Friday, June 13, 2014

Oily is the new Crunchy

Here is my confession:  I am Not a crunchy granola Mom, who sews my own diapers and uses cloth toilet paper.  I do not eat all organic food that I planted and grew myself.  We do not have livestock and my name is Not Wheat. OK? OK.

I consider myself a reasonable woman.  I mean, I'm a Scientist for goodness sake!  My motto is Better Living Through Chemistry!  I went to a reputable school.  I studied biology.  I've LIVED in the health care system.  Both my parents worked in hospitals for most of their lives.  I trust doctors, love them, wouldn't be alive without them.  I certainly wouldn't have my children.  I am not the sort of person who would throw all that away to go smother myself in plants, and throw away every drug in my medicine cabinet.  So, I was amazed at my own curiosity when I started seeing all these friends of mine, reasonable, smart people, start touting the benefits of Essential Oils.

Yesterday, one of my friends was in town visiting and invited me to a mutual friend's home for an Essential Oils class.  I had been following her on fb, and she'd given up almost all the medicines in her cabinet for these oils.  Huh, to give up all our medicines for oils, it kind of gives a new meaning to Better Living Through Chemistry.  I know this gal, she's not some crunch hippy, she studied biology like me.  Her daughter was a hot mess like Chris there for a while.  And now she's off all those drugs and just on oils.   No more meds, her emergency visits  has reduced drastically.  I was curious.

So I went.  I figured I couldn't lose.  A. I was legitimately curious.  B. I could see J, I hadn't seen her in 2 years maybe? So I went.  I was thinking that even though J said she wasn't Selling me anything, I expected it to be like a Mary Kay party, where we used to say we weren't selling anything, but that we were doing facials...except yeah, we were selling the makeup.  But I didn't get the impression J was out to sell me anything.  She let us smell everything, look up information in her references.  She gave us paper to take notes.  And I learned about Essential Oils.  I used to love Bath and Body Works old Aromatherapy line, when they had like 4 scents.  But I have to watch what kinds of smelly products I have around the hubs, because he's allergic to pine.  But would he be allergic to essential oils?  They techincally don't use the same reactive proteins as other allergens.  I have a good nose for scent, so it was kind of a fun mystery to me to smell a few blends to see if I could figure out what they were. It was rather interesting.  I learned there were 4 basic ways of using the oils:  1. Topically, like straight up, or mixed into a fatty oil like coconut, olive, or another lotion or soap 2. Diffusion, of course they want to see me a diffuser. Ah-ha - that's how they're going to catch me, I thought.  3. Direct Inhalation, or 4. Internally.  My friend had her own blank capsules, which I thought would be fun to put together, a bit more reminiscent of my old pharmacy school days.  The only oil I've heard so far that they don't recommend internally is wintergreen, because you can OD.  We discussed an interesting website for other ideas.  I was very interested in the stories that I heard about lavender blends making kids sleep, calming ADHD symptoms, or Lemon combatting reflux and heartburn.  J had a whole cocktail of stuff devoted just to E2's asthma.  My friend Missy that was also there, was having some heartburn from eating late, and Bam! , she felt better, within 10 minutes, Right Before my eyes.  The son of our hostess returned from a late dinner and play date at the park, and came in and asked his Mama where the lemon was, because he was feeling queasy...from eating pizza at 9 pm.  She was like, Duh.  And here.  He put a drop in his water, drank up and left the room, left me flabbergasted.  I think that's what really snagged me.  Watching this kid, probably 12/13 ask for oils like it was a totally normal thing.  He wasn't wearing a dress made from wheat either, he looked like a perfectly normal healthy kid.  I can't even imagine, having perfectly normal healthy kids...or even being perfectly normal and healthy myself.  Just the idea.....
If I did want to start right away, I would need a nice chunk of money. Young Life, which is the company Jen uses, isn't the cheapest.  However, they control their products from seed state, to growth, through distillation.  I like hearing that.  So we know that they are organic, and 100% distillate, and they have farms in the US and other places in the world.  Any member is allowed to go visit, so Jen's going to Utah next month.  That was kind of cool.  I don't think I would have been invited to Texas to see Mary Kay's stuff at work.  But Young Living has 3 levels of membership, and the most expensive is 150$.  And there was no way I wanted to make a purchase like that without sleeping on it, and discussing it with Eric.  I mean, I could easily get into this, and if it works, I may want to start sharing it too, it got me wondering, do I want a job?  I don't think so.  On the other hand, would I be able to keep my mouth shut, and not want to share it, if I am able to get myself and my kids healthy.  I mean, think about the money we'd save, just on reflux meds alone!  It really gets my mind turning.  The kids cost for their prevacid is obnoxious.  But a 12$ vial of lemon oil is a whole lot cheaper, I kind of want to test it.   I was wary.  But I kind of LOVE the smells! So Jen sent me home with these goodies to try on my boyz.   There were just a couple drops of Di-Gize left so we can try it out on Chris or Sam the next time they have a Tummy Ache, you know how often their guts give us trouble.  And she whipped up a concoction of LLP for Eric.  It's Lavender, Lemon and Peppermint,  which is supposed to help with E's congestion, allergies, and all around hot mess sinuses.  I tried some of the Pan Away, which is a Pain removal blend of oils.  I cannot even conceive of the idea that I could ever be pain free.  It was a minty blend, reminded me of biofreeze smell, and though it did loosen up some tension, I wasn't pain free.  I haven't been pain free since I was 21.  But maybe...  Anyway, I brought these little samples home, and I almost can't wait for one of the kids' tummies to hurt just so I can give it a go.

173/365


Only it hasn't worked on the hubs yet.  I'm pretty sold on it, but really excited to see if it works on him.Shen I got home, another friend had invited me to another class tomorrow morning.    In fact, I want to go to this other party I was invited to, for tomorrow.  Perhaps it's a sign. I wasn't going to go...but now I'm kind of interested, I am considering learning more.  

1 comments:

Unknown said...

I love alternative medicine and want to learn more too.