EC: Hi Annie,

You can email Ted directly at: parhatsathid@gmail.com.

For future reference, please click on the link at the top of the contact us/share your feedback page where it says, "Please read our guidelines if you are contacting us today for the first time or wish to contact the popular contributor, Ted."

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EC: We offer general, educational information on Earth Clinic as a forum, not as a substitute for professional medical prevention, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your physician or pharmacist before taking any home remedies or supplements or following any treatment suggested by anyone on this site. Only your personal physician or pharmacist can provide you with advice on what is safe and effective for your unique needs or diagnose your particular medical history.

02/22/2009: Joyce from Joelton, Tn replies: "Hello Cindy from Charlotte, N.C.,

I have been reading EC for a few years now and am still enjoying it. As a few other readers said, it is a rarity these days. It is a forum of people helping other people and not trying to sell them their ideas or charge them for sharing information on what they found to be helpful, or if you prefer a $10 word, efficacious.

I have personally tried several things I read in EC and found they are as harmless as I thought they would be and pleasantly surprised to find they really did something helpful, like the forum said it would.

I, like you, are a doubting Thomas but I learned a long time ago to listen to my patients and I have learned quite a bit from them over the years. The first patient I learned something from did not use deoderant, that was why I couldn't find it while getting set up to do her a.m. care. When I asked her how it was she didn't stink because most people I knew who didn't use deoderant, you could smell a block away when they lifted their arms. She then told me that "My daddy was a chemist and he always told us that if you don't use soap you won't stink, so I have never used soap". It was 6 or 7 years later that I lived close enough to the clinic to run home and bathe real fast like and use deoderant if I started stinking, so I dared to try it out. Guess what, I have never used soap in bathing since that day, because she was right. Of course I continued to use soap in washing my hands when working. You can also believe that I was continually raising my arms and smelling both armpits for the first few days of giving up soap.

I have also learned a lot from friends and relatives. A big kerion was healed by the green hull of a black walnut. This was after using OTC ointment that should have killed a ringworm myself to find it just kept getting worse, so my young son and I visited our family GP, who prescribed other ointments I hadn't tried, but after a couple of weeks & several different ointments, it was developing into a kerion. He referred us onto a couple of well known dermatologists, who plucked a hair from the kerion, looked at it under the microscope and declared: "Cat ringworm or I'll take down my shingle" and then prescribed another different ointment from that used by myself or the GP. A couple of weeks later I received a postcard in the mail from the Tennessee Health Department stating: "No pathogenic fungi present". Thanks to a neighbor who I considered my second mother, with wisdom far beyond her formal education, said "Why don't you rub it with a green walnut, that's all the old folks used to do for ringworms". After making sure she meant the green walnut hull covering the black walnuts, we managed to find 4 walnuts (fall of the year) that still had green hulls on them. I sliced a little bit off one of them and rubbed it on his kerion a couple of times before putting him to bed that night. I have been singing black walnut hull praises ever since because it was already showing signs of drying up the next morning and was totally healed in 2 or 3 more days of the green walnut hull. I know that black walnuts grow there also but I don't know how much you know about them. The green walnut hulls exude a liquid that stains brown and smells akin to iodine, and looks a lot like betadine which is used to disinfect throughout the medical field.

