If you know me, you may have heard me talk about my allergy, or whatever it is, to grapes. I used to work in a winery. Now I can't even drink wine made from grapes. While I worked at the winery, I gradually developed general stiffness so severe, I had a hard time getting out of my car or getting up off the toilet. No pain, just stiffness and a kind of weakness. I had other problems at the time I was seeking medical help for, and once I felt better, I realized my life at this time was a haze of misery.
I had a sinus infection that wouldn't go away, sleep problems, stiffness in all my joints and eventually, I injured myself and had to stop working. I had 6 weeks of physiotherapy, yet the inflammation and weakness continued. My doctor kept insisting I was depressed, even though two psychologists and a counsellor said formally that I wasn't. Long story short, I discovered I was having allergic reactions to a number of things, the most urgent being wine and grapes. I googled "allergy joints," and the first result was an article in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery from 1946. A rare but recorded reaction to certain foods or drugs is joint pain or stiffness, even psychological reactions. It can mimic arthritis and muscle or nerve problems, and can drive patients to see orthopedic surgeons. It's actually the sheaths covering the tendons and ligaments, occasionally even nerves, that swell and cause the pain and stiffness. This is called angioedema. It used to be called angio-neurotic-edema (neurotic referring to nerves), but people thought their doctors were saying they were making this up, so the name was changed. This reaction has been noted as far back as 1895, by no less a light in the medical world than Dr. William Osler. Case Study #1, a woman who was initially dismissed as neurotic, who turned out to be allergic to grapes and grape wine. Bingo! I have a link to that article on the desktop of my computer and on my iPad. I even printed it off for my doctor. She refused to read it, insisting I was just depressed. Fast forward 4 years, and it turns out I have severe obstructive sleep apnea and assorted food sensitivities. I got a C-PAP machine for the sleep apnea, I watch what I eat, and I have a new doctor. I sleep well, I have no more sinus issues, and I have so little pain and stiffness I never need pain killers, although I do take a natural anti-inflammatory every day. Yet I still have trouble believing that something as nice and innocuous as grapes can be bad for me. Grapes? Who doesn't love grapes? And grapes are in everything. If it's wholesome and good for you, chances are, it's got grapes in it. "Sweetened with fruit juice" means grapes. Trail mix has raisins in it. Raisins are wholesome and full of iron. Raisins and grapes are GOOD for you! Well, not for me, unfortunately. Yesterday morning, I took a shower and tried a new skin oil from one of my favourite companies. I've used lotions and bath gel from the same line, very nice, very soothing. On and off yesterday, I worked on cleaning up my front entry, a landing between two floors. I'd been using the front closet as a catch-all spot as I moved in, and things just stayed there for, well, a while. While I was at it, I set up a work table in my basement and unpacked a big box full of Christmas stuff to clear space for the bins of art supplies I brought down from the front hall. Nothing strenuous, and I never lifted anything really heavy. Later last night, I had a lot of pain and stiffness in my upper thighs and lower back, to the point I could hardly get up from a chair or the couch. I thought, "what the heck? Did I really work that hard? Man, I must be out of shape! This is pathetic!" I took a shower before bed, and I was shedding an awful lot of skin from a couple of spots. I also felt achey stiffness under my arms as if I was coming down with something. I thought, "wait a second, I haven't been exposed to anything infectious lately, this has to be a toxin my immune system is fighting. What is it?" I mentally ran through everything I'd eaten. Nothing different, except one new jar of olives. But, I mean, olives? Not one of the foods I have trouble with. Not a likely suspect. Then I remembered that new massage and body oil. Checked the label, and the first ingredient? Grapeseed oil. I'd never read that label. I ordered it online, just got the product and barely even read the main label, let alone squinted at the fine print. This could not have been power of suggestion. I love the products from that company. Unfortunately, they don't publish full ingredient lists on their website and the store near me has closed, so now I have to stick to products I've used before, or accept that a new one may be a crapshoot. This is one of the pitfalls of using products with organic ingredients. They could contain something in its natural form that I react to. But using only synthetic ingredients or highly processed ones isn't a good alternative. Then I'd be thinking, "WHAT am I absorbing into my body NOW?! Sodium glycol? Yum!" The good thing, in a funny way, is this proved to me, yet again, that grapes and grape seed oil DO cause a reaction in me, and I'm right in avoiding it. It also showed me I feel good enough now, that my baseline is health and feeling good, I was able to pinpoint a reaction the same day.
