NHT News. Vol. 3 No. 6 Summer 2007

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NATURAL HEALTH TECHNIQUES NEWSLETTER

Summer, 2007 Volume 3 Number 6

(Please note that full names are never used in this newsletter or on my website without the full consent of the sender or client. Some cases also encompass groupings of cases with similar symptoms and suggestions for healing in an attempt to educate the general public.) 

In This Issue:

  • Health In the News: Washington State Legislature Passes First Ban on Toxic Flame Retardants. Eating Veggies Linked to Better Brain Function. Rabid Bat Found in Riggins, Idaho.
  • Case of the Month: Do You Have Worms?
  • What’s New on the Website? Updated Recipe, Diet/Nutrition and Diseases Section 
  • Ask Dr. Moffat: Nutritional yeast vs. bread Yeast. Are these worms in my toilet?
  • Product of the Month: Celtic Sea Salt
  • Media Reviews: Project Everlasting (the book)
  • Tips and Tricks for a Healthier Life: Helpful Website for Children with Allergies 
  • Healthy Recipes: Rhubarb Muffins
  • Client Testimonials: Hope is bolstered. I’m pregnant! Loved your ezine parasite article.
  • Inspiration & Perspective: Oprah Interview with practitioners of The Secret. The Tom Hanks Rule
  • What’s New at Our House? We got our Complaint-Free World bracelets. Sick Chicken
  • Local Events: County Fairs coming up. Spay/Neuter Clinics in Moscow, ID 

Health In the News: Washington State Legislature Passes First Ban on Toxic Flame Retardants 

Trending
Life in Five Short Chapters

Are you old enough to remember when it was a law that you could not purchase pajamas or Halloween outfits that were not treated with flame retardants? I am. 

Now Washington State Legislature has passed the nation’s first ban on all forms of the toxic flame retardants known as PBDEs.  PBDEs (Poly Brominated Diphenyl Ether) are chemicals  widely used as a flame retardant in clothes, cushions, and some plastic items. I’ve been telling you how they get into our systems (more so when the product has been heated.) These products are also being passed to our children through milk products and mother’s milk. Once in our body, they cause havoc with our hormones. Other harmful affects include learning and behavioral disorders, memory impairments, disruption of thyroid function, reproductive effects and cancer. (Reference: Seattle Woman (www.SeattleWomanMagazine.com ) May, 2007 Edition) 

Eating Veggies Linked to Better Brain Function    A study published in Neurology concluded that high amounts of vegetable consumption may be associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline in older people.  This is good to know because it looks like this is a good year for growing greens—especially in our area! 

The Rush Institute on Healthy Aging reported that eating three portions of leafy green, yellow, and cruciferous vegetables can slow the loss of mental function as people age—possibly by as much as 40%. Fruits were a part of the study, but had little to no effect on cognitive decline. Researchers theorize that is due to vegetables having higher vitamin E content than fruit. 

(No wonder many of my clients have been testing they need whole food-based forms of Vitamin E this last couple of years.) 

Reference: https://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/67/8/1370  

Rabid Bat: A bat with rabies was identified in  Riggins, Idaho by the Idaho State Board of Health this last week of August, 2007. Please make sure your pets have been updated on their rabies shots (that includes horses). 

Case of the Month: Do You Have Worms? Do You Have Worms? I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that this newsletter is very late. I did have it completed by the end of August. I only had to update the parasite section of the website. That’s when I realized what a huge job that was! 

I toyed with the idea of just putting this Case of the Month to another month, but it seemed like every day I was getting emails, phone calls, and questions from clients on parasites. They just kept coming up everywhere! So, I kept going. I decided to call it a summer newsletter this year. 

The parasite pages are now up in the website. I think there will be more refining because the roundworm and tapeworm pages have so many pictures that it just takes too long to download. I’ll also need to develop a page for natural wormers. 

This topic is really big. And it’s not that well attended to medically. 

Here are some symptoms of parasites: Do You Have Worms?

