Tired achy feet can get relief from a 20 minute daily foot bath

TV host, author and cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz is a firm believer in soaking your feet. He’s done numerous TV segments on different foot baths – from simple baking soda to citrus, tea and vodka, America’s doctor recommends the benefit of a daily 20 minute “foot-bath”.

For those who love the idea of soaking their feet but not the hassle or mess, the StepnSoak 4 Feet is the perfect solution.

Ready to use out of the box, the Step ‘n Soak foot soaking system eliminates spills and requires no tub.

Made in South Carolina, these compact, soft vinyl “foot boots” slip on easily and can be used over and over again.

Step 'n Soak 4 Feet uses soft, reusable vinyl "foot boots"

Amazingly, the Step ‘n Soak was created as a soaking remedy for horses in 2009.

The saying in the horse community, said StepnSoak 4 Feet creator and horse enthusiast Lydia delRossi, is “no hoof, no horse!”

Everything horses stand in can effect their feet – and treating the problem is expensive.

Getting a horse to stand in a bucket? Not easy, she said.

When her rescue thoroughbred horse, Lenny, got an abscess and became “3-legged lame,” delRossi looked for a workable solution. When she found nothing on the internet and her patent attorney came up empty-handed, she got creative.

The prototype she designed was 21 inches tall, 14’inches wide, made of water-tight material, had a tie to wrap it around the leg, and it was sturdy.

Also, it was geared for women – because, delRossi says, “95% of all people who care for horses in America are women!”

Step 'n Soak was originally designed to use for horses feet

Eventually finding a manufacturer on the West coast to produce the vinyl and create the prototype, she brought it back to South Carolina and showed it to the vets and ferriers in the county. It was an instant hit!

A doctor said he could use it for patients who are immobile or wheelchair-bound, who can’t get their foot in a bucket of water to do what’s needed. They could just slip it on.

He was also thrilled to discover this for his military patients whose feet had been destroyed by jumping or wearing boots for days at a time.

“It gives them an element of freedom,” he told delRossi.

He also introduced her to a doctor at the local VA hospital, who was also wowed.

Just soaking your feet for 20 minutes makes a difference, says delRossi.

This foot soaking system can relieve maternity-related swollen ankles

There are so many uses for this simple foot soaking system. It helps relieve maternity-related swollen feet, soothes end-of-day foot pain, ices and soothes twisted ankles. It makes it easy to do in-home pedicures and helps heal sports-related injuries.

delRossi’s product is now utilized by the athletic department of the University of South Carolina.

Another surprising benefit of this product is it helps relieve fatigue and insomnia that patients experience as they go through chemotherapy. A 2010 clinical study conducted over a 6-month period on two groups of women dealing with ovarian cancer showed that a foot bath significantly reduced these symptoms “to the point of completely eliminating it within the first month.”

“(The Step ‘n Soak is) going to make a lot of people’s lives better,” said delRossi.

After the January 2010 Haiti earthquake, del Rossi realized her product could make a difference for relieving amputated and injured limbs. She contacted over twenty organizations to offer her product for free.

Sadly, none took her up on the offer.

“There are so many people at the end of the day (who are) in pain,” she said.

Step 'n Soak helps relieve insomnia and fatigue for women in chemotherapy

To use it, throw in some Epson salts – which are included in the package – and some warm water, then tie it. You can use it at your computer, in your cubicle (who’s going to know!), even (carefully) on long airplane trips.

delRossi is passionate about helping people.

She feels strongly that this product should be at every Cancer Treatment Center of America, collegiate game and in every Red Cross.

And it’s multi-functional, she says.

Priced at $14.95, you can find out more about the human version of this simple yet durable footbath system at stepnsoak4feet.com. For details on the equine / four-legged version, see Stepnsoak.com.

Surfboard "waste" is now used to help clean up toxic chemical spills

Almost every industry generates some kind of waste, the majority of which often ends up in landfills. The surfboard industry is no exception.

The powdery dust created by shaping a surfboard from a slab of polyurethane foam has now been transformed into a new, super useful product called  SPILLINEX™, which can quickly absorb harmful chemical waste.

Discovered by accident in 2010 by Steve Cox, a surfer, inventor and founder of Green Foam Blanks, it bonds immediately when tossed onto a chemical spill, creating powder balls and leaving what’s underneath clean.

