Category Archives: Family Health

Why should you do a heavy metal cleanse?

Family Health, Herbal medicine, Herbs, Immune system, Immunity

A heavy metal cleanse can be a powerful way to support your overall health, especially if you are exposed to heavy metals through food, water, air, or certain products. These metals, including mercury, lead, arsenic, aluminum, and cadmium, can accumulate in the body over time and may contribute to a range of health issues.

Here’s why you might consider a heavy metal cleanse:

1. Detoxify Your Body
Heavy metals can disrupt bodily systems by interfering with enzymes, hormones, and cellular functions. A cleanse helps remove these toxins, supporting your liver, kidneys, and lymphatic system.

2. Enhance Energy Levels
Heavy metal toxicity can cause fatigue by impairing mitochondrial function (your cells’ energy production centers). Detoxing can help restore your body’s natural energy levels.

3. Improve Brain Health
Heavy metals like mercury and aluminum are linked to neurological issues, including memory loss, brain fog, and even conditions like Alzheimer’s. Cleansing can help reduce these risks.

4. Boost Immune Function
Heavy metals can weaken your immune system, making you more susceptible to infections and chronic illnesses. A detox can strengthen your immunity by removing these harmful agents.

5. Support Cardiovascular Health
Heavy metals such as cadmium and lead can affect your blood pressure and circulation. Cleansing can promote better heart health and circulation.

6. Address Chronic Health Conditions
Some chronic conditions, including autoimmune diseases, digestive issues, and unexplained pain, may be exacerbated by heavy metal toxicity. A cleanse could provide relief and improve overall well-being.


How to Do a Heavy Metal Cleanse Safely

As a Medicinal Herbalist, I recommend a gentle, natural approach:

Herbal Support: Herbs like cilantro, chlorella, milk thistle, and dandelion can help detoxify and support your organs.

Clay or Charcoal: Bentonite clay and activated charcoal bind to heavy metals in the gut and aid elimination.

Mineral Support: Supplement with magnesium, zinc, and selenium to replenish essential minerals displaced by heavy metals.

Healthy Diet: Include antioxidant-rich foods like berries, garlic, green tea, and leafy greens to support the detox process.

Hydration: Drink plenty of clean, filtered water to flush toxins effectively.

Consider consulting Oxford Herbal to tailor a program to your unique needs and ensure it’s done safely. Regular cleansing, combined with reducing exposure to heavy metals, can significantly enhance your long-term health.

I make all my herbal mixtures and formulas myself for each client, depending on what their body needs.

I also offer free 15 minutes telephone consultations – so get in touch if you’d like more information!

Should you do a herbal parasite cleanse?

Family Health, Herbs, Immunity

You have your car serviced, MOT’d and cleaned every year – why wouldn’t you do that with your body?

Parasite cleanses can be a transformative step toward optimal health, and I’d love to share with you the key benefits. Parasites can quietly compromise your well-being, but with the right herbal cleanse, you can restore balance and vitality to your body. As a family, we all do one once a year. If you handle or work with animals (or have animals in your home), it should be done once every six months.

Benefits of a Parasite Cleanse:

  1. Improved Digestive Health: Parasites often reside in the gut, leading to bloating, gas, and indigestion. Cleansing helps remove these unwanted guests, improving digestion and nutrient absorption.
  2. Boosted Energy Levels: Parasites feed on the nutrients your body needs, leaving you fatigued and drained. Cleansing can free up these vital resources, boosting your energy and helping you feel more vibrant.
  3. Clearer Skin: Parasites can cause skin issues like rashes, eczema, or acne. A cleanse helps eliminate toxins they release, leading to clearer, healthier skin.
  4. Strengthened Immune System: By removing parasites, you allow your immune system to function at its best. The cleanse supports your body’s natural defenses, reducing the frequency of infections.
  5. Mental Clarity and Focus: Parasites produce toxins that can affect brain function, leading to brain fog or mood swings. Cleansing helps remove these toxins, restoring mental clarity and emotional balance.
  6. Reduced Sugar and Carb Cravings: Parasites often thrive on sugar, leading to intense cravings. Cleansing can help reduce these cravings and support healthier dietary habits.
  7. Better Overall Detoxification: Many herbs used in parasite cleanses, like wormwood, black walnut, and clove, also support liver and kidney detoxification, helping your body eliminate toxins more efficiently.

Incorporating natural herbs into a parasite cleanse not only targets these unwelcome invaders but also supports the body’s overall healing process. Using herbs is a natural and effective way of removing parasites from your system.

If you’re interested in trying a parasite cleanse, reach out for a personalised plan that fits your needs!

Feeling anxious?

Family Health, Herbal medicine, Herbs

I’m going to start talking about ways to make yourself feel better and a little less anxious. Where being busy is the norm, I want you to understand that building in some downtime is equally important.

Let us talk about trying to unwind in the evening. Firstly, ensure you are getting enough sleep. Most people need between 6 and 8 hours of restful sleep a night. That means without interruption.

