Wellness

#5 Corona Virus

Liz James · March 13, 2020 ·

Post #5 Corona Virus 101….. What we Know to be True about Viruses (aka… the care and feeding of a virus).

What?!? You don’t want to care and feed a virus of any sort?

Well, then….. let’s set the stage for what it might look like to create an inhospitable environment should a virus want to step foot into your personal space. 😉

Rest assured, we are NOT sitting ducks and there is much we can do…. beyond buying excess toilet paper! #dothethings

Plan of Action #1: Girl (or guy!), wash your hands. It is a well established fact that 20 seconds of a good full on hand washing (esp palms and fingers) does a stellar job of keeping you healthy. I (personally) follow that with a dab of the Thieves hand sanitizer. I was working at the pharmacy yesterday, and all the hand sanitizer is out of stock (we were discussing gluing the bottle we have at the pharmacy down so someone doesn’t steal it 😳). Young Living’s Thieves hand sanitizer is also currently out of stock …. but more should be available soon. In the meantime, here is a recipe you can make for yourself:

2/3 cup Everclear (the potent alcohol you’ll need to get at the liquor store)
1/3 cup Aloe vera gel
8-10 drops of Thieves Essential oil ( please refer to Post #1 in this series and refer to the part about paper plates and turkey dinners…. only Young Living essential oils for me)
Mix all together thoroughly… use a small funnel and pour into a small bottle (reuse one you have or find a travel sized one at the store)

It’s a well established fact that viruses don’t like healthy habits!

Plan of Action #2: Viruses (frankly pretty much all illnesses!) thrive in low frequency environments. For some of you…. this will mean a great deal, but for others…. the concept of frequency will make no sense. Let me explain in simple science…. it’s all about electricity/ physics and biology. We humans (actually everything!) operates on electricity…. we are electrically charged.

Frequency is a term used when referring to electrical energy. Even if you are not a science aficionado, follow me for the next 10 seconds here (’cause this ain’t ‘woo woo’ stuff)……
*Frequency is the measure of the rate of the oscillation (of electrical current) and is measured in the number of changes per second – it’s also called hertz (Hz).

Everything has a frequency…. even we humans. The health of the human body is determined by where we are electrically. Certain parts of our body are even measured medically….. (think EEG’s and EKG’s). Overall, it is generally established that our body needs to be at a variable frequency between 62-72 to be healthy.

Viruses and bacteria hate this by the way…. it makes it very difficult for them to set up camp……Viruses start pitching their tents when your body’s frequency drops to 57-60 MHz.

So…… what can you and I do to raise our body’s frequency and/or keep it functioning in a healthy manner?
Positive thoughts and positive emotions. There are thousands of studies showing how simply thinking and reacting can affect your immune system (ie: causing a dip in your frequency if these things are negative)
💪 Exercise…. not only does it raise your body’s frequency, it also helps repair your mitochondria and lengthen telomeres (an important part to health and aging with grace and ease).
🍎 LIVING foods…. ditch the processed foods and drinks and reach for foods that actually have an electrical charge to them. Processed foods are dead. They may have calories, but they are not sustaining long term.
🌳 A clean green lifestyle. If you’ve hung around me for any length of time, you know this is a cornerstone to my life. You don’t have to be a farmgirl to have this kind of life either…… Ditch the common chemicals in your life that drop your frequency faster than a 20lb kettleball hits the floor, and begin using clean green household cleaners, body care products, and makeup. I personally only use Young Living because it’s one stop shopping for all these things and I trust them and their ingredients 100%. This is one of the fastest ways to begin reversing low frequency bodies.
🌅 Unplug, disconnect, and get out into nature regularly. I spoke in a previous post about 5G (and will speak more about that later), but electromagnetic frequency does a big (negative) number on our own body’s electricity. If you want to bring your body’s health to a grinding halt, surround yourself with EMF 24/7. Again folks…. this ain’t woo woo stuff… this is physics and biology all wrapped up in one.

