Every fine line painted, every tendril curled. If He cared that much for a single flower, He cares for every detail of you.
“For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.” (1 Corinthians 11:12, NIV)
For ten verses Paul has been talking about heads, hair, and coverings, and for two thousand years people have argued over what that means we should wear. But in verses 11 and 12 Paul does something we often rush past. He says “nevertheless,” and lifts our eyes above the custom to the Source of it all. Woman came from man; every man since has come through a woman; and everything comes from God. This verse is not finally about what we put on our heads. It is about who our God is.
To see why, we have to go back to the beginning, and to why there was a beginning at all.
An answer the universe needed
Before this world was made, lies had been told about God by one who knew Him well and chose to misrepresent Him. Satan insisted he was Christ’s equal. If there was no difference between them, why was he shut out of God’s counsels? Those lies were no small matter. Left unanswered, they could have destroyed the harmony of the entire universe. For the sake of all His creation, God needed to reveal Himself as fully as He possibly could.
Creation was that answer. This world became the palette, the storyboard, the book in which God would show the angels and every watching world who He truly is. And the first thing it showed was that Christ is no angel. No created being could speak a world into existence. At Creation, Christ revealed that He was, and is, God.
The God of every leaf
Look at the care in it. God is not simply powerful, blowing everything into place and walking away. In the single day He made the plant life, every beautiful detail of every leaf and flower was attended to. The power was magnificent, but so was the charm, the beauty, and the wisdom of a God who put so much of Himself into it all. If He cared that much for a leaf, He cares for every detail of you.
The frame and the masterpiece
Day by day the story built toward its crowning act. Everything else, the light, the land, the seas, every creature, was the frame. Man was the masterpiece, the most complete revelation of God’s character that He could give to His created beings. Adam was formed from the dust of the very earth he would live on, and God breathed into him the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). He was full grown in body, but young in heart and mind, placed right into the middle of a conflict he did not yet understand.
Then God did something remarkable. He took Eve from Adam, the only person ever to come into being that way, so that the same breath of life given to Adam would be shared by her. She was like him in every way, yet her own person, free to think and choose as she would.
What does that tell us about God? The same, yet very different. Christ came forth from the Father (John 8:42), yet He is fully God (John 1:1), not an extension of the Father but a real Person acting on His own. We see a small picture of it in our own children: they come from us, but they become who they choose to become.
Back to Paul
Eve came from Adam, but every man since has come through a woman. Man does not rise above woman. They share completely in everything, and neither can grow into all it was meant to be without the other, or without the God from whom we both came. That is not a rule imposed on us; it is the natural law of how relationships work, written into the way we were made. When we honor each other, we honor God’s answer to the lies told about Him. When we lord it over each other, we contradict it.
So how do we usually read the Creation story? We blast right past the big finale to get to the fall, or we blow it all off as a fairy tale. But there is something truly huge here. Every detail matters, because every detail is God telling us who He is.
The next time you read Genesis 1 and 2, slow down. Ask the Holy Spirit to sit with you, as He sits with me when I try to put these thoughts into words. Read it as the answer God gave the whole universe, and the love story He is still telling to you.
One sheet for the whole eye. Pink eye and styes are on the Infection: Ears, Sinuses & Eyes sheet. Everything here comes back to one thing: keeping circulation flowing in and out of the eye.
Understanding the Condition
How the Eye Is Fed
Light comes in through the cornea, the clear window at the front of the eye, passes through the pupil and the lens, and lands on the retina, the light-sensing layer at the back. The retina turns light into nerve signals, and the optic nerve carries them to the brain. At the center of the retina is the macula, a spot about the size of a pencil eraser that gives us our sharp, detailed sight.
Some of the most important parts of the eye have no blood vessels at all. The cornea and the lens must stay perfectly clear, so they are fed by a clear, watery fluid (the aqueous fluid) that fills the front of the eye. This fluid is made all the time behind the iris, flows forward through the pupil, and drains out where the iris meets the cornea, carrying waste away with it. The retina is fed from behind by a rich bed of blood vessels, the choroid.
So every part of the eye depends on circulation: nourishment flowing in and waste flowing out. When that flow slows or clogs, waste builds up and tissue starves. That is the story behind every condition on this sheet.
The parts of the eye, and where each condition on this sheet takes hold. Diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.
Tired Eyes and Changing Eyesight
Inside the eye, a small ring of muscle changes the shape of the lens so we can focus. Looking up close, it tightens and the eyes turn in toward the nose; looking far away, it relaxes. Hours of close work, reading and screens keep these muscles tight all day, and like any muscle held tight too long, they tire, stiffen and lose their range. That is a large part of why focusing gets harder as the years go by. Muscles that are exercised and fed stay stronger.
Floaters
The large back chamber of the eye is filled with a clear gel, the vitreous. Floaters are small bits of debris drifting in that gel, and their shadows fall on the retina, so we see them as specks, threads or cobwebs that drift when the eye moves. When the eye cannot clear its waste, the specks can build into larger strands, like ropes across the field of vision.
Dry Eyes
Every blink spreads a thin film of tears over the eye: water from the tear glands, mucus to hold it in place, and oil from tiny glands along the edge of the eyelids to keep it from drying out. When the glands are clogged or the film breaks down, the eyes feel gritty, burning and tired, and may water too much as they try to make up for it. Staring at screens cuts our blinking nearly in half, which makes it worse.
Cataracts
The lens is made of tightly packed proteins, arranged so precisely that light passes straight through. The cells at the center of the lens are never replaced, so some of those proteins are as old as we are. Over the years, with waste and wear, the proteins begin to clump together and the lens clouds, like a frosted window. Sight becomes dim and blurred, colors fade, and lights at night grow halos and glare.
There are three main kinds, depending on where the clouding forms:
Nuclear: the center of the lens slowly hardens and yellows. The most common kind; it usually comes on over years.
Cortical: cloudy streaks like the spokes of a wheel start at the outer edge of the lens and work inward.
Posterior subcapsular: forms at the back of the lens, just under the thin capsule that wraps it. This is the fast-growing kind, and it can go from mild to serious in a few months.
Why Some Cataracts Clear and Others Don’t
Most people who flush faithfully see their cataracts dissolve. A few don’t. Dr. Christopher said he could not understand why some did not respond while others had fantastic healings, and I have seen the same results here. No one fully knows why.
What science can tell us is that cataracts are not all one thing. The fast-growing kind at the back of the lens is the one most often linked to long-term steroid use, diabetes, eye injury or inflammation, radiation, strong nearsightedness, smoking and heavy sun exposure. If one of these is behind your cataract, it needs to be dealt with too.
When no physical cause can be found, look at the heart. Hurts that have never healed can show up in the body, sometimes as the very thing that won’t respond to anything else.
My husband was one who did not respond. His story is in Stories from the Work below.
Glaucoma
Glaucoma is a problem of pressure. The aqueous fluid is made all the time, and it must drain out as fast as it is made. In glaucoma, the drain where the iris meets the cornea slows or becomes blocked, the fluid builds up, and the pressure inside the eye rises.
The pressure presses everywhere inside the eye, but the weakest spot is at the back, where the optic nerve leaves the eye. Over time the pressure squeezes the nerve and the tiny blood vessels that feed it. Starved and crushed, the nerve fibers begin to die, and once they are lost they do not come back. Sight lost to glaucoma does not return.
The most common form, open-angle glaucoma, comes on so slowly and quietly that it is called the “silent thief of sight”:
Early: the pressure is up, but there is no pain and no change you can notice. Only an eye exam finds it.
Moderate: small blind spots appear at the edges of your side vision. The brain fills in the gaps, so most people still don’t notice.
Advanced: the side vision closes in until you are looking through a tunnel.
End stage: the last of the central vision goes, and blindness follows.
Angle-closure glaucoma is different: the iris itself pushes forward and blocks the drain, and it can happen suddenly, with severe eye pain, a red eye, blurred vision with halos around lights, headache, and nausea or vomiting. That is an emergency; sight can be lost within hours. Normal-tension glaucoma damages the optic nerve even though the pressure reads normal, and poor blood flow to the nerve is believed to play a part.
Those most at risk are people over 60, anyone with a parent or sibling who has glaucoma, people of African or Hispanic descent, and those with diabetes, high or very low blood pressure, strong nearsightedness, or long-term steroid use, including steroid eye drops. Because early glaucoma has no symptoms, a pressure check and an exam of the optic nerve are the only way to catch it before sight is lost.
Macular Degeneration
The light-sensing cells of the macula work hard and use a great deal of energy. Each day they shed their worn-out tips, and a layer of cleanup cells just beneath them digests that waste and carries it away. Beneath the cleanup layer is a thin filter, and beneath that the choroid, the bed of blood vessels that brings in oxygen and nourishment and carries waste off into the blood. Everything passes through that filter in both directions.
Over the years, if the waste is not cleared as fast as it is made, it builds up. Yellow deposits of fat and protein, called drusen, collect beneath the cleanup layer, and the filter thickens and clogs. Less nourishment gets in, less waste gets out, and the cells begin to starve. That is the beginning of macular degeneration.
Dry macular degeneration is the most common form, about 8 or 9 of every 10 cases:
Early: a few small or medium drusen. No symptoms; it is found only on an eye exam.
Intermediate: many medium drusen or some large ones. Some people notice a slight blur in the center, or need more light to read.
Advanced: the starved cells die off in patches, and a blurry or dark spot grows in the center of your vision. Faces and print become hard to make out, while the side vision stays.
Wet macular degeneration is the fast and dangerous turn. The starved tissue cries out for blood, and the body answers by growing new vessels up through the filter and under the macula. These new vessels are fragile; they leak fluid and blood that lift and scar the macula, and central sight can be lost within weeks or even days. The first warning is often that straight lines suddenly look wavy or bent.
Macular degeneration rarely causes total blindness, because the side vision remains, but losing the center of your sight takes away reading, driving and seeing the faces of the people you love. The risk rises after 50 and especially after 60. Smoking is the strongest risk you can change, doubling the risk or more; family history, high blood pressure, heart disease, a diet low in greens and much bright sunlight add to it.
Fuchs Dystrophy
The cornea must stay fairly dry to stay clear. When it soaks up too much water, it swells and turns cloudy, like frosted glass. The back of the cornea is lined with a single layer of tiny pump cells whose whole job is to pump water out of the cornea, all day and all night. They work hard and use a great deal of energy, and in adults they do not grow back. When one dies, its neighbors stretch to cover the gap.
In Fuchs dystrophy these pump cells wear out and die faster than they should. Small bumps called guttae form on the back of the cornea, and fewer and fewer pumps are left to do the work. When too few remain, water builds up, the cornea swells, and vision clouds. It usually affects both eyes and moves slowly, over 20 to 30 years; many people never get past the early stages.
Early: a few bumps on the back of the cornea. No symptoms; found at a routine eye exam.
Middle: the pumps fall behind. Vision is blurry on waking and clears as the day goes on, because the eyes are closed all night and the cornea can’t dry out. Glare and halos around lights at night.
Later: the swelling stays all day. Small blisters can form on the front surface of the cornea; when they break, they are painful and feel like something is in the eye.
Advanced: the cornea becomes hazy and scarred, and sight is seriously lost.
Fuchs often runs in families, and women are affected two to three times as often as men, especially after menopause. Symptoms usually begin in the 50s or 60s. Smoking, diabetes and heavy sun exposure add to the wear on the pump cells.
Get to the ER Right Away
If you have any of these signs, get emergency care now, and keep your herbal work going alongside it:
Sudden loss of vision
A curtain or shadow across your sight, or a sudden shower of floaters or flashes of light
Straight lines suddenly looking wavy or bent
Sudden severe eye pain with halos around lights, a red eye, headache or nausea
See the Infection: Ears, Sinuses & Eyes sheet for the warning signs of an eye infection.
The Emotional Side: the Energy Work
Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together.
Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:
Eyes: represent the capacity to see clearly, past, present and future. Turn it around: I see with love and joy.
Eye problems: not liking what you see in your own life. Turn it around: I now create a life I love to look at.
Cataracts: inability to see ahead with joy; a dark future. Turn it around: Life is eternal and filled with joy.
Glaucoma: stony unforgiveness; pressure from longstanding hurts; overwhelmed by it all. Turn it around: I see with love and tenderness.
Dry eye: angry eyes; refusing to see with love; would rather die than forgive; being spiteful. Turn it around: I willingly forgive. I breathe life into my vision and see with compassion and understanding.
Nearsighted: fear of the future. Turn it around: I accept Divine guidance and am always safe.
Farsighted: fear of the present. Turn it around: I am safe in the here and now. I see that clearly.
Astigmatism: “I” trouble; fear of really seeing the self. Turn it around: I am now willing to see my own beauty and magnificence.
Crossed eyes: not wanting to see what’s out there; crossed purposes. Turn it around: It is safe for me to see. I am at peace.
Wall eyes: fear of looking at the present, right here. Turn it around: I love and approve of myself right now.
Eye problems in children: not wanting to see what is going on in the family. Turn it around: Harmony and joy and beauty and safety now surround this child.
Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are places to look and let go.
Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing
The eyes are fed by the blood, so the eyes are only as clean as the body behind them. Keep the bowels moving with LBF, and keep the liver and kidneys clearing, so the waste the eyes let go of has a way out of the body. Then work on the eyes themselves.
When It Stops Working, Flush the Liver
My rule of thumb: when what should work doesn’t work, or what was working stops working, it is time to flush the liver. The vacuum bag is full.
The eyes are such tiny vessels. The liver really needs help in every way to get the waste out and the good stuff in. If you have been flushing your eyes faithfully and nothing is changing, don’t give up on the eyes; clear the liver. See Cleansing the Liver and Gallbladder for the liver flush and the ELF.
The Eyebright Flush
The Eyebright flush is the heart of this sheet. The small amount of African bird pepper in the formula draws the eye’s circulation in and then lets it recede, carrying waste out with it, while the other herbs soothe, tone and cleanse.
Set up both eyecups first, and have a cold, wet washcloth ready, wrung out from a small bowl of ice water.
