ABC Endo: A Trinbago Survivor's Guide

Always happy to be helped to heal

Let’s meet this friendly essential oil properly:

1. Castor oil is mono-unsaturated
2. More than a few of you reading this might have “met” castor oil even before you were born, because it was used to help you be born. This oil has been used for centuries to stimulate labour.
3. It is a wonderful moisturiser (add droplets of lavender, apricot, orange essential oils to enhance the smell and add further benefits)
4. It is a renowned laxative (so good, in fact, it can cause diarrhoea, so use sensibly)
5. It promotes wound healing
6. Rich with ricinoleic acid, a main fatty acid, castor oil is anti-inflammatory, thus, reduces pain and swelling
7. It is anti-microbial, so fights bacterial overgrowth and fungus, such as Candida albicans
8. It keeps hair and scalp healthy (can cause allergic reaction in some)
9. The plant was called Palma christe, because its leaves resembled the hands of Christ. (Maybe that’s why it’s so healing 😇.)

CASTOR OIL PACK-UP AND DO!

• Identify a comfy place to lie down, where your needed items can be easily reached
• Cut a piece of flannel to cover your lower abdomen: hipbone to hipbone in width; under your navel to below where your crotch hairline begins in height (see illustration) 
  
• Make ready all  your items, then lie on your back with your lower body flat and exposed
• Carefully pour enough castor oil on you lower abdomen to generously slather onto your skin. You just need to rub it on, not rub it in like lotion
• Cover the oiled area with the flannel and so it begins absorbing the oil
• Now cover that with the plastic wrap
• Cover it all with the towel or Tee
• Place the heated pack atop everything
• Voila! Relax for 15 to 20 minutes. Read, knit, nap: just anything “Me time”
• When done, remove each layer in turn. Use your handy wipes to clean up
• Try doing this every day for a couple of weeks, or every few days for over a month. Note the effects in your endo diary (Diary of a Bad, Red Woman-Disease)

       In beauty may you walk

       Thanks girlfriend!

WHAT YOU NEED

1. Castor oil (to local sistuhs, PLEASE, not that stuff sold in pharmacies by a certain charlatanesque local brand, that's mixed with who knows what. Check an authentic essential oils outlet, like Mustapha's on Henry Street, Port-of-Spain).
2. Plain white flannel
3. Saran wrap (or recycle clear plastic bags like your bakery bread comes in)
4. Heat pack of some kind (check on-line for make it yourself ideas)
5. Wipes
6. Scissors
7. Old Tee or towel on standby

In beauty may you walk     

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels 

Would you jump this high to help yourself against endo? How about without an audience?

"It has  been shown as proof positive that carefully prepared chocolate is as healthful a food as it is pleasant; that it is nourishing and easily digested ... that it is above all helpful to people who must do a great deal of mental work," -- Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I will always quote a reader who E-mailed me during my newspaper columnising years: "It's hard to get the sisters excited about anything other than shoes."

In beauty may you walk (pun acknowledged)

       Fit to wear her shoes?

       In beauty may you walk 😇