Goat Milk & Cheese, OJ, Coffee, Watermelon, Eggs, Broth, White Wine, Offal & Meat

That sums up my diet, pretty much. I have simplified a lot.

I learned from my father that we don't need a whole lot of variety to be healthy. You should see his perfect lab results. He is 90, and fares better than I do, on an even simpler diet: milk, cookies, Mountain Dew, Bailey's Irish Cream, broth, cakes, watermelon, eggs, cheese, liver pate and one multivitamin a day.

My weight still hovers in the 61-63 range, depending on the amounts of food. I don't do much in the way of exercise. Again, I follow my father. He never did anything and spent quite a bit of time in bed. He has zero pain, and he is fit as a fiddle. Zero inflammation, as well. OK, he cannot boast a very muscular body either, but if the price for a marvelously pumped body is painful articulations, I'll take the muscle-wasted bod any time... especially if it takes me into my nineties pain-free!

But what am I talking about. I still have this fantasy that one day I will match his excellent condition.

Maybe I shall. Autoimmunity be damned, who says I'll never get over it? Stranger things have happened.

Myself & Myself

Last night a very intriguing thing happened. I will attempt to describe it here.

I dreamed that I was writing in this blog about my symptoms. And that I was describing a strong pain in the back of my left thigh.  A burning sensation. And that I thought that drinking water might help, but it didn't. I woke up at that point. The pain abruptly subsided. It was like the ghost of a pain. I wasn't sure anymore whether I really felt it or it had just been in my dream.

The day before, there was this tightness along the back of my left leg and I had wondered what it might be. Today, that vein was still acting up, but not in a painful way, like in the dream.

So, bear with me here:  this got me to think that my body, or my "second brain", my gut, or the extended version of it, the sympathetic nervous system, my SNS, was signaling me to take care of that vein issue, somehow. The increased water intake suggestion that "hadn't been working" in the dream is, after all, a suggestion. Maybe I should drink more liquids. I hardly drink any, besides the milk, OJ and occasional alcoholic drinks which dehydrate, if anything.

I know, I know, I'm out on a limb here, but hey, why not? That's how we progress. The worst thing that could happen is we waste some time on cute suppositions.

The most interesting part of the way my SNS (for lack of a better word) was alerting me in my dream that I should drink more water was the language IT used. Because, truly, that's not how I speak or think. I either use English or Romanian, but I cling to the grammar of both.

This SNS-related entity that sent me that message mixed Romanian with English in an unexpected and very expressive way. It was intrinsically wrong and... bizarelly right at the same time. It went to the root of expression, taking what it needed from both languages, so as to make a new symbiotic language, an idiom very remote to anything I would have used in a conscious manner. It was bilingual poetry and science, if you will.

"Imi dadui myself ceva de baut" was the phrase "it" used. "I gave myself something to drink", but the word "myself", in English, was introduced in the middle of "Imi dadui de baut" -- a fully understandably and grammatically correct Romanian sentence otherwise,  with a livresque undertone, meaning already "I gave myself something to drink". This reinforcement commanded attention big time! Hence, the whole feeling I had that I was being communicated to from some depth of "my self", one that I wasn't in control of.

Again, there was no need to repeat the "myself" part, and in another language, to boot, in the correct position for that other language... I would not have done it knowingly because it is bizarre and redundant. Still, it sounds strangely convincing and it implies that there are two "I"s at work. The conscious "I", and the unconscious "I", that strange "myself"... It separated "I" from "Myself" in a way, as in "A gave B something to drink", get it?

And there is one more layer of strangeness. Nobody says "I gave myself something to drink", or "Imi dadui de baut", although it is understandable and gramatically correct, if you will. We say: "I had something to drink"/"Am baut ceva". There is one "I", not two, one that gives, one that receives, you see? But yet, in my dream, there we were, to of "Us", a giver and a (reinforced)  receiver of water/care. (This was all about water, I know because it was my dream. It was all about hydration, not alcoholization). So there were two of us, two "I"s at work: a sick self and a mending, medicating, solution-finding self. A patient self and a doctor self, a health caring self.

So maybe this blog writing helped me get in touch with my "inner self", the one that usually doesn't speak, the one that's there and that cannot express itself, the one we do things to, wittingly or unwittingly.

Wouldn't that be wonderful, I say?

