What to Do Before Going to Urgent Care | 174

You don’t panic because a rash suddenly appears. Or because your child wakes up crying in pain and pulling on their ear. Or because you feel that familiar sting of a UTI coming on. The panic sets in the moment you realize you don’t know what to do next.

It’s that pause. That sinking feeling of, “Do I wait this out?” “Do I need to go to urgent care?” “Is this going to get worse?” It’s not the symptom that feels overwhelming. It’s the uncertainty.

This episode is here to meet you in those exact moments.

I want you to be able to come back to this episode when something shows up in your body or your child’s body and feel grounded instead of panicked. I want you to know how to respond with clarity and confidence, using tools you already have at home, in a way that supports the body instead of fighting it.

In this episode, I’m going to share exactly how I use Cleanse, Magic Stuff, and Balance CBD when things like styes, ear infections, or UTIs show up in my family. I’ll talk about how I support skin infections, rashes, cuts, burns, blisters, and scrapes at home. What I do for sore throats, swollen tonsils, canker sores, and the early signs of illness. And how I support sinus infections and congestion.

My intention is that by the end of this episode, you feel equipped the next time something comes up.

Now, before we jump in, I do have to say this. Everything I’m sharing here is based on personal experience. This isn’t medical advice, and it’s not meant to replace care from your provider. You know your body and your child best, and I always want you to use your own discernment.

I’m excited to share this with you though because learning how to use these tools has completely changed how we care for our family. Our children have never needed antibiotics, and we haven’t needed to go to the doctor for nearly a decade, because we know how to support our bodies in healing, how to strengthen our immune system, eliminate infection and nurture our nervous systems when things show up. That doesn’t mean life is perfect or that symptoms never happen. It means we know how to respond when they do.

Most of the episodes on this show are centered around long-term healing. We talk a lot about rebalancing the gut, supporting our detox organs, calming chronic inflammation, and supporting the immune system and nervous system over time, so the body can actually come back into balance. That work is foundational.

But alongside long-term healing, and honestly far beyond it, life still happens.

Our children get sick. Infections pop up. A cut gets irritated. A cough comes out of nowhere. A symptom shows up on a random Tuesday night when everything is closed and you’re standing there thinking, what do I do now?

This is where I want to widen the conversation a bit.

These supplements and products aren’t just for long-term healing. They’re the tools I keep in my medicine cabinet and reach for as my family’s first line of defense when something shows up.

Let’s start with styes and eye infections.

Styes are bacterial and inflammatory. They’re essentially a pimple on the eyelid.

Here’s how I personally use Cleanse when one shows up.

I take the corner of a clean paper towel or a cotton swab and dip it into Cleanse. Then I tilt my head back and gently drop a few drops of Cleanse directly into the affected eye. I blink a few times, close my eye, and slowly roll it in circles. I try to let it sit in my eye for as long as possible. Around two minutes is ideal, but if that’s not realistic, that’s okay.

This can be repeated as many times as needed throughout the day until symptoms are fully gone. You may feel a brief sting when you first put it in, this is normal. What Cleanse is doing is supporting the body in clearing bacteria while calming inflammation, without harming healthy tissue.

This can be used for other common eye infections too, like pink eye or irritation that feels gritty, sticky, or inflamed. 

Now let’s talk about ear infections and ear pain.

This is one of the most common situations that can send parents into panic mode, especially when a child wakes up in the middle of the night crying and tugging on or holding their ear. Here’s exactly how I use Cleanse when ear pain or an ear infection shows up.

I lay down or lay my child down on one side and completely fill the ear canal with Cleanse so it feels like the ear is submerged in water. I let it sit there for a full two minutes, and I’ll gently massage behind the ear while I wait. Then I roll to the other side and repeat the process on the other ear.

Even when the pain is only on one side, it is important to do both ears. Sometimes inflammation or infection is actually in the opposite ear, or starting there, even though the pain hasn’t fully shown up yet.

This can be repeated twice a day or more if needed. It is important to repeat daily until the symptoms are completely gone. Cleanse can also be taken internally to help with the infection. During times of illness or infection I give my children 1 TBSP Cleanse twice daily and my husband and I take 2 TBSP twice daily. 

Before moving on to UTIs, I want to zoom out for a minute. When you experience recurring ear infections, or really recurring infections of any kind, it indicates that the immune system is under strain. Supporting the gut internally alongside this more acute support is what helps keep this from becoming a pattern instead of a one off. If this is the case, this is when deeper gut support with the Ultimate option of the Women’s or Children’s Gut Rebalance Kit, can be really helpful.

The goal is never to force the body to stop reacting. It’s to support it in clearing what doesn’t belong and calming inflammation so healing can happen.

Now let’s talk about UTIs.

What matters most here is saturation. When this shows up, the goal is to fully saturate the bladder with Cleanse so the bacteria can’t survive.

For adults this looks like half a cup of Cleanse twice a day. For children, it’s a quarter cup twice a day. Continue this until symptoms are completely gone, and then for three additional days to make sure the infection is fully cleared.

Hydration is really important here to support the body in flushing things out while Cleanse does its work, so it is important to really prioritize water intake, aiming for around 90 ounces of filtered water a day.

Next, let’s talk about skin infections, rashes, cuts, blisters, burns, and scrapes.

