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Question about TSP

Question from TA

Hi Debra,

Hi Debra, I’m confused about TSP. I was looking around your site for info about it because I see it’s an ingredient in Concrobium Mold Control, which I was looking into using on a shower. The product is said to be non-toxic, and I see it listed as a recommended product on your site. www.concrobium.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Concrobium-Mold-Control-SDS-May-2015.pdf

I see this on the EWG database: www.ewg.org/guides/substances/6194

Do I understand correctly from the info on that EWG link that TSP is not safe as a food additive but it’s okay as a cleaner? The link you gave above seems to indicate it’s not safe as a cleaner either (it’s caustic). So I’m not sure what to make of it at this point. Also, the EWG link shows an “F” rating for TSP – though it seems to be saying that mainly for food (I think?), and the database is about household cleaners! Here is some info from Concrobium’s site:

“TSP is trisodium phosphate, a mixture of soda ash and phosphoric acid. TSP is toxic if swallowed, but it can be used on many jobs, such as cleaning drains or removing old paint, that would normally require much more caustic and poisonous chemicals, and it does not create any fumes.”
from: www.concrobium.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Envirosense-Fact-Sheet-Non-Toxic-Products.pdf

I need to be able to take care of this icky shower safely and without lots of physical exertion – lots of scrubbing and inhaling the mildew, etc, isn’t going to work for me, and I don’t want to be using something toxic (for myself, as I’m sensitive, and I don’t want my child breathing in harmful fumes either). Can you make sense of these various sources of information and tell me if the product containing TSP is, in fact, safe to use? Also, it seems that part of the concern is due to the phosphates which can be an environmental issue. Any ideas about this?

Hmm…I just went back to EWG and searched for Concrobium (instead of just searching for trisodium phosphate as I did earlier), and found this: www.ewg.org/guides/cleaners/2287-ConcrobiumMoldControl

There they give TSP a “C” rating, and the product an “A” rating. Perhaps the product is safe enough after all?

I also see that Concrobium has a Mold Stain Eraser product, but I’m having trouble finding the MSDS for that one, to check the ingredients.

Debra’s Answer

These are all good questions. It’s easy to be confused about this, so I’m glad you asked.

When I first started looking at the toxicity of products, the main thing I was looking at was did it emit toxic fumes.

I consider TSP to be a “safe” cleaner because it’s not toxic.

But there are other ways that substances can be harmful. And one of them is that it can be caustic, which means it can burn through your skin. It won’t cause cancer, or damage your cells, but it can burn through your skin.

I took a look at the EWG page you referenced and yes, you are understanding correctly. The F rating applies to TSP used as a food additive.

But as a cleaner, it’s not going in your body, it has no fumes, and the only way it would be harmful would be if it splashed on your skin or in your eyes. So you could use it with goggles and gloves and be perfectly safe.

Another thing that makes a difference in terms of harm is the dilution. It may be that in corcrobium the amount is so small that it presents no danger. Yet it needs to be in the ingredient list.

There would be no fumes at all from TSP. I use this product myself in my shower.

I have no concerns about it.

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Lifta

A gorgeous and simple shelf made from unfinished solid wood, “designed with three goals in mind: lift your computer to the proper ergonomic height, offer a place to store peripherals, and keep your desk tidy.”

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Yellow Leaf Hammocks

100% handwoven hand-dyed cotton rope hammocks. I’ve included this here as the simplest thing to sleep on. “Yellow Leaf Hammocks is breaking the cycle of extreme poverty through sustainable job creation. Our artisan weavers and their families were previously trapped in extreme poverty and debt slavery. Now they are empowered to earn a stable, healthy income through dignified work (we call this a “prosperity wage”). This is the basis for a brighter future, built on a hand up, not a handout.”

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SerendipiTea

More than 100 certified organic teas and tisanes. This site has a charming philosophy all it’s own and many unique teas. Blended teas include herbs, florals, fruits, or spices. They even have biodynamic teas that go beyond organic.As appreciation of tea grows in the United States of America, fine tea should be made available to all people at accessible prices in a greater market place- without sacrificing quality and taste.We are committed to the highest quality loose leaf tea, selecting fine certified organics when available. Working closely with tea gardens, estates and specialists around the world, maintaining knowledge and expertise regarding all facets of tea and production.We are environmentally responsible, utilizing organic farms and all-natural products. Committed to Earth-friendly packaging including post-consumer recycled and biodegradable materials and water-based inks.

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New “Eco-friendly” Furniture from Pottery Barn

Question from Jessica

Hi Debra,

Thanks for all your research and helpful information, which I use all the time. I’m wondering if you know anything about Pottery Barn’s new furniture line, “PB Comfort Eco.” Here are the details: www.potterybarn.com/shop/furniture-upholstery/sofa-sectional-collections/pb-eco-sofas-sectionals

I’ve learned to be suspicious of “green-washing,” especially from the big manufacturers, but this looks like it might be a genuinely safe option for those of us who can’t afford the truly 100% non-toxic couches available.

I’d appreciate your opinion, based on the information available online.

Debra’s Answer

They have a nice little graphic that explains what makes it “eco.”

PB_comfortLet’s look at each of these.

But first, we’re going to see more and more of these types of sofas and chairs because of the change in the California law that now allows upholstered furniture without fire retardants.

100% flame-retardant free. Excellent

Recycled polyethylene & natural latex foam cushion I have no problem with that either.

FSC certified [wood] frame and legs Good.

Recycled steel springs. Fine.

Recycled foam arm padding. Undisclosed type of foam, so can’t evaluate.

100% organic cotton upholstery [fabric]. Yay!

I called Pottery Barn and the upholstery fabric is totally untreated.

They have no further information on the recycled foam in the arms. It’s probably a mix of foams.

OK. So they are unclear on the concept. The point here is that this is a fire retardant free sofa or chair. Their market is people interested in health. Yet they designed this collection with recycled materials that have environmental benefits, rather than focusing on healthy materials.

They are going in the right direction. Almost there. I just can’t evaluate that foam in the arms. But the rest of it looks fine to me, based on the information I have.

Apple Orchards Left Soil Contaminated With Lead and Arsenic

When I was seven years old, my family moved to a subdivision in Concord, California that was built on land that had been a walnut orchard. It was the first subdivision to be built in that agricultural area. Across the street from our subdivision, abandoned walnut trees were still standing, and it was not unusual for us to play in the orchards.

Many years later, a nutritionist I went to asked me if I had lived on land that had previously been an orchard. I had excessive copper in my body from the pesticides used there.

This morning an article was released about contaminated soil from abandoned Washington apple orchards. 187,000 acres.

OPB: Contaminated Soil Lingers Where Apples Once Grew

If you live in a home that is built on land that has previously been an orchard, your land is probably contaminated. Your county government should have data about the historical use of the land.

If so, your children should not be playing in the dirt, and vegetables grown in the soil will be contaminated. If you want to grow your own food, do so in containers with uncontaminated potting soil.

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Pick the Pillow that is Just Right for You

marlon_pandoMy guest today is Marlon Pando, President and Owner of White Lotus Home. We’ll be talking about pillows: toxic free materials, different sizes and shapes, and how to choose a pillow that’s just right for you. Marlon worked in his family business until he purchased White Lotus Home, a company that has been making natural and organic bedding in the USA for 34 years. www.whitelotushome.com

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transcript

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Pick the Pillow that is Just Right for You

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Marlon Pando

Date of Broadcast: October 08, 2015

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free. It’s Thursday, October 8th 2015. And tonight – not tonight, but today. I said tonight because we’re going to be talking about pillows. And so, of course, my mind just went night instead of day.

But today, we’re going to be talking about pillows. There’s enough to know about pillows that we can talk about this for an hour. Pillows, we’re going to be talking about the materials they’re made from, how to chose the right one for you. I just got a new pillow and I’m going to tell you about my experience with pillows. And so, by the end of the hour, it really makes a difference in your sleep to have the right pillow.