Add 1 to 3 drops of Eyebright to the eyecup, then pour room-temperature distilled water on top, so the drops mix in.
Always flush both eyes, even if only one is troubled, and alternate which eye you start with. Fit the cup over the eye, tip your head back and open the eye into the wash. If the eye wants to shut the first time, that is normal; rest the cold cloth over it and try again.
Expect a minute or two of sensation, more the more irritated the eye is. That is the circulation flooding in and receding. Once it settles, the eye feels noticeably better.
How often: floaters and tired eyes often clear in one flush. For cataracts and macular degeneration, flush at least twice a day, faithfully.
Eyebright by mouth: Dr. Christopher also had people drink the formula: ½ teaspoon (two dropperfuls) in a cup of hot distilled water, morning and evening, along with the flush.
Flushing the eye with an eyecup of Eyebright. Photo: Dara Dietz.
Hot and cold water over the eyes pumps circulation in and out of them, and it helps every condition on this sheet. In the shower, hold a washcloth over your closed eyes so the force of the spray doesn’t hurt the tender tissue on and around the eye. Use one washcloth for the hot water and one for the cold, and go back and forth.
Hot and Cold: Keep It Gentle
Comfortably hot, never scalding. The skin of the eyelids is the thinnest on the body.
Keep the eyes closed, and don’t press on the eyeball itself, especially with glaucoma.
Not right after eye surgery. Wait until your surgeon says water near the eye is fine, usually a couple of weeks.
Use a clean washcloth each time.
The Eye Exerciser: Lifting Weights with Your Eyes
My father, a doctor of biochemistry, used this string exercise in his practice when I was a teenager. There was always one hanging somewhere in his home, tied to a ceiling fan or a curtain rod. He read his novels without glasses into his late 80s. Eye doctors use a similar tool, called a Brock string, to train the eyes to work together.
Making it. Use about 10 feet of string; twine is great. Tie on or press in place 4 or 5 beads, buttons or other small objects, about 18 inches apart. Tie the far end to a ceiling fan, a bed post, or the top of a curtain rod next to your favorite chair, anywhere it can hang out of sight and be easy to use.
Using it.
Hold the end of the string, with the first bead, right at your nose, or as close as you can get and still focus on it.
Focus on that first bead. Make it as clear as you can and hold for a few seconds. The string behind it will split into a V: that is both eyes working together. If one side of the V fades, that eye isn’t doing its share.
Jump your focus out to the third or fourth bead, letting the eye muscles relax there.
Jump back to the first bead and hold it clear again.
Then go out to the farthest bead, and play back and forth between the distances, focusing for a few moments on each, always coming back to the bead by your nose.
How often: at least once a day, and sometimes more.
Up close, the muscles in the eyes tighten; at a distance they relax. Moving between them is lifting weights with your eyes. No string handy? Use two pens, one at your nose and one at arm’s length, with something across the room as the third point.
The string tied to a ceiling fan; a bead tied in place; the first bead at the nose. Photos: Dara Dietz.
Feeding the Eyes
Dark leafy greens. The macula has its own yellow pigment, made from lutein and zeaxanthin. The body cannot make these; they come only from food, especially kale, spinach and collards, along with egg yolks, corn and orange peppers. This pigment acts like built-in sunglasses, filtering harsh light and protecting the cells.
Carrot juice. For poor eyesight, Dr. Christopher had people clean the bowels and drink a quart or more of freshly made carrot juice a day, six days a week. His story of the young pilot is below.
Rest the eyes. Look up from close work and screens often, and look into the distance.
Cataracts
Flush faithfully, at least twice a day. It can take a few months of flushing to completely clear the buildup that is a cataract, and for many the results are lasting.
When the Flush Isn’t Working
Give it three months of faithful flushing, then have your eyes checked again. There should be progress. If there is none, schedule surgery. A cataract left on the lens too long can damage the eye.
Glaucoma
I have not personally supported a glaucoma case, so what follows is Dr. Christopher’s teaching. Glaucoma is a problem of pressure. Treating the eyes alone would be a foolish, inexperienced step. Something like this needs the whole body supported: the full flushing programs and liver cleansing, along with the Eyebright flush.
Understanding how glaucoma progresses, I can see how the Eyebright would be helpful. It supports circulation in and out of the eye and keeps the eye clean of debris, supporting all the small pumps and drains so they keep working well.
Keep having your eye pressure checked while you do the work. Early glaucoma has no symptoms, and only a pressure check will tell you how you are doing.
Macular Degeneration
I have worked with macular degeneration, and the Eyebright is very helpful. I have yet to see it fail to clear this issue. Flush at least twice a day, eat your greens, and support the whole body. If straight lines suddenly look wavy, see the eye doctor right away; that is the warning of the wet kind.
If you have been flushing for a few months without results, it is time to flush the liver (see When It Stops Working, Flush the Liver, above).
Fuchs Dystrophy
While the surface of the eye is whole, in the early and middle stages, the Eyebright flush supports circulation in and out of the eye as it does for any other eye condition.
If blisters form. If the eye becomes painful, feels like something is in it, or you are told blisters have formed, stop flushing that eye until it heals, and see your eye doctor.
Infection Salve for the blisters. Apply it over the closed lid, a little back from the lash line, never in the eye itself. Cover with a gauze pad and an eye patch. It speeds the healing of the blisters and helps clear any infection.
Watch for infection. A broken blister that becomes infected can turn into an ulcer on the cornea, which can scar quickly. If the eye grows redder, has discharge, becomes more painful, or can’t stand light, see the eye doctor the same day, and keep the salve going alongside.
Before any eye surgery, including cataract surgery, tell your surgeon you have Fuchs, so they can protect the pump cells.
Use distilled water for all teas and eye washes, and when taking your extracts in hot water.
Level of Commitment
Gentle support. Tired eyes, floaters, dry eyes and changing eyesight: the Eyebright flush as needed, the eye exerciser daily, and hot and cold over the eyes.
Focused cleansing. Cataracts and dry macular degeneration: the flush at least twice a day, the exerciser and hot and cold, greens and carrot juice, with liver flushing and kidney flushing so the body stays on top of the waste the eyes let go of. Have your eyes checked after three months. If the eyes aren’t responding, flush the liver.
Incurables Program. Glaucoma, wet macular degeneration and advanced Fuchs: the whole-body work of the Incurables Program alongside the eye work, with your eye doctor keeping watch on the pressure and the retina.
A Loose Healing Plan
Start the flush: Eyebright in both eyes, once for tired eyes or floaters, at least twice a day for cataracts or macular degeneration, with Eyebright in hot water morning and evening.
Every day: the eye exerciser at least once, and hot and cold over the closed eyes in the shower.
Feed the eyes: dark leafy greens every day, and fresh carrot juice.
Clear the body: keep the bowels moving with LBF, and add liver and kidney flushing for cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration.
Not moving? when what should work doesn’t, or what was working stops, flush the liver.
Look at the heart: the energy work above, especially when nothing else seems to move.
Check in: for cataracts, have your eyes checked after three months; for glaucoma, keep your pressure checks; for any of the emergency signs, go now.
Stories from the Work
Dara’s Story: Back to the Daily Flush
For about two years I had been waking up with blurred vision and a gritty feeling in my eyes. I get up in the dark, and I could not bring the clock into focus until I rubbed my eyes awake. When a friend came asking about Fuchs dystrophy, I decided to start using the flushes again seriously. The morning blur is gone, and the gritty feeling has ended. I just have to remember to keep up the daily flush, because it is obvious I am benefiting from it.
Dara’s Story: Floaters in My Glass of Water
Floaters have always been an issue for me. When I find myself trying to pick floaters out of my glass of water, I know it is time to flush my eyes. I’ve been told floaters can become so big that they are like ropes in the field of vision; for me it has always been specks floating around. The Eyebright flush normally clears them in one application. Quick, easy and very refreshing to tired eyes.
Dara’s Story: Allergy Eyes in the Humid South
Since moving to the wet, humid South from the dry climate of Southern California in 1996, I began to experience itching and burning in my eyes during the spring and summer months. Allergy eyes from the high pollen, added to the eye strain from long hours working in front of a computer screen, would leave my eyes feeling like sandpaper. Flushing my eyes using the eyecup with the Eyebright drops mixed in distilled water completely cleared the watery, gritty and tired feeling after a long day of overuse.
A Story From the Work: “But I Don’t Want to Go Blind!”
A long-time member couple were caring for the wife’s mother, a lively, dramatic lady who was always entertaining. At an eye exam, her doctor found that her dry macular degeneration had turned wet, and told her she would likely go blind in time. “But I don’t want to go blind!” she cried. Her daughter answered, “Then do the eyewash Miss Dara sent.” She began flushing every day, at least twice a day. At her next visit, the wet macular degeneration had reversed and the dry was greatly improved.
Dara’s Story: My Husband’s Cataracts
My husband was one who had to have his cataracts removed. His were fast growing and under the lens. He used the flush faithfully for a year or more with only slight results. It was obvious he was falling into the group Dr. Christopher talked about: the few who do not respond to the eyewash. He had surgery on both eyes at the end of 2025. Most people who flush dissolve their cataracts, but for the few who don’t, it needs to be taken care of.
Dara’s Story: Two Pens Before Bible Study
I use two pens in the morning before I start on my Bible study: one on my nose and the other at arm’s length, with the chair across the table as my third focus point. I’ve had mornings when I had a hard time focusing even with my reading glasses on. After stretching out my eye muscles, I was able to focus fine. It isn’t as good as the string, but it works.
From Dr. Christopher’s Files
These stories come from Dr. John R. Christopher’s books and newsletters, used with his original eyewash formula. They are his, not mine.
Carrot Juice and the Air Force Pilot
A young man wanted to become an Air Force pilot but was turned down because of bad eyesight, though he had passed everything else with high grades. When he asked if he could try again later, he was laughed at and told the condition could not be changed. He persisted and was given a three-month return date. We had him clean his bowels, go on the mucusless diet after the three-day cleanse, and drink one quart or more of freshly made carrot juice each day, six days a week, with nothing but distilled water on the seventh. In three months he returned for another eye examination and was approved with a clean bill of health and good eyesight.
Blind for Ten Years
An elderly, white-haired woman came into Dr. Christopher’s office in Evanston, Wyoming, led by a little child. She had been completely blind for over ten years. He could not promise her anything, but said the eyebright formula had done much good and never any harm. She began the mucusless diet and the eyewash, and kept visiting for adjustments and other therapies. One day she walked into his office without a child or a seeing-eye dog, smiled and said, “Hello, Doctor.” It was the first time she knew what he looked like. She picked up a book from his desk, read the title, opened it and read several verses.
Eighty-Two and a Driver’s License
“I began using Dr. Christopher’s herbal eyewash. In a few weeks I could read fine print without glasses, even though two years ago I had been told I had cataracts in both eyes. I had them tested again in January, and the cataract in my right eye was gone. The doctor OK’d the paper for my driver’s license. I am eighty-two.”
Glasses Off After Forty Years
“On December 23rd, 1978, after using the eyewash since October 10th, five to eight times daily and enjoying it burning and running down my face, I took off my glasses after 40-plus years, never to put them on again. When I looked in the telephone book and realized I could see names and numbers, I started calling friends. They had said that if I was not blind, with a white stick and a lead dog, within four months of starting the eyewash with cayenne, they would consider using it too. Already, five have started.”
Glaucoma Disappears
“I have a friend who had eight major surgeries and lived in constant pain. She went on Dr. Christopher’s three-day cleanse and mucusless diet, and started on herbs to cleanse the colon and the blood, cayenne, and Herbal Eyebright. In about three weeks her pain was gone. She had had glaucoma for 13 years, and her glaucoma medicine was making her ill. Her eye specialist tested her and said there was not even a trace of glaucoma left. He told her, whatever it is, don’t stop it, and took her off her glaucoma medication. She can now watch TV without glasses, which she had never done before.”
Cataracts, Glaucoma and Bad Vision
“I was diagnosed with a fast-growing cataract in my right eye and a build-up of pressure in both eyes causing glaucoma. I started the eyewash and capsules three times a day. Within three days I could see through my new bifocals, which I hadn’t been able to do. Within two weeks I realized I could see much farther with the eye with the cataract, when I could not see with it at all before. All along, small pieces of mucus came out of my eyes many times a day. Before the eyewash, car headlights, taillights and streetlights all had huge, flashing halos around them at night. Now the halos have disappeared.”
Cayenne in the Eye
Dr. Christopher told of a fine student of his who had begun teaching herb classes, and who happened to speak just before him one evening in Arizona. The young man said, “Dr. Christopher has always made me gasp. I’ve seen him drink two or three tablespoons of cayenne in water, and I’d just shudder. But tonight I’m going to do something he may never have done himself.” With that, he reached into a container of cayenne and threw a pinch right into his eye. Dr. Christopher thought he must have gone crazy, though he knew cayenne can never hurt the cell structure, no matter how delicate. The tears ran down the man’s cheek as he kept talking, and when he finished, he opened his eye and invited everyone to look. It sparkled; it was by far the brighter of the two. Dr. Christopher said he never saw the antic performed again, and never dared to try it himself!
Two rails, side by side the whole way, never merging, holding one path between them. “In the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.”
“Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.” (1 Corinthians 11:11, NIV)
Reading this verse across the translations, one phrase keeps showing up: in the Lord. The NEB says it beautifully: “in Christ’s fellowship woman is as essential to man as man to woman.” The Living Bible puts it simply: in God’s plan, men and women need each other. The Remedy carries it further. In God’s design, and in unity with Him, husband and wife are united in an intimate bond of love and trust.
One version did not sit right with me. Phillips says that in the sight of the Lord neither man nor woman has any separate existence. But Paul is not erasing the two people. The whole beauty of the verse is that two distinct persons, made differently, complete one another.
Made to complete each other
This is the perfection in the truth that “the two shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). We are different in how our bodies were made, in how our minds process information, and in how we relate emotionally to life. There is a balance we give to each other. Two working, happy, healthy minds become more together than either could be without the other.