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A few weeks ago I stumbled onto a Paleo food blog and realized, "this is for me!" Since then, I've bought or ordered about 6 books on Paleo and cooked up a storm!
If you're having trouble tolerating foods, read on. If you just want to know what the fuss is about Paleo diets, there's a reading list at the bottom of the note. For years, I suffered from unknown respiratory problems every winter. In 2008 I went to Morocco and came back with a sinus infection, went on antibiotics for 14 weeks, on and off, which is guaranteed to devastate your immune system and intestinal flora. That fall, I realized I had food allergies and sensitivities. I went back to Morocco for 6 weeks that winter, which, oddly enough, changed my life, maybe saved it. I HAD to find food I could eat, and there's almost no processed food there. Everything is fresh and seasonal. And if I could read food labels in French, well, surely I could feed myself in Canada! The next year, my father developed cancer and died, my mother was diagnosed with dementia. I had to move back to my hometown to help her. This was highly stressful for both of us. My hometown is a good place to have unusual food needs, so I was able to find things I could eat there, but I was not motivated to cook, and food was not a source of pleasure. I've been an avid cook all my life, so this was a hard time. It was, at best, a holding pattern. My mother died in 2011, and that year, I gained 40 pounds. Part of it was diet, I know. I'd started eating grains again, comfort food, and too much fruit and sugar. In healthy forms, but too much for my system. I'd heard about Paleo before, but never looked at it in depth. When I did, I realized that this method of looking at food avoids all the foods that cause me problems. And the point of Paleo is not just to avoid foods known to cause problems for many people, but to enjoy the foods you CAN eat. It's not about deprivation, it's about seeing food as something that will make you whole and healthy. Food is medicine. Above all, take control of what you eat. There are several underlying concepts behind the Paleo diet concept, which is not a diet so much as a lifestyle. A primary one is that for more than a million years, human beings were hunter gatherers. Agriculture is a recent development in our history, and ten thousand years or less is not enough time for all humans to adapt completely to thriving on a diet of mostly grains and grain products. But more importantly, even if our ancestors ate grain, it was in a more natural form than the highly processed products we see in stores now. Stone ground whole wheat or sprouted rye is a very different substance than white flour. I'm not even going to talk about all of the refined starches and sugars we ingest. The single highest source of calories from carbs in the US is high-fructose corn syrup. Not wheat flour or corn or even sugar in a form you can see. It's in food you don't even know it's in, in forms you can't recognize, and it's so highly caloric, it's the biggest single source of calories we get from carbs today. Similarly, modern milk products are nothing like whole fresh milk straight from the cow or goat. The more processed a product is, the less like real food it has become. Low fat milk products are full of carbs and sugars. If you know anything about food allergies, you know that there are 8 or 9 known deadly food allergens: milk, eggs, soy, peanuts, wheat, seafood, sulfites, tree nuts and sesame. And guess what? Four or five of these are in pretty much every processed food sold in North America. Talk about a recipe for creating allergies, even in people who were only mildly sensitive! There is a syndrome called "leaky gut," which is not accepted by some medical authorities but has the support of many scientists. Leaky gut happens when you eat foods that irritate your intestinal tract, go on antibiotics and destroy your normal intestinal flora, and some other problems. Your intestines, like your skin, are a primary barrier to toxins, allergens and irritants. Maintaining the integrity of your intestinal barriers is important to good health. You may not be aware of irritation; it may only affect you on a cellular level. In a simple form, think of it this way: the cells lining your intestines have several layers, and as these get irritated and inflamed, they swell away from one another and there will be tiny gaps between these cells. Entire particles can leak through the walls of your intestines into your blood stream, and when they do, they're targetted as invaders by your immune system. This may create more allergies or food sensitivities. It also leads to further inflammation, which may happen in parts of your body unrelated to your digestion. Auto-immune disorders such as hypothyroidism, inflammatory disorders like fibromyalgia or arthritis, even illnesses as seemingly unrelated as heart