The Many Benefits of Epsom Salt
Medicinal Foods, Herbs, Spices & Household Items
The following information is for educational purposes and is not meant to treat or prescribe. GreenAndHealthy.Info is sharing what others have told us has worked for them as they pursue health for themselves, their pets and their plants.
Important Precautions!
According to the National Academy of Sciences, most Americans are magnesium deficient, which the academy says helps to account for high rates of heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, arthritis and joint pain, digestive maladies, stress-related illnesses, chronic fatigue and a number of other ailments.
Americans' magnesium levels have dropped by half in the last century due to changes in agriculture and diet. Industrial farming has depleted magnesium from soil and the typical American diet contains much less magnesium than that of our forefathers. And in fact, the modern American diet with its fat, sugar, salt and protein actually works to speed up the depletion of magnesium from our bodies.
Health Benefits of Epsom Salt (Important Precautions):
- Epson Salt is magnesium sulfate. It offers one of the most effective means of making the magnesium your body needs readily available.
- Excess adrenaline and stress are believed to drain magnesium, a natural stress reliever, from the body. Magnesium is necessary for the body to bind adequate amounts of serotonin, a mood-elevating chemical within the brain that creates a feeling of well being and relaxation.
- Gout: Ease discomfort of gout and reduce the inflammation by adding two to three teaspoons of Epsom salts into a footbath / basin and immersing the affected foot/joint. The water should be as hot as it is comfortable. Soak for about 30 minutes.
- Researchers and physicians report that raising your magnesium levels may:
- Improve heart and circulatory health
- reduce irregular heartbeats,
- prevent hardening of the arteries
- reduce blood clots and
- lower blood pressure
- improve the body's ability to use insulin, reducing the incidence or severity of diabetes.
- Epsom Salt improves nerve function by regulating electrolytes. Also, calcium is the main conductor for electrical current in the body, and magnesium is necessary to maintain proper calcium levels in the blood
- Epsom salt also delivers sulfates, which are extremely difficult to get through food but which readily absorb through the skin. Medical research indicates sulfates are needed for the formation of brain tissue, joint proteins and the mucin proteins that line the walls of the digestive tract. Sulfates also stimulate the pancreas to generate digestive enzymes and help to detoxify the body's residue of medicines and environmental contaminants.
- Sulfates are important for forming brain tissue, joint proteins, stimulates the pancreas, and mucin proteins.
- Magnesium sulfate, absorbed through the skin, such as in a bath (described below), draws toxins from the body, soothes the nerves, reduces swelling, relaxes muscles, is a natural emollient and exfoliator.
- Detoxification:
- Taken internally Epson Salt acts as a detoxifying agent for colon cleansing.
- Epsom Salt flushes toxins and heavy metals from the cells, easing muscle pain and helping the body to eliminate harmful substances. Pouring a warm bath with Epsom salts will actually draw out toxins from inside your body. Your skin is a highly porous membrane. Adding the right minerals to your bathwater triggers a process called reverse osmosis -- pulling salt out of your body, and harmful toxins along with it. Epsom salts cost nearly nothing.
- Epsom Salt Bath Recipes: (Read Precautions)
- For soaking: Add two cups of Epsom Salt to warm water in a standard-sized bathtub. Double the Epsom Salt for an oversized garden tub. For the added benefit of moisturizing your skin, add one-half cup olive oil or baby oil. Bathe three times weekly, soaking for at least 12 minutes. Popular for easing muscle pain and fading bruises.
- Do not use soap as it will interfere with the action of the salts.
- Try to rest for about two hours afterwards.
- If you have arthritic joints move them as much as possible after an Epsom salts bath to prevent congestion in the joints, which will only aggravate the pain.
- Foot bath: Add a cup of Epsom Salt to a tub of warm water as a popular balm for aching feet.
- For soaking: Add two cups of Epsom Salt to warm water in a standard-sized bathtub. Double the Epsom Salt for an oversized garden tub. For the added benefit of moisturizing your skin, add one-half cup olive oil or baby oil. Bathe three times weekly, soaking for at least 12 minutes. Popular for easing muscle pain and fading bruises.