This same neighbor told me to take poke berries for total all over joint pain, even my ribs hurt with movement when I breathed. This started while I was recovering from pylonephritis (not self diagnosed) so I self diagnosed it as a gouty arthritis. Since I had always been told they were poison, I asked her if she was trying to kill me. Her reply was that they never hurt Aunt Nemmy. After I inquired who this was taking them and she had explained that it was her aunt (then past her mid 80's) and had been taking them for years, I threatened her with having to raise my 4 children if they killed me, I started taking them as soon as they turned purple that fall. I have now been taking them 30+ years with no unwanted side effects. Yes, I am talking about the berries from the older poke sallet plant which I am sure you will find growing there in Charlotte. One of the best arthritis medicines I have ever seen. Not only worked well for me but for several other people I got started on them. The worst part of them (for me) is the taste. After popping the first one in my mouth, I learned to put the berries in my mouth and wash them down with water. I have shared her wisdom with many others who are still taking them without adverse effects. Another thing I learned from the mother of l0 a year old girl who brought her to our clinic for twisting her ankle the night before. After thoroughly examining the child's ankle and foot, and finding no swelling, bruising and no wincing with pain no matter which way I moved her foot, I asked her if she was sure she injured her ankle the night before. When she assured me she was, I then asked her what she had done for it (by this time I had learned how to learn by inquiring and listening to the answer instead of trying to dazzle them with my brilliance). Her reply was "I took a piece of brown poke, scruffed it between my hands to get the stiff out. Soaked it in vinegar and then wropped it around it (this was in the East Tn. mountains and I am spelling her reply phonetically as best I can) and left it on until this morning. East Tennessee language varies a little from what I was used to in middle Tennessee, so I asked her what was this brown poke she put on it, thinking maybe she was talking about dehydrated poke sallet leaves. She then explained that it was a brown poke like you bring your groceries home in. Aha, brown poke = brown paper grocery sack. Well I didn't have long to wait to try this one out. When I got home from the clinic that night I found my 14 year old daughter sitting on the couch with her foot on a pillow in a chair in front of her. Looking at the situation I asked her what she did to her foot. Her reply was that she had twisted her ankle at school that day. Smiling because I wasn't going to have to make an emergency room trip to Knoxville that evening, I said "Ok, I'll tell you what we can do about it" and in reply to her "What", I added "Well, we take a piece of brown poke, scruff it between our hands,(while making the motions) soak it in vinegar and wrop it around you ankle". After giving me her most incredulous look, she asked "Woman, are you losing your rabbit-...ed mind? After I stopped laughing I told her about the patient and that was what the mother said she did for it and that it must be pretty effective because I could find nothing wrong with the child's ankle or foot. After she gave her vebal consent for this unorthodox treatment, I scissored my brown poke into about 3" strip, rolled it up and put it down in a empty pickle jar with vinegar to cover, let it soak until thoroughly soaked with vinegar. I then wrapped from the arch of her foot to above her ankle with vinegar-dripping brown poke as if it was an elastic Ace bandage, covered this with clear plastic Saran wrap to keep her bed from getting wet with vinegar, and loosely wrapped an Ace bandage over it to keep it in place. She was amazed that she could walk on it without pain the next morning, since she was used to it being painful for a few weeks after twisting her ankle. One of my co-workers came to me one night and said she had injured her foot (slid on steps) about 4 months or so ago and it was still painful to bear weight on it despite several visits to an orthopod and long term taking NSAIDS prescribed by him. She said she was ready to try my poke and vinegar and asked me to explain exactly what she was to do. She worked evenings and I worked nights. She said she would get some vinegar the next day and do it. When I pointed out that she probably passed a quick stop or two on the way home and could probably get a quart of apple cider vinegar on the way home and put it on her foot before going to sleep. The next night she was waiting for me when I came in and said "Come here, I still ain't believing this, but look here" and started gingerly stomping her foot on the floor. She admitted to still having very slight pain but greatly reduced from what she had been enduring since the injury. I suggested that she continue it for a few more nights and see if it would get rid of the slight pain she had left. She did and it did!

I have learned to appreciate wisdom, no matter from whence it comes. There is a lot of difference between "Street Smarts" and "Book Smarts" but the really smart people learn to value and appreciate both kinds of smarts (in Appalachia I called it country, woods or mountain smarts).

One of the book smarts that I recommend to others came from a book written by a country doctor (Dr. Jarvis) practicing in Maine who realized that if he was smart he was going to have to learn which of their home remedies he could value and respect or else pack up and leave the area. He said after learning that they used apple cider vinegar for their sore throats, he tested it out and found that it cured strep throat before he could get the throat culture report back. Of course that was written long before the 30 minute strep test came along and you had to wait 48 hours before reading the culture results. He also said it worked well for arthritis pain. I picked up the information that it would kill pseudomonas A. on a new employee tour and listening to the gentlemen hosting our tour as he explained that after learning how pseudomonas A. was spread through the oxygen equipment from patient to patient, they had pretty much wiped it out by soaking the equipment in l part vinegar to 7 parts water solution to kill the pathogenic organism before using it on the next patient. Now on this self diagnosis part, I have talked with some patients who misdiagnosed their condition, i.e. the young may who informed me his gallbladder was stopped up and I inquired what symptoms he was having that made him so sure his gallbladder was stopped up. His reply was I can't pass my water. I managed to keep a straight face as I explained that his problem was with his urinary bladder, not his gallbladder. A coworker told me about a patient telling her he had a tombstone removed from his left kidney.

