disclosure

Better Health Update #23 - Monte Kline, Clinical Nutritionist

Keeping Your Kids Healthy

One of the most frustrating health problems for parents has nothing to do with their own personal health . . . but rather with the health of their children. Children's illnesses are a fact-of-life - the question is how can we best deal with them. Mothers especially seem to get stuck with the responsibility for their children's health problems. Then the stress begins with questions:

"Should I take them to the medical doctor?"
"Should I give them aspirin or some prescription drug?" "Should I do nothing and just let the illness run its course?"
"Are there natural remedies I should use instead of the medical approach?"

PHILOSOPHY FIRST

Before you can approach your kids' health problems correctly, you must have the right philosophy of health and disease. Whatever your philosophy is will determine the methods you use. Unfortunately, most parents have adopted the philosophy of conventional medicine, which says in effect:

Germs are the problem
Germ-killing drugs are the solution

Instead of attacking germs, I prefer to attack the "germ theory" as my first step in getting your kids healthy. Here's a more logical philosophy:

Germs don't cause disease; disease causes germs

For example, if you look at a mosquito-infected swamp, will you conclude that the presence of the "bugs" caused that water to become stagnant? Hardly! You will conclude that the already stagnant water just attracted the bugs.

Do you get my point? Disease "bugs" (i.e. germs) aren't the primary cause of the "swamp" (i.e. diseased body). Instead, our swamp-like, stagnant bodies just provide an environment for the germs to proliferate. Everyone is constantly exposed to germs, but not everyone gets diseases such as cold. flu, ear infections, etc. How can you explain that if germs are the primary cause of disease, as conventional medicine has taught us all our lives? The truth is that germs only thrive in a body willing to receive them.
In most cases taking your child to a medical doctor for an ordinary illness is the most dangerous thing you can do. That's not just my opinion, but the opinion of the renowned, though renegade, pediatrician, the late Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, in his excellent book, How to Have a Healthy Child (In Spite of Your Doctor). His basic thesis is that routine medical examinations for minor health problems tend to lead to either drugging or cutting, which in turn leads to serious health problems down the road.
Destroying the God-created healing mechanisms isn't the answer-stimulating those natural healing mechanisms is. So how do we go about that? Let me share four common denominators for natural healing:

1. Remove the toxins
2. Raise the nutrients
3. Reduce the allergic sensitivities

REMOVE THE TOXINS

Healing your kid, or healing yourself does not begin with putting "good stuff" into the body, but rather with getting the "bad stuff" out. The first step in this is to remove the toxic input. The best detoxifying program in the world is no good if you're shoveling toxins in faster than your detoxifying can shovel them out.

So, what am I saying? The junk food has to go! You cannot have healthy kids if you feed them white sugar (including everything it's in), white flour, pop, sugary breakfast cereals, food additives and the like. Now, let me hasten to add that does not mean that good-tasting treats have to go. There are natural, healthy ingredient snacks that can be bought at health food stores or made yourself. The philosophy is substitution not deprivation.

Another "sacred cow" (no pun intended) is meat-eating. Meat should absolutely not be eaten by small children! I do not recommend any flesh foods in the first five years of life. The digestive tract just can't properly handle it. Even conventional medical authorities are beginning to recognize that early intake of meat (especially in the first year of life) is one of the causes of allergies. When meat is introduced, fish is the easiest to digest and then poultry. Beef is the most difficult, and of course pork, as a scavenger animal, should not be eaten by anybody anytime.

PARENTAL EXAMPLE

Guess what the key is to getting your kids to eat right? You eat right! Most parents that are frustrated with the junk their kids eat have no significant nutritional convictions themselves. Dr. Howard Hendricks told us years ago, regarding those we disciple (including our kids):

"If you want them to bleed, you have to hemorrhage."

I usually have to explain that: If you want them to bleed, you have to really, really bleed. If you want your kids to have a certain level of conviction, you have to have an even greater level of that conviction. If you don't quit eating junk, don't expect your kids to.

CLEANSE THE COLON

The key to removing toxic accumulation already in your kids is cleansing the colon. A toxic colon is involved in virtually every health problem, and a lot of kids are constipated. If your kid is having less than one bowel movement per day, that's constipation - and resulting toxicity. The ideal would be more like two per day. Three methods of cleansing the colon are possibilities:
1. Psyllium Husk - This bulking agent mixed into water or juice moves impacted deposits out of the colon, while absorbing mucous and other toxins.
2. Herbal Laxative - For more severe constipation, or when psyllium just isn't working, the right herbal laxative used short-term can stimulate the proper muscular action of the colon.
3. Enemas - Now here's a lost art! An enema used to be standard procedure upon admittance to a hospital. Today say "enema" to the average young mother, and she doesn't even know what you're talking about. The immediate cleansing effect of flushing out the bowel with an enema is one of your most potent weapons in attacking your kid's health problems. But there's a right way and many wrong ways to administer an enema, so get an enema bucket and Enema Instructions from Pacific Health Center.

