THROWBACK THURSDAY: Herbs for Radiation and Healing from Exposure w/ The Herbal Prepper

Because your health deserves a plan B. I'm your host, Kathy, herbal prepper, and it's my mission to educate as many people as possible in this safe use of herbal remedies, especially in preparation for tough times ahead. Before I kick off tonight's show, I need to satisfy the legal department here on my end with a few quick disclaimers. I am not a doctor. I do not prescribe or practice medicine. I do not diagnose, treat, or claim to cure any disease or illness. If you need medical advice or treatments, please seek out a licensed physician. No statement on the show or in the chat room or on the network's website or my own website in an email or any other communication by me. None of it has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. All listeners are strongly encouraged to learn and research the safety and efficacy of herbal remedies for themselves and develop their own opinions. The topics discussed are hypothetical and provided for informational purposes only. Use at your own risk and with a heavy dose of common sense. And with that said, the Herbal Prepper Live is one woman's opinion on alternatives to modern medicine during a total collapse of our way of life. In this hypothetical scenario, there are no doctors, EMTs, hospitals, or pharmacies. Professional medical health is simply not an option. If you or your loved ones need health care, the buck stops with you. So I ask you, if we were faced with the end of the world as we know it tomorrow, such as an economic collapse, an EMP, or other attacks on our grid, or any breakdown in society and services, could you care for your and your loved ones' health care needs? And if you answered no and you'd like to change that, please keep listening because this show is for you. And with that out of the way, Welcome, everyone. Welcome back to the Oval Prepper Live airing on April 27, 2014. I'd like to welcome everyone who's tuning in live this evening, everyone in that chat room, and all those folks who are going to be listening to the download later. This is episode number seven, and tonight we are talking about radiation, fallout, what role herbs and natural remedies can play in helping you prepare and recover from exposure. And so for those listening live, if you've got something you want to share, if you've got a nagging question, join us in the chat room or call into the show. The phone number to do so is 646-716-4008. Please do get involved because this show really is for you. And on tonight's agenda, I've got an update I mentioned last week on my upcoming online herbal burn care class. And I'm going to take just a very quick moment to address some of the stories and articles that are floating out there right now about Ebola and MERS. I'm actually going to do a much longer blog article on my website this week on prepping for pandemics, but I kind of feel like I need to just touch on it briefly. But then we're going to get into some of the renewed nuclear concerns, bring this back on topic a little bit. and what to do if you're exposed to nuclear radiation and how herbs can help if you are exposed. So before we get into tonight's discussion, because I have a habit of trying to cram a lot of stuff into an hour here, let's just take a short break now, let the station pace and build, and we'll just listen to a few quick words from our sponsors. All right, so taking us a little bit more into today's topic, there is some renewed nuclear concern. You know, some older generations will remember a lot of the drills and the training, and people were far more aware, I think, of the dangers and what to do if there were to be a nuclear attack because we had the whole Cold War thing. And some of the younger generations, not really a factor. But then we had, unfortunately, Fukushima, And that sort of renewed the interest. And now we've got renewed tensions with Russia. We're all aware of what's going on in the Ukraine and Crimea. And, of course, we've got countries like Iran that are continually trying to get nuclear power, though they're probably more of a threat for ENT. North Korea, the same thing. I mean, I know that they've failed and failed and failed and failed, but they keep trying. They've tried to design one. They've tried to smuggle them in. There was the nuclear missile that was found several months back. It's disturbing. They found it being smuggled, I think, through Panama. If they don't design one themselves, they're going to They're going to get it from somewhere else. So, I mean, again, I think that's more of an EMP threat, but you never know. If they keep trying, eventually they're going to get it right. Accidents, you know, Fukushima, but we've also got aging nuclear plants right here in the U.S., I live not too far from one, and that doesn't make me too comfortable. I live far enough that I wouldn't be in the black zone, but, yeah, I'm looking forward to relocating. Also, accidents on roadways. I learned last week from my co-host on the Medic Shack that there's a lot of nuclear waste being transported through the country on trucks that are unmarked so that they're not targets. I didn't know that. I was kind