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Restless Leg Syndrome – part 2

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​Restless Leg Syndrome: Respite Part II
One of the honed skills of a most excellent detective revolves around the process of eliminating suspects. This is key in nabbing the right culprit. How many news stories have you read about the wrong person languishing in jail for a crime they didn’t commit? The same is true when parsing health clues…. We’ve got to find the true offender.
The reality is that there may be a single culprit, or a gang of culprits….. AND, there might be some shady characters who look suspicious, but are not the real troublemakers. As the lead health detective, you may choose to haul them in for questioning (closer evaluation), only to find out they are truly innocent. Don’t get discouraged…. readjust your Sherlock Holmes cap and move on to question the next suspect! 
As you’ve learned, all restless leg syndrome cases are unique. Unfortunately, nearly all cases are treated the same way by introducing pharmaceuticals to mediate discomfort. The most common medications used are anti-seizure medications (ex: gabapentin), drugs to treat Parkinson’s (ex: levodopa/carbidopa), opioids (ex: tramadol), or benzodiazepines (ex: clonazepam). I can personally guarantee that while each of these may soothe the legs, if used long term, will lead to misery and/or dysfunction in another part of the body.
If you’d like to build some gentle DIY soothing support for restless legs while you work on finding the root cause, try these recipes and find the one that serves you best. You’ll not want to stop here tho, because the culprit is still on the loose.
(Each recipe makes a 10ml roller bottle)
🌿Recipe #1🌿
20 drops Marjoram
20 drops Roman Chamomile
10 drops Lavender
10 drops Frankincense
Fill remaining space in roller bottle with carrier oil.
******
🌿Recipe #2🌿
15 drops Lavender
10 drops Roman Chamomile 
10 drops Vetiver
5 drops Lemongrass
5 drops Marjoram
5 drops Blue Yarrow
5 drops Peppermint
5 drops Clove
3 drops Ginger
3 drops black pepper
Fill remaining space in roller bottle with carrier oil.
******
🌿Recipe #3🌿
AromaSiez (snap a roller fitment on that puppy and use as is!)
*****
🌿Recipe #4🌿
10 drops Peace & Calming
10 drops Panaway
10 drops Stress Away
10 drops Lavender
Fill remaining space in roller bottle with carrier oil
*****
Other ways to naturally alleviate the discomfort of restless legs include:
*Reducing caffeine intake (especially after lunch)
*Stop smoking
*Weight loss (Recall that elevated BMI contributes to restless legs)
*Increased exercise
*Cryotherapy
*Warm or cold compresses
*Weighted blankets
*Avoiding certain foods including processed foods, fatty fried foods, sodas, sugar, excessive alcohol, and caffeine. 
*Adding specific food “tools” to your diet (ex: cashews, almonds, peanuts or brown rice) that are rich in magnesium. If you add magnesium to your diet thru supplementation, you’ll want to look for forms such as glycinate or malate for maximum bioavailability.
*Balance your micronutrient load with Young Living’s Mineral Essence and NingXia Red. You’ll be so glad you added both of these to your routine! 
*Young Living CBD muscle rub. CBD has a relaxing effect on the muscles and a calming effect on nerves.
*Work on ways to improve your natural dopamine levels.
*Quinine water (true tonic water)
If you’ve done your prep work, you may now have a line up of suspects causing your restless legs. I am an enormous advocate of proper and extensive lab work, as concrete answers eliminate the guesswork. It will save both time and frustration.
-Iron deficiency may be easily identified and treated once you have concrete lab work answers on both iron and ferritin levels. It’s not generally a good idea to supplement iron until you know. Too much iron in the body can be quite damaging over time.
-If you suspect a hormone imbalance (including thyroid) may be a contributing factor, lab work can confirm your suspicions.. A hormone imbalance will also yield many other possible clues. Find your clue cluster, and you’ll likely find the culprit, and then you can get to work on the solution! 
-Nutritional deficiencies can be so very subtle, and don’t always have a strong set of clues. Magnesium is a simple and safe supplement to try if lab work simply isn’t possible. Ample magnesium in the diet is also helpful for reducing chronic constipation episodes, reducing symptoms of depression, improving PMS symptoms, preventing migraines, and more!
-Kidney disease can be a hard one, as both the disease itself and many medications used in chronic kidney disease patients are potential culprits. 
-Arguably, drug 💊induced restless legs is among the biggest offenders. Not surprisingly, countries that do not rely on pharmaceuticals as their predominant mode of care have the lowest incidence of restless leg syndrome within their population. Additionally, these countries also tend to live within a diet structure that has minimal processed foods and sugars available to them. 
Take a close look at the medications that can cause restless legs (last week’s post). The biggest known offenders are 💊acid reducers (ex: omeprazole, pantoprazole, esomeprazole) 💊  escitalopram, 💊fluoxetine, 💊levodopa/carbidopa, 💊, levothyroxine, 💊mirtazapine, 💊olanzapine, and💊 tramadol.  Many of these medications could be avoided with lifestyle choices and changes that address balancing mind, body, and spirit.
Approximately 10% of the population is on medication for heartburn and GERD related symptoms. According to a recent study:
 “… consuming these powerful acid-blocking agents is strongly linked to a significantly higher incidence of restless legs syndrome, compared to those who did not consume these medications.” 
Gah! Please go back and re-read all you’ve learned about the clues within the digestive system. Pairing up clues is the name of the game!
Finally, if you have children, remember that restless legs is not an “adults only” dysfunction. Up to 6% of kiddos have restless legs which often are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. Kids are not always able to verbalize what they are experiencing, which can add to the challenge. Sleep, mood, cognition, and quality of life are significantly affected in the pediatric population. Not surprisingly, ADHD, depressive symptoms and anxiousness are often included in the clue cluster.
xoxo~ liz