Nature provides us with a way to rebalance our frequency/electricity. Trees, plants, the magnetism of the earth… it’s one of the reasons you feel so good after a day outside or at the beach. Your body’s frequency has had a rebound towards health.

Another advantage to having Young Living in your life are the life giving essential oils. Not all oils are the same ya’ll…. if you are using ones from Wally World, I guarantee they are polluted… which nullifies their positive effects on body frequency.
My go to YLEO’s when I feel the need to raise my frequency?
🌟 Joy and Forgiveness (both essential oil blends with a high frequency rating)
🌟 Rose oil actually has the highest frequency of all essential oils. (it’s terribly expensive if you are using the real stuff…. but it should be…. it takes over 200lbs of rose petals to get a bottle of the pure stuff). Thankfully, it is found in many Young Living blends (including Joy and Forgiveness)
🌟 Helichrysum (it’s a must have oil for many health reasons). It can be found in Panaway and other blends too.
🌟 Ravensara (this oil is not often thought of)…. but interestingly, if you do a little research, you’ll find that viruses are particularly not fond of this oil 😉. This oil too is found in many YL blends.

Young Living has been very thoughtful in their blend formulations and as a pharmacist, that is strikingly important to me. #noflimsypaperplates

Here is but one pubmed article for your quick viewing if you’re interested in learning a bit more about the effects of frequency, EMF, and our bodies:

pubmed article on frequency

More Action Steps to unpack later…. I’m off to the pharmacy again today… maskless, but well oiled. 😉

Shoot me a message if you’d like a personal health coaching session with me.

xoxo ~ liz

#knowbetterdobetter
#ThanksYL.

#itsnevertoolatetobeginlivingahealthierlife
#Thievesonthebottomofmyfeeteveryday

Layover

Liz James · February 9, 2020 ·

The layover Wednesday was, shall we say, interesting😬.

He was a young fatigues dressed soldier🇺🇸 returning to base after leave carrying his pack.

Agitated. Verbose. Wide eyes a bit vacant. If you’ve seen past news stories, you’d recognize the look. #strangerdanger

Random conversation. Real random.😱

Estranged from his wife and child. Heading “home” , yet homeless and restrained from seeing either because of an altercation weeks prior.

Did I mention he discussed his recent release from a psych hospital?😳

Generally, I am not forward (and never pushy ) about sharing oils, but I know what works, and frankly, I was inches from having a #seesomethingsaysomething conversation with an airline employee. …. so I asked him to open his hand, receive what I had to offer, and breathe slowly and deeply. #hedid

I rather feel like I can not do this situation or conversation justice, and we’ll never know what could have happened if I hadn’t had these two travel companions with me. Let’s just say my utmost respect for Stress Away and Peace & Calming has…. yet again…. been elevated.

We made it safely. Thank God.

#Hethankedmebeforehewenttosleep
#Possiblecrisisaverted
#oilsandprayer
#ThanksYL

Plenty of Ways to Avoid the Flu

Liz James · January 29, 2020 ·

spent all day yesterday working at the pharmacy, and I’m not going to lie…… I filled more antibiotics, antivirals, antinausea and (gallons!) of cough syrup than I have in a very long time. People are sick and the flu is kickin’ butt and taking names.

Surrounding that hectic day was the constant mention of the coronavirus in China that’s making the news everywhere you look.

Can we chat for a minute and put this into perspective? I bring the following information to the table not to minimize the current illness state of affairs, but to truly wonder at the power of the media……

😷The coronavirus (as of yesterday) has a current mortality rate of 2.3% of those 4520 affected.

😷 This year’s flu strain (the most recent stat I could find) has a current mortality rate of 0.049% of the estimated 9.7 million affected.

YET…. poor diet is killing people in the United States faster than both viruses combined. An estimated 11 Million people a year die in the USA as a result of a poor diet… that’s 1 in 5 people, people. THAT bothers me. A LOT.

