Tummy Tamer Tea

As I have mentioned before I have been struggling with a gluten intolerance and have cut out gluten from my food, unless something slips in there I don’t know about. I have been gluten-free for almost 2 months and my stomach still HURTS! Even with the medication I am taking I am having issues and can not figure out what the problem is. I understand I have a food slip (where there is gluten in something I was not aware of) probably once a week but the stomach pain is daily. I called the pharmacy where I get my stomach medicine to find out what else is in the pill other than the drug its self and the pill is not gluten-free… Damn it!

So I talked to my midwife and she recommended papaya enzymes. I am going to go get some tomorrow. I guess most of the people in her family have celiac and that is what they take when they have gluten issues.

I went to the herbalist and told them my problem, and that I needed a tea to help assist with my digestion problems and healing and this is what they suggested, I thought I would share.

Equal parts of:

Calendula: Soothes and heals intestinal lining and reduces inflammation.

Fennel: Helps treat indigestion, calming to the intestines and stomach.

Marshmallow root: Soothes irritation of the mucous membranes, coats the stomach and other digestive regions, protecting their soft walls from acid and other irritants.

Chamomile: Anti inflammatory, calming.

She mentioned the tea mix they usually recommend has other herbs in it that are not safe for pregnancy/lactation so we stuck with this simple tea. Lets hope it helps. I have had a nice big 24 oz of it so far today and my stomach does feel better. Lets hope it lasts!

How do you soothe an angry stomach? Any natural celiac tips?

Lakeside chamomile

So we went to estes park two weekends ago to get out of the heat and go for a hike. As things turned out our car had some issues (just the fuel injector thankfully) and we spent some time resolving that issue instead of hiking. So since we were already there we decided to go for a walk around the lake. We took the short 3.8 mile path and it was a nice, beautiful, relaxing walk.

I have started learning to identify herbs out in the wild and don’t usually pick anything unless I know exactly what it is. I got a handy dandy little chart last week from borders to help me better identify native Colorado plants. This plant though I can identify pretty much anywhere. Chamomile.

We all know chamomile, or at least should. It is a wonderful calming,  cooling herb. People use it to sleep, soothe and relax, reduce redness and inflamation, help resolve bloating, stomach pain and nausia. Other benefits include soothing colds, helping wounds or abscesses heal, reducing gum inflammation, treating skin conditions like psoriasis and eczema, and treating ulcerative colitis. Chamomile is also gentle enough to be taken to treat children’s maladies like chicken pox, diaper rash, and colic. Generally, chamomile is taken as soon as symptoms manifest themselves.

So as we were starting along the lake path I see large patches of Chamomile growing along the walking path. I am not sure if you know this, because I sure didn’t until this spring, but chamomile is a weed. It will grow anywhere and it loves disturbed soil. Our back yard in our house in Spokane is full of the stuff instead of grass. I promise you that just happened and had nothing to do with anything we might have done!

So lots of chamomile all down the path and I decide to pick some. I end up getting a good 4 handfuls of full chamomile plants before we were done with our walk and I hardly made a dent in the chamomile patches.

As you may know one of the tenants in wild crafting is  you leave enough of the plant to leave seeds for the next generation to grow next year. We avoid exhausting our resources now so that they are available for us again next season. I know a novel concept but it seems to work when our greedy human brains don’t get in the way.

So why, you ask, did I pick the whole chamomile plant instead of just the flowers for the tea? I picked the whole plant so that I could dry the plant and get the flowers for the tea, then I will make an oil infusion with the rest of the plant for use in skin care recipes. I will also probably go back, get some more fresh plants and make a quarter bottle of vodka and quarter bottle of vinegar (separately not together) worth of chamomile tincture for use later.

What do you like to use chamomile for?