Welcome to Steve Frank's Blog.

July 27th, 2010 by steve

I had the occasion recently to get immediate feedback from several individuals who tried Sleep Apnea Relief for the first time. Their comments and concerns were sincere and served to remind me that many users don’t recognize the beneficial effects of the product because in the first week, the improvements in sleep are obscured by their sleep habits returning to a more normal level. Allow me to explain.

When you are suffering from sleep apnea, your body is constantly disturbed as it enters stage II sleep. The relaxation of muscle tonus that accompanies the movement into stage II sleep is exactly what sets-off the chain of events that causes the ceasation of breathing and the sleep apnea interruption. Since your body enters the dream state (REM) exclusively from stage II, this effectively puts your body through REM deprivation. This is a very serious sleep problem resulting in all sorts of miserable side-effects. These can range from tiredness to crabbiness, to weight gain to excessive drinking and hysteria. REM deprivation is a very serious condition.

You typically get two to 3 REM cycles per night of sleep. If the apnea reduces this to one or disturbs the length and quality of the REM periods, the results can be disasterous.

Now, let’s say you begin taking Sleep Apnea Relief. This will aide the body in passing through stage II sleep and into REM. It is not at all un-common for sleep apnea sufferers to experience a REM rebound wherein your body spends far more time than normal in REM simply because it has be deprived of it for so long. This can manifest as having LOTS of dreams which can be disturbing to some people. It can also delay the stage III and IV (Delta) sleep periods until morning when you need to wake up. Waking up from Delta sleep to begin your day can leave you groggy and feeling like you “don’t want to get out of bed.”

If you are having many more dream periods per night and hare having disturbing dreams, there is one more important point to remember. You are far more likely to have disturbing dreams when you are cold or uncomfortable during your sleep. Try sleeping with a flannel shirt or sweat shirt.

The first week after you begin taking Sleep Apnea Relief, your body will go through a re-adjustment period wherein it re-establishes its normal sleep cycle. This will include the REM periods in the correct time of the night and with the proper frequency. It will then allow the stage III and IV sleep well enough before you wake up (typically) so that you wake from stage II or REM and feel rested and alert. Re-establishing a normal sleep rhythm can take one to two weeks.

It is important to remember that during the re-establishment time, you shouldn’t judge the efficacy of the Sleep Apnea Relief by the apparent quality of your sleep. You should judge it by the reduction in cecassions of breathing.

Remember, the REM rebound, the shifting of the time when you are in REM and Delta sleep and the proportion of time that you spend in each state have been disturbed for as long as you have been suffering from Sleep Apnea. When you correct the Sleep Apnea problem, your sleep pattern will once-again have to re-establish what is normal and appropriate for your needs and life-style.

So when you begin using Sleep Apnea Relief, allow yourself a week or two on the product before you make assessments such as how you feel in the morning. You can have someone observe you and see that the number of times that you stop breathing has been reduced. But the actual quality of your sleep can take 1 to 2 weeks to stabilize at the new and healthy level.

re-establishment of normal sleep Rhythm, REM deprivation, REM re-bound, sleep apnea, Sleep Apnea Relief

July 13th, 2010 by steve

I occasionally get a question about whether it is safe to take the sleep apnea every night. I think that as a society that is exposed to pharmaceuticals that destroy our livers, make our hair fall out, ruin our hearing and down-right make us sick, it’s not too surprising to get this question. We recognize that the FDA is quite in-capable and unwilling to protect us from the dangers of concentrated, synthesized pharmaceutical agents. This fear naturally bleeds over into any “capsule” that we routinely take.

I usually address this fear with a few questions. Would you be afraid of drinking a cup of coffee every day? Would you be afraid of drinking a cup of tea every day? In fact, the herbs in Sleep Apnea Relief amount to less than the amount that would be found in an herbal tea bag. Yet, some of the herbs are common enough to be there. You would get more thyme in a piece of lasagna. You would get far more chamomile in a cup of herbal chamomile tea. Coffee is made as a water decoction of a bean and you have far more of this bean involved in the cup of coffee than you do Lobelia in a single Sleep Apnea Relief.