So we’re going to learn all about that today.

My guest is Marlon Pando. He’s the president and owner of White Lotus Home and they make a lot of pillows. Hi Marlon.

MARLON PANDO: Hi, Debra. It’s good talking to you.

DEBRA: Thank you. It’s nice to have you here. I know you’ve been on the show before. You were one of my first guests when I started the show a couple of years ago. But I think some things have changed since then. I see you have a new website. I see that – well, actually, how long have we known each other, like ten years or something like that?

MARLON PANDO: Yes, you hit the nail right on the head. It’s been ten years since I’ve been involved and running White Lotus Home.

Before I started, I had obviously researched about what you do. So yeah, I will say about ten years.

DEBRA: Okay, good. Now, before we go on, there’s a little sound quality problem with you. Let’s get you closer or farther away from your phone so that I can hear you a little better.

MARLON PANDO: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Is that any better? I’m on the phone.

DEBRA: Okay, that’s a little better. Yeah, yeah. Okay!

MARLON PANDO: Got it!

DEBRA: So just try to stay that distance. It’s just a little fuzzy around the edges. Okay, good.

Tell us how you became involved with White Lotus Home. That wasn’t a company that you founded. You took over the company ten years ago. So, what made you interested in working with natural materials?

MARLON PANDO: I was born in Peru in South America. Being green was just part of life. When I came to this country, I got my MBA, I worked in corporate America and then discovered I had the opportunity to become the general manager of White Lotus Home. I just loved the idea, to put in my green history and my MBA into a company like White Lotus Home.

DEBRA: Yeah, you’ve done a really good job. I really see over the years how you have continued to increase refinement of the materials that you’re using, that you’re getting more and more organic materials and you’re looking at how the products are designed and all these things. I see this continuous improvement as new things become available. I see you’re using things like GOTS certified fabrics. And as things become available, you incorporate them into your products.

And I would say that you’re probably one of the most affordable places to get organic mattresses, pillows, bedding, all these things for your bed. You’re doing a great job of providing a really high quailty product at an affordable price.

MARLON PANDO: Oh, thank you, Debra. I really appreciate that. Yes, White Lotus Home, it’s actually gone through a lot, a lot of good stuff, a lot of positive. Our customers and our clients, they’re asking more and more for more natural and more organic. And even though we have to keep the company going and moving and profitable, it’s been easier to adapt to these new greener organic environment because of the demand.

DEBRA: Yes, yes. So what do you see over the years about the interest? Do you sales exploding? How is it going?

MARLON PANDO: To say it’s exploding is probably too much. But I do see word-of-mouth is spreading. That’s very big. Advertisment, it just doesn’t work really for our clientele. What I’ve noticed is that word-of-mouth is spreading so much that being able to buy products that are closest to us. Right now, in America, the fact that we hand-make right in New Jersey and it doesn’t have to be exported anywhere (or imported), the fibers and bedding that we use, people are loving that idea. They’re embracing it more and more. They’re feeling safer about it.

I feel like White Lotus Home can do what the Whole Foods market has done for organic food.

DEBRA: Oh, that would be wonderful. That would be wonderful. Actually, I’ve been to your store in Highland Park, New Jersey and I’ve seen your products being made. I can tell our listeners, they really are made by hand. There are no factories. There are no – what are they called, where it goes down the line? Do you still have the video on your website where it shows the hand-sewing of the mattress?

MARLON PANDO: Yes! Yeah, definitely.

DEBRA: That’s so beautiful. Listeners, you should go see. You can watch them on this video sewing the mattress by hand and tufting it. It’s like a dance between the maker of the mattress and the materials. It’s so beautiful. This is all done just right there in Highland Park, New Jersey, U.S.A. So there’s no shipping from other places where they might be pesticides sprayed in the shipping containers or things like that.

It’s just clean materials manufactured in America and then back to your door.

And if you’re in Highland Park or if you’re in – where’s your other store?

MARLON PANDO: Yeah, Miami, Florida. We’re also in New York City. Right now, we’re in Brooklyn, New York.

DEBRA: Yeah, yeah. So you could go to one of their stores and try out the beds.

Anyway, we’re going to talk about pillows. Do you want to talk about the toxic materials that are in normal pillows, about why people shouldn’t buy them and buy yours instead?

MARLON PANDO: Well, we can touch about it. White Lotus Home, we’re more about, “This is what we have. This is [inaudible 00:07:56] or the next best thing for everyone to sleep on.”

We get a lot of folks that all of a sudden, read the labels under pillows or mattresses they sleep on and there’s a bunch of words in it that we just don’t know what they are. When you look at a White Lotus Home pillow, you’ll see 100% organic cotton, you’ll see kapok, you’ll see wool. You’ll see words like that that we can relate to and look up if we have to and get more information on. We won’t be having any polyesters, down and things like that in your pillows or mattresses [inaudible 00:08:40].

DEBRA: Yeah, I think that if you’re not buying a White Lotus Home pillow or a pillow from another manufacturer of natural pillows, what you’re getting is I think basically a polyurethane foam pillow. I don’t know if they put fire retardants on pillows made from polyurethan foam, but it’s extremely flammable. And if you have a polyurethan foam mattress or it’s in furniture, then it’s required to have fire retardants on it.

And then the other fill that you would get would be polyester (I’m just doing this off the top of my head), which is also a petroleum product.

That would be more of a fluffy stuffing. That’s called hypoallergenic. And then there’s down. That’s basically what you’re going to find in a department store, for example, if you go buy a pillow.

So Marlon, we need to go to break pretty quickly, but why don’t you start off and start telling us about your pillows. Let’s just talk about the materials first.

MARLON PANDO: Sure, sure. At White Lotus Home, you can have pillows that are made from 100% organic cotton, USDA certified organic cotton. That would be the fabrics on the outside and the inside. You could also get 100% organic USDA certified organic buckwheat pillows. We also hand-make old wool pillows and kapok pillows. They also offer just a really nice alternatives to the fibers that you’ve mentioned, polyesters and down and things like that.

DEBRA: Before we go on, we need to go to break. When we come back, we’ll discuss all of these thoroughly. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Marlon Pando. He’s president and owner of White Lotus Home. You can go to his website at WhiteLotusHome.com.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Marlon Pando. He is the president and founder of White Lotus Home. You can go to his website at WhiteLotusHome.com.

Okay, Marlon, tell us more about pillows.

MARLON PANDO: Sure, Debra. Thanks again. Yes, we were talking about pillows. I just wanted to mention, there was one thing you mentioned about pillows that have fire retardants now. There are laws [inaudible 00:14:23] the law to pass a fire retardant clothes. It’s really for the mattresses. But unfortunately, fire retardants had been found in pillows and bedding today and in sheets as well.

So we keep away from all that. For sure, any White Lotus Home pillow, it made 100% free of any chemical or any fire retardant.

What we’ve noticed is that there are a lot of folks coming to us because they are realizing that while they are living green, eating organic, they’re not sleeping [inaudible 00:15:06]. The idea that we sleep about a third of our lives away – we’re supposed to sleep eight hours a day. I know probably you and I don’t do that, Debra, but we try.

DEBRA: I try to sleep eight hours a day.

MARLON PANDO: You do! Same here, same here. I really try. So, the idea of, “What am I breathing eight hours a day on average?” And then when you look at those fibers, “What?! I’m breathing this, that polyester,” all of those stuff.

So that’s what we get. We’re getting people to realize that, “Hey, this is a third of my life. I’m investing in here, what I’m breathing when I’m sleeping.” And as you know more than I, Debra (I’ve read so much great stuff about it on your site), when we’re sleeping, if I’m not mistaken, it’s when our body is looking to re-fulfill, to reenergize.