Maybe people would pay more attention to healthy living if the media poured this type of information into us instead of the fear based stuff we’re getting.

And oh… by the way, there are plenty of ways to avoid both the flu and the coronavirus, and they 100% depend on a healthy diet especially containing natural and supplemental sources of the right kinds of magnesium, Vitamin D, C, & E, selenium, and iodine, an adequate pH in the body leaning towards a mild alkalinity, and keeping known toxins out of the body. All of these basic steps will actually go a long way towards healing what ails ya too 😘.

hugs and much love~ liz

#knowbetterdobettergetbetterstaywell
#stayawayfromthesugarespeciallywhenyouaresick
#Godgaveusallweneedifonlywedothethings
#fearmongeringreallybothersme
#ThanksYL

Goin’ Down the Gopher Hole

Liz James · February 26, 2019 ·

Have you ever begun researching or looking for information on something, and it leads to more research ad infinitum? Well, that has happened to me over the course of the last six weeks. It’s all good stuff and I’m super excited to begin sharing it with you all, but first I have to get it unpacked properly from my brain. I love learning and uncovering new information…. it makes my heart go pitter patter, even if it does at some point begin to give me blurry vision and in need of a map as I return from the warren of learning I’m being steeped in.

The gopher hole (yes, I know the cuties above are actually prairie dogs!) I went down began with a simple question that had been ping ponging about in my brain for several months. I am a holistically minded pharmacist as you may well know, and I LOVE to help people realize feasible ways prevent dis-ease, restore function, and become optimally healthy. In a word: Not just surviving, but thriving!

There ARE times when medication is necessary and Western medicine needs to work its magic thru intervention, but really….. this needs to be reserved for emergent care, when holistic measures have failed, or when genetics simply deal us a challenging hand.

Unfortunately, we have become an immediate gratification society, and the ‘grab and go’ healthcare system has capitalized on that. It’s much easier to take a pill for a symptom than it is to identify the root cause and work towards fixing what’s actually ‘broken’…..but taking a pill (or having an elective surgery) will ALWAYS have a consequence, and frequently, it may have more than one consequence. Often, the consequence will simply replace the original symptom (dysfunction), but occasionally, it can open a can of worms that was bigger than the first problem. I’ve seen this scenario happen too many times to count in my career.

“We” (ie: our current worldview) tend to discount risk versus immediate benefit in lieu of the desire for an immediate ‘fix’. When the immediate need is resolved, the focus of our attention is removed from the problem (or dysfunction)…. we’ve moved on to the next thing. Meanwhile, the risk may have slowly and quietly slipped thru the cracked door, and we fail to notice the correlation….. benign neglect, innocent ignorance of our own bodies, willingly handing over the ‘care and feeding of us’ to a Third Party who has little or no vested interest in our optimal health….. regardless of the reason(s)….. secondary dysfunction has crept in on padded feet.

Here is but one example:
Statins are one of the most commonly prescribed medications in the United States for high cholesterol. Nearly 30% of adults over 40 are on them. Impressive stat for Big Pharma, right?

But let’s go over another set of stats on the statins. Statins work by blocking a VIP enzyme called HMG-CoA. When this enzyme is blocked…. it blocks the production of cholesterol, but it also blocks the production of a nutrient called CoQ10. (Blocking the production of cholesterol is a post unto itself, that I will tackle next week and unpack for you…. cholesterol has been demonized when in actuality, it is an absolutely vital component to our well being)CoQ10 is critically important, and it can be supplemented to offset potential problems. Unfortunately, in my experience, most doctors never tell their patients this when they hand them a statin prescription. The doctor ‘might’ tell them to let them know if they have unusual soreness or cramping in their legs (a warning sign of something called rhabdomyolysis). This is a common ‘side effect’ of statin use…. but the reality is that it’s a sign of a secondary deficiency that crept thru the door that statin use opened. Other signs of CoQ10 deficiency include:

cardiac arrhythmia or palpitations, which could land you on medication. (Low CoQ10 is found in nearly all patients with heart failure. Read into that what you will…..)
depression or memory loss (meds for this too)
fatigue (you may live with this, or begin self medicating with caffeine or other stimulants)
Impotence or decreased libido (ugh!)
High blood sugar (setting you up for diabetes OR making your current diabetic state harder to manage or regulate….. don’t even get me started!)In 2014, the American Diabetes Association actually made the recommendation that all adults over the age of 40 take statins. (I’ll speak more to this when I write that cholesterol post)

