Home Remedies and Healthy Alternatives #1

Coconut Oil--my new friend.  I am woefully and many times willfully ignorant about healthy stuff (and alternately, unhealthy stuff). I am trying to be better. I want to live a healthy, active life with my family and friends (whether it's a long one or not...that's up to the Lord). I want to be a healthy weight for me, so I can be of service to God and my family and friends and community, and so I will put less stress on my heart and joints! I want to be fit so I can play with my grandkids (which includes being able to sit on the floor with them, then get up again!!). I have been working on it, and I continue to improve.

I am committed to learning more about eating healthy and recently went on a six-week elimination diet to help me figure out some foods that don't help my body, and some new ones that do. Now, I did this same diet about a year ago (or so), and learned that soy and corn are not my friends (although not deadly for me, just some negative side affects that I want to avoid when possible....like moodiness, achy legs, sleeplessness). So this time I was going to try some different foods to isolate. All this to say, the only thing I ADDED on a daily basis this time that I didn't use last time is coconut oil. I tried a few other things, but I have been using coconut oil in place of butter every single day....on my brown rice in the mornings for a little moisture, on my sweet potato or veggies at night for the same reason, 1-2 tablespoons per day. It has been great alternative! 

But here's the kicker. I have had a tender spot on the corner of my right index finger for quite a while. I've lost count, but I'd say at least three years. It has annoyed me no end, because it seemed to come out of nowhere, just suddenly I had this weird cracked spot on the outside of my finger about where the nail and cuticle meet...you know, that spot where a little callous forms from the rub at the side of your finger. You trim it, then it's smooth, no problem. Except mine would form a bigger hard callous that would hurt, and when I would trim it, it would bleed from 3 tiny blood vessels too near the surface and ALWAYS have a split there, no matter what I did. I tried filing it, I tried deep moisturizing, I tried antibiotic ointment and a bandage on my finger. About a month after beginning to eat coconut oil I suddenly noticed that the split had completely healed and it wasn't sore any more. It's just gone....after 3 years, it's just gone. A small victory, but pretty amazing to me, since it was a constant irritant for several years.

"Wow, that's....um....interesting," you're probably saying to yourself. A healed finger. But wait, there's more! At my age, I have several small, but irritating maladies going on. Another that I have been dealing with for about 8 years is Rosacea, which is a skin condition that my family doctor once described as kind of adult acne. Having "suffered" from it for quite a while, I would say that description is not accurate, but close enough I guess. I have Googled it a couple of times, and my symptoms seem pretty common. It focuses at the center of my face, making my cheeks, chin, nose, and the middle of my forehead red, the skin gets rougher and thicker, and sometimes there are little bumps on the affected areas, like acne. Over the years mine has (very) slowly, gradually gotten worse, and I only knew a few ways to keep it at bay, not make it improve, like NOT scrubbing it with a washcloth or scrub or using hot water, which only makes it redder and irritated, and using a gentle non-soap cleaner (like Cetaphil), an enzyme peel about once a week to gently exfoliate the dry skin patches that accompany it, a gentle non-oily moisturizer in small amounts. Gentle and non-irritating is the key here, I guess you got that. Anyway, a couple of weeks after I started the coconut oil, I noticed that my skin was less red, and it was not as thick and feeling smoother. I'm not sure whether it will ever be "cured", but it has definitely improved, enough to where I don't feel the absolute necessity to cover it with make-up just to face people outside of our house! 

I emphasize the fact that I have been eating it, not rubbing it on myself. It is supposedly beneficial to put it directly on your skin too, but I feared it clogging my pores, since I have rather large ones. But that's an experiment for another day....for now, I've become a firm believer in the power of the coconut! There are actually other great benefits of this "miracle nut"....you should Google it!