DEBRA: That’s exactly right. In fact, if you don’t sleep properly, if you don’t sleep enough, if you don’t sleep that full eight hours, then your body’s detoxification system doesn’t detox. And that’s part of why our bodies are so overloaded with toxic chemicals now. It’s because in our society today, people aren’t sleeping and so their bodies aren’t detoxing and they’re exposed to all these toxic chemicals. So having the right pillow is really, really important to detox. It’s a detox tool.

MARLON PANDO: And funny enough, I was talking to a friend about this just the other day. That will be an ideal name [inaudible 00:16:42]. We’re not thinking about that. We’re thinking about, “Oh, is it comfortable? Is it pretty?” Meanwhile, can you imagine giving someone when they’re detoxing more chemicals to breathe? That’s what it comes down to.

Our customers just love the idea. Whenever we do pillow giveaways, which we do once a month, we get so many people interested and volunteer, so they can be picked as the winner that month. Whenever we do fairs and shows and contests, we’re always giving out free organic pillows. And people just love it! They [inaudible 00:17:19] to become the winners.

DEBRA: It makes a big difference. I want to tell our listeners today that I just got one of the White Lotus organic pillows. Well, I shouldn’t even say that. The pillow that I got was the kapok pillow. We’ll talk about the kapok as a material later. But I don’t think I can say kapok because there’s probably no such thing as organic kapok because it doesn’t go through the agriculture. It’s something that’s plucked off of a tree. So I don’t think there’s any pesticides on it because it comes out of a forest. It’s not an agricultural product. You’re not growing it as a crop like cotton.

Anyway, I got White Lotus’ kapok pillows. And I have to say that I honestly had been sleeping better on this pillow the last few nights since I got it. And last night, I slept a whole eight hours. I actually did!

MARLON PANDO: Okay!

DEBRA: And one of the things that I love about this pillow is it has exactly the right amount of fill in it for me. But if it didn’t, it comes with a little zipper on the side. And so you can open the zipper and put in more and take some out so that it’s just right for you. Goldilocks would love this pillow.

And the zipper is one of those invisible zippers. I don’t know if you all know what that’s like, but it’s not like a zipper with a lot of heavy metal teeth on it. It’s a little zipper that you can’t even see it on the side of the pillow. The end of the zipper is just right there. You can pull it down and open the pillow if you wanted to. And when it’s zipped closed, you can’t even tell that it’s there. This is just the most intelligent pillow that I’ve ever seen. I can’t think of a more perfect pillow!

MARLON PANDO: I’m so glad to hear that, Debra. With time, we have learned a lot of things. There’s a few things you’ve mentioned, but one of the things that we discovered when people are buying pillows (and unfortunately, we wish we could, but we’re not [inaudible 00:19:41]) is that when they got it, they like it, but they wish they could adjust them.

From there, you want folks that want to add more, remove more. So we do offer pillows without zippers and we also offer them with zippers. As you said, once you get there, once you go to sleep, you can wake up the next day or in the middle of the night and adjust it and store the beautiful fiber for future use or in a year or two, you can just add if necessary.

DEBRA: And one of the things that happens, I’ve been sleeping on natural pillows for 30 years. My first natural pillow was before there were even natural pillows. What I did was I got a pillow case and I rolled up some towels and I stuffed them in the pillow case because I didn’t want to sleep on that toxic pillow. And there were no pillows to buy then.

Buit since then, I think I’ve slept on every kind of pillow there is. So one of the t hings that I know is that they get a little out of shape. So if I can’t open it, then I’m trying to push the material around to make it comfortable and put it back in shape. And a lot of them, they lose their bounciness and their resilience.

So the fact that I can now open the pillow and put in more material (or take material out if I want to), I don’t have to re-buy a whole new pillow. When the pillow goes flat, I can just put more material in. And that’s a big savings on the price of the pillow.

We need to go to break. But when we come back, we’re going to talk about the different fillings that can go in a pillow. And Marlon will tell you our experiences with those different fillings and how they feel and why you might want to buy each filling or not.

So we’ll be right back. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Marlon Pando, owner of White Lotus home. The website is at WhiteLotusHome.com. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Marlon Pando. He is the owner and president of White Lotus Home. That’s at WhiteLotusHome.com. They make mattresses, pillow and bedding out of all kinds of natural organic materials. And also, they have frames for beds and you can turn these mattresses into chairs and round chairs and sofas. You could practically furnish your whole house. Can you do that? Do you have something for every room?

MARLON PANDO: Oh, yes, for sure.

DEBRA: And on the website, when you go to the website, listeners, you’ll see many pictures going by in a slider of making the products, but also, the products in the store, pictures of products in the store. There’s a beautiful one of a sofa with light shining on it. It’s actually a great sofa picture.

So anyway, let’s talk about what I would consider to be the four major fillings for a pillow and why you might want to chose one over the other. Those are buckwheat, cotton, wool and kapok. So let’s talk about those four. I’ve never slept on a buckwheat pillow, so I don’t know very much about that experience or why one would want to do that. What are the benefits of that?

MARLON PANDO: Just quickly, I do want to mention that we can help you make your entire home as clean as possible [inaudible 00:28:21] and things like that. But I know we want to focus on pillows tonight, which is great.

Debra, the question always is, “What is the best pillow?” And it’s not necessarily [inaudible 00:28:38]. That’s what you get from traditional suppliers. We ask questions first. How do you sleep? Do you sleep on your back, side or your stomach? The majority of these people that we see in America, they sleep on their side, the majority.

DEBRA: I sleep on my side.

MARLON PANDO: You do? Same here actually.

DEBRA: My left side.

MARLON PANDO: I sleep on both. But anyway, I noticed that the kapok we’re talking so much about is how you deal for that. Kapok, it’s very nice [inaudible 00:29:21]. It holds the shape for a really long time. We noticed that [inaudible 00:29:26].

When we sleep on our side, our necks doesn’t need support. We’ve got that support as the rest of our body. And the same thing goes. The kapok pillows can come soft, middle and firm [inaudible 00:29:41], which you were describing before. We call those ‘hidden zippers’. You can’t even see them.

DEBRA: Mm-hmmm… no, you can’t.

MARLON PANDO: Yeah. So then you have folks who sleep on their back, which is the secondary, people sleep on their back. Or at least you start in your back and you end up moving around sometimes. But those are the folks that, believe or not, will prefer a little bit firmer, a little bit more supportive than just balancing. So those are the folks that will get the organic cotton.

And then we’ve noticed that those folks, they feel like, “No, not enough. I need a little more for firmness, for support.” Those are the folks that primarily will go with the organic buckwheat pillow.
DEBRA: Okay.
MARLON PANDO: The organic buckwheat pillow [inaudible 00:30:25]. It gives you support. So pretty much, when you put your head down, it’s going to be like [inaudible 00:30:36] as to where the pillow will get a little squishy and bouncy and things like that.

DEBRA: Yeah.

MARLON PANDO: And the wool, it’s more for those of us that are very [inaudible 00:30:50]. Sometimes, people, they’ll [inaudible 00:30:57]. Wool is a fiber that does keep you cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Wool is also [inaudible 00:31:06]. It’s a natural fire retardant, which is great. It actually absorbs moisture. So it keeps our head cooler at night. But the wool starts very, very soft and does get a little bit [inaudible 00:31:22] with time.

That’s why we have these options. These four options help just everyone have a better place to sleep, a cleaner and leaner pillows to sleep on.

DEBRA: Yeah, there really is something for everyone. So my experience sleeping on all these different pillows has been – first of all, I never had a buckwheat pillow, so I can’t say anything to that. But when pillows started first being available made out of natural materials, the first ones were cotton pillows. And so I got a cotton pillow.

The thing about cotton, whether it’s in a pillow or in a mattress, is it does compress. It doesn’t have the resiliency that wool has much better resiliency. And so it gets harder and harder.

The first natural mattress I had, it was a cotton futton on the floor. It was so hard. It was just so hard. It was way too uncomfortable for me.

And then, this is on a show about mattresses, so I won’t give my whole history of mattresses. But then I went to wool.

