Hearing, Milk and Joshua

(This is an old draft that I just found, while editing another post, from almost a year ago. )

MILK!!

About a two years ago Joshua was scheduled for minor surgery (tubes in ear). He had lost a major part of his hearing. The problem was that it wasn't constant. The doctors didn't have any other ideas. He would go days hearing well and then go more days hardly hearing at all. (Which is a surprise as we are not a quiet household!) For some reason I just felt really uneasy about doing the tubes. I realized that it was not major surgery and it would be done very quickly, but I just got this "pit" in my stomach thinking about it.

I talked to my dad about this who suggested I try taking him off milk, and give him his cod liver oil more regularly. He explained that you can take care of the symptom (loss of hearing) with surgery, but if there is an allergy it will eventually exhibit itself in another way down the road - whether it is headaches, stomach problems, even diabetes etc. What was important was finding the cause and eliminating or treating it.

Reluctantly (only because it is hard enough feeding our family with foods that everyone likes and milk was a part of our diet) I did this, half-heartedly. We then took him in to be tested again. His hearing had improved, but not to the standard that we wanted it to be. Then he got a cold and his hearing got even worse. So we scheduled the surgery. We had 2 or 3 weeks to go.


We decided to give it one more chance so we took him completely off milk, gave him his cod liver oil and Vit E daily, also some A/D. We had him tested the day before surgery and the dr couldn't believe it. She asked us what we had been doing and said "Keep doing it!" The hearing in his right ear had come back in full and the left was on it's way. We already knew it had gotten better just in our talking with Josh (and him responding!) but we didn't realize how much better he was. So, we cancelled the surgery :) I'm so happy we waited on the surgery because had the tubes cleared up his hearing we probably would have just been done with it and not worried about what was causing it. The dr did say that there was no infection and no damage was being done currently. I wanted to see if we could get to the root of the problem first - find the cause, and not just treat the symptom.

In the place of cow milk we had been buying Rice milk for Joshua. Rice milk is a little pricey, but it was worth it to have him hearing again. Then, like I said above, we started buying raw milk. Raw milk goes for $5.50 per half gallon - so pretty much the price of gold. I really wanted the raw milk for all of it's health benefits (See below.) Then I recently scrutinized more carefully the rice milk ingredients and realized that yes, it was better than soy milk (think hormone imbalance and overload) and better for at least Josh in some ways, but it also had canola oil, natural sweeteners (do we really need added sugar and oils in our milk?!) No wonder I was enjoying my cup a day as well :)

I decided to let Josh try the raw milk and see if it plugged up his ears again. It didn't. I was thrilled (think only having to buy one kind of milk now :). Mostly I was happy because I didn't want him to miss out on all of the health benefits that raw milk provides. Drinking pasteurized milk has no benefits. Everything is cooked out and then artificially added back. Your body doesn't need sythetic Vit A. In fact, it has been shown that putting sythetic vit A in your body actually decreases the amount of vitamin A that your body would have naturally produced on it's own.

I know there are a lot of people out there who will tell you that raw milk is dangerous, but if you look at the statistics, you are more likely to have long term problems from the over-the-counter drugs that are "acceptable" (think Tylenol, vaccines, statins, anti-biotics). The problems (people getting sick from it) with milk came when it got "industrialized" too quickly. The FDA (not that this should give you a lot of confidence) has stringent requirements on the raw milk dairy farmers and if a dairy is clean and the cows are allowed to live as nature intended you will only reap the benefits of milk the way God intended it to be for us. Also, raw milk dairies have to have extremely sanitary conditions as nothing will be "cooked" for safety.

And here he is - happy and doing great in 1st grade. His teacher says she has never noticed any problems with Joshua's hearing.

As of a few months ago we have joined a co-op to get raw milk here in Livermore. I have to order the milk online by Thursday and then I pick it up Monday morning at the co-op organizer's home. I don't always remember in time and then I have to buy regular milk. The milk comes from Fresno (near Allan and Buffy's new home) about 3-4 hours away. Not too long ago raw milk was "outlawed" here in California thanks to the lovely intervention of the government. (read Ezra Taft Benson's "Proper Role of Government" and the Constitution for more insight :) but it isn't "contraband" anymore.

Update: we didn't really stick with buying the raw milk for the above reasons - price, inconvenience and now as I write - it is up to $6 per half gallon. I'm going to start up again, maybe just 1 half gallon a week just so the kids can get those good minerals. (However, each child will only be allowed one Tablespoon per day! haha - well, not totally kidding!) My dad was telling me that his knee that gives him pain is 90% pain free after starting up again on raw milk. It is hard to find a convenient place to buy it. Growing up, in SLC it was a bit of a drive to get it, but then in Oregon for a while we could buy it at a nearby grocery store. Now, you can't do that anymore, but my dad recently found a small dairy farm to buy it from. He said that Ali loves to go with him and see the goats etc. How fun.

Some more fun reading if you are interested:


Abstracts on the Effect of Pasteurization on the Nutritional Value of Milk http://www.realmilk.com/abstractsmilk.html

More about Raw Milk http://www.realmilk.com/moreraw.html

Raw Milk vs. Pasteurized http://www.realmilk.com/rawvpasteur.html

Milk, It Does A Body Good? http://westonaprice.org/transition/dairy.html

Is Raw Milk Safe For Babies? http://ww.westonaprice.org/children/rawmilk.html

Another more "newsy" article:
http://americasfuture.org/doublethink/2008/08/some-like-it-raw/