And now if you will excuse me, I need to go give "Myself" something to drink. :))))

Late Update

It was not such a great idea to have this separate blog for logging food and symptoms. I don't find it in me to update two parallel blogs dealing with the same theme, more or less.

So, I left it where I was feeling on top of the world, cause unknown.

Then, as I relate on the other blog, I managed to convince my doctor to put me on levothyroxine -- T4.

I have been checking my calories intake on Cronometer these last few days. I am very surprised: I clock around 2300, at least, while maintaining my weight! So, things have improved, I am burning a lot more fuel and consuming a lot more energy, somehow! When I am active, I rock, indeed, it is like the old times.  I manage to get a lot done and to feel upbeat all day long. So, those days might explain a big expenditure of energy. The enigma is what I am doing with all those extra calories on the days I spend between computers?

Anyway, I'll take it! Sure I want to live on 2300 calories a day, as opposed to 1600! That's a huge difference, almost 33% more!

But I feel those calories inside my head and my heart, truly! I have come to understand the women who told me that thyroid treatment "gave them their lives back"! I recognize my old self in the way I tackle issues and I solve problems. There is a way of forging ahead, with all my might, which had all but left me. I had come to ponder a lot and to view some challenges as really difficult to overcome. So difficult that they would stop being worth the trouble. Why bother? My world had gradually filled with such "worthless possibilities" and I was less and less active, on all fronts, without even realizing this was happening to me. I figured I got smarter, or something. "Older and wiser".

It was the thyroid, stupid! Combined with and dragged down by my constant hypocaloric diet, so I might shed those "important" pounds and keep them off! What a misguided way of life!

Now, all those "unworthy purposes" appear within easy reach and the whole process becomes worthwhile. I am reconsidering things I never thought I would reconsider. I am even being a little crazy in some respects, because I have the energy to spare, so... why the hell not?

How I eat these days:

I am not religious about PUFAs. Sure, I don't use any for cooking anymore, but if I am eating out or I really want that bag of potatoes or tortilla chips, I will get it and not think twice about it.

I am trying to kick out all cow's dairy. This turns out to be a huge challenge. I have been at it for a while, but there's always a Haagen Dasz or a slice of great cheese or some mashed potatoes with butter and heavy cream that make it past my defense mechanism. I think part of it is my lack of conviction that this might be an issue -- I have always eaten cow's dairy and my allergy test came back negative. Plus, I am not that fond of a goaty smell in my coffee...

Otherwise, nothing to report -- I am eating a regular diet, with lots of animal protein and as few veggies as I can get away with, with orange juice and a few tropical fruits thrown in. I gave up on aged meats and cheeses and replaced them with fresh stuff. I take my gelatin and coconut oil every day. I occasionally deep fry in coconut oil as well -- potatoes, nothing else so far. I drink alcohol sometimes, with meals that "call for it" -- sulphite-free wine and gluten-free beer.

I have developed a fetish for black cherry preserves in heavy syrup, with the fruit intact inside, luscious and crunchy, with that bitter tinge. I got a jar from Romania that is outstanding in every way -- they said they used 350 g of fruit per 100 g of product!  I love to drink espresso with that. The bitterness of the coffee combines with that of the cherries, but then there is the intense sweetness of
the syrup, and all is dark and laden with flavor. My favorite Nespresso is one of the new series, "Trieste", it has acidic undertones that marry perfectly with the black cherry.

My love affair with the milk and rice preparation I used to have quiet often has ended abruptly. That happened in Romania too, where I bought from a "Carrefour Express/Angst" store their own version of rice and milk. That was divine. Lemon zest and cinnamon in perfect proportions. If I added the black cherries on top, it was nirvana. I need to learn how to cook that, but... I'm afraid it can't be the same with goat's milk. And I want to be eating exclusively goat's milk in the future, at least for a few months, see if that makes a difference in my Anti-TPOs...

So... If I were to eat again 1600 calories a day, I bet I would lose weight and go down to the 58 kg that had been my ideal for so many years. However, I am reluctant to do that. I feel that the sugar and the fat and the protein I go through are needed by my body and that they are as important as medication for its well being. So I will keep trying to increase even further the amount of calories I ingest while staying at the same weight point.

