Tag Archives: asthma

FROM CHEMICAL TO NATURAL HOUSE CLEANERS

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Hey Friends! 
 These are my thoughts and my passion for making my own HOUSE-CLEANERS.  If you decide to join me after reading this, then check out the 

Do you ever get overwhelmed with this whole “HEALTHY LIFESTYLE” thing?  Well I have many times.  In my journey for better health, I have learned that it’s a process.  One step at a time!  Seriously, I started with switching from white to wheat.  I did the best I knew to do at the time.  Then we eliminated soda from our diet and replaced it with water.  Big step!  Fast forward 13 years and I am now growing my own scoby to make Kombucha – weird.  Anyway, America has gotten so far away from living healthy.  Don’t get me wrong:  I am so thankful for our human advances and I love living in this time in history!  I am often thankful that I was not born in Ancient Egypt!  Seriously!  In fact, that was my biggest takeaway as I taught the course to my daughter a few years ago.  I am SO THANKFUL for heat and air conditioning, for electricity, for my car and my iPhone.  It’s hard to imagine life without my computer, social media which makes my business possible, my UGGS (on my feet as we speak), and Starbucks – the place where these blogs and ideas come together 🙂  Oh, I need to mention my contacts, my Clarisonic, the variety in my closet, and HGTV!  Ok, I could go on and on and on…………………………………………………..!

What we are finding now is that some of the eases and conveniences are extremely harmful to our health.  For this blog series I will focus on
 
HOUSEHOLD CLEANERS and PERSONAL PRODUCTS.

Ok, so in 1989, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did a 5 year study and found that chemical levels in the home were 70% higher than outdoors.  They found that housewives have a 55% higher risk of cancer than women working outside the home!  And get this: Children are more susceptible to air born toxins.  Kids respiratory rates are 3x higher than adults, therefore they inhale and absorb 3x more the amount of contaminates!

I began paying attention to the chemicals in my house a few years ago when my son, Iver, was sick with asthma and allergies.  He was really sick for a year of his life:  3 ER visits, MANY sleepless nights involving the nebulizer, and a week long hospital stay.  After 9 months of praying and searching, we found a wonderful allergy doctor, DR. WOLF, who found the cause to be a sinus infection! We could not have found a better doctor. Iver had to battle that infection with antibiotics for a period, and now he is doing great!  I have been Iver’s “nurse” long enough now to see the effect his diet and his environment plays on his body.  It’s very real, very powerful, and very controllable!  During that sick year, as we call it, my eyes began to open to the fact that our home was not helping him at all!  I started taking measures to rid his environment of anything that could trigger his asthma… dairy, gluten, dust mites (yuck! by the way), and MY CLEANERS.  How ironic… I was doing my best to keep our home germ free and clean, when in reality, my efforts were making him worse.  Uggggg

THE WEEK IN THE HOSPITAL
 We thank God for friends who stick by our side, pray for us daily, and come to play DS when we are cooped up in a hospital room for a week. 
 Love you Cary and all who loved on us!
 
This was the day we knew we were good to go home.  His O2 levels were staying up with no help and this kid was out of bed and climbing the walls… back to normal.

I am still in the process of eliminating (the best I can) chemicals and toxins from my house.  I want my home to be a safe, healthy environment for my family. After switching some of our cleaners to chemical free brands,  I noticed 2 things:  1.  Our budget was hit.  2.  I missed the smell of “clean”.  I associated “clean” with the smell of chemicals.  Hhhmmmm, let’s think about that for a minute.  If I am smelling it, it is being absorbed into my body via my lungs!  Oh great :/  And if it touches my skin, it is being absorbed into my blood stream (and I’m not one to wear gloves).

So, the EPA analyzed 2,983 chemicals we use and found that:

  • 884 are toxic
  • 146 can cause tumors
  • 218 can cause reproductive complications
  • 778 cause acute toxicity
  • 314 can cause biological mutations
  • 376 can cause skin and eye irritations
[Source: The United States House of Representatives through NIOSH, 1989]

Not good.
 
Now if you haven’t noticed already, my sources are old!  BUT competition within companies to make products “faster acting”  “longer-lasting” and “more powerful”  are causing our health conditions to worsen.

One example: more and more people are developing asthma.  The number of people diagnosed with asthma has grown by 4.3 million from 2001-2009.  Source:  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  So sad.

