Image by Jennifer Capestany.
Hi, all! I'm working on new articles for y'all, focusing on herbal remedies and natural healing. My question to you is:
Is there any herb knowledge or aspect of natural healing that you'd like to see an article for?
I canvass my clients routinely to tailor my articles to what they want to know about. I'm happy to do the same for my fellow Steemians. My areas of knowledge include how to make specific remedy types, herb knowledge, wild edibles, and herbcrafting. Let me know what you're interested in, and I'll see what I can do!
On Plant Medicine & Natural Health: Herbal Remedies for Earaches & Ear Infections / DIY Herbal Remedies: How to Make an Herb Infused Oil / How to Make Herbal, Medicinal Honey / How to Grow German Chamomile & Medicinal Uses / Natural Remedies for Cold Sores / Tips for Reducing Chronic Inflammation.
On Life: My Story: Healing from Rheumatoid Arthritis & Finding My Calling / On Insecurity.
On Foraging: Eatin' Wild Series (Edible Weeds): Henbit.
Author: Jennifer Capestany
Jennifer is a clinical herbalist and health coach, specializing in autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Her interest in plant medicine led Jennifer to spend years studying herbology, physiology, and nutrition. She works one-on-one with her clients via her herbalist and health coaching business, Prairie Hawk Botanica. Jennifer lives on a homestead in rural Texas with her husband, 2 children, and various animals. In her spare time she loves to be in her large herb and vegetable garden. Sharing herb knowledge and her love of natural healing with others is her calling.
It's great that you are here in the Foraging tag, @jenncapestany! Here are some priority topics for the Foraging Trail.
Blog posts about authentic, direct experience with foraging. In foraging, having correct information is essential, so posts may want to reference other material (be sure to provide the source for it). But building a post only out of the facts from other material isn’t enough -- it’s your experience and your perspective that will make the Steemit Foraging community unique and powerful.
Thoughtful blog posts about different aspects of foraging. There are so many topics about foraging: motivations, fears, triumphs, family traditions, strategies and tactics, field trips and forays, regulations, best practices, reviews, and so much more!
The Foraging-trail focuses on food, arts, and crafts, including bushcraft. The use of plants for medical and health uses is being covered by the Health tag curators. But there is, of course, a lot of natural overlap. And the Health and Foraging curators try to coordinate. You can see more about efforts to make Steemit a premier forum for foraging on the Internet: here and here. I'm looking forward to your foraging posts!
looking forward to reading more
Thanks, @ladypenelope1! I see that we're kindred spirits. Looking forward to your future posts as well.
If it's within your realm of expertise, I'd like to see something on detoxification of metals from the body.
It is, @shenanigator. Though I usually save specific protocols for clients, since each has to be handled as the unique human that they are, I can absolutely write an article up on the role that heavy metal toxicity plays in ill health. It can really frustrate attempts to heal for some people. Thanks for suggesting this. I'll get on it!
Hi @jenncapestany! He's specifically asking for me since recently I learned I might be dealing with a nickel food allergy (systemic nickel allergy syndrome) that's exacerbating existing food allergies. It's not clear whether the current food allergies are a result of heavy metal toxicity or something else as I've dealt with extreme Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome and leaky gut syndrome as well.
I understand. That's a challenging food allergy to have too. Did you have the patch test to determine that you react to nickel, or a urine test for other heavy metals? If you're not sure, I can only suggest that you get tested to see if you truly have toxic levels of heavy metals in your body. The detoxing process for heavy metal toxicity can be pretty intense. I wouldn't want to go through that process unless I knew for sure that I had to. It's certainly within the realm of possibility that your struggle with endocrine/immune/gut issues has led to a nickel sensitivity. Test results could be really useful here. At that point you can make the decision to use natural methods or whatever treatment you think best from a fully informed standpoint. Does that make sense? Hope I don't sound too preachy!
No not preachy at all, I appreciate any advice on the subject since it's so new to me. I've had a scratch test done in the past, but never for nickel. Not sure that I would react to it on my skin if it's systemic, though? (Could be wrong.) Having a urine test for heavy metals sounds like the best next step. I've heard detoxing heavy metals can be intense and drawn out so if that's not the culprit, no need to go that route.
Yup, systemic nickel allergy syndrome should still exhibit contact dermatitis and eczema-like outbreaks. In fact it's a hallmark of the syndrome.
Looks awesome! Do you grow your own herbs to use in the healing? That's something I'd be interested in learning more about.
Thanks! I do a lot of gardening, herb growing, and wildcrafting for medicinal herbs. I don't, however, grow ALL of the herbs that I use in medicine making. This is especially so for herbs that I use a lot, but that don't grow very well in my area, or that I'd have to grow by the acre in order to have enough. These I purchase in bulk from a reputable supplier. I'd be happy to include information on how to grow any herbs that that I DO have experience with. I did one already for chamomile. I'll keep doing that for other herbs!
I'll check out the one on chamomile! I'd definitely read additional articles on other herbs too. Thanks for this cool work!
Upvoted by @foraging-trail
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Hi Jennifer
always good to expand on our plant knowledge. we share and interest in this area I will follow.
Thanks! Let me know if there's anything specific that you'd like to see.
I personally am more interested in wild edibles. Just my 5%.
I don't blame you. Knowing what you can do with the plants growing wild around us is extremely cool. I'll do what I can!