success stories  :  nutrition

C. writes:

I have had HS for 1 1/2 years, since June 2002. In April I started going all organic, and taking herbs. Also using natural body care products. Since then I went from not being able to put my arms down, to having nothing or small inflammations. Most of the time I have none, but during certain times of the month, I get little threats.

This way of eating and caring for myself was easy, mostly because I saw almost instant results. I had tried antibiotics, and they actually made things much worse. The worst I ever had. The plastic surgeon I saw said he could only do a small amount of radical surgery, since the areas affected were so large. I told him I was starting natural healing, and that the areas he was seeing were about 20% better than my usual. He said, and I quote "If this is helping you, continue with it." So I did. Since then, I have had full recovery (no lesions or lumps) for most of the last 8 months. It is only when I do not eat good and stress out that I get a hint of what is to come, so I keep with it. It's kind of like psychological conditioning, I do not want pain, therefore eating right and using natural products is easier than insisting I should be able to eat all the junk I want. This world is becoming very toxic all on it's own, and some people, including myself, clearly can not handle it.

I hope that anyone who wants to heal will at least just do these few things:

1. Switch to natural body care.
2. Switch to organics, and don't eat anything made in a lab.
3. Find good stress relief.
4. Keep your areas completely clean, staph infecting impedes healing.

By doing these few things, it doesn't have to be difficult, and you will be amazed how foods you eat will remind you of how things tasted when you were younger, before all the modifications and additives!

I am taking a vitamin E, Tox-Guard Tea, which contains milk thistle, a milk thistle capsule, and for hormone regulation (my H.S. has some hormonal fluctuation) I take 30 drops of a Chaste Tree (Agnus vitex) infusion.

Most natural foods stores have the milk thistle, and I have even seen it at Walmart. The body care products I use have no artificial scents or ingredients, and the deodorants I use have tea tree oils, clays and baking soda, along with comfrey and chamomile. I use a tea tree soap, and a baking soda soap. I also have a natural body wash, that has skin soothing ingredients. For stress relief I drink a stress relieving tea (I drink Traditional Medicinals Easy Now, it has chamomile, lavender, passionflower and catnip), there are a lot of brands that have a calming tea.

I take relaxing baths and try to meditate. The products I use may seem more costly up front, but most store shampoos, soaps, body washes and deodorants contain fillers, water and waxes, not to mention synthetic ingredients. They also do not seem to last as long as natural body care. For instance, the soap I use is a traditional hard milled soap, and one bar lasts me what 3 bars of a store soap would.

So is it really more expensive?
Not really, and it would be more expensive to my health to use the store bought cheaper ones. I advise starting out small with switching over, using what is available (even small town stores have a natural section these days) and just educating yourself by reading labels and paying attention to how things affect you. To just start a new lifestyle cold turkey will seem overwhelming. See it as an adventure and a chance to get out of a rut and try new things!

Good luck to everyone!