>> "No form of vinegar changes body pH or has any effect on toxins. The body's natural processes, mediated largely through the liver and kidneys, eliminate waste products and toxic substances." It's as if you are still rejecting the efficacy of Cinchona bark for treating malaria because the Amazonian Indians haven't discovered the formula for the quinine it contains. Instead, they say that the bark of the Cinchona tree contains the spirit of the God Xohopichulato, which destroys the evil spirit that causes malaria. If you want to rest in your beliefs that there is no Xohopichulato and therefore Cinchona cannot help with malaria, fine. Just don't pretend it is science. It is arrogant ethnocentrism, not scientific empiricism. Your arguments are based on an arbitrary and artificial definition of the word 'toxin'. You are ignoring the fact that ordinary substances can build up to toxic levels under many conditions - for example, glucose can build up to toxic levels when there is insulin resistance. In such a case, anything that reduces insulin resistance or lowers glucose levels would in fact be a 'detoxification' process. Likewise, immune hormones like the interferons and interleukins are necessary under certain conditions, but at higher doses (ie when there is infection or chronic inflammation) they often cause side effects that range from unpleasant to lethal. In SARS, H5N1 bird flu, and other killer influenzas, the body's immune system destroys the body. Immune hormones that might sometimes be beneficial are produced at toxic levels. This is quite different from your idea of metabolic toxins that are normally handled by the kidneys and liver. The short chain fatty acids present in vinegar (acetate, proprionate, butyrate) have been repeatedly shown to lower inflammatory cytokines (which have been implicated as a contributor to migraines). These simple compounds also affect levels of leptin, adiponectin and other compounds that regulate glucose, and there is research implicating this in the pathogenesis of migraines. You have stooped to pseudoscience by refusing to look at the evidence that vinegar can dramatically change certain chemicals in the body. You seem to take comfort in linguistic tautologies about 'toxins' that have little bearing on the underlying facts of the matter. Here is a link that might be useful: Glucose, Adiponectin, Immune Hormones and Migraine.

Just when I think my problems with emails to & from GW users are over, the buggers come back. Posting here to ensure you have gotten my email & to make sure the box below to receive posts are emailed to me. They have been unchecking on me, so I have been acting like a fool, repetitively posting on a thread until the box stays checked or constantly checking a thread for updates.

I grow pretty much the same herbs Dorothy listed, and also grow borage, both the white-flowered and blue-flowered versions. The borage repels tomato hornworms, so I interplant it with my tomato plants, and the flowers attract bees and other pollinators. Borage leaves and flowers are edible and have a cucumber flavor to them. I also grow Mexican Mint Marigold, also known as Texas Tarragon. It is a good substitute for regular French Tarragon, which doesn't like our heat. I also grow papalo as a summer substitute for cilantro. I grew Milk Thistle plants from seed this year, planting them in a large rectangle around the corn plants, like a fence around the corn which already was in a fenced garden. The milk thistles are large prickly plants and I hoped they'd keep the raccoons out of the corn. The coons didn't get any of the corn, but I don't know if the milk thistle gets credit for it because I had three separate beds of corn, and only one was surrounded by milk thistle. It is rare the coons don't get all the corn, or at least try to, so something else (likely the distemper outbreak among the coons) accounts for them not getting any of the corn. The butterflies did like the milk thistle plants when they bloomed. I grow fennel for the swallowtails. I grow tansy because (a) it is pretty and (b) it is said to repel flies, though I cannot tell it does. I grow chamomile for chamomile tea (a little chamomile tea can help prevent damping off when you are raising seedlings indoors under lights too). I tried Stevia too and didn't care for the bitter aftertaste so don't waste space on it any longer. I grow comfrey merely so I can harvest the leaves (they are big-leaved plants) and put them on the compost pile. Comfrey plants are dynamic accumulators of potassium, so one way to put potassium into your compost is to grow and compost comfrey. As a bonus, theryare very attractive plants, especially when in bloom. Because comfrey also mines other nutrients from the ground, it adds nutrition to the compost pile, or you can cut off leaves and place them directly on the ground underneath other plants as mulch, and they'll release their nutrients back into the ground as they decompose. Or, you can brew comfrey tea and use it as a fertilizer in the same way you use manure tea or compost tea. Comfrey is considered a natural type of compost accelerator. I like to grow feverfew because feverfew flowers are pretty and the tea is good for migraine headaches. A new herb (and actually it is an herbaceous perennial, but you use the flower calyx in tea) I'm growing this year is Roselle. If you are familiar with Red Zinger tea, it is the calyx from the roselle flowers that put the zing in the red zinger tea. They don't bloom until late in the season, so none have bloomed yet. I grow catmint as an ornamental, and it just gives the butterflies more flowers to enjoy, and some cats like catmint in the same way they like catnip. I don't have just one favorite herb. I like growing and using all of them. Most herbs, when allowed to flower, attract beneficial insects and pollinators, which is important to me since I garden organically. That's all I can think of at the moment, and I'm sure I forgot some of the herbs we grow. I'd almost have to walk through the garden with a notebook and jot down every herb I encountered, and maybe then I'd have a complete list. Dawn

