To read up more on NasTea, including a FAQ about NasTea usage, see this article.
Note: Obviously there’s still plenty of non-contagious ways of getting sick – don’t try eating that left-out potato salad, etc. But for the ones that come zipping through – contagious viral and bacterial infections – here’s what I’ve discovered:
3 Reasons to take blocking contagion sickness seriously:
- Sickness is sickness, never fun getting whumped.
- Un-countered sickness takes weeks, sometimes months, off your social calendar. You know what I mean – anything from “we can’t get out the door” to world’s biggest blowouts to exhuasted whiny children.
- But most of all: countering sickness dramatically strengthens your body’s (and your children’s) immune response. It’s the way it should be. However, passively letting modern contagions walk all over your dramatically imbalances your immune response – vandalizes your system in all sorts of ways (that I strongly suspect never happened in the old world where people weren’t getting “global” or lab-modified illnesses): wrecking gut microbiome or gut permeability (and subsequently autoimmunity), hormone disruption, etc. etc. Unfortunately, in today’s world, we need armor – these aren’t your Grandpa’s illnesses.
- Bonus: if you have tiny babies, sickness can really be bad.
The #1 tool that you’ll need to armor yourself against sickness? Watchfulness. (As in, what people have had to do since the beginning of history, before we began solely delegating everyting to centralized expertise). This is paramount: there’s no remedy in the world that’s going to stop the train once it’s too far out of the station. Things may help, but once the party’s started, you’re starting from behind, not ahead.
I can’t emphasize enough: timing is everything. If you don’t understand this, you might be tempted to think that it didn’t “work” – if you’re at phase three because of lack of response, by definition there’s nothing that will “work,” at least to side-step symptoms.
For this reason, if you do want to not get sick, you have to assemble (yes, buy) the stuff now. Just do it – $50 of miscellaneous supplements etc. never looked so cheap from the perspective of a 3am wakeup with your child unable to breathe from croupe. Ask me how I know.
Here’s your “starter kit:
- NasTea
- Goldenseal/Echinachea (just search Amazon, there’s a million. I’ve tried “Secrets of the Tribe,” seemed fine.)
- Vinegar (yep, any ol’ vinegar will do – heresy, I know. But that’s just my experience – doesn’t need to be homestead-youtuber-grade ACV or anything)
- Cinchona bark tincture (aka Quinine – I would get an alcohol base so it tastes bad; you CAN overdoseon this. If you get it in alcohol-free sweet glycerine, the kids might get a hold of it and suck it all down, which would be fatal! There’s no reversing a quinine overdose ☠)
- Zinc (likewise: even the cheapest type of zinc supplements work – you can tell, because you get queasy if you take too much zinc, ask me how I know. Just avoid ones with petroleum products, e.g. propylene glycol, etc. (see Foodprocess.org to assess ingredients))
- (For Norovirus) TUDCA
One other thing you’ll notice: I’ve come to believe that there’s absolutely no place whatsoever for NSAIDs (Tylenol, Ibuprofin, Aspirin, etc.) in this. Those drugs make you as a parent feel better, and make the situation worse – both immediately (i.e. gut injury, inhibit glutathione production, disrupt your body’s feedback, etc.) and long-term. One of the best medical decisions we’ve ever made was to go and toss our entire stock of ibuprofin and tylenol – it was scary at the time, but it’s absolutely proven to the be the right decision.
With that, here’s my flowchart for NEVER getting sick:
WATCH, OBSERVE
(a) extra-whiny “on the edge” children?
(b) any large gatherings recently, or high-focus events (traveling, birthdays, etc.)
(c) any obvious symptoms in your children? (runny noses, coughs, dark eye circles, etc.)
(d) possibly the most important: have you heard of something “going around” in your social circles?
AVOID:
- For whoever has symptoms – follow the Autoimmune Protocol
- If you can’t bring yourself to do 100% AIP: avoid Seed oils (any plant oils except coconut, avacado, uncooked olive oil, and palm oil), wheat, corn, soy, dairy, Artificial dyes, TBHQ/BHA/BHT, sodium benzoate, sorbic acid (potassium sorbate, etc.), petroleum additives – any of the above skyrockets inflammation and gimps the immune system fast
ASSESS:
Is it VIRAL or BACTERIAL?