When you are looking for your “other half” for life, it is not the heat of the moment that makes the union last. It is not the draw to a pleasing look or body type. What makes a good fit for a lifetime is a mate who fills in where you lack. Your weaknesses are his strengths, and his weaknesses are yours. The rest comes over time as respect grows.
Women are drawn in by care for the heart. Men notice the view first; that is simply how they are made. But often what catches a man’s eye is the inner light of a beautiful soul shining through to the outside. If nothing catches his eye, he will never look deeper. A man who walks with Christ, though, doesn’t stop at the view. He comes to find the mind and soul even more attractive. A man without Christ is only seeking something to own for his pleasure, with no regard for the heart and mind of the woman.
It takes three
To truly become one takes a third party: Christ. Without His life in us, healing the sin-sick condition we were born with, a true union is impossible. The life of Christ in us is the glue that joins two into one. It makes the one they become more than either could ever be alone. As Solomon said, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
This is the natural law of relationships, the true Law of Love in marriage. The husband has Christ as his head, the wife has her husband, and Christ has the Father as His head (1 Corinthians 11:3). That is the order God designed for a happy life.
Don’t settle halfway up the mountain
No matter how healthy we are, emotionally, mentally, or physically, alone we are only half of what we could be. But to marry poorly is to doom yourself to a mediocre existence. Even with Christ in your life, trying to fit together two halves that don’t complement each other leads to an unremarkable union, one that brings second-rate gifts to the cause of Christ. He will still lead us onward and upward. But the journey is so much richer when the one we travel with is our true soulmate, able to share and complete us well, and we them.
Who you join your life to is one of the most important questions you will ever answer. So spend more time with the Lord. Take the time to really get to know the person you’re with. Discover their heart, and let the inner beauty of their soul dazzle you with the invitation to spend a lifetime exploring its depths. That is the work of a lifetime, and a joy to do. And be that someone for them too: open, honest, and free to become more.
Become whole first
This is the life Christ is calling you to. But don’t sit around waiting for the prince of your dreams to suddenly appear. Work now to make your life as strong and whole as it can be without your completing other half before— Before what? That is for you and the Lord to decide. Without putting in your time with Christ, you will never become the person who fits the full life He has for you, with the other half who fits you perfectly.
Walking the road together
My dear friend George walking the trail with me, years ago, with Michael behind the camera as always. George has since gone to his rest, and I still miss him.
Paul’s “in the Lord” reaches past marriage, too. In Christ’s fellowship we were never meant to walk alone. He gives us friends who walk the road beside us, and He Himself is the Friend who never leaves.
Every true union begins with our friendship with Him.
Two fronds rising from one stem, each its own shape, both drawn from the same source. “As woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.”
“For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” (NIV)
These two verses have been used for centuries to put women in their place. I don’t believe that is what Paul is doing here at all. This is not a bunch of rules on how to address a husband or how a woman should dress; that would be petty and not worth a place like this in the Scriptures. This is a conversation, given under inspiration, about the natural laws of relationship between a husband and wife – laws that, if ignored, will cause strife and pain.
A Picture of the Godhead
God created man a social being; he needed a companion to share his life with. But God was also doing something more. In the creation of man and woman He was demonstrating the relationship between Christ, His Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ came out of God, and after that all other created beings, worlds, the entire universe came from Christ. In the same way Eve, woman, drew her original life from Adam.
Yet Adam has no ability to conceive and bear children. That is what woman does, with the cooperation of man. Every man since Adam has come through a woman – Paul says exactly this a few verses later: “as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God” (1 Corinthians 11:12). God is revealing Himself in this. And here is the beautiful part: this was the way God planned to reveal Himself before the fall, so sin never marred this part of the illustration. Every child born is still a small sermon about where life comes from.
The Lies It Answered
Satan was already spreading lies about the Godhead. He had access to and knowledge of the relationship between them that no other angel had witnessed, and there were no other witnesses to refute what he said. The creation of Adam and Eve, two becoming one flesh, one in heart, mind and purpose, gave the universe something it could see for itself: an unmarred representation of the three in one.
The Most Important Choice
How does this relate to us today, after sin has destroyed the perfection of God’s creation? Marriage is the most important relationship we form in this life. No one else can have the influence a married couple have on each other, for good or ill. A man who lets God be his head will begin to reflect the character of Christ – it is a law of worship that cannot be avoided. The woman who accepts him as her head will in the same manner begin to reflect his character, and he will mirror hers. The two become one.
This is why God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18). Man needed woman, and she was created to fill that place in his life – to grow into, mature and become exactly the partner for him. As you spend years with a person, loving and caring for them, you develop traits to fit them best, to please them. You become an extension of each other. And sadly, this choice is often made in the heat of the moment, with little thought of what it will do to our personality, character and happiness over a lifetime.
Made For Growing
So what does it mean that woman was made “for man”? Not for his convenience. There would have been no way for Adam or Eve to mature into loving, dependable creations of God without someone to care about. We need people to care for, those we can do for and make happy. Without that, life would be completely self-focused, and a self-focused life is not an expanding or happy life.
One translation, The Remedy, puts it beautifully: woman was created “to help man enter into the fullness of Godlike Love by being the selfless recipient of man’s humble, loving service.” Eve gave Adam someone to love, and in loving her he became more like God. And the same was true for her. Neither is the servant of the other; both grow by giving. That is the circle of Love God built into the very first home.
The golden heart of a daisy is not one flower but hundreds, each tiny floret complete in itself, all spiraling together as one bloom. Two become one and remain themselves.
“It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.” (1 Corinthians 11:10, NIV)
Why the angels?
Of all the strange verses in this chapter, this one seems the strangest. What do angels have to do with what a woman wears on her head? The translators can’t agree on what she wears—some say a symbol of subjection, others a sign of authority—but every one of them keeps the angels. They are watching.
Looked at through the eyes of Love, it is not hard to understand. Christ intended the relationship between Adam and Eve to show the Love relationship within the Godhead, and how that Love flows out into all creation in the care given to each created being. Paul says elsewhere that we have been made a theater to the world, to angels and to men (1 Corinthians 4:9). Woman’s relationship to her husband is God’s character of Love played out on that stage.
Growing into one
As Eve honored Adam in her heart and mind, the angels could see her growing more like her husband, taking on his traits of character. And since Adam’s head is Christ, and he mirrored the Glory of Christ—His character—that was the character Eve was drawing into as she became one with her husband. Not just joining him, but being drawn into something that called to her. Being drawn in usually means losing yourself, but in perfect Love you don’t. Love encourages you to be who you are.
This is what being one with someone is like. You share your hearts only to discover you were already thinking along the same lines. You don’t need to pick up the phone and check with your husband on most things, because you already know you are on the same page about the foundations of your life together. The answer already lives in your heart and mind. His loving presence fills you even when he is away. You are covered with his love and care—all the little things fixed, his hands always busy doing something to please you, not because you asked, just because he wants to make you happy. And that love is returned in all you do to make his home a pleasant, welcoming place for him.
Love speaks in different ways, though. My husband is a fixer. He knows that because of the confusion of my upbringing and the abuse I suffered, when I am in emotional turmoil I cannot tolerate clutter or brokenness around me; I just start cleaning. So when something has gut-punched me, sweet little things done to straighten and put in order calm me quicker than a hug. Jumping in with me to clean a closet while I sort out my hurt is the best way he can support me. Other husbands may speak their love in words, or with flowers. Do not judge your relationship by someone else’s. Allow your husband to express his love, and be willing to see it in who he is. Nurture the one you have. It is good, and it is perfect for you.
This is the covering a woman wears. His authority is not laid on her from outside; it has become her own. His character, his love for her, is part of who she is. It is not domination or subjection, simply the natural law of relationship: you become like the one you worship and admire. So her head shines out of her eyes. What the angels see is love drawing two separate people to work and act as one while each remains fully themselves. All the specialness of you is still in you, and you glow from the inside out with the personality that is uniquely yours. The two have become one, but remain themselves.
The answer to Satan’s lies
This union was God’s answer to the accusations against Him. God is Love. Everything He does is for the best interest of His whole creation, and because Love flows from Him throughout His universe, all creation thrives—growing, becoming more, happy in who they are, wanting to bless everyone in their sphere of influence. A man uplifting his wife through loving care was how God planned to show the angels how His own Love works.
Very little time was given for that to play out. Then Adam fell, and everything changed. He threw Eve under the bus: Why did You make her? It was her fault—and Yours. It was the first self-protecting act the universe and the angels had ever seen. How shocking it must have been to watch the man who had been willing to die with her lose all love and care for her the moment he broke trust with Christ. All that was left was fear of the future and the need to protect himself.
Seeing Him again
It has taken nearly six thousand years of healing for humanity to be able to view God again, to see the truth about Him. But we can begin to see Him again—and as we do, we become like the God we worship. The angels are still watching, waiting to see that broken picture restored. They saw the first act of self-protection. Now they are seeing damaged humanity healed, acting in love for others without regard for self, and they rejoice (Luke 15:10). What they long to see on our heads is not a piece of cloth, but Love.
Questions to sit with
If the angels looked at your closest relationship today, what would they learn about God?
Where have you felt that being one with someone made you more yourself, not less?
When fear pushes you toward self-protection, what helps you see God’s Love again?
Bladder Infections, Kidney Infections, the Spastic Bladder, and the Look-Alike: Pelvic Floor Spasm
Part of the Infection series. This sheet adds what is special to the bladder and kidneys. The core program (the two infection formulas, Echinacea, liver flushing and the five levels) is on the General Infection sheet. Kidney stones, failing kidney function and daily kidney care are on the Kidney Disease sheet.
Understanding the Condition
Urine Flows Down, Infection Climbs Up
The kidneys filter the blood and make the urine. The ureters carry it down to the bladder, a muscular holding tank, and the urethra lets it out. Because urine sits in the bladder until it is released, anything that irritates the bladder wall, or any bacteria that get in, has a long, quiet time to settle.
Most bladder infections start when germs travel up the urethra. In women the urethra is only about an inch and a half long; in men it is about eight and a half inches. That is the simple reason women get bladder infections so much more often than men. Caught early, the infection stays in the bladder. Left alone, or in a body whose elimination is already overloaded, it can climb the ureters into the kidneys, and that is when the fever and the deep backache come.
How the urinary tract fits together, and why an infection climbs. Diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.
What Goes Wrong
A bladder infection (cystitis) brings burning when you urinate, urgency, going often with little to show for it, and a bladder that feels full even when it has just been emptied. Acid urine makes the burning worse.
A kidney infection brings a deep ache in the back at about waist level, often with fever, chills and feeling very ill. It is more serious than a bladder infection and needs to be taken seriously.
A spastic or urgent bladder empties with a sudden urge when there is very little in it. Often the bladder has become too toxic, and a heavy load of bacteria, even a mild infection, adds to it.
A look-alike: pelvic floor spasm. The muscles that form a sling under the bladder can tighten and spasm, giving every sign of a bladder infection with no infection at all. More on this below.
The Infection Merry-Go-Round
Antibiotics suppress the symptoms, but they often send the infection deeper. The symptoms return shortly after the drugs are stopped, and it is back to the doctor for more. I rode that merry-go-round for years. The way off is to clear the infection completely and keep the way out open: the bowels moving with LBF, the liver flushed, and plenty of fluid going through the kidneys. When the bowel and liver are doing their job, less waste is left for the bladder to carry.
Get Yourself to the ER
Get medical care right away, and keep your herbal work going alongside it, if you have:
Fever and chills with back or side pain
Vomiting, or you can’t keep fluids or herbs down
Blood in the urine
You cannot pass urine at all
Signs of a bladder infection while pregnant
A young child with fever and burning or a change in urinating
An older person who suddenly becomes confused; in the elderly that can be the only sign of a urinary infection
Stone pain that is severe, won’t let up, or comes with vomiting needs care too; see the Kidney Disease sheet. The When Minutes Matter box on the General Infection sheet lists the signs for any infection.
The Emotional Side: the Energy Work
Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together.
Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:
Bladder problems (cystitis): anxiety; holding on to old ideas; fear of letting go; being “pissed off.” Turn it around: I comfortably and easily release the old and welcome the new in my life. I am safe.
Kidney problems: criticism, disappointment and a sense of failure; shame; reacting to life like a hurt child. Turn it around: Everything happening in my life is working toward good, and good comes from every experience. It is safe for me to grow up.
Urinary infections (cystitis, pyelonephritis): pissed off, usually at the opposite sex or a lover; blaming others. Turn it around: I release the pattern in my consciousness that created this condition. I am willing to change. I love and approve of myself.
Urethritis: angry emotions; being pissed off; blame. Turn it around: I only create joyful experiences in my life.
Nephritis: overreaction to disappointment and failure. Turn it around: Only right action is taking place in my life. I release the old and welcome the new. All is well.
Prostate problems: mental fears weaken the masculinity; giving up; sexual pressure and guilt; belief in aging. Turn it around: I love and approve of myself. I accept my own power. I am forever young in spirit.
Incontinence: emotional overflow; years of controlling the emotions. Turn it around: I am willing to feel. It is safe for me to express my emotions. I love myself.
Bed-wetting (enuresis): fear of parent, usually the father. Turn it around: This child is seen with love, with compassion and with understanding. All is well.
Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are places to look and let go.
Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing
Start the core program from the General Infection sheet. Herbal Aid 1 is the formula I use for bladder and kidney infections; it works best for clearing them. Keep the bowels moving with LBF so the waste has a way out, and keep the fluids going through.
A Bladder Infection: the First Twinge Is the Time to Act
There is a moment right at the start, a twinge, a little burning, the first urgency, when acting quickly can still stop it in its tracks. That is when to reach for Bladder Comfort.
Bladder Comfort for the burning. Juniper berry, cranberry, corn silk, parsley root and uva ursi. It neutralizes the acid that causes the burning and calms the irritated bladder. It is a comfort formula: it eases the pain while Herbal Aid 1 and Echinacea clear the infection. Take it one of two ways:
Stir 1 ounce of Bladder Comfort into 32 ounces of distilled water and drink it all at once. Or put 1 ounce in a large mug, pour 6 to 8 ounces of boiling water over it to drive off the alcohol, let it sit a minute or two, then top it off with cold water so you can drink it quickly.
