Alternative Cures

This page all about alternative cures is a special lens aimed at helping people to break away from the drug-orientated grip of modern medicine by informing you about alternative cures, remedies and therapies that can help to alleviate a whole host of different ailments, health issues and personal problems.

Having said that, an alternative cures approach to general health can actually compliment some modern medicines and therapies that are available from your medical doctor, giving you access to the best of both worlds.

Alternative Cures will allow you to open your mind and heart to the lesser known alternatives to the world of modern medicine and artificial drugs giving you a real and viable choice that you may never have had or realised were there for you before.

This Alternative Cures lens also compliments my main website at Alternative Cures, which has an up to date blog as well as a wealth of informative articles and resources to enrich and promote a healthier lifestyle.

Terry Didcott

Here is an excerpt of an article by Terry Didcott

Over on the Alternative Cures website, there is a great article on The Silent Killer. Here is a short excerpt:

High blood pressure, otherwise known as hypertension is a common problem affecting around one in four middle aged people in our western society. Sufferers of high blood pressure rarely display any visible symptoms, so often they are completely unaware they even have high blood pressure. If it is left untreated, high blood pressure can cause strokes or heart attacks. This is why it is also commonly known as "the silent killer".

To read the whole fascinating article, please click on this link: The Silent Killer

Here is an excerpt from an article on asthma by Terry Didcott

Edited to remove duplication: 16th Nov 2007

On my Alternative Cures website, there's an informative article on Asthma. Here's a short excerpt:

Asthma affects around 5.2 million people in the UK and close to 23 million people in the United States. According to current reports, these numbers are continuing to grow yearly. This begs the very important question, "Why are there so many people that suffer with asthma?"

There are numerous factors contributing to these numbers. Take into account the polluted air that we breathe, the polluted water that we drink and the poisoned food that we eat. Make no mistake, that hard hitting statement is no fanciful ramble. It's based on facts, cold and hard...

To read the full article, click this link: Asthma Naturally

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As an extra detailed source of allergy asthma information, there is a very informative and well stocked site at Allergy Asthma Treatment that I'm sure you'll find a very helpful informational resource when it comes to asthma treatment, medicines, inhalers and much more.

Updated 17th Feb 2009 - Terry Didcott

Alternative remedies can be found for any number of different problems. One of these is yeast related infection.

Unfortunately, some not so enlightened visitor to this lens has taken it upon themselves to be judge jury and executioner and deem that the subject of yeast infections is not suitable for a lens. Because of this, I have had to remove this highly informative and useful article which covers the many aspects of a problem that can only affect members of one half of the entire population of the world (I mean women). Obviously that is too "minority" for our visiting self-righteous zealot who reported this site as spam because of this article.

So if you think that writing about a valid and relatively common ailment and putting forward natural remedies (NOT pills, drugs or anything else nasty) to support it is rather more valid than this particular person would have you all believe, please feel free to leave this lens and read about it on my website that is not subject to the censorship of those that are not so flexible in their thinking.

Read the article here: Yeast Infection

Part 1

Well, to actually beat arthritis you need determination and a can-do attitude.

It's no good sitting around waiting for the next miracle cure to come from the drug companies - it may never happen and you'll just get worse over time. It's also no good hoping that someone else will beat it for you.

Arthritis is a painful, debilitating illness that you are suffering from and only you have the power to do anything about it. Not your doctor, not your family and not me. You.

I can give you some of the tools to work with but if you don't use those tools then they are not worth the time spent writing about them.

The first tool you'll need in abundance is belief. Belief in yourself and in the fact that you CAN do this for yourself, despite what other people might say or your doctor might recommend. You have to look past these things and figure this out one thing for yourself: and that is - has the advice that other people and my doctor or specialist have given me worked? Did it cure my arthritis? Do the drugs I take do me any good?

If you answered "NO" to those three questions, then what do you think the alternative is? Well you have two options.

1. Sit back, abandon all hope and put up with the pain and the stress and the anguish because tomorrow might be better.

2. Stand up and thump the table with your fist and say to yourself "I'm going to make me well again!" and if you want to use a swear word or two for good measure, go right ahead. I won't mind.

Ok, I'll assume you picked option 2. What can you do to make yourself well again?

First you need to know what is making you ill. When you can identify the cause of the problem, then you can try to eliminate that cause and give yourself a head start to recovery.