(An excerpt from the new web parasite web pages. You can read more at: /SpecificDiseases/Parasite_images/parasitesmainpage.htm ) 

How do you know if you should take a wormer? Signs of internal (often intestinal) worms include: 

  • Abdominal Cramping
  • Acne
  • Anxiety and Nervousness
  • Appendicitis
  • Bloating
  • Brain Fog
  • Bruxism (Grinding the teeth—especially at night time)
  • Clear Mucous Strands in the Stool (Yes you should be looking at it each time you go! And yes, I will ask you what it looks like if you ever consult with me.)
  • Constipation
  • Cough
  • Dark Circles Around and Under the Eyes
  • Depression
  • Diarrhea
  • Difficulty Sleeping
  • Dry Lusterless Hair with Split Ends
  • Eczema
  • Fevers
  • Frequent Infections such as Colds or Yeast
  • Gas
  • Heart Palpitations
  • Hives
  • Increased Cramping (Menstrual)
  • Joint or Muscle Pain
  • Pain in the Lower Right Quadrant that comes and goes (Spasms in the Ileocecal Valve)
  • Pica Appetite (cravings—often for sugar or salt)
  • Poor Coordination
  • Big pot bellies due to the lack of intestinal tone
  • Skin Conditions
  • Stomach Problems
  • Vertigo
  • Wheezing
  • Yeast Infections 

With many inadequate public water-treatment systems, international travel, imported food and use of massive amounts of antibiotics, our bodies are very susceptible to microscopic invaders.  

I read one resource that stated that as many as 73% of people struggle with symptoms caused by parasites that lead to weight gain. As a veterinarian, I’ve found that parasites are very common and I recommend routine worming once or twice a year to keep my animal patients (and myself) healthy. 

How do you get worms? We pick up worms from some of the things we eat, from the dirt, and from the dust we breathe in.  Craving dirt and eating dirt is a sign of iron deficiency. We should talk if you are doing that. . . I got pin worms when I was a little girl by eating a mud pie (my friend said she’d give me a nickel if I did it!) 

More than 130 different species of parasites have been found in U.S. food, water, air and soil. Some of the most common worms humans are exposed to, what symptoms they cause, prevention and treatment and pictures of the egg or what they do to people are now on the website. They include discussions of: 

  • Balantidium
  • Blastocystis
  • Chiggers
  • Coccidia
  • Cryptosporidium
  • Cyclospora
  • Entamoeba
  • Flukes
  • Giardia
  • Heartworm
  • Isospora
  • Mange—Demodectic
  • Mange—Sarcoptic
  • Microsporidia
  • Protozoal Parasites
  • Ringworm
  • Roundworms (26 common types)
  • Salmon Poisoning
  • Tapeworms (8 common types)
  • Common Prescription Wormers 

Most adults (pets and people) have enough enzymes in their mouths to break down and kill off most of the eggs coming in through our mouth and nose. Our stomach acids break down even more. And then there are some eggs that get by both of those back-up systems. This is when problems can occur as the parasite eggs hatch, attach or inhabit somewhere in our bodies and then grow into adults. In the case of the roundworm, these adult parasites are producing more eggs within just 14 days—millions of them in their lifetime. Yuk!

The definition of a parasite is an organism which cannot live without a host organism. Parasites rely on the host to provide something they need, and in the process of taking what they need they can often cause the host harm, but it does its best not to kill the host or its home no longer exists!

We visually see worms most commonly in baby animals and humans because their salivary enzymes are not as strong, their hydrochloric stomach acids have not been totally developed yet, and because they often put lots of things into their mouths. Babies just ingest more dirt than adults. Their immune systems cannot keep up with that. The “load” (number of worms) gets so great in the small intestine that the adult worms spill into the large intestine and into the stomach. This is why it is so common to see babies either vomit worms or poop them out. 

Because adults have a better immune system, fewer worms survive so it’s harder to medically diagnose that you have them as you get older. Often it takes several samples over a lengthy time to actually be able to see evidence of parasites in a stool, skin or urine sample. Yet, the patient is still infected and experiences the symptoms. This can be really annoying to everyone involved because we really WANT to help you! 

Had your water tested lately? People can get lots of parasites from the water they drink and even the water used to clean salad greens (especially when you are visiting less developed countries.) And parasites can live in your gut for years after drinking out of that creek just once on a camping trip long, long ago. If you have a well, your water should be tested at least once a year for bacteria and protozoal parasites. To read more about that, go to our water section. 

