A friend asked me for help with her foot pain. She's developed a painful callus on her foot and might have to have surgery to remove a corn that's developed. It reminded me of the pain I used to have in my feet, ankles, knees and hips, so I gave her the following suggestions on how I reversed it.
I developed a lot of pain walking while in my forties. I'd been relatively athletic in high school, but let it slide as I got a desk job that demanded a lot of sitting--sometimes upwards of 70 hours a week. Over time, I realized I needed to make a commitment to health and I started walking with friends. Problem was, a ninety minute walk led to agony in my hips. My knees weren't much better. Even my feet and ankles hurt. I had bunions forming and I was way too young for that. I needed to do something different. I started to pay attention to my body when I was walking. I noticed that when I was tired, I let my feet start to turn out. I also noticed that when I was tired, my knees turned in more. I realized that when I was tired, these changes would lead the head of my femur to put pressure on the hip socket in an unhealthy way, so I started doing some research. I liked what I found at Egoscue. I got a video from them called Posture Solutions. I got helpful hints from the video on how to reduce my pain. I made little changes. It took a while to start catching myself when I made posture mistakes, but I started getting better at it the more attention I paid to my body. I began to keep my feet straight forward when I walked, even when I got tired. I made sure that my stride was centered between the 2nd and 3rd toes. I used to walk with my weight mostly on my big toe, so that was a big change. I made sure my knees didn't drift in when I was tired, either. I cut my walks short if I got too tired to have correct form. The last big thing was that I started changing how my feet interacted with the ground. Before, I let them land however they wanted. I'd been putting too much weight on my big toe, which made my feet roll inward and my arch flatten. I knew I needed to have a more neutral foot. It's not easy, because the muscles are strong where they're called on and weak where they're not. I'd try lifting my arches a bit until they'd tire, then let them go back to the old way. When I thought about it again, I'd lift my arch again. Bit by bit, my muscles got stronger in the correct positioning. My friend was excited by these ideas because she'd had surgery some time before. The pain from the surgery had made her shift her weight to the outside of her foot and she'd kept up that habit even once the pain went away. She's going to try to make these changes and see if they help. Just one note of caution: if you've been walking with poor form for a long time, everything could start hurting more for a while after you change. In my experience, this was because things start waking up. I'd had a lot of hidden inflammation, so it took a while to clear. More blood circulation was getting into the areas than before. Nerves that hadn't been heard from in decades were outraged as they woke up and gave me a piece of their mind. I'm glad I stayed with it. The pains went away over time. So did the bunions. I'm much healthier and capable of taking long walks without foot, knee or hip pain. I even started jogging again. So if you have joint pain, don't think you have to live with it. If you have corns or bunions, try changing how you walk and the shoes you wear. Over time, little changes add up to big relief. Photo by Alan Labisch on Unsplash
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I read an article by Dr. Weil recently and had a few thoughts about it: http://www.drweilblog.com/home/2016/2/22/want-to-drop-the-pounds-try-these-snacks.html. He’s a proponent of an anti-inflammatory diet, and I am too. I know it's really hard to think of changing our diets. When we are really sick, though, it might help turn our health around if we make some changes. Pick one thing and start with small, incremental change. I found that some different advice helped me heal.
