Dear Dr. I have been your follower for many years and have  been using your wonderful creations.  I have a question which I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long tome. I am 45 year old female well balanced with normal weight. I wanted to ask which supplements I can use for severe constipation. I eat healthy but nothing helps. My stool is heavy and sticky. Please help.

Alexa

Vaidya replies:

Dear Alexa: looks like you might be eating something which is enhancing absorption in your column; or it could also be that stress in your daily life is disturbing the communication between prana vata that governs the mind, and apana vata that governs the colon. So first step would be for you to find out if you are using too much cumin or pomegranate in your diet? Or any other dry or drying foods – too many salty snacks would be a good example for this. If you are, then   stop doing so.

Then:

• Add more vegetables to your diet, specially zucchini squash and yellow crookneck squash. Make sure you have them in some form with at least one meal a day.
• Make a drink with 20% yogurt and 80% water, mix in well and drink with your lunch.
• Eat on time! Never delay or skip your meals.
• Use balanced tri-doshic spice blends such as Mum’s Masala.
• Soma Salt will be best for you, switch to use only that, because common table salt can increase absorption and may cause constipation.
• Make sure you have enough water during the day.
• For you condition, instead of giving you a powerful purgative, I would first try to gently initiate changes that can restore your body’s natural ability to discharge your bowels normally. So I would recommend using my SVA Prakrit Transdermal cream on your lower spine at bedtime, to improve the communication between your apana vata and prana vata. Then, apply the SVA  Anushudhi cream on your lower abdomen. This will further support the downward flow of apana vata.
• Adding prune and tamarind chutney to your dinners at night. This chutney will enhance the balance between absorption and elimination. Finally, you can also take one or two tablets of SVA Prakrit, to re-ignite the intelligence of elimination in your colon. Do all these things and let us know.

 

 

Dear Vaidya,

Thank you for this beautiful summer recipe! All of your continued efforts in sharing Ayurveda are greatly appreciated. I am wondering why you selected carrots as a base over say a cucumber which is such a soma rich food?

Respectfully,

Traci

Vaidya replies:

Excellent question Traci. Other easily available fruits or vegetables are widely used in Summer smoothies and juice drinks. Both carrots and cucumbers are rich in vitamins and nutrients: carrots are a very good source of biotin, vitamin K, dietary fiber, molybdenum, potassium, vitamin B6, and vitamin C. They are also a good source of manganese, niacin, vitamin B1, panthothenic acid, phosphorus, folate, copper, vitamin E, and vitamin B2; while cucumbers have vitamin K and molybdenum; pantothenic acid; copper, potassium, manganese, vitamin C, phosphorus, magnesium, biotin, and vitamin B1. They also contain the important nail health-promoting mineral silica. But there is a reason why, in ayurvedic terms, we can elect one over the other, as I did, in my recipe.

I chose carrot because, unlike cucumber, it has both soma and agni – water and fire! It is not as cold or somagenic as cucumbers. In addition, in this specific recipe where I use orange, it helps balance against the sharpness and acidity of the orange juice. This recipe was made and meant to be cooling – but not freezing. The greatest error that is made all the time when trying to cool off pitta or heat is to freeze it. The greatest skill and in-depth knowledge is illustrated when one is able to cool off pitta without totally freezing it and then further aggravating it due to that freezing. Pitta is a very delicate dosha to balance, it needs the exact amount of coolness but also needs to maintain some heat. Remember that pitta is made up of fire and water. It is not fire through and through.

In general, however, when I give out recipes, I want to make sure that they are tridoshic. For example, if someone is experiencing a mild kapha imbalance, they should also be able to use the recipe without suffering further kapha aggravation. Pitta pacifying recipes should not be freezing for the channels and tissue agnis.

This juice recipe is very balanced but it also tastes good. Using cucumber instead of the carrot will alter the taste and it may not taste that great. This is a time-tested recipe from my family that has received a lot of recognition, because it does not cause any bloating after drinking. In general, drinking raw juices dilute your digestive enzymes and can immediately result in bloating and/or gas. Some people will experience this earlier than others based on the strength of their digestive system. This recipe carries a balanced ratio of some and agni ingredients so it rehydrates from the heat, stokes digestive agni, and maintains and supports soma for further cooling. But it is a great favorite because it also tastes great! Enjoy it!

