Borax: Unlocking the Health Benefits of a Natural Compound

Allow me to thank you with all my heart for such an exhaustive page on Borax.

When my new born son as an infant had thrush in his entire mouth the allopath paediatrician prescribed some dark violet coloured liquid to be painted with a brush inside his entire mouth.

In India , those days there was no Internet.

Among Indians the tendency is to accept whatever the allopath says as gospel. Sparing you all the complications that followed soon. His thrush was not cured however.

Eventually a Homeopath prescribed Borax in potentized form. Which got rid of this thrush miraculously. Many women suffer from candida infection. I believe it is this candida that manifests as thrush in our babies.

Thank you once again & all the others who have responded with pertinent queries & feedback.

Borax for athletes foot:

After trying everything else you could buy at the store for his pretty much life long athletes foot problem - and not having results my boyfriend finally decided to try the remedy I kept telling him to try... borax - which he thought was poison him instantly but he 'trusted' the OTC stuff at the store!!! LOL

He wet his feet and then took a handful and rubbed it all over his feet.

He said they stopped itching immediately! He was stunned.

A few weeks later I asked him how his athletes foot was and he said: oh wow! It hasn't come back! That stuff totally cured it!!!

Now he tells all his friends about borax ;)

Hi. I am addicted to this site, and I've found many helpful posts. So, I wanted to quickly respond to the amount of Borax to use for hair and scalp. Obviously, I'm only speaking from my experience. I use a palmful of borax (2 or 3 TBS.), which I rub into my scalp. I rinse it out and then clean my hair, as normal. At the end, I use a final rinse of 1/8 C Borax mixed in 1 Liter of water (I keep the solution in a rinsed plastic soda bottle). I do not rinse out this mixture. I, then, dry and style my hair as usual. Since the first application, I have no longer suffered with an itchy, flaking scalp. It's been wonderful!

BETTER BUT WITH SIDE EFFECTS

For a long while now, my skin has been dryer than I think it's ever been in my entire life. I suspect I have some vitamin deficiencies (and/or thyroid issues) I need to address to get to the heart of the problem; but in the meantime, I decided yesterday that maybe I should start taking a little better care of my skin that I've been doing, so I decided to try washing my face with borax.

I had read about the many benefits of borax a couple of years back but didn't decide to try it until now. I was hoping it'd help exfoliate and perhaps even aid in fighting off any fine lines or wrinkles I'm beginning to develop (I'm 27); and though it's too early to tell with the wrinkles, I can say for certain that not only has exfoliated and made my facial skin extremely smooth and baby soft - but it has also unclogged so many of my pores! I still have some blackheads; but I suspect that those, too, will be gone, so long as I continue with the borax.

Before I get into what side effects I'm experiencing today, I'd like to also add that this morning I test exfoliated a patch of skin on my upper arm that's covered in dry skin and keratosis pilaris, and holy cow at the difference! There are still red spots (however, I'm interested in seeing if they'll disappear with continuous use), but I can't remember the last time anything ever made the skin on my arms this smooth!

Anyway, so that's all of the good things I've noticed in a two day period of time; but there is something has me a bit concerned - and that's that after using the borax on my face again this morning, I noticed that my usually clear, spotless cheeks were covered in red splotches and teeny, tiny little bumps!

(Side note: This isn't totally uncommon for me, as much of the time, when I wash my face with just about anything, it tends to bring out similar kinds of blemishes but in much lesser amounts - so I do NOT think that what I've experienced today is the result of an allergic reaction.)

At first, I was a bit horrified, lol. I wondered if I had over-exfoliated my skin. Perhaps two days in a row is a tad much, but not only that ... maybe I had scrubbed too hard (which feels very easy to do with borax)? Or maybe my skin is purging? But if purging is to blame, then why, in less than an hour, did most of the irritation subside? My cheeks look ALMOST clear again! So... where did those itty bitty bumps go, and what were they? I don't think they were blisters; they didn't look anything like blisters, and I think some of them even had little white heads on them. (Gross, I know.) How could my skin just reabsorb them in such little time?