##sharingiscaring
#goodmedicine
#Godgaveusallweneedinthegarden
#BecomingYourOwnHealthDetective
#ThanksYL

STRESS – part 3

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Chronic Stress Part III : Solutions
Today’s post is full of butterflies, kittens🐱, and unicorns (Literally!). That’s a welcome change, I’m sure, considering the sobering long term ramifications of unmitigated chronic stress we’ve talked about these past few weeks. Chronic stress usually creeps in on very soft feet, so consider taking a few minutes to answer this simple yes/no “day to day stress assessment”:

stress assessment

 

Coping with stress involves two steps:
1️⃣Recognizing the signs and symptoms of EARLY burnout and stress (you’ve got the tools now!)
2️⃣Activating any or all of the self care tools below. 
Now, here’s the fun part….. Giving yourself some self care time by mixing and matching ways to “de-stress” on the regular. This is not a “once and done” experience. These are lifestyle changes for life!
🙌Stressbuster Options🙌
👉Get regular exercise! 
👉Engage in self care activities (ex: a long soaking bath or a massage)
👉Prayer, meditation, and/or quiet time with no electronic or television distractions
👉Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (aka CBT) . This can be a very valuable tool, especially if you find yourself trending in negative thinking patterns. I would really recommend picking up Dr. Caroline Leaf’s book and workbook, “Who Switched Off My Brain? Controlling toxic thoughts and emotions” to begin diving deeper into this subject.
👉Journal. Write out your thoughts instead of letting them fester in your mind. Create a gratitude journal, write a letter you’ll never send to someone, or begin success journaling)
👉Turn off social media and electronics as often as your day allows.
👉Limit scrolling time  
👉Get outside as much as possible and connect with nature. Go barefoot or get your hands on plants and in soil. (Grounding! ….. We’ve talked about this in previous posts)
👉Read something relaxing and nontriggering (ex: a work of fiction). Allow your brain to wander within the pages of the book.
👉Engage in Yoga, pilates, Tai Chi (soooo many health benefits!)
👉Practice breathing exercises ( left nostril breathing or box breathing are both excellent breathing patterns to quiet the mind)
Improve your sleep in both quality and quantity (we talked about that last week)
👉Try salt water floatation therapy for deep relaxation
👉Listen to 432 Hz frequency healing music ( check out the company WholeTones for more info!)
👉Laugh! It releases endorphins.
👉Spend time with a pet. Did you know that a cat’s purring frequency corresponds with established healing frequencies in therapeutic medicine for humans? 
👉Practice saying no to the things that bring stress, and saying yes to the things that will bring joy.
👉Avoid procrastination and just do the thing. Learn time management techniques and goal setting.
👉Eat healthy nourishing foods
👉Engage in a hobby
👉Connect with actual people in a community….. In person. We are not created to be an island.
👉Examine your values and beliefs and then live by them. An enormous amount of internal stress comes from living differently from your beliefs and values. 
👉Oils and Supplements. We have so many amazing tools to help us navigate stress:
🌿Lavender, Vetiver (Yes, it doesn’t smell great, so apply to bottoms of feet!), Bergamot, Roman Chamomile, Frankincense,  Sandalwood, Ylang Ylang, Orange, and Geranium are just a few oils known for their calming qualities.
🌿Young Living has created an amazing array of perfectly blended oils to help add to the peace and tranquility in our lives: StressAway, Tranquil, RutaVala, Peace and Calming, and Valor are just a few that come to mind. 
🌿An herb called Ashwagandha is known for its beautiful ability to lower symptoms of stress in the body. It is one of the important ingredients in Young Living’s EndoGize (typically for women) and PowerGize (formulated for men).
🌿Young Living’s Calm CBD Roll-on is another fantastic tool to help relax and quiet the mind. Have you tried it yet? Be sure to find and follow Dr. Oliver Wenker MD, DEAA, ABAARM, FAARFM, MBA on his website and social media to learn in depth information on all things CBD.  