Namaste,

Now a days we don’t get raw milk in the supermarkets, its pasteurized and homogenized. Do you still suggest to add all the spices mentioned while boiling the milk? Also I wanted to ask can I add Ashwagandha along with other spices in the milk for my 4 year old daughter ?

THANKS

Sheetal

Vaidya replies:

Dear Sheetal: I would not suggest using Ashwagandha for your 4 year old daughter. It is too pitta provoking and energizing for her. For your four year old girl, the milk with pods of green cardamom, add a tiny chunk of cinnamon stick. Cardamom will enhance the digestion of the protein molecules of the milk; and the cinnamon will enhance the digestion of sugar molecules of the milk. These two spices are very good for young children.

As to your other question, boiled raw milk is the best thing to consume; however, if you are not able to get it in your area, try to find organic milk that is only pasteurized but not homogenized – this is your next best option. There are several dairy companies who makes this available these days, nation-wide. One particular brand I can think of is called the Strauss Dairy Family Farms. Their pasteurized non-homogenized milk should be available in most health food stores and supermarkets nation wide. Try to get that one.

 

Dear Dr Mishra

I am 51 and I suffer from Rosacea and pustules – please what would you recommend. My skin condition on my face is gradually getting worse. I am vegetarian and only have 2 cups of tea daily. Also drink jeera and sonf water also green tea. Drink Lassi as well. Eat lots of fruit and veg and have cut back on bread, fried foods, spices and chillies. What else can I do to help myself. Also I have a creaky knee and dry eyes sometimes watery with floaters. Can ghee with triphala help my eyes?

Many thanks

Amarjeet

Vaidya replies:

I think you would greatly benefit from an over-the-phone ayurvedic consultation with SVA expert Dr. Marianne Teitelbaum. But, in the meantime, from what you write, it looks like you are doing some things that are provoking your pitta dosha. As per Ayurveda, both rosacea and your eye problem are due to pitta aggravation. Your rosacea indicates bhrajak pitta aggravation, which gets further aggravated when you expose yourself to the sun. Your eye problem is due to alochak pitta aggravation. Both these pitta sub-doshas are rooted in the pachak pitta of the stomach, and the ranjak pitta of the liver. Anything hot and spicy, foods or drinks, will aggravate your bhrajak pitta of the skin, and alochak pitta of the eyes.

• My first recommendation would be for you to stop eating hot and spicy food. 
• Second: always eat on time – eat every 3-4 hours.
• Then: pacify your pitta by using my SVA Pitta Masala in your cooking.
• You can also try out my SVA pitta tea instead of the “jeera and saunf tea” you are drinking. The pitta tea is a balanced mixture of herbs and spaces that will target all your pitta subdoshas and give cooling relief.
• Mind the sun: when bhrajak pitta is aggravated, your sensitivity to the sun increases. When pachak pitta and ranjak pitta are aggravated you will experience additional pitta imbalances affecting other organs, as well as your overall mood, and setting things into a circle of imbalance that may be hard to break out of or reverse, unless you use the proper steps. In this picture, the key is to cool your liver without freezing it! Less exposure to the sun will definitely help with this. Along with the list of all these other tips I am giving you.

• Eat warming foods and spices that will not freeze your pitta organs. This is a very delicate balance to achieve, but that’s the objective of my SVA Pitta Masala and SVA Pitta Tea. For the Pitta Tea, use 1 teaspoon per 8 oz water, drink a cup twice a day.
• In addition, apply DGL Transdermal Cream on the stomach area and the liver (on the right side below your rib cage) after lunch and dinner.
• Also apply DGL Transdermal cream on your liver before going to bed.
• Make sure you have good bowel movements daily, because good bowel movements release the toxic pitta accumulated in your physiology on a daily basis. If your bowel movements are not good, if they tend to be slower, use Triphala for high pitta – 1 or two capsules at night before bed. Ideally, you should have at least one if not two good bowel movements every day.
• Never skip or delay meals – as this will unnecessarily further aggravate your pitta.
• Don’t go out in the sun for extended exposure. Protect yourself when you do.
• Specifically don’t go out in the sun  when you are hungry or thirsty or emotionally upset! In SV Ayurveda, we capitalize on a total holistic approach. Although rosacea and your eye problem are manifesting in the skin and the eyes, you need to address the root of your problems rather than the symptomatic expressions of it. The root lies in your stomach and your liver.
• The third main factor in your situation is your “sadhak pitta” – the pitta subdosha which governs the emotional heart. When your sadhak pitta is high, it also aggravates your alochak pitta, as well as your bhrajak pitta. This is one reason why, when people are angry, their face and eyes turn red. To pacify your sadhak pitta, use the SVA Samadhi Set with Ashoka (not Arjuna). Apply some Ashoka cream or roll-on on your talahridiya marma, or heart marma points. You can also apply the SVA cooling Aloe Sandalwood cream  on your rosacea areas on your face –  a very thin layer. At night, apply a very thin layer of Triphala ghee on your temples and eyelids before going to bed.

