Hey guys! I asked you to send in your sexual health questions to Susun S. Weed, and she’s responded with some helpful tips for at-home remedies that will put the kabosh on UTIs, yeast infections, and period pain.

Susun is known for her pioneering work on herbal remedies and is regarded as this country’s leading expert on herbal medicine. A four-time international bestselling author, she has written a comprehensive new resource called Down There: Sexual and Reproductive Health, the Wise Woman Way (Ash Tree Publishing, $29.95). She’s generously offering THREE COPIES of the book to readers of The Chicktionary, so I’m hosting giveaways on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. (Tumblr followers, submit an entry by reblogging this post.)

Check out her awesome book and read about the natural cures she suggested to you below!

DEAR SUSUN:  How do I prevent UTIs? I get them all the time and can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.  

Susun says:

• Eat, drink, take, or otherwise consume cranberries to eliminate chronic UTIs. As little as two ounces of cranberry juice daily halves the rate of UTIs in women with two or more incidences a year. Raw berries, like most raw foods, as useless. Canned cranberry sauce, dried cranberries, unsweetened cranberry juice, even powdered cranberries in pills are effective.
• Don’t like cranberries? Too sour? Blueberries are just as effective.
• Half of women don’t respond to the proanthocyanidins in cranberries. If you are one of them, hibiscus flower tea in addition to, or instead of, cran- or blue-berries ought to do it. Hibiscus is as effective as antibiotics. It is especially recommended for women who have eight or more UTIs a year.
• Special peptides in the urinary tract protect against infection. To make more of them, eat more protein or drink nettle infusion. (See my You Tube for instructions on making this infusion.)

DEAR SUSUN: I get really really bad cramping unless I’m on the birth control pill, but I’m not having sex right now and can’t afford to be paying so much when I’m not really using it. I do NOT want to take ibuprofen all the time but Midol really doesn’t work for me at all. Is there a “natural” way to deal with this?  

Susun says:

• Try a tea of ginger. Put a teaspoonful of powdered or fresh root in a mug and fill it with boiling water. Drink plain or with honey. Acts in minutes to warm the belly and ease pain.
• Cavort with catnip. Add twelve leaves and their stalk to a mug of boiling water and steep for five minutes. Add honey if you wish. Or roll a cigarette of dried catnip and smoke it for instant relief.
• Collaborate with motherwort. The lion-hearted heart not only eases menstrual pain at the moment, it tones the uterus so cramps are less likely in the future. I use 5-20 drops of the tincture, repeated every five minutes, as needed. Many women say they no longer have cramps after using motherwort for several months.

DEAR SUSUN: Can I REALLY use garlic to cure a yeast infection? My friend told me that this is an old wives’ remedy, so I did a Google search, but there are a lot of people saying it doesn’t work.

Susun says: Garlic in your vagina will make your breath reek. Try these options instead.

• Vaginal yeast is your body’s way of saying: “No intercourse now!” Please listen.
  Women who eat a cup of yogurt a day have only 1/3 as many yeast overgrowths as those who don’t indulge.
• Maitake mushrooms inhibit and destroy vaginal yeast. Start with ½ gram a day and increase slowly.
• An herbal sitz bath is another easy way to eliminate vaginal yeast overgrowth. Choose from any of these: black walnut hulls, goldenrod flowers, garden sage leaves, licorice root, pau d’arco, English ivy, or goldenseal. Pour 8 cups of boiling water over two ounces of the herb and steep overnight. Strain and sit in the liquid. May be reused once or twice if needed.
• According to the well researched Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, garlic does kill vaginal yeast. If you want to give it a try: Peel a clove of garlic without nicking or cutting it. Dip it in olive oil. Insert it well up in the vagina, near the cervix. To remove, put your foot up on a chair and bear down as though you were having a bowel movement.

For further information on preparation and dosage, please see Down There, Sexual and Reproductive Health the Wise Woman Way. Learn more about Susun Weed at her award-winning website, where readers can find articles, health tips, how-to videos and podcasts, and recipes for herbal remedies. 

More giveaways on the horizon — check back tonight for an announcement of a weekend-long contest. P.S. Don’t forget to vote for me today in the SHAPE Magazine Best Blogger Awards! The Chicktionary is in the Top 4 for “Overall Healthy Living” :)

Eva Christina is the author of The Book of Kink, an entertaining and enlightening look into all things beyond the pale when it comes to sex. Exploring everything from equipment, sex classes, sex parties, and porn to the who, what, where, when, why, and how of kink, Eva delves into fetishes, turn-ons, role-playing, and how the Internet has put a new spin on kinkiness.

I asked you guys to submit some questions to Eva. Here are her responses:

How would you define the difference between kink and fetish? Why is it that one person’s kink seems vanilla to someone else?

Kink is something that someone could enjoy once, as an adventurous foray into something sexually daring. Fetish is an act that must be fulfilled if the person is to truly feel satisfied. People’s kinks are all based on context. One person might think dressing up like a horse is common, while another might think doggy-style is taboo. Depending on where you grew up, who you grew up with and what the community standards are where you live, your views on what’s kinky will vary greatly.

Have any U.S. presidents (or other interesting historical figures) had any kinks that we know of?

Well, if you consider cigars to be sex toys, Bill Clinton would be the most recent. When it comes to historical figures, there’s Adolf Hitler, who was supposedly into golden showers. Mongolian warlord, Genghis Khan literally impregnated thousands of women. And Roman Emperor Tiberius liked to get “tickled” by young boys who would fondle him underwater (and that was actually one of the tamer things he apparently did).

Nowadays it seems like everyone enjoys handcuffs and some spanking. Have the standards for what’s kinky changed?

I think that with the relaxation of censorship in media and entertainment (mostly thanks to the internet), we’ve been introduced to more racy and lewd acts and behavior that would have never been allowed in our conscious, much less our airwaves. There was a time when a woman would show off her ankle and cause shock – and titillation. Today, seeing women in nothing but cone bras and g-strings is quite normal.

What was the most surprising factoid you discovered in the course of your research?

As kinky as Japan is, it has one of the lowest percentages of sex between couples in the world!

If you’re willing to share, what are YOUR kinks and did researching this book introduce you to any new ones?

This wasn’t a personal journey, and I can’t say that I have to hide a big secret box from my kids. So, I think the kinkiest thing I’ve ever done is find out about all these kinks out there in the world! I now feel like I’m a voyeur.

Congrats to the lucky giveaway winner who will be receiving a free copy of THE BOOK OF KINK: SEX BEYOND THE MISSIONARY! 

Miss this giveaway? I’m hosting another one (with THREE winners) that ends today at midnight. Check out the details and stay tuned for a very special weekend giveaway sponsored by FlipMe. I’m announcing that one tomorrow ;) Don’t forget to vote for me in the SHAPE Magazine Best Blogger Awards!