THE BEST Of TIMES, THE WORST Of TIMES

[Blossom]

I was a pharmophobe too after getting screwed up by doctors and their polypharmacy. I have to say for my situation some of the pharmaceuticals Peat writes about have made a huge difference in my healing. I don't think I could have gotten as well as I have as quickly as I have without them. I look forward to a day when I don't need them or need them less but for now I'm not going to complain. Of course it all depends on one's context, if any meds and which ones can help but it sounds like your figuring it all out. A lot of people use the dye-free benadryl because it seems to have the least offensive additives.

 

[thebigpeatowski]

Thanks Blossom. It's good to hear that you are obtaining real results, this gives me HOPE! I have successfully overcome my fear of sugar in these last few months, so I'm pretty sure I can overcome my pharmaphobia...baby steps, right? I gave up on big Pharma in my twenties and have used nothing since then, with the exception thyroid meds starting in my 30's.

I just went and found a magnifying glass in order to read my Benadryl (my eyes have become dim) and it expired in July of 2000! The stuff knocks me out, so apparently expiration dates mean NOTHING. My youngest son, he is 20, has only been stung three times in his life with each sting reaction being more severe than the previous, he now carries an epi-pen with him. I guess that is one area of the pharmaceutical industry I can be thankful for....

Since the Benadryl makes me so sleepy, I don't think that I could ever possibly use it during the day time for my anxiety or OCD. I only take one tiny pink pill and it knocks me out...unless it becomes less effective overtime. I dunno, I don't have enough experience with it. Anyone know?

 

[Blossom]

You could try the dye free for babies in the dropper bottle to give yourself smaller doses during the day if needed. Just a thought.

 

[Peata]

I've noticed a tolerance to Benadryl if used night after night - it doesn't always make me sleepy. So I mix up the dose just about every night. I skip a night now and then. During the day I sometimes take less than 1/4 pill in order to prevent drowsiness.

 

[thebigpeatowski]

They have dye free liquid Benadryl for babies WOW....I never even considered such a thing, never knew it existed.

Because of my negative experiences with doctors and pharmaceutical drugs which began in my early childhood, I vowed to never expose my own children to all of the sh*t that I went through. I did everything all natural, least invasive as possible. I was OBSESSIVE about it, no surprise there...I gave birth at home, they received no vaccinations or well baby check ups etc. Breast fed them for two years each, etc. etc. etc. We had chickens and a mini farm with fruit trees and a garden. I also home schooled my kids, which was very difficult to maintain after my divorce. Being a single mom, raising and schooling two boys while earning an income was a majorly stressful juggling act. I was/am self-employed otherwise I could NEVER have pulled it off.

So yeah....BABY MEDS! Whodathunk??? Thanks Blossom, you guys are amazing.

 

[Blossom]

Sometimes RP is a real eye opener! I should have said ALWAYS! I think a 'natural' fixation to a certain point has to be let go of, at least for me it did.

 

[thebigpeatowski]

Thank you so much Peata....VERY good to know!!! I have been my own guinea pig for DECADES with diets and natural supplements etc. but have NO experience in this department. I am really appreciating this feedback!

 

[Peata]

I also had to let go of the "natural is always better" mentality, along with the one that said, "only eat "real", whole foods"... I had to warm up to the idea that refined didn't always mean less healthy.

 

[thebigpeatowski]

@ Blossom...oh heck yeah. OBVIOUSLY my natural fixation has NOT worked, otherwise I would not be here.

I'm feeling brave....might run into town for some baby benadryl, I wanna have it already on hand as I get closer to my period because that is when the OCD kicks in really hard. It's not PMS, I have no more symptoms from that. Instead, what happens is I start to ruminate and become massively detail oriented to the point where I often lose sight of the big picture. I get lost in my mind, it's effing bizarre. People close to me will say things to me like" you're too wrapped up" or "let it go"....like I am a tenacious pit bull. Even though I was diagnosed in my teens, it took me a long time to really realize what was going on and how it has affected my life. Since I have not been medicated for it, I chose to orient my life around it, hence the self-employment. I have tried to work for other people, but I appear to be unemployable for a week or two every month ha ha! I have come to accept it.

This is such a wildly different direction from everything else I have tried....will post with updates.

 

[thebigpeatowski]

@ Peata....real whole foods often give me worse symptoms...took me a REALLY long time to figure that out. Took me even longer to finally accept it. My intestines, for whatever reason, cannot tolerate whole grains at all. Raw vegetables that everyone says are so healthy, are a friggin digestive nightmare for me, even some fruit fibers can quickly push things out of balance. Makes me sad that I forced them for so long....it's that tenacious pit bull in me. I am so stubborn sometimes...to my own demise. Same goes for all the natural herbs and supplements, they just amount to more gut irritation than they are worth.

Perhaps I can view my sensitive digestion as a highly evolved adaptation...ha ha. I am so utterly refined and highly evolved that I no longer tolerate the twigs and berries of my ancestors

 

[thebigpeatowski]

Alrighty, time for a brief update....when I began this journey I had not eaten sugar in any form for nearly three years: no fruit (certainly not juice), no honey, etc. except for the rare occasion of a small bit of organic very dark (88%) chocolate or perhaps a half a cup of fresh blueberries or a glass of red wine, but that was SO RARE! I ate A TON of fat on my previous diet, I never tracked my caloric intake, but it must have been waaay up there due to the amount of fat I was eating.

