Life Without Cramps

Hmm... fifteen years of cramps, temporary fixes, but always relapsing. And at last I believe I've found the ultimate solution. Using cells salts as a permanent cure requires patient dosing over time, but it is an inexpensive treatment and addresses the root of the problem--it is a form of profound nutrition for our bodies.

After death and cremation, all that remains is ash. The ash is composed of the twelve tissue salts. All other body particles, organic substances and water, are burned away. It's not a pleasant topic, but consider what that means. We must have those cell salts in our bodies. They are the foundation, the rocks on which we are formed, on which organic elements come and go, as they do in all the earth. But as with crags in the wild, the forces of nature chip away. Wind and rain skim molecules from a stoney ridge that has stood for centuries, the changes rarely noticed by people, the more transient entity, as they passed by. But chip away they do.

By Unknown; John G. Rothermel, Fossil Man

We are less solid than most rock. Even the cells of our very bones are living... reproducing... dying... bits of life. They are fed nutrients, carried by the blood, and respire. And if our diet or our power to properly replenish a cell is lacking? The cell weakens. Bones become soft, brittle, less alive. Nutrients are sought so that our structure does not crumble. In deficiency, nutrients are borrowed, and softer tissues suffer. When the bones need a mineral, or perhaps at times a substitute mineral, and it is not available in the blood, the muscles and tendons must give it up. In time, the result is tissue destruction and pain. Oftentimes, a cramp.

In another post, I told about my near death experience with a cramp while snorkeling. Goodness, those minerals are important!

For years I have taken mineral supplements, and they did, for a time, keep the cramps away. But my body wanted something more, and in time, began to demand it in a way that I could not mistake for a whim. Having used homeopathy for many years, my mind went to cell salts, which are homeopathically potentized mini-minerals. At least some brands are. (You want a brand with triturated minerals.) My muscle cramps, leg cramps, ended immediately. However, I continued to have severe cramps on the top of a foot. This had always been the most painful cramp; I thought it might be a contraction, perhaps of a tendon? It drew my toes upward. I looked at the anatomy of the foot, which is quite beautiful, and indeed, the top is a tendon.

I had read many books on cell salts, with many symptoms discussed throughout, but I knew I'd never be able to remember all I'd read or even where to find it again. I had decided to write myself a repertory (as I could not find one online) in which symptoms would be organized and easy to look up, along with the appropriate salts for each. So when I decided this cramp was in a tendon, I simply had to look up Tendons, contractions, and the answer was at my fingertips. In the case of tendons, the remedy is Calc Fluor. A muscle cramp you can pull out; with a tendon, you just stabilize with perhaps your hands, and wait for it to grant you mercy. Calc Fluor ended that situation for me immediately. Yes, I keep it on me, and I take it three times a day and will do so for some months, but it is well worth the trouble. I hope by summer I will be able to garden without fear, something I thought last autumn I might have to give up.

For muscle cramps, it varies from person to person, but the salts to consider are Calc Phos, Mag Phos, Kali Phos, and Silicea. You can read about them online and see what might apply to you, and it certainly would not hurt to take them all, alternating. Soon you will go to bed without having to worry about those legs. Menstrual cramps might respond, too, to Calc Phos and Mag Phos.

Please watch for the release, a few months from now, of Choosing Cell Salts: A Repertory for Natural Healing and Youthful Beauty, which will be a great aid in self help for, um, natural healing and beauty. It will discuss many other symptoms and diseases and the salts that may help you.

Saving Face

Bernardo Strozzi, Old Woman at the Mirror

The bloom of youth... the fading flower... the woman who gracefully endures the changes in her once beautiful face... or the woman who refuses to "let herself go" and spends a small fortune, risking making things worse to hold on to what she once had.

It may come as a great surprise to you that for just a very few dollars you can lift those sagging tissues without the knife (and a possible mistake!) and the period of isolation while recovering from incisions, bruising and swelling. You may suspect the stirring of an infomercial at this point and be ready to leave, but hold on; it is truly worthwhile to stay.

