Heavily Glutened: FEVER

In a week of weakness, I consumed:

Pizza twice. Moderate and local pizzeria, but allergenic nonetheless.

My favorite bakery's cream cheese filled spongy cookie, twice.

A sesame and soy sauce garnished biscuit, twice.

Then my favorite chocolate filled mini-baguettes which my student gifts me every other week or so. And that was the last straw. 10 minutes later I had ringing in my ears.

The next day I felt normal, just a little tired, but after one of my classes suddenly had terrible aches and pains like the flu. Also noticed this pain above one of my molars which I get if I have dairy, or dairy-gluten combos which feels like tooth pain but I think it's my sinus. By the end of all my classes I was throughly exhausted and feverish, fever starting around 99 degrees and getting as high as 101! Also, a characteristic feeling where my sinus meets my throat like someone scraped it and post-nasal drip... 

Must be GLUTENING. >.< And after cutting it out for so long, it's only all the more clear when glutening happens. 

It's back to a hypoallergenic diet for me. Sweet potatoes, homemade chicken vegetable soup, and now I have the joy of homemade vegetable juices in my life. Carrot juice is creamy delicious! 

Still feeling like crap... tired and sore.

Video Review: Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead

It's been a while. I guess nothing's happened that struck me with the inspiration to write these days, but recently it has. I'm always in the mood to watch any muckraking, inspirational, or health-educational film and just found one. Excited by the title, I searched for it and found it and want to share it with the masses on the internet.

It's a documentary called "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" As you can see. The image and trailer can be accessed at the page: http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/ and also leads to the online community known collectively as "the Reboot." It goes back to the time-tested practice of fasting to in effect "reset" the body.

For anyone who's followed my posting they know I have sporradic health complaints. I think I'm someone who needs a lot of variety in my diet. My last diet experiment had to do with avoiding gluten, and after avoiding it temporarily for a month or so I can tolerate even gluten containing foods in moderation (success!). For those who are severely overweight and experiencing mild to severe health effects from a processed or low plant food containing diet, I think this movie is a must see. Joe Cross (the director and main subject of the film) is your average younger-end middle aged man who finds himself 40 or so, overweight, and saddled with an autoimmune medical condition which for a time he chose to control with modern medicine: predisone. Another subject in the film has the same condition (chronic urticaria) the other man with the condition is a similar age but more overweight. Both stories are inspiring. My father also suffers from a chronic hive condition and he wears the same badge of metabolic crisis: what I would call "basketball gut." Or my mother says it looks like my dad's carrying triplets.

How is it that for all our advancements, technology, and wealth-- we are failing to fuel ourselves with the nutrients we need? Why does our food: that which we put in our bodies, fail to warrant the financial investment we're willing to make for clothes, tech devices, cosmetics, and everything else in our lives?

All in all I find the film to be a great inspiration. It goes where films which came before such as Super Size Me and other food-related documentaries don't go. It shows that there is a way to break the cycle and restore balance in the body. And also, that there's a way to do it without breaking the bank. Both the director/main subject, Joe, and the secondary character, Phil, loose their basketball gut and their western medications--while at the same time inspiring their families and communities to consider themselves undertaking fasts (Joe and Phil complete 60 day juice fasts), although for those who are facing more mild conditions and mild overweight, shorter fasts and maintaining balance in the diet is probably enough to consider fostering health.

A must see. I remember watching Super Size Me in my high school health education class. I think this film could easily take the place of that film as being educational and inspirational for people to suggest to their friends or family members.

Powerful New Research in Functional Medicine: Neurological Approach

This shows that the dietary choices we, our governments, our societies make... do effect us in more ways than we can name or know. How impressive that this doctor made a journey from being, in essence, in the dark on what nutrients could help her condition- to realizing that her insufficient intake of these nutrients perhaps had everything to do with her condition and that where medicine continued to fail her, freeing herself of food allergens and increasing her intake of essential nutrients largely through diet could help her recover her ability to walk and function without loosing her job and livelihood.

I feel that education in industrialized and industrializing countries is failing us by not teaching us the basics of the power of natural plants and native diets... which are truly the basics of survival, and now they are being lost and becoming just the whispers of the ghosts which came before us, all is being lost for convenience.

Thanks to mercola.com for drawing attention to this TED video. I admire Functional Medicine efforts and hope that it rises up in the place of the current medical system in the US that treats symptoms and not root causes. If only the subsidization of food would reward those trying to be proactive for their health (by healthy, unadulterated food), vs. the oversubsidization of grains, meat, and dairy, which in effect is a huge force behind the increased need for expensive and often ineffective medical treatments.

