Category: Health tips

This the season for this pesky little weed to really cause trouble. One of our young patients had a very bad reaction after making a “mud pie” with poison ivy berries and rubbing her hands all over her face and neck. A trip to the ER and some prednisone and she will be right as rain, but to avoid a similar trip with your kids here is what to look for.

Leaves of three?  Let them be!
Poison ivy grows everywhere – the woods, fields, your own backyard, vacant lots, but especially in ditches, along fences and the edges of forests or fields

It usually grows in patches, with a cluster of three leaves at the end of a long stem. Many other plants have three leaves and are not a trouble, but when in doubt, walk away. The berries (or seeds) for the plants are less common. Avoid any berry that is white and in a cluster.

You can see more photos and leaf variations, and identification tips here.

Using Jewelweed to Treat Poison Ivy

Jewelweed is in the same family as impatiens and touch-me-nots, and we’ve used it many times to effectively treat poison ivy. It has distinctive yellow or orange flowers. We’ve only tried the orange, which apparently works better than yellow, and it can work wonders.

You can make a poultice by boiling chopped leaves and stems, or try these other approaches:

If you are camping or hiking, and you know that you’ve been in contact with poison ivy, you can simply break off a branch of jewelweed and crush the stem and leaves in your hands. The stems are very fibrous and filled with a great deal of liquid. Rub the liquid on your skin wherever the poison ivy contact was made.

You can keep a supply of jewelweed ready to use by making a tea from the chopped stems and leaves. Boil them gently until the liquid is orange. Strain the liquid, and freeze it in ice cube trays. These ice cubes are potent for about a year. Just rub the ice cube on the affected area as needed.

“How much water should I drink?”

This is a question that we get asked a lot in the clinic. A simple rule of thumb is about half your body weight in ounces. It’s safe to say that most people probably aren’t drinking that much, and almost no one is drinking too much.

“Okay. But how do I actually do it?”
This might be the more important question. How do you make the change? Here are a few tips:

• Eat more vegetables. They’ve got water built in.
• Make your total consumption visible. Fill a large bottle or pitcher with your daily goal amount, and try to finish it all before the day is over. Something that holds 2 litres is a good place to start.
• Tie water to another habit. Making your morning coffee? Drink a glass of water. Having a glass of wine? Drink a glass of water. Taking a bathroom break? Drink a glass of water.
• Replace another beverage with water. Drink water instead of pop, alcohol, tea, coffee, juice or milk.

Our last post on healthy eating struck a chord. Our two simple rules for making food choices was one of the most popular blog posts ever on our site.

As simple as deciding what the best thing to eat may be, though, it’s still only part of the picture. When it comes to actually choosing to buy, prepare, and eat those foods, it can be a job more easily said than done. Knowing how to change what we eat, it turns out, is a lot harder than simply knowing what to eat.

Diet change is hard. Incredibly hard, in fact. But remember that many, many people do it successfully. Here are our suggestions for making change that is both realistic and sustainable.

1. Work on One Habit at a Time
You can only make so much change in so many places at once. If you’re planning to quit smoking, join a gym, eat better, learn to paint and show up for work early every day starting tomorrow, then let’s save you the trouble right now. It’s not going to work out. If you want to change how you eat, then you might find more success by focusing on just that. Multi-tasking works no better for changing habits than it does for work, parenting or sex. Stop fooling yourself. Pick one thing and get it right.

2. Start With One Meal
You don’t need to change your entire diet today–you can start with one part. Pick a meal (we think lunch is a great choice) and work on shifting just that one. Breakfast and dinner can follow when you’ve got some success, some skills, and some momentum. This isn’t a hunger strike.

3. Focus on Adding, Not Subtracting
Trying not to eat things is really hard. Yes, there are things you almost certainly need to eat a hell of a lot less of. But you may improve your odds of doing that by displacing them with healthier choices, as opposed to just trying to resist eating. Focus more on pursuing vegetable, for example, and less on avoiding sugar. Sure, you probably need to eat fewer simple carbs, but at some point, you’re going to have to learn to eat vegetables. You might as well get started.

4. Make Sustainable Change
This is about the long term. You need to think in terms of making small, sustainable adjustments to your diet that you can maintain forever. For. Eh. Ver. It’s not a diet. It’s changing how you eat. “I’ll never eat another piece of chocolate cake,” is not only not sustainable, it’s also no fun. Extreme diets don’t make you live forever. They just make it feel that way.

What these strategies are designed to do is focus on small, sustainable changes that give you small wins, build momentum, and avoid the all-or-nothing thinking that leads to giving up completely. Think small, slow and sustainable!