Reference: /BasicsofHealth/Water_files/water_basics1.htm 

What’s New on the Website? Updated Recipe, Diet/Nutrition and Diseases Section 

Denice: I have been checking out your recipes – most of them sound pretty good. Wish you had Printer Friendly on them; it is a little hard to copy them the way they are set up. Any possibility for Printer Friendly documents? Beverly G. 

Done Beverly. Thanks for being so patient! Here’s the updated link with Printer Friendly Handouts. /Recipes/recipes1_files/recipes1.htm Denice 

I also updated the Diet and Nutrition and Specific Diseases sections and included some of the most popular articles I’ve written for www.ezinearticles.com. Here are those links:

I’m working on making my Home Page a bit tidier as per some “brutal” recommendations from one of my computer nerdy friends. 

I also had a request to add some additional lab tests to my Lab Results Page. I know that some of you write me and ask for advice, and I usually do a fair job of answering, but for this particular email, it involves several hours of research. I do believe it will help the greater good, so I will do it—as soon as the parasite pages are updated!—unfortunately it won’t help the asker of the question in a decent amount of time. It’s good to ask questions though and please know that you often help others by doing so.  

Ask Dr. Moffat: Nutritional Yeast vs. Bread Yeast. Are these WORMS in my toilet? 

Dear Dr Moffat: In your passage of “Yeast and Yeast Treatments”, you say that “yeast is one of the largest undiagnosed causes underlying many medical problems”.  It is known that yeast is used in bread baking for many years.  Can your message imply that it is not healthy to eat bread? Regards, Hubert K 

Hubert: Yes. Sorry! The yeast used in leavened bread does exacerbate yeast infections. Also the grains used in bread making change to sugar that the yeast utilize. In the Bible they talk about unleavened bread. I often recommend Ezekiel bread which is in the freezer section of health food stores. It is made of sprouted grains and is better for you. I find Ezekiel bread kind of dry (good for toast, but not for sandwiches,) but the hamburger buns are very good and moist. I use half a bun and slice that into half to make the occasional sandwich. 

But if you have yeast, it’s best to back away from all grains and refined sugars. Eating some fruit each day (no more than 2 cups total) feeds the body (does feed the yeast a little bit) but the benefits you get from that kind of sugar, fruit’s natural enzymes, and the vitamins from the fruit are what feeds your brain. The brain runs on sugar. 

Apparently nutritional yeast is different than the yeast they use in baking and does not stimulate growth of yeast within the body, but I’d stay away from that as well if you have yeast challenges. Hope that helps. Namaste. Denice 

From Lisa (A parasite case): So I went to my colonic lady/office yesterday and brought her those pictures I sent you. She explained the big ones were called black rope and it does look like egg sacks at the end. . .mucus pulling out from liver. The littler ones/white maggot-type, are liver flukes. She also looked at the yellowish egg sack stuff in the toilet, as I was there. . .and sure enough one glob was pulsating like a heart beat…yuk…so there are still live ones. . .she was so brave to look. . ..Anyway she referred me to a doctor right here in town who is both medical AND holistic and addresses all this stuff. I hope he can prescribe industrial strength something—She wants me to start up the DrNatura program again, so I did that yesterday. Will this ever end? She said it could take up to 1 year. 

Denice’s note: I had referred Lisa to a colon hydrotherapist and to a medical doctor for proper prescription drugs for parasite. She had sent me some gross pictures of her feces in the toilet because her regular doctor did not believe her when she said she was things moving in the toilet.  I get these types of emails often actually and that is why I am focusing this month’s Case of the Month or parasites. Lisa had done a natural wormer program for over a year with minimal results. My feeling is that when she get the correct wormers, her problems with go away within a few days. 

Product of the Month: Celtic Sea Salt

Conventional wisdom holds that consuming less salt will lower your blood pressure and reduce your chances of heart disease or a stroke. By now, everyone knows that a low-salt diet is healthy, right? 

Well, maybe not. This is another one of those cases where conventional medical wisdom simply does not add up. The truth is that none of the studies looked at, where salt caused an increase in blood pressure was proved. And the “wisdom” was extracted from only a couple of studies using refined table salt then repeated using vast amounts of refined salt in animal diets. 

Many holistic practitioners have found that, for the most part, low-salt diets have proved ineffective in controlling high blood pressure. On top of that, the person on the diet feels deprived of flavorful food. 