That kind of puts things into perspective. If you ever eat a mixed green salad, you are getting lots of herbs and far more of them than would be found in a single capsule of Sleep Apnea Relief. The dangerous use of herbs is generally done by people who are trying to stress themselves by forcing their bodies into losing weight. These folks can commonly ingest 6 to 10 capsules of herbs per day. What’s more, these particular herbs are often not intended to be ingested in quantities this high. In cases of herbal over-load, it is not unusual to see adverse consequences in perhaps 0.001% (1 in 100,000) of the population after a year or more of abuse. The media often picks up on this.

I have been taking Sleep Apnea Relief every night for more than 5 years and it doesn’t scare me a bit. It’s only 550mg. I take 2000mg of vitamin C each day along with my other supplements.

I would suggest that there are a number of other things in your life that you do each day without even considering them that are far more risky or even certain of causing you harm than these simple herbal supplements. Most of the herbs that we use in our recipes are directly GOOD for you. Others are good in that they help with a particular problem. All in all, there’s nothing in any of the Nature’s Rite products that will harm you.

Rest assured, we have your health interests at heart. Hey, we use these products too. I just wonder how many people who work at the FDA use Statin Drugs or put their kids on Ritalin or Cox-2 inhibitors or Avandia.

herbal safety, safety of herbs, Sleep Apnea Relief

June 22nd, 2010 by steve

I was at a party this last weekend and a woman met recognized who I was. She pulled a tube of Cold-Sore Rescue from her purse and shook the tube at me while saying, “I love this stuff. It’s the only thing that works.” The label was completely worn off the tube, but I recognized it immediately. The fact is that Nature’s Rite doesn’t have a Cold-Sore Relief product yet. This was a product that I designed years ago for another company that I started called Peaceful Mountain. For those loyal Nature’s Rite customers, do not fear, we will have it soon. And, it will be an improved version.

There are about 5000 variants of the Herpes virus. They all have a very similar behavior. They live in the nerves and travel out to the ends of the nerves to replicate in the skin cells. When this occurs, the only way for the body to stop the replication is to send the white-blood-cells out to “gobble-up” the cells in which they are replicating. Hence, we damage our own cells to stop the virus. This collateral damage can be painful and disfiguring. Herpes Simplex strikes primarily on the lips and around the mouth. Genital Herpes is found primarily in the genital area and Herpes Zoster can be found around the waist, the forehead and face and even over a shoulder. All of these Herpes virus though, travel down the nerves and replicate in the skin cells. They are all painful and they all require rebuilding the skin after the damage has begun. They “manifest” in a very similar manner.

Because of these similarities, the recently introduced Shingles Relief product will work quite well against all of these variants. It contains powerful anti-virals to stop the spread of the virus, anti-itch and analgesic herbs to quell the over-active nerves while relieving pain, and herbal constituents to help re-build the damaged skin.

So if you have an eruption of Herpes Simplex or Genital Herpes between now and the fall when we introduce the Cold-Sore Relief, buy some Shingles Relief and you will be very happy with the results. It’s simple enough to apply it several times per day. Just remember to wash the area gently before applying the lotion so that it can soak into the skin and stop the virus.

Also remember that the greatest cause of outbreaks are stress and UV light. If you are out in the summer sun, use an SPF 30 sunblock for your lips. This is the most important way to stop summer fever blisters. Replenish it regularly as it only works for a couple hours at a time.

As for reducing the stress… Have a beer. After all, it is summer.

Cold Sores, Fever Blisters, Genital Herpes, Herpes Simplex, Herpes Zoster, Shingles

June 11th, 2010 by steve

When Shingles (HVZ) strikes, it starts as a couple of painful blister-like lesions. Then it spreads to a patch of blisters and very painful skin. By the time this has spread into a significant rash, the person is usually in day 2. Then, a call to the doctor and a visit will likely be day 3 and maybe a referral to a dermatologist day 4.

