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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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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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