It’s a new year and I have finally carved out some time to write about my state of well being. I have had a few major transitions in my life in the last 6 months but I am finally getting settled in. As for my Lyme progress, one hurtle still remains. My Atrial Fibrillation. I can’t figure it out. Is it the Lyme, is it a hormonal imbalance (pituitary issue), am I lacking some nutrient in my body, is it blood sugar. My heart has taking a beating the last 6 years as it erratically becomes rapid and irregular -as you aware from reading many times in my previous posts. This is it people. One major symptom left.

I wrote this blog basically to remind people that this journey to healing from Lyme is a long road. I am still doing Rife frequencies and natural medicine but this one symptom is blocking my healing from getting to 100%. I am going to keep trying to figure it out and in the meantime I will continue to treat the Lyme and work at repairing the rest of my body so that I don’t fall back into a chronic condition.

A few weeks ago my practitioner sent me for a blood microscopy. This was an amazing experience. I was told that if I had cleaned up my blood, before the tick bite, by adding essential vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and improving my digestion as well as strengthening my immune system, I may not have contracted Lyme disease! As he looked at my blood under a microscope I watched on the computer screen. I saw little bacteria floating in between my cells happy as can be. My immune system didn’t even know they were there. I saw parasites inside and outside of my cells. I saw fungus and toxins! All this was seen from a tiny drop of my blood! Even after all this work I have been doing I really came to know that I had much more work to do. One really positive note, we did not see any Lyme spirochetes! I was convinced right there that I was going to get my body strong again so that I could fight off all these invaders and get my body back in balance.

This is where I am in my healing. It’s not just about Lyme.  I almost completely eradicated the Lyme bacteria at this point, but my body took a pounding and I have to bring it back to life. My focus has now changed. I am on this continual road of learning about the body. This is my new mission at this time in my life. To educate my self so that I can build myself up, as well as building up my children’s bodies so they don’t have to go though what I went through. It’s all very exciting!

Be well and we will talk soon,

Raquel

Raising sports active kids is difficult, perhaps never more so than today. Parents feel pressure to help their kids succeed and to keep up with other parents in an increasingly winner-take-all society. Too often, parents feel that if they don’t do everything for their child, they are bad parents. Some parents seem to take pride in how busy and stressed are their lives and those of their kids, as if it is a measure of how successful they are and how successful they must be as parents.

Research shows that parents intuitively know how to balance their child’s development. Yet more and more parents seem to be ignoring their own intuition by over-scheduling and over-stressing their child.

The statistics are troubling:

• A University of Michigan study reports that:
  • only 30 percent of the days of school-age youngsters are “free” time, to use as they wish.
  • The other 70 percent is packed with classes, part-time jobs after school, homework, and extracurricular activities, like sports.
  • Structured sports time doubled between 1981 and 1997.
  • At the same time, unstructured outdoor activities declined 50 percent.
• Today’s parents spend eleven hours less a week (about 90 minutes a day) with their teenagers than they did two decades ago.
• The average mother spends less than a half hour per day talking with her teens.
• Only six in ten fifteen- and sixteen-year olds regularly eat dinner with their parents.
• Family vacations are down by 28 percent.
• Sports have replaced church on Sunday for many families.
• Children are being benched for missing practice to be with their families on Christmas Eve.

Yet in survey after survey adolescents lament the lack of parental attention and say they want to spend more time with their parents, not less; more free time, not less. One recent poll of children between ages 9 and 13 found that more than four in 10 feel stressed most of the time or always. The main reason: they had too much to do. More than three fourths said they longed for more free time.

If you feel like sports are taking too much of your and family’s time and money, if your child is feeling stressed, it is time to restore some sanity by finding a better balance. Creating balance in child’s life is important because, if you don’t, you send your child a dangerous and erroneous message that unstructured, un-pressured free time, fun for fun’s sake and family time aren’t important.

Here are some tips on finding balance…read more>>

When balance balls were originally developed in the 1960s for physical therapy purposes, who knew that one day they’d be recommended for children who have trouble focusing in school?

But today, that’s just what’s happening. Balance balls might be just what the doctor ordered to help children with sensory processing disorders, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or just a strong need to fidget reach their full potential in the classroom.

Around the same time that fitness fans began using balance balls (also called exercise balls, stability balls or therapy balls) in their exercise regimes as a way to strengthen abdominal and back muscles, ball chairs were developed as a way to strengthen core muscles and improve posture while sitting. During the 1980s, some occupational therapists began recommending them to educators for classroom use, deeming them particularly helpful for children with special learning needs.

Then in 2003, a study was published in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy concluding that in students with ADHD, sitting on therapy balls improved behavior and legible word productivity. In other words, students using ball chairs were able to sit still, focus and write more words clearly.

Keep Reading>>

SpectraMin: SpectraMin provides the body with a wide spectrum of ionized trace minerals. The minerals in SpectraMin are harvested from the waters of the north end of The Great Salt Lake where it cures in small ponds over four seasons, exposing it to naturally charged air as this end of the lake is a hot spot for lightening storms.

It has been observed that the body expends less energy in the absorption of ionized minerals. Minerals play a key role in balancing the pH of the blood. The term “pH” refers to acid/alkaline balance. When the blood pH is not balanced it can be very detrimental to the functioning of bodily processes.

