As we're about to go into the new year of 2013, my mind is a jumble of thoughts, feelings and lessons learned throughout the years. The following is going to be rambling - 'cause that's how I seem to roll these days - but hopefully enlightening (and entertaining!). My wish is that 2013 will be one of peace, calm and a lightening of the pervasive heavy-spirit that so many of us seemed to be floundering in during the past several years!
Re the pervasive heavy-spirit: I've watched with interest and awe all the recent stories of random acts of kindness. I've got to be honest with y'all: I still feel that broadcasting/bragging/publicizing any and all little kindnesses that one may do for his/her fellow beings makes me cringe. After all (and I feel the same way about public prayer ala Christian or Muslim fundamentalism) it's our innate humanness that should compel us to always seize the moment to be "good" or "do the right thing" and it's meant to be a private, personal karmic moment. However (you knew I'd pop that word in!), if publicizing acts of kindness compels others to do the same, it's totally worth it, and all that positive energy wafting through our universe benefits all of us! Anything that lifts our hearts and emotional well-being up is a wonderful thing.
Okey dokey - on to the baldness. I've suffered from a type of alopecia since my hysterectomy in 1996 (no estrogen!) AND it seems to run in my family. I've bought five wigs over the years to use when it's especially bad, and I've been as bald as having just a few baby-fine hairs on the front of my head. Back in 2005 I switched to a raw vegan diet, and that seemed to be the worst period of baldness, and I've alternated between being a total vegan to incorporating some meat in my diet since then, all to only partial success. Now I do eat a small bit of meat (bought from local humane, sustainable, organic farms) with a large helping of veggies at meals. For breakfast I usually eat eggs scrambled in coconut milk with several cloves of raw garlic, chopped onion, celery, mushrooms and about a cup of cilantro. Yummy, and all meant to lower my blood pressure. keep me healthy (I haven't had a cold or the flu or any other "bugs" for years), and keeping me full hunger-wise and full of energy throughout the day. But the diet alone doesn't help totally with the alopecia. So, over the years I've tried potions, salves, and other herbal remedies to solve the issue, but again, it only helped partially. What to do? I love my wigs, but good grief they're hot and sweat-inducing! Fast forward to sometime this year I just happened to be reading some random article on hair styles when a cosmetologist being interviewed mentioned that many women who suffer from hair loss lack enough iron, B-12 and biotin. Huh, I thought. I knew that too much iron is not healthy, and too little causes anemia. But how much is too much and how little is too little to not be on a medical radar? After several days of intensive research, I figured out the basic dosages, and now I have hair in abundance. Oh, it's all different lengths from growing little by little, and it took a few months to completely start growing, but no more shiny bald patch! So here's the "magic" formula that I take, all companies researched for their supplements' efficacy ratings and ingredients' purity: Garden of Life Vitamin Code Raw Iron 22 mg., Country Life Biotin 5 mg., and TwinLab Mega B-12 Dots 5000 mcg. About the B-12: take it in the morning because it gives you a boost of energy, and you don't want to be up all night if you take it in the evening! Also, when you look for a B-12 supplement, make sure it's for sublingual (under the tongue) use. B-12 is best absorbed in this manner.
On to my recent TIA - mini-stroke - incident. I've had several neurologist and internal medicine visits, along with an MRI, an MRA, two complete blood tests, doppler carotid tests and a sleep study. It turns out that my right carotid artery has mild blockage, and the left carotid has slightly less blockage. The brain scans showed no sign of any damage, thank goodness! The internist immediately put me on blood pressure medication because my blood pressure was 173/101 (ugh) and wanted me to take a statin. I refused; last year it was finally confirmed by cardiologists that statins are toxic in otherwise healthy patients - among the permanent side effects are muscular-nerve loss, liver damage, and restless leg syndrome (this is when your legs get that "my skin is crawling!" feeling). The only people who are recommended to take statins are those who have suffered a heart attack or who have chronic, established heart disease. My heart is fine, oddly enough; it's my head area that's shorted-out :D. My mother died when she was 5 years older than I am now from congestive heart failure - her heart and lungs were filled with fluid, and she suffered from emphysema, as well. My heart's fine, my lungs are clear, I don't have emphysema. I DO have high cholesterol, but my HDL (the good cholesterol that eats the bad) levels are really good. Cardiologists are torn between admitting that cholesterol levels don't indicate heart disease and toting the Big Pharma lie that everyone needs to be on a statin. Look, from everything I've researched, statins are just plain poison. Period. And anyone who is past the age of 60 shouldn't be placed on a statin no matter what, in any event. So if you're over 60 and reading this and on a statin and haven't had a heart attack and your HDL is good (regardless of your other cholesterol numbers), your diet is good, just say no to a statin. So what to take in place of a statin to ensure your heart and arteries stay healthy? I'm now taking Solgar Vitamin B-6 250 mg. and Solgar Folic Acid 800 mcg., along with the vitamin B-12 - all three are necessary and vital for arterial health, y'all!