disease and diabetes may be triggered or made worse by eating foods that irritate your gut. If you're finding you're becoming sensitive to more and more foods as time goes on, it may not be age or bad genes. It may be the food you're eating that's leading, in a roundabout way, to heightened sensitivities. You may not know which foods cause these reactions; a food reaction can take as long as 72 hours if it's not a direct allergic reaction, so you may not be able to trace cause and effect. An allergy is a response of your immune system. This will rarely be an intestinal reaction, but hives, itching, swelling, headaches and anaphylactic shock. An intestinal response (nausea, vomiting, dairrhea, constipation) is an intolerance and rarely caused by an allergy as such. There are also food aversions, that you simply cannot get a food down without gagging. And there are sensitivities, which can take many forms. If the problem you have with a food can be treated with digestive enzymes, it's an intolerance, not an allergy. If you have a problem with stomach acid, see a doctor to be sure you don't have damage to your esophagus caused by acid reflux. But the sensation of acid stomach can actually be caused by not enough acid in your stomach to digest your food properly, which can be caused by an imbalance in your system. This may be the result of recent food poisoning, antibiotics disturbing your intestinal flora, or just eating the wrong foods for a long time. Practical Paleo (see below) gives some good, concise information about digestive problems and intestinal health. None of this advice is meant to be a substitute for seeing your doctor or a good nutriitionist or naturopath. There are other factors to optimal health: get enough sleep (it's NOT for sissies!), reduce the stress in your life, find ways to focus on the positive. If you find yourself always cranky or sad or angry, talk to your doctor and see if you have a physical problem or a psychological problem that can be treated. Being in a negative state all the time is a serious health risk, to you and the people around you. Get some exercise, even if it's just a walk. Do something fun. Make stuff so you feel a sense of achievement. And eat good food. Eating well is more than avoiding the bad stuff. It's about eating a variety of healthy foods that nourish your body, provide nutrients you need, and nourish the good bacteria we need in our systems to help our bodies do the work they do to support us. One author I read recently said we started to see the onset of "diseases of civilisation" at the same time science began its reductionist way of looking at food, in terms of calories, carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Heart attacks were unknown as recently as 200 years ago. Cancer was not a feature of life and dementia was uncommon. And this is not because people used to die too young to get this stuff and we live longer; we don't. The notion that people in the past died young is based on skewed statistics. Infant mortality was more common, and even a few people dying before their first birthday pulls the "average" lifespan of a population down quickly. Infection killed people, and accidents often spelled certain death. But the people who DID survive often had just as good a chance of living to a ripe old age as we do. And studies have shown that their teeth were better and their bones were stronger than ours are. We don't know what the long-term effects of a diet of soda pop, skim milk, burgers, frozen pizzas and store-bought cookies will be. Elderly people alive today grew up on a very different diet than we eat now. I mean, who eats liver anymore, or makes soup from scratch? The biggest single environmental factor in your health is what you eat. And it's one thing you CAN control. Food should be about what tastes good, and what has been demonstrated, through millennia, to make people feel stronger and healthier. And if it can be local, fresh and seasonal, even better. Most of the books below have commonalities. Practical Paleo is great for basic knowledge and a one-stop resource for science, nutrition, shopping tips and recipes. The best books for understanding the science are Deep Nutrition and Primal Body, Primal Mind. Well Fed has wonderful, practical tips for cooking from scratch even if you're living a hectic modern lifestyle. And great recipes from global cuisine! Most of what's in these books I've read in other places, so this is not weird science. Why isn't your doctor telling you this stuff? Besides the oft-noted fact that most doctors get only a week of nutrition in medical school, doctors also are trained to TREAT health problems, in a practical applied-science way. They are not necessarily trained to track a problem to its root cause. They don't have time to do that in 10 or 15 minutes with each patient. Our medical system is dominated by a corporate mentality, and by corporations that