First off, Dr Weil’s suggesting that folks snack throughout the day to keep their blood sugar levels even. Unfortunately for me, I found that advice to be great for keeping weight on. I followed it after I had kids as I was trying to lose the baby weight. I weighed 175 pounds for years after my kids were born and it was incredibly frustrating because I was working so hard to lose weight. What turned my life around was Dr. John Douillard’s advice— he’s the Ayurvedic doctor behind Lifespa.com. I lost 40 pounds and have kept it off for 5 years and counting. Dr. Douillard said the Ayurvedic way is to reduce the load on the digestive tract by not constantly grazing. He made the analogy to a car that is not functioning well. You don’t want to constantly be driving it— you want to limit its use so you don’t get stranded (until it can get repaired!) He led me through a cleanse that cleaned out the digestive tract, allowed it to repair itself, pulled accumulated toxins from the lymph system, reset the digestive fire, and cleared away old mucus and debris from the small intestine, where 80% of our immune system is located. Immediately I started feeling better. Dr. Weil is also talking about foods like pasta being a part of the diet, but I ended up not being able to eat it. Dr. Douillard suggested that I cut way back on wheat, if not cut it out completely, until my digestive tract was healed. It made sense to me because I'd been reading that this new modified wheat is very hard to digest. It took 3 1/2 months to notice the difference, but I stuck to it and I have never had a sinus infection since (as compared to having an average of 8 sinus infections that I had to go on antibiotics for each year.) I’m well enough now that I can cheat occasionally, like on Thanksgiving, but even then I never have wheat more than one time per day. I figure I am asking a lot of my system to digest it— better to save up the effort and put it all into digesting one meal with wheat in it. Why on earth would wheat cause a problem with my sinuses? It’s because I had leaky gut, which is way more common than folks realize. Every time I ate wheat, tiny particles escaped into my blood stream, which led to histamine being produced in my sinuses. That histamine caused an inflammatory reaction, which included mucus production, making my sinuses the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. So if you're healthy, you can afford to have wheat in your diet, and if you're at the weight you want to be grazing is great, but if you've got some unexplained digestion and health issues, try connecting with an Ayurvedic doctor. If s/he suggests cutting out wheat or dairy for a time, even if you can't bear to cut it out, try to cut back. You might notice that you feel a whole lot better. Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash Digestion is handled by the right brain and the left brain working together. Our school system typically overdevelops the left brain (by cutting art classes, daily physical education and music they ignore developmental needs of the right brain), which leaves the right brain unable to do its share of the workload. I have a lot of interest in digestion as a result of my need to rebuild my health.
I read this article from a link I found on Twitter through Joy McCarthy of @joyoushealth. http://www.wellandgood.com/good-advice/5-surprising-ways-your-gut-affects-your-weight-mood-and-stress/?utm_campaign=socialflowfb&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social%20 I can second what Molly Gallagher of Well and Good is writing about— all of what she says is true. I’ll just add a few points to hers that I've found to be useful info over the years. 1. Our gut bacteria are definitely capable of manipulating our behavior by rewarding us with serotonin for behavior they want. We have bacteria that helps us and bacteria that are freeloaders. The freeloaders eat sugar. Eating sugar and things that break down into sugar easily, like processed grains, is feeding the enemy. We need a diet high in bioflavinoids to help heal leaky gut and the histamine response it generates. (See healinghistamine.com for more details. Yasmina Ykelenstam has done lots of research on what helps reduce inflammation in the gut and let it heal.) 2. While it’s true an imbalanced gut can keep us stuck in the bathroom, so does a lack of awareness about fiber and water. There are two types of fiber, and one of them, insoluble fiber, acts as a trigger for motility in the gut. So if you load up on high fiber foods like popcorn or raw food, you are asking for a bout of diarrhea or constipation—and it might not be what you expect: for example, the butter on popcorn can cause constipation for folks who don’t make enough bile. Becoming aware of foods with the other type of fiber (soluble) so that you can combine and balance your meals can save you a lot of misery later. As far as water goes, proper hydration is necessary for the body to move the food along within the digestive tract, otherwise it gets sticky and bogged down. 3. Taking probiotics can help with your stress levels is absolutely true. Probiotics help heal the gut and reduced infiltration by food particles into the blood stream means that the immune system is not going to be as activated. The immune system is part of the sympathetic nervous system, which is the fight-or-flight system. When your fight-or-flight system is activated, you are not able to digest food properly and you can’t absorb nutrients like you should. Your whole system shifts from healthy to inflamed and you don’t have the nutrients you need to repair your body. 4. Bad bacteria can make us store fat— yes, yes, yes. To whatever extent you can cut back on foods that trigger bad bacterial growth, I heartily recommend it. In addition, they can lead to anxiety and depression. Researchers have shown that combining psychotherapy with taking probiotics can be as effective as psychotherapy with anti-depressants. Talk to your doctor and psychologist before making any changes in your medicine. 