"Let food be thy medicine."

I'm now going to dedicate myself, more than ever, to getting well, saving money, and hopefully making it to naturopathic medical school or even MD, if not to get in on the exciting research that is functional medicine.

On Probiotics

So, the medical world: "conventional" and "alternative" alike is all abuzz about Probiotics... and the idea of replenishing intenstinal flora to combat the assaults on our systems of the mix of yeast, sugar, and refined flours resulting in what is an overgrowth of candida (everyone's favorite YEAST infections) and a lack of friendly bacteria for most people.

Scary, I know. ;) Oh the horror.

Both my primary care MD, naturopaths, and my acupuncturists recommend probiotics but the fact of the matter is that they can be painful for us whose systems are out of whack (and also, the way they are cultured among them are different and people, depending on sensitivities and allergies, will have different reactions to different strains.) There are herxheimer reactions (worsening of symptoms occurring when positive changes are happening), as well as just having general side affects. Looks like probiotics produce side effects for me.

Having a healthy balance of flora in the gut can help with these conditions: (and yet, for most, is not the silver bullet answer)

-allergies (of all kinds)

-fatigue

-IBS

-leaky gut and nutrient absorbtion

So I don't know if the discomfort I'm in is because of some good vs. evil bacteria/fungi in the gut or if probiotics are a no-no for me.

It's gonna be a while until I try taking one again.

A Familiar Story

An Anxiety Experience, and What Helps:

http://www.derealization.org/my-experience/derealization-cured-my-story

Great story. Kind of sounds like when I have my descents (well I have had 2 major falls with this anxiety... and a few short-lived minor ones)

Interesting that it came on after this individual was trying psychadelic drugs. I have never done any drugs... I'm such a pansy among my friends... usually the only one drinking water at the college parties...

It's interesting BECAUSE my anxiety started after the Gardasil + Menactra + Hep vaccines. It's as if I received a brain-chemistry altering drug!

And the story is EVEN MORE INTERESTING when the things the individual writes down helped their condition are uncannily the same things that have been helping me, that functional medicine and this whole unsettling but (hopefully) strengthening journey has brought me to. That is, magnesium, l-theanine (which I have been prescribed but seldom need to take, said to help with "brain chatter"... I get that feeling when I am hungry, and it is usually greatly helped by eating something, a little bit of complex carb with protein)... AND, optimistically, acupuncture. I'm getting really excited about doing some acupuncture.

When I was in Japan my host mother did acupuncture on me. She gave that up to pursue allopathic nursing, but it's nice to know that someone in the allopathic realm would have that experience. I know that it might not do anything, but there are so many problems I don't see how at least one might not be helped, especially with how it's effectiveness in treating nausea (from chemotherapy, etc...) and pain (effective nerve blocking) is touted. Very interesting stuff.

And look! Here's my blog offering another testament.

My one other dream? Kicking mono's butt.

On Mercury Detox

LINK: http://www.ultrawellness.com/blog/mercury-part-ii

Good website detailing mercury detox protocol. I'm not about to do anything by myself because I'm afraid there will be further exacerbations. Same for anyone out there looking for help. Don't do it alone. Anything is worth a try. First stop: building up my nutrition. Kinda tough now because I have no appetite. It really feels just like when I got sick in summer 2007. I remember I would have fitful, very scared nights. I feel tremendous guilt for putting my host families through that. On top of that, whatever is going on with my system has my hormones really out of whack and I have all the symptoms of PMDD. Seeing my PCP on Monday but pretty sure I'll just get sent out with a perscription for allergy med and SSRI... good thing I'm also seeing someone who might be interested in doing some functional analysis. It's a mystery.

Hopefully I'll go back to my normal level of sub-functioning soon and no permanent damage is being done. Toxicities can mimic MS... and perhaps MS is a misdiagnosed form of environmental toxicity. Just a theory that should be investigated. Anyway, the point is people have exacerbations but there are also pseudo-exacerbations. Once the inflammation goes away, given time and extended periods of health, the brain has the proven ability to regenerate and heal itself, or redirect messages through areas of the brain that are not damaged. If damage occurs in the spine the same flexibility isn't there...

Gee I wish this is what they taught in biology class. I would have got better grades. But when I was in biology class we were learning about the amino acids (yay histidine... histamine.. all this stuff...) but I didn't get far enough to study how it all actually worked.

Ingredients in the Vaccines I had prior to everything changing:

Gardasil: (from link http://www.offtheradar.co.nz/vaccines/52-gardasil-ingredients.html) Dang that off the radar site is good. It also makes sense with the link I posted yesterday about why putting histidine in with all these toxins is simply not a good idea.