of unsettled by that fact. But certainly you could have an accident, you know, with that. And then there's also all kinds of just radiation in our environment, our devices, our cell phones, our cell towers, low levels of radiation that we're exposed to over time. And certainly if you're around a lot of medical equipment, if you've had cancer treatments, you have, you know, radiation is not... it's not the safest thing. Um, so, you know, when you go for, um, cancer treatment, there's, I think, um, I think there's arguments to be made that they do as much harm as they do good. So that's why I've had some interest in doing a show on, um, sort of radiation basics and how to, you know, how to react to it and what you can do to, you know, before and after an event, um, And a couple of things you need to keep in mind are distance, shielding, and time. And the more distance you can get between you and the fallout particles, obviously that's in your benefit. You want to be as far away as possible, get as far away as possible. And you're looking mostly for underground shelters, basements. They're better than being near a roof where particles are going to accumulate. But be careful of the windows around the basement because, you know, the particles are going to accumulate on the ground as well. If you're in a big building, try to get into the middle of a high rise into a room that doesn't have any windows. Shielding, heavy dense materials give you more protection than something thin. So anything that you can do to put up against the walls, if you're thick walls, stone, concrete, earth, bricks, books, if you're in an office and you've got lots of filing cabinets that are filled with paper, you know, put them up against the walls or just try to get away from the windows if possible. Time, that's the other thing. Assuming that the source is not an ongoing issue, the source of the radiation is not an ongoing issue like Chernobyl was or Fukushima is, radioactive fallout poses the greatest threat to people during the first two weeks. And it takes about two weeks for it to basically decline to about 1% of its initial radiation level. The fallout from a nuclear explosion can be carried in the wind, so obviously you don't want to be caught in that. So you need to be aware of the wind currents, and they can travel for hundreds of miles. If the right conditions exist, So you need to have some way of monitoring this, and I will be the first to admit that I don't really understand how lots of these gadgets work, but I do know that you can get a little one for your keychain. It's about $ 100. It's not cheap, but it will give you the heads up if there's an increase in radiation in the area. So probably worth happening if this is something that you're concerned about. You should have a plan in place in your emergency supply kit you know, already set beforehand, you know, a plan of where to go, where to meet, you know, whatever is going to work for your family. For some people, they'd be staying in place. For some people, they would be relocated. You know, plan your evacuation routes, whatever is going to work for you. But if you are caught in the fallout, don't look at the flash. You don't want to get blinded. Get on the ground, protect your head, and as soon as possible, get to a safe place. Again, preferably in the basement, interior room with no windows and so on. You are going to need to decontaminate as fast as possible. The first thing you're going to need to do is remove your clothing, which will remove about 90% of the radioactive material. If possible, contain the clothing in some type of a plastic bag, seal it up immediately. if that's possible, if that's feasible. And as soon as possible, you need to take a shower with lots of soap and water. Shampoo your hair, but don't condition it because you'll just trap that in. You don't want it to bind to the radiation. I assume you do the conditioner. So you get to wash your hair, wash your body thoroughly, but Don't walk so hard in a panic that you scratch your skin or break your skin in any way because you're just giving yourself now a wound for it to get in. Wipe down your eyes, your eyelashes, your ears with wet cloth. If you can, blow your nose. Get everything out of, you know, we're talking eyes and your nose, you're talking mucous membranes and so on. You want to make sure that you don't have, you know, you're not letting it get into your body in any way. If there is no shower available, if you can just wipe down the skin that was exposed with a wet cloth, you're still better doing that than doing nothing. If you can, like I carry a package of baby wipes with me everywhere. Granted, my kids are a little, you know, they're older now. They don't really need that, but they're just so handy that I have them on me all the time now. So having some disposable wipes, I think, would at least help if you can't get to a shower. Now, the heaviest fallout is going to be limited to the area of the event or downwind, whether this is an explosion or an accident. And that's where most of the fallout is going to be for the first 24 hours. But again, you've got about two weeks before the radiation has gone down to about 1%. So you need to think