Kidney Stones

I’m relating from the point of view of one who has witnessed family members experiencing this problem.

As I understand it, kidney stones are formed from a build-up of unprocessed cells or bacteria and various minerals in our bodies. When the concentration of these minerals in the urine gets too high, crystals can form and become stones. Some common types you may have heard of are:

Calcium oxalate stones, (most common type), are due to an abnormal concentration of foods high in oxalate in our digestive system. Some foods high in oxalate are chocolate, peanuts, sweet potatoes, and dark green vegetables. You may have to eat these in moderation and take a calcium supplement. Doc said switching from black pepper to white pepper when preparing meals can also help.

Uric acid stones are formed when the pH of the urine becomes too acidic. Some highly acidic foods include alcohol, coffee, vinegar and beef. Adding more alkaline foods to the diet can help such as broccoli, lettuce, parsley and cucumber.

Struvite stones may occur due to recurring urinary tract infections. Surgery is the primary way to remove these types of stones. You can have UTI anywhere along the urinary tract. It may be in the bladder, kidneys, and urethras or even in the ureters. If you suffer from recurring UTI’s you should talk to your doctor about this.

Men, I’m sorry but you are more likely to get kidney stones than women. Also, once you have had one you have about a 75% chance of them recurring. It’s possible you may have had them and passed them when urinating and didn’t even know it. That means the stones were probably as small as a tiny grain of sand that didn’t cause you any pain during urination.

If the stones are larger then, watch out, you may be in for a day or two of really excruciating pain. You may feel it in your lower back, your side, the groin area, your thigh or even up an entire leg. You see the large stones can block the urethra and as the stones move along they damage the lining of the organ thereby causing the pain you feel. It may also cause a little blood to appear in the urine. A doctor can administer an injection to soften the stone to lessen or eliminate the discomfort during the process.

Most of these stones pass naturally but if you are experiencing severe pain, you can do as a member of my family did. Family member X went to see his doctor, who administered an injection, gave him some pain medication and told him to drink at least 12 cups of water throughout the day to help to speed up the process. After a couple days of this he apparently passed the stone without knowing he did.

You should try to catch the stone when it passes so that your doctor can have it analyzed to see what it is made of. How do you do that? Try urinating into a container for the duration. With the results of the composition of the stone, you will have a better idea of what foods to minimize or eliminate from your diet and the foods you need to include.

By my ramblings I am by no means saying that you should stay home and treat yourself. You should seek the advice of your doctor in case you have complications and definitely if you see mucus excretions which could be a sign of infection.

Here's a picture I took of a calcium stone measuring 2mm in diameter

2mm Calcium Oxalate Kidney Stone

Water – A Life Source

Water is a major contributor to our well being. It is made up of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms and has the chemical formula H2O.


Hmm! Did you know that the human body can live without food for up to a month but not so without water? Your body can survive about 6 or 7 days without water depending on your circumstances. After that it starts to dry out just like a plant will wilt and die. Water definitely is life!

Consider this: there are over one hundred million, million (100,000,000,000,000) cells in the human body and water makes up more than two thirds of its weight.

An adult body contains six-tenths to seven-tenths (60% to 70%) water.

Your brain is three-quarters (75%) water.

Your lungs are approximately nine-tenths (90%) water.

But we lose water every day through sweat, urine, saliva, tears, faeces, and even from the lungs as water vapour when we breathe out carbon dioxide.

Have you ever noticed that when you haven’t consumed any water for a while how sluggish and tired you feel? What your urine looks like? What’s the condition of your skin? You start to look and feel dehydrated. How many times have you heard your doctor ask: “how much water do you drink each day?” Well, are you drinking enough water?

All your organs depend on water to function properly. Your body uses water in the metabolic process to move the nutrients through your system and then it acts as a solvent to remove the waste from it. If you think that any liquid is better than water, think about your kidneys:

Your kidneys are the main organs responsible for removing harmful waste from your body. Blood, which is mainly water, flows continuously through a network of blood vessels into the kidney, where waste substances are removed and passed out of your system as urine. The “cleaned” blood is transported back to the rest of the body to collect more “bad stuff” and do it all over again. You could drink some fruit juice or some other type of drink which is based on water, but just so that you know – it’s the water that your body needs. If your kidneys could talk I’m sure they would say they need plain water to do a good job, not sodas and juices!

1 bottle of water has no excess sugar, colour, acids, or carbon dioxide

20oz bottle of soda = sugar, sodium, carbon dioxide, & God knows what else!

I’m still unsure of just how much water should be consumed each day – one doctor said 6 to 8, another said 8 to 10 yet still another suggested 8 to 12. I guess if I’m drinking at least 6 glasses of water daily I should be ok?!