The Center for Disease Control’s own data over the last 30 years shows little relationship between low-salt diets and hypertension. Their data shows that ensuring adequate mineral intake is much more important to maintaining low blood pressure. The problem we have in America is that most of what we eat is salted—and it’s not the kind of salt that has all the minerals we need in it. 

Celtic Sea Salt® is authentic, unprocessed whole salt from one of the most pristine coastal regions of France. Since 1976, Celtic Sea Salt® has been harvested by the paludiers (salt farmers) of Brittany using a farming method that preserves the purity and balance of ocean minerals. It supplies the body with over 80 minerals that are useful for maintaining the normal functioning of the body. 

Salt refining: When most salts are harvested (including the granulated pink or white “sea salt” you get in the health food store), they are put through a series of harsh steps that cracks the molecular structure, robs its essential minerals and adulterates the salt with chemical additives to make it free-flowing. It is then bleached and iodized. This refining process makes the salt poisonous to your body because it takes out the essential nutrients and aliveness present in sun-cured sea salt. 

Unrefined salt has a wide range of minerals including potassium and magnesium, providing the body with a complex of nutrients that it needs to function optimally. The use of unrefined salt will not cause elevated blood pressure; in fact, due to its abundance of minerals, it can actually help lower the blood pressure in hypertensive patients. 

True sea salt should be moist to the touch with its prism-like “mother liquor” or bitterns surrounding it. When ground, the gasses produced smell a little like violets. 

Mother liquor has health benefits: Biologists can attest that this mother liquor restores hydro-electrolytic imbalance, a disorder that causes the loss of immune response, creates allergies and causes many health problems. Celtic sea salt is the lowest in sodium of all the salts available and the richest in precious beneficial elements available in any salt. 

Once re-dissolved in water or in the moisture of food as it cooks, Celtic Sea Salt bears an amazing likeness to human blood and body fluids. 

The late French scientist Dr. Alexis Carrel kept a chicken heart alive for over 37 years by maintaining the pulsating heart in a solution of sea salt. Dr. Carrel voluntarily ended the experiment after a third of a century, having proven that living cells can have physical immortality. Amazing, eh? 

The Healing Properties of Celtic Sea Salt: 

Celtic sea salt has countless medicinal uses. For example it can help correct excess acidity, restore good digestion, relieve allergies and skin disease, prevent some types of cancer, boost cellular energy and give heightened resistance to infections and bacterial disease. 

Possible Contraindication?  Salt is excreted in the kidneys and individuals with renal failure will have a decreased ability to clear salt from their diets. These individuals must watch their salt intake carefully. If you have renal failure, I suggest you speak with your doctor before instituting any dietary change, including a change in salt intake. 

We carry half-pound bags finely ground Celtic Sea Salt (a pound is kind of spendy and when you have to pay $35 to join the Grain and Salt Society, it’s cheaper to sell them this way.) Most of my recipes call for Celtic Sea Salt, but any recipes can be modified using this type of salt. 

Resources:

 Media Reviews:  Project Everlasting: Two Bachelors Discover the Secrets of America’s Greatest Marriages.

Jaded by his parents’ divorce and the countless marriages unraveling around him, Mathew Boggs was a young man who’d lost all belief in lifelong love. Roped into chauffeuring his grandma and dying grandfather on weekly adventures, he realized that, sixty-three years later, they were still madly in love. “Now, that’s the marriage I want!” he said to himself.

Fired up to find more success stories, Mat talked his best friend, Jason Miller, a clueless commitmentphobe, into joining him on a cross-country search for America’s greatest marriages, which they called “Project Everlasting.” The two bumbling bachelors and Mat’s recently widowed grandmother jumped in an RV and embarked on a 12,000-mile adventure, encompassing the beaches of Los Angeles, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the bayous of Louisiana, and the mountains of Montana, to discover what it takes to make love last — not from Ph.D.s or therapists but from more than 200 real couples who had walked the walk to more than forty years of marriage.

In Project Everlasting, they share their wisdom. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the pressing questions the bachelors asked the couples who opened their hearts and homes to Mat and Jason to reveal intimate and authentic portraits of fulfilling marriage. Couples like the Byrds, in New Orleans, who lost nearly everything they owned in the devastation of Katrina — except their love and commitment to each other. Or ninety-somethings Ruth and Eddie Elcott in Los Angeles, who spent the first two years of their marriage separated by World War II and the later years of their marriage reading out of a trunk of wartime love letters to each other at bedtime.