Those of you who know what a fervent believer I am re herbs, organic & gmo-free foods and all things nature provided to us for whole body wellness may be sittin' at your computer right about now thinkin' "Damn! If all things natural are so good for you, why are you sick, Kerry?" Here's the short and simple answer: I didn't start paying attention to my diet or to my environment or to, well, much of anything prior to about 7 years ago. Oh, I always ate a good portion of fruits and veggies, but I also ate a LOT of pure junk on occasion. My recent blood tests showed that my body is actually really, really healthy - my blood sediment rate, which shows inflammation, cancer, leukemia, etc., was the lowest it can be. This I attribute directly to taking white willow bark supplements: Two 400 mg. capsules twice a day, every day. I only started taking those in April right after I had the epiphany that my entire body suffered from inflammation during a poison ivy attack. Obviously, it works! Both my internist and neurologist were clueless as to the therapeutic value of willow bark, and both told me take aspirin every day to mitigate a possible future TIA/stroke. I am taking the daily low dosage aspirin, but I'm definitely taking willow bark, too. It's a literal life-saver. All those bouts of cancer, both of the auto-immune disorders with which I deal, bad food choices in the past, all of those have clogged my arteries and inflamed my body. I'm reversing that damage - there will always be some remaining damage, but it's manageable now - and so can anyone who really is sick and tired of being sick and tired. I still have flare ups of my disorders, I still have short-term memory issues (and those are likely permanent, unfortunately, according to the neurologist), I still stress out over injustices and earth and other beings abuse, but I am able to live body-wise better than in the past. On the cancer front, since I'm a DES daughter, my chances of getting breast cancer are 80% greater than other women; with all my life-style changes I've made in the last several years, I do believe I've reduced that statistic enormously (and if I do happen to get it from the genetic mutations DES has caused, I know it'll be a piece of cake to conquer it, too).
So what all am I taking on a daily basis that helps keep me functioning on an acceptable level (I use the word "acceptable" because all throughout my illnesses I've exclaimed, "Well, that's just totally unacceptable!")? In addition to raw garlic cloves and onions and a fruit smoothy that I consume every day (along with other healthy foods of course), here's my complete list, and yes, you may think it's overkill, but considering the excellent blood work report, I'd say it's vital, especially since there's no way I could consume all the food I'd need to consume in order to get the benefits that each supplement brings:
And here's what Jeff is taking on a daily basis (his needs differ from mine on a few issues):
If you have any questions about the benefits that each supplement provides, just Google each - you might be pleasantly surprised, as I was, that many of them are written about in the medical websites and not just strictly in the annals of herbology/holistic medicine sites.