Phyto Rad Antioxidant: Phyto Rad Antioxidant is a botanical blend of nutritional ingredients, which research has shown to be high in antioxidant activity. Turmeric, a key ingredient in Phyto Rad Antioxidant and the subject of many studies due to its presumed cancer-fighting benefits, supports the cardiovascular system and acts as an anti-inflammatory. Green Tea Extract and Grape Seed Extract are both ingredients that are high in bioflavonoids, which research suggests may support the body by strengthening blood vessels, improving circulation, lowering cholesterol levels, and reducing inflammation and pain. Phyto Rad Antioxidant also includes Milk Thistle, used historically by herbalists to support liver function, and Ginkgo biloba, another popular herb thought to help with circulation and inflammation. All of these ingredients are good sources of antioxidants, providing nutritional support that may help to protect the body from free radical damage resulting from poor diet, stress, and environmental toxins.

ReHydration: The ingredients in ReHydration work homeopathically to turn on the body’s internal communication system and help the cells uptake and utilize quality drinking water again to the greatest advantage. Many people experience a noticeable difference in energy levels, relaxation, skin texture and concentration after just a few doses of the product. Put simply, ReHydration “makes your water wetter” and your life better!

Ingredients

Procedure:
Toss all ingredients together in a bowl.  Best if served after chilled in fridge for 30 minutes.

Recipe compliments of Brook Nicole at swtshine.com

Have you ever been told to ‘grin and bear it’?

Is there any truth to this piece of advice? Feeling good usually makes us smile, but does it work the other way around – can smiling actually make us feel better?

In a study forthcoming in Psychological Science, scientists from the University of Kansas investigate the potential benefits of smiling by looking at how different types of smiling (and the awareness of smiling) affects individuals’ ability to relieve stress.

Smile! It’s good for your health claim scientists

“Age old adages, such as ‘grin and bear it’ have suggested smiling to be not only an important nonverbal indicator of happiness but also wishfully promotes smiling as a panacea for life’s stressful events,” study author Tara Kraft said in a statement.

“We wanted to examine whether these adages had scientific merit; whether smiling could have real health-relevant benefits.”

Smiles are generally divided into two categories: standard smiles, which use the muscles surrounding the mouth, and genuine, (or Duchenne smiles), which engage the muscles surrounding both the mouth and eyes.

Previous research shows that positive emotions can help during times of stress and that smiling can affect emotion; however, this is first of its kind to experimentally manipulate the types of smiles people make in order to examine the effects of smiling on stress.

Find out what other ways you can feel good – the natural way…

Relax-Tone

Feeling a little overwhelmed this summer? Relax-Tone offers homeopathic support for anxiety, grief, insomnia and other signs of acute emotional stress. Learn more about Relax-Tone here.

Want even more support this summer? Try Adrenal-Tone. Adrenal-Tone may be used in all situations where there is adrenal fatigue, including a wide range of symptoms spanning from exhaustion to sleeplessness.

These products may be purchased through our online holistic pharmacy. If you have any questions, please cal the office today.

I was someone who thought they were dying only a few short years ago but today I feel “great” almost every minute of every day.  I try to wrap my head around how I can go for days not thinking of Lyme disease and of how Lyme disease once consumed my every thoughts for so many years. I truly lost years of my life fighting this disease. I was 37 years old when my first major symptom presented itself. Now I am 41, 4 years of my life just slipped away as I fought to restore my health. I look back and can not believe that I am over the major hurtles. I find it difficult to place myself back into the thoughts of all of the pain and suffering. But I force myself to realize that I am blessed each and every day and I never want to forget where I was so that I can appreciate these present moments of health.

I am still reading many blogs and articles where I see people suffering. These people are reaching out to people who can not help them. There are proven ways to heal, you just need to seek the right medical professionals and the right support group. Read my past blogs to find out more information on my healing process. I AM BETTER! I AM LIVING PROOF! If you want hope, if you want a success story, read my previous posts. If you have questions, please contact me through this blog and I would be happy to go over any concerns you have for taking the natural approach to healing from Lyme. I will be happy to give you the contact information for my practitioners. If you have anything in common with me, anything that resonates with you when you are reading my posts, contact me for support so you can make the right decisions to get your life back.

Be well,

Raquel

Researchers have pinpointed what exactly is happening to our bodies when we get a sunburn.

University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers looked at skin cells of humans and mice that were exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation. They found that UVB radiation prompts the skin cells to produce an altered kind of RNA. As a result, the other surrounding cells begin to have an “inflammatory response,” which we see as a sunburn.

“We also believe the inflammatory process may clean up cells with genetic damage before they can become cancer,” study researcher Dr. Richard L. Gallo, M.D., of UC San Diego and the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, said in a statement. “Of course, this process is imperfect and with more UV exposure, there is more chance of cells becoming cancerous.”

Gallo said that the finding, published in the journal Nature Medicine, could have implications for people with health conditions that have to be treated with UV light — such as people with psoriasis or lupus. Because UV exposure increases skin cancer risk, finding a way to block the harmful changes of UV radiation on the skin could help to reduce this risk, he said.

Even one sunburn is one too many — the Skin Cancer Foundation reported that a single blister-producing sunburn as a kid or teen can more than double the risk of melanoma, a dangerous kind of skin cancer, later on. And in general — not just in childhood or adolescence — if a person has five or more sunburns, it doubles the risk of melanoma.

For tips on how to pick the right sunscreen to protect your skin, click through the slideshow, “Why We Sunburn”, on Huffington Post.

Flora 12+

If you’re traveling this summer a must have product to keep with you is Flora 12+. It’s a multi-strain probiotic which includes 12 strains of microflora plus sacchromyces boulardii to help maintain intestinal flora and relieve upset stomach. Some may say, “don’t drink the water”. We say, “if you’re traveling anywhere, within the country or beyond, bring your Flora 12+!”