selfexisting moon blue crystal storm year 2004
International Chinese Medical Journal of Daytona Self-Existing Moon, 4th moon, Blue Crstal Storm Year. Oct-Nov 2004.
There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. -Chinese proverb
Traditional Chinese Pain Killer Yan Hu Suo Relieves Teething Pain
This month I found that the Chinese herb Yan2 Hu2 Suo3, or Corydalis Rhizome,
is affective for treating severe teething pain in babies. This herb belongs to the category
of invigorate the blood herbs. It's flavor and taste are acrid, bitter and warm.
The channels it acts on are the Heart, Liver, Lung, Stomach and Spleen. Yan Hu
Suo is indicated for all types of body pain, particularly that in the abdomen, hernia,
flanks, injury pain, pain after surgery or due to cancer, and menstrual pain. It can also be used to treat coronary heart disease.
Adult dosage is 5-10g (up to 20g for severe pain due to surgery or cancer)
of the dried herb in a boiled decoction or 1.5-3 grams in powder. This herb
is said to be as effective at relieving pain as morphine but without the
addictive properties.
A child's dose is generally one-third the adult dose, the dose must be further reduced for
a baby. I ground the Yan Hu Suo into powder and gave my baby
about 1/4 teaspoon (she is 20 pounds) mixed into a ripe banana.
This relieved her pain significantly for about 3 hours, in other words her
uncontrollable crying stopped with in 15 minutes and she became interested in
playing alone as usual rather than insisting on being held.
Yan Hu Suo generally works for 2-5 hours, so I believe the dosing I
gave her was perfect. The most that I have given her is 3 doses in one day.
Other days I have given her one or 2 doses only. Based on my experience, as a pain
reliever for teething, it is as effective as Tylenol, and more effective than
Hyland's homeopathic tablets. The downside of this herb is that it must be mixed
in with the baby's food, so it takes a little more time and effort.
New Chinese Medicinal Pearl Jewelry Made by Chinesetherapeutics.org
Thank you for your recent purchases. The most recent additions to the jewelry page were
made while I was pregnant. I was tempted to go out and sell these during the recent
biketoberfest, but instead I put them up here.
Many of the new pieces have pearls.
Pearls are considered
a mineral herb and are used in Chinese medicine to calm the spirit.
Pearls can be worn to relieve irritability and tension.
Still awaiting refund from Midwife
Some of you may have read in my last volume that our midwife,
Karen Kennedy of Deleon Springs/Deland/Daytona,
refused to deliver my baby because I refused to have blood tests
that I knew were unnecessary.
Three weeks before I was supposed to deliver she showed up with a stranger who Karen
said would also attend the birth and
insisted that she take my blood.
The reason she gave was that she was afraid that she would loose her license
if she didn't have my blood type. I already knew my blood type and her reasoning
makes no sense considering it is legal to birth unassisted in Florida.
Not withstanding, a
practitioners
job is to give what they consider
next best care under these circumstances. She did not even offer me a waiver
to show that I understood her advice, but refused the test.
I cringe when I hear someone say "well my doctor said I had to..."
--no,
a Doctor/ practitioner
is not the parent and the patient is not the child.
I
signed a contract with her for prenatal, delivery and postpartum care
and I paid her fourteen hundred dollars. In the end this only
bought me a 7 each of
belly
measurements,
fetal heart monitoring via doppler
, urine dip stick testing
, and one
spiral bound educational notebook.
Many times in recent months
I daydreamed
about how many
hours of maid service or
prepared meals that $1400 would have purchased
when I was so tired right after the labor. Now I think about our annual
budget and how our family can eat for 1/2 a year on that amount.
Karen has
received 2 demands for partial refund since the end of August 2004 and
has taken no action.
Post Hurricane: Attack of the Fire Ants and Men
The day after Hurricane Frances I was out and about the neighborhood on
my usual walk. Along the way I found one of the biggest rubber tree
plant I had ever seen, about 10 feet tall, cast aside with the other
yard "waste" from the storm. It was bent sideways from the
wind, and it's root ball still held the form of its broken pot. Past
the flooding storm drains and piles of broken branches, I
drug it down the street with one arm while
pushing the stroller with the other. I planted
the tree in the medicinal herb garden, and later that evening I watered
it for a second time. As I was finishing up, I felt some hot
sensations on my feet. I looked down to see 4 fire ants. I brushed them off
and went back
inside. Fifteen minutes later, my scalp began to
itch and my skin began to crawl. I knew that I was having a global reaction to
the fire
ant poison.
I searched the house quickly for Benadryl, as small
raised bumped appeared all over my belly, neck, arms and legs. When I
found nothing I snatched up my sleeping baby, and we set out for the
neighbors house to continue the search. Had I thought of
it, I may have tried the acupuncture point "Bai Chong Wo" translated
"hundred insect nests." It is used to treat itching, although I haven't
heard it is useful for preventing anaphalictic shock its name would
imply such. My neighbors were not home, so I continued on to
Daytona Beach Fire Station 1, only a half block away.
As I hurried up to the station door I could feel my ears swelling shut.