manufacture drugs. I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories and I'm not an anti-corporate crank. I'm sure most doctors are sincerely interested in making people well. However, when I read that pharmaceutical companies WANT to sell drugs to healthy people, that there's money to be made in promoting illness and no money to be made in making people healthy enough not to need drugs, the penny dropped. We need to take control of what we eat, and we need to stop focussing on poor health and what can go wrong, and focus on good health and what we can do RIGHT! Even when I was living in my old hometown the past 3 years, living with a lot of stress, I had one cold. Just one. Clearly I was doing something right. I'd like to carry on along that same track! My husband and I used to save bones and make soup stock. He had clear signs of arthritis, yet no degeneration or pain. After a doctor commented on this, we realized the soup made from scratch was likely why. Bone broth is a cornerstone of the Paleo lifestyle. It puts back into our bodies many of the nutrients we need to keep our bones, connective tissues and even blood vessels strong and supple. If you tolerate dairy, eat whole milk. Eat real yogurt and real cheese. Don't eat processed dairy, which is hardly even food anymore. "Low fat" foods are full of sugar and other weird stuff. Don't let them in your house. Eat liver once in a while. Eat lots of vegetables and some fruit. Buy local organic produce in season. Use your freezer. Make food from scratch. If you think you're too busy, read Well Fed, which has some fabulous tips on how to eat nutritious delicious food even if you're busy. There are other principles, but those are the basics. This is not weird food. Nobody says you need to eat a mammoth or crunch down bugs or anything. Above all, don't take my word for it. Read some of these books. Google "paleo" and see what comes up. There are a few people making money from this, but on the whole, nobody is going to get insanely wealthy from telling you to make your own soup stock and sauerkraut, and buy produce from your local farmer's market. Ignore the science and this is really just Grandma's kitchen. My grandmother lived to be 97. If you left her table feeling full, it was from too much chicken or roast beef with homemade gravy and Yorkshire pudding, not because you made yourself sick with too many tortilla chips or Dingdongs. Okay, maybe not everybody's grandma cooked like that. Both of my grandmothers were good cooks, they had gardens and grew fruit and raised chickens. They bought beef from the farmer down the road and made soup from bones and scraps. Those Grandma meals made people strong and healthy. Since I've been shopping for food the Paleo way, I'm bringing home bags and bags of groceries, but because it's all whole food, it costs me $15-25 a bag. Thirty years ago, I figured $20 a bag was good shopping, so this is not costing me a fortune. Seeking out grass-fed or free-range meat and eggs will cost more, high quality produce can cost more, but there are ways of reducing these costs: go in on buying a whole cow or pig with friends, join a CSA to get organic produce regularly, shop at a farmer's market, buy in bulk, get friendly with local farmers, buy a freezer, grow your own fruits, vegetables and herbs. Any or all of these things also help support your local or nearby producers and businesses, and help create stronger communities, which are good things! The books I've been reading are: Make It Paleo: Over 200 Grain Free Recipes For Any Occasion by Bill Staley, Hayley Mason and Mark Sisson Practical Paleo: A Customized Approach to Health and a Whole-Foods Lifestyle by Diane Sanfilippo, Bill Staley and Robb Wolf Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat by Melissa Joulwan, David Humphreys and Kathleen Shanno Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food by Catherine Shanahan and Luke Shanahan Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life by Nora T. Gedgaudas It Starts with Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways by Melissa Hartwigand Dallas Hartwig <SCRIPT charset="utf-8" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?rt=tf_mfw&ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822/US/joatur-20/8001/87ecd033-e4e7-400a-ab31-253a966de641"> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT><A HREF="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?rt=tf_mfw&ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fjoatur-20%2F8001%2F87ecd033-e4e7-400a-ab31-253a966de641&Operation=NoScript">Amazon.com Widgets</A></NOSCRIPT> I created this website in February 2012. Two days after the site was completed, I sprained my ankle and could not even get to my computer. I spent two months with my foot elevated as much as possible. Moving around the house was restricted to whatever was essential, until I was finally able to put weight on my foot.