Unfortunately, many doctors don’t recommend steps to help mitigate stress in a patient’s life. Nearly 20% of adults age 18 or older are on medication💊 for symptoms related to stress.  A patient may present with anxiety, depression, or any of the other stress related clues we’ve talked about, and a prescription is written without any further discussion (and often, without comprehensive lab work being ordered to ensure there’s not also an imbalance somewhere in the body causing the symptoms). There will always be a time and a place for medication as a final option, but patients need to be fully aware of the problems that lie with using medication long term as a coping mechanism. 
💊Many of the medications used to treat symptoms of stress are highly addictive. Additionally, these medications have the capacity to impact brain function when taken over extended periods of time.
💊According to a study published in 2010 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the most common classes of drugs (SSRI’s)  used to treat mild to moderate anxiety and depression was “unable to outperform placebos for moderate symptoms of depression”. So…. there’s that.
💊All of the medications used to mediate stress symptoms have side effect profiles that may well require a 2nd or 3rd medication to help manage the side effects of the initial medication.
💊Very few studies on the effects of a polypharmacy (using multiple medications concurrently)  lifestyle exist, yet we know that prescription drugs are the 3rd leading cause of death in the USA (after heart disease and cancer)…… (Don’t let anyone tell you that essential oils and herbs are dangerous!😉).
💊There is no way of measuring serotonin (the primary “happy”  neurotransmitter) in the brain of a living person, nor is there a “normal level” of serotonin we should all have to be emotionally healthy. People with high serotonin levels can still be depressed, and people with low serotonin levels can still be happy and joy filled. Indeed, we are largely the masters of our own emotional state.
💊Many medications used to treat symptoms of stress should be used in caution with people who have preexisting extreme mood disorders, diabetes, kidney, liver, or heart disease, or pregnancy (due to risk of miscarriage, congenital heart disease, or persistent pulmonary hypertension of the baby).


We have so many low cost (to free!) tools available to us when it comes to how we choose to deal with stress, and as you’ve hopefully seen, most are very pleasant options with no icky side effects.
Use the two stress surveys📊 you now have on hand to check yourself periodically, and then evaluate your self care / fun quotient. Your future self will thank you! 
xoxo~ liz

#sharingiscaring 
#beingwellinformedisgoodmedicine
#ThanksYL 
#fearfullywonderfullyjoyfullymade 
(PS: if anyone needs a stress relieving kitten, I’ve got 4 fosters looking for a home! )

FDA Issues Warnings About Dermal Fillers

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My email inbox is an eclectic mix. I mean really….. if someone were to go through it, they’d likely wonder what in the world goes on in my brain I’m sure. 😂…. and truly, sometimes I feel that way myself. It’s an Olympic level ping pong game on some days! 


Daily I am wading through emails from entities who highly endorse Western Medicine while others give the latest information on holistic ways to heal (nearly all I’ve chosen to subscribe to are like me….. western medicine healthcare trained professionals who have seen that there is another, better way). Researching and gleaning information is a time consuming process. There is very little way of doing it quickly.


I see information like this: “FDA Issues Warning About Use of Dermal Fillers with Needle -Free Devices” (note: those with needles are also worth the warning). https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/960557?uac=245954MZ… 


What if there might be another way? What if drinking enough water, staying away from toxins in food, beverage, skincare, and household chemicals….. getting enough exercise and sleep… got your foot in the door to more youthful looking skin?
What if there was a boho beauty regimen you could add to your day that improved the appearance of your skin gradually with regular use? 🙋‍♀️


YL CBD Beauty Boost + YL Longevity Vitality in a capsule…. have you tried it for 4-6 weeks? AMAZING!!  ( You’ll use the beauty serum (1/4-1/2 dropper applied topicaly) and longevity filled capsules (2-5 drops per day internally) each day for 30-45 days. 


If you don’t currently have a Young Living account, let’s walk through skin health conundrums together. I offer a complimentary 30 min consult.