Either way, drink it down fast. You want the herbs to hit the bladder all at once, not dribble in over a long drinking period. Then try to hold off urinating for about 45 minutes, so the herbs have time to work. It takes about 45 minutes to reach the bladder.
Clearing the Infection: a Place to Start
Herbal Aid 1: 1 teaspoon every 3 waking hours, about 5 doses a day.
Echinacea: 1 ounce a day, 4 to 6 days a week while you do the infection work; for chronic or repeated infections, 6 days a week.
Bladder Comfort, 1 teaspoon 3 times a day, only if there is ongoing pain and discomfort and an infection really is the issue.
How long: a first bladder infection usually clears in 7 to 10 days. If you have taken antibiotics again and again for the same infection, expect anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months.
For more in-depth infection work, see the levels table on the General Infection sheet, and step up to the level that fits.
Garlic paste to the feet for an infection that won’t clear; the directions are on the General Infection sheet.
The three drinks (below) are a nice addition to the bladder work. There is nothing in them to hurt anyone, and they give the kidneys a good flush.
Keep the fluids flowing. Plenty of distilled water. Dr. Christopher’s usual remedy for the bladder and kidneys was a strong parsley tea, at least two quarts, drunk freely. Marshmallow root tea soothes a burning, irritated tract.
Feed the kidneys every day. Kidney Support in Kidney/Bladder Tea, ½ teaspoon to each 8 ounces, hot or iced, during the work and afterward.
Take away the irritants. Dairy degrades my bladder quicker than anything else; cheese is very irritating to my renal system. Tea, coffee, sugar and soda should be avoided at all costs.
A Kidney Infection: the Aching Back
Kidney pain often feels like a stiff, aching back, so bad you hold on to the furniture to get around. But the kidneys sit at the same level as the lower back, so it can be hard to tell which one is talking. The three drinks answer the question.
Dara’s Three Drinks
Drink them one right after the other:
Echinacea: 1 ounce in 16 ounces of hot water.
Herbal Aid 1: 1 tablespoon in 16 ounces of hot water, with honey.
Hot Lemonade: a 16-ounce glass of hot water with 1 teaspoon cayenne, 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, and fresh lemon juice and maple syrup to taste.
As the fluid filters through, it calms spastic kidneys. If the kidneys are the trouble, the ache will be gone within about an hour. If it does not let go, the trouble is most likely in the back. Either way, it rules a kidney infection in or out, and the kidneys get a good flush.
Herbal Aid 1 on the Infection Program schedule: 1 teaspoon in hot water every 3 waking hours for a mild infection, every 2 hours for a moderate one, and every hour for a serious one.
Echinacea, 1 ounce in a mug of hot water once a day, once or twice for a serious infection. Garlic paste on the feet as needed, and an ELF every few days, or five nights in a row for a serious infection.
Heat over the kidneys. Hot fomentations or a Kidney Salve pack over the kidneys calm the ache. Keep Kidney Support and the tea going alongside.
Fever with back pain needs medical care the same day.
When the Flow Is Blocked Up
Juniper berry and parsley root together, as in Bladder Support, I have seen be helpful for a blocked-up urine flow.
Marshmallow root soothes and eases the flow of urine (see the story of the teenage boy below).
Healing Salve across the lower belly, over the bladder. It is anti-inflammatory and may support an area that is swollen and blocked up.
Not able to pass urine at all is an emergency. Get medical care right away.
The Spastic or Urgent Bladder
Lobelia. An excellent antispasmodic that calms bladder spasms. Take 1 dropperful by mouth each time you void until the spasm clears. The bladder is then allowed to fill properly before the urge to empty comes.
Bladder Support (juniper berry, parsley root, ginger, uva ursi, marshmallow root, lobelia and goldenseal) for urgency and leaking, which are often driven by a mild infection or bacteria in the bladder. It is a healing food formula: ½ to 1 teaspoon, 3 to 5 times a day, depending on how much trouble there is.
Clear the toxic load. A week or two on the infection program while doing a good Kidney Flush. Some people need to repeat the Kidney Flushing Program every few months to keep the bladder healthy, and good hydration matters every day.
When It Feels Like an Infection but Isn’t: Pelvic Floor Spasm
The burning, the urgency, the bladder that feels full of infection: every sign is there, and the test comes back clean. The muscles at the base of the pelvis, the pelvic floor, have become too tight and gone into spasm. It is common in women who carry a lot of stress, tension or past trauma in the body. Other things can mimic an infection too: spicy foods, artificial sweeteners, coffee, citrus and alcohol, soaps and hygiene products, and in men, chronic prostatitis.
Rule out an infection first. The symptoms mirror a bladder infection exactly, so have it tested.
Stretch the pelvic floor, three times a day. Walking will not release it, no matter how many miles you walk; I walk 2 to 4 miles a day. Look up pelvic floor release stretching routines on YouTube and find the ones that suit you; I do mine on the bed, because my knees are tender. It will not happen overnight, but relief comes within a few weeks of a good daily routine.
Lobelia relaxes the pelvic floor muscles from the inside, and M&L Salve over the groin calms the spastic muscles on contact.
Bladder Comfort eases the burning when you void.
For Men
Prostate trouble and bladder trouble often go hand in glove: a slow stream, getting up at night, a bladder that never feels empty. The other problems that tend to come along with prostate trouble often come from poor circulation in the area too, and many men have been helped by opening that circulation back up. There are natural answers for all of it, so please ask. Many men don’t, because they think there is nothing we can do. See the Prostate sheet, and call us.
Male Urinary Tract Support Tea, a classic Dr. Christopher formula for the kidneys, bladder and prostate together: powdered goldenseal root 3 parts, and 1 part each gravel root, marshmallow root, parsley root, juniper berries, lobelia and cayenne. Stir 1 teaspoon into a cup of hot water and drink it, powder and all, or fill #00 capsules: 2 in the morning and 2 at night. When the need is urgent, ½ cup of the tea often through the day. It is very bitter; a little honey helps.
A bladder that doesn’t drain well. I have some men in wheelchairs who don’t empty their bladders well. Retained urine gives bacteria a place to grow, so they use a small amount of Bladder Comfort regularly as a preventive.
A Note on Juniper and Uva Ursi
Juniper berry and uva ursi, in Bladder Comfort and Bladder Support, are traditionally avoided during pregnancy and with an inflamed kidney (nephritis). If you are pregnant, or a kidney infection is active, check in with me first, and see the ER box for signs that need medical care.
Level of Commitment
Gentle support. The first twinge of a bladder infection, a bladder that is easily irritated, or a history of infections: Bladder Comfort at once, Kidney Support in Kidney/Bladder Tea every day, plenty of water, and the irritants taken away.
Focused cleansing. A bladder infection that has taken hold, a kidney infection, a spastic bladder, or infections that keep coming back: the infection program with Herbal Aid 1 and Echinacea, the three drinks, garlic paste to the feet, liver flushing with the ELF, and a Kidney Flush week to clear the toxic load.
The Incurables Program. Years on the merry-go-round, or a renal system weakened by repeated infection: the full program, alternating liver and kidney flushing weeks, and patience. It can take 2 weeks to 3 months to clear a chronic infection, and then keep the kidneys fed for good.
A Loose Healing Plan
At the first twinge: Bladder Comfort, drunk down fast. Start Herbal Aid 1 every 3 waking hours and Echinacea, and drink plenty of water.
If the back aches: the three drinks. Gone within the hour, it was the kidneys: step up the infection work. Not gone, look to the back.
Settled in: garlic paste to the feet, ELFs, heat over the kidneys, and the levels on the General Infection sheet.
Urgency and spasm: Lobelia each time you void, Bladder Support, and a Kidney Flush.
Symptoms but no infection: think of the pelvic floor; stretch three times a day, with Lobelia and M&L Salve.
All along: watch for the ER signs. Continue 3 to 5 days after every symptom is gone, then keep Kidney Support and the tea going.
Stories from the Work
Dara’s Story: Off the Merry-Go-Round
I have had to contend with frequent kidney infections since I was a teenager. Early on I would get a couple of infections a year. By my early twenties I had progressed to seasonal bouts, and over the next ten years they came more and more often, until I was spending more days on antibiotics than not. If I was not on a prescription for infection, I was fighting the backache and bladder discomfort that usually came before a full-blown infection.
In 1996 we moved from California to New York, where I was introduced to natural healing. I had lost my medical insurance, and a friend suggested I use some dry herbs instead of running off to the emergency room for another prescription. My symptoms cleared quickly, leaving me amazed that something so simple could be so effective. It was almost three months before the infection tried to return, but this time I knew what to do and headed it off with the same herbs. That was the beginning of my way off the merry-go-round.
Dara’s Story: The Spastic Bladder on the Road
In December 2002 my husband and I took our new car on a holiday road trip to California. On the drive back to North Carolina, we had only been on the road a few minutes when I had to void, and the urgency was awful. My sweet husband pulled off at the first opportunity, and I dashed into the restroom only to find my bladder held very little urine. That scene was repeated three or four more times over the next hour and a half. After nearly two hours of restroom hopping, I decided to try a dropperful of Lobelia. Back in the car I was amazed: it was nearly an hour and a half before I needed a stop, and this time there was no urgency and my bladder was full. I kept taking a dropperful each time I voided for the next few weeks, until the spastic condition had cleared.
Dara’s Story: The Bladder Infection That Wasn’t
This past year I had what felt like my first bladder infection in over 20 years: burning when I urinated, urgency, a bladder that felt full of infection. It was so strange, because I had not had one in years. I did three garlic pastes to my feet over several weeks, thinking I had an infection that would not clear. Testing showed no infection. When I looked deeper, I learned about pelvic floor spasm: my pelvic floor muscles had become very tight. I began a stretching routine three times a day, on the bed, since my knees are tender. The relief took several weeks, and after nearly six months of trying to clear the discomfort of an infection I did not have, I am pain-free.
From the Old Herbal Books: Marshmallow Root for a Teenage Boy
A teenage boy who had long ridiculed his mother for studying herbs was brought home from football practice doubled over in pain, unable to pass his urine. He refused the hospital and begged his mother to help. She pulled fresh marshmallow root from a field, and while the tea was still steeping he asked her to wash a root and hand it to him raw. Within moments of chewing it, he straightened up, made it to the bathroom, and the pain was gone. He never ridiculed her herbs again.
From the Old Herbal Books: Juniper Berries for a Pioneer Woman
On a pioneer wagon journey, a woman lay near death from what seemed to be a kidney ailment, and the company camped for the night expecting to bury her in the morning. A stranger told her husband to gather the juniper berries and leaves growing nearby, steep them, and give her the tea. By morning she had revived and was helping with breakfast, and the wagons went on their way.
Toothache & Abscess, Infection After a Tooth Is Pulled, Bleeding Gums & Loose Teeth, Canker Sores & Cold Sores, Thrush and Bad Breath
Part of the Infection series. This sheet adds what is special to the teeth, gums and mouth. The core program (the two infection formulas, Echinacea, liver flushing and the five levels) is on the General Infection sheet. Start there, and use this sheet alongside it.
Understanding the Condition
A Tooth Is Living Tissue
A tooth is not a stone set in the jaw. Under the hard enamel is a layer of dentin, and in the center is the pulp, with its own nerve and blood supply running up through the root. The root sits in a socket of jawbone, held there by the gum and a cushion of ligament. Like every other living part of the body, a tooth is fed by the blood and cleaned by the blood.
Dr. Christopher taught that most tooth decay starts from the inside, not the outside: from a toxic bloodstream and the toxic saliva it makes. Sugar leaches calcium out of the body, and a body short of calcium takes it from the bones and teeth. That is why the teeth so often suffer in pregnancy, when the baby draws on the mother’s calcium. Good teeth depend on clean blood and good food all through life.
The mouth is also a crowded neighborhood. The roots of the upper back teeth sit just under the sinuses, the jaw joint sits in front of the ear, and the lymph glands under the jaw drain the whole area. An infection in a tooth or gum does not stay politely in one place.
Where an infection in a tooth or gum can travel. Diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.
What Goes Wrong
Toothache and abscess. When decay or a crack lets germs into the pulp, the nerve swells inside its hard shell and throbs. A pocket of pus can form at the root tip, an abscess, and the gum or face may swell.
Infection after a tooth is pulled. A pocket of infection can stay behind in the gum over the empty socket. It often shows as a small white pimple on the gum that will not go away.
Bleeding gums, gum disease and loose teeth. Plaque and a low-grade infection along the gum line make the gums spongy, swollen and quick to bleed. Left alone, it becomes pyorrhea: the gums and the bone around the teeth draw back, and the teeth loosen.
Canker sores are shallow, painful ulcers inside the mouth, on the inner cheeks and lips, the gums or the tongue, with a white or yellow center and a red rim. They are not caused by a virus and are not catching.
Cold sores (fever blisters) are on or around the edge of the lips. They start with a tingle, then small blisters that break and crust over. They are caused by the herpes simplex virus and can be passed to others, so keep them away from babies.
Thrush is a yeast (candida) overgrowth in the mouth: white, cottage-cheese patches on the tongue and inner cheeks that leave the tissue red and sore underneath. It is common in babies and after antibiotics.
Bad breath rarely starts in the mouth. Dr. Christopher said it is the sewer line backed up: a constipated bowel, with the odor coming out the front door.
Left: a canker sore, inside the lip. Right: cold sores on the edge of the lip (arrows). Photos: Jeffrey Dorfman, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped).
Why the Bowels and Liver Matter
The mouth shows what is happening deeper in the body. Bad breath points to the bowel. Canker sores that keep coming back point to a toxic condition running through the whole system, not just the mouth. Gums and teeth that are starved of calcium point to the blood. Treat the mouth, but clean up the inside at the same time: keep the bowels moving two or three times a day with LBF, and flush the liver.