It was not my face that set me on the cell salts path, but painful cramps in my feet. My first trip to Hawaii was nearly the end of me. As it turns out, you cannot scream for help with a snorkel bit lodged in your mouth, nor can you spit it out; it's attached to your mask. The tendency to grab your cramping foot is really strong, and that foot is deep under water. Pain and panic makes you breath hard and fast. With my husband just four feet away, but facing out to sea, and out farther than I was, I determined to get myself back to shore the best I could, if I could. I survived.

Having improved my cramps, temporarily several times, over the years with increasing amounts of supplementary minerals, I began to wonder if there was something wrong with the kind I was taking. Not according to everything I read or heard from my naturopath and homeopath. And he didn't seem inclined to choose a remedy, just encouraged taking the minerals. A trip to the ER after a half hour cramp that I was sure would return had the doctor reassuring me that I was just a tiny bit low on potassium. Potassium didn't help for long. I began to realize I was on my own to figure out what to do. If I got stuck with a cramp and nobody was there to help me, the pain did not allow me to move. I began to carry around, even at home, a little purple bag full of every cure I had found that had worked at one time or another. The bag contained minerals, a liquid including cider vinegar to rub on, Pedialyte to quickly drink down, and little homeopathic and herbal tablets. One or another would work, usually... until they didn't. I'd have considered amputation at that point, if it weren't for the reality of phantom limb pain.

Having been well mentored in homeopathy, and having often treated myself and my family, I had some awareness of cell salts, but I had always seen them as merely very low potency remedies--not really worth much. Surely if a 6c had to be repeated four times a day, a 6x was barely worth the storage space it held. Nevertheless, I'd stored a few for some decades. I'd glance at them from time to time, thinking maybe someday I'd need them. Fifteen years into my foot cramps, it dawned on me that they were another, different, form of minerals. And slightly homeopathically potentized. Could they help me? I couldn't afford not to find out.

I looked for a few books on Amazon to get me started. One that caught my eye was entitled Facial Diagnosis of Cell Salt Deficiencies. Well, if there was one thing more important to me than my foot cramps, it was my face. I'd begun using the expensive concealer I'd bought to cover the dark circles under my eyes over most of my cheeks, plastering over age spots. Bags had developed under my eyes. There was yellow under my eyebrows and around my mouth, and wrinkles here and there. My jowls sagged. Basically, I realized, I looked sick, and looking in the mirror made me sicker.

I did a search for, hopefully, a repertory to help me choose cell salts quickly similar to the homeopathic repertory I'd used for so long. There were traces of salts repertories online, but they were no longer available. So I bought three books and the full kit of cell salts. The kind with triturated minerals, Best Made brand. I had to read and read to find what I needed, and things I'd already read disappeared from my mind as fast as they'd been fed in. I needed the symptoms and the corresponding remedies organized and available to look up again at a glance. I decided to write the repertory myself, for myself. I collected the details and fed them into a document in logical order.

I noticed quick relief from one kind of cramp soon. Quite soon. In just a few days my husband said, "Hmm, your face looks somehow smoother." I had already noticed. Life was better! The cramps that pulled my feet downward were gone. But the more severe ones had always been on top of my foot, and they pulled my toes up. Only hard pressure from my hands made them bearable at all. In time, I realized this was something different from the other; actually, I had previously wondered if this was a contraction, perhaps of a tendon. I looked at the anatomy of the foot, and yes; the top of the foot is tendon and ligaments. I took out the book I'd been writing, Choosing Cell Salts: A Repertory for Natural Healing and Youthful Beauty, which will soon be available on Amazon, and looked up "Tendons, contraction of." And there was the answer. Instant payment for all my hard work. The remedy? Calc Fluor. That brought me instant and thus far, permanent relief. I'm driving my car again!