Recycled surfboard shaper dust becomes Spillnex

The polyurethane dust consists of a honeycomb of cells that resemble microscopic golf balls. Because the cells attract liquid chemicals but don’t let them penetrate, when used for instance to mop up an oil spill in the ocean, Spillnex doesn’t sink like regular absorbents.

Spillnex is a compound that can absorb a variety of common spill materials, including:

• new and used oil
• paint
• diesel
• gasoline
• anti-freeze
• hydraulic and brake fluids
• cooking oils
• foods like syrup, eggs, honey and more.

Approximately a pound of Spillnex is needed to absorb a gallon of oil. Because it easily bonds to oil, leaving water clean and clear, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) judged Spillnex to be an environmentally safe sorbent for use during the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill.

Cox co-founded Monarch Green with partners Tom and TJ Rossi  in 2010. To date, the company and its seven employees have processed around 200,000 pounds of surfboard shaper dust, selling it for $1.99 a pound for those who buy 15-pound bags or more. Based in Newport Beach, California, their customers include car washes, automotive shops and John Wayne Airport in Orange County.

Once again, the case can be made that today’s waste product can have a second useful life with some creative thinking, no toxic chemicals and a little ingenuity.

Recycling is one of the easiest ways to start down the road to Greener living.

Nobody is going to be completely Green, but like I’ve said before, “take baby steps! Every little step adds up. For every action there is a reaction.”

If you make positive actions, no matter how small they may seem, the overall reaction can be huge!

So why not concentrate on something that is really easy to do and maybe even get paid for some of it. RECYCLE!

Many items are recyclable that people do not seem to know about.

To discover the list of 19 items that can be recycled (some were new to this editor!), check out the full article at http://bit.ly/zP6FB4.

The Imprint Anti-Fatigue Comfort Mat turns that “fact” into a myth.

To learn more about how this stylish mat that reduces leg fatigue and even helps senior dogs stand better, check out http://bit.ly/zNqvJv.

According to a new report from The Institute for Electricity Efficiency (IEE), in 2010, our national energy programs saved enough electricity to power almost 10 million homes.

For the full story how on we’re gaining in our energy savings, see http://bit.ly/yhAJb0.

Shark finning leaves sharks to die a terrible death on the ocean floor

We’ve read about it and there’s finally been some positive legislative action to stop shark finning.

But until you actually see what the noise is all about, you have no real idea of how shockingly devastating this practice is.

Dan Rather will air a special  expose’ on Dan Rather Reports on Tuesday, January 24th. This is one show that’s a must-see. Be sure to bring the kleenex.

Can we trust an FDA approved drug?

If you’ve watched or read any ads for pharmaceuticals lately, you’ve seen the long list of potential side effects and warnings. Each time I see that, i wonder at the “wisdom” of the FDA to approve medications that have proven themselves to be hazardous in so many ways.

An article posted today quotes a study from the British Medical Journal that shows  less than half of all NIH-funded clinical drug trials were published in a medical journal within two and a half years of the trial’s completion – and that one-third of trial results remained unpublished even four years afterwords!  Ostensibly this is because the drug manufacturers don’t like the negative results to reach the public.

It’s “an absence of data”, the study reports and, it says, “missing data about harm in trials can harm patients, and incomplete data about benefit can lead to futile costs to health systems.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that FDA advisers, in a recent vote, said the benefits of four popular Bayer AG birth control pills outweigh the blood clot risk. What the FDA didn’t disclose is that three of the advisers have had ties to Bayer, serving as consultants, speakers, or researchers!

The proliferation of medications with adverse and potentially hazardous or life-threatening side effects continues to grow, with  the real risks to the public’s health played down.  As more patients are researching medical treatments and being more of a partner in their personal healthcare. isn’t it time for pharmaceutical companies – and especially the FDA, which is charged with the safeguarding of our national health – to come clean and really have the public’s health and well-being at heart?

That may be an impossible quest, particularly where  often billions of dollars are at stake, but shouldn’t consumers really know what they’re getting into with meds? As in most things, the hype isn’t necessarily the truth and the truth, in this case, can do more than hurt.

All icouldbe mentor programs are embedded in school classrooms. There are costs involved in offering these programs.

To manage these costs, icouldbe.org will work with a local public school to identify a business partner / foundation who will help cover the expenses of the program.

For example, icouldbe has partnered with eTrade Financial, which sponsors 650 kids each year in the towns where their employees work. Employees act as mentors and cover the costs of the program, making it a meaningful mentor program.

icouldbe works with the school to find the funding partner, then will help manage the program, including providing technical and program support to make sure students get the most out of the e-mentoring program.

