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[Homeschool_Newbie]

Does anyone know if there is a problem with, or if it is a mistake to use purell and other hand sanitizers often?  How about using echinacea to prevent illness off and on? I know that echinacea loses its effectiveness if you use it too often... Mainly, what I am wondering is, if my children are * not* getting sick very often due to using hand sanitizers and echinacea off and on, is this a bad thing? Should they be building their immune systems, or is that just a hoax? Praise God, our children have only been sick 2 times since June. ( They had back-to back colds in October) I'm just wondering what the long term affects are for children who do not get sick often...? Good or bad?

[RunAmokFarm]

Great question!  I think the correct answer is:

 "It is NEVER a mistake to build a strong immune system."

Is is a mistake to prevent disease/illness by using hand sanitizer?  We used to use is fairly often - but after some research, realized that hospitals (highest rates of antibiotic resistant strains of many bugs) ALL regularly use hand sanitizers between patients, and even more often... yet, it doesn't seem to work better than regular warm water and soap.  It may, in fact, be part of the problem.  Hmmm.

For our family, we focus on eating better foods, using Echinacea/Goldenseal tinctures (off and on) and washing hands with real soap and water.  Rarely are we ever sick -- and if a sickness does sneak past us, we recover very quickly.  I do carry some wet wipes, just in case someone gets their hands REALLY dirty with something totally disgusting and we are not around water... other than that, we don't use antibacterial "anything" anymore.
J

[Deb]

I heard similar things about using hand sanitizer. It kills all germs and supposedly we need "good" ones just as we need good bacteria inside. Supposedly you would get sick easier! We only use it when someone IS sick, trying to help it not spread through all the kids. Just what we had heard. My mom always said you have to eat so much dirt before you die LOL.

[txseawater]

I heard a long time ago that antibacterial soaps actually cause the viruses to mutate. I never researched it beyond that. I just don't buy them. I have found the most inexpensive way to clean surfaces in our home with varying strengths of ammonia in a water spray bottle. I like lemon scent. If I perceive the need to disinfect differently, I usually always go for Lysol ( spray or brown bottle) or bleach, depending on what's been going on. Lysol to kill germs in cases of suspected virus around the house, or bleach for food preparation surfaces mainly dealing with raw meat. Everyone knows this, but someone might have never heard - you never mix ammonia and chlorine bleach! The reason for disinfecting/ cleaning with something different than what you always use has to do with the illness thing. I heard that you change what you normally clean with in order to eradicate anything that seems to have crept in because the viruses can "get used to" what you normally use.  I don't know if any of this is true, but we are rarely ever sick, and if anyone ever does get sick, we do not necessarily all get whatever the one got.

I also heard to allow a fever to run it's course.  However; if one of my babies is running  a fever, my awareness level wakes up quite a bit. I think a mother's intuition tells her if the fever is getting too high and I have seen it happen, you may know someone who was a perfectly fine little child, and then they got a high fever that caused them to become "special". The fever can get too high and be prolonged enough to mess up a little person. Same with the case of diarreah , do you give immodium? Well, the person is going to tend to get dehydrated. They need to pass everything, but if it's getting to be on going and really rough for them to keep their fluids down, and they're getting pretty weak, I go for the immodium. 1/2 pill at a time. If the 1/2  doesn't work within a couple hours, they get the 2nd 1/2. That usually fixes things pretty well. "Feed a cold, starve a fever" is the old saying, but FLUIDS is the #1 importance.

Immune builders are 1000 ml Vitamin C, Zinc, Ecinacea for 2 weeks at the onset of illness, and Garlic all the time. Goldenseal powder combats things pretty well. If you have the loose powder - mix 1/8 tsp in molasses and lick the spoon clean. It's do-able that way. 3 doses per day for 3 days. The tincture would be beneficial for ease of administering, but it's pretty bitter! I'd like to read some posts from some others if you know anything I have not mentioned. I have heard of Olive Leaf Extract for prevention. Someone talk about Airborne to prevent colds and Occilococcinum to prevent flu. I have found them to really work if you use them at the first hint of the suspected illness, but we can not always keep it on hand ( really, we should) or get to the store fast enough. What do y'all think? I have also heard that a clean colon will not allow cold virus - you get constipated, and you can get a cold more easily. Children on PB&J sandwiches and cheese tacos need to get some raw stuff - broccoli, apples, prunes!  Allowing illness to increase the immune system seems like back paddling when prevention is something we can do. There is such a thing as a weakened immune system. I'm not sure if getting exposed to everything you can and going through illness on a continual basis is the way to go. We know people who think like that! If any of our family is sick, we try to quarantine and be courteous of others. I was very open to letting a little girl in one of the families we used to fellowship with hold my 2 week old baby. She always had a cough and her mother said it was allergies. It turned out to be RSV and my baby was in the hospital for a whole week with double pneumonia. RSV acts like allergies in adults and older children, but can be very serious in the babies and elderly. We live and learn...               