What complicated my recovery and my ability to cope was living in a split level house, and it was winter. Beginning the day I sprained my ankle, we started getting snow every day for a month. Heavy, wet snow that turned to slush and ice, that coated my driveway and made it treacherous for even the able-bodied. The landscape of my front yard made it impossible for anyone, except perhaps someone with training in proper medical lifting, as well as great strength, to help me into a vehicle. The day I sprained my ankle, we had over a foot of snow in 24 hours, and it took 4 EMTs to carry me out of the house, 3 to bring me back in, and even they slipped on the steep slope of my driveway. So I was housebound until the snow stopped, unable to get out to buy groceries, not even able to get crutches. And in my house, crutches would have been an unwise choice. I could get from my bed to the bathroom on one floor; otherwise, everything I did in the course of a day involved stairs. I developed systems for getting around, using a desk chair on wheels on one level, bouncing down the stairs on my rear end, lifting myself to a walker to move around in my kitchen, scootching down the next flight of stairs to feed the cats and do the laundry. Thank goodness my father had installed a very strong set of handrails in the house, capable of taking my full weight! Thank goodness a friend suggested a backpack! When an ankle is sprained, there's swelling, which needs to be iced, the foot needs to be elevated as much as possible to prevent tissue damage, you can't put weight on the foot until the swelling stops, and you can't walk without support until you stop limping. A bad sprain makes you wish you'd broken a bone instead, because the recovery would be simpler and faster. I wasn't able to put on any type of shoe for weeks, not even slippers; yet another reason why venturing out in wintertime was not an option. Falling can be life-changing, and in my case, it certainly was. I had nothing but time while I was house-bound. I read a lot (Lord of the Rings in 4 days, several entire series of books), watched Netflix and DVDs, ordered books from Amazon. And I came to realize how deeply unhappy I was, living in my parents' house, in the town where I'd gone to high school and art school, but hadn't chosen to live. I'd moved back to my hometown to help my parents when my father fell ill, then my father died and my mother needed help living on her own. My mother died last year, less than 2 years after my father passed away. I decided then not to rush my decision about whether to sell the house and move away. I'm an only child, so my parents' house was my only direct physical link to my past. With my life confined to my bedroom, primarily, I had lots of time to scrape the bottom of the emotional barrel, I had lots of time to contemplate how much time I spent with no social interaction at all, except for email, Facebook and a few phonecalls, and virtually no offers of help. I didn't ask for help either, so this was a two-way street. But the fact that I didn't ask points to part of my dilemma. I had a couple of close friends in town, but asking close friends to help you with everything from buying food to housework, can put too much strain on a relationship. A person has to have a community, a whole network of overlapping connections of people they can call on for different needs. I'd had that in the town I'd been living in before, that I had left when my parents needed me back in my hometown. By the end of April, I'd started going out. I even started wearing sandals once the weather warmed up. And I went back to the town where I'd lived for 18 years, where I still have friends and a social life so active, many people didn't even realize I'd left town. I came back so often, they assumed they just hadn't seen me for a while. I put an offer on a house there. And thus began a 5 month journey of organizing and sorting the accumulation of 55 years of my parents' marriage, over 100 years of family history in Canada, some of my stuff from 30 years living on my own, and the belongings I had acquired in 3 years living in my parents' home. It took two months working with a professional organizer and renting two storage lockers to get the house looking good enough to sell. It did sell, and I moved over eighteen thousand pounds of stuff to my new home in my old town, which is now my hometown, the town I've chosen to be my home from now on. It was a lot of hard work, and an incredible journey. Which might explain why I haven't updated my blog in quite a while! |
JoAnn TurnerI'm easily amused. I try to be positive about things, yet I am also driven to distraction by irrationality. Especially if the purpose is valid, but could be achieved with less drama. You'll see all of this in my writing! Archives
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