-> VIRAL:
(a) Caution: watch for “walking pneumonia” (Mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria) – looks almost identical to a viral infection, but you’ll start to hear about hurting chest while breathing and pneumonia diagnosis. Mycoplasma pneumoniae is bacterial, and NasTea won’t work on it!
->Go to bacterial. Note: for Mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria, industrial antibiotics will typically be inneffective. Goldenseal and echninachea, however, may help.
(b) Usual indicators: Slow 3-8 day symptom progression, no fever and chills until “cresendo”, Runny nose, swollen red mouth/tonsils, cough
->NasTea – 1 per child (1/2 capsule for small children), once per day before bedtime until you feel “stablized.” Doesn’t hurt to do it profilactically.
(c) Is it Covid? Usual indicators: differs from covid-to-covid variant, but for most people the typical indicator is an unusal “progression” of symptoms – i.e. first aches, then sore throat, then headaches, then… etc. Also, persistently “knobby” rubbery lymph nodes (lookup anatomy charts to find them). That, or completely different symptoms from person to person.
-> Covid protocol:
-(Supplements/Drugs) Ivermectin, ~.5mL Quinine (Cinchona bark tincture *careful, you can overdose on this!) + ~25mg zinc + apigenin
-(Food) Oysters, raw onions, parsley (and Cinchona tincture if you have it)
Viral extras: Sunshine, any bitters, Dandelion leaf, mint leaf, ginger, DMSO, Vitamin D3 (from lanolin)
-> BACTERIAL:
(a) Usual indicators: Fast onset symptoms, fever and chills (quick onset), headache, Tongue swelling, bad breath, yellow/white spots on tonsils, sore throat, difficulty swallowing, typically no cough
->~1mL of Goldenseal + Echinachea, before bedtime
*Note: Goldenseal very much matters what brand you get – at least, because the potency is very very different. Cheap brands = low concentration. For Amazon: I’d recommend either “Secrets of the Tribe” (make sure it’s Goldenseal + Echinachea, as you can get them seperately) or Wild & Organic’s 2-pack, 4oz each, one bottle of Goldenseal, one bottle of Echinacea (I happened to get a deal on that package, but it’s a good brand). Always get tincture, as absorption is a player here as well.
Bacterial extras: Sunshine, a ~tablespoon of ACV morning/evening (especially in the middle of the night, for a fast-onset sore throat, see below), DMSO + colloidal silver, Elderberry juice, dandelion leaf, any “pumpkin pie” spices, any “living food” (live-fermented garlic, live saurkraut, kefir, kombucha, live yogurt, etc.), Vitamin D3 (from lanolin)
Bonus: Sore throats: here’s where the vinegar comes in, as an adjunct. If you feel “scratchy throat,” RIGHT AWAY, even at 3am (for you, or if the child happens to wake you up with said feeling), gargle vinegar right away. I’d recommend for two reasons: (a) Your ENT (ear, nose, throat) is a great petri dish for viral and bacterial colonization, yay for them, and (b) sometimes it’s very difficult to distinguish between viral and bacterial sore throat. Both viruses and bacteria are very ph-sensetive, and vinegar doesn’t care – it just messes with the ph of your throat, and is a massive speed bump for everything that’s trying to party. Let the good guys catch up – works everytime. (Note: you may need to do this more than once, but be careful you don’t burn your throat. Even diluted vinegar is ok – just something to mess with the ph of your throat and de-optimize the terrain for bacterial growth temporarily).
One last quick note on all this: one of the many practical and beautiful things about traditional medicine is that, unlike drug-based medicine, you don’t have to worry nearly as much as dose, precision, etc., because you’re not hard-overriding your body’s natural mechanisms – you’re helping them. Doesn’t really matter if you’re helping them 25% or 84% – as long as you get the dart on the board, you’re good (obviously with parameters; overdosing on quinine is a big no-no, etc). But, unlike most drugs, you’re not going to hurt yourself if you just do it all – if you’re not sure if this is bacterial or viral, do both protocols. Heck, do the Covid protocol too. Unless you go really really overboard, it’s not going to hurt you, because what you’re doing is helping, not bypassing the body’s mechanisms – it’s helping your child do their math, versus doing it for them. It might ultimately be a difference of degree, but it’s a completely different approach, and result.