There's one more drug that I've been prescribed, and it's a narcotic. I have to get a written prescription each month from the internist in which to receive it, and it's an opioid. It's called Nucynta, and it's been a life-saver, too, although in a much different way than the whole-body wellness supplements and change in diet. It's the first drug I've taken for my fibromyalgia that actually works by blocking the muscular-neural pain receptors. In the past I've been prescribed a whole slew of medications, from Cymbalta, Tramadol, Flexeril, Lyrica, Neurontin, and on and on that helped not one whit, and indeed caused reactions when I took them - anything from acute hangover type symptoms to increased pain to suicidal thoughts to extreme edema. Nucynta doesn't cause any of these issues, it's not actually addictive for those of us who suffer from chronic pain (unless you're taking it because you're already an addict to pain medication), and as I told the internist, "Best.Drug.Ever." The side effects can be hallucinations, extreme drowsiness, and the like - especially in high doses - but I haven't had any of those and my dosage is small. It allows me to have a better quality of life. Just like the willow bark keeps inflammation away, the Nucynta keeps the muscles and nerves from constantly flaring up. But as with all opioids (or all pain medication), it doesn't help short term memory. At all (duh!). But it certainly keeps my body moving and has greatly improved my ability to walk, and that's exactly what I've needed. I have no idea if I'll take this the rest of my life; I would love to think that I won't need it in some distant future. But the fact remains that I'm approaching 60 and the likelihood of my neuro-muscular system reverting back to pre-hysterectomy, pre-fibromyalgia, pre-auto-immune disorder days is just about zero. So rock on, opioid, rock on!
The sleep study: This was really, really interesting, I thought. I didn't want to participate, kind of thought it was ridiculous, and then when I was researching I found that fibromyalgia sufferers almost always lacked Stage 3 and Stage 4 sleep. These two stages are the most beneficial to one's health, and without them, you feel tired, cranky, run-down and like a truck has run over your body during the night, so I went ahead and participated in the study. I got to the sleep lab at 8:00 pm, they hooked me up to all sorts of electrodes - all over my head and chest - and I fell asleep about 10:30 or 11:00. Well, I actually didn't sleep at all as verified by the results. I had a few minutes of Stage 3 sleep and zero at Stage 4 (deep sleep). I feel vindicated by the results of my sleep study re the fibromyalgia; at one time this disorder was thought to be non-existent, then accepted but still treated with anti-depressants and epilepsy drugs, and was just officially recognized in June 2012 by the Social Security Administration as a disability. Therefore, if anyone is suffering from fibromyalgia and needs one more bit of scientific "proof", I'd suggest taking a sleep study.
One more benefit of the sleep study: Since my TIA happened on the right side of my brain, my extrasensory perception was altered in that I just wasn't getting any more dream visits, and I couldn't perceive what was happening to people around me (I wasn't picking up anything). I didn't feel as if I was a part of the universal whole, and my short term memory vanished. What used to be easy-peezy for me to recite/know/acknowledge just disappeared in the blink of an eye, it seems. Just as the earthquake here in Virginia set off a slew of neurological Parkinson-type reactions in my body, the sleep study electrodes restored my gift. Unbelievable, truly - I didn't even think about the causal effect of electrodes coursing through my brain, but the next night after the study when I awoke from a vivid dream visitation from my Navajo elder guide, I realized what had happened, and I was overjoyed! Back in business, baby! Except if I thought I was forgetting instantly what I dreamed of before the TIA, with the short-term memory loss now it's that much faster how quickly the messages are in and out of my head. I'm now sleeping with my journal under the pillow so that I can (hopefully) write messages down before they blip away. I've only had one that I recovered in time, but I'm working on it!
One last thing: I haven't been on social media much, and I keep forgetting to turn my phone on/charge it. If anyone has been trying to contact me, forgive me, please. I'm still mending, and it takes me seemingly forever to type responses. Even this blog post has taken me five hours to compose - jeez. If this is my new normal, then I reckon I'll have to adapt somehow, but I'll never give up trying to regain what I've lost! Keep on keepin' on, y'all - one day and one hug and one random act of kindness at a time....
Re the pervasive heavy-spirit: I've watched with interest and awe all the recent stories of random acts of kindness. I've got to be honest with y'all: I still feel that broadcasting/bragging/publicizing any and all little kindnesses that one may do for his/her fellow beings makes me cringe. After all (and I feel the same way about public prayer ala Christian or Muslim fundamentalism) it's our innate humanness that should compel us to always seize the moment to be "good" or "do the right thing" and it's meant to be a private, personal karmic moment. However (you knew I'd pop that word in!), if publicizing acts of kindness compels others to do the same, it's totally worth it, and all that positive energy wafting through our universe benefits all of us! Anything that lifts our hearts and emotional well-being up is a wonderful thing.
