the time is bad and I have to find something else.  Just today, we were reading about how fake olive oil is just as profitable as the cocaine industry.  We can't win them all.  We just have to do it all over again tomorrow.  This time, with feeling.

And, I hope that we can pass some of this happy natural living onto Lily without being militant or pushy about it.  With being a happy, healthy family.   Giving her the best chance that we could possibly give her to have a happy and healthy life.

Raw Honey: Secret Acne Weapon

For some women, the hormonal changes of pregnancy come with unwanted breakouts.   I've been using raw honey on my face this week, which has drastically improved it's quality.  Raw honey has antibacterial and anti inflammatory properties and contains enzymes that make it effective for some folks.  They sell this brand of local (to DC), raw honey from Baltimore at Whole Foods, though you have to get through the honey comb at the top to get to the fluid honey:

I didn't have acne until I went away to college.  A combination of stress, a horrible water supply, and unhealthy food likely contributed to the problem.  I started washing my face with harsh cleansers, which would work for a few months, but then I'd have to find something else that worked.  A couple of years ago, I read an article about over-washing your face.  I realized that I washed my face two to three times per day, which was likely irritating my skin and stripping my it of natural oils that it needed to create a healthy balance. So, I stopped washing my face so much, aiming to only wash my face to get the makeup off at night or in the morning.  My acne immediately went away and I only broke out in conjunction with my menstrual cycle before I got pregnant.

So, I was disappointed when I started to breakout again, as I can imagine anyone would be.  Sean mentioned that peeing a lot is good, because every time I drink water and pee, it balances my hormones.  My first acne remedy was to then drink as much water as possible in hopes that it would balance my hormones and relieve some acne.  I was already drinking 80 ounces of fluid per day, mostly water, so I bumped it up to 100 ounces of fluids per day, and I really can't make myself drink anymore. And while things were starting to even out, I was still breaking out.

Two weeks ago, Sean told me the story of his coworker who started putting raw honey on her face to get rid of her acne, and that it was working for her.  I sat on that a couple of days.  We were out of raw honey and needed to order some.  I put it off and put it off, until I finally picked up a small jar of local, raw honey from Whole Foods.  Again, I put off using the honey again and again.  There just wasn't enough time to sit around with honey on my face.  But, last Saturday, I had a fancy dress party to go through and there was a huge zit on my temple, so I grabbed the raw honey and slathered it all over my face for 5 to 10 minutes.  When I washed it off, my face looked clearer and the big zit on my temple wasn't so scary.

My friend, Cortney, had come over to get ready for the fancy dress party, and she mentioned that she's a fan of this gal on youtube who has been using honey on her face for awhile.  She had really bad acne under the skin, and after trying everything with nothing working, she put raw honey on her face.  Voila!  Her face is now acne-free and baby-smooth.  I asked Cortney how long she leaves it on her face, and she said a couple of times per day as long as she can, sometimes having more time than others.

Every since I started to use it, my face has been clearer and smoother.  It's so soft! So, I'm definitely going to keep working with the raw honey as a possible natural remedy for these pregnancy breakouts.