5. It’s true that 80% of your immune system is in your gut— it’s in the gut-associated lymphatic tissue, which is meant to take toxins out of your system before they can be digested. Poor water consumption can lead to mucus coating this precious lymphatic tissue, which means that you are digesting toxins and storing them in your body. Ayurvedic medicine recommends drinking water 20 minutes before eating— this allows the stomach lining to be properly hydrated, too, so that the right amount of stomach acid can be made. (The body will reduce the strength of the stomach acid if the stomach isn’t properly hydrated to prevent damage to the stomach.) People with chronic ill health are at risk for having a high toxic load—an organic diet and an Ayurvedic cleanse and gallbladder flush can help clear the mucus and allow bile production to be reset to normal. My go-to Ayurvedic doctor is Dr. John Douillard at www.lifespa.com, who does phone consultations and has a website full of free articles. I learned all of the info in point #5 thanks to him. Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash This is a great one for doing in bed: if I get the start of a head cold coming on, I visualize energy coming in through the soles of my feet (as if there were little vents like a steam iron all around my feet) and then draw it up through my body and release it out the top of my head to the sky as if there were little vents on the top of my head. I usually take a breath in and imagine the energy reaching my waist, then on the breath out, have it release to the sky. I do that a few times and I'll notice my head starts to feel better. Then I can draw in energy from the sky to the top of my head and move it through to the soles of my feet out to the earth, again with the energy reaching my waist on the breath in, and moving out to the earth on the breath out. Then I alternate earth-to-sky and sky-to earth. This may feel hard at first, but the more you practice, the easier it gets. I used to get sick all the time; now I rarely get a cold.
People usually find out they have fibromyalgia after a heck of a lot of testing yields no results. It’s still a diagnosis that gets backed into. Western medicine looks for specifics; if there’s pain, there must be a reason, and often, if we’ve had a traumatic accident, doctors look for something that could still be causing problems. If you were expected to recover completely after an accident and haven’t, then I would say your pain might be fibromyalgia or some sort of myalgia type of syndrome. See a rheumatologist for a definitive diagnosis. Fibromyalgia is trauma-triggered pain, supposedly because of a genetic predisposition in a gene that allows inflammation and pain that gets activated by trauma. I think the worst part of fibromyalgia is the fact that it’s fellow sufferers who help diagnose the condition rather than a doctor doing so--I was helped that way both for fibromyalgia as well as for my IBS and from what I hear anecdotally, I’m not alone. Yes, a doctor diagnosed me, but only after I went to him after years of fruitless testing and specfically said, “I think this is fibromyalgia, (and then, with another doctor, “I think this is IBS,” What do you think?”) A lot of doctors think it’s all in our heads- I was certainly treated that way by my neurologists, and I’ve been to several. It wasn’t until I went to a rheumatologist that I got some satisfaction. It’s been speaking about my pain to other women that led to me happening to say the right thing to someone who had first one and then the other. Just think of how many people haven’t spoken up? My interpretation of fibromyalgia and its cousins is that yes, you need to be genetically susceptible to develop these syndromes, but it’s how the brain processes trauma and life after trauma that locks in pain and that I believe can be reversed. Alternative medicine is where I’ve found the most help. Alt med docs believe that fibromyalgia makes the body not accept thyroid into the cells, which leads to the common low thyroid symptoms found in fibromyalgia. My lack of energy and sensitivity to hot and cold has definitely gotten much better since I started taking Armour thyroid. Taking thyroid isn’t the whole answer, but it’s helped. At first I needed 1 1/4 grains of thyroid a day. Over the years since I started it, I've needed less and less. At this point, I'm no longer taking it. The biggest difference? Yoga, plus getting John Barnes' MFR. I had lots of fascia throughout my thyroid. Since releasing it with MFR treatment, my thyroid has bounced back. I know of someone else who has had her kidney function improve dramatically. Look for someone near you at myofascialrelease.com. Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash
