Dara D Dietz is co-founder with her Husband of H.E.A.L. Marketplace, a private Natural Healing Association. As a teacher and counselor she has been supporting the members of H.E.A.L. with Natural Healing information and herbal supports since 1998. She continues to maintain strong ties to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Since healing her own kidney ailments she has assisted thousands of people in discovering and using natural herbal remedies. Dara has written and compiled numerous articles on a wide variety of natural healing topics. Drawing from her own healing experiences and borrowing from the vast wisdom of natural healers long departed, she continues to provide H.E.A.L.’s international membership with down to earth natural healing wisdom in H.E.A.L.’s bi-weekly newsletters. Dara and her husband currently reside in Rutherfordton, North Carolina.
Roots holding fast beside still water. “He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.” (Psalm 23:2–3)
“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:3, NIV)
Paul opens nearly every letter with these two words, and always in the same order: Grace first, then peace. That order matters. Peace cannot come first. It grows out of Grace.
Grace is the gift from God, and it comes with knowledge. Peter writes, “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2). Knowledge is power: the power to live your life knowing that the God who loves you has your back, your front, and both sides. “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5). That is how you can have peace in the storms of life.
All heaven is offered to us, ready for our needs. His Grace includes all things needful in this life, and it is a living, healing power that fills our hearts and minds as we choose to follow where He is leading.
He is our Father: a father who truly loves, guides, provides, and protects, careful and wise to allow only the best for His child. In His loving wisdom He allows us the consequences of our poor choices, not as a punishment but to help us learn. This is like no father I have ever known.
He is also the one who increases us: our talents, our friends, our means. He will not allow us to have more than is good for us. We can look at others and feel we are lacking, but that takes our eyes off the Lord. The endless stream of comparison tells us we are not our best, that everyone else is doing it better. That is a trap you do not want to fall into. Allow the Lord to increase you as you grow and can carry a fuller cup. The full cup is a heavy burden to bear, and we must have Him to help us if we are asked to carry it.
Peace is how we live and breathe. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you… Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Calm assurance is ours as we rest in His Grace, following each day the duties given us for that day. His peace and Love follow us everywhere we go, and His Spirit directs our steps through this world.
The One who knows you best loves you most. His faithfulness is proven. “His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).
The path bends out of sight. We don’t have to see where it goes; we only have to choose the next step.
“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people…” (1 Corinthians 1:1–2, NIV)
Paul opens his letter to the Corinthians with a single word that carries the whole story of his life: called. He was “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” And the people he writes to are called too, “called to be his holy people.”
But a call is not the same as an answer. Paul was called by the will of God, yet the call was not answered until Paul chose to answer it. God can call us, and we are free to refuse. That is how much He respects us.
When Christ met Paul on the road to Damascus, He read a heart that was true but misguided. Paul later wrote that he had acted “ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13); he honestly thought he was serving God by fighting Jesus (Acts 26:9). When his eyes were opened and he understood, he stopped fighting the truth and allowed it to take hold in his life and heal his heart and mind. That man became one of the most powerful tools in God’s hand for carrying the gospel to the world, and through his letters he is still sharing it today.
It did not all come in one day. After his conversion Paul went away into Arabia, and three years passed before he went up to Jerusalem (Galatians 1:17–18). Then came years back home in Tarsus, until Barnabas went looking for him (Acts 9:30; 11:25). Paul had to grow into his calling, just like we all do.
We are all called. Those of us who answer are then made holy, set apart, by the work of healing done in us through the truth about God we have accepted. And whatever we accept as truth will change us all the way down to the DNA. Our only power is to choose what we will believe; after that, what we have taken in has the power to heal us or to destroy us.
We are our choices. Our choices will either heal us through the power of God’s Love and Truth, or they will shrink our understanding of reality until the mind has no want or capacity to embrace truth again. Paul describes people who have gone that far as “past feeling” (Ephesians 4:19).
That is why it matters to begin now. Doing the work now gives us the time to move slowly as healing comes. Each choice for the good makes the next one stronger, until the desire to be a blessing to others outweighs every old habit and longing. We begin the journey sick and in need of healing everywhere. As we take in more and more of the truth, things in us begin to change, and we learn how powerful a single choice can be.
You do not have to see the whole road. Make an intentional choice, a choice with your will behind it, and leave the results with God. The Father is with you. Every day is an adventure, a new beginning.
3 a.m. on our field. Whatever stands in the light casts its shadow across everything near it.
“Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him?” (1 Corinthians 11:13–14, NIV)
Paul does something unusual in 1 Corinthians 11:13. After a long discussion of head coverings, he hands the question to his readers: “Judge for yourselves.” The Remedy renders it, “Consider the evidence for yourselves: Is it healthy for a woman to try to deny her own identity and instead live like a man?”
Paul isn’t asking about fabric on a head, and in verse 14 he isn’t asking about the length of a man’s hair. Both were symbols. In Bible times, long hair on a man like Samson marked him as set apart for a work of God; today it is mostly a matter of style. What Paul is pointing to lies underneath the symbols: the natural laws God built into life, creation, and all matter. Those laws speak to the way we were made to live for the greatest joy, fulfillment, and growth into who we can become.
Notice what Paul does not do. He issues no condemnation and no reprimand. He doesn’t need to. When we step out of harmony with the way God created us to thrive, the results come on their own. You cannot disregard a natural law and escape its cost. The loss falls not only on ourselves but on everyone we influence; instead of light and warmth, we cast a shadow over the lives of others.
Growing Into All She Can Be
This isn’t about the work a woman does publicly or the career she chooses. A woman can be anything. She has the talent to become, and she can develop herself beyond where she begins. But she will not do it in her own strength. It comes only through the healing and restorative power of the Lord and a good companion to walk with her in life. The “head” in Paul’s picture is not a ceiling over her; it is the support she grows through.
And no one is left out. For the woman with no husband, God has pledged Himself to be a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless. Christ fills that place Himself, the friend who sticks closer than a brother.
The Same Holds for Men
“Doesn’t nature itself teach that each individual has their own place, role and responsibilities?” (The Remedy). We each must grow up into the people God made us to be, and it won’t happen without choice and deliberate action. To let life roll by without taking responsibility for where it is taking us is to choose against growing up. A woman can refuse her place just as a man can fail to fill his. Either way, no rule needs enforcing; the results are lived out for all to see.
So the real question of these verses is the heart. Are you taking up the responsibility God intended for you? Are you growing, in His strength, into more than you could ever become on your own?
These roles are not a burden. They are the path to a well-lived life here and never-ending growth in eternity. Christ’s invitation still stands: come walk with Him. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.
And when we look at others, we look past the outward things, just as Paul looked past hair and head coverings to the heart. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Sometimes it is hard to see the hurting person underneath. That is when the Lord brings them to us for care, and He expects us to be careful with His hurting children.
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.