I'll let it be known that I do suffer from an overgrowth of candida, and I'm curious if that may somehow have something to do with all of this. Like, is the borax sucking any bad "yeasties" out of my skin? Haha, I don't know! It didn't itch or anything, and I'm just making guesses based on things I've read; but I am really hoping that someone out there might be able to tell me what could be going on with my skin. Thanks! :-)

UPDATE (6/8/2015): I haven't used the borax on my face again quite yet, as I thought that'd be a bit too soon, considering I may have over-exfoliated yesterday. I've kept it moisturized with coconut and castor oil; and before I go out or if I start to feel too sticky, I simply rinse with water. I haven't needed to wash with borax or reapply any oils since yesterday morning, and my face looks so soft and dewy - I love it! The only thing is that my face looks sunburned! ? It doesn't hurt or itch; it feels and looks completely normal and even healthier than usual, other than the redness. Might anyone know what could be causing this? Is it the over-exfoliation alone, or is it some other side effect of using the borax?

lol . No!!! It's not detergent. Like so many others. You forgot to read the second word on the box. BOOSTER!!! It's helps clean. It clearly says it is not detergent. Besides, it's just salt dude.

No it is not a detergent and clearly you do not understand the chemistry of detergents and soaps which are totally different but accomplish similar goals under differing conditions.

Borax is a salt that contains the mineral boron. Before we had water softener's and treated public water works if you had hard water it would not clean very well. So you had to add something to it like Borax or Washing Soda. This was because we used Laundry "Soap" later on things like water softeners for people on wells and the development of Laundry "Detergent" changed all of that.

The addition of Borax to the washer made the soap work better by softening the water. Just like old laundry soaps needed hot water to clean well but the development of laundry detergent changed that and allowed for the use of cold water in most cases.

Sadly not only do most people not understand any of this marketing plays fast and lose with the terms soap and detergent they are chemically completely different things but both can be used for cleaning! Just like enzymes can be used for cleaning but they are neither a soap or a detergent! Words matter and science matters!

Borax is a mineral just like iron, aluminium, calcium, magnesium. We use mineral for all kinds of things my favorite automotive grease is calcium sulfonate based. We use calcium and magnesium in antacids for an upset stomach. Lithium is used to treat bipolar disorder but also to make car batteries, phone batteries and most popular general purpose grease.

Depending on how you treat an element and what else to mix in with you you can make all kinds of things both things good for our bodies and things that are bad for us. The form matters and the science matters!

For the record, Washing Soda is not Baking Soda. Never confuse the two. You will often use Washing Soda to make bath bombs and Baking Soda as an antacid or a number of other things. They are not the same thing and Washing Soda should be treated with the same care and caution as you would treat Lye. All of the above are common in a house especially 10-20 years ago for sure.

We put a lot of minerals into the form of a salt. We must have sodium to survive you die without it. If you tried to eat pure sodium, it would blow your jaw off of your face and probably kill you. Instead we eat "Sodium Chloride" sodium chloride does not spontaneously explode in the presence of water. Likewise we do not eat elemental calcium we eat calcium that is bound to something like calcium carbonate or calcium citrate etc....

You could even use google "Is Borax a detergent" and you could see it is not a detergent but is a detergent booster and that it is Sodium Borate and its other forms!

Lastly, if you just add Borax to your washer, you will not get very clean clothes outside of what the water and agitation alone can do. By itself Borax does almost nothing to clean clothes.

I have been using Borax for about more than 8 years now. While it does not do much for me besides correct my poor absorption of Vitamin D it has been almost a miracle for my Dad and my wife. Well I should say it has not worked to reduce my painful joints, arthritis or calcium deposits. It did all of those things though for my Dad and for my wife. Hard to say what it is or is not doing inside your body but I keep using it because it can not hurt!

The borax mix treatment:

I had pain in my knees and fingers. I started using this mix and its only been one week and my knees don't ache going up the stairs. I will continue for a while longer. My daughter had a foul breath and the second day after taking the mix she has no bad breath.

Judging by the percentage of negative results on Ted's regimen, and the positive results my family has experienced, I would say it's probably safe to assume this dose is too high for the average person.