My BMI is somewhere between 21.4 and 22.1, but my fat percentage is horrendous -- actually, it has never changed since I got off Paleo -- and even then it was very high. I refuse to write it down, maybe it will go away...:)

A new discovery: magnesium chloride and baking soda baths! Quite a find... I need to be careful and monitor what I am doing because that form of magnesium seems quite potent. But I remember Dr. Peat raving about the effects of magnesium on the body -- it was up there with progesterone, if I remember well. I'll look it up and write it down here.

March 30, 2013

Sweet energy…

I cannot believe how these last couple of days have been for me. Ever since I could walk again after the Great Fever, I felt different. I would not walk, I would dance. I would sing! I would go up the stairs, then like the feeling, come rushing down the stairs, only to climb again, to come down again, to go up and come down and up and down and up and down — I have been BOUNCING with easy, dispensable, buoyant energy!

I have done things, written things, said things non-stop -- I am never tired, I don’t eat much, I don’t care about eating, I sleep like a log and I am no longer caring whether it is day or night, whether it rains or it shines or what the heck “it” does out there, I am BRIMMING with the great joy of being alive!

I smile constantly, nothing upsets me, I take on huge issues, I want to do a few grandiose projects. Ideas keep rushing to my head, my heart, my muscles. I am feverishly concocting a new world order. Oh, you have no concept!

My husband stares at this new me, which is the old me he met 25 years ago. The Me That Was Going To Change The World -- and keep smiling throughout the process!

My eyesight is clear again, I no longer find myself searching for focus. I get up after extensive periods of sitting on a chair without any pain! I had come to accept that particular pain, the pain of me moving again from a locked position, the absurd, pitiful pain of aging me. All that psychological and physical humiliation… GONE! I move when I want, how I want, with the ease of a freaking dancer!

Can the fever have restarted my thyroid, I ask myself. If that’s the case, sweet thyroid, welcome back! I didn’t even know how much I missed you!

What if it won’t last?

At least I remembered what fully functional is like!

Let this be a reminder of what I should feel like EVERY DAY.

March 23, 2013

To eat chocolates and macaroons with delight instead of guilt and view them as the amazing treats they were meant to be instead of sugar bombs in elaborate disguise, paving the way to metabolic syndrome, is bliss!

Energy wise I felt great these days, so thyroid may have functioned alright.

Unfortunately, others things continued to go wrong...

The following is a pathetic attempt to play Dr. House with my own symptoms.

So I am on my third round of antibiotics in the past five weeks for excruciating ear pain. Ampicillin, Spyramicin, now Amoxicillin. My gut will be squeaky clean when I'm done.

I have come to dread this ear infection or whatever it is -- what if it will never go away? It subsides with each treatment, than returns with a vengeance! Yesterday my doctor saw me at 8:30 PM -- she sometimes works incredibly late... I felt like my left ear was taken over by a nasty inflammation and "something" was pushing into my eardrum. I hope no harm will come to my sense of hearing over this.

She said she saw some awful red patches in my left ear canal. Besides the antibiotic, she prescribed an antiinflammatory based on niflumic acid, Nifluril. Never heard of it before. And Omeprazole to protect my stomach from the NSAID.

The fact that this ear infection/lymph node inflammation started when I did my progesterone, then my pregnenolone experiment may be just a coincidence. But it is worth investigating.

I found out from a doctoral thesis by Rusana Simonoska from the Karolinska Institute that the ear contains tons of estrogen receptors.

So, progesterone and pregnenolone may have turned into estrogen in my case -- there is proof of that even in my recent blood test results -- but then again, estrogen keeps fluctuating and it is hard to gauge its evolution in time for women before menopause. Peat argues that it is difficult anyway, being that when estrogen enters cells, its presence in the body may be higher, while in serum it will appear lower. So maybe what happened was simply that estrogen was ousted from cells into the bloodstream, under the influence of progesterone.

How would that translate at the ear level?

Either a loss, or a spike in estrogen occured at the cellular level.

Estrogen leaving the ear seems to break havoc, as in causing hearing diminution or even loss. But I did not see reports of aches and pains or inflammation accompanying that. Probably because the research I refer to was done on lab rats (I liked the author's compassionate words about them, at the end of her thesis).

The symptoms of an estrogen surge into the ear were likewise undocumented. Rats don't fill in questionnaires before decapitation, I guess.

Finally, research is not available on progesterone entering the ear system, I will further have to speculate and start using, like Dr. Peat, lots of "I would not be surprised if", "It is likely/possible that..."