about what kind of supplies you would need for that amount of time. And a lot of people rush to buy potassium iodide. And there's nothing wrong with doing so. But when there's a threat going on, people tend to rush. I remember the last time that there was a shortage of potassium iodide, people were selling it on eBay for like 90 bucks for the package. That's a lot. And the only thing that it does is it gives you some measure of protection for your fibroid if you take it before the exposure. So, I mean, it's good. It's good for that, but it has its limitations. And, you know, some kids may not be able to swallow them. You can paint the iodine on the skin to get the liquid. But it still only just protects the thyroid if you use it before the exposure happens. One of the things I think is going to complicate problems here is that the U.S. population is already chronically deficient in iodine. And assuming that you are not allergic to iodine, because then things become a bit complicated. But as long as you're not allergic to iodine, a better way, in my opinion, to address this is to make sure you're consuming iodine and potassium in your diet already. You can supplement with things like nettle, like I spoke all about last week, because it's very high in iodine. But two things that I want to bring your attention to are blue-green algae, like spirulina and chlorella. Now, I'm going to be the absolute first to admit that these taste horrible. There's no joke about this. They do not taste good. You cannot just put these on a teaspoon and mix it in some water and drink it, and it's not good. But there are many ways that you can get this in. so that you can hide the flavor or you can take it in capsules. And the capsules are, for me, they're more convenient than trying to blend it in a shake. But you can blend it in a shake with a banana. Bananas, there's your potassium. But they're also really, really good at masking the taste of the algae. And You can then mix in cocoa powder and honey and cinnamon or whatever have you. It's just then you have a blender that you have to watch afterwards. So for me, the capsules that you can make at home with a little capsule machine is more convenient. But you can certainly do the whole shake thing, and like I said, the bananas will give you the potassium, and it'll mask the taste of especially the chlorella. Spirulina is a little stronger. So you might need to put in a little bit more cocoa powder to hide that one. But for my kids to take it, and I get them to take it, I hide the chlorella because it's less offensive than the spirulina taste, in my opinion. I hide it in a homemade chocolate syrup that I make with cocoa powder and honey, and I'll put it over homemade yogurt, and they don't have a clue. They have no clue that it's in there. So if it'll pass the kid test, it'll pass any adult test as far as I'm concerned. And in my emergency kit for this, I have a sealed plastic bottle that we use to bottle up our honey. We have these dripless plastic lids. And I know a lot of people don't like plastic. They want to get away from it. But they're just so convenient that we use them for our honey sales. And when we put the lids down, it automatically seals it. And it's a dripless bottle. So I have no concerns about this. being in my kit or squirting everywhere or a glass bottle breaking. And I fill one of these bottles up with the chocolate sauce that I make. And if I absolutely have to, to get extra chlorella into my kids, if there were to be some type of event, if I had to, I could just squirt this right in their mouth. I don't know a single kid out there that is going to refuse having chocolate sauce squirt right in their mouth. They don't know that they're getting iodine. They don't know that there's chlorella in it. They don't know what that is. So that's in my kids' kits, to be precise. So if I need to use it, it's there. But what's great about these two algae is not only do they protect the thyroid, not only do they have iodine, but they also help to detoxify the body and to actually remove the harmful particles and other environmental toxins from the body. So not only can you use this ahead of time, to supplement to protect the thyroid beforehand, but afterwards you can use these to help remove any exposure to these radioactive particles that you've had. And you can go, don't take my word for this, go on to PubMed.gov and look up spirulina and you can see the studies that were done after Chernobyl because Chernobyl gave us a lot of really good examples of what to do and what not to do, and there are studies showing, you know, the outcomes of people who supplemented with these algaes. And it is clear, it is absolutely clear that they had better outcomes, better lifespans, fewer complications, that they recovered faster when they took them. And, you know, these are available... um, all over. And I mean, you can get them at almost any health food store. I order mine from nuts.com. And, um, I think that they just have this, I mean, they, they deliver products like within like two days. I have no idea how they ship things all over the country, but they get them there really, really fast. So I've been very happy with everything I've