Re: Liver gallbladder tincture question
Hi Uny, Howdy Healthy-erArtist :)
You were so sweet to send me a sample of the alcohol to test for sensitivity but I still just don't feel safe trying/using it because of what I've read about celiac and people not necessarily being able to tell whether or not it's damaging their small intestine.
Awwwh, sweetie, the seemingly ultra-heavy boulder of 'fear factor' on your precious shoulders and it's veins throughout your vibrant being just breaks my heart. (yes, I know, I know - progress IS a process - and there is no doubt you ARE progressing...and I'm very proud & honored to be a part of it!! As an art teacher yourself, I'd guess you know how it feels to watch someone struggling to 'let themselves out' of their fear to achieve their goal... ("but I can't just 'do it' from my heart! I can't just trust my inner vision! what if I make a mistake?! it'll be ugly! I'll be ashamed! and afraid to try again! What if I don't really have 'art' in me?! If I 'just do it' and it's ugly, it will prove I'm "empty"!) ...all the while knowing how much faster & more wondrously they'll progress if they didn't have all the fear. Besides, whatever comes from within IS art and IS beautiful...it just might need a bit of training to hone the basic fundamentals)
.
Of course, if none of this applies to you, please set it aside for someone else to find. But, I'd be a crappy teacher if I didn't share...
Fear is the greatest "anti everything" in the world! If you've ever read Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in th Door, etc) - fear is just like the Echthroi in her books. Fear 'unnames' us & X's everything it touches...just like the Echthroi do. Fear Xtinguishes love, life, art, peace & healing.
In the case of dis-ease, the Echthroi Fear (via our symptoms & lack of knowledge/truth about our bodies) and the Ecthroi Fear (via the evil lies of alternative & allopathic medicine & "science") have conditioned us to believe that our bodies are similar to some kind of weak & fragile hot-house orchid, and one wrong move will cause us to suffer & harm our bodies (pushing them even further away from health & freedom). But we're not fragile hot-house orchids, and we're not dealing with the isolated-chemical "supplements", pharmaceutical poisons, and bizarre electro, chelation "alternative therapies" that are unnatural and/or toxic to our bodies. We're dealing with substances & protocols that are natural to our body in every way. Even if you're still relying upon the 'toxic bandaid' supplements, your body is now in a totally different place than it was yesterday, last week, last month, 6 months ago or a year ago!
With every dose of IF#2 you continue to take, you're lessening & removing heavy metals, decades-old poisons and relieving physical pressure (and toxic burden) to your liver and other organs, allowing your body to have more healing capacity (and that's just one of many things you're doing/done that have strengthened your body). The slippery elm in the IF#2 is soothing & healing your entire GI tract. The LBB is accomplishing all kinds of positive things in your digestive tract (as is the cayenne...I think I remember you're taking cayenne). And the Ashwagandha is SO healing and balancing. For whatever reason/s you may have for 'holding back' about testing a few drops of alcohol on your tongue (most of which will assimilate directly into your bloodstream and bypass your GI tract), please be very careful about letting 'fear of the past' direct your future...especially when your body is not anything like it was in the past :) Heck, you might even be able to handle garlic now/already (especially in a tincture where the biggest percentage is assimilated into the bloodstream extremely quickly)...it's amazing how fast our bodies respond & heal :)
Of course, not all fear is bad - there is righteous (right-use-ness) fear that's a goodness. This kind of fear we need to have if we come face-to-face with a snarling sabre-toothed tiger (when we haven't practiced & perfected our ability to have dominion over animals). In order to save our life, this type of 'flight or fight' fear will prevent us from being harmed. But even when/if we spy a 'deadly' animal, we still must use healthy discernment, or our fear can do great harm (example: seeing an enemy that doesn't see us --or view us as prey--, and then 'startling' or 'bolting away' in fear before we rationally appraise the situation. If we did that, we'd be drawing it's attention to a potential 'victim' it hadn't even noticed) - which kinda goes along with the ole "self-fulfilling prophecy" concept (which is VERY easy for anyone to fall prey to! :::raising hand sheepishly::: yes, even I still/occasionally stress about a protocol and cause my body to tense/tighten causing an adverse issues, or cause myself to put off something I know I need to do :::sigh me:::).