So what happened there? This wannabe Dr. House is staring thoughtfully at her tablet, ears pounding inside her head. She gobbles another Nifluril with her coffee, then a bunch of Anatablocs, for added dramatic effect and sweet taste, if nothing else...

"Any ideas?" 

March 20, 2013

Yesterday I ended up cooking Tom Yum Goong for dinner. I read somewhere about shrimp and that seemed to ring a bell. Tom Yum soup was also the absolute go to food back when I smoked and didn’t feel like eating. I am never without ingredients for it in the freezer, so it took twenty minutes to have it ready. 

The surprise was the amount of lime I used — after a day of coffee and OJ, I still craved lime! And I drank OJ, too.

Today, again, coffee, OJ, Tom Yum, coffee, OJ, grenadine juice, coffee, Tom Yum.

Do I not have sufficient acid in my stomach? What’s going on?

But then again, if I don’t, maybe it’s a signal.

“Thank you very much, you can stop eating for a while!”

That’s some diet…

Of course I could lose weight like this and have fun in the process! Actually, I did lose some weight these past few days, effortlessly.

I am at the weight I used to have before Paleo. 61. I ate everything then, gluten foods included, and this was a point of homeostasis, I found it easy to stay stable at this weight. On Peat I had come to think 62.5 was the stable point. I guess not anymore. On Paleo, I was stable at 58, but I had low stamina and would frequently get really tired.

I went shopping for food. Nothing looked appetizing, except for a dark chocolate mousse. I took it… And the OJ, of course, and ingredients for beef broth, in the hope I will get over this.

Now I’m eating my chocolate mousse almost out of duty.

Strange things have happened to me on this diet.

Cravings I thought I would always experience have suddenly disappeared. How can pass by the ice cream section without as much as a blink?

My favorite chocolate is in the fridge, unopened. I cannot be bothered with any cheese — actually, I am fed up with all of them.

Wine and alcohol have stopped sounding attractive on their own. They were always a welcome proposition when I was starved for energy on Paleo.

When all the things you’ve ever craved are suddenly the only things you can eat, you party for a while like mad, and then you settle. You get to see them as simply food. You’ll need them when you’ll need them, right? Peat is a genius.

These days I have read a medical book from the 1800s and a ton of other papers on PubMed. I’m becoming a PubMed addict.

After all this reading, coming back to Ray Peat’s articles is kind of strange. They seemed so scholarly and awesome. I am almost afraid to read them again. But I shall.

March 19, 2013

I was hungry (but not ravenously so, like I used to get on Paleo) and I went to the kitchen. Nothing in the fridge was even remotely attractive. I tried to imagine anything edible that would appeal to me, whether I had it available or not. Nothing. So I drank some orange juice, had a Nespresso and left the kitchen, rather bewildered, still mentally searching for something I might bear eating.

This is by no means novel to me — I used to be like that most of the time when I was smoking. I ate only when something appealed greatly to my senses or when I was dining out with friends so I turned the whole thing into a social event and what was on my plate lost significance.

But I thought those days were over.

I am not upset at experiencing this again. I take it as a sign of health. And of being myself again. A fussy eater. It runs in the family - Dad was the worst, but most of us had it. Mom also contributed to this to some extent, as she taught us to enjoy food — pleasure had to be an important part of life and food was an important source of pleasure. She would genuinely suffer if we didn’t enjoy and praise out loud her cooking. So we did come to think that the world owed us pleasurable food and kept looking for it as adults.

When I moved to the States, easily finding pleasurable food became an issue. I kept looking for the rich tastes I had grown used to in Romania. I would use half and half instead of milk with my coffee and cereal. I remember being frantic over the “0% fat” or “low fat” labels, kept looking for the full fat products. People looked at me like I was an alien — and not in the INS usage of the term, either. But yes, I was an alien coming from planet Eastern Europe/Tasty Food.

Then I discovered places like “Dean & Deluca”. My food budget became ridiculous.

But nowhere could I find the classic meat & vegetable broth I was used to and I craved often. So I learned to cook it for myself.

Whenever I traveled for work and had breakfast with my American friends in European hotels, they would look at my plate with genuine concern on their faces. They tried to prevent me from eating “raw pork”. It was one of those situations where the two parties are convinced that the other is a barbarian.

Raw beef was something I learned from them, however. And raw fish.

