Mearwynna

Natural soaps help quite alot for some people. Monistat 2-4% rubbed on the scalp can help restart hair growth. One of the chemicals in it has this side effect and people use it to grow their hair longer, and to help with balding spots. ( I learned that on another forum.) Good vitamins and a high protein diet can also help grow hair. I have hair loss as well but it seems to be coming back a little now.

This is the first recipe for elderberry syrup That I saw. As you can see it makes a very sweet syrup, that also has more alcohol in it than my recipe. My idea came from Mountain Rose Herbs, but I also decided to re-heat and simmer the berries to make sure I got all of the goodies out, just like we would do with jellies. There was a lot of juice left behind. Mountain Rose Herbs has a video on youtube about this. Their other videos are also very nice! Elderberry Syrup Recipe 7 cups elderberry juice 8 ¾ cups honey 3 cups 80 proof vodka (if you're starting with dried berries, to get "juice", put 1 cup of berries in a quart jar and pour 2 cups of boiling water over them. If they soak it up, add a bit more. Stash in the fridge or a cool, dark place for 24-48 hours.Then strain, and squeeze every bit of liquid you can out- you can twist the berries in a muslin towel and get most of it. You'll need three "jars" of the stuff to get enough for 7 cups. ) Warm the elderberry juice to “hot, but not boiling” temp… between 150° and 180°F should be plenty. Stir in the honey and stir until it’s completely dissolved and blended. Remove from the heat, and stir in the vodka. Pour into sterile jars or bottles (sterilize them by boiling for 5-10 minutes in boiling water, then let drip dry upside down until filling) Cap and LABEL. Store in a cool DARK place (or bottle in dark brown glass) Standard dose for adults would be: Prophylaxis (prevention) 1 tablespoon (15 mls, or 1/2 ounce) 2x a day. If there is active flu in your office or family, double that, or take more often. Treatment: 1-2 tablespoons every 3-4 hours Children under 12: half the adult dose Toddlers and infants: Talk to your doctor! But, lacking that, 1 tsp at similar intervals to the adult dose should be adequate. There is NO way to overdose on this! Put it in juice, jello, pour it over ice cream- any way you can get the kids to take it is fine. Alternatives: If you do not want to use any alcohol in the syrup, use 7 cups elderberry juice 14 cups honey Proceed as above, ignoring the reference to the vodka. If you don’t want to use honey (probably best to NOT use it for babies under 1 year) 7 cups elderberry juice 11 ½ cups sugar Stir until the sugar is dissolved in the hot juice, then bottle.

Hi, I'm coming out of lurkdome to share some info about elderberry syrups and tinctures. Recently, with the swine flue I've heard a lot of talking about elderberry as a remedy for the seasonal flues and as a possible preventative for the swine flue. I bought a few pounds of sambucus nigra (the best variety) and I made a syrup with it. We had been dealing with the flue for about a week. First my kids getting it, and then my husband and myself. It could have been the H1N1, but we'll never know. It was a little early for the regular flue and the weather was warm and beautiful. So I think the timing was good to try this out. I put one cup of dried berries into a pot with 5 cloves and a tsp of ginger and 6 cups of water. I brought this to almost a boil, and then simmered gently for about 30 minutes. The liquid was reduced to about half. I strained this out, added the pulp back to the pot and added 2 more cups of water and simmered again for 15 minutes then I strained that into the same liquid. I mixed the decoctions, and added a cup of raw honey to the liquid and 4 oz of vodka. (This acts as a preservative and will help keep it from spoiling as quickly.) I had about 6 cups of syrup. I split it into thirds and froze most of it but we all started taking some right away. A dose for an adult is about a tablespoon, maybe more if you are actually sick, every few hours. A childs dose is about a teaspoon or two depending on their size and how sick they may be. The pulp can be saved to make tea with, which I did because by the end of the day I was feeling really sick, and was starting to get chills. After I drank the pot of tea I felt a little better. Throughout the next couple of days, I took a tablespoon of the syrup every few hours and I didn't end up very sick at all. I had a mild sore throat which left in two days and a mild case of the sniffles. I have the real sense that it helped a lot. That it did prevent a more serious infection. I feel this because fore 3 weeks prior, since the start of our home school year, I've been dealing with a ton of stress, and about one week prior, I developed a nasty breast infection. So, I didn't want to face another week of being sick and not able to do my mommy duties. With all that stress, I wouldn't have been surprised to develop one of those nasty, lingering colds that I sometimes get. So there is my first experience with elderberry and the cold/flue season. I want to repeat that I don't know if it was the swine flue or not, but I did think it was helpful for me, and for my children. I'm going to keep experimenting with it this year and we'll test it out when we can. Does anyone have any experience to share with me about this? I'm sure somebody must know more than I do about it. Since this worked so well, I've started a elderberry and echinacea tincture for the adults and will make more syrup for the kids. I do not like to use a lot of sugar when we are sick, so the amount of honey is really cut back. If you put more in it the keeping quality will improve, but I think freezing works, too.