Nurse

PARISH NURSE NEWS: Parish Nurse News

Apple Cider Vinegar, that wonderful old-timers home remedy, cures more ailments than any other folk remedy. The number of reported cures from drinking Apple Cider Vinegar is numerous. They include cures for allergies (pet, food and environmental), sinus infections, acne, high cholesterol, flu, chronic fatigue, candida (yeast), acid reflux, sore throats, contact dermatitis, arthritis, and gout. Recently, the focus of Apple Cider Vinegar has been on its use in dieting and weight control.

Different from the refined and distilled vinegars usually found in supermarkets, Natural Apple Cider Vinegar is made from fresh, crushed, organically grown apples and allowed to mature in wooden barrels, which boosts its natural fermentation qualities. When mature, it contains a web-like substance which becomes visible when the rich brownish liquid is held to the light.

The health benefits of Apple Cider vinegar have been promoted by many well-known authors such as Dr Jarvis, Paul C. Bragg and Patricia Bragg.

Weight Loss/Appetite Suppressant
Some speculate that pectin, the water soluble fiber found in apples and Apple Cider Vinegar, absorbs water and fills the stomach a little before each meal which helps to suppress your appetite and lead to weight loss. It has also been suggested that ACV (apple cider vinegar) reduces the craving for sweets and foods containing salt and fat. ACV increases your body's metabolism thus burning more calories. ACV improves digestion which in turn reduces the amount of time that fats remaining in the digestive tract. This means less absorbed leading to weight loss. The potassium in ACV helps to balance the sodium in your diet, and to minimize retained fluid.

Animals love ACV!!!
ACV benefits for our pets, from cats and dogs to pigeons (do any of you have any??) and parrots to cows and horses, are numerous. It can be used as a daily health tonic, to deter insects such as mosquitoes, fleas and ticks, to relieve skin conditions, and even to take away the smell of skunk (we hope to never go here).

I know we touched on the benefits of ACV before, but it bears repeating with a little more information. A fellow nurse swears by this for total cure of his GERD. He takes a glass of apple juice (he uses light apple juice) each morning and adds a couple of tablespoons of ACV and just drinks it down. He says his wife is very happy as the GERD causes inflammation of the throat/epiglottis and made him snore every night. Since his GERD is cured, so is his snoring. Several ENT doctors have agreed this is very plausible. While they don't support holistic treatments for all situations, they cannot deny the effectiveness of this treatment. One ENT doctor was all for Nettie Pots!! But that's another story.

Over the course of this summer the building at St. John has been under construction, as we all know. I have been visiting breakfasts downstairs to do Blood Pressure checks. This is a good time to catch people relaxing and is a good way to get BP checks. After you have run upstairs to the office, it can sometimes not be the best time to check your BP without sitting for 15-20 minutes. In the past I have missed some folks because I was up and they were down or vice versa. I am going to continue to VISIT YOU for BP checks. If you would prefer a more private setting just let me know and I will honor your request, otherwise you will see me around the "breakfast times" ON THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EACH MONTH and feel free to call me over for a BP check.

Why are my BP checks different than at the doctors' office? There can be a lot of reasons:
*Time of day
*When you take your medicines
*How much salt was in/out of your diet the day before
*Fear of MD office/how relaxed you are (nothing like a good sermon to bring down the BP)
*How well hydrated you are
*Do you have a cold/allergy/life stresses/or the blues
*Family history / underlying disease/age/weight/smoker/alcohol intake/other illnesses such as kidney/diabetes/just to name a few

It's important to remember frequent BP checks in different situations tell the whole story. This creates a trend for the doctors to evaluate and determine if interventions are appropriate. Adding BP checks at church is one more way to evaluate your overall health. God Bless You,