My family hast been taking only at most a 1/2 tsp in 5 gallons of water daily - there are 4 of us - we put it in our 5 gal dispenser along with some other minerals (favorite being Himalayan pink salt for its 88 minerals). My husband and I are over 50 and have no aches or pains caused by arthritis or rheumatism - and we have had our share of bone injuries in the past. Can't say it has helped the Candida on my part, I could probably stand to up the dose from here. This is the dose I started my husband and kids on and no problems at all - good benefits I can see. I hope you will try this to get your daily Boron, just start low, low, low. Good luck and God bless!

I have suffered with Fibromyalgia/Rosacea and TMJ for over 10 years... My first symptoms appeared shortly after I began taking Paxil. After about 8 months when I found the Paxil side effects intolerable, my doctor switched me to Prozac. Well...within 2 years, I had gained 75 pound, couldn't get my temperature to a normal 98.6 (it wouldn't budge above 96.6), broke out with a fierce case of Rosacea (skin blistering & pealing in layers off my cheeks), was chronically fatigued and suffered from TMJ symptoms.

After reading the FLUORIDE information on EarthClinc and researching the chemical formulas of the many antidepressants that I had taken over the last 10 years, I had an epiphany...My problem was FLUORIDE!!! Incidentally, the symptoms of FLUORIDE TOXICITY are the same as Fibromyalgia so it wasn't surprising to learn that FLUORIDE is the primary ingredient in MANY widely prescribed antidepressants, including PAXIL and PROZAC!!!

Without delay, I began adding 1/8 tsp of BORAX and 1/8 tsp of NATURAL (UN-bleached) SEA SALT to a liter of
DE-CLORINATED water. This regimine just happens to both neutralize the FLUORIDE and KILL the nasty mites that cause Rosacea.

I began drinking 1 liter per day for 5 days. On the 2 off days, I simply drank purified, bottled spring water.

The results were nothing short of MIRACULOUS, within two weeks my face cleared, the redness faded and best of all, my temperature normalized TO 98.6 and my energy level began to steadily increased. (Do expect the break out to get worse before it gets better as the mites die off.)

In just one month, without dieting or changing my daily routine (other than adding BORAX & SEA SALT to my drinking water), I dropped 4 pounds and I continue to drop weight at about a pound a week. I attribute this to my increased body temperature and elevated metabolism.

ALSO...when I eliminated the FLUORIDE in my toothpaste, my gums stopped swelling and bleeding and all PREVIOUS phantom tooth/jaw pain simply disappeared.

Thank you, EarthClinc and Ted...The information you shared has truely been a blessing in my life...I wholeheartedly encourage anyone that is suffering with FIBROMYALGIA, CHRONIC FATIGUE, TMJ or ROSACEA to try this simple remedy as I have had only POSITIVE results and absolutely NO SIDE EFFECTS!!!

Incidently, this BORAX & SEA SALT water is extremely ALKALINE with a pH between 8 - 9 pH.

In reply to the long thread on borax side effects and measurements here: https://www.earthclinic.com/borax-remedy-for-arthritis3.html#arthritis_124826

I have used it for 2 Years, 1/4 tsp Borax in a liter of water 5 days a week. No bad effects, but Gout, Joint Pain, Body stiffness, skin Spots, mental clarity, vivid dreams, 2x Hearing, Hearing came in three weeks, joint pain a week, Gout hasn't returned, dreams 4 weeks. It is a life thing because foods are Boron deficient, synthetic fertilizers grow crops. Chicken fertilizer is best so I'm trying thing in my garden, land not been in production before. If I take a break, body stiffness is the first effect to return. I'm 57.

To Jerry who wrote: "Can I just take Boron Capsules?"

Things are dose dependent. All of the Boron supplements I find are rather low like less than or equal to about 10mg. 1/4 teaspoon per day though dissolved in water is between 115mg-158mg depending on the measuring spoon and how level or round your scoop is. That is a huge delta in dose. I have heard of 50mg-60mg tablets but have never actually seen them for sale.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's as a high school athlete the ones sold to athletes where 3mg-6mg - again far lower than what you get in a rather common dose of 1/4 teaspoon of borax in 1 liter of water sipped through the day!

I took 1/4 teaspoon per day the first 3 weeks then started to get diarrhea. I reduced it to 1/8 of a teaspoon a day for 2 weeks and all of the diarrhea went away completely. Some days I take 1/8 teaspoon some days I take a 1/4 and I am fine.

