health

Mastitis? Try [Mega Doses of] Vitamin C

February 7, 2012

Mastitis. If you’ve ever nursed an infant, you have probably experienced the misery that comes with mastitis.

If you think you’ve come down with mastitis (check symptoms here) you should always contact your health care professional. Mastitis is caused by common bacteria found on normal skin and usually clears up quickly once treated. Left untreated however, it could lead to serious problems.

Antibiotics are the standard route of treatment for mastitis. However, if your health care professional gives you permission to treat mastitis at home, this is a remedy that has worked for me.

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My dear mother-in-law (who has eleven children!) had to get on amoxicillin so many times for mastitis that she built up a tolerance to it and the amoxicillin no longer helped the mastitis at all. She was prescribed another antibiotic, but was allergic to it.

She decided to try Vitamin C. Megadoses of it.

Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin, which means that these vitamins dissolve in water and are passed quickly through your body. Your body does not store them like it stores fat-soluble vitamins. This is both good and bad. Your body needs to be constantly replenished with these vitamins since it doesn’t store them, but it also means overdosing on Vitamin C is much harder. Harder, but still possible.

If you are taking large quantities, you should be drinking lots and lots of water to pass the vitamins through your body and prevent stomach upset and diarrhea (common signs of overdoing the Vitamin C.) Also, don’t continue for days on large doses of Vitamin C since it could cause problems with kidney stones or too much iron absorption.

When I came down with mastitis after Daisy was born, I received permission to stay at home and try Vitamin C for one evening. I was sore and achy all over and just plain miserable. The last thing I felt like doing was get out of bed to go to the hospital.

I took a 10-12 pills, downed multiple glasses of water and juice and rested. A couple hours later, I was already feeling a little better. I took another 8-10 pills, drank lots more and went to bed.

Vitamin C worked! The next morning I felt back to normal. (Well, as back to normal as one feels, five days after giving birth!)

I took two megadoses [8-10 pills] of Vitamin C, downed multiple glasses of water and juice, went to bed and in the morning felt almost completely better.

Now, if I feel like I might be coming down with mastitis, I take a megadose of Vitamin C, drink several glasses of water and try to get to sleep as early as possible. So far it has worked every time for me!

Disclaimer: This worked for me. However, always check with your healthcare professional. Although Vitamin C is generally considered safe, there are some conditions where Vitamin C can cause serious harm. (see footnotes on this article)

What about you? Do you have any safe, natural tricks for getting rid of mastitis?

Linked up at Teach Me Tuesdays , Healthy 2Day Wednesdays, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Works for Me and Natural Living Link Up.

Free Health Choices

April 16, 2010

Preparing nourishing food is an integral part of homemaking, but sometimes the effort to balance health and cost on a law student’s grocery budget is a challenging adventure. Although the “health food” option is generally more expensive than its genetically modified counterpart, many of the healthiest choices are free.

Drink water- not only is water the cheapest beverage available, its health benefits are practically endless.

Exercise- sure, a membership at the gym might cost something, but of course you don’t have to join a gym to get exercise: walk to the park, take your bike to work or just chase a toddler around all day.

Chocolate for breakfast is entirely acceptable in my small native country, the Faroe Islands, and you’d be mortified by how much butter a typical dessert contains, yet I was hard pressed to find anyone overweight when I visited. Why? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that people WALK everywhere.

Go to bed earlier- When exams or a newborn are added to the routine, sometimes sleep seems like a sweet memory of bygone days, but usually we do have a choice. Choosing to be disciplined and go to bed rather than browse facebook or check Money Saving Mom one last time is a free way to improve our health.

Breathe- Of course breathing is healthy, you’ll die if you stop; but stop to take a deep breath when stress or worry begins to overwhelm you. Choose to rest in God’s peace. Stress leads to headaches, sleeplessness and heart disease.

Laugh- The Proverbs say that “a merry heart does good like a medicine” and modern research has once again affirmed the old wisdom. Even if you can’t afford wild caught salmon and organic salad for dinner tonight, laughing doesn’t cost a dime.

Eat less junk food- not eating Doritos is free.

part of Life As Mom’s Frugal Friday

Tagged with: health

February Book It

March 8, 2010

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Tutoring is a fun way to earn a bit of extra income from the home while investing in the lives of students. I currently teach literature and writing and love it.

Not only is the switch from Suess to Shakespeare refreshing for me, my toddler Rosalind loves getting to serve “the guys” cookies and jabbers about them constantly. They are dedicated students and keeping abreast of all the reading and writing required provides a stimulating challenge.

But, taking Fish Mama’s challenge, one of my goals for this year is to delve into the written treasures that fall beyond the pale of literature.

From February’s bookshelf:

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan:

The book is as intriguing as the title. Why on earth does food need to be defended? Pollan answers that so much of our Western diet is highly processed food substitutes. Not food.

We need to return to the simpler real cooking of our grandmothers or great-grandmothers. To a time before our food was transformed into a genetically modified highly processed industrial affair.

The illustration that resonated with me was margarine. It’s an industrial substitute for butter. They can change the components depending on the latest fads and make it low cholestral or trans fat free. Consumer whims determine the ingredients.

The overall mantra is: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

The second point is one that I’ve been trying to incorporate. When you go to fancy restaurants, the servings are small and you’re supposed to eat your food slowly. Savor it. That’s what we should do on a daily basis. Savor the blessing of food, not gorge on it.

All Things Considered by G.K. Chesterton:

If you’ve never read Chesterton, add him to your book list. He was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century and created masterpieces of detective fiction and epic poetry, biographies and persuasive treatises. Even when you disagree with him, his wit forces you to think and his jubilance spills from the page.

With essays ranging from “Woman” to “British Street Names”, this collection showcases Chesterton’s ability to take trivial subjects and spin them in a way that leaves you laughing and amazed. Laughing at the wild bigness of Creation and our futile attempts to make it small and amazed at the universal truths gleaned from trifling matters.

He takes political secrecy to task in one essay and claims that there are three legitimate reasons for secrecy: first, you keep something secret to make the revelation more exciting (like hide and seek). Second, secrets are acceptable in areas that everyone knows about but that are sacred and private (like love). The last area really isn’t for secrets, it’s for those things that we do without giving the action a second thought (like why you decided to turn left on your walk, not right). Then he applied political secrets (and bribery) to each of these categories. What if all political secrets were secrets simply to make it more exciting when revealed to the public? or if the inner workings were done without a second thought?

Sadly, political secrets form a different category: secrets that shouldn’t be secrets.

On March’s bookshelf: Notes from a Tilt-a-Whirl and Second Mile People