#26: My Garlic, My Hero

Thanks to livetoeat-megha.blogspot.com for the picture!

Taking off from the sharp garlic from our pesto recipe, let me share this with you:

"Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” Ezekiel 47:12

I am a believer that the creation of our Lord, in its simplest forms, is already His provision to comfort the aches and pains of our body in this earth. I only thought of it in my mind before but imagine my surprise when I found this passage! It turns out that the leaves of the trees and plants around us really are designed to heal! My lola knew it! Our ancestors knew it! They followed their instinct, their noses, their senses and thought it good to place guava leaves on wounds, acapulco on infections, juice the lagundi and oregano for coughs. I even proved it myself just yesterday when the synthetic remedies failed me.

Since I got pregnant, my teeth started acting funny and started conking out on me. My right upper premolar and left upper molar started getiing sensitive to hot and cold drinks. They hurt when I chew mildly tough or crunchy food. Now I am already breastefeeding and I'm still a big candidate for calcium depletion. One delicious lunch last Wednesday, while we're eating Tokwa and Crispy Baboy (with toyo, suka and onions), a sharp pain shot through my left molar. Uh-oh. That was already a warning sign, I knew it. The problem was, that night was my dad's birthday celebration. Needless to say, the tooth had to go on heavy duty work the same day. Being a voracious eater, I ate to my heart's content, only, my teeth didn't make it to  dessert. Imagine my misery! We had Claudette's Cloud 9 Cake and a Baby Ruth-flavored ice cream but my tooth was throbbing the whole time.

Since then, the pain escalated and the tooth got more sensitive than ever. This was the worst I had it by far. The pain drove me to tears almost everytime! Ouch! I tried to take this ibuprofen-paracetamol pill but it barely did anything. I was shaking in pain last night when I thought of searching the net for a remedy for this. The first thing I saw was to place a piece of raw garlic with salt on the bad tooth. The article said it can kill bacteria that may cause the toothache.  I told my husband I'd try anything at this point so my husband who felt so sorry for me sliced some garlic. I gingerly stuck a piece in between the teeth, rubbed it on my gums, then eventually chewed on it. WADAYAKNOW? The pain eventually dulled then disappeared! Whew! I was so relieved I decided to sleep with garlic between my teeth. Never mind waking up with garlic-breath rather than seeing the morning with fresh breath and no sleep! 

Of course, the relief was not permanent. I eventually had to take antibiotics to prep me for the visit to the dentist. But then I thought, "why aren't these things taught in schools? Why don't we trust in the healing abilities of our plants and fruits?" My daughter gets healed from cough by oregano alone. One of our surgeon friend that in a recent study, it was found out that guyabano leaves can heal cancer 10 times BETTER than the debilitating chemotherapy. And now, garlic for toohaches. More than ever, my belief in the natural and the simple is strengthened. There must be some blessing to the vegetation of our earth for them to be able to heal. After all, the Bible said so.