How to Use Vitamins and Herbs to Stay Healthy and Live Longer (eBook)

Common Ailments Section

Poisonous Snake Bite

Emergency Procedures For Treating Bite Victims

Mother Nature’s family is very large and like any large family there are some good kids and a few bad ones. Some of those bad kids have the potential to inflict a lot of pain and suffering on their victims. Some of the bad kids I’m referring to are poisonous snakes. There are four types of poisonous snakes located in The United States, rattlesnakes, copperheads, coral, and water moccasins. Each year over 7000 people are bitten by snakes. Most of those bites occur in the late spring, summer, and early fall seasons. Snakes hibernate in the late fall, winter, and early spring seasons.

There are, I might add, many more non-poisonous snakes than there are poisonous snakes. At a quick glance you can identify a poisonous snake by its triangular shaped head. The poison sacks are located on either side of the head causing those areas to protrude. The coral snake, however, does not have a triangular head but can be identified by continuous brightly colored bands around its body. All snake bites should be taken serious, even bites from a non-venomous snake can cause a serious infection.

The intensity of snake venom varies, but all can kill local tissue and release harmful toxins into the bloodstream causing extreme pain, blood pressure problems, and heart problems. And that’s not all. A poisonous snake bite victim may exhibit a variety of symptoms ranging from mild to severe. Some of these symptoms may include racing pulse, extreme pain, nausea, vomiting, weakness, and shortness of breath. In extreme cases, paralysis, loss of consciousness, even death may occur.

If you are bitten by any type of snake, call an ambulance immediately. If no ambulance is available, get to a hospital as quickly as possible. Driving yourself to the hospital is not advisable unless there is no other person available to assist you. If possible, kill the snake and take it with you to the hospital. Snake bite medication is snake specific so, for example, a rattle snake bite medication will not work on a coral snake bite. If you are unable to kill the snake, use your cell phone camera to photograph it.

If you are far from medical help and you or your companion are bitten by a poisonous snake what should you do? First of all you get out your snake bite kit and those herbal supplements you purchased the same day you purchased the snake bite kit. The snake bite kit included a tourniquet, razor blades, and a suction cup. The supplements included Cayenne Drops, Echinacea Extract Drops and a large bottle of 1000mg Vitamin C capsules. 

First of all, wash the bite area with soap and water and Do Not attempt to sterilize the bite area with alcohol. That will increase the spread of the venom. If rapid swelling occurs and the victim is in extreme pain sterilize a razor blade and make an incision just below the fang marks. Do not cut deep, only 1/8 inch. Make sure the direction of the incision is parallel to the length of the limb. Two incisions may be required. Apply suction with a suction cup. If no suction cup is available, apply suction with your mouth. Spit out the poisoned blood and rinse your mouth after each cycle. Perform this procedure only if the bite has occurred no more than five minutes previous. Never perform this procedure on a coral snake bite victim.

Caution: Never perform oral suction if you have recently flossed or brushed your teeth to the point of gum bleeding, even slightly. 

If you fear the victim may go into cardiac arrest, give the victim 8-10 drops of Cayenne Extract in warm water. This could possibly save the person’s life by preventing shock and helping strengthen the heart. Large doses of Vitamin C may also prevent shock and convulsions. Echinacea Extract Drops under the tongue or in warm water can flush some of the poison from the lymph glands. 

Try not to panic because that will cause the heart to beat faster causing the poison to spread faster. Try to keep the bite area below the level of the heart. If possible, apply a splint to the affected limb to immobilize it. This helps prevent muscle spasms from causing the poison to spread faster. Do Not apply an ice pack to the bite area. This can cause additional tissue damage similar to freezer burn. 

These actions have bought you some valuable time, they are not a cure. Use that time to get the victim to a medical facility.

If for some reason you are unable to apply any of the measures listed above, don’t give up. Use the method used by the Native American Indians and the mountain men back in the old days. The procedure simply involved applying a mixture of saliva and tobacco to the bite area. If you don’t smoke, and I hope you don’t, it may be a good idea to carry a few old cigarette butts in your snakebite kit. Get help as soon as you can, time is not on your side. This is a serious situation. Hurry Calmly.

Lyme Disease

Big Problems From A Bite You Can't Even Feel

Lyme Disease is caused by the bite from the Deer Tick. This tick is so small you can barely distinguish it from a speck of dirt and its bite can’t even be felt. But if you are bitten by this little guy, you are in potentially serious trouble. The problem is, since you can barely see it and you can’t feel its bite, you are unaware of the serious chain of events that are taking place in your body. The incubation period of this disease is from two to thirty days, depending on how efficient your immune system is functioning.

The first sign of the disease is a bulls-eye or target shaped rash at the bite location. This should be your wake-up call to take Immediate Action and get medical attention. If you miss this sign or you procrastinate and fail to take action allowing the disease to progress, you can expect a serious bacterial invasion of your joints and possibly other organs resulting in extremely painful arthritis. 

But that’s not the only symptom, headache, flu-like symptoms, fever, muscle weakness, skin rash, and stiff neck may also occur. If the disease is allowed to continue, additional symptoms like extremely Intense Pain, Meningitis, Heart Arrhythmia, Bladder Malfunction, Extreme Fatigue, Facial Paralysis, and Loss of Memory may also occur. 

Do I have your total attention yet?

The best treatment is prevention. If you must walk in heavily wooded areas or in high grass, wear long pants tucked into your boots and long sleeved shirts. At the end of the day, meticulously inspect your body for ticks. They don’t bite and go away. They bite and stay attached to the skin. 

Have your partner check the areas of your body you can’t see like your back, your scalp, under your arms, and behind your knees. Don’t forget to check under your watch band and your pubic hair. A good idea is to shave that area before you take the trip.

If you discover a tick, remove it very carefully. If you break it, the toxic content of the tick’s body will enter your body. The best way to remove a tick is to apply a few drops of Eucalyptus Oil to the tick and it will fall off. Or you can light a match, let it burn for a few seconds, blow out the flame and apply the hot ash to the skin just under the tick causing it to drop off. You can also heat the blade of a knife and place the hot blade on the skin just under the tick. Never touch the tick with your bare hands. After the tick has been removed, apply alcohol to the bite area.

At one time the deer tick was only found in the northern part of the United States. That’s not the case anymore. The deer tick has now been sighted as far south as the Gulf Coast.

Smoking

The Detriments Are Numerous, The Advantages Are Nonexistent

Smoking is a seriously unhealthy habit. We have all heard that statement a thousand times. And many former smokers have kicked the habit, I’m one of them. And cigarette company executives, who previously swore on a stack of bibles that cigarette smoking presented no health problems, are now admitting those statements are not true. So they lied under oath. Don’t they call that perjury? Are they in jail now? No, they’re still in business charging over $5.00 a pack to those who still continue to smoke.

For those of you who are still smoking, here are some facts for you to inhale.

1.   Each cigarette you smoke reduces your life span by 8 minutes.

2.   Smoking two packs a day knocks 14 to 16 years off your life span.

3.   A single cigarette has over 4000 documented poisons, any one of them can kill you in high doses.

4.   Secondhand smoke (smoke from others) is the third leading cause of preventable death. It also presents a serious danger to a pregnant woman and her unborn fetus. It will kill your pets and causes Heart Disease, Osteoporosis, Lung Cancer, Cervical and Uterine Cancer. All these issues are preventable.

Quitting is hard, I know from experience. I smoked a pack a day for many years before I decided to quit. I tried twice and eventually went back....