I found the transition to my new way of eating daunting, but decided to jump in wholeheartedly and overcome my insane fear of sugar. I paid NO ATTENTION WHATSOEVER to calories or macro-nutrients, other than drastically reducing my fat intake. Mostly, I was seeing if I could raise my body temps with Peatish dietary changes, all else remaining the same. This resulted in a weight gain of 25 pounds over the course of 3 plus months....YIKES!!! I had expected to gain some weight, I dunno maybe five or ten pounds, but nothing like this!!! My temps did come up a tiny bit, but I ended up doubling my thyroid dose in February. I was just too damn cold and depressed to wait it out.

As of March 5th, I started tracking my food consumption religiously cuz that's the way we do it in OCDville. I am utterly shocked at my caloric intake I "thought" I was only eating 1800 calories or less.... In all actuality, I am consuming on average 2300 calories per day, that's averaged out over the last two weeks.....ooops! Combine this with ZERO activity and an extremely low metabolism and it is no wonder I gained so much. Now for the good news: I stopped gaining and have actually lost four pounds since I started tracking two weeks ago. YAY!

My experiment of over feeding was part of a strategy to overcome my fear of sugar/carbs and to end once and for all my enslavement to dietary dogma. Another facet of that goal was to put an complete stop to my chronically elevated stress hormones, to shut them down completely. I have successfully overcome my fear of carbs and sugar. I will never EVER "diet" again....EVER. So, I am gonna have to find another way to lose 30 pounds because it won't be achieved through starvation or carbohydrate restriction. I am not entirely sure that the stress hormones are shut down, but I feel A LOT better. My sleep has improved, but could still use some tweaking.

This is day 21 of my cycle and still NO PMS, which is awesome.

I do have some skin issues that flared up a week ago when I ate potatoes....I have discovered that potatoes give me HORRIFIC gas and major acne flare. Not gonna try that again.

 

[Blossom]

Sounds like things are going well for you. I'm so glad to hear it!

 

[thebigpeatowski]

Thanks Blossom...I am feeling better, so much so that I am actually on my way to have some blood drawn for labs...all by my self EVEN! I am quite terrified of needles and the sight of blood, especially my own.

I'm not always this fearful, it seems to come and go...some times I am ten feet tall and bullet-proof and other times I am reduced to complete helplessness. The mere thought of having my vein punctured can make me start to sweat. One time I was actually brave enough to watch the procedure, normally I have to look away.

I am amazed by you peeps in the medical field and yet in the same moment I avoid like the plague!

 

[Blossom]

You just get desensitized. I have to look away when I donate blood but I can draw someone else's no problem. My big, strapping husband can't even have his blood drawn with out passing out cold! Well this is truly exciting for you, please keep us posted! You've come a long way already and have a lot to be proud of!

 

[thebigpeatowski]

Well, I survived my blood draw.... The phlebotomist was thrilled to see my bulging arm veins certainly made her job easy. I guess I should have added that to my original List of Woes. The veins in my hands have improved tremendously, but the arms not so much. My arm veins have been bulgy all my life, my hand veins did not become noticeable until I had been Low Carb for a year, then they became atrocious.... Aged me ten years easy. I am looking forward to less bulgy veins in the future. Will post my labs in a week....to be continued.

 

[Blossom]

My veins have returned to normal so there is hope! I'm continually amazed at our bodies ability to heal when we provide the ourselves with the right environmental input.

 

[thebigpeatowski]

NOTE TO SELF: I experience hormone related diarrhea in the second half of my cycle. So far, I have found that activated charcoal is the only thing that stops it....Also, I seem to get a cold sore EVERY TIME this happens. It's like my guts get so irritated that all hell breaks loose with my immune system and revives the dormant virus. Or perhaps my immune system is so preoccupied by the battle in my intestines, that it can no longer keep the virus suppressed??? I dunno....but there IS a pattern. This is definitely not triggered by food. In the past, I had people suggest to me that the reason I was getting frequent (monthly) cold sores is because I was eating so many nuts during my Low-Carb days, which I was. But I have not had any nuts for months. I had not had a cold sore since October, but now I have had TWO in a row: one during my luteal phase last month and now this one as well. BOTH TIMES accompanied by diarrhea, just before my period. Coincidence? I don't think so.

One thing I do know for sure, having too much estrogen and excess serotonin impairs my ability to learn.

 

[Peata]

Bigpeat, I used to get a yeast infection almost monthly when I was on the Pill, and here and there since then, long after going off the Pill. Estrogen dominance has been the story of my life, health-wise, only I never realized all this stuff being connected til over the last year. The last time this happened was back in the Fall, I think, before I went on Vitex. But the lowered immunity and these other issues you mention can be from the drop in progesterone during the luteal phase (and all those connections to hypo thyroid, serotonin, etc.)

 

[thebigpeatowski]

Hi Peata....yes, we are definitely in the same estrogen dominance boat. Unfortunately, I have been rowing around in circles for years never getting anywhere. I wonder, how long does it take to turn this ship around? Can it be done, does anyone know? Are there testimonials

 

[thebigpeatowski]

My Vitamin D, 25-Hydroxy is 31.6 ng/mL with a reference range of 30.0-100.0...that can't be good.

My Prolactin is 15.5 ng/mL with a reference range of 4.8-23.3...that can't be good either.