In theory anything is better than not taking borax so if someone was really sensitive or had IBS you could start at 1/16th of a teaspoon and slowly over weeks and months build up to 1/4 teaspoon. Evidence is showing that observational with individuals that you can get a lot of health benefits at varying does but the higher the dose the more consistent the results seem to be.

In post menopausal women a lot of individuals have found that reversing osteoporosis takes around 150mg of borax, vit and 400mg-600mg of magnesium per day to reverse it and that is a far higher dose than someone without osteoporosis needs. In those without severe fluorosis or osteoporosis that have healthy bone mass, 50mg per day seems to be the sweet spot but again you need magnesium and vitamin D3 in the diet. It is thought that enzymes and mineral metabolism is how boron works it's many benefits. Some people probably get enough minerals in their diet but for most Americans minerals and Vitamin D3 and iodine are almost always low. Iodine helps to keep your body from depositing fluoride in your bones.

I've been taking 1 teaspoonful twice daily of a concentrated solution of one teaspoonful of borax to a litre of water and supplement this with magnesium. I usually put my dose into half a litre of cold green tea which I consume during the morning, and do the same in the evening.

I noticed an improvement in my general health after a few weeks and a great improvement after a few months. My claudication has improved greatly and my mind is so much clearer. I am 70. My mobility has also improved greatly. I've had no adverse effects from borax.

Hi June...I'm afraid that I cannot give you any real research evidence on whether borax kills good microbiota in the gut or not -- I have looked at the research and their isn't very much on borax. But that's probably because the drugs companies don't really want you to know about how effective borax is against both mycoplasma and fungus.

What's more, I've been using borax water regularly for the last 8 years or so and it has never made me feel ill (even when I used it against my candida). So if you want my own opinion -- because that's all it is from my own experience with borax -- I would say that it doesn't kill good gut bacteria.

UPDATE:

I posted last year as Mary Margaret. I suffered desperately with severe pain and depression for 17 years. I am now well. I followed Teds Borax detox protocol for 3 weeks to rid my body of fluoride. I thought I might die from the severity of the headaches body pain and stomach pain and sickness during the Borax treatment. At the end of 3 weeks I was almost 100% well. Then I slowly got off the cymbalta and stopped taking ibuprofen. It's been almost a year now. When I completed the Borax treatment I followed Jason Utley's Fibromyalgia cure. A few times during these last four months I had neck and head pain return. I did Borax for 3 days and the pain was gone. I take all the vitamins recommended by Jason Uttley three or four times weekly. I use only coconut oil for cooking. I NEVER touch any soda whatsoever and very little sugar or white flour or milk products. About six months ago I switched from Thyroxin to Armour thyroid for my low thyroid. I weighed 178 in March of this year and now I weigh 153. I also walk ALOT and dance on my little trampoline. Life is so awesome. I have no more depression and very little pain.. Mostly no pain. I still have some gastritis and once in awhile my eyes burn. I have a lot of mercury in my mouth which I haven't been able to get removed due to finances. All of you w Fibromyalgia read Jason Utley's cause and cure and look for Teds Borax protocol. I'm living proof that Fluoride is a major cause of this disease.

THANK YOU Earthclinic... Jason and Ted. What an amazing blessing you have given me.

Years ago I picked up a small book of old timey cleaning recipes from the 1900s. In the last century before there was store bought bottles of cleaning concoctions people made their own products. Women with the long hair used Borax Water to clean their hair very efficiently. The recipe I use is 1 cup of Borax to 1 gal of very hot water. Let it sit for 24 hours and shake it occasionally. Use only the water from this jug to wet your hair and just squeeze through, don't scrub. Rinse throughly and if needed do a vinegar rinse to clean any buildup.

When you are low on the borax water I add water and/or borax to keep the level right in the jug.

I hope this helps.

In reply to Kate (Co),

I'm glad to hear that borax has helped your arthritis, herpes and CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome)!

I have gotten stomach pain after taking borax, but this is mainly because I have drank too much at one time on an empty stomach. If I drink it as Ted suggests by sipping the liter bottle throughout the day, then I have no stomach problems. I also don't start sipping until after I have eaten breakfast which helps avoid the empty stomach issue.

