neti pot

i try not to take pharmaceutical drugs but rather try to find natural and homeopathic ways to treat different ailments.

one winter i had an awful cough that would not go away. i went to the doctor and was prescribed every cough medicine and nothing was working. the doctor had found that i had severe post nasal drip and none of the medicines were helping. my cough was so bad and painful that i almost went to the emergency room thinking i broke a rib from coughing so much.

my doctor said that i should try a neti pot. i was skeptical at first but now am a true believer in it and use it all the time. there are no side effects and can be used as many times during the day. just remember to use warm distilled water! there could be parasites or the faucet water can just be dirty and can lead to death! (rare but a recent case in louisiana regarding a death has occurred due to contaminated tap water)

please see the below video regarding how to use the neti pot:

Neti Pot Instructions

a few baby products that are not made in china

when it comes to feeding my son i try not to use anything made in china. it was very hard to find items that were NOT made in china. i was lucky enough to find a few. i also found a toothbrush that was NOT made in china:

spoons and forks

brand: green toys

attributes: made in usa, made from recycled plastic and bpa/pvc free. there are however a little on the small side

sippy cup

brand: phillips avent

attributes: made in germany i believe. i cannot remember exactly but i know for sure it was not made in china. it is a little hard for carter to suck because of a stopper to keep it from leaking

toothbrush:

brand: aquafresh (the extra soft one for infants)

attributes: made in germany and soft. it does not have cute characters on it but i am glad it is NOT made in china.

no offense to the chinese, it's just, i just do not trust their manufacturing practices especially for things that my son puts constantly in his mouth.

how it all began

for a few weeks, the bottom part of my thighs felt numb and one day i was at a lunch meeting with a broker and i was unable to get up from my chair, i was stuck in a sitting position. i eventually was able to stand upright, after a lot of pain and patience. this is when i decided to mention this to my friend's husband, who is a doctor, at church one sunday.

i wanted to get his advice on whether or not i should go to the er to get checked out. and he started asking me a few questions such as if i had any major surgeries (no) or even dental work (yes). i did not know a root canal was considered major surgery but it indeed is! it takes a toll on your mouth and did you know that there are as many nerves in your mouth as there is in your stomach? i sure did not know this.

he found that the pain in my legs and back had to do with my root canals. apparently, the nerves were still inflamed and did not heal completely. he put 7 acupuncture needles in my ear and instantly, i felt a tingling down my spine. the pain in my thighs completely went away! my back still hurt however by the next morning it was 70 percent better. this is when i believed. i loved how rather treating just the pain, he was looking for the root cause and he found it. our body is completely connected and just treating the pain does not help at all.

i made an appointment for friday and had a full diagnostic test. he did a food allergy test (completely non-invasive and results instant) and went through my medical history, checked for scars to make sure they healed correctly and acupuncture again for the pain. he also asks for other issues such as not being able to sleep, not being able to concentrate, etc... things that you would not even think are "issues" that may be able to be cured. after this second visit, the pain in my back was completely gone! i had let him know that i do not sleep well... and i constantly wake up at night. who knew that this ailment could be linked to food allergies! again, our body is connected and every part needs and affects others parts of your body.

he does allergy testing by testing the resistance that your body has. naturally, everything emits a wave and if your body accepts whatever he is testing, it will attract it. if your body rejects/blocks to what he is testing, it pushes it away. you can think of it as a magnet. i was skeptical at first but i trusted him and stuck to what he said to do. he does an initial test of the normal allergies: gluten, dairy, nuts, shellfish, eggs. and then he asked what i ate every day. i ate bananas, wheat bread with peanut butter and jelly, rice, chicken, beef, etc... after testing many different things, he found that i was intolerant (similar to an allergy but less severe) to wheat, oat, soy, barley, banana, red wine, milk. he also found that i was sensitive to mold and dust and gave me a few different homeopathic drops to take. they help your body grow a tolerance, such a what vaccines do, and helped me in so many ways. i made my husband go and he loves it. he had really bad seasonal allergies and we were able to get homeopathic drops for this as well as using a neti pot and he has not taken allergy medicines in 3 years. before visiting this dr, he had to take an allergy pill every day!


these are two examples of the drops i take

my dr told me to for 90 days, stop eating all of these and see how i feel. after a month come back and i could see if anything changed. it is amazing how much better i felt. i honestly slept completely through the night for at least 6 months. i was losing weight because i was retaining the weight since my body could not process all those things i was eating. you can eventually re-introduce those, one by one, day by day and see how your body reacts. after doing this, i learned so much about food and how important it is. this is when i began to research about food and eating organically even more.

i am now a firm believer in eastern and alternative medicine. i do not know why i never trusted my mother, she is always right! i will be writing more about this in subsequent blog entries but wanted to give a background.

the doctor that i go to is Dr. Shin at The Chung Institute of Integrative Medicine. dr shin is a do and not an md but i prefer a do, they practice more of a holistic approach to medicine. please feel free to comment with any questions or opinions.

Meet me, Grace Lee!

I am many things but to highlight a few... I am a Christian, a wife to Jea, a mother to Carter, a daughter to my parents, a friend, a student at Boston University, an employee at ACE USA, a citizen of the United States of America.

I am currently pursing my Master of Science in Insurance Management, matriculated in my second course, Introduction to E-Commerce. I am an Executive Underwriter at ACE USA in the Corporate Underwriting department.

I have a one year old son Carter, whom I adore. I have been married almost three years to a wonderful man, Jea (Pronounced Jay), who is a photographer.

I wanted to dedicate this blog to raise awareness around being more "green", eating organic, eco-friendliness, and safer children's products. I also wanted to give healthy and different recipe ideas for children.

To give a brief background about how I began trying to live this way: I began researching food safety and learning more about organic foods after visiting an integrative medicine doctor and finding that I was intolerant to: wheat, oat, soy, barley, milk, bananas and red wine. I had to, for three months, not eat anything that contained those products. So I basically had to go gluten/lactose/soy free, which was a challenge but it taught me a lot about what chemicals/products are in the food I have been eating every day. Furthermore, after I was pregnant, I was also diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Diabetes runs in my family so it was not a shock to me that I would be diagnosed this during my pregnancy, I figured my insulin was not strong enough to metabolize the sugar, especially with 24 extra pounds! So, naturally, after my son was born, I have been trying to change all of out household cleaning products to eco-friendly, non-toxic, and natural. I have been making all of his food, trying to do it all organically as well. In addition, I have been researching safer toys, feeding accessories that are not "made in China" and buying as much USA made toys as possible.

So I hope you enjoy and learn a few things from reading my blog!