Coconut Oil as Insect Repellent

I just read this article from the Environmental Health Bulletin, December 2018:

Coconut Oil Better Than DEET to Fight Insects

A team of researchers led by entomologist Jerry Zhu with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service Agroecosystem Management Research Unit analyzed data using coconut oil compounds against biting insects and bedbugs. Their data revealed the compounds had a strong repellency against mosquitoes and ticks. By comparison, DEET was only fifty percent effective against biting flies, while the coconut oil compound was more than ninety-five percent effective. The researchers compared the coconut oil compound against DEET on bedbugs and ticks and found DEET lost effectiveness after three days while the coconut oil compound was effective in repelling bedbugs and ticks for nearly two weeks.

The link to the research article is HERE

Natural remedies are very cool.

Drug Intolerance...An Epiphany!

This thyroid medication has some interesting and not so interesting side effects. First, biting bugs all of a sudden love me. I haven't had any bug bites for years and now it's every day. A few months ago I came across an article that explained it's hormones that mosquitoes et al. are attracted to which is why adults get bitten more than children. I always thought they were attracted to sugar. Bugs biting made berry picking this year a bit uncomfortable.

Second, I've been getting less adrenaline rushes and hot flashes at night. For a while I was getting them once an hour all night long, now it's down to two or three. Hooray! I'm not quite sure if it's connected to the higher levels of thyroid, but I think so and this is a good thing. My new and wonderful doctor is thinking I should take a pill in the late afternoon and see if it helps even more.

Third, I have found every few days the nausea starts creeping up and the headaches begin and it lasts all day until 5pm. As I mentioned before, I start getting tired around 5pm and I've been assuming this is when the drug wears off so this makes sense. It stands to reason my liver is not liking the drugs. Most holistic thyroid doctors recommend you do a liver cleanse before starting the medication to help it work efficiently. So every few days I drink a glass of freshly juiced beet juice. Blah.

Blah Juice

One way to get the beet juice down is to mix it with other fresh juices. I mix mine with a little apple juice, but the best recipe is to mix beet juice, carrot juice and apple juice. There was a raw food restaurant in San Francisco that included this drink on their menu and called it "Blood". Aptly named as it looks just like blood.

I'm also trying to eat more cilantro, another liver detox food, and drink lemon juice in water, a kidney cleanser.

Of course, nausea makes me want to revert back to by childhood comfort food: cereal and milk. It reminds me of getting the flu at my grandparents' house and my grandmother telling me cereal is what one should eat for breakfast after having the flu as it is easier to digest than eggs. I associate cereal and milk with love. Comfort food. Every time I eat it I think of her and those are good memories. I caved to temptation and bought gluten-free corn flakes, milk, and bananas, all three are NOT on my diet, but do I care? It seems to help with the nausea, or maybe it just tastes heavenly. Or maybe there is something else at work here....

So...I'm laying in bed thinking I'll probably have to be on these drugs for the rest of my life if I want to be able to function with any amount of energy, but do I really want to drink that much beet juice in my life? First, fresh juices are high in sugar and not on my diet, and second, beet juice is blah. Not gross, just blah. What can I do? There must be a simple, or, not so simple solution.

There is...WATER.

 

WATER??? What an epiphany! The best way to clean out your body and detox your organs is water. Everyone knows that so why have I refused to acknowledge this? I know I don't drink enough water. It's all I can do to get four cups down in a day, and believe me, I've tried. I've justified my lack of water with not everyone needs eight glasses of water a day, a comment I made eons ago when I wrote a blog post on water. Or maybe they do? If you are eating sugary, salty, junky or unhealthy foods, I'm sure you need lots of water to wash it all out. I failed to realize I might not be eating unhealthy foods, but I'm certainly ingesting weird substances in the name of health. Maybe I need to increase my water intake and see what happens? Can it be that easy? And if it is that easy, why has no doctor I've seen in the past ten years made this simple connection when I tell them I'm drug intolerant? They all ask me how much water I drink. Even that last naturopathic quack asked this, but made no comment. (She didn't really talk at all so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised.) Cereal and milk craving? Is it the milk adding to my hydration which is why it makes me feel better? Hmmm...

I love a good experiment! For the last two weeks I've been gulping down eight to ten glasses of water a day which is like drowning to me. I pour them all out in the morning so I can keep track and set goals. The first four glasses have to be gone by noon and it all needs to be done by 5pm. The first few days were not fun. The water retention was uncomfortable and I felt bloated and sluggish. The first few nights I was up and in the bathroom nearly every hour! What a pain! Literally! Driving anywhere for more than a half an hour and my bladder would feel like it was about to burst. But I persevered. Two weeks later and this improved a just a little so I have hope perhaps my body will continue to adjust. BUT the nausea and headaches went away immediately! Then by the second week, any time I did something strenuous or even got warm, sweat would drip from every pore. Profusely. Even my knees were sweating! This is a strange phenomenon as I've never perspired in my life! The nausea creeps in ever so slightly if I drink under eight glasses a day or with an empty stomach and I now start to crave water if I don't drink it. This is somewhat of a breakthrough for me.

It kind of makes me wonder if my life-long dehydration contributed to my chemical sensitivity? The premise, or so I've been told, is I don't detox fast enough or at all. If I've been constantly dehydrated, how could anything possibly be flushing out so that would make perfect sense. Why has no doctor ever made this kind of connection? That, however, is no excuse because I've always known humans are supposed to drink eight glasses of water a day. I am the person to blame. I am stubborn.

Excellent epiphany!

How many glasses of water do you drink?