You're dealing with teething HOW?? With WHAT??

Jude is what I like to call a "violent teether".  Most babies teeth gradually, sprouting one and then another right behind it or even two at the same time, then they get a bit of a reprieve before cutting another couple of teeth and so on.  But, since this is Jude we're talking about, we all know that he is anything but textbook (and I'm okay with that!).  Jude first cut his two bottom teeth simultaneously around five months.  No sooner had the bottom two broke through the surface that his top FOUR- yes FOUR- main teeth came crashing through the gums.  Oh my goodness, even looking at the huge white bulges in his mouth before they cut through the skin made me cringe.  He is now only missing four teeth out of his mouth.  That's it.  The kid even has his molars already.  Anyways, whatever is painful for Jude is in turn painful for us.  I actually think I can safely blame our 10 months of extreme night waking/night nursing/napping/okay, just general sleep issues partly on teething.  Hell, when I was dancing 8 hours a day and 7 days a week, I woke up hourly too since dancers really feel the pain when their bodies start to unwind at night. 
How did I counteract the pain of Jude's teething?  Well, there's the usual quick fix in Tylenol (it's crap, by the way) and Infant Motrin.  Infant Motrin does work wonders.  However, I think it's been safely established in this blog that I'm a total hippy when it comes to things like this so I felt there had to be something a little more natural out there to help (and something that also doesn't wreak havoc on your liver and kidneys when given chronically or in high doses).  I looked into and used Hyland's Teething Tablets.  They work incredibly well.  However- one of the ingredients in them is Belladonna, which in high amounts is toxic to humans.  Now, in teething tablets it's in fractions of fractions of fractions of traces of amounts so that part actually didn't concern me.  What concerns me is that with all homeopathic products, it is not regulated by the FDA, therefore, what if for some reason, one bottle didn't have the correct concentration or what if the stuff, even in the tiniest of amounts truly isn't safe?  I did use it and have positive things to say about teething tablets, but I still felt there was SOMETHING better out there.

Cold teethers?  Sure, I bet they work.  Jude looked at me like I was insane when I tried to encourage him to bite on them and then proceeded to chuck them on the floor.  Good idea in theory, not so good in reality.  He relieved quite a bit of pain by gnawing on his crib when he would go in there while we were getting ready for work in the mornings and also the occasional bite he would take out of my shoulder.  Frozen fruit in mesh feeders was another outstanding idea.....for someone else's kid.  Jude acted like I was trying to poison him when trying to get him to suck on one of those.

Okay, so long story short:  Modern day pain reliever meds- used when it got really, really bad, like the couple days before the awful, swollen bulge became a little white line on the surface.  Homeopathic teething tablets- worked amazingly well, but only in short increments of time and I had concerns on the whole FDA bit of it (PS- why doesn't the FDA monitor herbs and such.  After all, they are powerful medicines.  I digress)  Teethers or cold of any kind- no dice.

Then, I hear about a little resin called amber.  More accurately, I started to educate myself on traditional beaded amber necklaces imported from the Baltic region that are a non-invasive and side-effect free remedy for the pain and complications of teething, such as lack of appetite, upset tummies, earache, fevers and colds.  This is information I got from Ghaia Herbs website, but it correlates with all other sources I've read on amber. 

Currently, there are two different theories that attempt to explain how wearing amber on the skin can have a soothing and calming effect on teething babies and toddlers.  One theory suggests that when amber is worn on the skin, the skin's warmth releases miniscule amounts of healing oils from the amber which are then absorbed via the skin into the bloodstream. Amber's anti-inflammatory and therapeutic properties are also recognized by allopathic medicine. In Austria, Switzerland and Germany, you will find amber teething necklaces sold in local pharmacies. Pharmacists and doctors have long known about the healing properties of amber which include calmative, analgesic, antispasmodic, expectorant, and febrifuge (anti-fever) functions.   A second theory is based on scientific findings which have shown that amber is electromagnetically alive and therefore charged with a significant amount of organic energy. Its special attribute is the fact that it is electronegative. Wearing amber produces negative ionisation on the skin's surface. This, in turn, has a positive influence on the human body. The negative ions assist in the in the prevention of illness. These health-promoting effects apply to babies, children and adults alike.  It is possible that the soothing and calming effect of amber teething necklaces, which has been empirically observed, is based on a combination of the factors listed above.

Total hippy crap, right?

I sort of thought that too.  But then I remember that I do have some major hippy tendancies, and those hippy tendencies told me to trust my gut and give up all of the modern medicine fertility treatments and rely on homeopathic remedies and acupuncture and four months later my body actually worked correctly, and Jude was created.  So, I bought a necklace since Jude is working on his upper and lower fangs or eyeteeth or whatever they are called and they seem to be a bit brutal.

Um, it works.  Like, it works REALLY well.  Sure, he's fussy and will occasionally stuff his fist in his mouth and howl for a few seconds, but overall, he just doesn't seem to be in pain like he was last week before we tried this.   

I believe in it.  I believe in a world where modern medicine and homeopathic medicine can coexist and break down the walls surrounding supposed mysteries in science.  It helped me with Jude and it's helping Jude with his teeth and I'm curious to see how much more I can explore and utilize these types of things for my family in the future.  I know enough that I'm not just going to read the back of a bottle of herbs and blindly start taking them to treat something.  Every decision I've made has been thoroughly researched (come on, you all know me, I research things to death before taking a plunge) and I've talked to professionals.  Herbs are just as powerful, if not moreso, than drugs on the market.  And since they aren't FDA approved, there just isn't the hours of research associated with these medicines that I think there should be, both for safety of the consumer and also for the sheer knowledge we could gain since we just don't know everything they are capable of.  Hell, the cure for cancer could be growing in our backyard!

Anyways, yeah, teething necklaces (and bracelets and anklets) are incredible.  I recommend them to everyone, seriously.  Even if you're not crunchy like yours truly, just try having your sweet little one rock it for the fashion statement part since they come in all sorts of colors.  :)

Cute, right?