It takes two training sessions to train the teacher who will deliver the program. They then register the kids who then select their mentors and get to work!

For details on how to get involved, click “Get Involved” on icouldbe.org’s website.

Sadly, even with the No Child Left Behind program over the past decade, there’s been a significant drop in the number of public school guidance counselors. Nationally that means one guidance counselor to between 500 to 750 students!

In California, those numbers stretch to one to 1,5000 students, says Kate Schrauth, Executive Director of icouldbe.org, which offers an online e-mentoring program to middle and high school students, generally in low income and rural communities.

icouldbe.org was founded in 2000 by Adam Aberman, a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and teacher in New York City’s inner city school system. Aberman realized the amount of time high school students had to consider secondary education, where they’re going after high school and the careers they’re interested in was extremely limited.

It’s about 8 minutes per year, said Schrauth.

Aberman wanted to take advantage of the internet explosion taking place to address these important issues.

“Doing this over the internet,” Schrauth said, “people who don’t have a way to mentor or tutor can do it when they have the time.”

“Through the power of technology, we can connect all these people,” she said.

Since it’s founding, icouldbe has mentored over 20,000 students: kids in failing schools, on Native American reservations, orphans in East Africa and blind and/or vision impaired kids. They also partner with UNICEF to help bring students from Ethiopia, Uganda, Germany and the US together to communicate another about health and development issues.

icouldbe has developed a 30-unit curriculum – a series of guided activities kids and their mentors work on throughout the school year, themed around career exploration and college or any kind of healpost-secondary education preparation.

Students select their mentor based on their own interests and can have up to 3 mentors in fields they’re interested in pursuing.

The practical issues they address include:

• how to research and pick colleges that are a good fit
• should they attend vocational school?
• should they enter the military and get an education?

Kids enrolled in icouldbe end up with a vetted list of 3 to 5 post secondary educational opportunities they can apply to that are a match for them.

Students learn the practical pieces that will lead them into successfully submitting the applications required. The educational website walks them through things like how to write that 1st resume, how to search the internet and how to go through interview process. They also work on scenarios like networking skills and approaching a teacher to ask for help or how they can do better.

It’s all those things adults take for granted, said Schrauth.

“We take the best from the mentoring world,” Schrauth said, “and combine it with the career preparation, college preparation, (and) some financial literacy work.”

Safety’s a big focus of these programs.

All mentors go through a triple background check: a national criminal check, a sex offender check, and an additional identity check. icouldbe.org has a filtering and monitoring system to ensure that no adult can find any child physically or virtually outside the program. Mentors go by their usernames. Should any cyberbullying occur, the filter captures it and the intended recipient never sees it. Then the teacher can use it in the classroom as a teaching tool on being appropriate, being respectful, and staying safe while online.

“We’ve never not passed through a security test with a school or a corporate partner (with) all those safety features in place,” said Schrauth.

Last year, icouldbe.org served about 1,200 students throughout California, where the majority of the students they work with are. All students attend the California Partnership Academy. Students can find a school within the Academy where all their courses are geared around their particular career theme.

Because the academies are required to provide every 11th grader with a mentor, they have been working with icouldbe.org for the past eight years.

They’re seeing tremendous results, Schrauth says.

In 2010, the Journal of Vocational Behavior published findings of the first research on online mentoring done by independent researchers from Drexel University. They were measuring around self-efficacy – the students ability to make good, positive life decisions.

They saw improvements from all the kids in the program across the country. Even the ones who at the beginning of the program who seemed hopeless came away with statistically significant improvements.

Because of the online mentor and the online support, the kids came away with attitudes of

“I can do it”, “I can make good decisions,” and “Yes I’m going to graduate from high school,” says Schrauth.

Every mentor who signs up to be with these kids for a year, that’s the impact they have, she said.

January is National Mentoring Month. To find out more on this remarkable e-mentoring program and how you can get involved, check out icouldbe.org.

To find out how you or your school can get involved, see Part 2.

The receding glacier at Portage Lake photo b Cool Breeze pics, flickr

Here are some stunning photographs taken by a world class photographer of the steady retreat of our glaciers. Pictures tell the tale, even if climate change deniers try to soft pedal the story.

It’s hard to argue with the time-lapse pictures  you’ll see. It’s tine for the old saying of “out of sight, out of mind” to be replaced.