This is where Magic Stuff becomes one of those products I never want to be without. I literally have a bottle in both of our cars, in every room of our house and in every basket and bag. Anytime a rash shows up, my kids brush against stinking nettle, get a scrape on their knee, Ty gets a blister from shoveling snow, a sliver starts looking inflamed or infected, a pimple shows up, I get burned putting firewood in our stove or pulling the muffin pan out of the over… literally anytime there is damage or irritation to the skin, I reach for Magic Stuff. 

It supports the skin microbiome, helps keep bacteria in check, and calms inflammation without interfering with the body’s natural repair process.

Now let’s talk about sore throats, swollen tonsils, canker sores, and those early signs of illness.

I can’t tell you how often I get messages saying “My child came down with a fever or got a sore throat so I paused the supplements”. This is actually not the time to pause. This is the time to lean in.

When sore throats, swollen tonsils, canker sores, or those early signs of illness show up, this is when support matters most. This is when we double down on Cleanse.

For adults, again, this looks like two tablespoons twice daily. For children, it’s one tablespoon twice daily. 

If there’s throat pain, tonsil irritation, or canker sores, we will gargle for a full two minutes before swallowing. For young children, keep this fun and simple. It is okay if they can’t do it for two full minutes or if they just swallow it more quickly. 

This is one of those times where supporting early on can completely change the trajectory. What might have turned into something bigger often moves through more gently when the body is supported with Cleanse.

Sinus infections and congestion are another place where this comes up a lot.

When there’s pressure, congestion, or that heavy, full feeling in the sinuses, Cleanse can be used in a nasal spray bottle, a neti pot of in a nebulizer. You will just mix 1:1 parts Cleanse and distilled water.

This supports the body in clearing bacteria, calming inflammation, and encouraging proper drainage without drying or irritating the sinuses. It’s not about forcing anything out. It’s about supporting the body’s natural process.

Now, before we wrap up I want to touch on Balance CBD.

This is one of the most supportive tools we use when the nervous system is under stress. Whether it’s teething, pain, headaches, migraines, inflammation, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, or just feeling dysregulated, Balance CBD helps calm the nervous system so the body can do its work more efficiently.

Instead of numbing symptoms, it supports regulation. And when the nervous system feels safe and supported, healing happens with more ease. In our home, Balance CBD has replaced all over-the-counter medications.

In addition to our daily dropperful of Balance, I give my family extra support any time the body feels overwhelmed, under stress, in pain, or especially during illness or discomfort. I also use it topically for things like bruises from a bike crash, a sore back after a snowboard fall, or a tender spot from aerial silks. My family is very active and having Balance literally saves us all the time. 

I want to leave you with this.

Your body is not fragile. Your child’s body is not fragile. Symptoms are not emergencies by default. They are communication.

When you know how to respond, the fear softens. When fear softens, the nervous system settles. And when the nervous system settles, the body can do what it was designed to do.

This episode isn’t about doing everything perfectly. It’s about having tools. It’s about knowing what to reach for when something shows up. It’s about trusting yourself instead of immediately outsourcing every decision.

Save this episode. Come back to it when life happens. Share it with someone who needs it.

Transformation of the week:

A mama in our community wrote, “My son’s mood swings have finally settled down. He’s the happy boy I know him to be again. He has gotten a cold with a nasty sounding cough, but he is breathing beautifully at night still and sleeping through the night.

Major win for us because it seemed his breathing always was not good during any sort of congestion. Hoping his daily slightly runny nose in the morning will be gone here soon next.”

When I read this, I felt it in my body. Because I know all of this so well from experiencing it with my son.

It’s not that children never get sick. It’s that their bodies respond differently when they do. A cold doesn’t spiral into breathing struggles. Congestion doesn’t completely wreck sleep. Emotions don’t swing wildly because the nervous system is finally more regulated.

These are all signs that with rebalancing, inflammation is calming, the immune system is becoming more intelligent, and the nervous system is no longer stuck in survival mode.

This message is such a beautiful reminder that healing doesn’t mean perfection. It means resilience. It means a child who can move through stress with strength.

Now for our question of the week. This one comes up all the time.

“Can the gut be imbalanced right from the start? My friend’s infant has severe eczema. He’s unvaccinated, they’ve cut out all foods he tested ‘allergic’ to, and nothing is helping. Could this be inherited from mom?”

Yes. The gut can absolutely be imbalanced from the very beginning, and in most cases, it is inherited from the mother.

Infant eczema is not about vaccines alone, and it’s rarely about one food. It’s a sign of immune dysregulation. And because 70 to 80 percent of the immune system lives in the gut, healing the skin requires healing the gut.

A baby’s microbiome is formed during pregnancy, birth, and early infancy. If mom had gut imbalance, chronic inflammation, candida, mold exposure, parasites, heavy metals, or antibiotic use at any point in her life, those imbalances can be passed to her baby, often without her ever knowing she had them.

This is why food sensitivity testing so often leads families in circles. When the gut lining is inflamed, the immune system reacts to many foods. Those reactions are signals, not root causes. Removing foods doesn’t heal the gut, so the eczema stays.

What’s happening is that the baby’s immune system is on high alert, and the skin becomes the exit point for inflammation because detox pathways are still immature. The body is doing the best it can.

This is also why symptom-based approaches may help temporarily but don’t actually address the bigger issue. The gut terrain still needs to be restored.

So yes, the gut can be “off” right from the start. Not because anyone did anything wrong, but because imbalance is passed down when it hasn’t yet been healed.

And the beautiful part is that babies heal incredibly well when you support the root. When the gut rebalances, the immune system calms, and the skin no longer has to carry the burden.