Natural Remedies

Last night, I went to the Chicago Chapter Holistic Moms Network meeting. Each month, there is a new guest speaker, and this month's was Dr. Andrea Rentea, MD. She and her husband practice Family Medicine in Chicago, but their practice is a unique one here. They use natural remedies that they learned studying in Germany and Austria to help guide the body's healing process. Dr. Rentea's presentation was fantastic. She's a warm, friendly grandma-type who believes fully in treating, and parenting, the whole child. She showed us several natural home remedies for common childhood ailments, such as a fever, cough, sore throat, and ear ache, using grocery store produce and compresses. If a lemon compress or onion pack can relieve a child's painful symptoms, I'll try that before resorting to medications every time. There's no risk in applying a lemon water compress to my feverish child, and no side effects. Some of the members of the Holistic Moms Network take their children to see Dr. Rentea, and they vouched for the effectiveness of these remedies. It's amazing to me that something so simple, so completely harmless, can be effective in healing. Dr. Rentea also presented some herbal remedies using oil compresses and herbal steam baths. After the presentation, Dr. Rentea was kind enough to answer my question about Tye. About 2-3 weeks ago, she started having mucous in her stools, and for the last week she's had slight diarrhea. Dr. Rentea asked me about my diet and suggested that I start by taking birch charcoal (carbo betula), which will help Tye because I'm nursing her. She had some on hand and gave me a small pack of capsules with directions for taking them, as well as other home remedies I can try if the charcoal doesn't work. Hopefully this will help Tye. So far today, no diarrhea. If the charcoal doesn't solve the problem, I think there's a good chance I'll make an appointment with her in office to see what other ways we can address poor Tye's tummy troubles. The practice of trying natural remedies before prescribing antibiotics is one I'm interested in following.