Does this worry you? It should. And this is but one class of medications that causes a deficiency of CoQ10.

Now, I’m not a doctor, and please….. do not take my words (or anyone’s words) as gospel. I am all about self study and whole truth… which is not always easy to come by in the healthcare industry. (Remember, there are billions of dollars at stake here.) I encourage all of you to become the best advocate of you that you can be. Nobody knows you better than you, right? Self study can be a little confusing if you aren’t used to it. Talk to your healthcare provider. Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions….. and above all, be armed with knowledge that you yourself have found. Do not be afraid to shake the dust off your shoes and move on if your doctor doesn’t take full consideration of your concerns.

If this post has rattled your cage a little, so be it. That is my job as a pharmacist…. to point out some things that are important for a body to stay healthy, and it’s your choice whether to keep your head in the sand or be on the lookout for danger. We (pharmacists) are trained to counsel on side effects, but we need to be taking it a step further …..counseling on the causes of those side effects as well as potential ways to mitigate them, and to teach our tribe how to not just avoid deficiency, but to have optimal health in the process.

This is but one of the reasons I believe proper supplementation is so absolutely critical to living well, but especially if you are one of the millions who are on (and may need to remain on) a medication. Because statin use is also now being linked to probable Vitamin D deficiency, I recommend both MindWise and OmegaGize3 as being stellar products in the supplement industry… for everyone. Don’t wait for a deficiency to actually happen. It’s much harder to fix than it is to prevent, right?

If these products are new to you, I encourage you to learn more about Young Living and why I’ve chosen them as my supplement company of choice. You can learn more about the company and how to receive discounted pricing by returning to my home page, or if you’d like to chat, please reach out to me. That’s why I’m here.

Be well, and have a glorious day!
Hugs and Love, Liz

Growing with Elsa

Liz James · October 8, 2018 ·

Elsa at 10 months. She is starting to get her mama’s darker face.

Welcome! You’ve found my first official blog post on the updated website! This has been a work in progress for the past several months, and…. not being exactly technically savvy (give me science or farming any other day!), I’ve had to call in some excellent tech help to assist in the upgrade. You can finally find ALL you need right here in one place!

The move to the new website put blogging on a little hiatus until we could get everything matched up properly. I think you’ll find this venue MUCH easier to navigate. Growing means learning, expanding, and exploring new options, right?

Speaking of growing…. She’s now 10 months old, and it’s well past time for an Elsa update! Sweet girl shows up on Facebook with some regularity, but I need to update here…. this is kind of her ‘baby book’ after all. For all my love of animals, I never thought I’d love a cow as much as I love this heifer. I guess that’s what might happen when one lives in your bathtub for a few weeks, and syringe feeding around the clock takes control of your life! The cards were certainly stacked against her. Birth during 20 degree weather (which cost her parts of both ears), failure to thrive (because she couldn’t suck properly), trips to the vet (because we didn’t know any better.. couldn’t see the internal cleft palate… and subsequently also missed by the vet)…. it did not look good for Elsa. If you scroll back thru my early 2018 posts, you’ll find her history scattered throughout.

Nonetheless, she prevailed.

Her story hasn’t been without a little work and some modifications in her/our life. Elsa is a permanent mascot on our farm. She is a greeter, social maven, photo bomber, and so much more. As she’s grown, we’ve adapted and risen to the challenge.

