Natural Toothpaste Recipes
My recent National Geographic issue suggests that 1 billion toothbrushes are discarded each year in the US. Because plastic takes so long to degrade, it means that every toothbrush discarded since the 1930s is still out there, somewhere. The same likely goes for plastic tubes of toothpaste. Given how harmful plastic is to our environment and our health, and with so many easy alternatives, there’s no reason for us to continue using these products. Here are some quick and easy natural toothpaste and mouthwash options for you to try!
There are a few things I’ve always wanted to try, but there were always so many people around me, it would’ve been inconsiderate! Maybe you can relate? And if I only had a bit more time, there are activities I would enjoy learning and experimenting with from home. I’ve compiled a short list of healthy experiments here on the chance that they support your health in deeper ways during this challenging time.
What is Lyme Disease? This question seems simple enough, and perhaps for the people who successfully recover on their own or with an antibiotic, the answer is simple. But for the 5% to 20% of individuals who develop persistent, debilitating symptoms for months to years after the initial infection, the definition is anything but simple. Depending on the circle you run in, the illness is called Chronic Immune Dysfunction (CID), Multi-Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome (MSIDS), Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), Chronic Lyme Disease, Persistent Lyme Disease, or it plain just doesn’t exist.
A few years ago, on completing an intense months-long pharmacology course, I was shocked to learn that keeping a baby’s fever down with ibuprofen (Advil) or acetaminophen (Tylenol) will NOT prevent febrile seizures. While parents are now more widely aware of this myth, patients and practitioners still seem generally unaware of the possibility that blocking a low-grade fever could be harmful.
I’m concerned by the sudden rise of debilitating anxiety in the patients who walk through my door. These people are feeling deeply unstable, ungrounded, and unsafe. Anxiety is harming their relationships with people, with food, and their environment. They’re confused by the cause of their anxiety and are hoping that I have a pill to take it away. Though I often suggest a pill to help, the real value in our work comes from identifying and treating the underlying source of anxiety. For those of you struggling with anxiety currently, I’m sharing some of the common contributing physical causes that are often overlooked. (In other words, it’s not “all in your head” and we can do something about it.)
Where did this Lyme epidemic come from? “Tick-checks” weren’t a thing when we were kids. Now, ticks not only swarm our conservation areas, but also our gardens and children’s playgrounds. More than 1/3 of them in our area are infected with Borrelia, the bacteria believed to cause Lyme Disease, and an unknown number are infected with Lyme “co-infections” such as Bartonella and Anaplasma. Our instinctual response to this threat is to kill tick populations as quickly as possible… But history, ecological principles, integrative medicine and current research all teach us that this approach doesn’t work. A more sophisticated approach, one that acknowledges underlying causes of this epidemic, is urgently required.