Right now, I sleep on a wool mattress. I had my wool mattress, this particular one, I don’t know, 20 years or something and it’s just as beautiful as it was on its first day. It’s on wood slats. It’s extremely comfortable. But my wool pillows compressed. They flattened down and they get in strange shapes. I can’t open them, so I can’t really get them back into shape that I want them to be. And so, for me, that’s a drawback because every once in a while, I need to buy a wool pillow.

But I’m really happy with this kapok pillow now. I’ve only had it a few nights of course, so I don’t know how it’s going to hold up over time.

But I’ll tell you that the second I put my head on the pillow, I fell asleep. It was pretty amazing! Usually, I rest and then I lie in bed and think and then I have to get a glass of water and all these stuff. And I actually just laid down and I went right to sleep. It was pretty amazing!

MARLON PANDO: Yes, it is amazing. You’ll be surprised how many times we hear that. It’s a new fiber for us.

Now, crazy enough, the kapoks had been around for over a long, long time. Just after the industrial revolution, they started making all these other synthetic fibers and then kapok got replaced. But believe it or not, in the 1920s, people used to go even to Mt. Everest, they used to wear these boots and [inaudible 00:34:15] kapok. There had been warships that used to be full of kapoks, mattresses and beddings.

So they’ve been around. But thank God, now they’re coming back. And also, the fiber, it comes lighter than cotton and [inaudible 00:34:33] that you mentioned, which is great.

DEBRA: So we need to go to break and when we come back, I actually would like to tell a little bit more about kapok because I think most people don’t physically know what it is, so let’s describe that.

So you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Marlon Pando from White Lotus Home. Their website is WhiteLotusHome.com. You should go there and see all his beautiful things. The website looks really great.

They recently got a new website and it has lots of pictures. Just scroll down the home page and you can see that video about how they make the pillows and how they make the mattresses. You see everything. Nothing is behind closed doors here. You can see. You can go to the store and touch it and talk to them and everything. It’s all out in the open. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to the Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Marlon Pando, president of White Lotus Home. Their website is WhiteLotusHome.com.

So we were talking about kapok before the break. And one of the things that I love about kapok, first of all, kapok is not a fiber that is a crop like cotton. It’s not an animal like wool. It’s a tree. It grows in the forest. It’s actually a very tall, majestic tree. It’s been quite revered throughout the ages. It grows these pods. And inside the pods are these seeds.

And so what the kapok is, the fiber of kapok is, the stuff that goes around the seeds. So when the pod bursts open, what nature wants is for those seeds to fly all over the place and make more baby kapok trees. And so, this is the fluffy stuff, kapok, in the pillows. This is the fluffy stuff that’s usually around the seed.

And so to harvest it, they take the pods after the tree has done what it needs to do to make these pods. And then they take the pods and then they pull this fluff off the seeds and that’s it. I think they wash it or something and that’s it. So it’s just this completely natural material. The trees are left standing and it grows more pods. It’s very sustainable.

Marlon? Hello, can you hear me? Uh-oh…

MARLON PANDO: Ah, yes. No, I totally agree with you, Debra. I have a lot of customers [inaudible 00:40:51]. They call it the ‘vegetarian down’ [inaudible 00:40:57] with wool. So it does all that. And it does grow, like you said, in forests. There’s no need for anything be added or included in it. It’s like cracking open like a banana and using the inside of the banana to make a pillow. That’s how nice and pure it is.

DEBRA: Yeah, it is like that. I really like that idea. I like the idea that the fiber is there in nature to carry off the seed. It floats through the air. I think of that when I’m going to put my head on the pillow. I think, “Well, this fiber in the pillow comes from this wonderful tree and is now supporting me in sleeping.”

And there’s nothing toxic about it. It has no odor, nothing. I know with some things like cotton, some people can’t tolerate cotton because it has little bits of oil and things in it because that’s the nature of the cotton.

MARLON PANDO: Yes, that’s right.

DEBRA: It’s not that it’s toxic or not natural. It’s just that’s the nature of the cotton. So, some people with allergies can’t tolerate that. And this is just nothing like that. Again, I’ll just say I can’t think of a more perfect filling for a pillow.

MARLON PANDO: Right! I completely agree. I totally agree. We do carry, as you know, a number of options. This is one of option that has been totally embraced by all my clients and customers. Some of them do know of kapok from other parts of the world and from these historical things that they’ve done. [Inaudible 00:42:43] they see the pod, they see where it comes from, they say it’s just almost unreal. It’s great that we have them, kapok.

DEBRA: Yeah, I hope that it gets a lot more use. So back to pillows, you have a number of different sizes of pillows. Can you tell us about that?

MARLON PANDO: Sizes? Yes. I mean, we offer every standard pillow there is. So when folks come to shop with us, they don’t have to worry about getting a custom-made pillowcase, et cetera (but we can do that too).

But what happens is there has been different needs, different requirements. We have our travel pillow. We have our standard pillow, which is a 20” x 26” pillow. Then you have the queen pillow. Two of those next to each other are ideal for a queen sized bed. Then we have king sized pillow. It’s the same thing. They’re more for king sized beds.

Then we get into the idea of buckwheat, organic buckwheat. Those pillows tend to be heavier than others because it’s just [inaudible 00:43:49] are smaller. Again, the same idea of having healthy pillows, you also want them to be comfortable. I mean, we couldn’t have a pillow fight with a buckwheat pillow because…

DEBRA: No, it would hurt.

MARLON PANDO: Yes. Yes, yes. So that’s what all the options are for. And then, on top of that, as you know, when people finally find us and people in our industry that does organic (because thank God, we’re not the only one. I’m really proud of that. I love that other people are doing this), some folks have special needs. We’ll do custom sized pillows, mattresses and other beddings because of that. So that’s why we have such a longer, wider selection of sizes.

DEBRA: Yes. So again, you can really get almost anything you want. And one of the things that I found as a consumer advocate over the years – because I’ve been doing this for 30 years. And actually, November 1st, it’s going to be 31 years, my 31 years of books in print (but I started before that).

MARLON PANDO: Oh, wow! That’s great.

DEBRA: The thing is if you’re wanting to find out what’s in a product or you’re wanting to get exactly what you want, you just can’t go down to a big box store and get any or all information on the product or get what you want, your own custom whatever. But with a business like White Lotus Home, they’re right there. You can walk in the store and Marlon is there (in one of the three stores) and he knows what’s going on. They’re happy to serve you. You can find out exactly what the materials are. If you want something custom-made, you can have it custom-made. It’s like they’re there with you.

These kinds of businesses, you can really get produts that are much less toxic and toxic-free because you’re dealing with the people who actually have the idea that they want it to be toxic-free and are makign sure that they have the materials and the processes.

Sometimes, I think people, they look around and they go, “Well, all products, you can’t find out what they are and all products have toxic things in them.” Well, no, that’s not true. There are a lot of businesses like this. I have a lot of them listed on my website on Debra’s List that are small businesses like this where they’re making exceptional products that are exceptionally pure. They want to serve you with things that are healthy for you to use.

I would like all products to come from businesses like this. Really, I walked in the store and I could look at all the materials, I could watch them making a product. How can you have something better than that.

MARLON PANDO: Thank you, Debra. I appreciate all that. And yes, I think [inaudible 00:46:45] is what our customers really love about us. We’re not [inaudible 00:46:51] company. We’re not saying we have it all. But what we have, we will explain to you.

I can tell you right now that all my organic cotton, it’s grown right here in Texas. I can tell you right now that [inaudible 00:47:07] made here and handcrafted right behind one of my showrooms in New Jersey.

We’re also still family-owned. My sister is the vice president of White Lotus Home. She’s Elizabeth Pando. She lives in Miami and she runs the Miami store. My father who’s retired actually helps out in the New Jersey store. You’ll definitely going to be dealing with us directly.

DEBRA: Right, right. And so you know what’s going on. You know. If some employee were to bring toxic cleaning product in the store, you would know it.