Aluminum 225mcg

Animal and human studies have shown aluminum can cause nerve cell death and that vaccine aluminum adjuvants can allow aluminum to enter the brain, as well as cause inflammation at the injection site leading to chronic joint and muscle pain as well as fatigue.

Sodium Borate 35mcg

This is the main ingredient in Boric Acid. Powdered Boric Acid is often used to kill cockroaches. Sodium Borate is now listed as a dangerous poison. Symptons of Sodium Borate poisoning are very similar to many of the side effects being reported with the Gardasil vaccine.

Polysorbate 80 50mcg

Although Polysorbate 80 is a food additive that enables solubility of flavouring oils with water, injection is quite different. Polysorbate 80 injected into prepubescent rats caused a rapid growth of reproductive organs, but growth was abnormal and the rats were sterile, unable to have children. When used intravenously with vitamins it has been known to cause anaphylactic shock. According to the Polysorbate 80 MSDS, it may be a carcinogenic, (cause cancer), as well as a mutagenic, (birth defects).

L-histidine 0.78mcg

L-histidine is an essential amino acid which is a precursor to allergic reactions. It stimulates the inflammatory response of skin and mucous membranes (one possible cause of the allergic reactions reported). It is also responsible for forming metal bearing enzymes (such as the toxic metal storage protein metallothionein). Metals such as zinc, copper, and nickel are transported by binding to L-histidine and the binding is essential for excretion of excess heavy metals. Many parents of autistic children are quite familiar with Metallothionein and MT deficiency.

Sodium Chloride 9.56mcg

Common salt

Yeast Protein 7mcg

This is a hidden form of MSG, as it creates synthetic free glutamic acid in the processing, which in simpler terms is MSG. Most vaccines contain some hidden form of MSG (eg hydrolysed gelatin) as this feeds the live virus.

Menactra:

5oo mcg Aluminum

Hepatitis Vaccine:

Formaldehyde. 2.66 mcg

Couldn't really find the ingredients for the other two vaccines. They're pretty well hidden. It doesn't look like I was exposed to Thimerosal but I'm sure I was as a child as I made it through all the scheduled shots without issue. Just need to keep telling myself that I have recovered from this before therefore I should be able to recover from this again. 頑張ろうね。

FInally, what's going on now

Hi folks.

Well I finished writing up background information blogs, they're by no means super organized but they kind of show the progression over time and avenues I have tried and have not tried. I've been reading a lot about Gardasil girls. Our problems are varied but they were all precipitated, or activated, from the vaccine. I will see my functional medicine Dr. on Monday with my mom and a GYN about the complex cyst on Nov. 8th (which is kind of scary, because its 3cm *3 cm which is about ping-pong ball if you think about it, sitting on the walnut sized ovary! Scared it might burst or something. Since that can be as serious as appendicitis, it would be no good if that went.

What did I do today?

Well, I woke up after a fitful non-sleep (for two days) because of strange feelings of heat and twitching, feeling like something bad is going to happen when I sleep. But I guess nothing bad has happened and I should just attribute it to this flare. I felt like this in Japan when it was real bad back in 2007. Can it get worse? Can it get better? Nobody knows because the vaccine has never been properly tested . But I guess I know that it can get better and as far as developing seizures or anything, I like to hold out hope that three years after receiving the vaccine I shouldn't have to worry about that. Klonopin which usually helps has not been helping, but I dragged myself to my one class today and got my papers so I can withdraw from the other two which I simply have not been able to commit my energy to due the symptoms.

Thinking about possible triggers of this episode I'm looking at:

-an herbal I received from a naturopath, designed to stimulate the immune system, my immune system is not ready to be stimulated I think and it's not her fault for not knowing, this is tricky business, I got hives and felt strange after it

-lack of sleep: the bad parts of the flare started when I went on vacation with my parents, it' had been a sleep deprived time and we went on vacation

-heat: I was doing saunas and hot tubs, and epsom salt baths when I got back... and the other day when I took a bath to try to help the ovary and my sinuses... I noticed my toe got tingly and numb-ish... feel more restless when hot.

Things I want tested: heavy metal toxicity (aluminum), hormone levels (another expensive saliva test >.< ' )

Things I want to work on: getting my strength and equilibrium back after this flare up

Since this began I really wanted to become some sort of doctor or even a naturopath but now I just want to get well, get well with others, help others get well, get the word out, and frankly, not otherwise have anything to do with the whole mess. What I really want to do is go back to my first love which is Japan, writing, feeling deeply and thinking clearly... enjoying life... and teaching English.