All posts by Matt

Healthy Herbs: Golden Seal

Golden Seal is another natural, extremely strong anti-biotic. This is an herb not many have heard of, but it’s an excellent infection fighter with many other healthy properties.

Golden Seal can be bought in many health food or herbal stores, but sometimes you have to hunt for it at larger stores online. It’s most often sold in a combination herbal solution with other herbs such as Echinacea. Golden Seal by itself can often be purchased though, in both root or leaves pill form.

The root variety is the strongest of course, and most expensive. Buying Golden Seal pills made from the leaves and stem work quite nicely as well. I don’t recommend however, buying hard pill style herbs. Instead buy herbal pills which are in capsule form, with the ground root or leaves inside. This allows the herb to stay as close to a natural state as possible, doesn’t add a bunch of other junk to the pill that may be more harmful than good for your body, and is a form that can be quickly absorbed and utilized by your body too.

Golden Seal is a natural source of insulin, so it can lower your blood sugar when you take it. Because of this, anyone with low blood sugar problems – i.e. hypoglycemia – should not take Golden Seal by itself, particularly in large doses. You can however, take it in conjunction with Licorice Root to help combate the insulin effects, or simply take another herb called Myrrh instead of Golden Seal.

Golden Seal has a wide variety of uses and is in fact considered by many people to be a “cure all” herb. It can be mixed into a salve for instance, and used as a contact healer. I’ve personally used it this way myself for over 15 years and it’s excellent.

You can also take Golden Seal to reduce swelling, and it’s said to actually stop internal bleeding as well. You can make it into a tea to be used for nose drops, or to drink for a sore throat. The tea can also be used as a mouthwash to get rid of canker sores, and you can even mix White Oak Bark into Golden Seal tea to use a rinse after oral surgery. You need to be aware though: Golden Seal is quite bitter to the taste.

I’ve kept Golden Seal on hand for more than 15 years now, because it’s one of the best ways I know to help clear up colds, flu, and infections. I’ve also used it in several other remedies, here are a couple for you:

1. Golden Seal Salve – I’ve used this over the years to deal with major cuts, scrapes and injuries my three boys brought home regularly…

– One capsule of Golden Seal – Root or leaves doesn’t matter, but I do use ground Golden Seal in gelatin capsules.

– Aloe Vera juice or gel (Pure, not the stuff that has perfume and alcohol mixed in and is sold for sunburns), or standard Petroleum Jelly.

I open the capsule of Golden Seal and pour the powder into a plate, then mix in enough of the Juice or Jelly to make the powder mix in fully. Then I simply slather the salve onto the problem area, and if needed I cover it with a clean guaze bandage or bandaid. With larger affected areas I’ll wrap it in a sport bandage.

I should warn you: The salve will look nasty. It’s a dark greenish color that just looks gross and disgusting, and this will discolor your skin slightly too.

Leave the bandage or covering on overnight, then wash well in the morning. In most cases there is already massive healing progress just from the overnight treatment.

2. Hemorrhoid Relief – This can be used both internally and externally.

Open one capsule of Golden Seal, shake the powder onto a plate or dish of some kind. Open one capsul of White Oak Bark and empty it’s powder onto the same dish. Mix in a small amount of pure Aloe Vera gel until combined well. Slather that onto the hemorrhoids at night before you go to bed.

In my experience using this remedy: They hemorrhoids are completely gone by the time you wake up in the morning.

NOTE: Statements in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and are not made by a licensed medical practitioner or physician.

Healthy Herbs: Cayenne

Cayenne, also known as Capsicum, is one of the most important herbs for health and wellness I know of. It should be on the “must have” list of anyone who uses herbs for remedies or general health.

You’ll often find Cayenne combined with other herbs, because it acts as a catalyst, which stimulates your body to heal faster. Stimulation is a key factor in healing your body, and if Cayenne is taken regularly it can reach every part of your body: Helping with healing, cleansing, and having everything begin to function normally.

Cayenne is very high in Vitamin C, and that makes it a great choice for taking when you feel a cold coming on. I tend to mix it with an herbal antibiotic when treating the flu or infections, because it helps resolve the problems much more quickly.

Cayenne is also a wonderful herbal choice for improving circulation. The entire circulatory system in fact, is helped with this herb because it feeds the cell stucture of arteries, veins, and capillaries, and this in turn helps them to regain elasticity.

In addition, Cayenne helps regulate the flow of blood, and normalize blood pressure. The blood pressure regulation makes it an excellent herbal choice for either high or low blood pressure problems. Taking Cayenne will not increase your heart rate, but it will strengthen your pulse within minutes of taking it.

Cayenne has actually been used to treat shock victims, or prevent people from going into shock. And it stops bleeding. The powder can actually be taken for internal bleeding, or poured on an external wound to stop bleeding too.

I’ve used Cayenne for several of the above noted purposes in the last 20 years. I’ve found for instance, that as I get older I tend to have problems with my arms and hands “going to sleep” – particularly at night because I have a habit of laying on them while sleeping.

Simply by taking a Cayenne pill before bed, my circulation is improved immensely and I don’t have the problems in my arms and hands all night long.

I’ve also used Cayenne to stop bleeding many times over the years. When you have kids at home you know there’s almost always an accident of some kind right around the corner. It’s a very simply process though, to just sprinkle Cayenne on a bleeding wound to make it stop. I’ve never tried it with any large, massive sized wounds – I’d rush to the hospital for something like that – but I have successfully used Cayenne to stop all kinds of bleeding. It’s particularly helpful when nothing else seems to work.

Putting Cayenne on a wound will feel warm, but it won’t create any burns or blisters and doesn’t generally cause additional pain. Treating wounds this way also helps stimulate healing as well as stopping the bleeding too.

NOTE: Statements in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and are not made by a licensed medical practitioner or physician.