Along the way, Mat and Jason began to understand why their own relationships hadn’t worked out quite as planned. They also realized that what they were learning from their wise new friends could change everything for them and — through Project Everlasting — show their generation and generations to come how to build a marriage to last.

In this book you will learn the Marriage Masters’ answers to the following questions:

  • What’s Missing From Today’s Marriages?
  • How Do You Keep From Driving Each Other Nuts?
  • How Do You Keep The Romance Alive?
  • How Do You Bring an “It’ll Do” Marriage Back to “I Do!”
  • What Is The Number One Secret to an Amazing Marriage?
  • What’s the Secret to Staying in Love for a Lifetime?
  • And More…

Michael and I know the author’s of this book and loved the video they made. We’ve been keeping up on their journey as budding relationship specialists. We think you’ll love the book.

Order Your Copy of the Book Here: https://projecteverlasting.com/store/

Tips and Tricks for a Healthier Life:  

Helpful Website for Children with Allergies According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, five million American children suffer from food allergies. Of these children, one in six kids will have an allergic reaction at school. 

Robyn O’Brien has a young daughter with severe food allergies. Instead of worrying about her every minute of the day, she did something about it. She developed a logo and marketing package to provide tools for parents of kids who have food allergies and for others who need information on allergies. Her website is www.allergykids.com where she markets stickers to apply to those foods that children are allergic to, allergy emergency kits and wristbands that contain a flash drive onto which a child’s medical information can be downloaded. Wow. . .they can do that now?  Amazing. 

Healthy Recipes: Rhubarb Muffins 

  • 1 ¼ cups packed Brown Sugar
  • ½ cup Almond, Apricot, Canola or Corn Oil
  • 1 Egg
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract (not imitation)
  • 1 cup Buttermilk
  • 3 cups fresh, chopped Rhubarb Stalk
  • ½ cup chopped Almonds
  • 2 ½ cups unsifted Spelt Flour
  • 1 teaspoon Aluminum-Free Baking Powder
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • ½ teaspoon Celtic Sea Salt 

In a mixer bowl combine brown sugar, oil, egg and vanilla extract; beat until well blended. Stir in buttermilk, rhubarb and nuts. Combine flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Add all at once to rhubarb mixture; stir just until mixed. Fill greased muffin pans two-thirds full. Apply topping (below). 

Topping: 

  • 1/3 cup Cane Sugar
  • 1 ½ teaspoons Cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon melted Organic Butter 

Combine sugar, cinnamon and butter. Sprinkle over muffins, pressing gently into batter. Sometimes I add a handful of oatmeal to the topping. Other times, instead of making muffins, I pour the batter into a greased pan and top with the topping to make a rhubarb cake, cobbler or crumble. 

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until muffins test done.  Makes about 2 dozen muffins. They freeze well. 

Tip: Don’t have Buttermilk? Add a tablespoon of lemon juice to the cup and bring the volume up to one cup. The milk should curdle. 

Client Testimonials:  

Dr. Moffat, thank you for taking the time to meet with me today. Even if I receive no other benefit—I am encouraged and my hope of returning to health is bolstered. CJ 

Denice: I have been thinking about you.  I am pregnant!  7 weeks officially.  Have been meaning to write and tell you.  The donor cycle I did was a success.  I have had pretty high HCG numbers too and it is possible I am having twins…we will find out tomorrow.  Either one or two is fine with me. . .Thanks for all the baby energy you have been sending, it must have helped!  Dianne 

(Denice’s Note: I had worked with Dianne for a few months and we finally came to a point where I couldn’t do any more for her but to pray for her each day and send her baby energy. I had a card next to my computer and each time I saw it, I intended for her dreams to come true.) 

Denice: I’m impressed by your article on parasites from www.eZinearticles.com .  I, too, am a naturopath, that writes newsletters and writes articles. Looking forward to reading yours.  Pleased to meet you.  Marleen in California 

Marleen, check out the parasite page. Complete with all kinds of pictures and references! I really had fun putting this one together. A combination of all the common parasites I learned about from pre-med parasitology and veterinary parasitology classes. Thanks for reading. Denice

Inspiration & Perspective:

Here’s a great interview with Oprah Winfrey and some of the people who live the practices of the new best-selling book, “The Secret” which I did a book review on a couple months back. https://borntomanifest.com/oprah.html Thanks Angie for researching that out for me. We don’t have TV, but I sure do miss the Oprah show!