The chance of there being any gluten in a bottle distilled alcohol (those with out added sugar/flavoring, etc) is virtually nil. It's much more likely there'd be gluten (from cross-contamination) of the herbs used to make the tincture. And even if there happened to be residual gluten in distilled alcohol that wasn't completely distilled out of the alcohol, the amount in a few drops or dropperful would be so miniscule (or even a full dose of tincture), it's couldn't be anything like the damage done to the intestines by "ingesting gluten" in a typical amount. In fact, it couldn't even be close to the amount of gluten in a teaspoon of cereal or a 'crouton of bread'.
Based on my memory (that you've never tested positive for celiac disease, and you're not sure you have gluten sensitivity -?), I'd say there's a possibility that a 'fear factor' is in play and causing harm (by preventing you from proceeding confidently and aggressively to assist your body to heal).
--Proper distillation removes all gluten from grain alcohol.
--If the grain alcohol was somehow improperly distilled, the amount of gluten would be extremely miniscule (if in fact, it's possible for there to be any after any distillation process). I can't imagine the residual gluten (if it actually had any) in a dropperful or two could cause anything but a temporary 'bump in the road'.
--When taking tinctures, the majority of the possible 'extremely miniscule' would assimilate into the bloodstream before reaching the intestinal tract.
--The largest percentage of people that are diagnosed with celiac disease recover from intestinal damage...and they are not utilizing Natural Healing. The human body can recover from any damage or disease.
--However, fear can cause or induce any symptom - and no matter how logical or rational the truth actually is, we're all likely to experience some level of whatever it is we fear (whether rational or irrational).
Anyhow, the farm that I've been getting my ashwaghanda tincture from has almost all of the ingredients in tincture form of the liver gallbladder tincture except for garlic, Ginger, black walnut and fennel. I was thinking about ordering the others and mixing them together. Do you see any problem with me doing this? I can certainly add Ginger juice if I need it and if it's really important to have the others I can look around some more or bite the bullet and buy the grape alcohol to make my own.
Potential problems? Well, the biggest two would be the hit to your checking account and still having an incomplete formula. Using the correct ratios (assuming one part = 1oz), you'd need 8oz of Milk Thistle and 1oz of all the others...which would be (checking Sunstone Farms now)-- $80 for the Milk Thistle; $50 for the Dandelion root, leaf, Gentian, Oregon Grape & Wormwood, so that's $130 plus shipping. But you still wouldn't have the right formula without buying the herbs & alcohol to make the Black Walnut hull, Fennel, Ginger (and maybe Garlic?). So that would 'up the cost' even further. Not remembering what the organic grape alcohol costs, I'd assume buying retail from Schulze would be less expensive (I'm sure I've read he uses organic alcohol, but can't find it on his site...so I just emailed customer service for details --and also asked if they guarantee the alcohol to be gluten free).
As far as Ginger juice, this is also an issue for consideration. Whenever we choose to use fresh herbs or juices, there's 'water content' to work into the equation. If we start with 100 proof alcohol (50/50 water/alcohol) and add fresh herbs or juices of herbs, we're adding water - hence diluting the alcohol. If it's too diluted, it can 'go bad'. Generally when starting with 100 proof, this isn't much of an issue, because we're not diluting it substantially (and a lot of tincturers use 80 proof, which is already 60/40 water/alcohol). But it is something for consideration.
Here's the formula in case you don't have it (numbers are 'parts by volume')
8 Milk Thistle Seed
1 Dandelion root
1 Dandelion leaf
1 Oregon Grape Root
1 Gentian Root
1 Wormwood leaf/flower
1 Black Walnut hull
1 Ginger Root
1 Garlic Bulb
1 Fennel seed
If I were you, I'd be putting this issue on the 'rational scale' and weighing it out (obvious benefits of testing the alcohol and/or purchasing it pre-made on one side; possible negative/s on the other) before spending hundreds of dollars on just one kind of tincture. And if I were experiencing rational or irrational fear about the issue (not saying that you, are or that "I know"), I would be EFT-tapping it away before I spent money or made a decision. Of course I don't want to see you harm yourself in any way and I do want you to do what is truly best for you.
Thanks Uny! Love you! You're welcome! And I love you, too...no matter what you decide to do!!! :)