Okey dokey - on to the baldness. I've suffered from a type of alopecia since my hysterectomy in 1996 (no estrogen!) AND it seems to run in my family. I've bought five wigs over the years to use when it's especially bad, and I've been as bald as having just a few baby-fine hairs on the front of my head. Back in 2005 I switched to a raw vegan diet, and that seemed to be the worst period of baldness, and I've alternated between being a total vegan to incorporating some meat in my diet since then, all to only partial success. Now I do eat a small bit of meat (bought from local humane, sustainable, organic farms) with a large helping of veggies at meals. For breakfast I usually eat eggs scrambled in coconut milk with several cloves of raw garlic, chopped onion, celery, mushrooms and about a cup of cilantro. Yummy, and all meant to lower my blood pressure. keep me healthy (I haven't had a cold or the flu or any other "bugs" for years), and keeping me full hunger-wise and full of energy throughout the day. But the diet alone doesn't help totally with the alopecia. So, over the years I've tried potions, salves, and other herbal remedies to solve the issue, but again, it only helped partially. What to do? I love my wigs, but good grief they're hot and sweat-inducing! Fast forward to sometime this year I just happened to be reading some random article on hair styles when a cosmetologist being interviewed mentioned that many women who suffer from hair loss lack enough iron, B-12 and biotin. Huh, I thought. I knew that too much iron is not healthy, and too little causes anemia. But how much is too much and how little is too little to not be on a medical radar? After several days of intensive research, I figured out the basic dosages, and now I have hair in abundance. Oh, it's all different lengths from growing little by little, and it took a few months to completely start growing, but no more shiny bald patch! So here's the "magic" formula that I take, all companies researched for their supplements' efficacy ratings and ingredients' purity: Garden of Life Vitamin Code Raw Iron 22 mg., Country Life Biotin 5 mg., and TwinLab Mega B-12 Dots 5000 mcg. About the B-12: take it in the morning because it gives you a boost of energy, and you don't want to be up all night if you take it in the evening! Also, when you look for a B-12 supplement, make sure it's for sublingual (under the tongue) use. B-12 is best absorbed in this manner.
On to my recent TIA - mini-stroke - incident. I've had several neurologist and internal medicine visits, along with an MRI, an MRA, two complete blood tests, doppler carotid tests and a sleep study. It turns out that my right carotid artery has mild blockage, and the left carotid has slightly less blockage. The brain scans showed no sign of any damage, thank goodness! The internist immediately put me on blood pressure medication because my blood pressure was 173/101 (ugh) and wanted me to take a statin. I refused; last year it was finally confirmed by cardiologists that statins are toxic in otherwise healthy patients - among the permanent side effects are muscular-nerve loss, liver damage, and restless leg syndrome (this is when your legs get that "my skin is crawling!" feeling). The only people who are recommended to take statins are those who have suffered a heart attack or who have chronic, established heart disease. My heart is fine, oddly enough; it's my head area that's shorted-out :D. My mother died when she was 5 years older than I am now from congestive heart failure - her heart and lungs were filled with fluid, and she suffered from emphysema, as well. My heart's fine, my lungs are clear, I don't have emphysema. I DO have high cholesterol, but my HDL (the good cholesterol that eats the bad) levels are really good. Cardiologists are torn between admitting that cholesterol levels don't indicate heart disease and toting the Big Pharma lie that everyone needs to be on a statin. Look, from everything I've researched, statins are just plain poison. Period. And anyone who is past the age of 60 shouldn't be placed on a statin no matter what, in any event. So if you're over 60 and reading this and on a statin and haven't had a heart attack and your HDL is good (regardless of your other cholesterol numbers), your diet is good, just say no to a statin. So what to take in place of a statin to ensure your heart and arteries stay healthy? I'm now taking Solgar Vitamin B-6 250 mg. and Solgar Folic Acid 800 mcg., along with the vitamin B-12 - all three are necessary and vital for arterial health, y'all!