William Meritt Chase, 1849 - 1916

But I know why you came, and why you've kept reading. What about my face, right? Well, I'm terribly impressed. While I'm still focusing on nourishing my tendons (a permanent cell salts cure is not fast), I work in other salts as I can. Only a few doses of Kali Sulph saw my age spots begin to fade. I was shocked when I went to put on my concealer and needed it only under my eyes, and just a light touch there. The bags under my eyes are lessened by about 2/3, and the darkness of my upper lids, which I formerly covered with a thick coat of pink powder eyeshadow, is nearly gone. The sagging, well, I think I look 20 years younger.

The great thing about working on your face in this way is that it also treats the unknown weaknesses in your body--or even the ones that cause you great distress. You may notice pleasing changes in your health as you look for and treat the cell salt deficiencies showing up in your face.

Well, we're just talking
about your face here, ok?

Look for subtle or obvious discolorations, swelling, eruptions, and anything else about your facial skin that you wish to address. And use a 6x potency tissue salt (cell salt) up to three times a day. They are safe as directed and do not interfere or interact with medications.

Please watch for my book, as mentioned above, which can help you treat yourself easily at home for various illnesses, symptoms, and aesthetic improvements.





A few tips: 
1) Firming up: Calc Fluor and Silicea
2) Brown spots: Kali Sulph and Calc Sulph
3) Oily/greasy skin: Nat Mur
             on the nose: Nat Phos
4) Bags under the eyes: Nat Sulph 

Feed Your Face

This has nothing to do with a turkey dinner.

The face shows much about your health. Every brown spot, pimple, bag, dark circle... is a notice that you have something off kilter. I am not going to go into kidneys and livers today, although they are very much involved. But it can be much simpler than all that. To the extent that the kidney is related to the bags under your eyes, both can be healed by the root of the problem: the deficiency of one of the bodies vital twelve mineral salts.

Once a body has been cremated, these twelve salts are all that remain. So thankfully, we all have quite a bit of that in us. Thus most of us can walk, talk, and go on through our days. When we have an abundance of the salts, they use the other components of our bodies, water and organic substances, to make everything work right and renew. However, to the extent that we do not function well enough, we are short of one or more of these salts, without which even water cannot be put to proper use. And the face will often tell a lot.

Copyright Debra Brown

Some of the facial signs of cell salt deficiency include:

1) Bags under the eyes - Nat Sulph
2) Acne rosacea and spider veins - Kali Mur
3) Brown spots, age spots, liver spots - Kali Sulph
4) Blotchy redness - Nat Phos
5) Blue lips - Calc Fluor
6) Greasy forehead, shiny upper eyelid - Nat Mur
7) Dark eyelids - Kali Phos
8) Droopy lids, sagging tissues - Calc Fluor, Silicea
9) Laugh lines and other wrinkles - Silicea
10) A red nose after eating, red complexion - Mag Phos, Nat Phos

By taking the right salts, available at natural food stores, and exercising a little patience, you will be able to see these and many other symptoms melt away.

My coming book, Choosing Cell Salts: A Repertory for Natural Healing and Youthful Beauty, will be helpful in finding such symptoms and the corresponding remedies quickly. You can just do a search for a symptom, whether of the face, mind, or body. Until that is available, you might enjoy the book Facial Diagnosis of Cell Salt Deficiencies by David R. Card, available on Amazon. Not only does it show pictures of some disconcerting deficiencies, but it includes good information on the workings of each of the salts in the body.

The more you read up and come to understand these twelve salts, the better you will be able to look and feel.

Nat Mur -- a Cell Salt for Allergies, Headaches, and the Stiff Upper Lip

"Nat Mur – Controls osmotic pressure of fluids to allow nutrients to be carried into cells. In a deficiency of biochemical sodium chloride (the cell salt, not the table salt), fluids tend to build up in one area and be lacking in another. Thus a person with swollen ankles or watering eyes can be constipated with dry stools or have other symptoms of dryness. Headaches are a common result, as are allergies. Emotions can be repressed, held in, preserved, as with salt."

