Antibiotics have saved countless millions of lives since Alexander Fleming created penicillin in 1928. Prior to antibiotics, an infection from a seemingly small, insignificant wound could--and did--kill people.
Unfortunately, antibiotics are not a silver bullet. Many strains of bacteria have developed resistance to them, resulting in millions of deaths each year in America from infections by "super bugs" (resistant bacteria).
Not only that, but antibiotics do not discriminate between the friendly bacteria that you need in your gut to have a healthy microbiome, and dangerous, life threatening bacteria that they are intended to kill. Antibiotics kill all bacteria in and on your body. This leaves your gut a clean slate, open to colonization by nasty bacteria and yeasts that cause gut dysbiosis. Leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and small intestine bacteria overgrowth (SIBO) are a few of the illnesses that result from having the wrong microbes inside of you.
Remember, having a healthy gut is central, CRUCIAL to your overall health. You simply cannot be healthy if your gut has the wrong ecology.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was something that killed dangerous bacteria and not good bacteria?
Colloidal Silver
People learned thousands of years ago that silver has antimicrobial properties, long before the micro-world was understood. Old cisterns in Israel have been discovered that have silver coins in them to keep the water healthy. My grandfather's uncle had a dairy, and he would put silver coins in the raw milk to preserve it prior to refrigeration.
Many ways of integrating silver into modern products have been invented. For instance, you can buy wound dressings for burns which incorporate silver particles. Airplanes utilize air filters with silver components. NASA developed silver ion water purification technology for the Apollo space program which is now used in home water filters, pools, and hospitals.
Colloidal silver is a medicine that brings antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties into your home, and it does not kill a healthy microbiome.
I have a book written by a PhD who first learned about coilloidal silver when a student in his biology class told him that his mom had had him drink 2 ounces of it every day growing up, and he had never been sick a day in his life.
I don't know how it works. I have spoken with people who make and use colloidal silver and they all said that they feel they have good gut health in spite of frequent (even daily) use of the product. Somehow, colloidal silver kills the bad guys but not the good guys.
I tested this. I made a batches of sauerkraut, and daikon, carrot, ginger ferment. For both batches, I took veggies from my organic garden, shredded them, mixed them with non-iodized salt, and packed them into multiple jars for fermenting. With both batches, I chose one jar to add colloidal silver to. I kept the test jars with silver next to the other jars with no silver so that conditions were exactly the same, the only difference was that test jars had silver and the others did not.
The jars with silver bubbled and fermented exactly the same as the jars without silver. Bubbling in veggie ferments is the action of lactic bacteria metabolizing sugars from the food into carbon dioxide as they grow. In other words, the bubbles are the result of active, healthy, multiplying lactic bacteria.
At the time of writing this blog, I have eaten one of the test jars, and it tasted exactly like the control jars without silver. The flavor and texture were great. It was tangy and had that lactic "bite" that good lacto fermented veggies should have.
I am satisfied from this experiment that colloidal silver does not negatively impact beneficial bacteria. By extension, I assume that it does not harm beneficial yeasts that also play a role in a healthy gut.
How do you use colloidal silver?
Preventatively. Now that I have it, I plan to give it to my son at the start of the school year every day for the first few weeks so he doesn't get that beginning-of-the-year sickness that he always gets.
Infections. One of my barn cats got four holes impaled through his paw. (I have no idea what happened, poor kitty!) The paw began to swell, ooze lots of puss, and the fur began to fall off. I started giving him colloidal silver every day and almost immediately the swelling went down, the oozing decreased, and the fur began to grow back. His paw is now completely healed.
Burns. Submerge a burn in colloidal silver for as long as possible. It will not swell up and it will heal much faster.
Swish colloidal silver for a non toxic mouthwash. You can swallow it.
Gut health. Colloidal silver will kill off bad microbes in your gut. Start slowly with how much you take, because if you have an unhealthy microbiome, the bad bacteria will release toxins as they die off. This causes a "Herxheimer reaction" which can be rather unpleasant, even though it is ultimately for your good. Herx reactions can cause fever, hives, and nausea. As the bad bacteria clear out, the Herx symptoms will subside. Be sure to eat fermented foods like sauerkraut, yogurt, and kefir to recolonize your gut with friendly bacteria.
Ear and eye infections. You can apply colloidal silver with a dropper directly to ears and eyes (provided the ear drum is not ruptured). Apply several times a day till cleared up.
Gargle for a sore throat.
Acne. Apply colloidal silver directly to your face or affected body parts. Let it dry on your skin.
Nebulize. If you have asthma, or if you inhale a lot of dust, nebulize straight colloidal silver. I inhaled a lot of dust once, and nebulizing silver soothed my very irritated lungs immediately and helped me cough up the dust particles.
Nasal spray. For sinus infections, get colloidal silver in a nasal spray bottle and spray while inhaling through the nostril.
Put a little colloidal silver in your water bottle every day to prevent mildew growth.
There are many, many more uses for your body, pets, and home. Join a colloidal silver facebook group to see how other people are using it. I like the group "Colloidal Silver for Kids, Adults, and Pets".
The strength that I use is 10 ppm. Since there are much higher strengths available, you might think that 10 ppm is weak. It's not weak. It is very effective, yet gentle.
Home Brewed Medicine
Once I got hooked on colloidal silver, I didn't want to be limited by the cost of buying it by the bottle. (Not that it's terribly expensive, but if you use it liberally, you can go through a lot in a hurry.)
So I got myself a colloidal silver generator. Now I make my own at home!
You make colloidal silver by putting two pure silver rods in distilled water, attaching a positive electrode to one, a negative electrode to the other, and allowing electricity to pass through the water from one to the other for about 4 hours. It is fascinating to watch, you can actually see silver particles swirling in the water.
Now I make colloidal silver by the gallon, as often as I want. If you get hooked and get your own generator, be sure to either store your silver in a dark place, or buy amber glass bottles for it.
What About Argyria?
Some people claim that using colloidal silver causes argyria, or turns you blue.
The PhD I mentioned above has compiled all of the scientific papers he could find on colloidal silver, and he claims that the people who turned blue from silver were not using actual coilloidal silver, but various "silver salts", which are chemical compounds that contain silver, not in colloidal form.
Conversely, I have spoken with someone who claimed that anyone can get argyria from colloidal silver, it depends on a person's unique chemistry. (I don't know if she actually knew of anyone that this happened to, it sounded theoretical.)
I do not know which of those assertions is true. What I do know is that I use colloidal silver liberally, I give it to my family and pets liberally, I know other people who use it liberally, and none of us have turned even slightly blue from it.
For how many people use colloidal silver, if turning blue was a common side effect, you would see a lot more blue people walking around. There seem to be only a small number of people who claim that silver turned them blue, and the media loves to inflate and sensationalize it.
I guess you have to do your own research and do what seems right to you.
If you like the idea of colloidal silver and want to try it for yourself, I highly recommend you purchase from Angelica's Silver Therapeutics. Angelica is very knowledgable and helpful. She makes it right next door in New Hampshire. She did not sponsor this blog. Almost all of my experience with silver has been with product that she made, or with the generator that I purchased from her. She is also the administrator of the facebook group I recommended above.
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