You don't say what dose of borax you are taking or how you are taking it. Ted's recommended dose for women is 1/8th of a teaspoon in a liter of water sipped throughout the day or basically a slow release rate which would be less likely to cause stomach upset or other adverse events.

If you are already taking it per his recommendations and are still having stomach pain, perhaps you can try lessening your dose.

The fact that you say you got relief in 24 hours of your first dose suggests that you may be able to get by with a significantly lesser dose than whatever you are currently taking. The majority of people testing borax have mentioned results in time periods of days, weeks or months so a matter of just hours is very fast and perhaps you are very sensitive to borax and could possibly get by with significantly less. For example, let's say that you are taking Ted's recommended dose for women of 1/8th teaspoon dissolved in a liter of water, try cutting that down by half, to 1/16th teaspoon in a liter of water. If you don't have a 1/16th teaspoon to measure with, just take your normal one liter mix containing 1/8th teaspoon of borax and divide it in half by pouring half of your liter bottle into another one liter bottle. You should now have two one liter bottles with a half liter each. Top these two bottles off with purified water and you now have a two day supply of half of Ted's recommended dose for women or 1/16th teaspoon per liter.

Kate, please keep us posted on how your experiment with borax goes so that others here can learn from your experience.

Art

I have a 6 mm posterior bulge in the L4 - L5 area of my spine. The MRI shows this bulge going into the nerve column of my spine. Whenever I did any heavy lifting it absolutely killed me that evening with pain. I started taking a sip of my Borax solution in the morning and night and that was 5 years ago. I have absolutely no pain and can lift as much as I want to. Now I'm 73 and have never felt better in my life.

I had my wife start taking about a year ago and now she is pain free of the arthritis she was experiencing. She too is now a firm believer of Boron. She didn't want to sip the soap solution of borax so I got her the 6mm pills from AMAZON. 300 pills for $10 bucks. No wonder the pharmaceutical industry poo poos the solution. THEY CAN'T MAKE ANY MONEY OF OF A MINERAL.

There are two methods of taking this 20 Mule Team Borax powder. One is to put one teaspoon of the powdered borax in a liter of water and then use this by putting a teaspoon of this water in a glass of water once or twice daily. The second way is according to Ted's advice which is for men to put 1/4 teaspoon of the 20 Mule Team Borax into a glass of water once daily and drink the whole glass. He also recommended for women to put 1/8 teaspoon of the Borax into a glass of water once daily. I have read where it's according to your weight and that some women can use the man's dosage.

For me, I am a little heavier at 200 lbs and a woman and what works for me is I started with the 1/8 tsp in water, it worked well for me, I started slowly for a week or so and I also read to take a magnesium capsule once daily to offset any symptoms as this borax seems to work hand in hand with the magnesium. I take one 500mg magnesium capsule in the morning with breakfast. This works for me. After doing well with the 1/8 of a tsp of the 20 mule team borax I upped the dosage to where I take this two times per day in a hot large cup of coffee.

I have taken this for a month now and it seems to be helping me with the stiffness in my shoulder joints which I could not raise above my shoulder level without pain before and can raise straight up now, much stronger with very little pain if any and I run my rototiller about once a week, have a large garden and work daily on two acres, keeping it mowed and taken care of. Plus I am almost 70 yrs old. This has also been helping to dissolve my kidney stones and has helped my IBS very much. Helped my partner's arthritis in his knees a lot also. So for me this works well.

Me and my father had great results using borax. Me for my herniated disc and my father for his sciatica due to osteophytes in his spinal discs.

His seizures of pain became vary rare and less acute. Me too my back pain doesn't bother me any more after six months of using cheap borax. I was limping six months ago due to my herniated disc.

We have been taking 1/4 of teaspoon 5 days per week.

My father did not do or take any other supplement at all, so it must have been the Borax. I feel my back stronger now after some months of taking Borax. I have tried exercises before with very small results. I think the problem can be helped more biochemically and Borax can strongly help. Maybe some other substances like collagen and MSM can also help.

Borax is anti-bacterial and anti fungal which is the reason it's so good to add to a laundry..It also chelates heavy metals from your body-another reason it's so good for arthritis etc. etc.