i have alluded in recent posts to my bum back...about a week and a half ago, as i was walking into the bedroom to lay with jubal while he fell asleep, my back spasmed--the lower left quadrant. i thought something clever like "that was weird" followed by "that hurts" and went to bed. it hurt throughout the night and on into the next day. and the next. and the next. rodney suggested going to the doctor, which seemed silly to me, as he'd probably say i need to lose weight (no, really?!) and maybe give me some pills, which i didn't really want. but, as the pain persisted, it started to seem like a better idea--those potential pills were starting to take on a glorified weight in my mind. i thought about occasions for vicadin of the past (post-hospital stay for The Appendix and a couple of wisdom tooth pulls) and i thought that might be really nice right now...so i went. but he wouldn't give me vicodin because i'm nursing--even though most of my research says it's probably okay, and i extrapolated that since jubal's not nursing much anyways, and doesn't actually get much milk, he would get barely any of the dose himself...this doctor is a real stickler. so he gave me the only muscle relaxer nursing mamas can have (baclofin) and high dose ibuprofin. nothing. no relief--except for the night that i added two beers to the mix, knowing that alcohol can enhance the effects of the baclofin (no worries, the kids were asleep and i wasn't driving anywhere)...not a dosing strategy that i can maintain! the doctor had told me to be back in a week if it was still bothering me, so i went back yesterday...
the doctor suggested seeing a chiropractor or at least getting some therapeutic massage, neither of which my insurance will pay for. he also said we could x-ray my back next time if it didn't improve, but then said "or we could do it now"--we'd be looking for arthritis or degeneration (at which i made some crazy sound which meant "dammit, i cannot handle anything that's going to be time consuming or depressing!", but which the doctor interpreted as me laughing at the idea of a 29 year old with arthritis)..."let's do it, " i said, so we did. i was x-rayed by some strange lady in this weird dungeon of a room at the clinic, laying on a hideously uncomfortable table, wearing a ridiculous "gown". while i was waiting for the doctor to return to discuss my films with me, i was looking at them glowing on the outdated wall-mounted light table, feeling pride and wonder at the human body, so gloriously made and beautifully built. my spine was so lovely.
the doctor quickly returned to inform me that i did have arthritis, i did have degeneration, and that one of my vertebrae is in the wrong place, which he "would expect to be uncomfortable." he said if i weaned the baby he would give me something stronger. gee thanks.
so i started thinking herbs. i contemplated the tincture of opium poppy i made many years ago "just in case", but thought that better be a last resort. so i stilled myself and thought about what i've learned all these years of studying herbalism, thought about plants that i know are analgesic, but which are still mild and safe, did a little quick internet research to confirm my intuitions, and called wise woman herbs to see if they had everything i wanted. they did. rodney wanted to golf in creswell anyways, so i enlisted him to pick up my pre-ordered bag of pain-relieving goodness...upon his return several long and pain-filled hours later, i quickly mixed myself up my first experimental dose--would it work? would it make me too sleepy or cause a stomach ache? did i pick the right combo, the right dose? it worked, folks. it worked quickly and well. and it didn't even taste bad. my body was quickly flooded with soothingness itself, and my mind was calmed (three of my choices are nervines). so here is the magic blend, because i know you're all dying to know: 1 part passionflower, 1 part scullcap, 1 part white willow and 2 parts california poppy (which i already had on hand, fortuitously having made two quarts of it in '07)...after the relief settled in, i felt so pleased with myself and was so happy to have my faith in herbs renewed--my faith in tonics is strong as an ox, but i did wonder about how herbs would do to relieve pain when the handfull of pills from the doctor did pretty much nothing (except make me puke when i took it before eating breakfast!), i realized i hadn't double-checked their compatibility with nursing! oh crap! i rushed to pull out my PDR for herbal medicine and checked the white willow...safe! i checked the others as well, even though i already knew they were safe, just to be sure. safe! yes!
and that is the saga of my back pain and why i am a medicine maven.
i am grateful for:
california poppy
passionflower
white willow
scullcap
intuition
Showing posts with label herbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label herbs. Show all posts
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
nettle time
nettles rock! i'm drinking nettle tea right now...
