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Many types of pain can be relieved through the use of a ginger compress
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Tasty peach flavor |
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| Your health insurance: tasty liquid vitamins and antioxidants with all-natural ingredients and minerals plucked from plants and the earth itself - no sugar or artificial preservatives added. |
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Author: Meggan Brunner |
Making a Ginger Compress
All you need is:
- fresh ginger roots
- a large, heavy pot with a lid
- a gallon of water
- a grater
- a large, thick bath towel
- three small kitchen cloths
- a small cotton bag with a string so it can be closed tightly
First, bring a gallon of water to boil in a covered pot. Simultaneously, wash and grate 100 grams of ginger roots in a circular motion. Wet the cotton bag, put the ginger inside and close the bag tightly. As soon as the water is in the pot and it begins to boil, turn down the heat so that the water is only simmering.
From this point onwards the water should not be brought to a boiling point again as it will destroy the active ingredients of the ginger. Uncover the pot, squeeze the bag over the pot again and let it simmer for 5 minutes. As the liquid becomes yellowish, turn off the heat completely. Remove the pot and prepare to give yourself a ginger compress.
Applying a compress
While it is usually easy to give yourself a compress, the back is not as easy to reach as are other parts of the body, and so it is advisable to get a friend to help you. Remembering that the compress is given while the water is still fairly hot, don't waste too much time getting started, although you can always reheat the water slightly if it becomes too cool during the process of applying the compress. So, to begin, follow these six easy steps:
1. Lie down comfortably on the floor. Fold a kitchen towel in half and then again so that the length of it is long and the width is short.
2. Remove the lid from the pot and dip the middle part of the towel into the water, holding each end in either hand. Squeeze a little of the water out of the towel and back into the pot.
3. Unfold the steaming towel and refold it so that it will best fit the area that is going to be treated. Test that the towel is not too hot to be applied directly to the skin. You want to be careful not to burn the skin.
4. Apply the towel (or towels, if the area is very large) directly to the area that is being treated. The towel should be as hot as the person can handle it. Fortunately in this situation, the back is not as sensitive to heat as other areas of the body.
5. To keep the treated area as hot as possible, place one or two larger towels over the wet towels. This will ensure that the heat is retained for any time between three and ten minutes.
6. As soon as the person being treated no longer feels the heat of the compress, apply a new one. Keep applying a new compress until the skin of the treated area remains a lasting deep red colour. This process could take between twenty and thirty minutes.
After the treatment you can rinse and dry the towels. It is a good idea to keep them separate from your other towels and use them only for ginger compresses.
Note that the ginger water you prepared will lose its potency within two or three hours, so if you are treating a serious condition you will have to prepare a fresh ginger water if you wish to apply a second treatment. For less serious conditions you can reuse the ginger water within a period of twenty-four hours.
I hope that those of you with back pain who have read this article may be inspired and empowered to do something positive about it. Happy, healthy lives are our birth right! There is no reason why we should not live happy lives with maximum health at all times. Enjoy the journey!
Protect your back
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By courtesy of Sheila Waters, Nutritional Consultant & Manager
Sangster's Health Centres
418-500 Country Hills Blvd NE, Calgary - Canada
Phone: (403)226-5910 Fax: (403)226-5912 www.sangsters.com | | | |
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