The above is what I wrote about Natrum Muriaticum, sodium chloride, in my soon to be released book, Choosing Cell Salts: A Repertory for Natural Healing and Beauty. Each salt has a short paragraph outlining the basics, hopefully without overwhelming those who need Kali Phos to give them more mental strength, so they can think through their selection. Thank goodness, there are only twelve. It is much easier than learning the hundreds of homeopathic remedies, and treatment with cell salts can easily be managed at home.

To elaborate, Nat Mur is able to relieve symptoms that too much table salt might induce. In provings, or studies where potentized salt is given to healthy subjects, headaches and allergies were a major response. In my book-to-be, you can see how many headache types are relieved by this particular salt. Selected examples from my book's Headaches rubric:

constipation, with (headaches) – Kali Mur, Nat Mur
drowsiness, with – Nat Mur, Nat Sulph
dryness of some mucus membranes, with – Nat Mur
frothy coating on tongue, with – Nat Mur
girls in puberty, in – Nat Mur
heavy – Ferr Phos
       and dull, in the forehead – Nat Mur
light, sensitive to – Calc Phos (Kali Phos, Nat Mur) Silicea
listless subjects, in – Nat Mur
mental exertion, worse from – Calc Phos, Nat Mur
migraines, sick headache – Nat Phos, Nat Mur, Nat Sulph
sun, from the – Nat Mur
tears, watering of eyes, with – Nat Mur
vomiting, with
       frothy, watery phlegm, of, with – Nat Mur
watery symptoms elsewhere, with – Nat Mur

In the light sensitivity rubric, Nat Mur is in parenthesis, meaning it is supportive to the remedy listed before it, outside the parenthesis.

As table salt preserves vegetables and meats, a Nat Mur condition results in a person's preserving emotions, holding it all in, particularly grief. Indeed, the British stiff upper lip is said to have developed in times of great hardship and loss, during war in the homeland. A friend just today told me that she is not herself, nearly bursting into tears in a trying situation. Indeed, she had recently started on Nat Mur in a low potency, which will gently and safely help her to overcome grief that has been making her sick for many years as it balances fluids in her body, alleviating symptoms that she may not even have connected to those suppressed feelings. True, she may find it inconvenient to cry, but certainly it is better than dealing with the symptoms that have caused her suffering for years. 

If you have such headaches and/or allergies, and you have fluid imbalances in your body such as I mentioned in the top paragraph, you can take Nat Mur in a 3X or 6X potency, safely and slowly readjusting the fluids and overcoming the problems this condition causes. 

As for aging symptoms and fading beauty, Nat Mur can help with bloating of the face or body, dry cracked lips and skin, dirty looking skin, sallow, greenish, or yellow skin, inflamed eyelids, redness along the hairline, a greasy looking forehead, various types of eruptions, and so on. Please watch for my book to tell you more!

I will post on another remedy soon.

About the author ~ Debra Brown (call her Debbie) is a fortunate soul to have found homeopathy and at the same time, a mentor in the field, the brilliant Todd Schlapfer, N.D. Under his caring guidance, she learned to care for herself and her family with amazing, powerful homeopathic remedies. While there were bottles of cell salts in her supplements cupboard, she thought of them as terribly mild remedies rather than the profoundly nutritional and gently homeopathically stimulating treatments that they truly are, and so she ignored them. Don't make the same mistake.

When nothing else seemed able to treat her severe foot and leg cramps, Debbie finally gave in and turned to the salts. From the first dose, the cramps stopped, though they threatened for about a week. Within days, facial changes began to show, and in a week or ten days, the cramping that was so painful and persistent had completely disappeared. Now, of course, she wanted to fix everything, especially her face. She found pouring through her several cell salts books to be interesting but time consuming, and she had to make notes. She decided that she needed a repertory similar to Kent's, the one she uses in  choosing homeopathic remedies. And she could not find a comprehensive one online. For her own good, she set out to write one, and because the cell salts are really nature's answer to incredible healing, she will soon publish it for any who wish to use cell salts as well.

