Speaker: Summer time is here and that means baseball, backyard barbecues and bathing suits. But it also means bumps, bruises, and bee-stings. Stick around and we'll find out how to treat these summertime maladies naturally.
This episode of Quality Time is brought to you by Baby Bjorn, great baby gear, Baby Bjorn. Okay, I am really pleased to be joined by Jennifer Crain of Mommy's ER. She is going to show us how to treat some of these regular summertime maladies with stuff that you have in your pantry. Jennifer, welcome.
Jennifer Crain: Thank you.
Speaker: Thanks for coming.
Jennifer Crain: It's nice to be here.
Speaker: Okay, so, say I throw a backyard barbecue, we had, you know, sprite and the honey barbecue sauce that attract bees and my child gets stung by a bee. As long as you are not allergic, what can I do to treat them with maybe some of the ingredients that I have put on the chicken?
Jennifer Crain: The first thing you want to know is most people will pull out the sticker with tweezers, don't do that, the venom actually has a pouch in the stinger so you are going to release more venom that way.
Speaker: Oh! Really.
Jennifer Crain: Just take your fingernail or take a credit card and slide across to get the stinger out. Then you want to use an antiseptic, so of all you have got a soap and water, use that. But if you have Witch Hazel, which I highly recommend having on hand, use Witch Hazel or use apple cider vinegar or even white vinegar, I think you got.
Speaker: Really? Cool.
Jennifer Crain: And then you will follow it with baking soda. Everybody has got baking soda. I am just going to tenderize the area, bring down inflammation, soak up some other venom. After that, or instead of that if you have a papaya, cut it up, put it on the bee-sting and just hold it there for an hour because this is also going to breakdown some of the venom and inflammation that's been caused by the bee-sting. If it's a spider bite, you can actually use basil, just break off some pieces of basil, fresh basil if you have got it or basil oil and you can put that on -- it's even better for spider bites.
Speaker: That's why Italians are not scared of spiders.
Jennifer Crain: Exactly. Well, I am going to put in one more thing, if we are talking about mosquito bites.
Speaker: Oh yes!
Jennifer Crain: You are going to get yourself some tea tree oil or some lavender oil and just put that on directly.
Speaker: What else do we have?
Jennifer Crain: Let's talk about sunburns.
Speaker: Yes.
Jennifer Crain: Most kids get sunburns. Aloe vera gel, it's going to bring down the pain and inflammation. You can also take a baking powder, not to be confused with baking soda.
Speaker: Yeah, big difference, if you put the powder and when mix it up with toxins and cookies.
Jennifer Crain: Any baker will tell you that.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Jennifer Crain: So yeah, let's make a lukewarm bath and put in some baking powder. I also just recently learned that you can grate a potato and the starch of the potato will bring down pain, swelling and inflammation and the sunburn. So that's something most of us have in our kitchen.
Speaker: You know that's why the Irish are not scared of the sun.
Jennifer Crain: Let's talk about swimmers here because my son gets bath a lot.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Crain: The first thing is preventative. You can just take a dropper, just fill your own dropper with some -- I like organic because there's not a lot of stuff in that, organic white vinegar and just put just two or three drops of vinegar in the ears, or rubbing alcohol, either of those two is going to dry up the water in the ear after your child has done swimming.
Speaker: And you do that too much? If they go swimming everyday, would you put the drop or two everyday?
Jennifer Crain: Everyday is just fine, and then if they actually get a full-blown ear infection, of course, I recommend checking it out with your primary care provider.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Jennifer Crain: Big fan of that. But in the interim while you are driving there or if it happens at midnight, and you're not sure what to do, there are some techniques that you can use. Okay, so you will start at the base of the neck and you will massage this SCM muscle right here in a downward motion.
Speaker: Wow!
Jennifer Crain: And you will keep massaging down and then you will keep going up above an inch at a time, and you will make these long motions until you get up right behind the ear, and massage downward. Just stimulating the lymph glands in this area to drain so it's going to encourage drainage from the ear. You can also incorporate digestive enzymes. I like the protease enzyme, so if you got at any health food store in your area, they are going to know what protease enzymes are.
Speaker: Protease, okay.
Jennifer Crain: And tell them they are for your child because you don't want them to be as strong as the adult variety, it really brings down inflammation and heals soft tissue.
Speaker: Jennifer, that's great. What a cool way to treat some of the things that happen to our kids all the time during the summer, you have got these on DVDs, right, all this information on DVD?
Jennifer Crain: I do, I have a three DVD set that includes all of this and more. So we talk about all sorts of ailments and we talk about preventive measures, so how to keep your child's immune system strong during every season.
Speaker: And folks can get that at mommyser.com.
Jennifer Crain: Absolutely.
Speaker: Cool, go to mommyser.com. I'd like to thank our sponsor Baby Bjorn, great baby gear, Baby Bjorn. If you've got anything to say about, kind of, natural home remedies, go to dadlabs.com and join our discussion. We'd love to hear you. Well, that's all from us on this episode of Quality Time. Now get out there in the backyard and have fun.
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