Natural Cures for Embarrassing Problems

As a mom, I've seen a lot of health related issues and I have a natural aversion towards medicine and medical doctors. First of all, I think that the medical community's faith on solely medical (i.e. chemical/pharmaceutical/surgery) cures is misplaced and their dismissal of natural cures in arrogant. Not long ago, I brought my teenage son to the pediatrician because he was getting terrible headaches every single day and was in a lot of pain. The doctor's answer was "It's normal for teenagers to get headaches. Give him some Advil." Really? If this was your child, would you be content with this answer? I ended up taking him to my friend Elana, who is a chiropractor and she has been helping him get rid of the headaches.

So I am always looking for a natural alternative when it comes to treatment of various problems. One of the most maddening problems I have had to deal with is head lice. With four girls with long hair in school, they have picked it up numerous times and once one has it, it makes the rounds.

After trying I think just about every product, method and remedy (most of which were not only ineffective, but also disgusting, painful and/or made you look like your head was dipped in oil for weeks afterwards), I have  created for myself a natural product that actually works. Anyone can get the ingredients and make it at home very affordably. Besides the fact that it works, the other nice thing about it is that unlike most store bought lice remedies, you don't have to use a whole bottle on your child's head. Just a few drops each time will do the trick. This saves money, creates less mess and avoids greasy head syndrome.

The remedy will not be effective it used alone; you also have to comb through with a good lice comb. Far and away the best one is the one called Nit Free. First, shampoo with coal tar shampoo. The brand name is T-Gel, but most drug stores sell a generic version that is cheaper. The shampoo will kill some lice and stun the more hardy ones, probably because it smells like a burning tire. Then, put conditioner on the hair and leave it on. Brush the hair to remove the tangles and squeeze out the excess conditioner. Comb through the hair thoroughly at least 3 times from multiple angles with the lice comb. Keep a white paper towel handy and wipe the comb on it after each comb-through. Once the hair has been combed through, put a few drops of the remedy throughout the head: in the middle part, behind each ear and at the base of the head. Brush the hair to distribute the remedy.

Lice remedy

Get a cobalt blue or dark brown glass bottle with a pump top to keep the remedy in. The remedy uses essential oils, which break down when exposed to too much light, hence the dark bottle.

2 tablespoons of sweet almond oil
10 drops of lavender essential oil
6 drops of neem oil
10 drops of peppermint essential oil
6 drops of tea tree essential oil
4 drops of rosemary essential oil
4 drops of lemon essential oil

Combine all ingredients in the bottle and swirl to mix. It is easier if you use a funnel to get everything into the bottle.

If the lice problem is bad, do this process twice a day, but the second time, don't use the shampoo or your hair will feel like straw. Don't forget to use conditioner or it will be too hard to comb through. If it is not too terrible, do it once a day until the problem is gone.

On to the next embarrassing problem - yeast rashes. Sometimes babies get them and sometimes adults do. No hydrocortisone or regular diaper creme works to get rid of them and they are super painful. The only real remedy that works is to daub the area with apple cider vinegar. Be careful - if the skin is really broken it will hurt! But it does get rid of it after about a week.

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them...

A lofty purpose?

A few days ago, one of our community members, Yosef, had a stroke. Yosef is not just an anonymous man who comes to services, does his thing and goes home. He is like an extra grandfather to my children, and is always kind and loving, dispensing hugs and lollipops every shabbat. 

We wish him a full return to health. Please meditate on him and send him healing - his name is Yosef ben Rachel.

When I told my daughters about what happened and that Yosef was in the hospital, Miriam burst into tears and sobbed in my arms for about twenty minutes. Then she, along with the others, set about making him get well cards, which we gave to his daughter-in-law on shabbat to pass along to him. 

But it didn't end there. All during the Torah reading and meditations, which lasted about two and a half hours, my 8-year old and my 6-year old sat in the lobby and scanned the Zohar to send Yosef healing energy. Later, Leah, the 6-year old, patiently explained to her little sister how to scan for healing. "You scan from right to left," she told Rebecca, "and you say 'Please, please, please, Man in the Sky, make him feel better!" (Okay, so I know we need to work on terminology, but still...)

I'm not telling you all this to pat myself on the back as a great parent. Through this terrible event, I got a view into my children's heads, and I was stunned by what I found. 

Most kids are self absorbed. The Zohar talks about how babies are born with their fists clenched tight, signifying their desire to receive for themselves alone. The growing up process is supposed to be us learning how to transform that into a desire to receive for the sake of sharing. As parents, we are constantly trying to instill good values in our children, and it may seem as if they just don't hear us. But they do. They hear everything you say (and a lot you don't say) and they store it away in their consciousness until they need it, and then they surprise you.

The other point I want to make is the amazing power in teaching kabbalah to children. You may think they are too young to grasp the metaphysics, and you are probably right. But there is a tremendous amount you can teach them, even at a very young age. If the spiritual seeds are planted and nurtured, they will grow, and these children will change the world. So, support programs like Success for Kids, which provides these invaluable lessons to kids from all walks of life, and all religious backgrounds. The world won't change until we change it.

It Makes Me Sick

At the end of the year, we lost our health insurance coverage as my husband transitioned from a traditional job with an employer-paid health plan to being a consultant. The company was slow to send us our COBRA paperwork so we could have uninterrupted coverage and my daughter Miriam came down with a fever that lasted several days.

Normally, I wouldn’t have taken her to the doctor because it always seems to be the same diagnosis, a virus that you just need to wait out. But this time, she had already missed three days of school and she told me that she had a very sore throat and a stomachache, which I know can be symptoms of strep throat, so I made the appointment.

I had some doubts about whether we were still covered because the company had deducted money from my husband’s last paycheck for our portion of the health insurance premium, and I wasn’t sure if that was for the following month or the one that had just passed, and I thought I’d just have to take my chances and pay if necessary.

When I got to the pediatrician’s office, the first thing they did was check the insurance and got some nebulous status like “inactive,” rather than something definite like “cancelled.” I told the office staff the situation and they said they would try to contact the insurance company and get a clear answer as to whether we were covered or not.

They made me wait with my 8-year old sick daughter and 4-year old in the waiting room for over an hour. Finally, they called me up and asked me to sign a promise to pay, something they could have asked for when the issue first became apparent. Instead, they made us sit there, while we watched every other person go in to be called before us.

I signed the promise to pay. Then, because I knew that sometimes doctors will lower their prices to those who have no insurance, I asked if that was an option. No, I was told. Either they put in for the insurance or they reduce the cost for “self-pay” patients, but if the insurance company rejects the claim, then the patient must pay full cost, even though in effect, we would then become self-pay patients.

My daughters were getting antsy, to say the least, and Miriam in particular wanted to leave. She looked like she was feeling better, and in truth, she probably should have gone to school, but she’d milked it for all it was worth and got another day off.

I looked her in the eyes and asked her, “Do you really feel that you are sick and need to see the doctor or do you just want to go home, because it may end up costing me $100 or more.” I paused, and added, “If you are sick, we’ll stay.” As I’d expected, she elected to leave.

I’m not in the medical field, and I know that they have their own hassles to deal with, like collecting from insurance companies, processing mounds of paperwork, and, well, dealing with sick people. But I would imagine that when each of the doctors in that pediatric practice decided to pursue medicine as a career, and to specialize in pediatrics, if you would have asked them why they’d made that decision, they would have answered something along the lines of “to help people,” or “to help sick kids” and not “to make money helping sick kids whose families have health insurance.”

As I left the “Sick” section of the pediatric office that day with my two daughters, sick is just how I felt.