Ecos Natural Detergent

So a while ago when I was at Sam's Club, I saw a bottle of natural detergent with soy based fabric softener, fragranced with Lavender oil. It's by a company called Ecos, and it was about the same price that all of the other detergents. Since I'm allergic (sneezing, watery eyes, etc) to the perfumes in a lot of laundry detergents, and whatever chemical they normally use to make fabric softener, I thought we'd try it.

It's been awesome. No laundry-related sneezing. The laundry smells good, it's really clean, and it seems to be pretty gentle on our black workpants. Definitely worth checking out.

Ecos Liquid Detergent

Stinging Nettle - Failure due to User Error

So, the stinging nettle is fantastic. Except when I forgot to take it. Duh.

So far, so good.

So, I took the stinging nettle yesterday, and I felt really good. Better than I have in a long time, but I was thinking that the morning would make or break it. This morning was much better, even without the added benefit of a sinus rinse. I'm excited. Although, honestly, it still remains to be seen if this continues working. I seem to build up a tolerance to allergy meds awfully quick, but I'm hoping that this is different what with being a natural remedy and not really an antihistamine.

A very tasty fix, and a not quite so tasty one.

So, since the doctor has nothing helpful to say about my allergies at this point other than "if you find something that works, stick with it," I'm pretty much willing to try anything. Yesterday, I saw an article in Woman's World that recommended Stinging Nettle as an alternative to things like Claritin and Zyrtec. So, I stopped at Sign of the Bear today to pick some up and we'll see how it goes.

This is where I'm at for allergy fixes.

Claritin - useless unless I take 3, then I can't function
Zyrtec - useless if I take if more than 2 days in a row
Allegra - works, but makes me unconscious
Benedryl - makes me groggy AND gives me night terrors (that's an awesome combination)
Clarinex - way too expensive for what little relief it provides
Xyzal - helped a bit, but nothing significant enough to be bothered with the Rx.
Flonase - useless except for when I'm severely congested
Alavert - see Claritin
Astelin - doesn't stay in my sinuses no matter what I do, therefore not helpful

Sinus rinses have helped a lot so far, but not enough. So the new plan is all natural - Stinging nettle once a day and sinus rinses as needed.

Now, the tasty fix - in order to keep exercising the way I need to, I need to keep my asthma and knee pain under control. My asthma's basically under control, that is, I rarely if ever need my rescue inhaler and we decided to take me off of the maintenance meds (Singulair) because I didn't seem to need them since I lost a little bit of weight.

My knee on the other hand, goes in spells, related to both the weather and my level of activity. Here's where the tasty fix comes in. Chocolate is a natural anti-inflammatory! The darker the better, it needs to be at least 70% cacao to work. Dagoba Chocolate makes a bar called Eclipse - 87% cacao - which I love! So, I'm going to be adding Extra Dark chocolate to my daily routine. (don't twist my arm!)

Wish me luck.