Finding effective alternatives to antibiotics - VIDEO

I'm really big on what folks these days are calling 'alternative medicine'. To me, it's not the alternative, it's the first thing I try, but for a lot of people, a quick run to the doc and a script for some prescription antibiotics is run of the mill protocol for what happens every time they get so much as a sniffle.

Not that I'm judging, I mean, I definitely get it, who likes being sick anyway? I'm getting a little summer cold right now, and it is just downright pissing me OFF. Like please, ain't nobody got time for that.

But despite my grotesque congestion and generally puffy-faced appearance, my go-to is not the antibiotic. As no doubt many users of this forum knows, the more you use an antibiotic, the greater the risk that you'll be reducing the efficacy of these antibiotics in the future when there's a chance you could really use them for a more serious infection.

I look at antibiotics like tokens - I don't want to waste them on crappy games I'll never remember anyway, I want to use them on the really sick, yucky infections that really mean business. That's why I'm a big fan of videos like this that give us an alternative for those times aren't really dire straits, but where we just want to kick an infection as quick as we freaking can.



Marjory Wildcraft is well known for her work with natural remedies and growing your own food, and she's just released a new video that's all about fighting infections the natural way. I don't know about you, but I have some amoxicillin poppin' relatives I'd love to purchase this for, just to show them there's a healthier, more cost effective way to handle your run of the mill infection.



This isn't just your standard 'slap some coconut oil and apple cider vinegar on it' remedy - this 90 minute video goes into great detail on how to deal with a variety of infections and problematic injuries that often lead to infections, from burn injuries to spider bites.

You can check out the video here.

Many people forget that penicillin is a natural product made by a mould to combat bacteria
It's as natural as milk .
David

I totally agree David, many conventional modern medicines are naturally derived. This is more about trying a few alternatives, typically related to the foods we eat, to both boost our immune system and fight infection without just the usual rotation of meds, which we are now seeing many bugs develop a resistance to.

But there is definitely a time and a place for good, sound antibiotics no doubt

David Livingston wrote:Many people forget that penicillin is a natural product made by a mould to combat bacteria
It's as natural as milk .
David

There are lots of poisonous plants and creatures out there, even if they are natural. Now, even if stuff starts as natural, if they take one part of it and concentrate it to unnatural degree, it can become poison. Like those studies with comfrey, where they took one active ingredient, concentrated it to the point, which would equal to eaten 10 pounds of comfrey a day for the human, and when rats started getting liver failure, they made a useful to them, but not true conclusion, that comfrey is poisonous.
I am not sure, how specifically antibiotics are made, but people have much worse reactions to them than to herbs, usually. When I took some, I felt so tired, weak and plainly awful, that I would always stop before all days. And no, my problem would not continue as they say it would.
My son took antibiotic over a year ago, and he had not so nice reaction to it - sudden strong headaches, his eyes were sunken (which I never seen in him neither before nor after), and despite stopping antibiotic, those reactions kept coming for several weeks. That was very scary, solution made him more sick than disease he started with, and I much rather use strong herbs like usnea, bayberry, and others, which are less likely to create such a problems, and heal quite well.

The difference between a cure and a poison is the dose. That is true for both herbs and pharmaceuticals.

I tend to use garlic. It seems to work great for me on whatever happens to be going on.

Jotham Bessey wrote:The difference between a cure and a poison is the dose. That is true for both herbs and pharmaceuticals.

That's a handy rule of thumb, but my experience tells me this is only sometimes true. Some curative compounds are not toxic at a level it is possible to consume them, eg vitamin C, (unless you count diarrhea when you ingest 50 grams and have not worked up to that dos). If a person is accustomed to vitamin C at that level and has worked up to it it is not "poison" and can be curative of some conditions in some individuals.

There are pharmaceuticals that have no dose so low they are not extremely toxic, it is just that they are given for what is considered a therapeutic benefit and considered worth the other effects of the drug. The anti neoplastic compounds are an example that comes to my mind. There is an antibiotic that I doubt is of natural origin, which when used at the therapeutic dose predisposes a person to having their achilles tendon snap at some future date.

Individual differences are also important factors in the question of cure vs poison.

Zelda LuAnn wrote:I tend to use garlic. It seems to work great for me on whatever happens to be going on.

I'm a big fan of garlic and probiotics myself too - but man oh man do I hate swallowing a garlic clove - blech! I have some mighty fine organic garlic in my kitchen right now, currently being a stubborn mule with a sickness of some sort and not touching it

Garlic does a great job with congestion. Somewhere here I saw a recipe for cough syrup.
Chop a head of garlic fine, cover with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, let steep for a few hours. Add 1/2 cup raw honey.

At this point they say strain out the garlic. I ate it a spoonful every hour or so. The vinegar took the bite out of the raw garlic and while strong it was palatable.

My friend makes "garlic tea" when she has a cold or winter illness coming on. She peels the clove of garlic, smashes it with the side of a knife, putsit in her mug and pours boiling water over it. Steeps it 5-10 minutes and then drinks it. Then she swallows the garlic clove. I wanted to skip the last step but she insisted, said that was the most important part.

I make and can oodles of chicken broth (from my own birds). I don't get sick very often, but I make the garlic tea with chicken broth.

There is also a garlic soup recipe I first found in Julia Childs book on French cuisine. You simmer a lot of garlic & some herbs and a bit of olive oil for half an hour, then, doing the tempering thing to keep them from curdling, you whisk in half a dozen egg yolks. I can't remember but I think you mash the garlic cloves to disperse theminto the liquid. It's yummy, and seems like another great way to drink/eat your fresh garlic. The egg yolks make it taste like chicken broth and it is elegant enough for a company dinner. The recipe is below, and while searching for it, I found a lot more garlic soup recipes. The one from smitten kitchen blog looks especially good and I've used her recipes before. They always come out. There's a recipe for a roasted garlic soup, and a recipe where you roast 20 cloves of garlic, and simmer another 20.

Julia Child’s Garlic Soup

What You Need:
1 head of garlic — each clove separated and peeled. (about 16 cloves)
2 quarts of water
1/4 tsp of sage
1/4 tsp of thyme
1/2 bay leaf
4 parsley sprigs
3 tbl olive oil +
3 egg yolks
an additional 4 tbls olive oil

How You Make
1. Peel the garlic. Julia recommends boiling them for a second and then removing peels. I just flattened with a knife.
2. Add all ingredients up to egg yolks in the water, and boil for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Beat egg yolks in the serving bowl and slowly add in the additional 4 tablespoons, beating with whisk the whole time. It’s like you’re making mayonnaise.
4. Just before serving, add one ladleful of the hot soup to the egg mixture, slowly. Beat some more. Pour the rest of the soup broth into a the bowl, through a strainer. Smush the garlic gloves through strainer to squeeze out extra juice at the end.

I like garlic too. I try not to cook it because then we're getting rid of a lot of the healthful compounds. My two favorite methods are to cut it really fine and put it in hummus or to ferment it. FOr the hummus, I prefer Trader Joe's MEditerranean. I also put lots of other "extremely healthy but not so palatable foods" in TJ hummus. You can traditionally lacto ferment it or vinegar wise, but I think you get more healthful probiotics and antioxidants (besides the vinegar itself) with the traditional lact-fermentation.
John S
PDX OR

My go to antibiotics contain berberine: goldenseal (endangered), barberry and Oregon grape root. I use the latter more often than the others and strictly avoid the goldenseal. There are MANY other antibiotics, anti virals and anti microbials out there. Many, if not most, are quite easy to grow for yourself.