Fat Traps To Avoid

This afternoon, I was perusing a popular "fitness" magazine that had
a number of dubious articles about what you can eat to lose weight.

This is a very popular magazine, with hundreds of thousands of
subscribers, and they were getting a bum steer, on many levels.
The magazine said that it was a good idea to eat bananas to burn
carbs. No argument from me there, because bananas fall under the
rubric of protein, fruits and vegetables. I would never tell anyone
not to eat a banana.

But here is where the magazine goes haywire. They didn't say just
eat a banana. They recommend that you use bananas to make a muffin,
bread and a smoothie. This is what I call a fat trap.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a banana. But when you
combine a banana with flour, sugar, sugar syrup and a host of other
ingredients, then the benefits of eating the banana are almost
completely lost by the other crap. There is nothing remotely healthy
about banana muffins, banana bread, or most banana smoothies.
They are just fat, wrapped up in a nice package and they will never
help you shed a pound.

To paraphrase Clinton mouthpiece James (Snakehead) Carville, "It's
the sugar and flour, stupid!"

Then, the weight loss expert moved on to oatmeal. Now I happen to
like oatmeal and I have a couple of recipes that will convert even
oatmeal haters. But oatmeal, for me, is a special occasion food and
it won't help you lose weight either. But the weight loss expert
recommends oatmeal pancakes and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Oatmeal may be healthier than white flour, but it still falls into
the processed food category, which in the Book of Bill is a no-no
and especially oatmeal with pancakes, or oatmeal chocolate chip
cookies.

It's no wonder people have trouble losing weight.

Be careful where you get your information and stick to real food, if
you want real results.

About the Author:
Dr. Bill is an orthopaedic surgeon and author. He recommends this pharmaceutical grade fish oil for more energy, reduced joint pain and increased heart health.

Wash Your Hands

Warning! This might be unpleasant to some people.

How often do you wash your hands? Think about it.

I love that hand shaking is a great way to greet someone, but when you are about to shake someone’s hand, have you ever wondered what that hand has just experienced?

Just the other day I accompanied a friend to the hospital to have some necessary tests done and while we were waiting for the doctor to see him, I witnessed a disgusting event.

A woman who seemed to be in her mid-fifties was picking her nostrils. She proceeded to conduct a thorough examination of all the crevices that her finger could access, not caring that I was staring at her with a disgusted expression on my face. Even when my eyes widened when our eyes met, she continued as if it is a normal and accepted thing for her to do. I eventually had to turn away.

How often do you see a man peeing by a light post, a wall, near bushes, anywhere along the roadside?

How about persons who believe that they are being very clean by carrying a small wash rag which they use to wipe their faces, into which they are always coughing, blowing their noses? It’s also the same rag they throw over one shoulder.

What about someone who sneezes into their hands. Or blows their nose, wipes it away with their hand, flash the mucus away and wipes the hand on their clothes?

At a fast food restaurant; ever seen the servers with or without gloves, handling the utensils, cashing, or wiping their faces then using their hands to nudge your food onto the plate?

Ever seen a chef turns his head to sneeze or cough? Or cough right over the food as he cooks?

At a restaurant, do you wash your hands in the restroom then turn off the tap and open the door with your clean hands?
Now you understand why we bless our food as well as the hands that prepared it.

This is just some of the disgusting things I’ve seen and why I believe we should all heed the phrase: “cleanliness is next to godliness” and ‘wash your hands’.

For God’s sake, wash your hands as often as you can with soap and water if you want to avoid getting sick and spreading illnesses. It’s probably impossible to keep your hands germs free but you can limit the accumulation of them on your hands throughout the day.

Using hand sanitizers is only an alternative to proper hand washing when you do not have access to soap and water.

Wash your hands:

*before, during and after you prepare food.
*before and after you eat.
*before and after you touch a sick person.
*before and after treating a cut.
*before you touch your face.
*before you handle your contact lenses.
*before holding your baby.

Wash your hands:

**after you handle raw meat.
**after blowing your nose or sneezing into your hands – then wash your nose.
**after using the toilet.
**after changing your baby.
**after handling anything dirty.
**after doing your chores.
**after playing with your pet.

Notice how many times I’ve said “wash your hands”? Prevention is my middle name....

The Effects Of The Digestion Process

The human body is composed of various kinds of cells and by looking at the body from this perspective is the best way to comprehend what free radicals are.

The chemical bond of a cell is composed of various types of molecules that are held together with one or more atom.

The composition of an atom is: nucleus, proton, and electrons where the sum of the protons determines the total amount of electrons that will be around the atom.

The role of the electrons is to manage chemical reactions that occur inside the atom as well as the substances that makes the atoms form molecules. Much like planets, electrons revolve around the atom in one or more shells.