Those of you who know what a fervent believer I am re herbs, organic & gmo-free foods and all things nature provided to us for whole body wellness may be sittin' at your computer right about now thinkin' "Damn! If all things natural are so good for you, why are you sick, Kerry?" Here's the short and simple answer: I didn't start paying attention to my diet or to my environment or to, well, much of anything prior to about 7 years ago. Oh, I always ate a good portion of fruits and veggies, but I also ate a LOT of pure junk on occasion. My recent blood tests showed that my body is actually really, really healthy - my blood sediment rate, which shows inflammation, cancer, leukemia, etc., was the lowest it can be. This I attribute directly to taking white willow bark supplements: Two 400 mg. capsules twice a day, every day. I only started taking those in April right after I had the epiphany that my entire body suffered from inflammation during a poison ivy attack. Obviously, it works! Both my internist and neurologist were clueless as to the therapeutic value of willow bark, and both told me take aspirin every day to mitigate a possible future TIA/stroke. I am taking the daily low dosage aspirin, but I'm definitely taking willow bark, too. It's a literal life-saver. All those bouts of cancer, both of the auto-immune disorders with which I deal, bad food choices in the past, all of those have clogged my arteries and inflamed my body. I'm reversing that damage - there will always be some remaining damage, but it's manageable now - and so can anyone who really is sick and tired of being sick and tired. I still have flare ups of my disorders, I still have short-term memory issues (and those are likely permanent, unfortunately, according to the neurologist), I still stress out over injustices and earth and other beings abuse, but I am able to live body-wise better than in the past. On the cancer front, since I'm a DES daughter, my chances of getting breast cancer are 80% greater than other women; with all my life-style changes I've made in the last several years, I do believe I've reduced that statistic enormously (and if I do happen to get it from the genetic mutations DES has caused, I know it'll be a piece of cake to conquer it, too).
So what all am I taking on a daily basis that helps keep me functioning on an acceptable level (I use the word "acceptable" because all throughout my illnesses I've exclaimed, "Well, that's just totally unacceptable!")? In addition to raw garlic cloves and onions and a fruit smoothy that I consume every day (along with other healthy foods of course), here's my complete list, and yes, you may think it's overkill, but considering the excellent blood work report, I'd say it's vital, especially since there's no way I could consume all the food I'd need to consume in order to get the benefits that each supplement brings:
|
SUPPLEMENT
|
DOSAGE
|
|
White Willow Bark
(Nature’s Way)
|
2 – 400 mg. 2x daily
|
|
Vitamin D3 (Country
Life)
|
5,000 IU
|
|
Raw Iron (Garden of
Life)
|
22 mg.
|
|
Bayer Aspirin
|
81 mg
|
|
Vitamin B12
sublingual (Twinlab)
|
5,000 mcg
|
|
Mega Taurine
(Twinlab)
|
1,000 mg
|
|
Biotin (Country
Life)
|
5 mg
|
|
MultiVitamin for Her
50-plus (Nature Made)
|
|
|
Ubiquinol CoQH
(Source Naturals)
|
100 mg. 2x daily
|
|
Raspberry Ketones
Complete
|
250 mg
|
|
Vitamin B6 (Solgar)
|
250 mg
|
|
Folic Acid (Solgar)
|
800 mcg
|
|
Milk Thistle (Nature’s
Way)
|
80% Silymarin, 175
mg milk thistle extract, 150 mg Blessed Thistle
|
And here's what Jeff is taking on a daily basis (his needs differ from mine on a few issues):
|
SUPPLEMENT
|
DOSAGE
|
|
White Willow Bark
(Nature’s Way)
|
2 – 400 mg.
|
|
Vitamin D3 (Country
Life)
|
5,000 IU
|
|
Centrum Silver Men
50+
|
|
|
Phytosterol Complex
(Vitacost)
|
|
|
Vitamin B12
sublingual (Twinlab)
|
5,000 mcg
|
|
Mega Taurine
(Twinlab)
|
1,000 mg
|
|
Glucosamine, MSM,
Vit. D Complex
|
Twice daily;
glucosamine 1500 mg, MSM 1000 mg, Vitamin D 1000 IU
|
|
Ubiquinol CoQH
(Source Naturals)
|
100 mg
|
|
Vitamin B6 (Solgar)
|
250 mg
|
|
Folic Acid (Solgar)
|
800 mcg
|
|
Milk Thistle
(Nature’s Way)
|
80% Silymarin, 175
mg milk thistle extract, 150 mg Blessed Thistle
|
|
|
|
If you have any questions about the benefits that each supplement provides, just Google each - you might be pleasantly surprised, as I was, that many of them are written about in the medical websites and not just strictly in the annals of herbology/holistic medicine sites.