In France, good food can be achieved a lot easier. After all, “Dean & Deluca” had their choicest stuff originate here and in Italy. But now I am worried about things being organic and, again, I am running into some trouble. Excellent AND organic is not an easy combo to find… The best wine, cheeses and deli things are not organic and without additives, here as elsewhere. I have to process lots of things myself and I have to stay away from many of my favorite foods. Keep it simple.

Quitting smoking awakened my bud tastes with a vengeance, so food started to feel good a lot more often… It didn’t have to be as awesome as when I was smoking. I could now get tremendous pleasure from simple things — and I did. So I put on weight, then I had to refrain from eating in order to not gain more. Food started to speak to me in a much louder tone, so I turned from a smoking gourmet into a non-smoking gourmand.

But this is the first time I am hungry in France and I cannot find anything appealing to eat. Of course, I am automatically keeping into the Peat barriers — maybe I would like to eat pizza with prosciutto crudo, but that is wrong in so many ways that I cannot truly salivate when I think of it. Honestly. That positive result to gluten antigens suddenly reduced my edible world to a figment of what it once was. I do have some gluten free pizza dough in the freezer, but I could never replicate the kinds of pizzas I used to adore or the apple pies that made me happy, etc., so there goes the possibility of a tasty pizza dream.

If this means that my body is replete with everything it needs and would rather take a break from processing food, I would be so thrilled! Maybe I can train it to recognize what it genuinely needs from the offer on hand and to simply prompt me via the salivary glands when it sees something that might be beneficial.

Wouldn’t that be a grand achievement!

March 15, 2013

Yesterday...

...was a crappy day, albeit sunny. My heel pain was ridiculous, I could hardly walk.

Anatabloc didn't do anything for me, so there goes another hope for the miracle cure.

I read up on increased vascularity of the thyroid in Hashimoto euthyroid patients. Apparently, it is caused by TSH. I am doing some mental acrobatics to not link "vascularization" with "angiogenesis" and ignore the fact that Peat said TSH is carcinogenic. If thyroid cancer is the next step and I'm heading there because I found some stubborn doctors who go by a book that doesn't seem to be valid in most other places on Earth, well... Bummer, right?

Obviously interested in surviving, my brain presented some alternative plans. After watching a documentary on France 3 about life in Thailand it quite fancied the idea. How about moving there, the thought was sheepishly presented to my sovereign conscious mind. It's sunny, they have good doctors, and thyroid hormones are OTC... Life is way more affordable than here. Maybe I could start a farm in the countryside. Grow a few animals, cultivate a few veggies, surely there is a growing demand for everything organic in that booming economy, I might even be able to turn a profit. Or feed my family and friends all over the world with perfect food. The conscious mind was like, meh. I don't know anything about farming. And Thai language (especially the writing), I find exceedingly annoying to master. And I'm not so sure about the climate, either. Maybe I got sick after those two weeks in Bangkok, when I ate insects and worms and street food, thinking I'm superhuman or something. Although it was after the Koh Samui trip that I really started to feel bad, although during that one I was a lot more conservative, but still, who knows, right?

Peat chose to live in Mexico. I only saw Cancun and found it too arid for my taste, but maybe that's a virtue. In their quest for a safe environment, (over)sensitive humans should look for warm, dry climates where not many plants survive and the fauna is relatively scarce. I mean, I'm comparing Mexico to lush Thailand. But I like plant-invaded landscapes... Like the sun, they make me happy! Costa Rica was my favorite.

Diet wise, I stopped all milk, again. I want to do the test recommended by Steven Wm. Fowkes in the link posted by Yves (thank you! ). OJ, coffee, gelatin, eggs, coconut oil, spyramicin, D3, E, zinc, magnesium, B complex, provolone, manchego, apples, OJ, coffee, boar stew again, red wine (organic, unfiltered, sans collage, no sulfites), NAC&vit C (another Fowkes recommendation, this time against alcohol side effects), spyramicin, dark chocolate.

Today, it is sunny again, but it is too cold for biking. I need some spring time here.

March 13, 2013

Wed Mar 13, 2013 2:46 pm

Overcast Alsatian skies, really not a pleasure to be under. Erm. I take that back. It is always a pleasure to be under the sky, as in above the earth.

