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Natural Medicine Travel Resources

Writer's picture: Dr. Sara HartDr. Sara Hart

Updated: Jan 15

The cold weather of the north in the winter months sends a lot of travelers to journey to warmer climates for quick getaways or extended seasonal adventures. This year, my family is embarking on a journey to not only skip out on the cold winter weather of Colorado, but also to immerse ourselves in a new culture to learn and grow.


As with any new experience, there is risk that what we might encounter may be a threat to our wellbeing. Planning ahead both for safety and health is as essential to our packing list as the bathing suit. As an integrative medicine provider, I have decades of experience now in treating a wide array of common ailments from travel and countless hours of personal research to build the best plan for keeping my family safe.


Let me assist you to feel confident and prepared for life's incredible adventures!


Enjoying a stroll in the beautiful Caye Caulker, Belize
Enjoying a stroll in the beautiful Caye Caulker, Belize

The microbiome is the term for the inner eco-system within our bodies. The balance of the microflora starts with the mouth and continues all throughout our digestive organs. This inner ecology is a fundamental part of our immune system and our ability to tolerate and adapt to the world around us. It plays a big part in our metabolism and we continue to discover more ways the microbiome is responsible for our health and well-being.


Any new exposure can pose a challenge to the body. Eating a new variety of food, consuming water from a different part of the world will all affect the microbiome. Additionally, many tropical regions have challenges with municipal water purification systems increasing the risk of water born illness considerably. It is always wise to use extra filters with drinking water but for some people and for the challenge with traveling this is essential.


Despite our best efforts, it is very common to experience illness with travel. For many people in the modern world, we exist at such a high stress state on the day to day basis that as soon as the stress level reduces with a vacation, the illness that was already present in the body finally has a chance to discharge. This is a results of the powerful effect that cortisol (the primary stress hormone) has on immune suppression. Many people will tell me they always get sick on vacation. This is likely not a result of the places they travel but moreso the imbalance in stress response in their everyday life. When we take time to relax, the stress hormones drop and this allows for the rest & digest function of the nervous system to begin the cleanup process of what was held off during the time our body was in survival mode. Accumulated pathogens, toxins and other metabolic waste can all activate the immune system when we shift gears from an unsustainable stress level into our vacation state of being.


Filtering water can help prevent new bacteria and parasites from foreign lands from causing illness, but for some individuals it doesn't take much to trigger the body to purge with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Small amounts of tap water consumed with tooth brushing, swimming pools or improperly prepared food can all cause digestive illness. The array of organisms in food and filtered water that may be normal for locals can also be major offenders for travelers and cause sickness as well.


Here are the medicinals I carry to protect my health and my family with tropical adventures. Keep in mind, any medicinal resource is only as valuable as the source that it comes from! The vast majority of supplement companies are getting ingredients from unclean sources. In fact, the supplement industry started from corporations looking for a way to dispose of industrial pollution in a way that could make money. Thus it is incredibly important to use clean ingredients if we are endeavoring to benefit our health. You will see a direct link to their ingredients and how to purchase them from my online store below:


Daily Resources


  • Mysoshield Spray - 2-4 sprays daily and before exposures to large groups.


    Medicinal mushrooms are a great resource for the immune system. This formula works to directly assist the body's immune response where it matters most, in the mouth! The tissue inside the mouth connects up into the sinus and is the region where we have the first exposure to potential pathogens. This is the region of the body that is most important to have a functional immune system in order to eliminate and detoxify waste and irritants right away. When this tissue is health, a simple sneeze and the activation of the immune cells of the sinus, mouth and throat are all it takes to prevent illness.


  • Blue Heron - 3 caps daily for adults, 1 cap daily for children.


    This is a fantastic digestive tonic. Detox support with a variety of fiber to help absorb excess waste and prevent irritation. Includes resources to soothe digestive irritation and probiotics to prevent illness and keep the immune system attentive.


  • Oscillococcinum - Preventative dose is 1 vial of pellets per person at the start of travel. For symptomatic relief of flu-like illness, take 1 full tube at the first sign of symptoms, then approximately 1/4 tube every 3-4 hours until symptoms pass.


    This remedy is especially helpful if traveling to climates other than what the body is acclimated to and in areas that are currently in flu-season. I have seen research studies demonstrate greater effectiveness for seasonal flu prevention with patients using this remedy as compared to standard treatment. Unfortunately these studies are no longer available since the internet censorship in the US increased significantly in the past several years. Homeopathic medicines are under threat by many systems due to their competitiveness with standard treatments. These remedies have extremely rare side effects if any at all.


  • Advanced Nutrients - 2-4 caps daily for adults, 1 cap daily for kids.


    Comprehensive multivitamin for children or adults for optimal health support. Includes necessary vitamins for optimal immunity, detoxification, preventing inflammation and balancing blood chemistry. This iron-free formula is safe for men and non-mensturating females. May need additional iron for growing children or menstruating women.


    Multivitamins are a good idea for modern wellness due to the signficant nutritional compromise of many parts of the world. The contamination with pesticides, water pollution, hormones and more create a burden of toxicity that is very difficult to avoid. By using high quality, concentrated nutrients from clean sources we can have support with discharging the contaminated nutrients in our bodies and activate healthier organ function.


Acute Illness Treatment Tools

  • Activated Charcoal - Adults, use 2 caps morning and night for exposures, up to 3 caps 4x/day for acute symptoms. For children take 1 capsule once daily for exposure, up to 1 cap 4x/day for acute symtpoms.


    This is a great, cost effective charcoal to treat acute illness. Take at first sign of any digestive distress or if you have suspected exposure to pathogens or toxins.