I also remember many misdiagnoses by doctors. One personal one was when I went to employee health where I was attending nursing school and after explaining I was there because of a problem that started with a scratchy throat, now felt like a cockle burr stuck in the left side of my throat and accompanied by a cough and wanted to be sure I didn't have strep because I was working with patients. After looking at my throat, feeling my gland, stated that he didn't think it was strep but he would do a culture. About that time I got another spasm of my nasty coughing, whereupon he remarked "That's a pretty mean cough" to which I replied, "Yeah, that is why I came". Twentyfour hours later they called me to come pick up some penicillin because the strep test was positive. One of my relatives had an ectopic pregnancy (conception begins in tube and ruptures) which she carried to near full term before Ceserean delivery. The little girl only lived 45 minutes. The OB/GYN doctor had diagnosed her as having a growth that was growing faster than the baby. The truth of the matter was it was the baby developing extrauterine. I also know of at least one doctor who misdiagnosed several pregnancies as tumors and referred them to surgeons for removal. One of these women I personally talked to said she was about 7 months at the time of the misdiagnosis. On the other side of it, I remember the young girl from east Tennessee whose mother brought her to Nashville where I took care of her. By this time it had already been diagnosed as a tumor and they were doing studies in preparation for surgery. While caring for this child, I asked the mother if she didn't notice that her daughter's abdomen was getting bigger. By the time she got to Nashville she looked like she was l0 months pregnant. The mother told me that she had noticed it and had taken her daughter to the doctor. After examining her, he told her that there was nothing wrong except that she was 4 to 5 months pregnant and he wouldn't touch her with a l0 foot pole, and since she thought he knew what he was talking about she didn't realize he was wrong until after she should have had the baby and carried her to different doctor who referred her to Nashville. They removed a l5 pound tumor, but at least the child survived the ordeal.

I have enjoyed reading a lot about chemicals in our plants (many of which we call weeds) and what actions those chemicals have in the last l0 or l5 years. It is fascinating reading and since a lot of it is contained in the scientific data base on plants, I trust it to be mostly true. A lot of it is in herbalist literature or naturopathic literature. If you want to find out whether what I am going to tell you next is true or not have fun on line checking a few of them out. Most of the expensive medicines marketed by the pharmaceutical companies in the last 20 to 40 years came about by scientific study of plants used in home remedies. Since you can't patent the plant and make a few billion bucks off them, the pharmaceutical companies isolated the chemical with with the action they wanted, made a synthetic version of it so they could patent and monopolize it. I suspect Vioxx was the chemical found in pokeweed to fight arthritis. Look what drastic side effects Vioxx had while fighting arthritis. I believe my decision to stick with God's poke berries and its failsafes that protects me from unwanted side effects is still the wisest route.

Now if you care to have fun and learn some "scientific smarts" google "research studies on pokeweed" or castor oil plant, or just about any fruit or vegetable you want to check on personally. Among other things you will learn is that those eating 4 stems (or whatever you are used to calling those things you pull off the celery stalks one by one) a day to lower their blood pressure can find some scientific knowledge to back up its use, whether they are aware of it, even if they learned it by reading Earth Clinic.

I think you will also learn that if we were "nutrition smart" enough to eat nutritiously, instead of gorging on processed junk food, we would need very little medicines because we would keep our immune systems in tip-top shape.

In the final analysis, Cindy, we each have to look for the answers, evaluate the information we find, no matter whether we find it in medical school, a doctor's office, or on earthclinic.com and make our own decisions as to what we can believe. If you want to learn what some doctors think of the slash, burn and poison orthodox method of treating cancer, to Dr. Lorraine Day's site where she will tell you about her own battle with breast cancer and how she refused to go the orthodox treatment and won her battle with cancer. You might even want to order her video on "Diseases Don't Just Happen". You will find that she did a lot of research on fresh air, pure water, and nutrition and is sharing her information. Yes, she does charge for her videos, but the ones I have seen are cheap compared to what you can learn from them.

The biggest risk you will run from all this on-line searching is developing corns or maybe pressure sores on your buttocks from sitting so long. Enjoy! "

02/23/2009: Antares from Tamuning, GU replies: "Cindy, That is the beauty of Earth Clinic. I hope one day you'll understand why."

02/23/2009: Gigi from Palm Coast, Florida USA replies: "Joyce - Thanks for all the info. If you don't use soap, what do you use?"

02/23/2009: Joyce from Joelton, Tn replies: "Water and a terry wash cloth - that is all that is needed. Not only do you not stink, your sweat doesn't either. I told a doctor about this one night and replied, "You aren't the only one who ever told me that". When I asked him who else told him, the told me about his jogging partner, who told him this while they were jogging. He said he questioned it and his jogging partner pulled his headband off and pitched it to him and said smell this, and proceeded to tell him that he had been wearing the same headband (which was now soaking wet with sweat from this jogging jaunt) for one week without washing it between jogs. I asked did he smell any sweat and his reply was no, even though it was soppy with sweat. When I tried to figure out why soap would make you stink, the only thing I could come up with was that our skin is supposed to have a slightly acid mantle for protection from bacteria. All soap (even though some advertise pH balanced) that I have used is alkaline, so I guess it destroys that slightly acid mantle and lets stinky organisms take over. Does anyone have any different ideas? I'd like to hear them."