- Epsom Salt Bath Recipes: (Read Precautions)
Hair:
Combine equal parts of deep conditioner and epsom salt. Warm in a pan. Work the warm mixture through your hair and leave on for 20 minutes. Rinse.
Facial Cleanser
Add Epson Salt to your favorite face cream for a great facial cleanser. Massage into the skin and rinse with cold water. Scrub Epson Salt on wet skin to exfoliate the skin on any part of your body.
Feet:
Pamper weary feet by adding 1/2 cup of Epsom salts to a basin of warm water. Relax and soak feet for 20 minutes. If you like, rub away any calluses using a pumice stone. Dry feet, then add two drops of peppermint essential oil to your favorite NATURAL moisturizer (i.e. Shea or coconut butter) and rub in thoroughly.
Insecticide Spray:
Use Epson Salts on your lawn and in your garden to safely get rid of plant pests.
Insect Control :
Lice: Make a paste with warm water and Epson Salt. Rub the mixture through the scalp and rub the hair shaft. Keep working the strands of hair by rubbing the hair between your fingers. Rinse this out using the hottest water that you c an handle. Next take a cheap hair conditioner and apply it all through the hair and scalp. Take a very fine tooth comb and start combing through the hair strands rinsing out the comb often. Rinse hair. Repeat as necessary. Since Epson Salt is non-toxic, you can do it as often as is required to eliminate the lice..
Mites: Take an empty Listerine bottle, fill it with 2 inches of epson salt and add one pint of water. Shake the bottle until completely disolved. Shower with dawn dish washing liquid and then pour the salt solution over your body from head to toe. Get out of the shower and blow dry your body. Do not use a towel as this will wipe the salt off. Off and on during the day keep pouring a little more salt water over my skin. This will also get rid of mites in your hair and on your scalp. Also clean / disinfect brushes and combes.
Other Insects:
The Science magazine reported on cheap and effective poison against the pests. Its significant ingredient is Epsom salt (magnesium sulphate), the common medicine cabinet drug ordinarily used for purging, poulticing, reducing. The formula which the discoverers, Mr. & Mrs. Hubert W. Frings of the University of Oklahoma, recommended contains bran (60% to 65%), molasses (15%), Epsom salt (20% to 25%), and enough water to moisten. This formula, they say, ''seems to be just as effective as the [common] 5% arsenic bait, it is cheaper, and it is absolutely harmless to humans, cattle, swine and poultry or other birds." The poison is scattered among the vegetation.
Dr. Vernon Raymond Haber of Pennsylvania State College seems to have first made the discovery that Epsom salt is poisonous to insects and has been spreading the news to other entomologists by word of mouth. Dr. Haber recommends that a spray of Epsom salt in water be used against Mexican bean beetles. J. H. Hawkins of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station advocates this Epsom salt spray against wheat wireworms. The Frings believe the spray "could be used safely on many vegetables and fruits."
Generally a poison nontoxic to humans is mixed with a food that insects find attractive, and spread in the infested area. Examples are oatmeal (attractive) and plaster-of-Paris (poisonous), and cocoa powder and flour (attractive) and borax* (poisonous). Old-fashioned flypaper -- not a hanging strip of insecticide -- is an effective trap. (*Be VERY cautious when using Borax [sodium borate], which can also cause serious health problems, including death.)
- *Be VERY cautious when using Borax, which can also cause serious health problems, including death.
- Borax is toxic to pets (especially to cats who lick it off their coats - less so to dogs). It's best not to use it around them.