Coffee and milk. Gelatin. Antibiotic serving. Coconut oil. OJ. Cheese. Chorizo. (I know, PUFAs, but I craved it so). Root veggies soup. Not too Peatian, but my husband thinks I will die if I keep on not eating vegetables. I tried negotiating in vain, I have to drink daily servings of that. It’s not that bad and it does guard against constipation, so…OJ again. Coffee and milk and sugar. I boiled the raw milk I got from the market, see if that one works. I find out it doesn’t really, judging from a reddish patch under my ear and on my neck. Bummer, I really liked the taste. Rice and milk, with milk from the same farm, but probably pasteurized by them. Boar stew with potatoes, gelatin and red wine later. And more spiramycin. Ice cream.

I can’t understand the pounding heartbeat when I try to fall asleep at night. It's a recent development that bothers me. I sometimes feel it during the day as well. At night, I took Valium again, three times in a row. I don’t like that decisive heartbeat. Maybe it’s a good sign, but it takes getting used to. I stopped all vitamin supplements because of it...

The antibiotic is for some swollen lymph nodes, under my ears. Those that started to flare with progesterone, and then with pregnenolone. I am really not talented when it comes to hormone replacement, I will quit trying. I don’t even want to try the thyroid hormones, especially that I read that they also can give the enhanced heartbeat. What if I got mine from the RP diet? Maybe my thyroid is getting fixed, after all...

A few days ago I did an ultrasound for the lymph nodes and the friendly doctor moved her machine south to check on my thyroid status as well. She confirmed that it is non-homogeneous and “very vascularized”. I don’t like the vascularization part, I find it scary. Yet another thing I need to read up on. I asked her if she thought I might get it to recover on its own, through diet. She said she didn’t think so. She asked who my endocrinologist was, I told her. She said she was the best in town, really exquisite, so I am in good hands and I should follow her advice. Her advice is to not treat until TSH is 10! Trust her, the radiologist said, but in a mellower tone. They keep saying that, I noticed. They root for each other. Maybe that's a good thing. The world is now full of self diagnosed patients who want their health on their own terms. Another radiologist said to me, “If I ever get seriously sick, I will never read up what’s out there regarding my condition. I will find a doctor and trust him or her blindly”. That’s what our friend who has cancer is doing, too. He refuses to read any material on his disease, outside of the diet book we gave him.

Maybe that’s the way to live. What am I doing here? I should be living my life and stop worrying so much. My thyroid might thank me for not concentrating on it as much as I have.

On the other hand, I did knock down half of my antibodies. Or, did “I”? Maybe they’d have all been just a memory had I not paid attention at all to my diseases this past year.

Like the Anti-dsDNA antibodies, that are now nowhere to be found. Were they ever there, at 113? Was that simply a lab error? Or is the recent negative result a lab error? So... Could there be an SLE in my future? Why do my fingers and heels hurt every morning? They do hurt symmetrically, so that's a non-SLE sign. Maybe it's RA, but I showed no antibodies for that.

I’m slowly growing tired with all these questions. I will stop asking them. I will move on. Shed my previous body, the sick or “sick” body, shed my previous state of mind, worried sick of my being sick, and move the hell on.

I have a great life to live and spring will be here soon.

Ab Initio

I am having a hard time placing myself on the health continuum. I used to think of myself as very healthy, but in retrospect, after learning about hormones and their effects on the body, I am increasingly viewing myself in the past as having been sicker than even I have ever suspected, with the generous help of my numerous uninformed doctors.

And boy, have I seen doctors in my life! All eager to label me as this very healthy chick, rather spoiled, who was wasting people’s time.

So: I was sick, dismissed as a hypochondriac nine times out of ten and led to believe that I was, after all, A-OK.

Maybe that was a good thing. Thinking you’re healthy must be a positive element, an important attitude — we all know the famous examples of cancer patients becoming well and of healthy people developing cancers when their results were accidentally switched in a hospital lab, etc. However, I can’t help but ask myself what my life would have been like had I met a doctor who had a clue when my hormone-fueled engine started to cough and sputter. Someone who would not lead me to dismiss my symptoms as probably related to “lack of exercise”, “bad luck”, or worse, “my own head”.

It is hard to come to terms with a reality in which you’re really on your own, health wise… In which you pay thousands of dollars to doctors who do nothing for you and can’t or don’t know how to cure you, on labs that may be irrelevant or simply botched and careless work. A reality in which you think you find your way following diet gurus like those possibly leading the Paleo lemmings into the metabolism precipice… In which you put your precious health into the hands of folks more or less trained who seem to have gleaned a different truth beyond the current noise, and then you end up feeling worse than before — albeit, even more informed on the gazillion things that can and do go wrong in the simple process of feeding yourself in this day and age if you are not a self-sufficient farmer… Is the Peat experience one more bitter experience, or is it the answer to my quest for health? Stay tuned, I guess...