A atom is considered full when two electrons occupy the innermost layer. When the second layer is filled with electrons, the process starts all over again

The most important thing in determining the structural characteristic of an atom is the number of electrons in the outermost shell.

Maximum stability is reached when the atom has a full outer shell. This is the ideal condition every atom seeks to attain and is achieved by the following conditions:

Picking up or dropping electrons that will either occupy or leave the outer shell

Bonding together with other atoms and sharing electrons to complete the outer most shell

The most common way atoms achieve stability is with sharing electrons with other atoms. In this way the atom is able to achieve maximum stability.

Frequently, the bonds remain intact so that the atoms do not become unpaired. However, when this does occur the highly unstable free radicals are formed and they react quickly to obtain their own stability.

The ideal way free radicals attack is by locating the nearest molecule they can find that has achieved maximum stability and start stealing electrons. Once a molecule is attacked, it too becomes a free radical. This process creates a chain reaction that continues until it causes cells to become damaged.

Common times when free radicals occur are during metabolism as well as when the body is fighting off bacteria or viruses. Pollution, cigarette smoke, radiation, and pesticides are other times when free radicals can occur.

Most of the time the body is able to fight off free radicals, but if antioxidants are unavailable or if there are too many free radicals, cellular damage can occur. As you get older free radical damage gets more progressive.

Author: Dr. Lorna Mistranski


More Information:
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Source: PopularArticles.comTM / Health and Medical / Fitness / http://www.PopularArticles.com/article178991.html

Aloe Helps Wounds Heal Faster

I just wanted to share another use of the aloe with you. I normally put a slice of aloe gel in the container of drinking water for my dogs.

Well, recently one of my dogs had an urgent operation and you know how dogs are – licking, grooming themselves and it seemed that after a couple of days he somehow ripped out the stitches and was left with an open wound.

I called in the vet and he came that same morning and performed a little surgery on my pet. Do you know what he asked me for after the operation? Some aloe, yes, aloe vera – he said that it would help the cut to heal faster, and not only that but, with aloe on the area dogs don’t really trouble the wound because they don’t like the taste. But I argued that my dogs are accustomed to having aloe in their water so it may not work.

This is what he did – after stitching the wound, he applied the purple lotion, smeared aloe gel all over the wound and surrounding area, then sprinkled it with wound powder.

Of course, it worked. Two days later the swelling had disappeared and it was healing nicely. It seemed to me that the aloe minimized the itching also as my pup didn’t try to scratch it. A week later you wondered “what cut”? “where”?

There you have it, another aloe episode.

Coconut Wonders

Coconut is another natural wonder food that can help save your life. It has only been recently that modern researchers have begun to fully discover the amazing health benefits of this amazing fruit.

Coconut looks like a large green American football and when you remove the outer covering it resembles a brown nut with two eyes and a mouth. You can pierce the "mouth" to get to the water inside. Usually, the browner the nut the older the coconut. In Jamaica we discard the water and use the hardened white meat inside the older brown coconuts in our baking and cooking, eg: custards, rice and peas, etc. The young coconut is the one best for drinking and has the green colouring.

Coconut water can aid in hydration – my vet recommended it along with glucose when my puppy was barely eating due to early pavo symptoms. It saved his life and increased his appetite. So, you know what? I gave it to my son to increase his appetite and now he loves to eat the jelly.

If I’m feeling tired it acts as a great pick-me-up drink (I like it cold or straight from the “nut”). My mother who had high blood pressure all her life, found out that any medication she took caused her life-threatening complications. For over 50 years she used one glass of water from a young jelly coconut with juice from one lime, two or three times per week to keep it under control. She lived to see her 90th birthday without blood pressure drugs. Last year my husband was diagnosed with elevated blood pressure and was placed on medication. He took one tablet, threw the rest away and started his regime of coconut water and lime. Now we don’t even need to add the lime as often, about once per month. He’s drug-free.

A friend who has won the battle with cancer has been researching and experimenting with the fruit says he uses the water and the jelly in most of his juices. I’ve recently changed my cooking oil to coconut oil because I found out that it’s much healthier than any other oil, even extra virgin olive oil!! Apparently it helps to increase thyroid function and boost metabolism which helps the body to lose the pounds. Also, I love the smell; it reminds me of cocoa butter :)

Again, get the young coconuts to drink because they give the best benefits, they contain the purest unsaturated fat and have the most rejuvenation properties that our body tissues need.

Check out more about coconuts at http://www.coconutresearchcenter.org/

This is just another one of nature’s wonder foods to keep you off drugs. Drink up the jelly coconut!

Once again I am unable to post a pic for this blog. My apologies.