About This Blog

My quest for health started in August 2009. My husband and I, with our 16 month old daughter, were missionaries in Ghana, West Africa. At the time, we had been in Ghana for almost 3 years. I became infected with malaria. It started off with cold/flu-like symptoms on a Friday night. By Sunday, I realized that what I had was no cold, but something that I had feared getting since I decided to go to Africa. I had malaria! I was able to start the three day treatment that same day. All day Monday I was still very sick; and by Tuesday morning, I was so weak that I could not leave my bed to go and get my crying baby from her crib. My husband took me to the hospital that morning, causing me to come face to face with yet another of my greatest fears - the medical system of a third world country. I spent three days in the hospital - and, oh, the stories I could tell about that experience. I returned home better, but my energy level was still very low. Gradually, I began to feel better. It took about two months before I felt completely normal again. This experience caused me to be more conscious about the health of my family. And since I wasn't in a place where good medical care was readily available, I began to do research on what I could do medically and naturally to keep my family's immune systems in good shape. Health has become a very interesting topic for me, and I'm always looking to learn more. The purpose of this blog is to share some of the things that I've learned, and to learn more. I want health to be a lifelong quest for me!

Friday, January 20, 2012

Home Remedies for a Stomach Virus

Earlier this week a stomach virus affected four members of my household.  I, for one, absolutely hate that horrible feeling of nausea.  You might as well be paralyzed for a day because each time you start to move around, a fresh wave of sickness washes over you.  I’m sure that all of you reading this can relate and sympathize with me.
 It was interesting for me to notice at my house that each person who became ill had a different experience with this sickness.  The first person became symptomatic around 3am with diarrhea and vomiting and still felt yucky for the remainder of the day.  The second person felt queasy on and off throughout the day, but was otherwise not very affected.  The third person didn’t feel badly until 2pm.  This person felt unable to carry out normal tasks and spent the rest of the day sleeping and/or lounging, but there was no vomiting or diarrhea.  The final person was fine until hit with a case of diarrhea in the early evening.
 I am going to give you my simple view on why we all had such different experiences with the sickness.  In everyone’s body, there are “good germs” and “bad germs” (not the official medical terms J ).  These germs are fighting a war for the health of their host (you).  When germs are in proper balance, the host feels fine or normal.  When the bad germs are beating the good germs, the host feels sick.  So, when the virus came to my house, each person’s good germs went to work fighting it, but some people’s good germs were “too tired” J to fight as well as others causing them to become more sick.  That is about as simple as I can make it.
When tummy problems come, can you take something to soothe the symptoms or shorten the sick time?  I would like to share with you a list of what we took while we were sick.   
1.       Fast until you feel better - some people try to force themselves to eat soup or crackers, but the reality is our bodies heal much faster if they’re not trying to digest food.   This does not include liquids, try to drink as much water or juice as your tummy will allow.
2.       Peppermint tea
3.       Ginger tea
4.       Pineapple – the fruit or the juice
5.       TAKE A LIVE PROBIOTIC - I emphasized this because a probiotic can help restore the good germs in your system.  Take the strongest one you can find.  Here is  the one we took: http://amzn.to/yPvcq8
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