MARLON PANDO: Exactly, exactly.

DEBRA: And you’re watching for things like that. And so it’s not like the owner is often some corporate office and people who don’t understand the concept or working behind the counter. Everybody is aligned and you know what you’re doing and you know what your philosophy is and what you want to put across in the world. And this is the result. I’m very happy with what you’re doing.

MARLON PANDO: Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, I’m getting your support, your listeners and our customers. It’s been very helpful. It’s easy in today’s business environment to try and look for cheaper ways to do things. We’ve realized [inaudible 00:48:26] and just being smart, just being smart about our rule. It has been very, very helpful with our growth.

I mean, our number one thing that we have at White Lotus Home is our integrity. It’s been around for 35 years and still we get customers that know us. Before, it was [inaudible 00:48:47] and they don’t come back just because this what they feel is the best for them. So I’m very excited.

DEBRA: I’m very excited too. I’m just sitting here, your website is up on the screen while we’re doing the show. I just saw a picture that had my book on the picture.

MARLON PANDO: Yeah!

DEBRA: The book Toxic-Free is right on your home page.

MARLON PANDO: Yup, yup! I hope that’s okay. I hope that’s okay. We really always, always, always tell folks, “Don’t listen to us. Go to Debra. She has a lot of questions. She has a lot of answers. Go there.” We do get people that have called and they say, “Yeah, I come here because of Debra.”

DEBRA: I’m glad they tell you. I’m glad they tell you.

Alright! So we only have about 15 seconds left. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Again, listeners, you can go to WhiteLotusHome.com and see all of Marlon’s – there’s my book again – WhiteLotusHome.com and see all of Marlon’s pillows and mattresses and see which ones you’d like for you. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well!

Seven Deadly Drugs

Pamela SeefeldMy guest today is Pamela Seefeld, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking about seven popular drugs that are toxic enough to kill, and which natural remedies you can take instead. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com

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transcript

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Seven Deadly Drugs

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld

Date of Broadcast: October 07, 2015

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free.

It is Wednesday, October 7th 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. It’s a beautiful autumn day. The temperature is 80° right now. But in the morning and at night, it’s 70° instead of like in the summer time, really, it’s 85° and 90° all day long and all night long. So this is just like a breath of fresh air. Literally, I can open the windows now. Yehey!

Anyway, I just wanted to say that while I was listening to the music, the opening music, I was sitting here exercising my arms. That’s not something I usually do. I’ve been doing more exercise. I was listening to the music and I was just moving my arms up and down and out to the sides and just kind of moving around. It’s actually important. This is a toxics issue. I want to say this before I bring on my guest today.

In order for your body to process the toxic chemicals that you’re exposed to, it needs to go through your body’s detox system and your lymph system. You may have heard the term ‘lymph nodes’. But your lymph is this whole system that carries things around your body. It’s the waste products carrier. It’s like the garbage system. It takes out the garbage. And that’s how the toxic chemicals move into your detox system.

But your lymph system does not have a pump like your heart. Your heart has a pump that pumps the blood throughout your body, but the lymph system does not. And the only way that you can get your lymph to move is by moving your body.

And so the more you can move even if you’re just sitting here listening to the opening music of the show, move around. Move your arms, move your legs, jump around, whatever. And that’s a good way to just get in a minute of exercise there that will help your body get those toxic chemicals to and through the detox system and out of your body. That’s my tip for today.

So today, we’re going to talk about seven deadly drugs. I don’t even know what they are. It’s every other Wednesday today, so my guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. She’s going to tell us about those seven deadly drugs, what they are and what we can take instead to do what those drugs do. Hi

Pamela!

PAMELA SEEFELD: Hi! It’s great to be here.

DEBRA: Thank you. It’s great to have you. So where are we starting today with seven deadly drugs.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay! So, I looked at the common drugs that people are using and I decided that I’m going to start with Tylenol.

DEBRA: Tylenol?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Tylenol, yes.

DEBRA: I would never have thought that was a deadly drug, so it’s good we’re talking about it.

PAMELA SEEFELD: This is why the drugs I picked are going to be of interest to everybody because these are commonly used things that we see and they’re very ubiquitous. They’re everywhere.

So acetaminophen, the reason why it’s bad is it causes liver necrosis. It can be even small amounts. In the hospital, we check to see. There are a lot of pain relievers that people use that have narcotics along with acetaminophen because the narcotic will work through it essentially acting as a pain reliever. It dulls the perception of your pain (let’s say you’ve had an accident or you’ve had surgery).

The acetaminophen blocks the peripheral or the outside of the central nervous system like all the nerving endings in your hands, your feet and your body. So when you give the combination of the two, you get dual type of pain relief.

And so those drugs are commonly used. You should think of like Percocet and Vicodin and things like that.

So the Tylenol component, if you start reaching over 4 grams a day of that, it definitely will lead to liver necrosis. But there are a lot of people that even will pop a Tylenol here or there, an acetaminophen, I should say, here or there like if they have a headache. And then if they’re drinking at the same time (say they had a few cocktails at dinner), these things can be accumulative.

What I found when I did the research on this (I knew this because a lot of people take acetaminophen for pain) acetaminophen poisoning accounts for approximately one half of all cases of acute liver failure in the United States and Great Britain today. That’s all the liver failure.

If you look at acute liver failure and people that are in liver failure, it’s half of the cases. It’s not the drinkers. It’s the people who are taking acetaminophen. Sometimes, they don’t realize that they’re reaching toxic levels. They might have pain problems, maybe they’ve had a back injury, something to that effect. They’ve been taking this. It doesn’t take very long for it to have accumulative effects.

And I actually know, a friend of mine, his son was only 38 and he died from acetaminophen poisoning. And it wasn’t an overdose. He actually ended up in liver failure and they didn’t find a transplant for him. But it was from the acetaminophen. He was popping only one or two pills a week. He was popping when he had a headache. Then they found that he was on liver failure subsequently. He passed away now.

I call this deadly and the reason why is because yeah, you have the Tylenol overdoses and you have these situations where people are taking excessive amounts. But you need to realize that the accumulative effect of acetaminophen in the liver is pretty severe.

DEBRA: So, you mentioned one or two, but then you also said – what was it, four grams?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct, four grams. If someone is in the hospital, we look to calculate – sometimes, maybe the doctors won’t maybe pick up on that. Maybe someone is post-operative, they’ve had some surgery. They don’t want IV narcotics because maybe there’s been a history of abuse or maybe the person doesn’t want shots or maybe they’re going to be leaving that day, they’re ambulatory, they’ll give them maybe Vicodin or Percocet or one of these combinations that has either hydrocodon or oxycodone with acetaminophen. We have to make sure that they go under four grams a day because if they go over four grams a day, you’re definitely looking at a liver problem.

And actually, from the studies, what you see, four grams a day is very lenient. I mean, really, people really shouldn’t be even getting more than three because the toxicity is pretty bad.

DEBRA: So how many pills if you were just taking acetaminophen not mixed with anything else for a headache?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, it depends.

DEBRA: How many pills is that?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Three twenty-five would be a regular acetaminophen and 500 is an extra strength. So there are some combination products that have the 500 and some that have the 325. Actually, at the hospital where I work, we have removed all the products with the 500 because there were just too many chances that the person was going to end up in an acetaminophen situation. In those cases, those products are gone. We don’t even have them anymore.

What happens if somebody puts an order in the computer and it has too much Tylenol, we can’t automatically change it. We’ve got to call.

There’s a lot of phonecalls and sometimes people don’t call back. You know what I’m saying? So what happened is we just took them off.

They’re not even there anymore. That’s it!

DEBRA: But how many pills? What did you say, 325? That’s 325 mg?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Exactly! So if you’re looking at 325, that would be 12 pills in a day. But you’d be surprised because a lot of times, their order say, “One to two tablets every four hours as needed for pain.” Well then, it’s pretty easy to get up to that.