Try these and let us know. To reach Dr. Teitelbaum for an ayurvedic consult, call: 1.856.786.3300. Thank you.

 

Vaidya ji

I have been suffering from depression and sleep disturbance from last six months. The causative factor was fear of illness due to wrong diagnosis.

The stress has affected my digestion and I get stomach bloating, gas and pain in the lower right abdomen and left chest.

Please suggest some effective way to cure this condition.

Prabhakar M.

Vaidya replies:

Dear Prabhakar:

Learn to do the SVA Samadhi Set Marma Massage (it takes 5 minutes) along with creams or roll-ons (with Ashoka). Also, apply the Super Sport roll-on on your lower spine. I will also suggest you recite or listen to some mantras. Sound vibrations have powerful restorative and healing effects on the nervous system. I suggest the “Heart Lotus Mantra.” Play or recite this 11 times morning and 11 times before going to bed.  and if you believe in mantras do heart lotus mantra 11 times in the morning and 11 times in the evening before bed , eat on time  easy to digest food , if you prefer non-vegetarian diet start eating chicken broth cooked with mums masala, soma salt, olive oil everyday. Do early massage with ashwagandha and magnesium oil every other day.

 

Hey Vaidya Mishra,

I have a high pitta but low agni and I’ve been trying to treat it for the last 5 years of my life. Hence, I only knew about my ‘what I think is my exact condition’ (the high pitta, low agni; specifically low pachak agni) like 2 months back. When I started adding spices to my food: ‘ginger, black pepper, fennel, coriander, cumin,’ and felt much better, but ended up being constipated. I’ve been taking liver bitters (livo map) for the last 3 years of my life, but I found out lately, that those bitters, actually end up cooling me too much and lowering the pachak agni too much, so food end up being remained in my stomach for long time and resulting in burning sensation under my right rib cage (which I think my congested gallbladder). I’m wondering what shall I do? If I stop the liver support (livo map), I end up feeling that I REALLY need it and I end up back to it, because it really relaxes me and cools me down, and get my bowls moving, but when I add those spices, like ginger and black pepper to support my stomach acid, I end up being constipated and my bowls stop moving (because eventually they are carminatives). Coriander is really turning off my stomach acid. I’m a pitta person (diagnosed by an ayurvedic doctor). I’m as well wondering if Turmeric (since you said it is really good for high pitta low agni situation) does increase stomach acid? (the pachak agni), because, I think this is what I at first really have to take care of, because no matter what food I’m eating, it end up remaining in my stomach for long and after I’m starting to feel the pain under my right rib cage. I know that I have weaknesses in both parts, the digestive juices from gallbladder and pancreas and as well a low stomach agni, but when i higher the stomach acid as well too much, then the pain under my right rib cage, as well starts. so I’m guessing this pain starts whenever there’s too much acid, whether from long remaining undigested food in the duodenum and remaining of undigested food in the stomach because of low stomach acid and low digestive juices, or because of high stomach acid (after adding acid producing factors like ginger, black peppers, lemon and apple cider vinegar) and low digestive juices (biles), that not end up neutralizing the acidic food entering the duodenum. I know that balance is the solution, but I’m always end up failing and end up by whether un-floating bowels (if no acid available in my duodenum/stomach) or my bowels are fine (slightly constipated let me say), if acid remains in my duodenum & undigested food in my stomach.

As well, I would like to know your address if it happens that you live in India, since I might be giving India a trip anytime soon.

Thanks,

Georges

Vaidya replies:

Dear George: It looks like you are self-diagnosing and self-treating. Please call Dr. Teitelbaum in New Jersey at 1.856.786.3300 and schedule an ayurvedic over-the-phone consult with her.  But in the meantime, because I can see you are very curious and have a passion to learn Ayurveda, and to help yourself, here is a bigger picture of what might be going on in your physiology ayurvedically speaking, according to your questions and comments.