The Anti-viral drugs that are prescribed are only shown to be effective when administered within the first 3 days of an outbreak. You can see how easily those first few days can be squandered simply determining what is really causing this “mysterious rash”. I’ve seen cases of shingles go un-diagnosed for as long as a month.

Clearly, the earlier that you start intervention, the better. The virus will multiply and cause terrible destruction and pain. But I have also witnessed time and again that at what ever point you are at in your bout with Shingles, the generous application of Shingles Relief is a blessing. It relieves the pain, the itch and STOPS the virus from replicating.

The key to this is the powerful anti-virals that are used in Shingles Relief. One of them has a surface that looks like a cell and it causes the virus to hook-on in an attempt to penetrate and replicate. It’s a decoy if you will, for as it attracts the virus to hook-on, it provides no hope of replication. This depletes the population of virus that are able to replicate.

Of course the other herbs are quite important as well for the pain of Shingles can be debilitating. There are some wonderful nerve quelling and pain relieving herbs like Arnica, Willow, St. John’s Wort, Lavender Passion Flower and Meadowsweet. We’re not messing around with this formula. Anyone who has had Shingles or PHN will tell you that it’s all about pain relief.

Another interesting perspective is the PHN. This is Post Herpetic Neuralgia or the lingering nerve pain years after the infection. Now the current party-line is that after the infection, the virus retreats back to the ganglia of the nerve where it lays dormant. I believe that some of the virus stay in the myelin cells of the nerve sheath causing damage. This residual infection is why the pain of PHN (the neuralgia) doesn’t go away after the main part of the infection has passed.

This lingering virus, continuing to cause damage and certainly continuing to cause pain needs to be inhibited. That’s why we endorse the same product for both Shingles and PHN. Additionally, as the damage of the skin clearly requires the Arnica, Comfrey and Aloe Vera to repair, so does the lingering damage of PHN. These herbals will help to repair the continuing damage that supports the lingering pain of PHN.

The beauty of Shingles Relief is that you can apply it directly to the area where the infection is progressing. With oral anti-virals, you ingest them and they flow throughout your body going to all sorts of places where they are not needed. This is not just wasteful, it’s harmful. Because only a small fraction of the ingested pharmaceutical goes to where it’s needed, you must ingest a much larger quantity than would be needed otherwise. This increases the body burden and increases the damage to your liver.

No one wants to get Shingles, but since the likelihood of getting it is nearly 50% when you get over 60, it is nice to know that there is some “Strong Herbology” out there in the world waiting to help you through this difficult time.

Herpes Varicella Zoster, HVZ, HZ, PHN Post Herpetic Neuralgia, Shingles

June 3rd, 2010 by steve

I have been reminded this week that patience is a virtue. It more than that actually, it’s necessary. I was reading in a vitamin supplementation manual that magnesium deficiencies can take months to clear up. They warned against quitting when the symptoms didn’t clear in a week or two. That reminded me of what an impatient society we have become. We step on the gas in our cars and expect them to leap forward. We holler a command to our underlings and expect them to jump into action. We see our business not doing as we wish and we frantically exhaust ourselves trying to get an immediate correction. Not all of life responds immediately.
A nice gentleman called me on the phone the other day and was despondent to the point of giving up when his regimen of neti pot and Sinus Relief had not cleared his sinus infection in 5 days. When I inquired how long he had been suffering, his first response was 7 months. Then, it turned out, it had been on and off for years and he had already had one sinus surgery. His condition was chronic. Clearing it in 5 days was not a realistic expectation.

I have seen chronic sinusitis cleared with regular Sinus Relief use and Super Neti Juice use. These people were patient and persistent. The amount of fungus that can exist after a few years and the extent to which it can protect itself from assault by anti-fungals is amazing.
We live in a time when we can go from California to New York in a day. That’s thousands of miles. Yet, we cannot go 1 mile down into the Gulf of Mexico in weeks or months.

It is important to remember that a condition which develops over a number of years may take weeks to fully remit. It is also important to remember that progress will cease when no effort is expended.