DEBRA: It is pretty easy to get up to that. But as you’ve said, you don’t need to be taking that much before you have liver failure. And so if you’re taking two tablets four times a day, how many? That’s 12, isn’t it?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Exactly! And even in an acute situation, say you have a back injury. You were fine before, you hurt your back, you lifted something or you were in a car accident, this happens quite frequently. And then they’ve given you this combination and you’re taking it every single day for like a week or so, well, you’ve already gotten to that point where you’ve got some accumulative toxicity. You have to always look too because the liver processes all the drugs, but it also processes alcohol.

So say a person gets a headache and they’ve had a few cocktails at dinner. And then they take Tylenol (acetaminophen) and then they go to bed. Those two are accumulatively toxic to the liver. Then say they took a Pepsid or a Zantac because they had an upset stomach, those work on the liver and those can cause toxicity too.

Say they’re on a cholesterol lowering medicine like Sendostatin. This is actually what happens with a lot of people. They tell me they drink wine at night. That’s fine. Then I see that they’re on a cholesterol lowering medicine. Then they take a medication for pain. I’m telling them, “You’re going to end up in liver failure. You’ve got to do something and cut some of these things out and take some herbs to protect the liver.” And that’s where milk thistle and Schisandra chinensis come in because those two can protect the hepatocyte from toxic injury from these substances.

So somebody that takes acetaminophen on a regular basis or drinks wine or beer on a regularbasis especially if they’re on a cholesterol lowering medicine, they need to be on something to protect themselves.

DEBRA: Yeah, that’s good. We need to go to break in just a few seconds. But I can tell there’s so much new information here. We’re going to have to get through each drug a little faster.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, that’s fine. That’s fine, absolutely.

DEBRA: We’ve only gotten through one in the first 15 minutes.

PAMELA SEEFELD: This is a pretty dangerous one, so I wanted to spend a lot of time on it.

DEBRA: Yeah, okay. So in the segment, we’ll do two. And then, we’ll do two. And then, we’ll do two. And then we’ll get through seven.

How’s that?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Perfect!

DEBRA: Okay, good. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. She has her own lovely shop called Botanical Resource here in Clearwater, Florida. You can go to her website at BotanicalResource.com. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist.

You can go to her website at BotanicalResource.com.

Okay, Pamela, what’s deadly drug number two?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay! Deadly drug number two is Ibuprofen, Naproxen. All these drugs are called collectively NSAIDS or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents. And what NSAIDs do (and that’s just some of the examples), those are commonly used as pain relievers.

And what’s bad about these is they are a risk for acute kidney injury – and pretty severely.

You’ve seen this a lot with athletes where they’ll be using Ibuprofen and Naproxen quite a bit and then all of a sudden, they’ll end up with kidney failure and they don’t realize why. This takes very small amounts as well to be damaging. And it looks like it’s not necessarily just one NSAID. This whole drug class is associated with acute kidney injury and kidney failure in some instances. So it’s really important to realize that if you’re taking these things on a regular basis.

And they also include Celebrex, Meloxicam is really popular, Voltaren. These are drugs that are prescribed quite a bit for injury, but also just for arthritis. So you want to definitely not be using these on a continual basis because of the kidney issues. It causes kidney injury.

And let me explain to your listeners too. If anybody has had any acute kidney injury from any of these products, using the Detox 1 is highly effective in reversing this particular types of injury.

DEBRA: And that Detox 1 is a homeopathic remedy that people can get from you.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, the Detox 1 is what I would recommend and it’s from DesBio. That really would work especially to clean up the kidneys and repair the nephrones.

I would say, if someone’s creatinine has been elevated at all from Ibuprofen or Naproxen, they need to do something to repair. Let me tell you, kidney and liver failure, we don’t have anything in regular science and regular pharmacy for that.

DEBRA: Right! But what I’m saying is if people can call you and get the Detox 1?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, yeah. I apologize, I apologize.

DEBRA: That’s what I meant?

PAMELA SEEFELD: I’m sorry, I apologize.

DEBRA: As long as we’re talking about that, why don’t you give your phone number?

PAMELA SEEFELD: The number here in my pharmacy, it’s Botanical Resource, is 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955. I would be very honored to help you and your family in any of these situations have happened and also, like I explained, about the hepatic and the liver failure as well. I will be glad to help with that as well.

DEBRA: Yes. And she does free consultation. So please feel free to call her and she’s happy to talk to you about whatever is going on with drugs or your body. Whatever your symptoms are, she can help you with some natural and homeopathic remedies. And so, it really is okay to call Pamela and she will talk to you very happily for free. So give her a call. The number again is…

PAMELA SEEFELD: 727-442-4955. I’d be greatly honored to help you or your family. And also, if you’re on these medicine and you want to get off of them, especially the acetaminophen and narcotic combinations, I can help you transition off of those as well. I know those are very hard especially we’re talking about narcotic combinations.

The addiction potential really starts kicking in less than eight to ten days. It doesn’t take very long. People don’t realize they’ve become dependent in such a short period of time. It’s just very horrible.

DEBRA: And we watch commercials for these drugs on TV all day long. We get in this mindset that they must be safe, they’re on TV and they’re deadly.

So what’s number three?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Number three is Paxil. The reason why I picked Paxil is Paxil is an anti-depressant, but it has a lot of dangers associated with it. I want to explain.

Paxil, it induces its own metaboolism. So what this means when something is inducing its own metabolism, its autometabolism, we know that a person can come to a toxic level at a very short period of time.

And the new data was just released (a study in the British Journal of Medicine this month) that the original studies of Paxil in adolescents were skewed and the data was collected inappropriately and incorrectly and maybe was falsely misleading because Paxil is associated with increased suicide risk especially because of the fact that it inhibits its own metabolism. People, a lot of time, were becoming psychotic and suicidal on Paxil – and this still can happen. And the reason why is because the drug level would be 200 times what they’re expecting to be in the brain and so the person becomes psychotic.

So maybe that even should be number one. If anybody is on Paxil or if they’re contemplating on giving it to adolescents, the new studies show that all of the benefits that were previously shown had been retracted. And this was just Wall Street Journal like two days ago. They had a big article about it. It’s very, very deadly.

So if you’re taking Paxil, especially if you have any young people taking Paxil, the chance of the person becoming suicidal and pyschotic is pretty high. If it inhibits cell metabolism, what’s happening is each drug dose is making more of the drug dose in the brain and it’s a very dangerous combination. I would tell people that of all the SSRIs, that’s probably the worst, especially for young person.

And I want to just briefly talk about SSRIs for a brief second.

DEBRA: And what does SSRI stand for?

PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s serotonin reuptake inhibitor. It’s a very common drug. Paxil is one of them and Prozac and Zoloft. They’re very, very common drugs.

In the last 20 years when they really started becoming popular, we saw that in the past – I’m just going to divert for a second about gun violence and all these shootings that are happening in society, mass shootings and terrible things like that. What happens is when people take serotonin reuptake inhibitors, they lose their inhibitions and their consciousness and their impulse control. This is the problem.

If you look at what’s correlated in society over the last 20 years when we’re starting to see all these mass shootings, all these terrible things, just these random acts of violence that they can’t explain why people are doing this, when you start using these drugs and have millions and millions of people taking this, their perception of impulse when it comes to violence, many times, it’s altered.

This can explain why all of a sudden this is happening. It’s not necessarily, “Are we controlling guns? Or aren’t we controlling guns?” It’s about the fact that you have mass amounts of the population, maybe up to 20% or more on these medicines, and their impulse control for some of these deadly things is gone.

DEBRA: Wow!

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s what’s really happening. And it correlates with this time period, right? Before these drugs were here, this wasn’t a problem. And now it is. You have to realize too, this stuff, even if you’re not taking this, this serotonin reuptake inhibitors, remnants of this are in the water. We have them in the water supply.

DEBRA: Yeah, yeah.

