Ways to Treat Infections Without using Antibiotics ... What is yours?

Ralph, thanks for mentioning Usnea, seems like I have heard of it though wasn't sure what it was so I looked it up.

It said that it is a lichen, part algae, part fungi.  Good to know what a lichen is. It is found on conifers, oaks and fruit trees.

It is also known as "Old Man's Beard".  I don't think I have anything like that growing here.  Though it is good to know.

Calamus root woks well for about any kind of infectious disease, flu, etc

Years ago I got a root canal by an over-zealous dentist...it was an awful experience for me, especially when I looked back on it and thought it was unnecessary.

The tooth that was worked on and capped once again got infected, and I had a visible abscess that scared the living #$*! out of me. BUT...I didn't want to go back to the dentist, so I started researching...

After much perusing, I cut out sugar and most refined foods and added grass-fed cow's butter, cod liver oil, and lots of fermented foods to my daily diet. Abscess completely went away, and I haven't had a cavity since. Also, for toothpaste I use activated charcoal, coconut oil, and bentonite clay with a little peppermint oil every other day and baking soda the rest of the time. I floss and use hydrogen peroxide to rinse. I haven't been to the dentist in 5 years, and my next visit is coming up--I'm willing to bet I don't have any cavities still :)

Thought I would snap a picture of the Usnea growing in my young olive tree for reference.

Awesome thread. I will have to copy it all out and note the different options for the different types of ailments.

I'd like to take a different angle on this. A lot of the suggestions - which all look highly interesting and useful - are about using bactericides. In our gardens and farms, we often prefer to increase diversity, encourage predators, improve soil life, etc. before reaching for the (natural) pesticide or fungicide. So  what about the equivalent for our bodies ?

Some people have already talked about why we get ill, and about using things like yoghurt. I've started lacto-fermenting vegetables and am trying to improve my gut microbiome, (and incidentally, in parrallel, the soil life in my garden).  Also, experimenting with no-poo, I'm interested in skin and scalp pH and our natural skin biome - and started wondering about using lacto-ferments on the skin. I'm thinking about diversity, using friendly microbes to combat ones that have got out of hand and created an imbalance.

I've always had very sensitive skin between the legs, and used to be vulnerable to vaginal infections. Then I remembered I used to use yoghurt to treat those. More recently, I went through a spate of repeatedly getting cystitis, over about 3 years, perhaps longer. I try to avoid antibiotics and tried other solutions, but given the scary things I was told about what untreated cystitis could do to you, I regularly accepted treatments with a 3-day, supposedly "specific" antibiotic. Then one day it wouldn't go away and I was told I had a resistant strain of E. Coli. I was cross, why me ??? I've always eaten healthy food, vegetarian, organic, etc, and avoided antibiotics, it's not faiiiiiirrrr ! (Anger at the bad guys lol) Was given 2 ultra-strong rambo killer antibiotics. I was still too unsure of myself to refuse so took them. But the doctor told me "if that doesn't work, you will have to go to hospital to get a more powerful antibiotic, I'm not allowed to prescribe anything stronger than that". Well that scared me a lot more than what untreated cystitis can do to your kidneys, so when it returned I just stopped treating it altogether. I just drank lots of water and improved my diet (less sugar) and I regularly drink bearberry leaf tea to safeguard kidneys. The cystitis has improved. But I now sometimes get sore, inflamed skin around my anus, which is no doubt related to this E. Coli strain (and perhaps not yet having the right balance in the no-poo tightrope walk). All this provoked me to think "well why wouldn't water kefir or yogurt or water from my lacto-fermented vegetables help?" and it does. (Hopefully when gut microbiota has evolved enough, the problem will go away altogether).

I was actually looking for a thread on using fermented products on skin, and an internet search showed me that it has become fashionable, is is all the rage in "beauty" products. So does anyone use home-made fermented products for skin care or infections ?


Another way of using microbes to combat microbes : I saw a really interesting documentary about bacteriophage viruses : https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/078693-000-A/l-incroyable-histoire-des-tueurs-de-bacteries/

Here's some info in English : https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48199915

I learnt that phage viruses are estimated to kill off 1/2 the bacteria on earth every single day, that they are present everywhere, and that in Poland, because the soviet block did not have access to modern antibiotics produced by the west during the soviet era, phage therapy was pursued throughout that time and is a recognised form of medecine over there. (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.01056/full) Here, we do not accept their empirically derived phage medecine and we are isolating and testing our own strains, and already using them on desperate cases, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. There seems to be an awful lot of work going on concering phages, so it looks like an interesting area to keep track of.

But for the moment, I'm mostly interested in fermented products. Anyone else use those ? How ?

We do a lot of ferments, got a crock full of sauerkraut right now.We ferment some kraut with collards too, we always grow too many.
Wife ferments carrots during winter months and cucumbers in summer as well.  Probiotic rich foods are supposed to be good for your health, we just love the taste and is another way of preserving harvest.