I'll tell you what is causing your arthritis, but you may not like what you hear and many people, some doctors included will shake their heads and disagree. Well ignore them because they just haven't worked it out yet.

The number one, two and three causes of arthritis, gout and other associated complaints (too many to go into) is DIET, DIET and DIET.

Ouch!

But when you think about it, it makes so much sense you'll wonder why this isn't common knowledge. What do you eat every day, over a period of a week, or a month or a year? Add to that what you drink as well, because it makes a difference.

In the next instalment we'll look at a typical diet.

12th September 2007 - Terry Didcott

It has for centuries been the staple tipple of the French, Italians and Spanish, not to mention probably every one else who lives around the Mediterranean!

Red wine comes in many varieties, but they all, to a greater or lesser degree, have one thing in common.

Apart from the alcohol, that is.

Red wine contains certain chemicals such as flavenoids and resveratol which are known to reduce your risk of heart disease, strokes and more recently cancer. Better still, it has been recently discovered that resveratol also has anti-aging properties.

Oh joy!

But don't go out and buy a few case-loads to throw down your neck with gusto just yet. There is a slight drawback in that the best health effects of red wine are believed to be when it is drank at a rate of one glass per day.

So downing a bottle a day is counter-productive and will do more harm than good, especially in the liver department. So remember, moderation in all things etc...

Its not so bad, really - you can enjoy a glass of your favourite red wine with your main meal of the day and you really can toast you your good health!

Part 2

Here's a list of great foods and drinks that are popularly consumed by the majority of people regularly.

1. Red Meat:

Beef or any meat from cows

Pork, ham, bacon or anything from pigs

Mutton or any meat from sheep

Vennison

2. Fast Food:

Hamburgers/beefburgers

Hot Dogs

Pizza

Takeaways in general

3. Processed Food:

Prepared meals (such as ready made lasagne)

Pasta filled with meat (ie ravioli)

Meat filled savoury pies (pork pies, steak etc)

Puddings

Cakes

Biscuits

4. Drinks:

Fizzy drinks (ie coke)

Citrus juices (ie orange/grapefruit)

Cordials and soda flavourings

Beer

Alcoholic drinks

Ok, you get the picture. All these things, if eaten or drunk in anything other than moderation (except fast foods, where they should be avoided at all costs) will contribute to your arthritis.

If these are the kinds of things that you grew up on and ate and drank in proliferation because you didn't know any better, it's not your fault. How could you know what these things were doing to your body?

If you still eat and drink these things in proliferation after reading this - don't say I didn't tell you so!

Why?

I'll tell you why.

Meat:

All farmed meat but especially red meats come from animals who have been pumped full of steroids, growth hormones, medicines and fed with totally the wrong food practically from the day they were born, right through their miserable existences until the day they were slaughtered. The vision you might have of cows happily roaming through fields and eating grass and living free and natural lives is false. Not any more they don't. They live in small pens where they can be force-fed and injected regularly to force them to grow at grossly abnormal rates to make as much meat as possible in the shortest amount of time to make the farmers and supermarkets the most profit. Their whole lives are stressful and unnatural. They know when they are going to be killed, which increases the amount of adrenalin coursing through their veins and pumped into muscle. When they die, this adrenalin stays in the muscle, along with all the other toxins, uric acid, hormones, antibiotics and steroids. That toxic muscle is the meat that ends up pumped with red dye so it looks nice on the supermarket shelf.

I mentioned uric acid. That's because uric acid is what creates arthritis. No argument. When your body doesn't eliminate it all, it accumulates around your joints.

And that's the subject for the next chapter, How Do You Beat Arthritis Without Drugs? Part 3, a little further down the page.

A lot of information already exists online for various means of reducing body weight, but most of them are mainstream methods and techniques that involve either strict diets or exercise regimes designed to fight the flab from one direction or another.

This is fine if you have the determination and motivation to work like this, but there are also alternatives to reducing your weight that can work in as effective a way as the mainstream methods, or in many cases even better.

The main power of alternative methods of slimming is in their whole person approach and not just this diet or that exercise work out system. A whole person approach takes into consideration a person's food intake, the quality of that food intake as well as the person's own thoughts on the process of metabolism and their approach to exercise that is especially geared for their own body shape, size, levels of fitness and personal circumstances.

So these alternative tips and techniques are generally much more effective because of this regard for all of a person's circumstances and not just focusing on one or two areas.