PAMELA SEEFELD: This is kind of sideline, but I think people really need to ponder this and think. This is a direct correlation. This isn’t like some crazy science.

DEBRA: No, I understand what you’re saying. Exposure to these things affects the world in so many ways. And that definitely is a deadly association. Wow!

We need to go to break. When we come back, we’ll continue with our list of seven deadly drugs with my guest, Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist. Her natural pharmacy is at BotanicalResource.com. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is the Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers dispense medicine plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs.

So Pamela, let’s go on with now deadly drug number four.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, deadly drug number four is Metformin. I’ll explain what Metformin is. Metformin is an old drug. It’s been around a long time. it’s the first line therapy for people that have diabetes, type II diabetes particularly. It’s used a lot. Metformin can cause a condition called lactic acidosis. I’m going to explain what that is.

It changes the way lactic acid is produced in the body and handled. And it can happen in a very short period of time. What I want to point out is that a lot of people that are diabetics, they are on this medication (maybe 500 mg. twice a day) and what happens when sugar has been elevated over a period of time, your kidney function gets affected by the sugar damaging the glomerulus and the cells in the kidney.

So, a lot of times, people that have had type II diabetes and even the new ones that have had it for a while and are on Metformin, their serum creatinine (which is a number that is indicative of the kidney function) starts increasing. And I see this a lot of time when people come to the hospital. That’s when we catch it. The doctors are really bad about adjusting for kidney problems the medications.

And actually, as a man, if your serum creatinine is greater than 1.5 or a female, serum creatinine is greater than 1.4, it’s contraindicated.

They can’t take it at all. And I can’t tell you how many times I’m working as a pharmacist and I see people on this medicine and they do not meet the criteria. In fact, it’s very dangerous. Their creatining is elevated to those numbers and the doctors still has them on the Metformin.

This is something for all of the listeners. If anybody is on this drug and they have any questions about how to interpret their numbers, I will be most glad to help you figure out if this drug is damaging your kidneys.

DEBRA: Yeah, that’s a big concern. This is another one where people are just given this and no information about how it might damage your kidneys. My doctor gave me Metformin, “Oh, it’s okay.”

PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, yeah, this is what I’m saying. This is the problem. Say you go to a regular retail pharmacy, they don’t have your blood work, they don’t have your numbers. So, if the doctor doesn’t catch it and when you get it filled at the CVS or the Walgreens or whatever, they don’t see these numbers. So basically, there’s a lot of blind dispensing going on. That’s the way I look at it. They don’t have any of the information. They’re just sending it out. You’re going to be very surprised, what I see as a practitioner that even people coming in here that are on Metformin that have type II diabetes, their kidney function is not compatible with this medication. It’s contraindicated and they should never have been given it in the first place.

And you have to think. I don’t know the exact number of people, how many Americans are on Metformin, but it’s millions, I’m sure. I mean, it’s a lot of people.

DEBRA: Yeah, yeah. Wow! So number five.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Number five is iron, ferrous sulfate, ferrous gluconate. I’ll explain about iron.

Iron, the reason why it’s dangerous – and I thought this is kind of interesting because I was even bringing this up to some of my customers the other day. People don’t realize how dangerous iron is. It’s one of the highest toxic things that you can have in your medicine cabinet and especially for children and adolescents, young kids especially.

That’s why when you see any products that contain over 30 mg. of iron or more per dosage, they have to be packaged in a blister pack. They can’t be in a full bottle. The most dangerous overdose for infants and children is iron. It only takes probably about four pills of 30 mg. to kill a small child.

So if you have iron salt, any iron salts, hanging around your house, if your dog eats it, if your children get into it, if the grandchildren get into it, it’s very, very deadly. It’s neurotoxic and causes seizures and death. This is one of these things that you might have in your medicine cabinet and not even think twice about it.

DEBRA: Well, it’s a vitamin.

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. Say someone has some low-grade ongoing anemia, a lot of the ones that the doctors are going to give you are 150 mg. It may only take one. It’s that deadly.

And especially, I have to bring up pets too, because if someone drops an iron pill on the floor and the dog eats it, it’s probably going to die.

So you have to realize that this is something important. So if you actually have a high iron formula or if you’re taking a lot of iron, this is something that little kids, pets, these should be locked up far away from any of these kids or the animals to get a hold of this. You know dogs, if you drop something on the floor, they eat it right away. If you’re counting out your vitamins, you have iron and you have dogs or cats, you need to be very, very cognizant of this.

I’m sure there’s a lot of people listening today that have never heard this before, but that’s very, very important. That’s why I call it deadly because it’s just a small dosage, a seemingly innocuous product can lead to lethal consequences.

DEBRA: Well, what can people take instead of an iron pill? If they have iron-poor blood, do you remember those commercials on TV where they talk about ‘iron-poor blood’?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, yes. Actually, you know what I use? I don’t use as many iron tablets because iron causes severe constipation for a lot of people. It causes these hard stools and cramping. It’s not tolerated very well. I actually use a homeopathic iron and I have reverse a lot of anemia with that. It works great. It’s liquid. You put it in your detox bottle, you just sip it through the day and it works. The regular hemoglobin and hematocrits, those numbers look better, but it looks on your deep iron stores, your ferritin levels as well. The regular iron, a lot of times, won’t reach those deep muscle stores.

The iron mix, I use that a lot of time. I sell quite a bit of that. It’s inexpensive. It works really well and it’s a liquid. It doesn’t constipate. You just put in the water. One or two months on it, you go get your blood work rechecked and it comes back in a nice level. That’s really, really a great product. I would say it’s much better tolerated and much safer than having iron pills around the house. I would not.

If you have kids visiting or living there, you really don’t want to have those. It’s not just worth taking the chance. If a babysitter or somebody else is watching the kids, they might not realize the deadly consequences of just a few pills that the kids get into.

DEBRA: Yeah. One of the things that is impressing me today about what you’re talking about – actually, the way I got the idea for this show was because you got email advertisements all the time for all these things. An email came in and it said something about the “seven deadly drugs.” I don’t even remember what they were selling. I looked to see what they thought the seven deadly drugs were and they were drugs that I recognized.

But what you’re telling us today is from your viewpoint, these are drugs that everybody thinks are safe. And that’s what makes them even more deadly, the fact that people could overdose on them and not know. As you said, drop an iron pill on the floor and the dog or baby just reaches over and picks it up and that’s it!

We’re just not aware of these things, that a lot of the things that are toxic that we talk about in this show are cumulative and so you’re exposed to them over and over and then you get sick. There’s also what are called ‘acute poisons’. These definitely fall into that category. It’s not necessarily that you take one and you’re going to die. But it’s easy to take enough that you could end up having these problems over time.

And they’re so common. They’re so common and people think they’re safe. That’s the thing that’s so amazing to me.

So when we come back, we’re going to heal the last two of the seven deadly drugs. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. Her website is BotanicalResource.com. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. Her website is BotanicalResource.com.

And Pamela, before we go on, since this is the last segment, why don’t you give your phone number again in case anybody who’s listening wants to call you for a free consultation.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah, absolutely. I’m very glad. It’s Botanical Resource. You can reach me here at 727-442-4955. That’s 727442-4955. I’ll be glad to answer any questions you might have about your supplements, your prescriptions, if you’re intested in getting off of some of your prescription, if there are some side effects you’re suspecting that you’re having from your prescriptions and also some homeopathic supplements in place of what you’re taking. I will be glad to adjust these for you.

All follow-ups are free as well. We keep [inaudible 00:39:46]. It’s very professional. So I’ll be very glad to help you or your family.

DEBRA: Yes, she is very professional. I take remedies that she suggested to me. She’s very well-respected here in Clearwater, Florida by patients and doctors. My medical doctor said, “If Pamela tells you to take it, take it.” She gives lectures to doctors and things like that.