  • Ultra Binder - Alternate charcoal that is a stronger and more comprehensive blend that also binds heavy metals, virus and a wide variety of additional toxins! Take at first sign of any digestive distress or if you have suspected exposure to pathogens. For adults, use 2 caps morning and night for exposures, up to 3 caps 4x/day for acute symptoms. For children take 1 capsule once daily for exposure, up to 1 cap 4x/day for acute symtpoms.


  • Berberine - Adults take 2 capsules 2-3 x/day, children take 1 cap 1-3 times per day.


    Use for any acute travelers diarrhea or other digestive upset. Berberine is a compound effective for eliminating digestive pathogens, boosts the immune system and helps clear heat toxins from the body. It is typically a very well tolerated treatment for all ages.


  • Nux Vomica 30c - Take 3-5 pellets up to every 30 minutes until symptoms resolve. Can help break the cycle of vomiting if used at first sign of symptom or as soon as vomiting is complete.


    Symptomatic relief for nausea, stomach pain, stress and sensory overload.


  • Colocynthis 30c - Take 3-5 pellets up to every 30 minutes until symptoms resolve.


    Symptomatic relief for abdominal pain. Especially helpful if pain is better bending forward with pressure.


  • Para-Gard - Adults use 1-4 capsules morning and night on an empty stomach. Children over 6 take 1 cap once daily.


    Parasite or other digestive pathogen herbal treatment. For digestive illness not resolved with singular bout of nausea, vomiting or diarrhea, parasite treatment may be needed. This natural option can treat acute or long-term infections. Can pair with pharmaceutical support as well if needed.


  • Aller-C - Adults can take 2-4 capsules up to 3x/day and children can take 1 capsule 3x/day.


    Excellent immune resource to support the body through colds, flus, allergic reactions and other inflammatory responses. This is a combination of some of the best immune resources in the world.


All of these resources are available through my online store!


By ordering through my store, you support my private practice having sliding scale options and my ongoing dedication to educating individuals on the use of natural medicine. I know you may find these items for lower cost on Amazon but by prioritizing corporate discounts it undermines self-employed businesses to succeed. I appreciate your support!


Individualized Healthcare is the Best Healthcare!


I'm happy to share information for the use of natural medicine tools. However if someone were to take all of these resources all of the time it would be entirely over-doing it! An essential component to navigating our health is learning what our systems respond best to, how to feel what we need and pairing our knowledge with our intuition to make empowered choices.


One might say that an average person is in good health on a general basis and can tolerate an level of stress to the mental and physical health without consequence. However in todays world that may or may not be true. The statistics on health around the world vary widely, some countries with the largest percentage of people having significant chronic disease. When we take on new adventures and with that new exposures, it is important to assess what our baseline health needs are and then prepare accordingly.


A thorough individualized health plan will help people to know what their core patterns of deficiency are that need to be tended regularly in order to stay well. In addition, we can learn what our bodies tendencies are when we are stressed to learn what our compensation methods on on a physical level so that we can foster improvements over time.


Chinese medicine and homeopathic medicine come from systems of healing that have incredible detail of how we decompensate over time. There is not just "good health" and "poor health." Rather, we see stages of well-being and functional organ dynamics that change with stress and age that lead us to be more vulnerable.

I am happy to offer remote and in-person healthcare appointments in order to create customized plans for your individualized health. The more we know about the subtle signs and symptoms our bodies express the more we can adjust our routines to prepare for healthy futures. It is a common expression I hear from patients that they say, "This is normal for me." I had one patient who had a bowel movement once per week and urinated once per day. She had been this way her entire life. Despite the normalcy from her point of view, it was evident in her health that her organs were compensating in a very negative way. Although she felt generally good, I encouraged her to use resources to help her body make changes to her normal patterns in order to achieve optimal function.


Case Review = 10 year old acute digestive illness

Here is a demonstration of an acute illness episode and how it was successfully treated with natural medicine:


Around 9pm after lying down to sleep for the night, Sally calls to her parents that she is afraid she is going to be sick. Within moments she started to vomit and had excrutiating pain in her abdomen. Using a cool damp washcloth on the patients forehead and neck, the episode began to calm down. The Mom immediately opened a capsule of charcoal and put it into a cup of water. The patient swished with this and swallowed small sips of it. Avoiding swallowing capsules during episodes of vomiting can reduce the potential to trigger the stomach to purge again.


Then, the patient used Nux Vom 30c pellets, slowly letting them dissolve in her mouth. Within 15 minutes the pain started to return. Mom refreshed the cool washcloth and placed it on the forehead, advising the child to breath slowly into the back of the throat, keeping the belly still as possible. The pressure point on the middle of the wrist known as Pericardium 6, Nei Guan in Chinese medicine is a common point used for nausea relief. The patient pressed gently on this point for several minutes alternating one side, then the next.


The patient continued to take sips of charcoal and nux vom through the night. In the morning, the nausea had subsided considerably but the abdominal pain continued. She took 1 capsule of charcoal and 1 capsule of berberine. By midday she was feeling much better and was ready to go snorkeling! However, her energy was still low so with her parents advice she waited another day before any significant exertion. She ate simple well-cooked foods and added 1 cap Advanced Nutrients with her meal.

To prevent recurrence, she added Berberine with Blue Heron for 3 more nights and then resumed routine treatment with MycoShield in the morning, 1 cap Advanced Nutrients with breakfast and 1 cap Blue Heron before bed each night.


For questions, inspirations and for personalized healthcare, please do not hesistate to reach out!

Be well and safe travels, Dr. Sara Hart



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