For example, Goldenseal is an “antibiotic.” However, “antibiotics” work very differently. Industrial antibiotics are essentially genocidal maniacs that take a machine gun to your body’s (delicately balanced) bacteria – the more fine-tuned and balanced the bacteria, the more it shreds it (e.g. L. Rueteri, etc. – I believe that in part, this is why people who eat toxic junk don’t have a “reaction” to it – there’s no fine-tuned balance left to destroy, which catches up in the long term). Inustrial antibiotics typically work by targeting certain classes of bacteria, and eviscerate them – often literally causing thier cell walls to implode by vandalizing key core cellular mechanisms or pathways. Goldenseal, on the other, especially in conjunction with echinachea, while it does have a “killer” effect, primarily works by inhibiting bacteria’s ability to excrete toxins – toxins which kill other cells and enable the excreter-bacteria to gobble up the dead remains of their enemies and reproduce (e.g. Mycoplasma pneumoniae‘s infamous rCARDs toxin [note: I don’t have experience as to whether Goldenseal works against MP, but I strongly suspect it does]). But the point is this: while I wouldn’t take Goldenseal all the time, taking it a few times in a few days generally isn’t going to murder your gut bacterial population – it’ll tamp down bacteral growth, with a big emphasis on the bad toxin-exuding ones, and give your system a chance to catch up. It’s not scorched earth; you don’t have to worry about whether you’re precisely taking .25mL or .5mL – just get something reasonable and proportional down the hatch.
I deceptively titled this “how to never get sick.” However, the real fact of the matter is that we get sick just as frequently as anyone else, probably more frequently. However, we no longer ever get “sick.” In other words, I can tell, probably about every two weeks or so, depending on the season, we’re fighting something back. Blip, line the kids up, sorry pal I know it’s NasTy, take it anyways, better than barfing, EAT THIS OR I GROUND YOU IN BED FOR A WEEK, next, next next. Coughs instead of croup; bickering instead of barfs; fatigued instead of raging fever. You should still get sick – however, instead of getting utterly torched, you’re building your family’s immune system and teaching their body how to handle these infections. For better or for worse, in our modern day and age where we’re facing global infectious agents, instead of very-very-very localized ones, I’ve realized this isn’t optional; it’s imperative to avoiding long-term health setbacks.
Update: I’ve found that this approach blocks a vast majority of contagious illnesses.
However, even if you don’t mess up and miss your dose window, there’s a few exceptional cases where you still may get sick.
One of these that I’ve found is Norovirus. Norovirus (“Norwalk”) is characterized by 24-48 hours of intense vomiting. Noro is a born survivor: it’s sloppy replication ensures it mutates fast; it can supposedly live up to 6 weeks on surfaces; and isn’t usually killed by the typical acid or alcohol wipedowns.
The good news with Norovirus is that experts estimate you’ll have a 6mo-8year immunity… the bad news is that since Noro mutates so wildly, there are all sorts of Norovirus variants that you won’t necessarily have immunity to! So, in effect – nah.
*As an aside, maybe it’s also worth mentioning that this virus is a favorite amongst death-tinkering scientists; it’s one of the preferred viral delivery vehicle for DNA modification and and is all over Dr Ralph Baric’s CV. Go figure. Anyways.
Here’s my take on this exception: Noro is an exceptionally intense virus that attacks quickly and ferociously – it’s incubation period is typically around 12-36 hours, and requires bile conjugants to replicate – and it’s replication rate is one of the speediest of any known virus.
Since NasTea works by inhibiting viral replication, it’ll blunt Noro – but Noro is so wild that unless you really load up on NasTea at the right time, you’ve likely already missed your infection window.. Additionally, bitters (including Wormwood, etc) promote bile release – and Noro leverages bile conjugants (requires them actually) for replication.
So, you might get lucky, you might not. HOWEVER, if you do get hit with Noro, gets what I would recommend: have TUDCA on hand, and take that 2x daily away from meals. That’ll get TUDCA circulating in your hepatic (liver) system, and research apparently suggests that Noro can’t replicate from TUDCA – it’ll also tamp down your native bile production, which will have the doubly helpful effect. Note that unless you have access to Bear gallbladder, you can just grab TUDCA on Amazon. (*For the curious: TUDCA + Milk Thistle is how you heal anything liver – super handy for pregnancy too; keeps the swollen ankles down etc.). So, add TUDCA to the ammo list.