Anyway, so we have two more deadly drugs. Number six?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Number six is Lamisil. This is a prescription. It’s called terbinafine. It’s one of these things if you have toenail fungus, you know the fungus beneath your toes that you go to the doctor, they give you Lamicil, they give you the treatment. You have to take one pill a day usually for several weeks. This can cause severe liver failure. It’s highly hepatotoxic. So if you’re going to the doctor and you’re asking for this particular prescription because you want to take the oral drug to eliminate the fungus that grows underneath the nail, this drug is very, very dangerous. I would tell people to really avoid it. You should be using topical things.

And actually, what works really well for that particular stuff is standardized oil of oregano. It’s an anti-fungal in itself. And the whole idea behind taking something orally is because you need to come up to the nail bed. They have a lot of these tea tree things and stuff you paint on.

That stuff doesn’t really work because it’s under the nail. It needs to come from the bloodstream and bring the medicine up. So oil of oregano capsules work very good for that.

And I also use medical-grade Andrographis to treat that instead. The fungus under the nail is a common problem, but taking the oral medications is highly suspect in causing liver failure. That’s one of those that you’ll go to the doctor’s, he’ll give you the pill and then he won’t really warn you about the liver failure. The thing with liver problems is that once they show up, they don’t have anything to fix it. It’s one of these all-or-nothing sort of problems. That’s really dangerous.

But these are the common problems. I mean, what precentage of the population has a fungus under their nail and they want to get their nail beds looking better. Maybe they want to have a French manicure and they don’t want to have the discoloration so they go to the doctor and they get the prescription. You need to be wary of using that.

DEBRA: I’ve been listening to everything you’ve been saying today obviously. But what I’m thinking is that most of the things that you’ve talked about, I thought, “Oh, damage the liver and/or the kidneys” and the liver and the kidneys are the primary detox organs in our bodies.

So here’s the question. Even if people are not having a deadly effect from these drugs, wouldn’t the liver and kidneys be weakened and it would be more difficult for them to detox other toxic substances that we might be being exposed to.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, by far. And the big thing is it’s cumulative. Maybe you have a glass of wine and you’ve had a Tylenol because you had a really bad headache and you had a really hard day at work. And then you’ve been treating your toenail fungus with this Lamisil. And maybe at the same time, you took some Ibuprofen the day before, maybe you’re on Metformin. Let’s start simple, but all these things together are a big problem.

DEBRA: Well, not only the drugs altogether, but you take these and then you go pump gas in your car or get this nail polish or hair spray or lie in bed and get a formaldehyde exposure from your permanent press bedsheets. All these drugs are contributing to the overall toxic load of your body.

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. I’m a big advocate. If I tell people to do everything, you really need to be doing the Body Anew to clean the chemicals out of your day. I do it every single day to just take this stuff out.

And you really need to be on medical-grade fish oil, maybe a mood-elevating one. And you need to be on folic acid. Those two things protect the heart and the brain. A lot of people will be taking piles and piles of supplements, but if you’re not taking some of those basic things, you’re really missing the boat because you’re going to end up either with heart disease or cancer. That’s what most people are at risk for really == and the carcinogenic exposure.

But also, the fact that if your liver gets damaged, you’re really not metabolizing and conjugating all these chemicals. So if your liver has problems, whatever exposure you have to fat-soluble chemicals and pesticides, it’s going to be double-fold because your body is not going to process it.

DEBRA: That’s exactly right!

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s the problem. It’s going to store it and cause cancer and other things. It’s one of these things that you want to stay on top of. Especially the people that are listening are probably health-oriented to begin with, they’re interested in trying to improve their health, you need to look at this from a logical standpoint.

DEBRA: Yeah. Okay, good. So number seven.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Number seven is proton pump inhibitors. I would say Protonics, Prilosec, Nexium, Dilatant. These are the drugs that you see a lot. A lot of people are on Omeprazole, Prilosec or Pantoprazole which is Protonics. They’re on these drugs. They block stomach acids. They block all the stomach acids.

In the past, we used to use Tagamet and Pepsid and Zantac and these drugs. Those were called H2 blockers. They block some of the acid, but some of the acids are still there. Now, we use something that blocks all the acid and the problem with that is that you’re not absorbing calcium, you’re not absorbing iron and you’re not absorbing magnesium. Acid needs to be present. So if you want to give somebody brittle bones and anemia, this is a good way to do it.

DEBRA: Wow! Wow!

PAMELA SEEFELD: And a lot of people will go into the hospital for a routine situation. They put everybody on this automatically just to protect against the stress ulcer because you’re stressed when you’re in the hospital. And then they get discharged on it and then they’re on it forever.

Unless you have Barrett’s esophagus or something very dangerous (and there are homeopathic things that work better than this ta twe use), a lot of people are on these things to control stomach acid and they don’t realize that they’re going to end up with brittle bones. I can’t tell you how many times I see elderly ladies that are customers of mine that they’re on one of these medicines and at the same time, they’re taking calcium (well, they’re not absorbing it) and they’re on a medication because of brittle bones, a prescription medication like a biphosphanate.

I’m thinking, “Well, the reason you have brittle bones are because you’re on these drugs. You need to tell the doctor if he’s prescribing this that the anemia you have and the brittle bones and the osteoporosis/osteopenia, those problems are directly as a result because you’re not absorbing any of these nutrients.”

DEBRA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There’s just so many things. I know it can seem really overwhelming at times. But I know for me that I’ve spent a lot of time studying this stuff and it’s easier for all of you listening and reading my things because it takes a lot of research to get to knowing these things. And then, we’re giving you this information, so it’s easier for you to apply than if we weren’t here having already done this research for you.

But I can tell you that over time, it just looks simpler and simpler to me. For example, I just don’t take prescription drugs, I don’t take over-the-counter drugs, that’s it. I mean, I haven’t done that in 25 years. And all the things, you just move over to a different way of looking at things and what your options are, Everything that I do is using natural remedies if I even need to take the remedy because you can do a lot to improve your health with diet and exercise. I know that that sounds like everybody says that, but it’s really true.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, most definitely. So, what I tell people, the diet and exercise makes a big difference. And also, you’re taking the chemicals out on a daily basis and protecting your kidney and liver function. So if you use these things, you need to be cognizant of that.

And there are herbs that can damage this as well. Not only herbs are safe either. There are things that can damage the kidney and the liver.

But if there’s any question about what you’re taking, just give me a call and I will go over it. It’s a short-time conversation that can maybe make a big difference as far as your long-term health.

These things are preventable to some degree. There are some viruses and things can attack the kidney and the liver and the heart. Things happens, I understand that. But a lot of times, these things could’ve been avoided if someone had the knowledge beforehand to try and do something about it.

DEBRA: Right! And we really need to be looking at this. One of the things that I’ve observed is that when you don’t know about toxics, then people are doing things like taking vitamins, maybe eating natural food, but not organic food, they’re not eating out of cans anymore, but they’re eating fresh lettuce from the grocery store, for example, they’re going and getting their check-ups and they’re going to exercise class and all these things, which in kind of the mainstream way are the positive things that people are told to do for their health, taking vitamins, et cetera.

But on the other hand, you’ve got this big onslaught of toxic stuff that is working against your health in consumer products and drugs just all over the place. And what I found in my own life and people that I work with is that if you just start by removing the toxics, remove the toxic drugs, remove the toxic chemicals and then do the things that support your body, it’s kind of like if you’re trying to empty the bath tub and you keep dumping water into it, you’re not going to empty the bath tub.

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. And the thing that I was talking about, the cumulative toxicity, is very real and very present and very dangerous. I don’t think people can realize enough they could do all these things for their health, they’re doing all these food choices, sleeping right, exercising, whatever it may be, drinking filtered water, and then when it comes down to it, they’re taking maybe even supplements that can cause damage to either the kidneys or the liver…

DEBRA: Pamela, I have to interrupt you because the music is going to start in just a second. So thank you so much.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Absolutely! Thank you.

DEBRA: You’re welcome. You can go to BotanicalResource.com. You can call up Pamela and she will help you figure this out. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well.

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