Morgellons's Disease:
Epsom Salt: Rita has the following advice: "Having lived with these mites for two years I have stumbled onto something that gets them off the skin. Epsom salt. I took a one pint empty Listerine bottle filled it with 2 inches of epsom salt and shook the bottle until completely disolved. I showered with dawn dish washing liquid and then poured the salt solution over my body from head to toe. I got out of the shower and used a blow drier to dry off. I didn't use a towel because that would have wiped the salt off. After I was dry my skin had a light white covering of salt. I went to bed. The salt rubbing off my skin while in bed was the worst part of dealing with this. Off and on during the day I keep pouring a little more salt water over my skin. This is the first thing I have tried that actually made the things fall out of my scalp. I have only been doing this for 3 nights and my skin feels normal for the first time in 2 years. People may not understand that these "things" make the skin secrete some type of clear fluid that not only covers their skin but also covers the mites and makes it difficult for any type of meds. to reach them. My husband and I both have these things on our skin and the salt solution is working for my husband also. This site: www.saltinstitute.org/29.html has a lot of salt cleaning ideas. I hope that this gives people some relief from these horrible things that have robbed us all of our normal lives. Also soak your combs and hair brushes." Rita
Rita recommends that this protocol be continued for 3 months after the itching has stopped. She stated that when her and her husband's skin started getting clear, they increased the amount of salt from 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups per pint of water. If you have a dog, wash him as often as you can and put a final rinse of salt water over the dog also. Have your vet prescribe something called Revolution. This is suppose to be applied once a month on their backs but that won't work with this, it has to be applied every 2 weeks some times every week until this has gotten under control. We are all excited to hear that she and her husband have beat this problem after two years of suffering. Other morgellons suffers have been using her protocol with success.
CAUTION:
Discuss use and application with your doctor.
Do not use if you are pregnant or allergic to sulfer.
Epsom-salt baths are contraindicated in cardiovascular or high-blood-pressure conditions. Ask your doctor, in such a case, whether you may take the bath.
Hypermagnesemia is a potentially lethal condition that may not be as rare as is commonly thought. In 1990, Whang and Ryder[12] studied more than 1,000 patients admitted to a community hospital and found the incidence of hypermagnesemia to be 5.7%, whereas only 12% of those were clinically suspected. Hypermagnesemia is usually found in patients with renal insufficiency who have a creatinine clearance of less than 30 mL/min. Other patients at risk for development of elevated serum magnesium levels are patients with excessive magnesium loads.
Potential sources of excess magnesium intake include antacids, laxatives, cathartics, and parenteral administration. Other less common causes of hypermagnesemia include rhabdomyolysis, tumor lysis syndrome, adrenal insufficiency, hyperparathyroidism, and hypothyroidism. Hypermagnesemia mainly affects the cardiovascular and nervous systems and does so in a dose-dependent manner. The initial effects of hypermagnesemia are nonspecific and can occur at levels of 3 to 4 mEq/L.[9] These include nausea, vomiting, cutaneous vasodilation, and feeling hot all over. As the serum magnesium level increases to 4 to 6 mEq/L, deep tendon reflexes are lost and electrocardiographic changes occur, including PR interval prolongation and QRS interval prolongation. Hypotension, bradycardia, and further conduction abnormalities can occur at serum magnesium levels of 6 to 10 mEq/L. As the level continues to rise to 10 to 15 mEq/L, complete heart block, respiratory depression, and coma can occur. Asystolic arrest is a frequent finding with magnesium levels of greater than 15 mEq/L.[13,23-25] Additionally, the packaging specifically states that one should not use if they have kidney disease.
If you are diabetic, have thyroid problems, adrenal issues, and such in which will affect the kidneys in their ability to clear, then one should not use this product unless they consult their physician. One should also consult their physician if they have a condition in which might affect their kidney's but they haven't necessarily developed actual problems with the kidneys as of yet. This is called latent disease.
Additionally, if one is taking magnesium supplements, or other products which contain magnesium, then one should be informed.
Information contained on this website is provided as general reference only. For application to specific circumstances, professional advice should be sought.
GreenAndHealthy.Info strives to maintain accurate and up-to-date information; however, mistakes do happen. If you would like to correct or update any of the information, please send us an e-mail. THANK YOU!
