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A Short History of our
Natural Health Practice
Barbara was the one who got both of us involved in the Natural Health field. She had suffered with asthma for most of her life, starting when she was a pre-teen, and I had been the victim of severe migraine headaches since I was about eight or nine years old.
In addition to several oral medications, Barbara was using three different "rescue" inhalers numerous times a day and had been hospitalized several times for acute asthma attacks.
I was taking numerous medications for my migraines, including beta blockers and calcium channel blockers, and was still suffering three or four debilitating headaches every week, for which I would take alarming amounts of narcotic medications with only moderate relief, when they provided any relief at all.
All of the steroids in Barbara's inhalers had caused her to gain nearly 200 pounds, and our doctor told her that there was nothing more that he could give her. He told me that if I was not able to reduce the amount of medication that I was taking, that I was certain to suffer major facial nerve paralysis in the very near future. This was in about 1990.
At about that time a friend of ours suggested that I try feverfew for my migraines, and gave me a bottle. Not wanting to offend her, I reluctantly accepted the bottle and promised her that I would try them. A couple of days later I had a severe migraine for which I took three feverfew capsules, obviously with no relief. Needless to say, I was not significantly impressed.
A few months after this incident, my herbalist cousin suggested that I might have better success with the feverfew if I were to actually take it correctly. My response to her was that if all that modern medical science had to offer was unable to relieve my suffering, what on earth made her think that a handful of weeds would make any difference? I was simply not interested.
Barbara was much more open-minded, however, and accepted my cousin's recommendation to try an herbal regimine for her asthma, which included large amounts of mullein, magnesium, and chlorophyll. Barbara noticed significant improvement within just a couple of months, while I stubbornly continued to suffer with my headaches at least two or three times a week. In fact, whenever I did not have at least a low-grade headache it was a quite remarkable day indeed.
Neither of us particularly noticed how much better Barbara was feeling until one day the pharmacist called her and asked if she had forgotten to pick up her monthly supply of inhalers. She had in fact totally forgotten them!
We were both amazed by her seemingly miraculous relief from her asthmatic condition, and on the basis of her success, and after a few months of her loving "nagging," I reluctantly agreed to listen to my "kooky cousin" and try an herbal program for my migraines.
Within about six months after beginning the herbal supplementation program recommended by my cousin, I still was having a few migraines. But instead of three or four attacks a week, I was down to two or three times a month, and their severity was remarkably deminished. Within another two or three months, I was able to discontinue all my pharmaceuticals, and on the rare times when I did have a migraine (less than once a month now), I was able to get sufficient relief with a couple of Excedrin Migraine caplets.
By this time, we were both so impressed with the improvement in our quality of life that we decided we needed to learn all we could about natural health care so that we could pass the information on to others. In late 1992 or early 1993 we became Independent Distributors of Nature's Sunshine Products. We both attended NSP's School of Natural Health and became certified as Nature's Sunshine Herb Specialists. A few months later, I attended NSP's Manager Training while Barbara attended NSP's School of Aromatherapy, and we began seeing clients in our home "clinic."
At this time I was working a full-time job and was also serving a local congregation as Associate Pastor and consulting with clients in our clinic two evenings a week. I simply did not have the time to become involved with the day-to-day management of our business, so Barbara stepped up to the task and assumed responsibility for its operation.
In 1994 we decided to expand our Natural Health Practice to include an online presence, and so we launched our website at TheHerbDoc.com. For the next 14 years, Barbara would continue to manage our expanding Natural Health Practice while I took responsibility for the techincal aspects of design and maintenance of our web site and the development and publication of all of our supporting documents and newsletters, while we both did client health consultations.
Our clinical practice continued to grow to include naturopathy, Western, Chinese, and Ayurvedic herbology, iridology, nutritional counseling, aromatherapy, natural electromagnetic therapy, body reflexology, applied kinesiology and Contact Reflex Analysis, and Biblical family counseling. Every year, on an ongoing basis, we each spent well over 300 hours in continuing education to enable us to provide our clients with the best health information of which we were able.
In June of 2008 I retired from my 9-to-5 with the intent of both of us being able to devote full-time effort to our Natural Health Practice. But God had other plans for Barbara, and decided that she needed to be at home with Him instead of staying here with me.
She will be sorely missed. But in His infinite grace and wisdom, between Thursday, August 24, 1967, and Saturday, December 13, 2008, Adonai, the great God of Israel, graciously granted us 15,088 wonderful days, or 41 years, 3 months, and 20 days together.
Baruch HaShem! (Praise His Name!)
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ANXIOUSLY WATCHING FOR MASHIACH’S RETURN,
SPEEDILY AND IN OUR DAY. MARANA, TA!