When we try to take care of physical liver organ, trying to detoxify, the liver will leech out toxins that may end up disturbing your stomach and colon. When you trying to fix your colon and stomach, you get constipated. According to SVA, and you might have already read this in my newsletters or on my blog, I use the image of a ghee wick, and the ghee flame, to explain the relationship between a burner and the gap, or space (sandhi) where metabolism or transformation occurs in our physiology. In that gap or sandhi, the transformation of Pitta (the fuel) into the agni (the flame) occurs. When that sandhi is encountering a problem, then you may experience some or all of the problems and symptoms that you list. So along with trying to support the physical liver, the physical stomach, the physical duodenum, or physical colon, one has to address the more subtle and vibrational aspects of digestion, the gaps.  So my suggestion will be, until you see or have a phone consult with Dr.Marianne Teitelbaum, try to adopt or do the following SVA protocols to clean and support your gaps:

-Apply SVA DGL transdermal on the liver area – this is on your right side, just below the last lower rib. Do this at night before going to bed. Then apply Pro Pachaka Transdermal in a clockwise motion, on your stomach, as if the clock was on your stomach – so 9pm would be on your right side, 12 correspond to your neck area, etc. Apply Pro-Pachaka on your stomach after breakfast, after lunch, as well as after dinner.

The DGL cream will re-establish the intelligence of your liver by supporting all the 5 burners of the liver. You see, in the liver we have one pitta, that’s ranjak pitta (fuel); but in the liver we also have 5 burners, and each burner supplies a different kind of flame each flame. Each flame is assigned to address one of each of the panch mahabhuta-s: space, air, fire, water, and earth.

The Pro-Pachaka cream carries all the herbs and spices that vibrationally address the energy of all these burners which help transform the pachak pitta into pachak agni. With this cream, the “freezing effect” that you are experiencing in your stomach or duodenum should be slowly addressed.

Next, you will try to enhance communication between mind, stomach and colon, by applying the DGL transdermal cream, and the Prakrit Transdermal cream on the lower bottom half of your spine, in the morning after shower, and at night before going to bed. This will enhance the vibrational communication between mind and stomach, so eventually your mind will be in charge again of properly commanding when and how much enzymes need to be released after and during your meals. The DGL and Prakrit will help do this. In addition, the DGL and Prakrit creams will also enhance the communication between mind (prana vata) and your colon (apana vata).

SV Ayurveda is a different kind of Ayurveda where in addition to food and spices taken orally to address imbalances on a physical bio-chemical level, we also support things on a subtle vibrational level as you can see. I have not seen your pulse but this protocol that I just gave you should help you, based on my decades of experiences and from the symptoms that you indicated having. Try it and write back to us. Thank you.

Namaskar once again

Misra ji: my husband is 41 years old and he is having lots of knee pain. Some doctors recommended him to have knee replacement, while few recommended some kind of injection. Please suggest if through Ayurveda or diet changes we can heal his knees.

Gurmmet

Vaidya replies:

Dear Gurmeet: it would be advisable to have an ayurvedic consultation with a SVA practitioner. But in the meantime, here is some advice based on SVA principles you can start incorporating that might help alleviate the symptoms.

In general, we use our knee and elbow joints extensively, that’s why they become a target of pain, specifically if the body is acidic. This may happen even at a young age. So first of all, you need to look into the diet he is consuming and eliminate and change anything in the diet that is causing his body’s pH to be acidic rather than alkaline. Adopt the main tenets of the SVA diet which is all about neutralizes the PH of the body otherwise, if you eat acidic food to maintain AVAILABLE HERE. When your body’s pH is low, it eats away at the bone tissue, and the calcium in order to create balance. That’s how our bone tissue gets depleted and we experience inflammation and chronic condition related to inflammatory pain. The bone tissue needs raw material, or soma. Acidic food is full of fire or agni, so acidity of the body attacks the cartilages. Thus changing/amending your diet and adopting SVA principles will be step one. Then step two: in the morning apply HN Cream on the knees, and at night apply Maha Kanchenar and Healthy Joints Transdermal creams. The herbs encapsulated in these creams may help more once we also do whole body massage with Vata oil with Magnesium and Vit D. In addition, add Soma Cal capsules, 1 capsule twice a day. This will supply the best most easy to digest calcium to treat and nourish the bone tissue. The magnesium and Vitamin D oil will enhance the synthesis and absorption of calcium from the Soma Cal capsules as well as from the food. But, without dietary changes, none of these creams, herbs, capsules, nothing will not work!