I have had a clean skin care regimen thanks to Young Living for almost 8 years, and have been taking the Longevity in a capsule for about 5 years. Clean skincare begins from the inside out! I added the CBD Beauty Boost about 3 months ago. Frankly, I really didn’t think my skin could improve. I was wrong. I’ll post a recent pic of myself in the comments. 


Stay safe ya’ll. Save yourself some money too (that dermal filling ain’t cheap!). You won’t regret it.
xoxo~ liz


#sharingiscaring
#ThanksYL
#worthit
#healthyBodyHealthySkin
#knowingthetruthisgoodmedicine

fda issues warning about use of fillers with needle-free devices

Release Your (or maybe not) Burden

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Someone here needs to hear this good word from my friend Jen Weir. She is the bomb with both words and knowledge!
Know what else is the bomb? The essential oil Kunzea. Have you tried it? If you have a bottle of it at home, but haven’t used it, you may find you have a hidden treasure after reading Jen’s words.
xoxo~ liz

#sharingiscaring 
#shineon
#JesusandEOs
#ThanksYL

NOT YOURS
Can we talk about energy for a moment? Or, a lot of moments…
According to Mr. Einstein, everything is energy. Yet in many circles, particularly those of the more faith based nature, we shy away from energetics, deeming it woo woo, weird or, gasp, of the devil. 
My soul, who do people think created energy? 
enter exasperated eye roll….
Have you ever been so drawn to an oil but not sure why? Or better still, have you ever given yourself the space in your day to play with the oils, use something you’ve never tried or even, possibly dare open one that you’ve been saving for good? Hoarding is so 2020 you know.
Such was the case with me today and Kunzea. Remember her? 
This precious oil was drawing me in, it literally jumped off the shelf and of course I began digging in. 
The interesting part to this experience is that I have been asking the question- why won’t my shoulder heal? To be totally transparent, I had struggled with severe pain for eight long years. Ever since my baby girl was in the NICU this pain has been unbearable at times. I don’t talk about it because frankly drawing attention to dis ease is not my style. Yet today, I was done. Enough already. 
Emotional releasing, yep, check. 
Using CBD or any other pain essential oil blend, check check. 
Prayed for healing, check check double check.
Short of smoking weed to numb it, I’d say I had done all the things. 
End of rope officially reached. 
And yet…
Knowing what I do about energy I had to ask the question abotu why I was drawn to this seemingly obscure oil. There had to be a connection to needing this one today and this incessant pain. 
One of Kunzea’s unique features is that it can diffuse and transform deep emotional pain, that has hardened in the body. Where there is pain in the body, there is always an emotion attached to the pain. Kunzea assists in releasing emotional pain and in transforming the immediate shock of accidents. 
Bingo. 
The emotional pain attached was the burdens others have heaped on my shoulders. 
The opinions of this THE way, rather than simple A way. Can anyone else relate? Just me? 
So, there’s THE way to raise your people, not just A way.
There’s THE way to hear from God, not A way.
There’s THE (newest) way to eat, not A way. 
There’s THE (again, newest) way to build a MLM biz, not A way. 
There’s THE way to love your neighbor, not A way.
There’s THE way to respond to blatant tyranny, not A way. 
You guys feel me? It’s heavy to even type all of this. 
Let’s just say my entire adult life has consisted of others telling me every way I am doing x,y,z wrong, and possibly, sinning. 
Being type A, wanting to do it all correctly, yet having the personality of non compliance was beginning to take its toll. hence the shoulder and neck pain…
You see, this specific may not be your story, and I pray it’s not. Yet some of you have pain, real physical pain that you take meds for, oils, weed, whatever your bandaid is. But healing is possible. It’s emotional. 100% of the time, it’s an emotion that has hardened itself in your body and needs to be chipped away. It won’t happen overnight. Or I don’t know, maybe it will. It’s really anyone’s guess. 
But I can tell you, once I began to speak truth and stop believing other people’s truth, my should started to loosen. It was literally the weirdest freakiest thing evah. But it’s truth. 
The cracking I heard when I stretch is at an all time minimum. 
I’ve got a little more to go, a little more truth to tell myself, a little more business to do with Jesus and whole lot less business to do with other people’s opinions. But I’m on my way- me, Jesus and a little oil called Kunzea. 
Let me ask you, is there an oil you have been drawn to? Before this did you know that your body/energy is trying to tell you something? 
Just try it. Emotion talk is my jam and not everyone’s cup of tea. But I swear to you, not having physical pain feels so much better than having it. I mean, you do you. But I just thought you all should know.