[Homeschool_Newbie]

I find it ironic that we are discussing this today, and I just fed my kids a yummy Rocky Road Christmas candy Hee, hee....

Regarding purell... Does anyone have a link to articles about this? I will run it by my Dh, who works in the medical field. He seems to have the worst immune system of our entire family, but he works hard at staying well so he go to work and not have to call in sick. He seems to think that colostrum helps him, and he uses vit.C, berry well, and zinc to fight off colds... he also recently started on probiotics since he has an undiagnosed stomach/gall bladder (?) problem...  any other suggestions would be appreciated

Regarding goldenseal... Doesn't that one have a lot of precautions with it?

[HelpmeetPlusHelpers]

We don't believe in the germ theory here. We work to build up our immune systems instead. I don't think that is ever a mistake.

There is a ton of information on the germ theory. You could google it to find more. The general idea is that germs aren't what makes us sick; it is whether our immune system can fight the germs off effectively that allows us to get sick. If you believe in germ theory, typically you are constantly trying to rid yourself (or family) of germs that *could* make you ill. If you believe it is your immune system that determines that, then you don't worry about germs. The focus is on nutrition and overall good health, not just avoiding illness. So, that is what we are going for.

[Homeschool_Newbie]

Helpmeetplushelpers wrote:

The general idea is that germs aren't what makes us sick; it is whether our immune system can fight the germs off effectively that allows us to get sick.

Absolutely, I hear you........but I wonder if it is possible to have a diet that is perfect enough to help our bodies fight off illness? What do you all think? Diet plus supplements, or not? Also, what about those toddlers with weak immune systems? Is it possible to get their diet perfect enough to help them fight illness?

[HelpmeetPlusHelpers]

I personally don't think it is ever possible to be PERFECT; In our diet or anywhere else. That also doesn't mean that giving up is an option either.

We are doing our best to follow the Nurishing Traditions style of cooking/eating. I am just a beginner, but am loving learning so much! And, yes, I do think that our diet literally helps us fight off illness especially with all those lacto-fermented foods.

We don't have a perfect diet (or even close ) so we do take a miltivitamin and other supplements as needed. We don't take the supplements all the time. Only when we are feeling worn down like our body needs a boost or like we are fighting something off. If we feel like we need to take extra supplements full time, then our diet is probably amiss.

We don't use germ eliminating products here like hand sanitizer- if our hands are DIRTY, they need soap and water. If they aren't dirty, we don't worry with washing them all the time to try to avoid germs. Germs aren't what we believe makes us ill.

We also use a Chiropractor. Our bodies can't fight off illnesses if it can't clearly communicate with itself (Nervous System). So we think it is necessary to keep that in good working order. 

Getting enough rest is also important with preventing illness.

Thats just what we do and have found/are learning works best for our family.

[Homeschool_Newbie]

Helpmeetplushelpers:

I love Sally Fallon's book, and have read it ( parts of it) here and there over the last few years. Change is slow for me, LOL... but we're doing better than we were a few years ago

[AndysDad]

Helpmeetplushelpers wrote:

The general idea is that germs aren't what makes us sick; it is whether our immune system can fight the germs off effectively that allows us to get sick.

Absolutely, I hear you........but I wonder if it is possible to have a diet that is perfect enough to help our bodies fight off illness? What do you all think? Diet plus supplements, or not? Also, what about those toddlers with weak immune systems? Is it possible to get their diet perfect enough to help them fight illness?

Newb,

I don't know of anybody who could claim to be immune to any disease, other than maybe Jesus (I say maybe because the Bible doesn't say one way or another). It seems like everybody gets sick at some point in their lives--certainly the death rate still remains right at 100%!  My grandpa smoked and drank and probably would have lived past 100, but he still held out into his mid-90's and probably diet had very little to do with it. Some people just don't seem to get sick much, regardless; others remind me of Elimelech & Naomi's two sons, whom they named "Puny" and "Pining" but saw them somehow weather all their childhood illnesses without vaccinations and still die about as soon as they could marry them off.

Andy'sDad

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