Well, its been a slack month here for me, at least as far as this blog goes. I was away on holiday for about the first week and a half of January (still can’t get used to the idea that it’s 2007 though!). Then I got a bit sick. Still don’t know quite what it is, still not 100%, but I’ve discovered some interesting things along the way about herbs and supplements that help with:

• Nausea
• diarrhea
• and generally feeling very crappy and sorry for oneself!

Ginger was one of my first ports of call. If your stomach is a bit sensitive, you might want to skip it in favor of something gentler like peppermint, but ginger is brilliant in a number of ways. Not only is is great for stopping nausea, but it helps with joints, as it’s a bit of an anti-inflammatory too. They actually market it for arthritis I believe. And I know when I take it, it really helps with stiffness in my neck and shoulders, and my head feels a lot clearer.

But be careful you swallow the whole tablet properly. It is very ‘hot’, and can create a burning sensation in your throat and esophagus if it gets stuck there. So drink plenty of fluid with it (and avoid if you have stomach problems like ulcers, I would imagine).

The ginger was working pretty well, but I believe there were some bugs responsible. And in the interests of using a sledgehammer, I thought I’d throw anything I could think of at it. Nothing like delicate handling, they say!

Oh, I did discover one more interesting thing about ginger, and that was that apparently it’s good for some parasites. The ones mentioned looked pretty exotic, and they said one was fairly rare, but I thought, well, at least I’m covered!

But back to my digestive system…

I added good old echinacea to the mix, and that seemed to give me a boost initially. Perhaps there was other stuff going on, and the echinacea was able to help with that, but it didn’t seem to address what was going on. (And not having exhausted all possibilities yet, I wasn’t going to the doctors!). - Having said that, it probably would have been cheaper in the long run!

I was next inspired to write an article on coenzyme q10, and during this I discovered how great it was for the immune system. I also have problems with my gums, and coq10 is excellent for gum health. I did feel better when I started taking this, and think I’ll stick with it for a while. Given the state my gums have been in (very tender - I hate getting flossed at the dentist because they hurt and bleed too much). So, I think its safe to say I am deficient in this. And as we get older, we produce less in our cells.

I got to the stage where I felt so sick I was hardly eating. I still needed to go to work (family business - had it been any other job, I would have been at home!). But we didn’t have the staff to cover things at the moment, so I needed to be funtional. This was partly behind my drive to find something to make me feel better.

So, I started taking spirulina again, for its nutritional value. This is great stuff. My body absolutely loves it. I’m conviced this is what they were drinking on Mt Olympus before all those chariot races, and between chasing female mortals for a non-consensual ‘date’. Well, I should clarify that it does nothing for your libido, but from those mythological stories, I don’t think it took much - just a pulse…

But I digress…

Then my mother suggested charcoal. Actually, she had suggested it a couple of days before, but I baulked at the idea of eating burnt organic matter. My toast is one thing, someone else’s is quite another.

In the end though, desperation drove me, even after I had been warned I would be passing stools that looked like something from Golum’s lair. And I have to say, it did help. (Just don’t tell my mother!)

Charcoal absorbs organic matter, though not metals like mercury. You’ll need special oral chelation for that. And charcoal won’t actually deal with the problem, only the symptoms. But I found it really useful in that it allowed me to keep working, I was able to start eating again, and because I started to feel better, I felt less sorry for myself! Which I think is a boon to the people around me 

In my case, the nausea was related to bowel activities, so this might not help so much if nausea is caused by something else. But if you’ve got bugs up your butt, it sure helps along the way!