After fourteen months of Paleo cavorting, I felt incredibly unwell. One doctor led to another, one lab result to another exploration, and that’s how I “survived” two cancer scares and one lupus fright, while dealing with Hashimoto symptoms and hormonal changes — in God knows which order. I disbursed thousands in health care bills, for nothing. I am back where I started, less trusting of the medical community than ever. I see them as business people, briskly taking advantage of our sickness or fear of sickness in order to keep their businesses rolling. In theory, it all may be very lofty — they are trying to make us better. And sometimes in practice that does happen, too. What are the percentages of that? I guess it depends wildly of the person in question and no studies are available to clear such aspects. In my case, most of the time, I discover it has mostly been a huge waste of my time and useless aggravation. I seem to float between under-analysis/treatment and over-analysis/treatment, not finding a good middle ground. That’s why I feel that, more than ever, I need to understand what is happening to me, to inform myself as best I can and to try to be my own doctor. And my own nutritionist, which is in itself a severe challenge, as anyone who has read a couple of articles and blogs, if not books on this subject, can attest.

Maybe all this is detrimental and will end up just engulfing days, weeks, months of my life. I am already something of an authority when it comes to many medical issues. Do I like it? No. Although sometimes I feel I can help, my lack of credentials doesn’t allow me to dispense credible advice — and so I just have to sit, simmering inside, and look at my preciously vegan friends and their desperately malnourished children, drinking soy milk while their mothers distribute PETA ads on Facebook. It’s OK. As I order my steak and wine I hear them sigh audibly and then go about eating their bread and salad, complaining about the fat in the dressing… I used to enjoy the moment and the conversation, regardless of what was in our plates, now I cannot anymore, the feeling that they are harming themselves under my eyes is too strong, I end up depressed after each of our meals together. Going out with a vegan or even a “mere eater” has become a cortisol fest, so I would rather not have read all those studies.

Most times, I am out there, staring at people and representing them mentally like I never have before: their corpulence, their hair, nails, teeth, skin all “speak” to me. I can tell who is in trouble, from a health perspective. I can guess who is hypothyroid — so many! Who is in menopause. Who is taking hormones. I can almost imagine who eats and drinks what… All kinds of bizarre elements that were never a part of how I saw the world. Frankly, I don’t like to “look through” people that way, I preferred it when their looks didn’t give me such thoughts. Or “noise”.

Sometimes their symptoms are so obvious I can’t help but mention something. The looks, the incredulity on their faces! No way, I am not hyperthyroid, says the man whose eyes are bulging out, smoking feverishly, so happy to have lost weight more easily than he thought possible, while still drinking and eating heartily… The woman talking to me about her menopause cannot even see how her thyroid is desperately holding on to her neck like a puffy doughboy, so fragile under the sagging skin. I ask her how long has she been hypo? She looks at me like I am some shaman. Are people so oblivious to what they look like? I can tell that what she tries to fashion into a trendy coiffure is just some remnants of a once glorious blond mane. “I see sick people”, and that should not have been my lot. Or maybe it should have, maybe going through this phase of life and its discontents makes us all aware of what health really means and how precious it is and what it translates into.

I (think I) can tell when a man could use some testosterone, a woman some progesterone. I can tell when everything is gloriously in order, I can admire those nicely humming human machines in top notch form and I wish them well and hope they will never ruin that exquisite equilibrium. Because I can’t help wondering, can we really climb back from under a failing thyroid? Can we really fix the hormonal balance once it starts to fail? Can we avoid serious diseases when something goes wrong and we don’t know exactly what it is and every set of lab tests results comes back imperfect in a different way and you just know your body is doing some serious adjustments, groping in the dark for its lost mojo, and maybe you could help, but you’re most likely getting in the way with all the stuff you offer it in terms of food and environment, limited as you are by your knowledge, and by everyone else’s knowledge on what may be going on?

As we lose our health and our beauty, we begin to know what incredibly precious and fragile gifts we were enjoying.

(the initial posts of these diary were written before the date of their posting)