nettles and eggs / harvesting and cooking nettles

[savingdogs]

Wow, I thought my diet issues were challenging.

I'm worried now about eating nettles myself. You have me worried. My doctor specifically warned me against consuming echinachea as it would boost my immune system and we do NOT want that, I have Meniere's disease however, not Crohn's. I do have early signs of arthritis as well, it is interesting you saying that. I never thought of myself as an auto immune person, just someone having an auto immune disease. Gosh I'd hate to be at higher risk for lupus and some other nasty auto immune junk.

I think I will ask my doctor about nettles at my upcoming appointment.

Thank you so much for pointing out this health information to me. I could have just screwed myself up there as I was planning on going out and eating a bunch. I think if I do try it, it will be sparingly at first now that I've learned this. My husband is epileptic, do you know how it would effect that disease?

Why would it be recommended for people with allergies then? I understood allergies to be our auto immune response to things from our environment......

 

[lwheelr]

Allergies are not QUITE the same as an auto-immune response. I know that auto-immune diseases can make allergies worse, but that is often a side effect of the disease processes, not necessarily part of the whole auto-immune complex. For example, Crohn's causes malabsorption which makes allergies worse. Some auto-immune disease can affect hormones or chemical balance in the body in similar ways, aggravating allergic reactions.

It might be a symptomatic thing - nettles might help reduce histamine responses, or open a tight airway, or something. I'm not sure.

Just know it is one that I stumbled on that was clearly contraindicated for auto-immune processes.

Should not negatively affect epilepsy, but not sure about that either. Epilepsy is more likely to be affected by herbs which are relaxant or stimulant in nature, because they are the ones that most often affect nerve pathways.

Hydrangea Root Extract is one of the few herbs that has had clinical trials run on it, in which they found that it does positively affect auto-immune disease. It has few side effects also - I stopped taking it as soon as I got pregnant, because I won't take anything when I'm pregnant unless I am absolutely certain it is safe (if you have a baby die in your arms, you are more cautious than the average person after that). Before I got pregnant though, I took 1 a day for a while, then 1 every other day. I did not notice any side effects from it at all. Most immune suppressants are very hard on the digestive system, that one is not.

Other herbs that help are turmeric (anti-inflammatory), peppermint (anti-inflammatory, healing), fennel or dill (anti-inflammatory), calendula (healing). There are some other immune suppressants also, such as Teasel Root, Olive Leaf Extract, and a couple of others, but they have similar side effects to the caffeine - stomach pain, and possible blood cell rebound leading to clotting problems in some individuals.

Comfrey should also be avoided with auto-immune disease, it stimulates cell growth - that is the reason why it heals, and the reason why repeated use of it increases the risk of cancer. It can increase the risk of cancer in people with auto-immune disease, because of the existing cell damage, which already increases cancer risks. The combo can cause already mutated DNA to be more likely to make a cancerous mutation.

If you do try nettles, I'd suggest that you do so no more than once in a two week period, and monitor your auto-immune condition carefully to see if it results in any kind of flare up. It could take as long as two or three weeks to cause a flare up, even from a single exposure. The immune system often takes time to show a response, due to the life cycle of the white blood cells.

Kind of funny, I learned a lot of this stuff when my son was on chemo. I studied Pediatric Cancer textbooks and Medical Journal articles so I'd understand the cancer and chemo processes better. His Crohn's went completely into remission while he was being treated for Leukemia. I never thought I'd need that knowledge for myself, but knowing how it worked and what causes cancer, and what increases the risks for cancerous DNA mutation has helped me to isolate which herbal lore is myth, and which is likely to be fact. It also helped me understand how the bone marrow works to create blood cells, which was a huge help in studying about auto-immune disease.

 

[savingdogs]

Well I'm so glad you brought that to my attention.

 

[me&thegals]

I've also heard about nettles in soup....at first I thought I miss-read your post because I thought you were talking about soup, not soap!

For soap, would you chop it or make an infusion or what? I'm trying to picture little bit of green plant in the soap and somehow that doesn't sound real user-friendly.

I'm not exaggerating that I have probably a quarter acre in nettles. This could be really useful for me, especially when so far, it has been a highly annoying plant! :/

I'm talking about both

I love nettles in SOUP, they're so tasty and delicious (that should make it super clear), and I would also like to try nettles in SOAP, as the stuff I saw was a gorgeous green without any other dyes. The soap I saw http://www.badeanstalten.dk/uk/loafsoap.htm is called Energist and was some of the most stunning I've ever seen!