And a segment taken from the monthly newsletter I receive written by Daniel Nahmod (his words):

I happened to catch an episode of an interview show called “The Actors Studio” one evening, when Tom Hanks was the guest. He had recently won his second Best-Actor Academy Award, and was asked, “How does it feel to be the most honored actor of your generation?” His answer caught me by surprise:

“Most of the time, I just feel like the last man standing.”

He went on: “I went to acting school with a lot of people who were far more talented than I was… but they took a day job, lost patience, or got discouraged and quit — and I didn’t. So here I am, the last man standing.”

I call it the “Tom Hanks Rule”, and I literally apply it every day to both my music and my business. This work I’m doing, this business I’m building, this music I’m making — it’s a marathon, not a sprint. The only thing that can cause me to ‘fail’, truly, is if I quit.

Just yesterday, I stumbled on a book called The Dip by Seth Godin, about that same principle. Just when everything seems to be growing and going strong, Godin observes, just when the plan is working, the business is thriving, the dream appears within reach, the big breakthrough is around the corner, we inevitably seem to encounter a “Dip” — a prolonged lull in activity, a “no” instead of a “yes”, a drop in finances, a stumble in the business, or a decline in our own passion or drive.

But Godin argues that this “Dip” is actually a great gift, in that it naturally weeds out all but the most committed, the most determined, and the most talented… leaving that one who guts it out, invests and advances, sticks to the vision, experiments with techniques and approaches, questions everything (except the goal!), rides out the scarier times… and ultimately prevails.

So here I am, and I’m ready to go. I’ve never been more clear, more energized, or more determined to spread my musical message of compassion and connection to every corner of this planet. I’ve faced my share of “Dips”, and I’ll face some more. But I will ride each one out, and I will face my doubts, and I will learn much along the way. I choose to be the Last Man Standing.

If you’re in a “Dip” — if you’re considering abandoning YOUR mission, even though every bone in your body knows it’s yours to do — I encourage you to take a breath, sit in the silence, listen to my newest CD “Water” 🙂 … then get back up, and take another step towards your dream. Face that fear of failure and the unknown, face that inner judgment, and hold strong to your purpose. There’s no one more deserving or qualified than you; stick with it, and you WILL experience the kind of fulfillment that only soul success can bring.

All the best to you on your journey. Thanks for reading. I’m off to do my work!

Daniel Nahmod  www.danielnahmod.com 

What’s New at Our House? A Complaint Free World 

We received our www.acomplaintfreeworld.org bracelets in the mail finally. I’ve already changed it about a hundred times from one wrist to the other from my own complaining in only a few short weeks. Even if I tell Michael he’s complaining I have to change it. You also have to change it from one wrist to the other if you engage in any form of gossip. Those are the rules! This may be a long haul of 21 straight days of not complaining! 

Sick Chicken. It started to stink a bit in my office in June. I had a sick chicken residing there for about 10 days (only at night fortunately).  Lucky most my clients are phone consults so they didn’t have to endure the aroma! I thought she was egg bound—only in a big way. Egg bound refers to a condition in laying hens where a hen is unable to pass an egg that has formed. The egg may be stuck near the cloaca, or further inside. Egg binding is a reasonably common, and potentially serious, condition that can lead to infection or damage to internal tissue. The bound egg may sometimes be gently massaged out. If it doesn’t come out, it may be necessary to break the egg inside the chicken and remove it in parts. 

I think “Red” was the chicken who had been laying soft eggs for quite some time. I suspected she had the typical layer upon layer of egg within her, but I hoped not. She’d lost a lot of weight and I had separated her from the other girls so they wouldn’t peck at her (chickens are quite cannibalistic!) So, she spent the days in the garden and the nights in my office where it was warm. 

Michael and I immediately wormed her then had warmed about a tablespoon of KY Jelly and gently inserted it into her cloaca the first night we brought her in, raised the temperature and humidity of her cage and massaged her a bit, but no egg had passed. 

