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Folks,
A lot of you have expressed concern over my health in various threads and offline as well. I thought that a little update is/was in order.
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Whatever I had last fall is completely gone. I think the eye problems were coincidental, not a result of the disease. The probable verdict on the disease itself is a cascading syndrome caused by acute food poisoning. It happens more often than you think, I'm told. Lasts 8-10 weeks. Yikes!
So yeah I still have eye floaters, but they're less problematic than they were, and the rest of the trouble (nausea, rapid weight loss, weakness, shakiness, etc.) is gone.
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Whatever ailed me over the winter... is still with me a little. But it's getting better. Some days my ears still drive me nuts, but most days they're livable. What made the difference? I'll tell you.
A few weeks back (about 3 weeks now) I was feeling lower than low. Nothing I had tried had helped, and although I had enjoyed a period of brief remission from the worst of the ringing, it had come back with a vengeance and I was depressed. Tired and depressed. Sick of being sick, sick of living a life of moving from one disease to another.
So I pretty much hit rock bottom - and bounced. Two things happened at the same time:
1. I decided to DO something about it, dammit. Get proactive.
2. I went to see my friend's wife, who is an acupuncturist.
Well, my visit to the practitioner was enlightening. Chinese medicine being what it is, you must take this with a grain of salt. But she asked a few pertinent questions, and before ever busting out a needle she proceeded to describe 90% of what ails me to a T. I was diagnosed with severe kidney deficit, my kidneys were being drained of Qi, Yin, AND Yang. Yikes! (That's a half-silly half-serious yikes, folks). Apparently my liver was dominating. So, after needling me a bit, I was given some dietary changes to make.
1. No more coffee. Not no caffeine, although I cut way the hell back on that too. Coffee, according to Chinese medicine, is a warming medicinal that liberates energy from the kidneys and mobilizes it upward through the body. The caffeine also drains Yang from the kidneys, and the Liver was draining Yin. Or some crap like that. I dunno. So I switched to Green Tea (with a tiny bit of caffeine). I even went one step further and switched to Green Tea Mate - which has no caffeine at all but rather a similar compound called "Matteine" which is known to be less harsh on your system.
2. Cut way back on dairy. Apparently too much dairy causes your head to congest. This isn't such a strange idea - doctors have been saying for a while now that adults should really stop drinking so much milk. They are hushed by the dairy council, but in Japan, where NOBODY drinks milk, they have so much LESS hip fracture in women that it makes you wonder what we're doing that leeches calcium from our bones (hint - coffee has something to do with it).
3. Cut way back on sugar. I've just tried to avoid sugary stuff. I haven't removed it from my diet, but I've tried to eat desserts involving fruit instead of desserts involving processed sugar. And I've started cooking with raw sugar instead, which is much better for you.
4. Rice. Unprocessed rice. Eat a lot of it. I've started using Brown Rice. Not only is it yummier than white rice, it's half the price.
I'm rambling now, but suffice it to say that I've tried to eat right. Lots of veggies, not a lot of starch, cut back on dairy, sugar, and almost no caffeine now for 3 weeks.
At the same time, I started exercising in a serious way. I take time out every day to work out. This sounds so simple, right? Well, I have no weights, but the exposed beams in our house make an excellent place to do chins, and there's a LOT you can do with body weight resistance.
I started jogging. I still hate it, and I'm gonna borrow my parents' Nordick Track instead, and go biking, but the jogging isn't as terrible as I recall it being.
Then I made a conscious effort to change my lifestyle. No more sitting in front of the computer all day. Get up, get out, and DO stuff. Even if it's just puttering around the house or the yard, be active.
And you know what? It sucked. For about 2 days I felt so terrible I wanted to just curl up and go to bed and never get up.
But day 3 dawned, and by noontime I had so much energy I thought I was gonna explode. I've started carrying something with me to work off some energy - my juggling balls or something - because I have too much now.
In less than a WEEK, I went from not wanting to get up in the morning and being tired enough for bed at 8PM... to rolling out of bed WIDE AWAKE around 7AM and having to remind myself that it's 11 and I should really hit the sack.
I haven't weighed myself - I'm not doing this to count pounds. I'm doing this to improve myself. I'm trying to achieve an active lifestyle, when for the last 10 years I've led a mostly sedentary existence.
And remarkably, everything seems better. Yes, we're still broke and I still need a job. Yes, some days I still ache in the head and my ears still ring. But they're getting better, little by little. Some days I don't hear them at all unless I listen, and that's a little blessing in and of itself.
I've started doing things I enjoy again - I fixed up my brother's boat and I've been going sailing. I've made plans to start skiing again this winter. Both are things I loved as a young adult but haven't done in 10 years, almost.
As soon as it's financially doable, I'm starting Kempo at the local dojo. I intend this change in me to be permanent. I have goals - gut gone by Christmas is one, don't know if it'll happen but I'll be well on my way. Already I can bang out more pushups than I could when I was in college, and I can jog a mile without dying (hey it's a start - no runners making fun of me when I haven't exercised in YEARS now).
Anyhow, life is pretty good. I need work, and Julie and I are working on a few things with us, but things are decent. I've torn through an entire series of books (HARD ones, that you can't speedread because they're too tricky) - the first reading I've done in a good long time other than Eddings.
I do miss coffee though. *sigh* But there's a world of tea out there.