Her cleft palate is not easily repairable. According to a couple of vets I’ve consulted at Texas A&M Veterinary College, the surgery would not be easy on her. Cow mouths do not open very wide, and any repair of this nature would only be manageable by entering thru the side of her face…effectively eliminating the possibility of surgery unless absolutely necessary.

Elsa eats well (albeit messily!), and does not seem to be hindered much by her birth defect. Fairly early on, we discovered that she is also moderately tongue tied, and is only able to stick her tongue out of the right side of her mouth. This really doesn’t seem to affect her much, so I’m torn between getting it fixed surgically (rather, putting her thru that surgery), and just letting her carry on as she has been. She doesn’t know any differently, and so it seems more like the surgery would be for us moreso than for her.

Cleft palates in calves are not as rare as you’d think. Unfortunately, most calves are birthed fairly unattended, and if they go without nursing for long, they die. As in the case of Elsa, if the cleft palate is undetectable externally, the rancher usually assumes the calf simply died of natural causes. Cleft palate in calves is not a genetic anomaly…it’s caused by eating the wrong plant during the first trimester of pregnancy (a similar thing can happen in people if certain medications or products are consumed during the first trimester too). In Honey’s case (Elsa’s mama)….. she apparently got ahold of a select few plants in the lupine family….. the most common culprit for bovine cleft palates. Honestly, we’re blessed. Her deformity could have been much much worse, and her personality more than makes up for the bit of added work that is required for her health and safety.

Milestones
Just like all babies, Elsa has had her milestones.

She survived the first month! It took a team of dedicated friends and ‘nannies’, as well as Charlie and I to get her thru the first month.
Around the six weeks mark, she finally figured out how to eat properly from one teat…. the left front. Each teat is different on a cow, and Elsa had to figure out how. We never gave up, and every day, I would encourage her to try. After the mastered one teat, she gradually learned how to nurse (in her own way) on 2 other teats. Because of the angle and size (And probably because of her limited use of her tongue on the left side of her mouth) she never mastered the 4th teat on the back left quarter. As she grew, her nursing got pretty rough on Honey. She used her teeth more than most calves, and consequently, was really tearing her mama up. We made the difficult decision to wean her at 4 1/2 months (early!) because the damage she was doing prevented us from milking Honey too.
Eating creep feed and grass is not a problem for Elsa. Occasionally, she will have grass coming out her nose and she will stamp her feet and blow until it comes out. For awhile, we had to wet her creep feed so that it wouldn’t end up in her nose. She has outgrown that need now, and eats food just like the big girls!
Cud chewing…. all cows regurgitate their food and then thoughtfully re-chew it for better digest-ability. Elsa does this too, but the liquified food comes out her nose if her head is in a downward position. It doesn’t seem to bother her overly much, but it can get messy. Because of this, she gets a spongebath about once a week.
Schooling. She is going to make an amazing hand milked dairy cow. She is calm, cool, and collected, AND she’s about as social as you could possibly imagine. Because the facial deformities are not genetic, we are not worried that the cleft palate will carry forward to her offspring.

Lessons from raising a Cleft Palate Calf

Life is what you make of it.
When you are able, make the most of running, bucking, and living like there’s no tomorrow…. but above all else, never ever give up!
Resiliency is a good thing. Bounce forward not backwards!
Vitamin D is a necessary part of healing. Lay in the sunshine even when you think you don’t have time to.
Be friends with those who are different from you. (Elsa doesn’t know a stranger… 2 or 4 legged!)
Work with what you’ve got! Not everyone is born with the same tools.
Family doesn’t always mean blood relatives.
Being ‘schooled’ is not a bad thing. We all need to be haltered and given parameters on occasion.
Patience is still a virtue.
Love IS worth it.

Stay tuned…. Elsa will always be making an appearance here. She’s one of us….. part of the ‘farmily’.

Thanks for visiting and celebrating our imperfectly perfect life on the farm.

Hugs and Love – Liz