Mim Beim - Natural Remedies: An A-Z of Cures for Health and Wellbeing

About the author

For 25 years Mim Beim has been practising as a naturopath. Her experience has made her a firm believer in making changes to lifestyle and diet before any kind of medicine is used. She also thinks treatment should be enjoyable, not torturous. Mim has written eight books, is a lecturer at the Australasian College of Natural Therapies in Sydney and is recent past Head of Naturopathy at the Australian Traditional Medicine Society. She currently writes a naturopathy column for the Sunday Telegraphs Body + Soul and also their website bodyandsoul.com.au.

Over the years Mim has had regular columns with the Sun-Herald , Good Medicine and Family Circle . Her media experience has seen her as Triple Js resident naturopath and also providing advice on Tony Delroys Nightlife . Mim starred in the LifeForce TV series on Foxtel. She has been a consultant to Liptons, Nokia and Big Brother .

Mim consults in Sydney and also sees patients in her Bowral clinic in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. In the last five years she has created a range of therapeutic (and delicious) herbal teas called Beaming with Health http://www.beamingwithhealth.com.au/. She has also completed training as a Buteyko breathing practitioner and finds this breathing technique further enhances her patients health.

This book is dedicated to my friend and esteemed colleague, Jennifer Price

A Rockpool book

PO Box 252

Summer Hill

NSW 2130

Australia

www.rockpoolpublishing.com.au

http://www.facebook.com/RockpoolPublishing

First published in 2014

Copyright Mim Beim 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Beim, Mim, 1960- author.

Mim Beims natural remedies : A-Z of healthy cures for
Well being / Mim Beim.

9781921878107 (paperback)
Includes index.

Naturopathy.

615.535

Cover design by Liz Seymour

Internal design by Stan Lamond

Author photo by Robert Billington

This eBook was developed by IntegralDMS

Disclaimer

While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this book is as up to date as possible, medical and pharmacological knowledge is constantly changing. Readers are recommended to consult a qualified medical specialist for individual advice. The author, editors and publisher of this work cannot be held liable for any errors or omissions, or actions that may be taken as a consequence of information contained within this work.

Acknowledgements

Jen, to whom Natural Remedies is dedicated, has been an incredible help and support in the writing of this book. Thank you to my agent Benython Oldfield (Zeitgeistmediagroup.com) for finding a home for this tome. Lisa Hanrahan and Paul Dennett from Rockpool Publishing for providing said home. Editor, Jody Lee, for pulling the beast together and timely recommendations of Rescue Remedy and/or red wine. Megan Drinnan also thanks for ploughing words into a readable form. A gifted aromatherapist and all round gorgeous gal, Fiona (Fifi lamour) Carr (Fiona Carr Bodyworks) a huge thank you for your fragrant contribution from such a wealth of knowledge. Patrick McKeown (buteykoclinic.com), my Buteyko guru and generous teacher. Fellow naturopaths Bek Hall and Lisa Burnham I appreciate your contributions. Thanks to Amy Claire Kich, Christine Betros, Sarah Byrne, Katherine Carroll and Sue Greta for your valuable feedback on certain chapters. A special thank you to Dr Tess van Duuren a remarkable and compassionate healer. Friends Linda van Niekerk and Greg Ockenden, I always trust your opinions. My wonderful patients and students; from whom I learn all the important bits. My husband and friend, Billy Boy. And lastly, I owe who I am to Phil Palmisano who sadly left this earth at the time of writing, I will miss you mightily.

Contents

Introduction

Natural Remedies was initially meant to be a simple re-write of my section of the popular book, Help Yourself: the A-Z of natural cures for common complaints , I co-authored with Jan Castorina way back in the last century. However, simple didnt happen, as I had not accounted for three factors. First has been the appearance of Doctor Google, who was not born when I wrote the first book, but whose presence is now ubiquitous. Doctor Google has a Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde persona. The positive Doctor Google allows a wealth of access to medical information for the average bear that was previously the closely guarded possession of medical professionals. The negative Doctor Google allows a wealth of access to misguided and possibly dangerous health information that the average untrained bear may not realise is incorrect.

Secondly, evidence-based medicine has arisen as the practice du jour for both mainstream and naturopathic medicine. Basically it means show me the research, with large randomised control trials being the preferred research tool. Trouble is, these trials are expensive to undertake, and few have been done on herbal remedies, (with a couple of notable exceptions including St Johns Wort which came up very nicely when compared to prescription antidepressants) and its extremely difficult to placebo lifestyle changes such as increasing exercise, avoiding sugar or practising belly breathing. The cynic would say that the larger trials are mostly funded by wealthy pharmaceutical companies that are looking to patent and sell medicines, as you cant patent a herb or a vitamin or a breathing technique. But that would be cynical. The remedies and suggestions in this book include some evidence-based natural remedies, remedies that have been used by herbalists and natural therapists for centuries, in addition to the things I have found work well for my patients, evidence-based or not.

And finally, the third factor was that I had not realised how much, in the 16 years since writing the previous book, I had changed as a naturopath and a person. I have had 16 extra years of treating patients, learning more about the rapidly expanding world of nutrition and natural medicine, and gaining more life experience, the greatest teacher of all.

However, even with these massive changes in the medical landscape, many of the dietary recommendations and remedies I suggested long ago remain the same, which is comforting, as are the basic rules of good health which also remain the same, namely: eat well, exercise, be happy and take time to rest and relax.

How to use this book

Natural Remedies is not meant to be read from cover to cover; rather it is intended as a reference guide to help you know what to do if you, or a family member, has a particular ailment. In each entry, What is it? gives an overview of how this condition affects the body. Symptoms outlines some of the more common signs you can expect to see with this complaint and What causes it? talks about the possible causes. Sometimes a complaint relates to the food you eat or environmental factors or it may come down to a poor choice of parents, namely, the condition is inherited.

What to do is divided into three parts Diet, Remedies and Other and gives practical advice on natural treatment. It is recommended that, rather than attempting every suggestion, you choose just two or three from each part of What to do.