Banana Patch

Posted on by TayBham

I’ve done it only once before. So when my initial efforts to treat Evelyn’s wart failed, I thought maybe I was crazy, or maybe my previous success was just a fluke.

BUT NO! IT WAS NOT A FLUKE!

Let me back up here a minute. Evelyn had a pretty big wart on the back left paw, far left toe, under the pad, for months. It caused her to limp slightly.

Last year, I had succeeded in ridding Pearl’s paw of a wart that emerged following a splinter extraction by using the inside of a banana peel. For Evelyn, I treated hers several times by the same method —  scraping out some of the inside of a banana peel, applying it directly on the wart, and wrapping her foot in self-sticking gauze. Voila! Banana patch!

This time, though, nothing happened.

No change. Zip. Nada. Nothing.

This wart was stubborn!

or so I thought…

After all we’ve been through, wart removal rested on the back burner for a long time. Other matters were much higher on the priority list. So I gave up for a while until we could deal with more pressing concerns. Once we got the incessant scratching under control, I decided to tackle the wart again. I was determined to get rid of it because the alternatives included letting it stay and continue to bother her, or cutting it off. And cutting in/on/around a paw pad is bad news in my book, even with a laser.

Finally, with multiple failed attempts under my belt, I discovered the error of my ways: I wasn’t getting deep enough into the banana peel to get to the good stuff. You really have to get into the deeper fibers of the interior of the peel, beyond the top couple of layers that sit between peel and banana. The fiber in that inside layer is a different, sort of juicy consistency than the banana itself or even those weird long thread things that sometimes stick on the banana after you peel it open. It’s almost like getting into the gel of an aloe plant, but it’s nowhere near that thick.

All it took was 3 days of application, and

POOF! No more wart!

I’ve done it twice now, on two different dogs.

It. Works.

So, before you go running to the vet for surgical wart removal, try a banana patch.

pugs & kisses!

Doo-Doo-Run-Run: What do you do when the doo-doo runs? (Part 3)

Posted on by TayBham

(Continued from Part 2)

I emailed Dr. Natalie to make an appointment for all natural deworming. I’ll let you know how that goes.

And after watching Dr. Karen Becker’s video (which can be found at healthypets.mercola.com, keyword “diarrhea”), I sprang into action.

Dr. Becker suggested a bland diet of cooked, drained ground turkey meat mixed either with pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling. Plain pumpkin) or sweet potato, and a dose of Slippery Elm until the poops return to normal.

Cool. I’ve got this.

Turkey is already very lean, but cooking renders the excess fat. The fat can cause additional upset to an already upset tummy.

Mixing it with the fiber of the pumpkin or sweet potato will, oddly enough, help right the irritable bowel.

Also, putting something warm in the belly is comforting until the irritation subsides.

Y’all know what Slippery Elm is, right?

I didn’t. Not really.

It was listed in my book. I know it’s an herb. But where to get it? How to use it?

TO THE GOLDEN TEMPLE!

Birmingham’s Southside (Autocorrect wants that to be two words. Shut up, Autocorrect. You don’t know Alabama) is blessed to have The Golden Temple — all natural grocery/cafe/yoga studio. Everything you need to live your holistic/spiritual/alternative existence. It is so groovy. I love it.

They had a big jug of Slippery Elm powder. I had no idea how much to buy, so I just got an ounce and a half hoping that would do. I didn’t know whether to mix it dry into their food, or mix it with water first. But an older woman checking out ahead of me had a large quantity of it, and explained to me all the delightful uses of Slippery Elm. She mixes it with warm water and drinks it for sore throat, diarrhea, and bladder infections, among other things. There was my “real world” verification. Thanks, lady!

(She told me with great confidence that I should drink it myself. Just ‘cuz…Thanks. I’ll pass for now).

TO THE HOUSE!

I cooked ground turkey, and mixed it with a baked sweet potato. Equal parts. 50-50. One and a half ounces of each for a total of 3oz of food in the bowl. (You really need a kitchen scale). For these 25lb pups, it’s enough. Trust me.

I heated some water on the stove and mixed about a teaspoon of the powder in about 3oz. I then added 2 teaspoons of the mixture to their food. (When the water cools, the elm powder becomes slimy. Note: Slippery Elm is a better name than Slimy Elm). We repeated the same thing the next day for both meals.

Both dogs showed immediate improvement. The pooping stopped for the next 48 hours.

Then, NORMAL POOPS!

It worked. Really well.

Then I researched what to do about those pesky worms…

Ground pumpkin seeds…hmmm….

…to be continued…