- Gurm
A lot of you have expressed concern over my health in various threads and offline as well. I thought that a little update is/was in order.
----------
Whatever I had last fall is completely gone. I think the eye problems were coincidental, not a result of the disease. The probable verdict on the disease itself is a cascading syndrome caused by acute food poisoning. It happens more often than you think, I'm told. Lasts 8-10 weeks. Yikes!
So yeah I still have eye floaters, but they're less problematic than they were, and the rest of the trouble (nausea, rapid weight loss, weakness, shakiness, etc.) is gone.
----------
Whatever ailed me over the winter... is still with me a little. But it's getting better. Some days my ears still drive me nuts, but most days they're livable. What made the difference? I'll tell you.
A few weeks back (about 3 weeks now) I was feeling lower than low. Nothing I had tried had helped, and although I had enjoyed a period of brief remission from the worst of the ringing, it had come back with a vengeance and I was depressed. Tired and depressed. Sick of being sick, sick of living a life of moving from one disease to another.
So I pretty much hit rock bottom - and bounced. Two things happened at the same time:
1. I decided to DO something about it, dammit. Get proactive.
2. I went to see my friend's wife, who is an acupuncturist.
Well, my visit to the practitioner was enlightening. Chinese medicine being what it is, you must take this with a grain of salt. But she asked a few pertinent questions, and before ever busting out a needle she proceeded to describe 90% of what ails me to a T. I was diagnosed with severe kidney deficit, my kidneys were being drained of Qi, Yin, AND Yang. Yikes! (That's a half-silly half-serious yikes, folks). Apparently my liver was dominating. So, after needling me a bit, I was given some dietary changes to make.
1. No more coffee. Not no caffeine, although I cut way the hell back on that too. Coffee, according to Chinese medicine, is a warming medicinal that liberates energy from the kidneys and mobilizes it upward through the body. The caffeine also drains Yang from the kidneys, and the Liver was draining Yin. Or some crap like that. I dunno. So I switched to Green Tea (with a tiny bit of caffeine). I even went one step further and switched to Green Tea Mate - which has no caffeine at all but rather a similar compound called "Matteine" which is known to be less harsh on your system.
2. Cut way back on dairy. Apparently too much dairy causes your head to congest. This isn't such a strange idea - doctors have been saying for a while now that adults should really stop drinking so much milk. They are hushed by the dairy council, but in Japan, where NOBODY drinks milk, they have so much LESS hip fracture in women that it makes you wonder what we're doing that leeches calcium from our bones (hint - coffee has something to do with it).
3. Cut way back on sugar. I've just tried to avoid sugary stuff. I haven't removed it from my diet, but I've tried to eat desserts involving fruit instead of desserts involving processed sugar. And I've started cooking with raw sugar instead, which is much better for you.
4. Rice. Unprocessed rice. Eat a lot of it. I've started using Brown Rice. Not only is it yummier than white rice, it's half the price.
I'm rambling now, but suffice it to say that I've tried to eat right. Lots of veggies, not a lot of starch, cut back on dairy, sugar, and almost no caffeine now for 3 weeks.
At the same time, I started exercising in a serious way. I take time out every day to work out. This sounds so simple, right? Well, I have no weights, but the exposed beams in our house make an excellent place to do chins, and there's a LOT you can do with body weight resistance.
I started jogging. I still hate it, and I'm gonna borrow my parents' Nordick Track instead, and go biking, but the jogging isn't as terrible as I recall it being.
Then I made a conscious effort to change my lifestyle. No more sitting in front of the computer all day. Get up, get out, and DO stuff. Even if it's just puttering around the house or the yard, be active.
And you know what? It sucked. For about 2 days I felt so terrible I wanted to just curl up and go to bed and never get up.
But day 3 dawned, and by noontime I had so much energy I thought I was gonna explode. I've started carrying something with me to work off some energy - my juggling balls or something - because I have too much now.
In less than a WEEK, I went from not wanting to get up in the morning and being tired enough for bed at 8PM... to rolling out of bed WIDE AWAKE around 7AM and having to remind myself that it's 11 and I should really hit the sack.
I haven't weighed myself - I'm not doing this to count pounds. I'm doing this to improve myself. I'm trying to achieve an active lifestyle, when for the last 10 years I've led a mostly sedentary existence.
And remarkably, everything seems better. Yes, we're still broke and I still need a job. Yes, some days I still ache in the head and my ears still ring. But they're getting better, little by little. Some days I don't hear them at all unless I listen, and that's a little blessing in and of itself.
I've started doing things I enjoy again - I fixed up my brother's boat and I've been going sailing. I've made plans to start skiing again this winter. Both are things I loved as a young adult but haven't done in 10 years, almost.
As soon as it's financially doable, I'm starting Kempo at the local dojo. I intend this change in me to be permanent. I have goals - gut gone by Christmas is one, don't know if it'll happen but I'll be well on my way. Already I can bang out more pushups than I could when I was in college, and I can jog a mile without dying (hey it's a start - no runners making fun of me when I haven't exercised in YEARS now).
Anyhow, life is pretty good. I need work, and Julie and I are working on a few things with us, but things are decent. I've torn through an entire series of books (HARD ones, that you can't speedread because they're too tricky) - the first reading I've done in a good long time other than Eddings.
I do miss coffee though. *sigh* But there's a world of tea out there.
- Gurm
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