Root Canals and Silver Fillings: the Facts
Root canals. In a root canal the living pulp, the nerve and blood supply, is taken out and the tooth is sealed. The tooth stays in the jaw but no longer has a blood supply of its own. A low-grade infection can linger at the tip of the root, often with no pain at all; it shows on an x-ray as a dark spot. A 2023 study from King’s College London found these root-tip infections in about half of people worldwide, and that about 1 in 6 root canals do not fully heal. People with them had higher levels of the inflammation markers tied to heart disease, and the markers came down when the infection was cleared. Dental groups say a root canal that has healed well does not cause disease elsewhere in the body.
Silver (amalgam) fillings are about half mercury and give off small amounts of mercury vapor over the years, more with chewing and grinding. In 2020 the FDA advised that pregnant women, nursing mothers, women planning a pregnancy, young children, and people with kidney problems, MS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or a mercury allergy avoid new mercury fillings whenever possible. The European Union banned them from January 2025. Taking out a filling releases more vapor than leaving it, so have them removed only by a dentist who takes precautions. For clearing metals from the body, see the Heavy Metal Routine sheet.
If you have had a root canal, or have an old tooth that bothers you now and then, ask your dentist for an x-ray of the root.
Get Yourself to the ER
A tooth infection can spread fast. Get emergency care now, and keep your herbal work going alongside it, if you have:
Swelling spreading across the face, up toward the eye, or down the neck
Swelling under the tongue or jaw, or trouble swallowing, opening the mouth or breathing
A high fever, chills or feeling very ill with a toothache
A baby with thrush who will not feed, or has few wet diapers
A cold sore near the eye
See your dentist for any tooth that throbs, any swelling of the gum or face, or a mouth sore that has not healed in two to three weeks. The When Minutes Matter box on the General Infection sheet lists the signs that apply to any infection.
The Emotional Side: the Energy Work
Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together.
Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:
Teeth represent decisions. Teeth problems: longstanding indecisiveness; inability to break down ideas for analysis and decisions. Turn it around: I make my decisions based on the principles of truth, and I rest securely knowing that only right action is taking place in my life.
Gum problems: inability to back up decisions; wishy-washy about life. Turn it around: I am a decisive person. I follow through and support myself with love.
Bleeding gums: lack of joy in the decisions made in life. Turn it around: I trust that right action is always taking place in my life. I am at peace.
Root canal: can’t bite into anything anymore; root beliefs being destroyed. Turn it around: I create firm foundations for myself and for my life. I choose my beliefs to support me joyously.
Wisdom tooth, impacted: not giving yourself mental space to create a firm foundation. Turn it around: I open my consciousness to the expansion of life. There is plenty of space for me to grow and to change.
Jaw problems (TMJ): anger; resentment; desire for revenge. Turn it around: I am willing to change the patterns in me that created this condition. I love and approve of myself. I am safe.
Mouth represents taking in new ideas and nourishment. Mouth problems: set opinions; closed mind; incapacity to take in new ideas. Turn it around: I welcome new ideas and new concepts and prepare them for digestion and assimilation.
Tongue represents the ability to taste the pleasures of life with joy. Turn it around: I rejoice in all of my life’s bountiful givingness.
Canker sores: festering words held back by the lips; blame. Turn it around: I create only joyful experiences in my loving world.
Cold sores: festering angry words and fear of expressing them. Turn it around: I only create peaceful experiences because I love myself. All is well.
Thrush: anger over making the wrong decisions. Turn it around: I lovingly accept my decisions, knowing I am free to change. I am safe.
Bad breath (halitosis): rotten attitudes, vile gossip, foul thinking. Turn it around: I speak with gentleness and love. I exhale only the good.
Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are places to look and let go.
Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing
Start the core program from the General Infection sheet at the level that fits. Herbal Aid 2 is the formula for the teeth and gums: it works on the blood and lymph and goes after a stubborn, local infection. (Herbal Aid 1 is for the throat and chest, not the teeth and gums.) Take Echinacea every day of the work, keep the bowels moving with LBF, and do the ELFs your level calls for. Then work on the area.
Toothache and Abscessed Tooth
Tooth & Gum Formula on a Q-tip. Soak a Q-tip in the Tooth & Gum Formula and swab it right onto the sore tooth and gum. It usually brings relief within minutes to a throbbing, infected or inflamed tooth. This is my favorite toothache remedy, and the one to keep on hand.
Clove oil rubbed on the gum is the backup if you are caught without it.
A paste roll in the cheek. Moisten a little Tooth Powder with distilled water and 1 or 2 drops of Tooth & Gum Formula. Spread it on a small piece of gauze or thin cotton and roll it into a thin log, 1 to 2 inches long. Wet it with a few more drops of water and Tooth & Gum, tuck it between the cheek and gum over the sore tooth, and leave it 3 or 4 hours or overnight.
The Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over the cheek. Lay it on hot (not burning) over the sore area, cover with plastic wrap and a washcloth to hold the heat, and hold it in place with a pair of pantyhose: the waist around the head like a shower cap, the legs wrapped over the poultice and tied under the chin or on top of the head. Leave it 4 to 6 hours or all night. Directions for the poultice are on the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice sheet.
See your dentist. The herbs can carry you through to the appointment and clear the infection, but a broken or decayed tooth still needs to be seen.
Infection After a Tooth Is Pulled
Do the regular infection work: Herbal Aid 2, Echinacea, LBF and the ELFs, with Tooth & Gum on the gum. If a white pimple on the gum will not clear, the infection is sitting in a pocket the herbs are not reaching. That is when to put the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over both ears.
Make two poultices and hold them over both ears with wide sweatbands, angled low around the head.
Leave them on about 4 hours, then replace with fresh ones. Keep going through the day, for a day or two.
The first few may leave the ears sore, as if the ear tissue itself is full of toxins. A little Healing Salve takes the soreness away.
Keep flushing the liver with ELFs all through; there is a lot of waste moving out.
In my own mouth, the pimple was gone by the fourth application. I was surprised it worked so well on the gum from over the ears, but the ears, jaw and gums all drain together.
Bleeding Gums, Gum Disease and Loose Teeth
Two formulas work beautifully together here. The idea behind them is an old one: Native Americans would place thin strips of inner oak bark between the gums and lips, day or night, to heal sores of the gums and tighten loose teeth.
Tooth & Gum Formula as a rinse. Bayberry, white oak bark, echinacea and cayenne, with tea tree, peppermint and clove oils. It brings circulation back into the gums, fights infection in the mouth on contact, and helps tighten the teeth and gums. For best results use a water pik: 4 to 6 dropperfuls in the reservoir with warm water, at the strongest setting you can tolerate. Used daily, bleeding gums often stop within about a week. Or add 2 dropperfuls to 2 ounces of water and rinse, swishing and straining it through all the teeth. It can also be massaged into the gums with a cotton swab.
Tooth Powder. Comfrey root, white oak bark, horsetail, peppermint, oatstraw, cloves and a little lobelia. It strengthens the gums, helps tighten loose teeth, and brightens the teeth. To brush: wet the toothbrush, dip the bristles in the powder and brush as usual.
For problem gums, pack it overnight. Mix about a tablespoon of Tooth Powder with a little distilled water into a firm, fairly dry paste. Pack it between the lips and gums, upper and lower, around all the teeth, and leave it on all night. If it won’t stay, wrap it in gauze. In severe cases, pack it six nights a week, while still brushing, until there is clear improvement. Then keep brushing with the powder.
Feed the teeth. Teeth and gums are built from the minerals in the blood. Cut out sugar, which pulls calcium from the body, and eat calcium-rich foods and herbs. Dr. Christopher’s Calcium Formula feeds the bones and teeth.
A Note on Comfrey
The Tooth Powder contains comfrey root, valued for knitting tissue back together. In the powder it is used on the gums rather than taken by the spoonful. If you are pregnant or nursing, or have liver trouble, check in with me before packing it overnight.
Canker Sores and Cold Sores
For most of my life I had canker sores and cold sores, always both together. What finally cleared them was getting good blood, full of the healing nutrients, to the mouth, while the whole body was cleaning out.
Hot and cold to the face. In the shower, alternate hot and cold water over the face and mouth. Hold a washcloth over the face for each, one for the hot and one for the cold, to soften the sharp spray.
Clean up the inside. Sores that keep coming back are the body showing a deeper toxic load. Keep the bowels moving with LBF, flush the liver, and for a few days lighten the diet to juices, distilled water and red raspberry leaf tea. Going forward, a clean, mucus-free diet keeps them from returning.
Cold sores: Black Walnut at the first tingle. Dab Black Walnut extract right on the spot at the first tingle; it often brings fast relief and helps dry and heal it. Dr. Christopher taught that skullcap feeds the nerves where the virus lies quiet between outbreaks, so support the nerves and get your rest; outbreaks follow times when you are run down.
Cold sores are catching. Don’t share cups or towels, and don’t kiss a baby while you have one.
Thrush in a Baby’s or Child’s Mouth
When the yeast is in the mouth, it really is a mouth issue, and it can be cleared quickly with frequent, gentle care. If it keeps coming back, or there is yeast elsewhere in the body, see the Female & Yeast sheet for the full Candida program.
Thrush on the tongue of a child who had taken antibiotics. Photo: James Heilman, MD, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
White oak bark tea, made strong and sprayed into the mouth with an atomizer, or swabbed on the patches, several times a day.
Acidophilus for the baby (liquid, or a capsule opened into a little sterile water and swabbed in the mouth) and for a nursing mother too. The yeast passes back and forth between the baby’s mouth and the mother’s breast, so treat both at once.
Red raspberry leaf tea to drink, for a child old enough, and as a soothing wash.
Keep going until every white patch is gone, not just until it looks better.
Bad Breath
Go to the cause: the bowel. Mints and mouthwash only cover it up. Clean out the bowel with LBF and work toward two or three movements a day; when the sewer line is no longer backed up, the breath sweetens.
Digestive Tonic. Ginger, fennel and peppermint. ½ to 1 teaspoon in a couple of ounces of water sweetens the stomach.
For the moment: chew a few cloves or a sprig of parsley.
Rule out the mouth: an infected tooth or gum disease also causes bad breath, so use the Tooth & Gum rinse and Tooth Powder too.
Level of Commitment
Gentle support. Bleeding gums, a single canker sore, bad breath: the Tooth & Gum rinse and Tooth Powder every day, the bowels kept moving, and less sugar.
Focused cleansing. A toothache, an abscess, infection after a tooth is pulled, or sores that keep coming back: the Moderate level from the General sheet with its ELFs, Herbal Aid 2, Tooth & Gum on the gum, and the poultice over the cheek or ears. Clearing a stubborn gum infection can take a month; mine did.
The full program. An infection that is spreading, gum disease with loose teeth, or a mouth that has troubled you for years: the Intense level or the Incurables Program, alongside your dentist, and medical care right away if any ER sign appears.
A Loose Healing Plan
Every day: brush with Tooth Powder and rinse with Tooth & Gum (water pik if you can). Keep the bowels moving two or three times a day.
A toothache: Tooth & Gum on a Q-tip at once, Herbal Aid 2 and Echinacea at your level, the paste roll by day and the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice on the cheek at night. See your dentist.
After a tooth is pulled: the same infection work. If a pimple on the gum won’t clear, the poultices over both ears, 4 hours each, for a day or two, with ELFs.
Bleeding or loose teeth: pack the Tooth Powder overnight six nights a week until the gums are firm; the water pik rinse daily; cut out sugar; feed the body calcium.
Canker sores and cold sores: hot and cold to the face, Black Walnut on a cold sore, a few days of light eating, and clean out the bowel and liver.
Thrush: oak bark tea in the mouth several times a day and acidophilus for baby and mother, until every patch is gone.
All along: watch for the ER signs. Continue 3 to 5 days after every symptom is gone.
Stories from the Work
Dara’s Story: The Delivery Man
Back around 2002, when our offices were in Hendersonville, one of our delivery men showed up to drop off our order in horrid pain from an infected tooth. He had a dental appointment the next day, but he was going to have to leave the rest of his route undelivered; he could not keep going with all that pain. I gave him a Q-tip soaked in the Tooth & Gum Formula to swab the area in his mouth. It was only minutes before he was out of pain and felt he could finish his day. I let him take the bottle with him. The next time he delivered to us, he told me the Tooth & Gum Formula had gotten him through to the next day with very little discomfort.
Dara’s Story: The Poultice Over My Ears
In early 2024 I broke a tooth and had it pulled, and the infection in the tooth and gum was very hard to clear. All my regular infection work would not clear a white pimple on the gum above the extraction site, a pocket of infection. At the same time I was fighting a debilitating vertigo; the harder I worked on the infection, the worse it got. Cayenne and the Brain Formula held the vertigo in check.
Well into my third week, my left ear began to feel uncomfortable. Worried the infection was spreading into my ears, I put the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over both ears, held with two wide sweatbands angled low around my head, and replaced them every 4 hours over two days. The first three left my ears very sore, as if the ear tissue itself was full of toxins; a little Healing Salve gave complete relief. By the fourth poultice the white pimple was completely gone, and my ears were fine. I did several ELFs along the way. It took nearly a month to clear, and at my follow-up the dentist took a full set of x-rays and said I was infection-free and the site was healing beautifully.
Dara’s Story: A Mouthful of Sores
For most of my life, up until 1998, I kept getting canker sores and cold sores around and in my mouth, always both at the same time. That year I went to a friend’s clinic in Idaho and did the full Incurables Program: juice fasting, bowel cleansing and liver flushing. It was no surprise that I developed a mouthful of sores while I was there.
In the afternoons I was watching a video series on natural healing. One morning, after the part on hydrotherapy, I went back upstairs and got in the shower. I had always held my head out of the flow of the water, so I had never done hot and cold to my face or mouth. This time I did, with two washcloths to protect my skin from the sharp spray, one for the hot and one for the cold. It was a liver flush day. By that evening, what usually took a week of discomfort to get rid of was gone. All of them. That is the power of hydrotherapy: getting the good blood, full of all the healing nutrients, to the place that needs it.