Try and start this by creating a relaxing bedtime ritual. Have a shower, do some meditation and move into a more relaxed state of mind. If you have children, try and put them to bed and have a little time to yourself before you go to bed.

Try not to look at your phone or a computer either in bed or in your bedroom before sleep. Make a conscious effort to remove electrical devices from near your head. If you charge your phone in your bedroom overnight, ensure it is charged at the other end of the room.

Make yourself a cup of relaxing tea; made from a collection of herbs that you may have grown yourself or bought from a shop. There are some lovely fragrant varieties available now.

My favourite at the moment is lavender and chamomile – both soporific and relaxing. I really like aromatic herbs in the evening to help me relax. Other herbal teas that help with sleep are lemon balm, rose petal and passionflower.

The Guts of Immunity

Family Health, Immune system, Immunity

Do you feel as if you are catching every virus under the sun? Do you think you might have a compromised immune system? Lets work on correcting that!

Gut flora regulates your immune system and is responsible for your mood, digestion, weight management and plays a big part in regulating your health. It also often it feels as if you have no control over it at all! But that is not true!

The appearance of your skin can be an outward sign of unbalanced intestinal flora — acne, eczema, mild skin rashes, and other skin conditions have been associated with flora imbalance. Low energy levels, fatigue, and achy joints and muscles are also common signs of a an imbalance.

It’s pretty common these days for people to have digestive symptoms or issues that are a consequence of poor gut flora. Symptoms of imbalance can range from a loud, noisy stomach after eating, diarrhea, excessive gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, reflux,  IBS and diverticulis.

Come and see me and have a consultation to lean more and correct your gut flora!

7 Fascinating facts you might not know about Covid 19

Covid 19, Family Health, Immunity

Great Article from ‘The Fast 800’

Although Covid-19 is part of the ‘coronavirus’ family which includes many forms of the common cold and flu, it has a few key differences which make it particularly effective – and something to certainly watch out for.


1) It hides inside your body
When you come into contact with most viruses you will swiftly notice symptoms (such as sneezing, coughing, a headache or fever) which are created as your immune system fights back, but this coronavirus has found a way to switch off the body’s alarm system and disguise itself as it replicates so by the time your immune system notices (and symptoms start to flare up) it will already have got a good hold and is much harder to suppress.


2) It is much more dangerous for men
Men of all ages are more likely to experience complications of Covid-19. This is partly because men have weaker immune systems (a number of important immune genes are found on the X chromosome – women have two, but men have only one), female hormones could offer a degree of protection, but partly because men are more likely to have higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. These underlying conditions put men at greater risk of dying from Covid-19.


3) You are more likely to be infected at home
That’s because prolonged face-to-face contact is the easiest way for the virus to jump from one person to another, and that’s more likely to happen at home. The next most likely place for infection is unventilated rooms (such as lifts or on public transport). Coronavirus transmission is an indoor phenomenon that works in mysterious ways. Outdoor transmission, on the other hand, is a rarity. Your risk is dramatically reduced outside because droplets released from an infected person are quickly dispersed in air currents and killed by ultraviolet light (even on a cloudy day).


4) Children aren’t spreaders
Children spread ordinary colds and flu like wildfire but they seem to be protected from coronavirus, probably because they have fewer of the special receptors along their throat and inside the nose which this virus latches on to. Unless you have a pre-existing health condition, the odds of dying from Covid-19, if you are under 30, are less than a thousand to one. However, the over-60s have weaker immune systems which makes them more vulnerable. Being overweight increases the risk, but the very good news is, losing weight will support your immune system.


5) The biggest danger isn’t the virus, but your body’s response to it
A strong and healthy immune system will get to work, tackling the virus before it can spread too fast around your body. But if your immune system is weak it is likely to over-react and this can create what doctors call a ‘cytokine storm’ when various soldiers in your immune system army (including attack molecules called cytokines) get carried away and accidentally damage healthy tissue. This is what causes the lung damage and breathing difficulties and can ultimately lead to organ failure. Luckily there are many steps you can take to bolster your immune system.


6) There are over 100 different vaccines currently being developed
Vaccines normally take years, if not decades, to create and test but around the world scientists are throwing all their energies into developing a vaccine for Covid-19. The good news is that with so many vaccines against Covid-19 in development, and with so much money behind them, it is possible that at least one will come through the scrupulous testing required, if not by the end of 2020, certainly by 2021.


7) Singing spreads the virus more effectively than coughing
Singing seems to be a frighteningly efficient way to spread the virus. When one singer in a 121 members choir in Washington State, USA turned up for choir practise unknowingly harbouring the virus, he infected 45 others, two of which died. Saying “aah” for 30 seconds releases more micron-scale particles than does 30 seconds of coughing. That’s one big reason why Church services, wedding and funerals have been put on hold. Wearing a mask or face covering can help, but massed choirs might be the last semblance of our old life to return.

If you’d like to advice about how to support your immune system, please contact me on

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