02/25/2009: Gigi from Palm Coast, Florida replies: "Hi Joyce Thanks for your reply. I intend to try it. Do you use only water and cloth for, ahem, your bottom area also? Gigi"

02/25/2009: Joe from Cleveland, OH replies: "To Cindy from Charlotte: You say that you find this website objectionable and want more oversight. This is user feedback and freedom of speech. Of course there are lots of remedies for ailments. You need to be able to sort the different options. Please go to the AMA's website for traditional medicine with lots of oversight."

02/26/2009: ROBERT HENRY from TEN MILE, TN replies: "Many years ago Sports Illustrated had a long scientific article on sweat. According to their study, you have two types of sweat. One is to cool you when you get hot. The other type is from glands located only under your arms, the bottom of your feet and trhe palm of your hands. This sweat is due to emotion and stinks to high heaven regardless. All animals have these glands which give them their distinct odor. If you are afraid of dogs, they detect this odor of fright and some will bite you because this upsets them. All have been in heated corporate meeting which some come out dripping wet under their arms. The room was cool. That is emotional sweat. Everyone has known people whose feet stink no matter how many times they bath. I was on a flight once where a fellow consantly had to wipe is wet hands. He was terrified, but his business required him to fly. You could see the sweat oozing from his hands. Joyce maybe right on normal sweat, but not emotional sweat."

02/27/2009: AC from West Midlands, England replies: "Dear Cindy:

If you have health problem, such as acid reflux and go to the doctor, the doctor can prescribe any number of medications for you: proton inhibitors, blockers, antacids, gaviscon, sulfates, etc. Most problems can be treated with a variety of western medications which some people find to work and others don't and simply return back to the doctor.

This is the same with earth clinic. Problems such as fungus can be treated with any number of anti-fungals externally: oil of oregano, rubbing alcohol/surgical sprits, coconut oil or internally: manuka honey, probiotics, and caprylic acid capsules. This is the same with EC. We sometimes find things that don't work and things that do work. EC isn't biased and will post the YAYs as well as the NAYs.

The key is finding the balance between things and what works best for you! Many of the tried and tested things have lots of yays (Apple Cider Vinegar, Coconut Oil, Manuka honey) so these are the things that people have the best results with. Likewise, if you are taking a prescription medication it would be wise to read what people have said about that medication and the side effects.

As to whether people post results or not, some people do after a few days or a few weeks (this very often happens with the Bacterial V threads) -- others simply forget about it.

Blessings and best of luck to whatever you have decided. "

02/27/2009: Karen from New York, New York replies: "Hi Cindy,

Earth Clinic's (EC) response is what you requested and received but since this a forum for all users to share - I will add my opinion. Your critique of the site is exactly why I think this site is great. EC is a place where readers post remedies that they have used which works for them. If EC were to edit post or have conditions regarding what works or not - then they would be taking on a lot of responsibility. Additionally, it would annoy users if what appears on the site is not what they posted or if it did not appear at all because EC thought the remedy could not possibly be plausible. Then the authenticity of the site would be the question.

As anyone can post a remedy, it is the user's responsibility and judgement regarding what they want to try and what works for them. Although it would be helpful, I think it's great that no-one is obliged to return to give factual results. The postings were shared voluntarily and users should feel free to return or not.

Since visiting this site, I have had the good fortune to find remedies that worked for me and when I feel inclined - I have shared my results. I am sure this means of sharing and obtaining information does not work for everyone - but it is great that it works for some.

Karen"

02/28/2009: Joyce from Joelton, TN replies: "To Gigi: Definitely, yes! Total Body. However I haven't stopped using shampoo weekly on my hair. I do use 50/50 ACV/warm water rinse to cut the shampoo from my head and scalp (which probably brings the comments about how clean & shiny my hair is).

Before you inquire what I use instead, let me tell you about my conversation with a psychiatrist a few years ago. His face was all scaly with eczema the first night I met him and I remarked, "That looks itchy, is it?" To which he replied, "Yes, I have eczema".

My reply was "Have you ever tried omitting soap to see if it would get better?" His answer was that he had and it had gotten better at first and then got worse. This answer almost threw me off track, until I inquired, "What did you use instead of soap?" His answer was he didn't remember the name of it but it was some sort of medicated cream. AHA! Next response from me: "Try leaving off soap and using nothing but plain water and a wash cloth in place of it this time." I was off the next night he was called in about a week later, but a coworker, when asked how his face looked told me: "Smooth as a baby's bottom without a diaper rash"! That is the way it looked every time I saw him after that. He was one happy camper.

To Robert Henry: You can prove this sweat theory to yourself by trying it. The little lady who taught me this was definitely under stress in the hospital but she didn't have stress underarm odor. Don't knock anything until you have proved it wrong, when it is so simple and harmless to try."

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