If you have just gotten a sinus infection, then spraying Sinus Relief or using the Super Neti Juice will knock it out in a few days. But if that infection has had months or years to grow into the deepest recesses of your sinuses, protect itself with a slime layer and seal-off the opening to the sinus due to inflamation, it is going to take some time to clear it.

I’m just as guilty as the next person. I have to constantly remind myself to be persistent and be patient. It’s not my rule, it’s just the way life is. Some things cannot be rushed. I recently gave up on a magnesium supplementation program because I saw no benefits in the first two weeks. I’ll have to pick that up again.

If you have a very persistent sinus infection then you need to be very persistent in your treatment regimen. When you realize that you are using the best tools and the most effective regimen, you can find patience in the comfort that you will eventually win. And then… it will all have been worth it.

chronic sinusitis, fungal sinus infection, fungal sinusitis, sinus infection

May 21st, 2010 by steve

A friend of mine related to me an interesting anecdote the other day. It’s one that I’ve heard a number of time, a number of ways. It seems that his 15 year-old son had eaten at a popular local “cheap” restaurant a few hours earlier and was laying on the couch. He couldn’t get up or do anything because his gut hurt and he had no energy.
My friend knows the benefits of using enhanced aqueous silver colloids to treat food poisoning and so, rather than wait for it to get bad enough to head for the hospital, he gave his son an ounce of Super Neti Juice to drink. Yup. To drink.

In 20 minutes, this young lad was off the couch and outside running and playing.

“It’s like a miracle.” people tell me all the time. Yup. To be able to go through life without having to worry about getting food poisoning is pretty miraculous. It’s even nicer as we realize that we can help the ones that we love feel better when they have taken ill.
So here’s the point. Super Neti Juice is not just for noses anymore. It is the same enhanced aqueous silver colloid that I have used for years to test and treat bacterial infections in the general intestinal tract. The dose is rather simple, you take an ounce when you notice the problem and an ounce about 30 minutes later if the symptoms have not gone away.
Now there’s even more reason to have a bottle or two on hand. Summer is coming and there are bound to be pick-nicks with spoiled macaroni salad, tainted hamburger, un-washed lettuce, infected strawberries…. and on and on and on. Go bravely into the summer months and enjoy your food. You have Super Neti Juice to save the day.

ecoli, food poisoning, hamburger, neti pots, sinusitis, tainted food

May 11th, 2010 by steve

I was just at the Northwest Naturopathic Physicians Conference in Portland Oregon and was amazed at how receptive they were to learning about our product for treating Sleep Apnea. Most physicians have a rather closed-minded attitude about new products because it seems that they all have some treatment for everything. After all, they are in practice to treat whom ever walks through the door. But with this group of physicians and students (mostly from National college of Natural Medicine) the open-mindedness was refreshing. They were willing to listen and discuss Sleep Apnea and potential treatments for obstructive and central sleep apnea. Their familiarity with the function of herbs and herbal dosing was remarkable.

Sure, there were a few who proclaimed that they alone understood how to solve the sleep apnea problem and wouldn’t even listen to another insight. Only one woman was this foolish. There were dozens more who took samples and purchased product and wanted to share what could be a tremendous benefit with their patients. To all those with an open scientific mind… I salute you. You are truly Doctors of Science. The world is better for your presence in it. Without an open mind and a willingness to explore, the medical world will stagnate and no advancement will be offered to our patients.

Sleep Apnea is a very elusive condition. Most people don’t know that they have it. Fewer still know that the cause is treatable without CPAP. I feel very fortunate to have stumbled upon the herbal treatment that we offer here at Nature’s Rite since I get to benefit from it personally every evening and because I can share it with you.

central sleep apnea, cpap, naturopathic doctors, obstructive sleep apnea, sleep apnea

May 3rd, 2010 by steve

Do you remember when you were a child, say 8 or 9 years old? After it rained, you could step outside and literally smell the clean air. You could smell a skunk from a mile away and supper from 1/2 mile. If your Mom fried fish, you could smell it from your friend’s house down the street and call home to ask permission to have dinner at Joe’s house. Joe’s Mom was making macaroni and cheese. Now fast forward 40 years. You have to take a good hard snort over the top of the milk container to determine if it’s past its prime.