During our “sick” year, I switched out my cleaners to non-toxic brands, but I am taking the NEXT STEP in my JOURNEY FOR HEALTH.  I will be making my own products.  This will save us lots of $$$ and teach me more about the tools God, Himself, has given us to use from the earth… not only are they not harmful, but they are HEALTHY!!!  

I invite you to join me!
Let’s take this journey together!!!
Click HERE for all of my DIY HEALTY HOME CLEANERS
Have a HEALTHY day!
BONUS FEATURE 
A few months after the hospital stay, Iver was back to normal.  I  realized that he had not been himself in a year.  I spent one rainy weekend looking at old video footage and boo-hoooing as I made this video.  I was, and still am so thankful to have this boy back!
[youtube id=”i1YlrBCIqIU”]

 

I am ME Because…

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In 1980, at age 2, I began having problems with asthma.  By the age of 4, it had gotten really bad.  I had weekly allergy shots and high doses of Theophylline  and Alupent.  I also depended on my rescuer inhaler regularly.  At age 4, I weighed 27 lbs.  When I would get up to 30 lbs, I would get sick and drop back down to 27 lbs.  One pharmacist said that he had never filled such high doses of this medicine for anyone.  This was necessary to keep me alive!  From ages 4-9 we visited the ER every couple of months.  For a long time I had asthma attacks every night.  My parents tell stories of nights that they could not wake me up to take my inhaler.  I remember being stuck in my dream trying to use my medicine while my parents, in reality, were splashing water in my face trying to wake me up so I could actually use my inhaler.
This experience created an extremely insecure child.  All I wanted to do was be normal… to run and play without stopping to use medicine because I couldn’t breathe!

1984 (age 6) Prior to the olympic games, my parents recorded – on VHS tape 🙂 – the movie about the 1976 olympic gymnast Nadia Comăneci.  She was the first olympic gymnast ever to score a perfect 10, and went on to score 6 more 10.0 and win 3 gold medals.  That became my favorite movie and she became my hero.  I wore that movie out, and boohooed every time I watched it.  I was so inspired by the gymnasts’ athleticism and my heart yerned to have the freedom to run, jump and move like they did… to be able to work hard and achieve great things.
That summer, I watched with all focus and attention, the great Marry Lou Retton score perfect 10s on both her floor routine and the vault.  It was beautiful, and I cried.  It still makes me cry today when I think about how that made me feel.

Well, I never became a great gymnast – I tried 🙂

but I was blessed with an incredible family who was “determined to not let their little girl think she was a sick kid”- my mom.

Recently, as I looked through my child hood pictures, began to see my life differently.  Yes, I was sick and could not even participate in a full class of P.E., but I did have a lot I COULD do.

I took 8 years of dance.
After 4 years, my father presented me with flowers.  This was a BIG moment!

I also spent my childhood out at the lake.  We had a barge… a floating, one-room “house” with bunk beds and a mini kitchen.  It was really cool… and seemed a lot bigger to me when I was young.

At age 7 my dad taught me to water ski.

My Grandma always had me out being active.  We road bikes a lot and kicked the ball around.  I remember her taking me to the tennis courts and teaching me how to play volleyball and basketball.

More moments that shaped me…


Pretty sure the 80’s threw up on me! LOL
It’s ok, you can be jealous of my hair and glasses.
One final influence I want to mention is my Uncle Ken- my dad’s brother.
He was a professional power lifter in the  70’s and 80’s… achieving 2nd in the world in with the deadlift!
He encouraged me and taught me never to say “I can’t”
I clearly remember a particular moment when I was in high school, at the gym with my dad and uncle.
In the middle of our workout, Uncle Ken loaded a 45 lb. bar with 45 lb. plates = total of 135 lbs. and told me to deadlift that!

I think I first chuckled and then I said, “I can’t do that!”  Then he corrected me and began to help me focus mentally.  To my surprise (and not his evidently) I was able to dead lift that weight… 1 time!  That was all I needed to do.  I learned a HUGE lesson that day.  I can do more that I think I can if I set my mind to it, stay focused, and work hard!  If there would have been a gold medal to be given at the gym that day, I’m sure I would have won it 🙂
I am who I am today because of my experiences.  In every physical activity I have ever done, I’ve had to overcome asthma and have had to work harder than anyone.  I’ve learned that if I stay focused and remain positive I can reach my goals.
Never say “I can’t” and never quit!
I thank God for the childhood I had and for giving me a family who wouldn’t let me be a sick kid!