For me, natural medicines & remedies are almost a hobby so I have a variety of things on hand and that we take regularly.
First off we all eat plain yogourt with a bit of lemon juice and stevia (for sweetness) every morning as part of our breakfast so that gives us a good start with digestive enzymes and probiotics. In that yogourt I usually mix in some ground flax seeds and chia seeds as well as a bit of bee pollen (all very healthy). In the winter time, I also add 2000 IU's of Vitamin D3 into my kid's yogourt (dh & I take 4000 IU's a day in capsule form per day in the winter). I get the kids Vit D3 in capsule form and I just open up the capsule and mix the powder in with the yogourt...really easy! The Vit D3 supplementation probably made the biggest difference for us last winter with regards to not getting sick...it was amazing (it was our first year supplementing with that). Other than that, if a cold is coming on, we ingest a few drops of grapefruit seed extract mixed with OJ (& sometimes a bit of baking soda and stevia). We also swear by Cold Eeze lozenges which are homeopathic. They work amazingly well! Just make sure you trust your child with a hard candy lozenge and you supervise them. In addition we also keep Hyland's homeopathic complete Flu Care 4 kids which contains Anas Barbariae which is the same homeopathic ingredient as the much more expensive Oscillococcilum (sp?) for much cheaper. DH & I take it too (not just the kids) because there is no such thing as a "child's dose" when it comes to homeopathy...that's just not how it works..
We also have a 100 remedy homeopathic kit and about 4 books for reference and we use those all the time for various issues that arise from having 3 kiddos 5 & under
We also love our arnica gel for bumps & bruises as well as our calendula ointment for cuts, burns, etc We have various essential oils that we use for different things though I still have a lot to learn about those!
I would say I'm also less well versed with regard to herbs for healing since I do seem to lean on homeopathy as my go-to thing for healing.
Anyway, I definitely understand how overwhelming it all feels sometimes to learn & acquire all these various products because I still feel that way sometimes too. But over the last few years, as I've become more familiar with all these different things, I've accumulate more of the necessities and feel better prepared. Oh and I am expecting a shipment of homeopathic nosodes in the next month or so (from India where homeopathy is much more common) which are the equivalent of homeopathic vaccines. They have been proven to work extremely well during various outbreaks of diseases in may parts of the world. It's essentially a tiny molecule of the disease which has been diluted and shaken (the typical homeopathic preparation) and when it's ingested, it triggers your body to heal itself from that specific disease. It has also been shown to be effective as a preventative measure when an outbreak occurs. And of course, it doesn't have any of the horrid chemicals that are included in the vaccines nor is it injected directly into your bloodstream where it bypasses your natural defenses. so I'm pretty excited about having those on hand *just in case*.
It's helped many a wound, burn, sore throat, abscess etc.