From Dr. Christopher: The Blizzard Lecture
One snowy night Dr. Christopher nearly canceled his lecture, sure no one would come out in the storm, but something told him to stay open, and a small crowd came. As he spoke on pyorrhea, a woman came in, listened from the doorway in tears, and left without a word. Weeks later she stood up in another class to explain. A dentist had told her all 32 of her teeth, loose but without a single filling, would have to be pulled; it was the worst case of pyorrhea he had ever seen. Wandering the streets in despair that night, she had overheard the lecture. The next morning she bought powdered oak bark and packed it between her lips and gums faithfully. Within days her gums began to tighten, and her dentist said he had never seen anything like it. She told the class to listen to what Dr. Christopher taught, because she was standing there with every one of her own teeth.
From the Herbal Literature: A Toddler with Thrush
An 18-month-old had thrush so badly that the smell filled the house: swollen lips, white sores, and a tongue so swollen he could hardly swallow. A strong oak bark tea was sprayed into his mouth again and again with an atomizer, and his parents gave him only red raspberry tea and more oak bark tea. By the next day he ran to the door with a big smile, his lips back to normal and the sores healing pink underneath.
Part of the Infection series. This sheet adds what is special to the skin. The core program (the two infection formulas, Echinacea, liver flushing and the five levels) is on the General Infection sheet. Start there, and use this sheet alongside it.
Understanding the Condition
The Skin: The Body’s Largest Outlet
The skin is a wall that keeps germs out, and also one of the body’s great outlets for waste. When the liver becomes overloaded, the body will begin to detox through the skin, which is why itching, rashes, boils and slow-healing sores so often point back to the liver and bowel. A break in the skin (a cut, a bite, a scratch) opens the door; whether infection takes hold depends on how clean the blood and tissue are behind it.
What Goes Wrong
A cut or scrape lets germs in. Cleaned and closed quickly, it heals without trouble.
A boil or abscess is a pocket of pus where the body is pushing waste out through the skin. Dr. Christopher called an abscess “nature’s way of purifying the body.”
Cellulitis is an infection spreading through the deeper layers of the skin, most often on the lower legs: red, hot, swollen and tender, with the redness growing. It can spread to the lymph and blood. Don’t mess with this one.
Bites and stings bring venom or germs in under the skin. Most settle in a day; some, like the brown recluse, can kill the tissue around the bite.
Ulcers and bedsores form where circulation is poor or pressure has cut off the blood supply. An infected or bacteria-laden wound will not heal until it is clean.
Fungus (athlete’s foot, nail fungus, ringworm) lives on the skin and nails, and hides in shoes and socks to reinfect you.
The order of wound care. Diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.
Get to the ER
Bright red blood that spurts means an artery. Apply firm pressure, and a tourniquet above the wound if needed. Always write the time the tourniquet went on, on the bandage itself; it matters. Cayenne can control the bleeding on the way, but herbs can’t repair an artery.
A cut that is deep, gaping, or into a joint or tendon, or that won’t stop bleeding
A red streak climbing from a wound, or a hot, painful lump in the armpit or groin
Redness spreading fast, with fever, chills or confusion
Skin turning dark, blue-black or numb around a bite or wound
After a sting: swelling of the face or throat, trouble breathing, or hives all over
Any bite from a venomous snake
See also the When Minutes Matter box on the General Infection sheet.
The Emotional Side: the Energy Work
Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together.
Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:
Skin problems: anxiety, fear; old, buried guck; feeling threatened. Turn it around: I lovingly protect myself with thoughts of joy and peace. The past is forgiven and forgotten. I am free in this moment.
Cuts: punishment for not following your own rules. Turn it around: I create a life filled with rewards.
Injuries: anger at the self; feeling guilty. Turn it around: I now release anger in positive ways. I love and appreciate myself.
Scratches: feeling that life tears at you. Turn it around: I am grateful for life’s generosity to me. I am blessed.
Sores: unexpressed anger that settles in. Turn it around: I express my emotions in joyous, positive ways.
Boils: anger boiling over; seething. Turn it around: I express love and joy, and I am at peace.
Itching: desires that go against the grain; unsatisfied; itching to get out or get away. Turn it around: I am at peace just where I am.
Ingrown toenail: worry and guilt about your right to move forward. Turn it around: It is my Divine right to take my own direction in life. I am safe. I am free.
Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are places to look and let go.
Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing
Start the core program from the General Infection sheet at the level that fits, and keep the bowels moving and the liver flushed: what is drawn out through the skin must also have a way out of the body. Then work on the area.
Fresh Cuts: Purify and Close
Cayenne first. I prefer the cayenne extract, as it is not so messy; for serious bleeding, some prefer the powder, which also helps plug the wound. Irrigate the whole wound with the extract (a turkey baster works well). The bleeding stops in seconds, and the cayenne purifies the wound so no infection tries to form.
Close it. Cinch the edges together as tightly as you can with a bandage. If it starts to bleed again, add more cayenne and redress it tight.
Cayenne Needs to Breathe
Any time you use cayenne on an open wound, cover it with a breathable cloth bandage. If it cannot breathe, the cayenne will heat up on the outside of the body. With a cloth bandage there is no worry.
Paper cuts. They can hurt for days while they think about healing. A drop of cayenne on a paper cut not only disinfects it but numbs it, so it stops stinging and hurting, and it speeds the healing. Often you never think of the cut again.
Deep wounds and gouges that can’t be pulled together: once clean, pack with the Healing Poultice (below).
Drawing It Out: Salve and Poultice
Infection Salve: the Herbal Aid 2 herbs triple-infused in olive oil. Apply it to any hot, red or inflamed sore and cover with cotton flannel. A handy trick: lay flannel on a sheet of Press’n Seal wrap, spread the salve on the flannel, and press it over the area. Members have reported doctor-diagnosed MRSA clearing with Infection Salve, on a baby’s bottom and on an adult’s shoulder.
Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice: activated charcoal and fresh-ground flaxseed cooked into a paste and laid on warm, the heat opening the pores so the infection can be drawn out. Leave on 4 to 6 hours or overnight. For a stubborn infection, alternate it with Infection Salve packs, each on 4 hours or more. Never reuse a poultice.
Hot Epsom salt bath: helps a stubborn bite or boil come to a head, drain and release, followed by a salve pack.
Boils and Abscesses
Draw it: the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over the boil. Normally the boil will open and drain overnight.
Clean the blood: burdock root tea daily, 1 rounded teaspoon of dried root in 8 to 12 oz of boiling water, steeped 15 minutes (add ½ teaspoon of burdock extract for a stronger tea). Continue 3 to 4 weeks after the boils clear.
Run the program: the Basic or Moderate level for about 10 days. Keep the bowels open, cut processed food and sugar, drink carrot juice and plenty of fluids. Repeated boils say the blood and liver need cleaning.
Bites and Stings
As soon as you notice the bite, apply a generous amount of Infection Salve over it, spread out in all directions for several inches if possible, and cover with cotton flannel. A common spider bite usually clears in about 24 hours with the salve alone; ant bites often in minutes.
A bad bite (like the brown recluse): the full program. Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice overnight, alternating with Infection Salve packs by day; the infection formulas every 2 hours with Echinacea; a hot Epsom salt bath to draw it out; and an ELF. A brown recluse bite will usually need lancing at some point. A recluse bite is often painless at first; symptoms come 2 to 8 hours later. The spot turns pale with a red ring around it (a bull’s-eye), may blister, and over 12 to 48 hours the center can sink and turn bluish, then black, as the tissue dies.
Cellulitis
Infection Salve and ELF-ing: the full infection program. Don’t mess with this one. Run the Moderate or Intense level with its liver flushing, keep Infection Salve packs over the area, and use the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over it overnight. And clean up your diet: in my opinion, this is a junk food thing. Watch the edge of the redness; if it keeps spreading, or fever and chills come, get medical care now.
Ulcers and Bedsores
Clean it first. An infected wound will not heal. Use the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice until all signs of infection are gone, with Infection Salve around the edges.
Fill it in. Pack the wound with the Healing Poultice (slippery elm, plantain, goldenseal, comfrey and a pinch of cayenne, mixed with distilled water or aloe to a stiff paste). It forms a protective herbal scab while new flesh grows in from the bottom.
Bring the blood. Before each dressing, soak the area in hot cayenne water (½ teaspoon cayenne tincture per gallon of hot water), or alternate 7 hot and 7 cold. See the Healing Poultice sheet for the full routine.
A Note on Comfrey
Comfrey knits flesh quickly, which is why the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice always goes first, so the wound is clean before it starts to close. Some herbalists advise caution with comfrey during pregnancy, while nursing, or with liver disease; if that’s you, check in before using it.
The Feet
Hot and cold foot soaks: 1 teaspoon cayenne per gallon of hot water in one bucket, ice water in the other; 7 changes, at least 60 seconds in the cold. The ice plunge is where the power to break up the blockage happens.
Then M&L Salve massaged over the foot to open the lymph, and an Infection Salve pack over any infected area. Do at least one ELF any time the body is having a hard time healing.
Fungus: Athlete’s Foot, Nail Fungus and Ringworm
Black Walnut is the most powerful antifungal; there is nothing better.
Freeze everything that touches your feet. Put all your shoes and everything that touches your feet into the freezer for at least 24 to 48 hours, to kill the fungus so you don’t reinfect yourself. The washer will not kill it all. Freeze them again at the end of the healing.
Athlete’s foot: do the hot cayenne and ice-water soaks to speed the circulation, then cover the area with Black Walnut Salve and pull on clean socks.
Nail fungus, mild: Black Walnut Salve. Easy, and no staining.
Nail fungus, serious: Black Walnut extract on a cotton ball taped over the nail, for several weeks to a couple of months. The nail will stain completely black. When the fungus is gone, the nail has to grow out, which can take most of a year.
Ringworm: Black Walnut extract or salve as a pack over the patch, bandaged 4 to 6 hours at a time. The extract is stronger but stains the skin; the body sloughs off the stain in a few days. How long it takes depends on the size and how long it has been there.
Itching, Hives and Rashes
When the liver becomes overloaded, it will begin to detox through the skin. Healing Salve (Dr. Christopher’s Healing Ointment) calms the itch on the outside; an ELF, or a week of liver flushing, clears it from the inside. If nausea comes during the ELF, the L/P and Digestive Tonic drink on the General Infection sheet settles it.
Use distilled water for all teas, and when taking your extracts in hot water.
Level of Commitment
Gentle support. A cut, a sting, a single boil, athlete’s foot: the area work above, with the Basic level for a few days if needed.
Focused cleansing. Repeated boils, a bad bite, a stubborn ulcer, itching that won’t quit: the Moderate level with its ELFs, the poultice nightly, burdock for the blood, and the bowels kept moving. Fungus takes patience: weeks for the skin, months for a nail.
The full program. Cellulitis, a brown recluse bite, spreading infection, or a wound threatening a limb: the Intense or Intensive level from the General sheet, alongside medical care when the ER signs appear.
A Loose Healing Plan
Right away: cayenne for a bleeding cut; Infection Salve, spread wide and covered, for a bite, sting or hot sore.
That night: the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over anything infected, boiling or swelling.
Start the core program at the level that fits; add burdock for boils; keep the bowels moving.
Alternate poultice and salve packs; use the hot Epsom bath or hot and cold soaks to draw and circulate.
Fill in deep wounds and ulcers with the Healing Poultice once they are clean.
Watch for the ER signs every day, and continue 3 to 5 days after the skin is clear.
Stories from the Work
Dara’s Story: Michael’s Thumb
In 2008 my husband was laying tile in our upstairs bathroom. Cutting the backer board on a Friday night, the knife slipped; it split his thumbnail in half and laid his thumb muscle open the long way down. I took him to the office, got a bottle of cayenne extract and a turkey baster, and irrigated the whole wound. The bleeding stopped in seconds. I cinched it together as tight as I could with a bandage. The next morning it tried to bleed a little, so I did more cayenne and redressed it. By Monday it was sealed over and he was using the hand. Because the cayenne purified the wound, no infection ever tried to form; it healed with only the smallest scar. About six months later he let out a holler at his desk: a jolt like an electric shock through his thumb. That was the nerve rejoining. He has never had a problem with it since. The body knows how to heal if we give it the tools and get out of the way.
Dara’s Story: The Toe She Almost Lost
Visiting a friend in California, I met a woman who was scheduled to have her big toe amputated the next day. An infection had set in after an ingrown toenail was removed, no antibiotic had touched it, and blue veins were running up her leg. I cooked up a Charcoal & Flaxseed poultice in my friend’s kitchen and packed it over her whole foot to leave on overnight. By morning the redness and the blue veins were gone. She canceled the operation, and she still has her toe.
A Member’s Story: Three Days for a Brown Recluse
Years ago, one of our employees was bitten by a brown recluse; his bite was lanced at the doctor’s, and it was weeks before he was clear of the mess. So I was thrilled in 2021 when a member did the full program on his bite. Infection Salve under flannel right away; the bite was lanced; the Charcoal & Flaxseed poultice that night; poultice and salve packs alternating the next day, with the infection formulas every two hours and Echinacea. A hot Epsom salt bath drew out a discharge like cottage cheese; then a salve pack, an ELF, and a poultice overnight. The second day needed less, and the bite was clear in three days.
The member’s brown recluse bite. Member’s photo, shared with permission.
The bite after the hot Epsom salt bath drew out the discharge. Member’s photo, shared with permission.
A Member’s Story: Flesh That Grew Back
A member with dark skin fell from a stool past a large nail sticking out the side, and it gouged out her flesh, too deep and open to be sewn. She packed it with the Healing Poultice. Week by week the hole grew shallower as the muscle and flesh regrew, until it came off like an old scab. The new skin matched her color perfectly, with no scar.
Dara’s Story: Weeds, Ants and a Spider
Pulling weeds from our raised bed without a glove, I upset a spider and a whole mound of ants, and was bitten by all of them. I react strongly to ant bites. I spread a thick layer of Infection Salve over my burning, swelling hand and sat at my desk while it worked. The ant bites cleared in about 15 minutes; the spider bite stopped throbbing in a couple of hours and was clear by morning.
A Member’s Story: Teenage Feet Again
A woman in New York called asking how to clear her toenail fungus, and then I didn’t hear from her for nearly a year. When she called back, it was to celebrate. She had used the Black Walnut extract, and her toenails had turned completely black; she wore socks and shoes until they grew out, which took nearly a year. When they came in, they were perfect. She said she felt like she had teenage feet again.