No one ever mentions omega 3 fatty acids grow hair, but this is the experience I had with it: I tried a remedy that is supposed to help stop post-nasal drip: start with 1 fish oil capsule the first day. Then take 2 on the 2nd day, increasing by one capsule per day until you get to day 7, when you’re taking 7 capsules. Stay at 7 capsules until you get to day 30. That’s the suggestion. No, it's not something that I heard from a doctor, and I wouldn't try it again, since fish oil can thin one's blood. It did nothing to help my post-nasal drip, but a month later, I noticed a bunch of fuzzy short hair coming in that didn’t used to be there. It was particularly noticeable in the front of my head, which has less hair than the back half of my head. I’ve been pretty good about keeping up with taking fish oil capsules and that hair has grown in to be the real deal. Meanwhile, I’d told my mother about the post-nasal drip protocol I’d been trying and she tried it out too. It also did absolutely nothing for her post-nasal drip, but about a month after she finished, she called up and said the same thing had happened to her hair: she was suddenly sprouting baby-fine new hair where only the shortest down had been before. I’m not vouching for the safety of taking that much omega 3 at all– be sure to check with your doctor if you’re thinking of trying it! Adding in a reasonable daily amount of omega 3 sounds much better. Here's what I suggest: make sure you’re getting enough omega 3 in your diet, since it could add to your hair’s fullness over time. That's the healthy way to do it. Some things are pretty danged boring, even if they’re important to know. Chocolate isn’t. I recommend eating chocolate while reading this post. I’ve read a few good books on the digestive system. The latest one that I really like is called “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” by Natasha Campbell-McBride. This is the kind of book that’ll kind of make your head spin if you haven’t done a lot of nutrition research. It kind of takes everything you’ve learned about a healthy diet and turns it upside down. Despite that, it makes sense. It argues that folks on the autistic spectrum as well as folks with ADD/ADHD, depression and schizophrenia all have problems with bad gut flora, which causes toxins to poison their brain. Throw in the overuse of antibiotics and it leads to even more gut flora issues, because parents pass along their gut flora to their children. I haven’t talked much about my mom yet, but she has spent her life chronically anxious and depressed. She had symptoms of fibromyalgia as well, though she was never diagnosed, and ended up constantly catching colds. She decided the way to avoid chronic sinus infections was to get her doctor to prescribe 3 days of antibiotics each time she got sick (which was around once a month). She wound up with early onset Alzheimers and I don’t think it was coincidental. What I think is this: good digestion allows us to get all the nutrients we need to repair and rejuvenate our bodies. If we don’t eat healthy food and if we get poor gut flora passed along to us, it prevents our ability to repair ourselves. We then have no safety net to prevent our genetic dispositions towards problems such as fibromyalgia, m.s., Parkinsons, Alzheimers, lupus, osteoarthritis, etc. from starting to develop. I think if we had healthy eating habits, enough sleep, got regular exercise and had good digestion, we’d be able to avoid these types of illnesses. Part of what makes us have problems with digestion is that once digestion heads south, our bile is no longer as good at breaking down food. I take a supplement with every meal now, in order to change that. Here’s a good article on what digestive enzymes do for you. I’m also being really good about taking my daily probiotic. I’m also trying to cut back on carbohydrates, to try to starve out the bad guys in my gut. Someday I may try the GAPS diet on myself. Wish me luck:-) Photo by Matt Schwartz on Unsplash
Craving sweets is a big problem for me and it’s a part of having fibromyalgia. Adelle Davis in “Let’s Have Healthy Children” states (p. 278): “Allergies occur when the diet fails to supply the nutrients needed to prevent the adrenals from becoming so exhausted that cortisone can no longer be produced. Simultaneously, the synthesis of other adrenal hormones decreases or ceases, which causes the blood sugar to drop below normal, resulting in fatigue, irritability, nervousness and craving for sweets… Healthy adrenal glands produce still another hormone, aldosterone, which prevents too much sodium from being lost in the urine. When these glands are exhausted, however, so much sodium is lost that abnormal amounts of water pass into the cells, causing them to swell and become inflamed; thus such symptoms as a stuffy nose, postnasal drip, watery eyes and swollen tissues are characteristic of allergies.” One thing I notice with fibromyalgia is that my sweat is not salty. So I’m not making enough aldosterone. I do have stuffy nose and postnasal drip. I’ve had that my whole life. I also have fatigue, irritability, nervousness and craving for sweets. Don’t I just sound charming?! If we ever meet, just don’t stand between me and candy, okay? 