RAISE THE NUTRIENTS

You will seldom find your kids sick without concurrent deficiencies of certain nutrients. Determining those deficiencies and meeting them through supplementation solves this part of the healing. In my experience children, especially small children, don't show nearly as many nutrient deficiencies as most adults, but it's still an important area. Testing at the clinic is recommended.

REDUCE THE ALLERGIC SENSITIVITY

Food, and sometimes environmental, sensitivities cause a lot of children's health problems. The number one sensitive food you need to get your kid off of is cow's milk! There's nothing more important that I can emphasize. Virtually everyone, child or adult, is sensitive to straight milk, though most are okay on cultured forms of cow's milk like yogurt and cheeses.
Other common food sensitivities are wheat, baker's yeast, corn, and others. Again the key is to get them tested, as we do at the clinic, and then begin a desensitizing program using homeopathic microdilutions of the sensitive food extracts. Environmental sensitivities can be worked on the same way.

SPECIFIC HEALTH PROBLEMS

So what do you do with your child with some of the more common health problems? Here are some ideas:

1. Colds - Colds are basically an elimination process for toxins through the lymphatic system. A cold suggests that the basic organs of elimination are overtaxed and toxic such as the colon, kidneys, skin, lungs, etc.
Continuing to eat is about the worst thing you can do for a cold. Juice and/or fruit fasting helps cleanse the body, accentuating the elimination of toxins. Psyllium or enemas may also be helpful. Garlic supplements are a potent infection fighter, as is Vitamin C. Rest and keeping warm are good conventional medicine advise I concur with.

2. Flu - While also suggesting a toxic condition, this usually involves a toxic organism (the flu virus) gaining a foothold in the digestive tract. A plain distilled water fast is probably better temporarily, especially if there are diarrhea symptoms. Psyllium husk is traditionally a diarrhea remedy, so it may help as well as having a cleansing effect. Acidophilus bacteria supplements (not acidophilus milk) are essential for putting good bacteria back into the digestive tract. Vitamin C and garlic supplements are again helpful.

3. Fever - Fever, like most other illnesses, is just part of the body's natural healing mechanism. By raising the body's temperature, infectious organisms are destroyed. Thus, fever is not really an illness, but rather a means of healing. Juice fasting, especially with slightly diluted fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice is excellent. Herbs like echinacea, golden seal and garlic can also be used. Vitamin C is a natural anti-pyretic, working by eliminating the underlying cause of the fever, instead of just suppressing it. Generally it's best not to interrupt a fever unless dangerously high-like 104 or above. Cool baths to keep the fever from going too high are one method of controlling, yet still getting the benefit.

4. Ear Infections - Ear infections are again mostly the result of toxic accumulation that provides a suitable "terrain" for pathogenic organisms to thrive in. Cow's milk is probably the number one predisposing factor to the development of ear infections. Juice fasting is again excellent, as are garlic supplementation, topical garlic oil in the ear canal (hold in with a cotton ball), vitamin C, acidophilus, and emulsified vitamin A short-term.

One of the most effective methods during the acute stage of ear infections is the garlic enema. Garlic is a powerful infection fighter. Rectal administration, which is done on some medications, is often more effective and quicker acting than oral administration. Then enema water is made by adding a clove of peeled, raw garlic to some distilled water in your blender, liquefying it, and straining out the pulp. Depending on the age of the child, 6 - 12 oz. of liquid would be used in the enema. It may sound gross, but physiologically it makes sense, and it really works.

SUMMARY

Whatever the health problem your child has, above all, try to think down to the cause, instead of just treating the symptom. Don't allow some medical doctor to just suppress symptoms. Focus on the basics of preventive health care. That includes:

1. Good natural food diet - Fruits, vegetables, raw nuts, maybe some cultured dairy products, and no meat before age 5.
2. Get two good bowel movements daily.

Provide the basics of natural treatment when a health problem does arise:

1. Juice fast - till symptoms subside.
2. Cleanse the colon - psyllium, herbal laxatives, enemas.
3. Supplements - to eliminate deficiencies.
4. Rest - Remember that in most cases time heals all.

DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this publication is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose illness nor prescribe treatment. Rather, this material is designed to be used in cooperation with your nutritionally-oriented health professional to deal with your personal health problems. Should you use this information on your own, you are prescribing for yourself, which is your constitutional right, but neither the author nor publisher assume responsibility.