I could see two men in the office at their computers. The first
fireman didn't look up as I walked in and began to tell
them that I was having an allergic reaction to fire ants and needed
Benadryl. The second asked "Why don't you go to Eckerds?" even
though by this time I had visible swelling all over my body. As a
veteran lifeguard and former instructor of professional rescuing, I was
quite agitated that they were dismissive to this medical emergency.
Finally, the second fireman agreed to give me an injection of Benadryl,
just as it was becoming difficult to breathe and my throat began to
itch. The whole room had a yellow aura as I concentrated on staying
conscious and holding my baby while they gave me an IV with a
Benadryl injection. They mindlessly followed their
protocol by refusing me water during the IV, which I found ridiculous
considering the amount of water I could have drunk would have surpased the volume of thier IV bag by more than 100%.
Just a few minutes later, I sighed with great relief
as I felt the antidote doing its work.
After not being able to reach my husband right away, the
firemen began to look agitated. Of course my husband, who is online
constantly, would have arrived by that time if they had emailed him as
I had requested upon my arrival. They had insisted on
calling even though I told them he wasn't home and our only working
phone was out of earshot from most of the house, due to the power outage.
The cellular network was also completely down from the storms so I
couldn't reach my in-laws. To the firemen I reiterated that
my husband was just at a friend's house or out of range of the phone
and would be back very soon. Finally they emailed him, but by that
time he was worried and on the phone calling around to see if he could
find me. The last time the fireman tried calling the phone was
busy.
Though I was feeling significantly better and ready to walk home, the
anaphalictic reaction having been countered by the Benadryl,
the head fireman told me that I was going to the hospital. "No I wasn't
going to the hospital," I told him, because I knew the
emergency situation was under control. Besides, I hadn't gone
to all the work of preparing for a successful unassisted childbirth to
end up in Halifax Hospital with my baby. At this point they
looked very aggravated and threatened to "Baker Act" me. This Baker
Act is used to lock people up into the against their will system for up
to 3 days for evaluation if they appear mentally ill and a danger to
them-self or others. Apparently this Act is also used to threaten
reasonable people into compliance or submission. This fireman then said
that I would be forced to go to the hospital for 1 week and have a
mental evaluation. He said that 1) I couldn't take care of my child
alone 2) I should have called 911 (though their professional
recommendation was for me to walk 4 blocks to a drug store) and 3) I
couldn't go home because there was no power, this despite the fact that
thousands were with out power during and after the hurricanes). I think that
they also wanted to send me to the hospital, because I had given birth
at home. They were actively questioning me about my daughter who was
and is perfectly well. When I told them it was none of their business
if there had been a midwife or if my daughter had been to a Doctor. By
now my baby was crying to go home and I was trying to find a way to get
out of there.
I asked them to open the door, because the baby and I were getting chilled from
the ice- cold air conditioning. They refused saying "it wasn't that cold."
The fireman in charge called a Daytona Beach police officer
who came to put me through more questioning. He spoke privately with
the fireman and then secretly went to the wrong house looking for my
husband. When he came back he told me that it appeared that my house
wasn't safe for children. By this time about 3 hours had passed since
my arrival and it was dark outside the station as my baby and I
stood next to his police car. As I worked to convince him to drive me to
my actual home, I could feel my fear burning the moment into my memory while
simultaneously I flashed back to my last experience with
"the man." A few months earlier, our former neighbor and drug dealer,
who had previously been reported to the police for harassment and
drug dealing, tried to expand her turf by reporting us to the
Department of Children and Families (DCF) with accusations
including that my baby was being bitten by rats. (See previous journal entry; the DCF representative was
granted entry to our
hours only after threatening my husband that he would return with
police if we refused and subsequently held us against our will with a
magnifying glass for about 3 hours.) The cop directed me to the back of
his car as the the firemen all thanked him for taking me off of their
hands. He drove past my block, presumably to test me. I redirected him and
we made it back to my yard where I called out for my husband. He came
out of the house and put his hands on me and told the cop that he
was "taking possession of his wife." With this key phrase I was already
off the hook, though the cop tried to extract a photo ID from my
husband, who doesn't care to purchase such items from the state or
federal government. Later someone brought over Benadryl, and I took a
2 more doses, on that night and one the next morning. I also bled the
jing-well points distal to the fire ant bites and the area around the
bites. The area around the bites was swollen similar like a spider
bite reaction.
I'm not at all impressed by the Daytona Fire Department, though I
appreciated and thanked them for the Benadryl. Why should I have been
interrogated and threatened with the Baker Act? We are transforming
a bad neighborhood that the local "authorities" either could not or
would not clean up, and we receive nothing but harassment in thanks for
it. I'm under the impression that the Baker Act is widely abused
based on my experience and rumors of abuse of this
Act by both police and mental health workers. Therefore, if you were
threatened with Baker Act or Baker Acted for refusing health care that
you felt was not necessary, or perhaps because you pissed off your
girlfriend who works for Stewart
Marchman, etc., and would like to have your story
published on this server then send me an email. In the meantime make
sure you have Benadryl or a bee sting kit on hand to avoid unnecessary
and potentially unpleasant encounters with state workers.