😉 So the bottom line here is I need stronger adrenals. How do I strengthen them? The same way I helped my son- look for my post, “How to Avoid a Tonsilectomy”, which has the recipe for Adelle’s Adrenal Recharge. I’ve been taking a teaspoon per hour to be cautious, since my GI tract is very sensitive to Vitamin C owing to the IBS. One teaspoon is the equivalent of 500 mg of Vitamin C. If you try this, be cautious, as even healthy GI tracts can get diarrhea from Vitamin C if it’s more than you’re used to at one time. Once I get more accustomed to taking that amount of Vitamin C, I’ll up it to 2 teaspoons (1000mg) per hour. Why make such a big deal about reducing my cravings for sweets? Well, I wouldn't mind losing a few pounds, And besides that, the kind of beneficial gut flora we are designed for doesn’t eat sugar. The more sugar we eat, the more we shift the balance of flora into the kinds of bacteria that send toxins to our brain. I know that for some folks, this is going to sound way too out there to be believed, but just realize I started out a big skeptic and I have been humbled. The only thing that seems to help me feel better is the advice of the alternative medicine crowd… Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
There have been a few studies recently that claim there is no difference between eating organic and non-organic foods, but I think the researchers are making a mistake. Healthy human bodies have defenses to remove toxins from our bodies before the toxins can be digested. Folks who are sick, though, don’t. Neither do folks who have non-optimal gut flora. Wherever digestion is impaired, the toxic load increases. A high toxin load increases the risk of cancer. I think researchers should study folks who have fibromyalgia, IBS, M.S., Alzheimer’s, as well as anyone on the autistic spectrum. I believe folks like us have got toxic load. Compare an organic vs. non-organic diet on us. That’s where you’ll see the difference. I’d still choose an organic diet. It’s an investment in your future. You can’t know now healthy you are, not really, not until much further down the road. By that time it’s a lot harder to turn things around. I’ve been tested and am too high in several toxins. I only started on an organic diet in the late 1990’s, and anyway, who can afford a 100% organic diet? To try to flush the toxins, I’m drinking Everyday Detox tea by Traditional Medicinals and also taking Pectosol Chelation Complex by ecoNugenics as recommended by my alternative medicine doctor. Think carefully about your health and level of chronic stress. If you're relatively healthy, your immune system can do a lot with non-organic foods. But if you need to boost your health, head to the organic aisle. One of my sons has had a few warning signs for needing surgery, first on his adenoids and then on his tonsils. The first time, he was having trouble breathing through his nose despite taking allergy medication. One x-ray later, the doctor told us the size of my son’s adenoids meant he needed surgery. I told the doctor I wanted to try an alternative and that we’d be back in a few months. I went home and read up on one of Adelle Davis’ books, “Let’s Have Healthy Children.” I was looking for something to help adenoids and tonsils, which are part of the lymph system and yet are connected to the adrenals according to Adelle. Adelle says that the healthy tonsils and adenoids actually shrink when stressed. It’s only when the adrenals are exhausted that lymph tissue will start to swell. So that meant my son’s adrenal glands were exhausted. On page 256, there’s a formula that I call Adelle’s Adrenal Recharge. It’s 250mg of Vitamin B6, 100mg of Vitamin B5 and 50,000mg of Vitamin C dissolved into 1 cup of warm water. Keep that in the fridge and give your child 1-2 teaspoons every two or three hours when ill. You can sweeten it with honey if your child is old enough. The book has additional instructions for younger children. So I made some up and started giving it to my son every day. He seemed to be improving. I took him to the doctor three months later and the doc harrumphed a lot and then said my son was fine. He looked so well on examination that he didn’t need to even get a repeat x-ray. This spring, my son came down with a sore throat while I was away for the day. When I got home, my husband informed me that my son was going to need a tonsilectomy. I had the poor boy show me. It looked more like the inside of a cottonmouth snake than a human throat. His tonsils were so puffed up they were pushing into his mouth and boy were they red, poor guy. How he could swallow was beyond me. So I went back to Adelle’s book and made more Adrenal Recharge. Two hours after the first dose, his tonsils had shrunk by half. Not back down to normal, but enough to see he was going to be fine. The next day, his sore throat didn’t even hurt anymore. I can’t tell you how much all of Adelle’s books have helped me over the years. Ask your dietician for advice about pairing Adelle's knowledge with theirs. |
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January 2024
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