There's one more drug that I've been prescribed, and it's a narcotic. I have to get a written prescription each month from the internist in which to receive it, and it's an opioid. It's called Nucynta, and it's been a life-saver, too, although in a much different way than the whole-body wellness supplements and change in diet. It's the first drug I've taken for my fibromyalgia that actually works by blocking the muscular-neural pain receptors. In the past I've been prescribed a whole slew of medications, from Cymbalta, Tramadol, Flexeril, Lyrica, Neurontin, and on and on that helped not one whit, and indeed caused reactions when I took them - anything from acute hangover type symptoms to increased pain to suicidal thoughts to extreme edema. Nucynta doesn't cause any of these issues, it's not actually addictive for those of us who suffer from chronic pain (unless you're taking it because you're already an addict to pain medication), and as I told the internist, "Best.Drug.Ever." The side effects can be hallucinations, extreme drowsiness, and the like - especially in high doses - but I haven't had any of those and my dosage is small. It allows me to have a better quality of life. Just like the willow bark keeps inflammation away, the Nucynta keeps the muscles and nerves from constantly flaring up. But as with all opioids (or all pain medication), it doesn't help short term memory. At all (duh!). But it certainly keeps my body moving and has greatly improved my ability to walk, and that's exactly what I've needed. I have no idea if I'll take this the rest of my life; I would love to think that I won't need it in some distant future. But the fact remains that I'm approaching 60 and the likelihood of my neuro-muscular system reverting back to pre-hysterectomy, pre-fibromyalgia, pre-auto-immune disorder days is just about zero. So rock on, opioid, rock on!
The sleep study: This was really, really interesting, I thought. I didn't want to participate, kind of thought it was ridiculous, and then when I was researching I found that fibromyalgia sufferers almost always lacked Stage 3 and Stage 4 sleep. These two stages are the most beneficial to one's health, and without them, you feel tired, cranky, run-down and like a truck has run over your body during the night, so I went ahead and participated in the study. I got to the sleep lab at 8:00 pm, they hooked me up to all sorts of electrodes - all over my head and chest - and I fell asleep about 10:30 or 11:00. Well, I actually didn't sleep at all as verified by the results. I had a few minutes of Stage 3 sleep and zero at Stage 4 (deep sleep). I feel vindicated by the results of my sleep study re the fibromyalgia; at one time this disorder was thought to be non-existent, then accepted but still treated with anti-depressants and epilepsy drugs, and was just officially recognized in June 2012 by the Social Security Administration as a disability. Therefore, if anyone is suffering from fibromyalgia and needs one more bit of scientific "proof", I'd suggest taking a sleep study.
One more benefit of the sleep study: Since my TIA happened on the right side of my brain, my extrasensory perception was altered in that I just wasn't getting any more dream visits, and I couldn't perceive what was happening to people around me (I wasn't picking up anything). I didn't feel as if I was a part of the universal whole, and my short term memory vanished. What used to be easy-peezy for me to recite/know/acknowledge just disappeared in the blink of an eye, it seems. Just as the earthquake here in Virginia set off a slew of neurological Parkinson-type reactions in my body, the sleep study electrodes restored my gift. Unbelievable, truly - I didn't even think about the causal effect of electrodes coursing through my brain, but the next night after the study when I awoke from a vivid dream visitation from my Navajo elder guide, I realized what had happened, and I was overjoyed! Back in business, baby! Except if I thought I was forgetting instantly what I dreamed of before the TIA, with the short-term memory loss now it's that much faster how quickly the messages are in and out of my head. I'm now sleeping with my journal under the pillow so that I can (hopefully) write messages down before they blip away. I've only had one that I recovered in time, but I'm working on it!
One last thing: I haven't been on social media much, and I keep forgetting to turn my phone on/charge it. If anyone has been trying to contact me, forgive me, please. I'm still mending, and it takes me seemingly forever to type responses. Even this blog post has taken me five hours to compose - jeez. If this is my new normal, then I reckon I'll have to adapt somehow, but I'll never give up trying to regain what I've lost! Keep on keepin' on, y'all - one day and one hug and one random act of kindness at a time....