A Thrilling New Natural Health and Beauty Project

I'm so pleased to announce...

As I have aged, I have had to look for more and more solutions. And I've been blessed with some of the best natural health care: homeopathy, the right foods, herbs, and great supplements, as well as the amazing orthodox medical provisions of our day to keep an eye on my frame. Still, aging brings us all increasing challenges, whether it has been for physical or mental health, or what sometimes feels even more important, fading beauty-- increasingly sagging skin or age spots, bags and dark circles under the eyes, loss of tone and loss of hair, and the inevitable wrinkles. What is it about us that we grow old so very young?

It makes sense that our health and looks should go together. Or better yet, stay together! Stresses on the body and mind affect us from head to toe. You know that proper nourishment is important. You may have tried various diets over time, and no doubt some have helped. But what is really important is to provide ourselves the very basis for cellular health, cells being the building blocks of our bodies. Is it organic vegetables? Grass fed meats? Regular exercise? Those things are a great help in building, nourishing, and oxygenating our bodies. But there is something indispensible that most of us need in greater quantities and form than we are taking in-- the twelve inorganic cell salts studied by Dr. Schuessler.

                                                                                                        Copyright Debra Brown

After the human body is cremated, all that remains are the twelve salts, Calc Fluor, Calc Phos, Calc Sulph, Ferr Phos, Kali Mur, Kali Phos, Kali Sulph, Mag Phos, Nat Mur, Nat Phos, Nat Sulph, and Silicea. Perhaps you've heard of them. Maybe you have used them. They are inexpensively, for their great value, available at most health food stores and whole food markets. They can be purchased on the internet. And because they are in such a fine, triturated state, they can feed your cells and thus are the foundation on which to build your health and maintain a youthful look. They are harmless and nutritious. If you choose the wrong salts for one symptom, you have only nourished yourself for another, or to prevent another.

Cell salts can be used for pregnant and nursing women and babies. They can only help. They belong in your body, and disease develops with a lack of one or another. How do you recognize which you are deficient in? There are many great books out there that tell. Some are small and simple to use, others go into more detail. But when I had an urgent need to choose my salts, and quickly, I found that I had to do quite a bit of reading. Please do obtain and read some books on cell salts-- the more you know, the better. I will be posting some here on each of the cell salts now and in the next weeks, so do come back often, but please watch for the future release of my comprehensive book on choosing cell salts, designed to be able to help you find the right salt, simply, in minutes, for many, many of the symptoms people experience, including the dreadful uglies of aging.

For now, a few words about each salt, but there is so much more:

Calcium Fluoride - This salt builds and maintains tooth enamel and the elastic fibers of muscle and connective tissue. Therefore, besides being important for strength, you can see how it would assist in keeping the face firm and toned with a smile you want to show off.

Calcium Phosphate is important to the digestive system, helping with proper assimilation of proteins. As our cells wear out on a daily basis, Calc Phos helps to ensure the proper forming of new blood cells, bone, muscle, and glands. It will also help to turn a pale, sallow complexion in to a healthy glow.

Calcium Sulphate removes impurities. It is a great help with acne, eczema, and boils. It also clears out the inner body during the later stages of illnesses such as colds and bronchitis.

Ferrum Phosphate is a constituent of red blood cells, and it is important during the first stages of infection and inflammation, when a person has a lower fever. It often dramatically aborts such an illness if taken early on. If you have low blood pressure, you will want to improve that with Ferrum Phos. Also, start on this salt to take care of any bluish-black circles under your eyes.

The second stage of infectious illness and inflammation is often treated with Kali Mur (Potassium Chloride.) The fever has begun to rise, and this salt can be alternated with Ferrum Phos to speed along your recovery. Kali Mur is also a great help to rid yourself of acne rosacea, spider veins, or too much red in your cheeks.

