One of the questions I see asked often in the CF community is should we invest in a Salt Lamp, or go to a Salt Cave? Should we use table salt or a different version? Is living at the beach better for CFers?
To give you a quick back ground on why Salt related questions are important to the CF community, CFers lose more salt than the average person when they sweat. The issues with Salt and CF go all the way down to the genetic mutations that create Cystic Fibrosis. There is an amazing break down of this here.
So as you can see replacing the salt lost is extremely important, especially during extracurricular activities, or summertime outdoor fun.
Himalayan Salt Lamps
We own two salt lamps in our home, one in Little Miss’ room, and one in ours. The main jest of these Salt Lamps is that it is suggested they are air purifiers. One of my favorite articles to share when asked out Salt Lamps is this one, it lays out the main reasons people have them in homes. It is important to research before you buy, there have been some recalls on specific brands, and imitation lamps over the years since they have become so popular. I would say over all the main benefits of a Salt Lamp aren’t benefits that you can track, or would really notice the difference as they are air quality type benefits. We live on a dirt road, and notice a difference when we have ours on consistently compared to when we don’t. (It is bright! so we often keep ours off) When it’s left on I don’t wake up with a dry throat as often. But this is one of those products that affects people differently. It is also recommended to get a specific size per square footage of the space. We live in about 500 sq. ft. total, so with both of ours it more than covers our area.
Himalayan Salt & Cooking
We have also recently switched our salt grinders over to Himalayan Salt. Consuming Himalayan Salt is supposed to be healthier than regular table salt. They make Salt Slabs that you can cook on and Salt that you can grind to add it to your diet. You can read more about the benefits of Himalayan Salt here. Again, these are all things that day to day without actually making an effort to track you wouldn’t notice the difference but if the hype is true your body will thank you. Personally I think the Himalayan Salt tastes better than any other salt, and I’ll switch just for that. Everything else is a bonus!
Salt Caves
There has been a lot of controversy over Salt Caves and how safe they are for Cystic Fibrosis patients. We have a few local ones but haven’t tried one as of yet, as soon as we do attempt it I will update this post to let you know our results. Salt Caves state that they are great for help with Allergies, Anxiety, and over all health. Like with the Salt Lamps there are fakes out there, and it is important to research and ask questions before taking your kids to them. There have been questions raised about how clean they are, and if it is possible to catch something from being in the room after someone else with an illness was in it. When researching you will find people on both sides of the argument for all of the above salt options, so it really does come down to personal choice, and personal results for your family. We have spoke to our respiratory therapist about the local caves, and while she doesn’t warn against them, the information she has is inconclusive to if they are effective. Here is a link to our local location here in Austin to give you a visual idea of what it looks like.
CF and the Ocean
When you are faced with a child that has a terminal disease it often comes in to question if you could live in the perfect environment for them what would it be? Most will suggest the ocean, because of the salt content in the air. There are quite a few good articles out there that support the idea of ocean living benefiting CFers enough to consider making the move. Obviously, every family can’t always make such a change in their life, but adding beach trips to your family vacations might not hurt right?
- Doctor’s Orders
- Surfing might Extend Life Expectancy
- Ocean becomes Pipeline to Cure
- Health Benefits of Living by Oceans
Let me know if the comments if you’ve added any of these Salt ideas to your life, and how they have benefited your family (or if they haven’t). CF is a disease that doesn’t follow a protocol when it comes to treatment, I love pondering and researching alternative methods.