November 5, 2019 post – a favorite natural health aid
This week my favorite natural health aid is Slippery Elm Bark. Actually I have had a love affair with this remedy for 5 years. Back in 2014 I had a really bad flare up of Ulcerative Colitis (that I wrote about here). This powdered herb gave me a boost and a feeling of well-being in the midst of my periods of pain, dizziness, and running to the toilet.
This week I have set myself up with the powder in a shaker that I am enjoying the cinnamon’y taste of on my morning yogurt with granola. Why the slippery elm is back active in my life is because our cat Max was diagnosed with cancer on October 18th.
After I got off the call from the doctor with the diagnosis I did what I think most of us do these days, I went on the internet to search for alternative medicine remedies to help Max.
As an aside here I would like to give some information about where my mind was, I wanted to find some natural remedies to support a standard medical treatment. These were new thoughts for me as I have been anti-standard medical treatments for a while (actually 5 years since my UC flare up in 2014 which I felt was mis-handled by doctors.) This new perspective came from my watching of a docuseries in May, called ‘Remedy’ by Nick Pollizzi, which featured dozens of herbalists and their experiences with herbal treatments. There was an episode on cancer and all of the herbalists seemed to agree to not rely only on natural remedies alone for cancer treatment as cancer is too fast and aggressive for herbal treatments which tend to be slower to aid and enrich the body.
So back to my search for natural aids for Max…
My search for natural remedies for cancer in cats lead me to a site petwellbeing.com which had a product ‘Life Gold’ with hundreds of reviews about how this product help their pet (some people mentioning the product was used in support of chemotherapy drugs). When I looked at the ingredient list for the product I saw lots of good healing herbs along with Slippery Elm. I thought, “Well that one I have in the house.” This was a Friday night so I ordered the remedy but began right away to put some Slippery Elm powder in Max’s food – just a dusting, maybe ¼ teaspoon per can.
Slippery Elm is known for providing support to the liver. This is one of the locations that Max has a tumor. My goal is to support Max’s liver to function better. He was put on a chemo treatment by the vet so liver support during this time I feel is beneficial to help the body to function well to heal. I have also been supporting Max’s liver with the ‘Life Gold’ remedy as well as some natural Beef Liver supplements (Ancestral Supplements). Max stopped throwing up each day, is eating well, and looks like he may have put a little weight on. I can tell he still has periods that he is uncomfortable but they seem less often than before his treatments began.
Slippery Elm bark – good stuff.
My 2014 name for it “the elixir of Life”.