Topamax was what my dr. wanted to put me on, it's dangerous Actually for epileptic seizures. I told him after they took MIdrin off the market(compounding pharmacies will sometimes make it) I wanted to try what 100 hrs of research on Internet told me. Children can not be given Imitrex as too dangerous so they have found that they can give even a 3 month old baby an herb from Germany called Butterbur, it has to be purified or could cause problems but my dr. didn't think much of it but I've gone to him for almost 40 yrs so he said he would look into it. He called back that night & said he had also found 3 more very reputable studies & recommended by American Pediatric & Surgeons Academy& said yes by all means try it & see how it works. It is supposed to take 3 mos to work. 1 week later I noticed when I put lotion on my hands that they weren't sore as usual(broke wrist while back) that was nice but didn't think it was helping with headaches but gradually I was able to reduce prescription med. So went from 8 Midrin(generic) down to about 4 a day & as summer came I could tolerate a little AC. still allergic to any kind of smoke, cigarette,BBQ, forest fire, they still messed over me good. But after being on butterbur for 2 yrs & 3 mos I sometimes don't need any to get through the day, if humid or in AC 1 or 2. Strange thing too, my hair as kid gave me headaches as so thick, I wore 3 ponytails 1 under the other to ease headaches, Often had stomach aches, but just thought it was sick mom, taking care of 4 little bros. etc. Didn't know anyone if family had migraines until went to specialist ,several actually & then found out 3 cousins on dad's side ,his 3 sisters, & his mom all had them. Was told to avoid all the triggers I could & I was like "bubble boy"(wonder if he ever got out of that thing) I could not figure out why when 100 degrees out I would be down flat sick for 2 days or more. Finally I heard same thing on news often enough that it rang a bell- strong winds coming up coast of Mexico expected to move on out towards Hawaii by later today- UH! Why am I sick every time storm off coast of CA. Nobody recognized that weather & barometric changes could make you sick. I kept insisting to point I would tell dr. storm was coming even before news reported it ,I told friends it was going to rain or get windy & they laughed & then came back & said" How did you know" So even with keeping track of what you eat staying away from nitrates,msg,bananas, all the things, there are unseen things like smoke or chemicals or weather changes that some of us can't deal with without getting migraine. Interesting that 3 mo. old baby has migraines(guess it's not imaginary as child too young to dream a migraine up- they can tell from MRI) So if you look up Butterbur get it at Whole Foods grocery by co. called Solaray out of Park City Utah. Health food stores didn't have it except mixed with feverfew(allergic to that) & I don't want any more junk in my body than I have to have to feell good. Oh, about the hair, got really thin with all the medicine, well about 3 mos ago I noticed I had hair flying around all over & everybody said, wow, your hair is getting long around your face(rest in bun) so I am getting more hair in on my head. What butterbur does is stabilize blood vessels so they don't go up & down all day & clears a lot of inflammation out of them. My sore veins from broken wrist no longer hurting showed me that it was actually working some after 1 week. It smells like a weed even through the clear capsule & comes in 50 mg ones. Take 3-4 a day I take with meals & it doesn't not react with anything else medicines or foods. Outside of adjusting to smell it's terrific. I'm about 80 % better than I was 2 yrs ago & I have been through so much stress with sick & dying parents, hospitals, rehab, etc Had I not started butterbur I would not have been able to care for my dad & now my mom. I've had 2 headaches bad enough to put me in bed for hours since 1st of year. Back then it would have been 2 times a week! It is reasonably priced also. Bottle of 60 last 20 days for little under $20. Since I don't use much prescription drug I get to keep all that money that went for it. I did see big bottles by this company on Dr. OZ 1 day & so probably easier to find it. Check it out yourself & if you have a child with migraines this is what they need to take & not bunch of prescriptions(will need them for awhile until this herb gets working in their system)