Part 3

Uric Acid

So what has uric acid got to do with arthritis (and gout)?

Everything.

It is the excess uric acid in the body that accumulates in the joints (and muscle tissue) and causes so much damage.

Here's how.

Every joint in your body contains a smooth, lubricated membrane known as the synovial membrane which allows the bones of the joint to move smoothly across each other. All bone tissue is alkaline by constituent, because of the presence of calcium. Likewise, the synovial membrane and fluid is also alkaline.

Like the opposite poles of a magnet, as every school pupil will tell you, acid is attracted to alkaline. The excess uric acid in your bloodstream is attracted to the alkaline synovial membrane like a moth to a flame. What happens is the acid then accumulates around the synovial membrane as it attacks the alkaline structure. Over time, the uric acid forms a hard, eggshell-like deposit around the synovial membrane making joint movement stiffer and painful.

The body's own immune system comes to the rescue and tries to attack the joint to relieve what it sees as a foreign body in the hard uric acid shell. This is what causes the painful swelling around the joint. In cases of gout (which is actually a severe and localised attack of arthritis), the uric acid shell crystalises and fragments lodge in the joint causing severe pain. Again the body's immune system attacks what it sees as a foreign invader and floods the area with histamines, causing extreme swelling around the affected joint.

There is no medically known cure for this condition apart from surgery, but this extreme step is often only taken after years of suffering by the patient, by which time the uric acid has done so much damage to the joint that the synovial membrane has been completely destroyed and bone rubs against bone causing extreme wear. This condition is known as crepitus.

What can you do to stop this happening?

Unfortunately, your doctor can do very little, once the damage has been done as by the time you are suffering the painful swelling and other symptoms of arthritis, the affected joint or joints are already under attack. Pain killers and NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory) pills are the most commonly prescribed drugs.

Prevention is the best method, but this is not much comfort to someone already suffering with arthritis.

Is there an alternative method of dealing with arthritis?

Yes.

But that will be covered in the next chapter, How Do You Beat Arthritis Without Drugs? Part 4, down the page a little further still.

Part 4

Don't Dehydrate!

One of the surest ways of allowing uric acid levels to increase in the bloodstream is by dehydrating. That's because without a constant flow of liquid to process, the kidneys become less efficient and over time that can be a health hazard in may ways.

Not least of all the ability to filter uric acid out of the bloodstream is diminished. This happens gradually over a long period of time. It often begins to happen in early adulthood, when the body is strong and you believe you are invincible.

You party, smoke, drink excessively and maybe even partake in so-called social drug taking, eat junk food and totally abuse your body. But at that age, you don't feel any particular ill-effects of all this abuse, apart from the hangovers, which are gone after a few hours anyway!

You think you aren't doing yourself much harm because you recover from all this excess very quickly. But you are wrong.

You also won't listen to anyone trying to tell you otherwise, because you think you know it all and anyone older is just a grumpy old so and so!

But you are soooo wrong. And it's not until you reach middle age (and more commonly it seems these days your late 20s and early 30s) that you start to experience the odd twinge of pain here and there.

Guess what? That's not going to get any better as you get older. But you still won't listen, will you?

All that partying, alcohol, excessive living and coffee to cure those hangovers all combine to dehydrate your body. When you're a young adult you just don't realise it.

So over a period of maybe ten years you may have been regularly dehydrating your body and slowly but surely reducing the effectiveness of not only your kidneys, but also your liver too.

Your body has already begun to reduce its ability to remove all the excess uric acid from your bloodstream. The process of that uric acid migrating to the joints has already begun, but you won't realize that for another few years.

Then the aches and pains associated with middle age will begin. The odd joint will swell up and become painful for a few hours then it'll go away.

Still you won't realize there is anything wrong!

Even by this time, it's not too late to do something to fight back, but the longer you leave it, the worse the swelling and pain and the more frequent the attacks will be.

Bottom line - drink plenty of water every day!

It's a start in the right direction, but there's more you can do...

Its a little known fact that the water that comes out of our taps is not as clean as our governments and health authorities would like us to believe. Depending upon where you live, your drinking water could contain excessive amounts of heavy metals, pesticide residues, bacteria, excessive chlorine to combat the bacteria, calcium... the list goes on.