so, it's nettle harvest time and i was blessed enough to get an invite with loki and ronan to go out to cougar mountain to a friend's place (thank you, anna!) to pick our fill. i couldn't find my gloves and loki forgot hers, so we were both bare fingering it and i have the stings to prove it. i'm usually pretty good at touching nettles without getting stung (grasp around the stem firmly, paying attention, and pinch!), but in a mass-collection scenario, you're bound to get stung because you're working fast and it's easy to brush your hand against the nettles (it's the light brushes that really get ya). i'm fine today (we went on friday), but for the last two days i have had the most incessant itch on my hands. last night, in desperation, i slathered my hands with my homemade deodorant, having noticed earlier in the day when i applied it that it seemed to soothe the sting a bit. it didn't really work. but it's worth a couple days itching and tingling for the stock of fresh, local nettles.
i have my nettles hanging from a string of yarn in the living room, loosely stuffed into little paper bags (you can dry herbs in big paper bags, as well, but i didn't have any on hand, now that i make my own shopping bags)...which i find to be the best drying method--they don't get dusty or exposed to light, and dry pretty fast (although i just remembered that i forgot to leave the bags open for a night to let the bugs out...i was on my second glass of wine when i was processing the nettles). another method that works well is those flat boxes like you get when you buy plants or that are under soda six packs and canned tuna...you can layer herbs into those and stack them perpendicular to each other and leave in a cool, dry, dim location for a couple of weeks (i don't have any locations like that in my house, but i'm just lettin' ya know). this method works for nettles because in this case we harvested just the tops, if you harvest the stocks, just bundle them up in small groups and hang to dry for a couple of weeks.
the main uses of nettles, in my opinion, are nutritional--for the record there are medicinal, foody (rennet for cheese), and fiber uses as well--it makes an awesome tonic being high in several vitamins and minerals, including iron, vitamins A and D, ascorbic acid, choline, potassium, phosphorus, and calcium. to name a few. also, it's super high in chlorophyll--a much better "green food" than those crazy pond scum varieties (like spirulina). so i mainly use it in my tonic infusions (infusions being extra steeped teas, basically) mixed with some oatstraw and mint or lemon balm for flavor (my goal this year is to start drinking tonic infusions every day again)...and i powder it up and add it to my breads, soups, stews, chili, casseroles, etc. when it's fresh and in season (in this area that is NOW) it's also a straight-up food, steamed in a bit of water for ten minutes or so it's an awesome side dish green. when i got home from harvesting, hazel was literally running around the house screaming "steamed nettles! steamed nettles!". and the pot liquor (the water left over from steaming it) is a quick shot of nutrition if you can drink it down, or add to soup, or (this is what i did) used as a hair rinse, or dump it on a plant (i've got a pretty good windowsill herb garden going at the moment).
hazel discovered a patch of nettles (the hard way!) over near where the girls have built their fort and yesterday loki went and harvested those. she was nice enough to give me a bag of them (yay!) and now those are drying on the string as well. i noticed a big patch of nettles in the east regional park last year, so i'm going over there today to see if i can score some just to eat on for a few days. there are also tons of gorgeous nettles growing in north regional park, but they are right next to the golf course, so i won't eat them, though they are really tempting and i think we did harvest some last year as far as we could get from the golf course, just for a meal though, not extended eating or medicine making. last year around this time is when the hashimoto's (as of yet undiscovered) was really knocking me down and i think i was just too damn tired to go harvest any for the year (i got my supply from frontier). so the pig pills, gym going, and extra vitamins must be working because right now i cannot imagine allowing mere tiredness to stop me from going nettle picking.
thanks again to loki, ronan, and anna for letting me tag along and for the extra bag of nettles.
today i am grateful for:
1) you guessed it: nettles
2) michael moore--the herbalist, not the filmmaker (though i'm grateful to him as well)...i heard michael moore died recently and i send my regards to the big herb garden in the sky. (his herb books/field guides are THE best)
3) wonderful friends
4) generosity
5) spring
update:it occurred to me a week or so ago, that perhaps the nettles we were picking at cougar mountain were the dwarf variety...which if memory serves is an annual, rather than the standard urtica dioica perennial variety--dwarf nettles are known for their wollap-packing sting and anna asked us to leave a plant or two in each five foot radius to re-seed...the lightbulb illuminates in my brain!