Earaches, Ear Infections, Sinus Infections, Pink Eye and Styes
Part of the Infection series. This sheet adds what is special to the head. The core program (the two infection formulas, Echinacea, liver flushing and the five levels) is on the General Infection sheet. Start there, and use this sheet alongside it.
Understanding the Condition
It Is All Connected
The ears, sinuses and eyes all drain into the same place: the back of the nose and the throat. Tears drain through the tear duct into the nose. The sinuses, hollow spaces in the bones of the face, drain into the nose. The eustachian tube runs from the middle ear to the back of the nose. When that common drain is blocked with mucus and waste, everything above it backs up, and the backed-up waste is where infection takes hold.
That is why a head cold so often turns into an earache, a sinus infection or pink eye, and why the work for any of them is the same: open the drain, draw the infection out, and support the body with the core program.
The eyes, sinuses and ears all drain into the nose and throat. Diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.
The Ears
An outer-ear infection often starts from a scratch or from water left standing in the ear (swimmer’s ear). A middle-ear infection comes from a blocked eustachian tube, and can linger a long time; little ones who rub and pull at their ears are telling us something is wrong. An inner-ear infection can disturb the balance, bringing dizziness, vertigo and nausea.
The Sinuses
When mucus and waste pack into the sinuses and harden, the sinuses can no longer drain. Pressure builds behind the cheeks, eyes and forehead, the nose stops up, and infection settles in the stagnant waste. Impacted sinuses need that hard-packed waste softened and drained before they can clear.
The Eyes
Pink eye usually comes from a clogged tear duct, or an infected one. When the tears cannot flow, the eye cannot wash itself. A sty is an infected oil gland at the edge of the eyelid, a painful little boil that is the body pushing waste out through the delicate tissue of the lid. Pink eye is very contagious.
Get Yourself to the ER
If you have any of these signs, get emergency care now, and keep your herbal work going alongside it:
Sudden eye pain with blurred or lost vision
Red, hot swelling spreading around the eye
An earache with a stiff neck, high fever or confusion
A red, swollen, tender bump behind the ear
Severe sinus pain with swelling of the forehead or around the eyes
See the When Minutes Matter box on the General Infection sheet for the signs that apply to any infection.
The Emotional Side: the Energy Work
Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together.
Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:
Sty: looking at life through angry eyes; angry at someone. Turn it around: I choose to see everyone and everything with joy and love.
Keratitis (inflamed eye): extreme anger; a desire to strike out at what you see. Turn it around: I let the love from my own heart heal all that I see. I choose peace.
Eye problems: not liking what you see in your own life. Turn it around: I now create a life I love to look at.
Pink eye (conjunctivitis): anger and frustration at what you are looking at in life. Turn it around: I see with eyes of love. There is a harmonious solution, and I accept it now.
Eye problems in children: not wanting to see what is going on in the family. Turn it around: Harmony, joy, beauty and safety now surround this child.
Earache (outer, middle or inner ear): anger; not wanting to hear; too much turmoil; parents arguing. Turn it around: Harmony surrounds me. I listen with love to the pleasant and the good. I am a center for love.
Sinus problems: irritation with one person, someone close. Turn it around: I declare that peace and harmony dwell in me and surround me at all times. All is well.
Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are places to look and let go.
Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing
Start the core program from the General Infection sheet at the level that fits: Herbal Aid 1 is especially good for the sinuses and the head. Keep the bowels moving with LBF, so what drains from the head has a way out of the body. Then work on the area itself.
The Ears
Treat both ears, always, even if only one is infected.
The Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over both ears, applied as hot as can be tolerated, and left on overnight. Two wide sweatbands hold it in place for an adult. For a child, use an old pair of pantyhose worn like a cap, with the legs tied to hold a poultice over each ear. Make it a game; children don’t mind it at all. Most of the time one overnight application clears the infection. See the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice sheet for how to make it.
Ear oil. If you have it, add 4 to 6 drops of Garlic & Mullein oil in each ear, with a cotton plug. If you don’t have it, the poultice works on its own.
Never Put Anything in a Broken Eardrum
Do not ever put anything in an ear with a ruptured or broken eardrum. It can cause horrid pain.
If fluid or pus is draining from the ear, or the pain stopped suddenly after a pop, the eardrum may be broken. Use the poultice over the outside of the ears only, and nothing inside the ear.
The Sinuses: Snuff
Snuff is a fine herbal powder of bayberry, goldenseal, garlic and a little cayenne. It liquefies the hard-packed mucus in the sinuses so it can drain out in all directions: out the nose when you blow it, and down the throat.
Use: place a small pinch on the back of your hand. Hold one nostril closed and snort it up into the sinus through the other. Keep snorting it up until you taste the bitter goldenseal running down your throat. Then do the other side. Your nose will begin to drain; blow it as often as needed.
How often: I have used it repeatedly in a day when my nose was clogged, with no ill effects. Let common sense tell you when to stop: once the nose is clear and open, you are pretty much done.
Children: if a child can understand enough to copy an adult showing them how, and they need the sinuses cleared, they are old enough to use it.
Too blocked to draw air? Open the way first. Cut up several onions and let the vapors get the eyes watering and the nose running. Or blend fresh horseradish with apple cider vinegar to the consistency of applesauce, and hold ¼ to ½ teaspoon between your tongue and the roof of your mouth. Then begin the snuff.
Snuff in a Neti Pot
For a gentler rinse, snuff can be used in a neti pot to flush the sinuses.
Water: one cup of warm, tepid water. It must be distilled water, or water boiled and cooled. Never use water straight from the tap in a neti pot.
Add: about ¼ teaspoon of plain non-iodized salt, so the water doesn’t sting, and ¼ teaspoon of snuff to start. Work up to what is needed.
How often: it depends on the issue; some do it twice a day. Let common sense guide you.
The Eyes: Eyebright and Infection Salve
Flush both eyes with the Eyebright wash, even if only one is affected: 1 to 3 drops of Eyebright in an eyecup, topped with room-temperature distilled water. Fit the cup over the eye, tip your head back and open the eye into the wash. Expect a minute or two of sensation as the circulation floods in and recedes, carrying waste out with it. See the Eyebright sheet for full directions.
Pink eye is often cleared in one application. The Eyebright opens the clogged tear duct and lets the tears flow again. It works very quickly.
Styes: flush the eye with Eyebright first, to clear out any debris and speed healing. Then close the eye and apply Infection Salve over the lid. Place a gauze pad over the closed lid and cover it with an eye patch.
Pink Eye Spreads Easily
If another flush is needed, soak the eye cups in a bowl of hot soapy water with a little bleach.
When children have pink eye, keep bleach water handy and wipe anywhere little hands have touched.
As an adult, don’t touch your eyes. If you do, wash your hands before you touch anything else.
Use distilled water for all teas and eye washes, and when taking your extracts in hot water.
Level of Commitment
Gentle support. A simple earache, a stuffy head or pink eye: the area work above, with the Basic level of the core program for a few days.
Focused cleansing. A stubborn or recurring ear or sinus infection: the Moderate level with its liver flushing, the poultice nightly, snuff daily, and the bowels kept moving. Continue 3 to 5 days after all symptoms are gone.
Long-standing trouble. Ear or sinus infections suppressed with antibiotics for years can surface again as the body cleans house. Don’t be discouraged; do the work again. One application isn’t always enough to pull an old infection all the way out.
A Loose Healing Plan
At the first sign: Herbal Aid 1 in hot water with honey, Echinacea, and the core program at the level that fits.
Ears: the poultice over both ears overnight; ear oil in both ears if you have it and the eardrum is whole.
Sinuses: onion or horseradish if the nose is fully blocked, then snuff as often as needed, or the neti pot rinse.
Eyes: Eyebright flush in both eyes; Infection Salve under a pad for a sty. Clean the eye cups and wipe down surfaces.
All along: keep the bowels moving, drink plenty of fluids, and watch for the ER signs.
Stories from the Work
Dara’s Story: The Poultice and the Pantyhose
My daughter was forever getting ear infections, until another homeschooling mother taught me a trick back in 1996: a Charcoal & Flaxseed poultice, as hot as can be tolerated, over both ears, always both, even when only one is bothering the child. The trick is keeping it in place, so we used an old pair of pantyhose worn over the head like a cap, with the legs fastening a poultice over each ear. My children loved playing “boogie man” in their poultice caps. Most of the time, one overnight application is all it takes.
A Story From the Work: “My Brains Are Coming Out My Ears!”
In the early 2000s, a little girl who spent her mornings with us was facing yet another round of ear tubes. Her mother put a Charcoal & Flaxseed poultice over both of her ears while she did her schoolwork. Before long she came running in tears: “Mommy, Mommy, my brains are coming out my ears!” Her shoulder was soaked with fluid being drawn out of her inner ear. She never needed the tubes, and her days of ear infections were over for good.
Dara’s Story: The Bottle She Wouldn’t Let Go Of
Around 2003 my book editor came to our editing meeting with a burning case of pink eye she had caught from her little girl. I took her upstairs and flushed her eye with the Eyebright wash; the discomfort eased almost immediately. When I offered to send her home with a fresh bottle, she wouldn’t hear of it. She paid me right there for the half-used bottle, and held onto it through the whole rest of the meeting.
Dara’s Story: Cutting an Onion
When I can’t breathe through my nose, my own fix is simple: I cut an onion until my eyes water and my nose runs. That opens my sinuses enough to snort up the snuff. Once it hits, it melts the blocked-up mucus loose, and it runs right out my nose and down my throat.
Part of the Infection series. This sheet adds what is special to the throat, chest and lungs. The core program (the two infection formulas, Echinacea, liver flushing and the five levels) is on the General Infection sheet. Start there, and use this sheet alongside it.
Understanding the Condition
One Airway, Top to Bottom
Air comes in through the nose and mouth, passes the throat and tonsils, goes through the voice box and down the windpipe, then into the bronchial tubes, which branch like an upside-down tree into the lungs. The whole way down, the airway is lined with a thin layer of mucus that traps dust, germs and irritants before they reach the delicate lung tissue. In a healthy body that mucus stays thin and is cleared without our noticing.
When the body is congested, the mucus thickens into old, hard debris that cannot be coughed out. That is where infection settles. A cold that is not cleared works its way down: a scratchy throat becomes a cough, a cough becomes bronchitis, and bronchitis can settle in the lungs as pneumonia. The lower it settles, the more serious it is and the harder the work, which is why the time to act is at the first scratch in the throat.
Each part of the airway, and the infections that settle there. Diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.
What Goes Wrong
Colds and flu take hold in mucus-rich tissue of the nose and throat. Caught at the first sign, they can usually be cleared quickly.
A sore throat or strep throat is inflammation of the throat and tonsils. The tonsils may swell from a clogged lymph system; strep forms pockets of pus on the tonsils and the back of the throat.
Laryngitis is inflammation of the voice box. The vocal cords swell, and the voice goes hoarse or quits altogether.
Croup is swelling and spasm in the voice box and windpipe of a young child, with a harsh, barking, crowing cough, usually at night. It is the spasm on top of the swelling that makes the breathing so frightening.
Coughs and bronchitis come from inflamed bronchial tubes. Left there, the thickened mucus keeps irritating the tubes, and an occasional cough becomes a chronic one.
Whooping cough is a bacterial infection with coughing fits that go on, cough after cough, until there is no air left; the breath sucked back in makes the “whoop.” Babies under 6 months may not whoop. Once called the 100-day cough, it commonly takes six to ten weeks to clear.
Pneumonia is a swelling and infection of the lungs in which parts of the lung become plugged with a thick fluid. Breathing becomes labored and the fever climbs.
Pleurisy is inflammation of the lining around the lungs, making every breath painful. Dr. Christopher saw it settle where mucus collects in a weak area of the lungs, often from never breathing deeply.
Why the Bowels Matter
Dr. Christopher taught that constipation is one of the chief causes of bronchial trouble: “the bowels must be cleared and kept open.” Mucus has to leave the body, and the bowel is its main way out. When the bowel is not moving everything out, the body cannot send more mucus there, so it sits and thickens wherever it is, and it can fill the lungs. Keep the bowels moving two or three times a day with LBF all through this work.
Get Yourself to the ER
If you have any of these signs, get emergency care now, and keep your herbal work going alongside it:
Struggling to breathe, or lips or fingernails turning blue or gray
A child who can’t swallow, is drooling, or sits leaning forward to breathe
Croup with a high, harsh sound on every breath, even at rest, that steam and cool air don’t ease
A baby who stops breathing or goes limp after a coughing fit
High fever with fast breathing, chest pain or confusion
Coughing up blood
A throat so swollen on one side that the voice is muffled and the mouth won’t open
A cough that lasts for weeks, with night sweats and weight loss. Tuberculosis needs medical testing and treatment; it is contagious.
See the When Minutes Matter box on the General Infection sheet for the signs that apply to any infection.
The Emotional Side: the Energy Work
Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together.
Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:
Throat problems: the inability to speak up for one’s self; swallowed anger; stifled creativity; refusal to change. Turn it around: It’s okay to make noise. I express myself freely and joyously. I speak up for myself with ease. I express my creativity. I am willing to change.
Sore throat: holding in angry words; feeling unable to express the self. Turn it around: I release all restrictions, and I am free to be me.
Tonsillitis: fear; repressed emotions; stifled creativity. Turn it around: My good now flows freely. Divine ideas express through me. I am at peace.
Laryngitis: so mad you can’t speak; fear of speaking up; resentment of authority. Turn it around: I am free to ask for what I want. It is safe to express myself. I am at peace.
Coughs: a desire to bark at the world: “See me! Listen to me!” Turn it around: I am noticed and appreciated in the most positive ways. I am loved.
Bronchitis (and croup): an inflamed family environment; arguments and yelling; sometimes silent. Turn it around: I declare peace and harmony within me and around me. All is well.
Lung problems: depression; grief; fear of taking in life; not feeling worthy of living life fully. Turn it around: I have the capacity to take in the fullness of life. I lovingly live life to the fullest.