Your sinuses give you trouble every spring and fall. The winter time is riddled with colds… Maybe it’s time to do some spring cleaning in your sinuses. Most of us wouldn’t dream of leaving the filter in our furnace for 40 years. We know that we can’t leave the air-filter in our car for 40 years. But we don’t think twice about leaving the bacteria and mold in our sinuses year after year.

“Sure”, you say, “Of course I change those filters. That’s easy. But how am I supposed to change the filter behind my nose?”

Well the answer is really quite simple. Get yourself a Basic Sinus Kit from Nature’s Rite. Use the Super Neti Juice and the neti pot to rinse your sinuses and kill the build-up that has accumulated over years of neglect. Everything you need is there. The liquids, the neti-pot, the book… It’s in there.

I decided to take a bit of my own medicine this weekend and do a spring cleaning of my sinuses. Wow. I had forgotten just how full of un-wanted microbes it can get in a winter in-doors. I was slowly getting congested without noticing and just a few rinses with the Super Neti Juice and Herbal Neti Soother turned me right around. Every breath I take, I can feel the involvement of my sinuses. Every word I speak seems to resonate through whole front of my face.

This is what maintaining healthy sinuses is all about. The freedom to breath easily and smell deeply. To be able to march through the world with the courage of knowing that I have healthy sinuses and if they get assaulted by allergens, smoke or gunk, I have the means to clear them out. This is truly liberating.

I don’t quite feel young again. There is no going back to the care-free wonder of being 8 years old. I’m not promising you that. But if you want to experience breathing like it should be, then you owe it to yourself to do a spring cleaning with the Basic Sinus Kit.

breathing, cleaning your sinuses, congestion, flushing sinuses, sinus infection, sinusitis, spring allergies

April 22nd, 2010 by steve

I had an interesting phone call today from a customer who had just purchased the Sleep Apnea Relief capsules. It seems that he was taking sleeping pills every night and he wanted to know if he should stop taking them when he started taking the Sleep Apnea Relief. At first I began to suggest that sleeping pills are usually for insomnia and that this was a different condition than Sleep Apnea. He interrupted with his assertion that he was taking the sleeping pills to overcome his sleep apnea.

At first, this seemed very wrong to me but as I thought about it, the sleeping pills would tend to hold you in delta sleep where your breathing would tend to be deep and constant. It is likely that the apnea presented less of a problem there than it would in natural sleep. In the short-term, one might feel some benefit here.

The problem is that we all need to spend a certain amount of time dreaming each night. If we become REM deprived (REM is the part of sleep where we dream) the symptoms are really quite pronounced and rather undesirable. Taking sleeping pills for long periods of time also builds dependency which is un-healthy and leads to a rebound effect (often called REM rebound) when the pill use is discontinued.

This REM rebound would exacerbate the sleep apnea problem as the person would spend more time going through stage 2 sleep where the reduction in muscle tonus and inhibition of muscle movement causes the sleep apnea.

So the bottom line for all of you who are using sleeping pills to overcome sleep apnea, is to begin the sleep apnea relief capsules and slowly taper off the sleeping pills. You are going to have to go through a transition where you allow your body to once again control the sleep patterns. If you do this all at once, you could aggravate the sleep apnea condition and think that the Sleep Apnea Relief pills that you are trying “don’t work”. When in fact, it is the REM rebound that is making it seem this way.

We spend 1/4 to 1/3 of our lives asleep. It is amazing to me how little we value and understand this aspect of life. Get comfortable with understanding your sleeping needs and patterns. They are an important part of your health.

apnea, REM rebound, sleep apnea, sleeping pills

April 16th, 2010 by steve

Janina asked us:

I am interested in purchasing the air ionizer but am concerned if the grandchildren become curious & touch it….will they feel any shock or electric current.  I just want to make sure it is safe first.

We answered:

If you touch the edge of the antenna, you will feel a little bit of electricity.  Just enough to feel weird and make you pull your hand away.  There is not enough current to hurt a child.

electricity, ionizer, safe, touch