You might be happy to carry drinking that water, but doesn't it make you wonder why levels of allergies are steadily on the rise? Cases of asthma and eczema are also on the rise and there's no good reason for it other than the fact that teh water that comes out of the ground is not as pure as it once was. Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases are also on the rise. Did you know that Alzheimer's can be brought on by excessive amounts of aluminium in the bloodstream? Well guess what there is too much of in your water!

Sometimes you just have to filter the water you drink, because it just isn't safe any more.

Gaiam supply a big range of water filters at pretty decent prices. Click on the image to see what they've got in stock online - it could literally be a lifesaver!

Crohn's disease is a debilitating ailment affecting the bowel where inflamation and other related prolems cause major distress to the sufferer.

There are some important new treatments on the horizon for Crohn's disease sufferers, but this piece of information caght my eye and I felt it worthy of a mention here in this lens:

There is new support for the use of probiotics in the management of what are collectively known as clinical inflammatory bowel diseases.

Level 1 evidence supports the therapeutic use of probiotics for the treatment of postoperative pouchitis. Levels 2 and 3 evidence is currently available that supports the use of probiotics in the treatment of diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.

One significant and consistent known finding has emerged during research carried out in the past year and that is that not all probiotic bacteria have similar therapeutic effects.

Rigorously designed and tightly controlled clinical trials are vital in order to investigate the unresolved issues related to things like efficacy, dose, duration of use, as well as single or multi-strain formulation and concomitant usage of synbiotics, prebiotics, or antibiotics.

Apologies for the scientific tone of that, but I din't have time to paraphrase it down completely into layman's terms so we can all understand it. There's also an article called Health Show Source Today Crohns Disease that may be of use to sufferers to Crohn's disease along with some recommended albeit optional reading.

23rd January 2008 - Terry Didcott

If you are a Yoga fan, the nice people at Gaiam have some really great yoga accessories for you to look at and buy at great prices. Check out this banner below:

Gaiam are an environmentally friendly and ecological aware company, so their products are all carefully chosen to leave a minimal impact on our planet.

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And something for the alternative keep fit enthusiast:

High-energy kicks meet stretch-your-limits downward dog in this exhilarating yet easy-to-learn synergy of authentic Japanese and Korean martial arts, power yoga and meditation.

18th January - Terry Didcott

Alternative Health Courses is a new website that is offering online distance learning courses on alternative therapies at very reasonable prices. The courses are relevant to either side of the Atlantic so are just as useful to those in the US as those in the UK.

Even if you don't want to actually train as a practitioner in any of the alternative cure or therapy courses, the information contained in each alternative therapy course is invaluable as self-help aids in many different fields from Hypnotherapy to Reflexology.

The website and its blog were launched on 1st January 2008 with a ready-to-go itinerary of five first class distance learning courses.

So far I've uploaded seven first-class alternative health courses and I'm working on the eighth. Titles already there are:

• Anromatherapy
• Colour Therapy
• Crystal Therapy
• Hypnotherapy
• Indian Head Massage
• Nutrition
• Reflexology

and the latest course that will get uploaded in the near future will be

Herbalism

Check out the site for more course titles - I'll be adding more health courses as and when I get time...

Update: The site is currently down awaiting a facelift so I removed the links.

29th Jan 2008 - Terry Didcott

One of the whole reasons for putting websites and lenses like this one up is to spread the word about alternatives in medicine, health and lifestyle for a better way of living. So its not just one site or one lens doing the talking but more than one, and for this reason, I have more than one site dedicated to this field.

By way of a booster to my main alternative cures website which asks the question Why Do we need alternative cures? it's always worth writing another short article that will in some way benefit the main site.

The best way I can help the Alternative Cures site from this lens is to send it some traffic and get more people to know about how alternative cures can be beneficial.

Its also important that the site stays on page 1 of Google search pages for its main term alternative cures. But there are other keywords that would benefit that site and bring it some more organic search traffic.

One popular keyword is natural remedies which encompasses the same section of its place in the health or alternative health niche, or natural health which is another way of saying it.

By far the best view that the Alternative Cures site would benefit from, however is probably alternative Lifestyle as that covers the whole niche and pretty much says what the site is all about.

Alternative health is a tough niche to be a part of and very competitive, making it difficult to rank highly for many of the popular search terms related to the site. Even this lens struggles with its own main alternative cures keyword so the days when both my Alternative Cures site and this lens held positions one and two in google's index are in the past and the only way to regain them is to work very hard at dong both.

We'll see what happens!

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