Poirot must have taken Kali Phos (Potassium Phosphate.) It builds up the little gray cells; literally, it builds brain matter and other gray nerve fibers. Therefore, it is great for "burn-out" from mental work and studies as well as mood and mental symptoms. You can also use it to treat a sallow or ash gray complexion.

Kali Sulph (Potassium Sulphate) transfers oxygen into the cells-- internal respiration. You can imagine how important that is to health and beauty. It is every bit as important as taking oxygen into our lungs. Kali Sulph dimishes age or liver spots and treats vitiligo, the loss of pigmentation in patches.

Magnesium Phosphate-- this one you should have on hand for any spasmodic pains. It might keep you out of the emergency room! It wouldn't hurt to have it in a homeopathic 30c potency as well as the cell salt, 6x. It is dramatic for deep, stabbing, boring pains, whether in the head or abdomen, and for cramps. If you are prone to cramping, regular dosing with Mag Phos and Kali Phos will be a welcome relief. Do you redden from embarassment or other stresses? Mag Phos is the salt you need.

Think of Nat Mur, Sodium Chloride, (no, not the table salt variety) when you have edema, a build up of fluid in one body part, while dealing with constipation or symptoms of dryness in another. Dry skin but a greasy forehead and even high blood pressure call for this amazing remedy.

Nat Phos (Sodium Phosphate)-- think of acidity. If you struggle with an acidic, burning stomach and uric acid swelling of joints, you need nature's antacid. It's so much better than using a medication which negatively affects your digestion. It will also treat sour sweat of your feet or armpits, and you'll like yourself better!

Nat Sulph (Sodium Sulphate) is called the liver salt; it helps with jaundice and a sensitive gallbladder. And please don't drink too much alcohol, but if you do, Nat Sulph is your hangover remedy. Nat Sulph will beautify skin with a greenish tinge as well as an overly red complexion.

Silicea, Silica, is for your fibrous tissues. Would you like to treat brittle fingernails and hair while easing away wrinkles and cracks in your skin? Silicea. It is also the stamina remedy; if you are worn out by work and catch cold easily, pick up Silicea today.

Suppose you are a great beauty or quite a hunk already. What might you need? My next topic will be a discussion of the tongue, because many are not so lovely, but more importantly, because the look of your tongue is one of the most important indicators of which cell salts you are lacking. If nothing else, pretty up your tongue as you build up your body preventitively.

Please come back to watch for future articles, more health and beauty tips, and my soon to be released book, Choosing Cell Salts: a Repertory for Natural Healing and Youthful Beauty, which will make it easy for you to select your own profound healing and "un-aging" treatments at home.

Sources

Facial Diagnosis of Cell Salt Deficiencies by David R. Card and his sources, including The Chemistry and Wonders of the Human Body by Dr. George Carey

The Biochemic Prescriber by Prashant S. Shah

Homeopathic Cell Salt Remedies by Nigey Lennon and Lionel Rolfe


About the author ~

Debra Brown (call her Debbie) is a fortunate soul to have found homeopathy and at the same time, a mentor in the field, the brilliant Todd Schlapfer, N.D. Under his caring guidance, she learned to care for herself and her family with amazing, powerful homeopathic remedies. While there were bottles of cell salts in her supplements cupboard, she thought of them as terribly mild remedies rather than the profoundly nutritional and gently homeopathically stimulating treatments that they truly are, and so she ignored them. Don't make the same mistake. When nothing else seemed able to treat her severe foot and leg cramps, Debbie finally gave in and turned to the salts.

From the first dose, the cramps stopped, though they threatened for about a week. Within days, facial changes began to show, and in a week or ten days, the cramping that was so painful and persistent had completely disappeared. Now, of course, she wanted to fix everything, especially her face. She found pouring through her several cell salts books to be interesting but time consuming, and she had to make notes. She decided that she needed a repertory similar to Kent's, the one she uses in  choosing homeopathic remedies. And she could not find a comprehensive one online. For her own good, she set out to write one, and because the cell salts are really nature's answer to incredible healing, she will soon publish it for any who wish to use cell salts as well.