Next we tried offering her all kinds of different foods. The only food she had eaten for over a week had been watermelon. Two days after the worming she started eating scrambled egg as the raw egg was too slimy for her to get enough of it into her mouth. I saw her pecking at the sage and catnip plants.  She seemed to be enlivened by just laying on the ground, so I moved her around the yard for variety removing the occasional cat that wanted to see what was up with her. Maggie, our border collie, only ran at her once. 

The Animal Scientist student in me said, “off with her head!” but I muscle-tested and asked her if she was ready to pass on and she said no. I didn’t really want to have that energy around our home anyway. Yuk. She didn’t want to be stuck with needles to give her calcium or B-vitamins or fluids either. Her life force had steadily increased after just letting her spend the days in and around the plants, so what do you do? 

I decided a call into my favorite animal communicator Lydia Hiby (www.lydiahiby.com) was in order.  I hoped the $40 consult was a write off! Certainly no one in their right mind would consult an animal communicator for a chicken. Ahh, but who’s to say I’ve ever been normal or in a “right mind!” I’ll let you know how it goes. . . 

. . .I’m back. Well, as it went, Lydia said that our chicken was a young soul and that she did not see the Angels and Guides that two other older soul chickens in the flock saw hovering around her. When asked what she wanted to do, she told Lydia, “I guess I’ll just hang in there until I can’t hang on any longer.” Lydia said it was a growth that would not pass and that she wouldn’t get better but that she was open to being injected and even surgery if necessary. (The lump was about 2 inches in diameter.)  Since I had already done over 100 chicken necropsies during my chicken block in veterinary school, I did not feel it was a growth, just eggs. When Lydia impressed onto her that euthanasia would be painless, she opted for that.

I thought about it overnight, and then took the chicken to the Shelter the next day because it was my day to work down there. I hauled a vet student, Andrea, down with me. 

It’s my strong belief that nothing should give its life without us learning from it so that we can use the information to help other animals (or people).  So, Andrea and two technicians had a great learning experience.   

Now I knew it would be a miracle if Andrea would ever see a chicken necropsy in school as she is more of a horsey person, so I first showed them three ways to euthanize a bird. Andrea was allowed to try the techniques after “Red” was drugged up, pain free and not aware of anything that was going on. 

I was able to teach them about bird respiratory systems. They got to view the air membrane (our diaphragm) and learned that by holding a bird too tight they could kill it because it can’t breathe (they have to expand their whole body to take in air) and they got to see what normal chicken anatomy looked like. Most of Red’s organs looked remarkably healthy. 

Red had a few eggs that had released into her abdomen so had egg yolk peritonitis (in humans this would be called an ectopic pregnancy) and—unbelievably to me—she really DID have a growth in the cloacal area! (The cloaca is the common area where both feces and eggs pass.) Lydia was right on. 

I peeled the growth off easily, but could not have done it without surgery. Even then, Red would have not been strong enough to handle the anesthetic and she would most likely have died of the egg yolk peritonitis. She had lost about half of her bodyweight. 

She had a happy life and I’ll miss her as chickens go. 

Local Events: 

Michael will be at the following county fairs all located at the city fairgrounds with his water booth this month. If you’d like him to test your water (for free), just bring a sample in a clean bottle. Go to the water section of the website for further instructions. 

  • Sept. 6-9 2007 Palouse Empire Fair in Colfax, WA
  • Sept. 13-16 2007 Latah Co. Fair in Moscow, ID
  • Sept. 20-23 2007 Nez Perce Co. Fair in Lewiston, ID 

The final three Moscow Spay and Neuter clinics  for the 2007 year will be held at the Latah County Fairgrounds will be held Tues. Sept 18, October 2 & 16. VERY reasonable rates and the shots are just $10 each if your pet needs that updated rabies (see above rabid bat warning!) We also do microchipping for only $15. What a steal. For more info, go to: www.lcshelter.com and click on the link that says SNAP. Drop off for surgeries is between 8-10a.m. No appt. necessary and the pickup is the same day. 

That’s it for this Month!

Be Healthy.  Denice

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Dr. Denice Moffat is a practicing naturopath, medical intuitive, and veterinarian working on the family unit (which includes humans and animals) through her phone consultation practice established in 1993. She has a content-rich website at www.NaturalHealthTechniques.com and free newsletter.