so, it's nettle harvest time and i was blessed enough to get an invite with loki and ronan to go out to cougar mountain to a friend's place (thank you, anna!) to pick our fill. i couldn't find my gloves and loki forgot hers, so we were both bare fingering it and i have the stings to prove it. i'm usually pretty good at touching nettles without getting stung (grasp around the stem firmly, paying attention, and pinch!), but in a mass-collection scenario, you're bound to get stung because you're working fast and it's easy to brush your hand against the nettles (it's the light brushes that really get ya). i'm fine today (we went on friday), but for the last two days i have had the most incessant itch on my hands. last night, in desperation, i slathered my hands with my homemade deodorant, having noticed earlier in the day when i applied it that it seemed to soothe the sting a bit. it didn't really work. but it's worth a couple days itching and tingling for the stock of fresh, local nettles.
i have my nettles hanging from a string of yarn in the living room, loosely stuffed into little paper bags (you can dry herbs in big paper bags, as well, but i didn't have any on hand, now that i make my own shopping bags)...which i find to be the best drying method--they don't get dusty or exposed to light, and dry pretty fast (although i just remembered that i forgot to leave the bags open for a night to let the bugs out...i was on my second glass of wine when i was processing the nettles). another method that works well is those flat boxes like you get when you buy plants or that are under soda six packs and canned tuna...you can layer herbs into those and stack them perpendicular to each other and leave in a cool, dry, dim location for a couple of weeks (i don't have any locations like that in my house, but i'm just lettin' ya know). this method works for nettles because in this case we harvested just the tops, if you harvest the stocks, just bundle them up in small groups and hang to dry for a couple of weeks.
the main uses of nettles, in my opinion, are nutritional--for the record there are medicinal, foody (rennet for cheese), and fiber uses as well--it makes an awesome tonic being high in several vitamins and minerals, including iron, vitamins A and D, ascorbic acid, choline, potassium, phosphorus, and calcium. to name a few. also, it's super high in chlorophyll--a much better "green food" than those crazy pond scum varieties (like spirulina). so i mainly use it in my tonic infusions (infusions being extra steeped teas, basically) mixed with some oatstraw and mint or lemon balm for flavor (my goal this year is to start drinking tonic infusions every day again)...and i powder it up and add it to my breads, soups, stews, chili, casseroles, etc. when it's fresh and in season (in this area that is NOW) it's also a straight-up food, steamed in a bit of water for ten minutes or so it's an awesome side dish green. when i got home from harvesting, hazel was literally running around the house screaming "steamed nettles! steamed nettles!". and the pot liquor (the water left over from steaming it) is a quick shot of nutrition if you can drink it down, or add to soup, or (this is what i did) used as a hair rinse, or dump it on a plant (i've got a pretty good windowsill herb garden going at the moment).
hazel discovered a patch of nettles (the hard way!) over near where the girls have built their fort and yesterday loki went and harvested those. she was nice enough to give me a bag of them (yay!) and now those are drying on the string as well. i noticed a big patch of nettles in the east regional park last year, so i'm going over there today to see if i can score some just to eat on for a few days. there are also tons of gorgeous nettles growing in north regional park, but they are right next to the golf course, so i won't eat them, though they are really tempting and i think we did harvest some last year as far as we could get from the golf course, just for a meal though, not extended eating or medicine making. last year around this time is when the hashimoto's (as of yet undiscovered) was really knocking me down and i think i was just too damn tired to go harvest any for the year (i got my supply from frontier). so the pig pills, gym going, and extra vitamins must be working because right now i cannot imagine allowing mere tiredness to stop me from going nettle picking.
thanks again to loki, ronan, and anna for letting me tag along and for the extra bag of nettles.
today i am grateful for:
1) you guessed it: nettles
2) michael moore--the herbalist, not the filmmaker (though i'm grateful to him as well)...i heard michael moore died recently and i send my regards to the big herb garden in the sky. (his herb books/field guides are THE best)
3) wonderful friends
4) generosity
5) spring
update:it occurred to me a week or so ago, that perhaps the nettles we were picking at cougar mountain were the dwarf variety...which if memory serves is an annual, rather than the standard urtica dioica perennial variety--dwarf nettles are known for their wollap-packing sting and anna asked us to leave a plant or two in each five foot radius to re-seed...the lightbulb illuminates in my brain!
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