ordered from nuts.com. So, um, so I trust that as a source of getting them. So, um, Not only are they good for prevention, but they're also good for after your exposure of clearing that from the body. Bentonite clay is another way you could go for that, too. It also pulls toxins from the body, and there are claims that are made about it that it would help in this type of a scenario. And you can pick up pre-liquefied bottles of bentonite clay from Amazon and And the reason why I would suggest this as opposed to just buying the clay, if you've ever tried to mix this stuff, it clumps. And if you have to drink this, because that's what you would have to do, you'd have to drink it, and then it would absorb the toxins inside of you. If you're going to drink this, it's already got kind of a bizarre sort of flick. Well, it's clay. It's got a strange taste. The last thing you want it to be is clumpy. So The pre-liquified one that you can get on Amazon works just fine. And I've got that. It's sealed. It's in my kit for all sorts of things because you can use that also for... It's in my first aid kit, not just a nuclear-specific kit or a radiation-specific kit, but it's in my first aid kit because you can use this for fungal skin infections, to food poisoning, and then also for detoxing from... environmental contaminants and radioactive particles. Activated charcoal can be taken for the same reasons as bentonite clay. Green walnut oil tincture is another really, really good source of iodine, especially if you are nervous about some of the other obvious sources of iodine like seaweeds. A lot of people don't want to risk taking seaweed because of Fukushima. All I can say is that it's not like it's spread out from Japan and stays in this one place. There are current and it will continually move it doesn't stay in one place so I personally don't have any concerns about getting seaweed that's come from the East Coast or from Iceland I mean eventually it'll make its way all around the planet but I I personally at this moment don't have any concerns about those. However, if you do, you might want to try green walnut hull tincture. And also I would say that spirulina and chlorella are not grown in the ocean. They're algae, but they are grown most of the time now indoors or in protected facilities. So that's generally not a concern with those two. Oh, let's see, where am I now? Green walnut, I already spoke about that. So medicinal mushrooms. Medicinal mushrooms, we're talking about reishi, chaga, shiitake, mayatake, all of these. If you're not familiar with them, I mean, you should really take a look at them because mycology or the study of mushrooms is just fascinating. This can be a really crucial element to support your immune system. and prevent long-term damage. I do not know enough about mycology to make my own supplements yet. That's one of many things on the big list of things I have the skill to learn. But I do stock up on a brand called Fungi Perfecti. You can generally find this on Amazon and usually for sale. You can find it other places too, but this is where I found the best prices for things. The onset of symptoms from radiation poisoning really depend upon the level of exposure, how long you've been exposed, how close you were, and so on. It can start between a couple of hours. It might be a little longer before it sets in. It can continue for up to a couple of months. If you've got low levels of exposure, though, let's say it's not from... a nuclear event, not from a bomb and it's not from an accident from a nuclear plant, nothing like that, but low levels of exposure, let's say from years of exposure to cell phones and cell towers and medical equipment and so on. Sometimes you can also have symptoms of radiation poisoning show up, but it may take a number of years before symptoms present. And ultimately, cancer is the big concern here. And in looking at this, you've got to take that into consideration too when we talk about radiation. I think there's a lot of information that we don't have yet on what all these different forms of radiation from all of our devices might possibly be doing to us. I don't think there have been any real studies because this is one of those things of, yeah, maybe the radiation from your phone individually might not do anything, but what if you combine that with your phone, and your laptop, and, you know, all the other various things that are out there. Because it's not like you can see this. It's not like you can smell this. I mean, you can't sense radiation with your senses, except for, like, let's say, if you're holding your laptop in your lap and all of a sudden your leg gets really hot, well, you know, probably you don't want to necessarily cook your leg there. So, you know... You try to get some distance from these things. Try not to have them right up against you. But because we are sort of bombarded with all of this and because there's that potential that, you know, tensions are heating up in the world, something could happen. If this is a concern of yours, another remedy that you might consider would be rosemary tincture. And the reason why I say this is because two compounds in rosemary, let's see if I can get the chemical