Pneumonia: desperate; tired of life; emotional wounds that are not allowed to heal. Turn it around: I freely take in Divine ideas that are filled with the breath and the intelligence of life. This is a new moment.
Influenza: a response to mass negativity and beliefs; fear; belief in statistics. Turn it around: I am beyond group beliefs or the calendar. I am free from all congestion and influence.
Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are places to look and let go.
Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing
Start the core program from the General Infection sheet at the level that fits. Herbal Aid 1 is the formula for the throat and chest: warming, it moves the blood and cuts through the mucus. Keep the bowels moving with LBF so what is loosened has a way out. Then work on the area.
Colds and Flu: Catch It at the First Sign
Herbal Aid 1 tea. At the first sign, I make a hot cup of Herbal Aid 1 with honey and sip it all through the day. I am usually on top of my symptoms in about 24 hours. Start Echinacea the same day.
The Flu Buster. 2 ounces of Echinacea and 2 ounces of Supertonic in 64 ounces of distilled water, sipped through the day. Do it for 2 to 3 days.
When illness is going around, take Lobelia, 1 to 2 dropperfuls 2 to 3 times a day, through the exposure window. My stories here are all the same: everyone else got sick, and the person on Lobelia didn’t.
Fever: help the fever do its work with the Epsom salt sweat bath; never sweat a small child. Both are on the General Infection sheet.
The Throat: Sore Throat, Strep and Laryngitis
Sip Herbal Aid 1. A hot cup of Herbal Aid 1 with honey, sipped slowly so it rolls over the sore spot.
The Ice Poultice. Wet a washcloth, fold it to fit around the neck, and freeze it until it is hard, about 20 to 30 minutes. Wrap it snugly around the throat, cover it with a hand towel, and fasten it with a safety pin. Keep the mouth shut: no talking, eating or drinking for about 45 minutes, until the body has warmed the cloth through. Then sip a second hot cup of Herbal Aid 1 with honey.
Swollen tonsils and glands: alternate two packs over the neck. An M&L pack: M&L Salve spread on a piece of flannel, wrapped around the neck and covered. And the Charcoal & Flaxseed Poultice over the swollen area. Do one one night and the other the next night, or one at night and one during the day. Either way is helpful. Keep going until the swelling is gone.
A tired or failing voice responds to the same Ice Poultice, done before you need to speak.
Why the Ice Poultice Works
The body senses that very cold spot and rushes warm, fresh blood, loaded with fresh antibodies, to the throat to warm it. That blood does the real work, clearing the inflammation and infection in the time it takes to warm the cloth. I have seen it take the pus pockets off strep throat in 45 minutes.
Croup
Antispasmodic first. Antispasmodic is my go-to for croup. It is made with lobelia seed and is much stronger than plain Lobelia, so only a few drops are needed: 1 or 2 drops for a newborn or young infant, and a bit more for older children. It relaxes the spasm that is closing the airway.
Steam. Run the hot shower and sink to fill the bathroom with steam, and hold the child upright in it.
Cool night air. Bundle the child up with a hat, blanket and slippers, and sit outside in the cool air for 5 or 10 minutes, breathing calmly. It cools the irritated bronchial tubes and calms the spasm.
M&L Salve rubbed over the chest and back.
Babies Need a Different Approach
Older children: Lobelia as needed for coughing spasms, dosed for size; propped up on pillows at night; steam, cool air, and plenty to drink.
Babies: a nursing baby gets the formulas through mother’s milk. In a serious case, 1 or 2 drops of Antispasmodic can be slipped into the baby’s mouth during a feeding, followed by milk. Hold the baby upright, pat the back firmly with a cupped hand, and use the steam. Gently suction the nose if it is needed.
Your calm voice matters more than anything. Talk the child through every fit.
Coughs and Bronchitis
Bronchial Support (formerly the Bronchitis Formula) is built to clear a cough that hangs on: it loosens the old, hard mucus in the bronchial tubes so it can be coughed out. ½ to 1 teaspoon every 3 to 5 hours.
Lobelia for coughing spasms: 1 full dropperful. It relaxes the spasm and also helps loosen the mucus, so it does not stop the body from clearing it.
M&L Salve massaged over the chest and back. This is my preference for the chest.
Onion and honey syrup. Dr. Christopher’s simple cough syrup: dice onions into a stainless steel, glass or unchipped enamel pan (never aluminum), pour honey over them until they are covered, and add nothing else. The honey draws the onion’s power out into a syrup. Take it by the spoonful. Keep it cool, or it will sour.
Lung Support strengthens the whole respiratory tract when it has been weak for a long time, or after pneumonia: 2 to 4 droppersful, 3 to 5 times a day. It works best used steadily over time, not just in an emergency.
A Note on Coltsfoot and Comfrey
Bronchial Support contains coltsfoot and comfrey, two traditional cough herbs. Use it while the cough is active rather than month after month. If you are pregnant or nursing, or have liver trouble, check in with me before using it.
Whooping Cough
A member who nursed her children through whooping cough wrote down what she did, and she put it together perfectly. Her three goals: keep the child rested, build the immune system, and get the mucus out regularly.
Stay calm. Your calm voice keeps the child from panicking. Remind them to open their mouth and breathe; children will try to suck in air through closed lips.
Lobelia at night. Every 2 hours, or whenever a child wakes coughing. It lasts about 2 hours, and it helps them sleep. During the day, give it only if they are miserable; let them cough some to loosen what is in the lungs. Give Echinacea and the infection formulas consistently.
Keep the mucus moving. Encourage them to spit out what they cough up. Plenty of water and herbal tea keeps the mucus thin. Superfood in juice or a frozen banana shake for extra nutrition. No white flour, dairy or fried food. And make sure the bowels move very well every day.
Garlic. Rub the juice of a cut garlic clove on the soles of the feet several times a day and put socks on. At night, rub it on the chest and behind the ears too.
Prop them up on pillows at night. Use steam and a cool-steam humidifier, with a little eucalyptus sprayed into the air, and the cool night air for a bad spell.
And pray. In the busyness of remedies and cleaning, don’t forget the greatest help for calming fear.
Everyone else in the house: the Preventive level, with Lobelia through the exposure window.
A Mother’s Garlic Goo: a Garlic Rub
Warm 3 tablespoons of coconut oil until melted, then add 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Take it off the heat and add 3 tablespoons of fresh minced garlic. Blend on low, then on high for 2 minutes. Strain it well; chunks of garlic left in will burn the feet. Store it in a glass jar in the fridge; it turns into a soft paste in about an hour.
Rub it on the feet and ankles, and cover with socks. It is oily and messy, and the house will smell of garlic, but your body will be thankful.
Pneumonia: Garlic Paste to the Feet
Garlic paste to the feet is natural healing first aid for pneumonia. I have seen lungs clear overnight. The full directions are on the General Infection sheet, along with Reading the Paste, which tells you each morning how the body is doing. In short:
Press 6 to 12 cloves of garlic and mix 50/50 with Vaseline or a non-petroleum jelly. Oil the feet, then put on a layer of plain jelly.
Spread the paste ½ inch thick on the soles only, cover with gauze and a white cotton or wool sock, and stay off the feet 6 to 8 hours or overnight. The bowels must be open.
Adults: no more than two nights in a row if at all possible. Children: one night, unless it is extremely important. An infant does not have the body heat to pull the garlic in: dress the baby in a footed sleeper with a hot water bottle by the feet.
It can be done even in a hospital, if family can get in to put it on.
Run the program at the Intense or Intensive level with its ELFs, Bronchial Support for the cough, and Lobelia for spasms. Pleurisy is worked the same way. Afterward, Lung Support helps rebuild the lungs.
The Sick Room
A cut onion. Cut an onion in half and set it in a bowl by the head of the bed. I am not sure exactly what it does, but it absorbs something and makes a difference in a sick room. It is smelly, but helpful.
Clear the air. Herbal Air (eucalyptus and citrus oils; the recipe is on the Herbal Air sheet) sprayed into the room clears the air during colds and flu. Keep it away from cats.
Fresh air and sunshine, fluids, rest, and light, mucus-free food: juices, fruit, vegetables and Superfood.
Use distilled water for all teas, and when taking your extracts in hot water.
Level of Commitment
Gentle support. A cold, a sore throat, a simple cough: Herbal Aid 1 tea at the first sign, the Ice Poultice, onion syrup, and the Basic level for a few days.
Focused cleansing. Bronchitis, a cough that hangs on, croup, or whooping cough in older children: the Moderate level with its ELFs, Bronchial Support, Lobelia for spasms, and the bowels kept moving. Whooping cough takes six to ten weeks; be patient and keep the child rested.
The full program. Pneumonia, whooping cough in a baby, or anyone struggling to breathe: the Intense or Intensive level from the General sheet, with garlic paste to the feet, alongside medical care when the ER signs appear. A chest that has been weak for years: Lung Support steadily for months.
A Loose Healing Plan
At the first tickle: Herbal Aid 1 in hot water with honey all day, Echinacea, and Lobelia on hand. The Flu Buster for flu.
Sore throat: the Ice Poultice between two hot cups of Herbal Aid 1.
A cough: Bronchial Support, onion syrup, M&L Salve on the chest and back, and Lobelia for spasms. Antispasmodic, steam and cool air for croup.
Settled in the chest: step up the level, garlic paste to the feet, ELFs, and keep the bowels moving.
In the sick room: a cut onion by the bed, steam, cool air, pillows to prop up, plenty of fluids, light food.
All along: watch for the ER signs. Continue 3 to 5 days after every symptom is gone, then Lung Support to strengthen.
Stories from the Work
Dara’s Story: Razor Blades in My Throat
I woke up one morning with what felt like razor blades in my throat; swallowing nearly brought me to tears. I made a hot cup of Herbal Aid 1 with honey and sipped it slowly, letting it roll over the sore spot. While I drank, I froze a folded wet washcloth until it was hard, then forced it around my neck, covered it with a hand towel and pinned it. Mouth shut, no eating or drinking, for the 45 minutes it took my body to warm it through. When it came off, I drank a second cup of Herbal Aid 1. The pain was completely gone: about 90 minutes start to finish, though it was a long 90 minutes to live through.
Dara’s Story: The Minister’s Voice
A very sweet older minister could not get through a sermon; his voice would give out. When he did an Ice Poultice before he was to speak, he could talk freely.
Dara’s Story: The Cough That Wouldn’t Leave
One summer, in a vegan cooking class I was teaching, a woman couldn’t stop coughing. She had lived for years overseas and had had the cough for over five years; the climate had played havoc with her bronchial tubes. I gave her a bottle of Bronchial Support. By the next week the cough was gone, and it never returned.
A Member’s Story: A Mother’s Nights with Whooping Cough
“My children seemed perfectly normal during the day, but nighttime was always more intense. I brought them all into our bedroom to sleep around us on the floor, so I could hear everyone and get to them easily. I gave them Lobelia every 2 hours, or whenever the first one woke up coughing, and rubbed garlic on their feet, chests and behind their ears. During the baby’s worst week I slept sitting up with him in a chair. When he had a fit I patted his back all the way to the bathroom, filled it with steam, and gave him a few drops of Antispasmodic in breast milk; then he would nurse and fall back to sleep, until the next fit. His lips turned blue a few times, but he always took that breath. I was always so happy to see the sun come up in the morning!”
That baby is sixteen now.
A Story From the Work: The Baby Who Coughed Once
In 2010 there was a whooping cough epidemic in our area. One mother was working hard to keep it from her 3-month-old. He would have none of the Lobelia; it is made with apple cider vinegar, and to an infant that is too much of a change from mother’s milk. So we used the Antispasmodic instead. She slipped 1 or 2 drops into his mouth while he was nursing and squirted milk in after it. He looked at her as if to say “What did you just do?” but kept on feeding. She also rubbed garlic oil on his chest and back. He woke coughing only once, one night. The germs never got a foothold in him.
Dara’s Story: Sixteen Days Old
The youngest person I know of to have garlic paste on the feet was a baby just 16 days old, with pneumonia. I coached the family by phone. The baby was dressed in a bunny suit with a hot water bottle by the feet, because an infant does not have the body heat to pull the garlic in. The lungs cleared. The baby peeled a layer of skin from the feet, but there were no blisters, no tears and no upset.
Dara’s Story: The Death Watch
An elderly woman was in the hospital, and it was a death watch. The doctors would not let them do anything to help, except that they didn’t care if the family put garlic paste on her feet. They didn’t expect anything to come of it. The adult family pushed their way in, and I coached them on what to do. The next morning she was greatly improved. The doctors said they were glad the drugs had finally kicked in.
Dara’s Story: Reading the Paste
Some years ago my husband got the flu just as he started to give birth to a kidney stone. The pain made him throw up easily, and I could not get any herbs into him, so I just did the garlic paste to his feet, three nights in a row. The first morning the paste had turned a bright fluorescent green: we had pulled out live virus. The second morning it was partly bright green and partly brownish; his immune system was getting on top of it. The third day we soaked his feet in aloe vera gel to clear the burn, and that night we applied the paste for the last time. In the morning it was brownish to black. Each day around lunchtime his symptoms had improved greatly, and by noon on the third day he was nearly symptom-free.
From Dr. Christopher: Garlic for a Two-Year-Old
Dr. Christopher was called out in the small hours to a little boy, not yet two, with double pneumonia. The doctor had told the parents nothing more could be done and that he would be back in the morning to sign the death certificate. It was far below zero, fifty miles from an ambulance, and the plumbing was frozen, so Dr. Christopher could only oil the boy’s feet and put on the garlic paste. The next morning the doctor came back to find the boy sitting in his high chair, drinking juice and breathing normally. Nearly twenty years later, a young man came up to Dr. Christopher after a lecture to shake his hand and thank him for that night.
From Dr. Christopher: An Onion by the Bed
Dr. Christopher told of a medical doctor whose patient had strep throat that nothing would touch. The doctor tried an old remedy his grandfather had told him about: he diced a big onion, put it on a saucer, and set it on a table by the bed, where the man could only breathe it in. The next morning the strep throat was gone.
