Replied By Shannon (South Park, Pa) on 06/01/2010

Much to my surprise, the clog gradually got smaller and less painful throughout the day. By morning, it was completely gone. Thank you so much Earth Clinic! I was afraid I'd have to go on antibiotics and stop breastfeeding (although they may now have some that are "ok" to take while breastfeeding?).

Replied By Kathleen (Glenwood, Nova Scotia) on 06/02/2010

We have milking animals, -due in large part to one of those childhood 'fascinations'-that just never quit, I'm speaking of the one that comes when a toddler first asks, 'what's curds and whey?', and the answer received just doesn't 'pass muster', so that it's years -maybe years and years- before they ever even get to, 'what's a 'tuffet'?' I don't precisely recall how it went in our house, long ago, but I think it went something like this. 'curds and whey' means 'cheese'. [I LOVED cheese]. 'How do you make cheese??' to which, the busy young mother of the toddler replied: 'Oh, no one MAKES cheese.' which put it, for me, in the early years of Religion scholarship, in the same category as 'manna from Heaven', and/or 'grace' [another mystery]...as what Mary might be 'full of...' but let's leave this, or we'll never get to the clogged milk duct' or the 'milk is bad' posts, and it's vital that we do. 'vital' being the operative word here, because in fact, milk is VERY LINKED TO 'LIFE', 'TO 'HEALTH', -and it is a rather recent a 'modern' phenom that it now seems to be doing quite the opposite.

When you understand how cheesemaking works, you'll quickly see why and how this is happening in the world of our epoch, which is a very sick, very impaired bio-eco-system, biosphere, and why environmental problems are now so widespread, that life-giving milk ...is now being blamed! In fact, the problems are occurring because the human body is at the perfect temperature for cheesemaking, and acids both environmental acids, and dietary acids- quickly leach calcium from the bones, essentially creating a 'cheese-like' bloodstream. Many of the most prevalent toxins (sulphur dioxide -'sour gas'-, and many of the chemicals used in the oil industry --'ring compounds' -- like the benzenes - compound the problem, by almost acting like a 'salt','on top of AllThis' and then, on top of that, we've got the individual problems associated with 'fat', -in anything to do with 'milk' and 'cheese', we're talking about 'butter fat' which is the cell-loving, wonderfully permeable stuff that makes babies grow and by the way, -die, which is how we learned about AllThis here, under the 'Cloud' of targeted Pollution that quickly took out the finest youngstock.. But that's another Long Story, and you just want to know about 'clogged milk ducts' which, of course, can move on to abcess/mastitis ['things don't flow'conditions..] ll related to 'cheesemaking', as just described. [I apologize if this is sounding complex, or worse, incomprehensible, because it's actually very very simple].

Our bones need the calcium we get from 'dairy'; babies NEED 'butterfat', as do all animal young, in order to grow. What we have to know how to do is to regulate the 'cheesemaking' that is done in our bodies, constantly, as a response to environmental and dietary acid levels, so that the bloodstream can continue to flow, and 'breathe'. This isn't as difficult for adults as it is for youngsters. Adults can and should cut down on butter fat, which soaks into the cell walls [which is why it's so great on lobster, and potatoes] use olive oil, instead [which doesn't do this, and thus cuts the risk of sudden 'inflammation']. And if you use mostly already-soured milk, you'll be at much lower risk for the sudden changes wrought by environmental acids [and they can be very sudden, with widespread, dramatic, and ill effects] on bone-level calcium. You need to keep the body's 'cheesemaking' pores, inside and out, clean. Vinegar and lemon juice are very very useful for this, and outside, I know of nothing better than 3% foodgrade hydrogen peroxide. In fact, this is the first year I've used this in warm water [probably fifteen parts water to 1 part 3%hp, but this is approximate; I'm not going to say I measure it at 5 o'clock every morning], in a wash of the udders, before and after milking [other years, we've used iodine, but they stopped making the product we've long used, so we just happened to switch to 'what we had'] and this is the first year along with dietary changes that now include vinegar and whey in their diets- this is the first year I haven't seen even one of those little 'milk duct clog bumps' SO, I would advise:

-see if you can get a reading on the butterfat content of your own milk, and try to adjust this, if it's too high, a real favor for both you and your infant.

-add things [aplenty!] like vinegar and whey and yogurt [in place of milk] and add brewer's yeast to your diet; baking soda and molasses are also useful. In fact, anytime a milker has a problem here, I drench her with whey, molasses, vinegar and baking soda, and 'fizz it outta there'..

-gradually [it's hard to do this 'cold turkey'] replace all the the fats you use presently with olive oil. For the past ten years, we've used only olive oil, with butter, now, only rarely, and really, the benefits are noteworthy.

I'm rather busy here, but I will try to post our very easy recipe for 'curds and whey' over the next couple of days. The addition of whey to the diet -well, you'll consider it a 'Moment', when you first begin to use whey in your cooking and baking, and it's as easy as it is 'heart-y', beneficial.

I'm sorry if this isn't too easy to grasp. Looking it over, I'm thinking that if I said this to a child who asked: what's 'curds and whey'? or, 'how do you MAKE cheese'? ...they'd probably run the other way and say to their own youngster, eventually ' no body MAKES cheese'..

Well, in fact, *every body MAKES cheese*... and believe me, it's in your very BEST INTEREST to know as much as you can about how it is done.

Good Luck.

Replied By Kathleen (Glenwood, Nova Scotia) on 06/03/2010

Anyway, with 3% hp, I use one part hp to 5 parts water; with 35% hp, I use one part hp to [more conservatively here, because you don't mistakes with this product] approximately 15 parts.

The point I had wanted to make is that hp is, in our recent experience, superior to an iodine wash in this procedure -and for daily use, I think the same thing can be said for us -