names pronounced here correctly, carnosic. and rosmarinic. Rosmarinic, yes, that's how it's pronounced. I've been practicing these. Oh, sometimes the scientific terminology, it looks so simple on the page, but when you go to say it, it's not quite that simple. So rosmarinic acids. These two acids actually naturally deter radiation poisoning. It deters radiation poisoning of all sources. So there are studies that back this up. The British Journal of Radiology, February 2nd edition, scientists in Spain reported finding that nothing fights radiation damage from all sources to micronuclei as well as rosemary. And Gail Faith Edwards, that's her name, I'm sorry, it took me just one second there. Gail Faith Edwards, she's an herbalist in Maine. Wonderful website that she has She recommends 30 drops of rosemary tincture one to three times daily in a little bit of water for all sources of radiation to help protect the body. Margie Flint is another herbalist that is not that far away from me, maybe about an hour and a half away, and she recommends yarrow tincture and yarrow in general, any way that you can get yarrow for radiation exposure. Arthur Haynes is in... a botanist and herbalist and bushcrafter from up in Maine. And he recommends pine pollen, particularly white pine pollen, to protect the body from radioactive particles. And on my website, I posted a couple of his videos where he goes out and harvests the pine pollen and discusses the whys and the hows of how to protect yourself using pine pollen. There was a study done in India published in the 2008 Journal of Biochemical and Molecular Toxicology that found that foods rich in caffeic acid prevent damage to the DNA from radiation. Where do we find this? Well, last week I spoke about one that's loaded with caffeic acid, which is metal. So, you know, there's that metal tea again. The Braska family, so cabbage and broccoli, anything that's in that family, and apples. These all have lots of caffeic acid. So load up on these now. Store them up for after a potential exposure. And the other thing I want to mention about metals, metals are also a great source of potassium. So there's that potassium element in there again. Various seaweeds, if you're comfortable with that, including kelp and bladderwrack, very good for iodine and helping to support the immune system and support thyroid function. You want to be giving your liver extra support. If you feel that there is a risk here that you want to protect yourself from, you're going to want to stock up on liver-supporting herbs. I spoke about that already with the liver and the allergy podcast or the broadcast that we did here. And just as a reminder, you'd be looking for something like dandelion, burdock, milk thistle, tinctures, those would all help support your liver to help everything that's filtered through the liver. So if you are exposed to fallout, you definitely want to help support your liver. Now, American ginseng, this has been proven to protect the body from radiation. If you want more information on that, again, go to, look up Gail Faith Edwards' website. She's got a lot of information on American ginseng. I believe that was, yeah, that's the site that I got that from. American ginseng, and then I did some additional research after that on protecting the body from radiation in general. This would be something you take along with the rosemary tincture. Cancer, big concern with long-term exposure. If your bone marrow is a concern from long-term exposure, curcumin, which is found in turmeric, there are some studies, and you can look them up on PubMed also, that can help. or I should say it may help. Again, if you take these things as preventative, you've got a lot better shot. It's always easier to prevent something than to try to address it after it's already set in. But something else you might want to add to your food storage would be miso soup because it's basically kelp and mushrooms. And, you know, it's dried. It's going to have a long shelf life. You can store this up. The perfect survival food for this type of situation is All you need to be able to do is to heat up some water, and it's the perfect thing to keep on hand, you know, to feed yourself in a crisis like this. For nausea, you know, if you've got radiation poisoning, it's going to be very difficult to stop the nausea, but, you know, things like ginger and chamomile and peppermint, get them down when you can in between bouts of bouts of vomiting and it'll give you at least some comfort measures. Treat burns as you would any other kind of burn. Be very careful in washing the burn first. Same goes for any kind of wound. You don't want to push the particles in further, but you need to be thorough. So flush as much of this as you can. So while I'm talking about flushing here, we're going to talk about water really briefly. Water, if you want to be sure that there are no radioactive particles in the water, the only filter that I know of that has been tested for such is the Seychelles. And, again, you can go on Amazon and find it. I don't know where else it is available, but I'm sure it's available in many other places. But Seychelles, I believe, has been tested to remove 100% of radioactive particles. I wouldn't use this as your everyday filter. I would save this for this kind of emergency. I would use something else for everyday stuff, like we have a Berkey. I've inquired to several Berkey dealers as to whether or not the Berkey will filter out radioactive particles, and the only answer I get back is it's never been tested for that. So this is why I would just keep one of these Seychelles water filters around, just in case. and then use it, you know, for these types of situations. Now, there's a lot of information. You don't have to employ each and every one of these remedies. You don't have to have every single one of these things. Just consider all of them and figure out what's going to work for you. If you don't have kids, you don't necessarily need to be making a chocolate syrup to hide chlorella in. You know, you can make capsules and swallow them. I mean, just try to... see how this is going to work best for your kits, your emergency kits, your bug out location, your basement that you've set up, whatever is part of your plan. And I know that this is a lot of information. I did get a message asking if I could make my show notes available. I actually don't have a script that I read from. I don't have a transcript. It would just be a lot of bulleted points. So what I think might be the easiest thing to do would be to chop these topics down into smaller articles, standalone articles, and I'm just going to post them on my website so that you can refer to them after the fact. And I've been really slacking on my article writing as I've been putting so much time into the burn care class, but I need to get back to writing regular articles. So I think that that should... help to clarify because there is a lot of information in one hour so that we can go back and look at snippets of it. So we are just about at the end of the show here. Next week on Sunday, May 4th, 2014, this will probably be a recorded show because I will most likely be out of town at our cabin and future homestead site in Maine. However, there is a chance it will be a live show because Unfortunately, we had to replace some bees, some packages of bees, because a couple of our hives didn't make it over the winter. And the delivery of the packages is delayed due to weather. And the rescheduled date has fallen right in the middle of the week. And with the weather towards the end of the week, I'm not sure that we're going to get a whole lot of actual construction done. So it's up in the air whether we're going to be gone or not. But I've got to show... ready and recorded for you just in case. And the topic is going to be diabetes in a post-collapse world. And I'm going to be talking about both type 1 and type 2. What's the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, managing type 2 through diet, through exercise, the plant origins of metformin, and is there hope for insulin-dependent diabetics? Yes, there is. There's actually more that you can do than you might have thought. I know that when this topic comes up, this is usually one of those things where people just sort of throw their hands up in the air and say, well, when insulin runs out, can't do anything. That's not necessarily the truth. And I'm not saying that anybody's misleading you. It's just they're not aware of some of the other options that are out there. We're going to talk a little bit about adjusting long-term food storage. Because if you are, you know, you store what you eat and you have your food storage based upon you know, the standard guidelines of, you know, lots of grains and hundreds of pounds of wheat and rice and corn and so on and so forth, you may be setting yourself up for developing type 2 diabetes down the road, and that kind of is counterintuitive to long-term survival. So talk a little bit about that. So, you know, just as a reminder before I wrap up the show here, the statement made here has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These statements are not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure or prevent any disease. This notice is required by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. If you like what you've heard, connect with me by following me on Facebook, Twitter, or by subscribing to my blog or my YouTube channel. Follow me on Pinterest, and please do share this The link to the network and all the wonderful archive shows that are here with your friends and family. It's a huge resource. Take advantage of it. And we're at the end of our show, but don't go too far. A Practice Path is going to be coming up in a couple hours, one hour. I didn't write the time down, but our show is coming up very quickly, and so you don't want to go too far. And let me see. Be sure to stay here with Prepper Broadcasting instead of Blog Talk Radio. This is a reminder because we're not going to be on Blog Talk Radio, I think, beyond a week or so. So I think I've covered all the reminders to everyone. So thank you for spending your evening with me. Thank you for spending your time here. I hope you got something out of it. This has been Kat, the herbal prepper, with the Herbal Prepper Live, and we will see you again next week. We'll be right back. © transcript Emily Beynon