My Sinus Infection has Lost its Bite

A wooden stake won't kill a vampire. Flamethrower, would kill a vampire. Or we can lose our head. I mean, literally. Other than that we heal. -Mick St. John from the TV show Moonlight

How would you feel if an illness that had previously left you cold, tired and slogging through the day for months, could suddenly be 95% beaten in 17 days? Like you'd gained superpowers?

I came down with a sinus infection August 16, and aside from a little coughing, I'm well again. Let me tell you about other sinus infections I've had. I spent a week in the hospital with one when I was nine. I spent a whole summer dragging myself around classes and work in a thick sweater in my early 20s in a nasty bout with staphylococcus aureus. Another sinus infection struck again in 2001, a few years after the septoplasty surgery I had was supposed to have prevented them.

What's different about this one? Vampire Mick St. John (see quote above) told a blind friend from his past that he'd stayed well through diet (he skipped the part about being a vampire). I credit the same thing for my good health and ability to heal: no wheat, low-carb, and vitamin and mineral supplements. Gluten-free grainy goodies are an occasional indulgence; my diet is mostly meat, eggs, and fibrous vegetables, a little cream, cheese and sour cream, and a little chocolate. (I leave dietary blood as the exclusive property of vampires and the Masai.) Wheat in particular gives me nasal congestion--the thick, sticky kind that won't move. With this sinus infection, I was coughing but not congested: the mucus was running, not sitting around making a bog for bacteria to thrive. With no congestion, I was rarely in pain; I took only two doses of aspirin. I also took a five-day course of azithromycin (an antibiotic), Umcka Cold Care, and black elderberry syrup, which helped my throat.

Again and again on my low-carb, high-fat, high nutrient diet, I've healed: GERD gone, allergies alleviated, a cold gone in three days, a neck injury that righted itself, and shoulder pain shrugged off. Most of these things had persisted for years pre-diet change. A good diet may not make you live forever, but it may help you heal like a vampire.

Comments

johann said…

Me, i wasn't able to cure my sinus infection through nasal steroids, too bad i have to undergo surgery. It was a week long unbearable pain. Now, i am fine but still have maintain my nasal irrigator time

September 15, 2011

Lori Miller said…

Hi Johann--this is the first I've been able to respond to your comment. Be careful of those corticosteroids--they increase your risk of diabetes.

September 16, 2011

johann said…

Really? thank you so much for that. I was never informed.

September 20, 2011

COVID Test Result is In

I don't have COVID. On the one hand, it would have been a relief to have finally caught COVID and gotten natural antibodies, especially from having a mild case of it. On the other hand, I was concerned about my dog catching it from me (he's healthy, but nine years old) and it might have interfered with Thanksgiving plans. Until I'm well, I'll stay home.

Gym Influencer Doubles Down and Should Have Regretted It

Jennifer Picone isn't the most abusive gym influencer--far from it--but she may be the most annoying. In a video she posted that went viral, she was working out in a gym when another member appeared in the background by the free weights. The member was minding her own business, not looking in Picone's direction, when Picone got up and told her to move. After filming, Picone edited the video with a note about "Gym etiquette lesson #47" and accused the other gym member of "[doing] that 💩 on purpose." Shaming other gym members has gotten to be such a big genre that Joey Swoll has a YouTube channel, with half a million subscribers, dedicated to calling out these content creators. Just for Picone, he took a break from his vacation to tell her to mind her own business. This may be the first time that Joey Swoll has taken one of his followers to task. The fact that she follows him and still doesn't know better than to treat the gym like her personal studio sh...

HHS Doctor on Hidden Camera: "The Vaccine is Full of Sh!t"

Jodi O'Malley, a registered nurse at the Phoenix Indian Medical Center (part of the Department of Health and Human Services), teamed up with Project Veritas to expose severe COVID vaccine reactions occurring but not being reported to VAERS, the vaccine adverse event reporting system, even though medical professionals are legally required to report such injuries. During the filming, a man in his thirties with congestive heart failure was being treated; the doctor believed the cause was his COVID vaccination. O'Malley says she's seen dozens of adverse reactions. "The vaccine is full of shit" and the government wants to "sweep it under the mat," the doctor says on hidden camera. We finally know what's in the vaccine. Screen grab from Project Veritas video . The video also shows a pharmacist stating that off-label medications such as ivermectin were forbidden to be prescribed on pain of termination. Project Veritas is a nonprofit organization that does ...

The Under-the-Radar Ointment for Hard-to-Heal Wounds

Imagine looking in the mirror one morning and finding the side of your head black and your ear twice its normal size. That's what happened to Brad Burnam, who caught a deadly superbug at the hospital where he worked. Sometime after having emergency surgery--one of 21 surgeries over the next five years--he set out to cure himself. The result he created was a fusion of PHMB, an antibiotic common in Europe but little known in the US, in a petroleum jelly base (like Vaseline), held together with a stabilizer/emulsifier. It sticks to wounds, keeps them moist, and provides a barrier. It cured his antibiotic resistant superbug. After getting FDA clearance, he formed Turn Therapeutics, and Hexagen is now available by prescription. Screen shot from https://turntherapeutics.com/about/ Millions of Americans suffer from open wounds--chronic issues like diabetic foot ulcers. Readers probably have their blood sugar under control and avoid this condition, but might have parents, partners o...

1972: Carole King, MAS*H and...Food for 2014?

I feel well enough to try Atkins induction again. The palpitations are gone, even without taking potassium. My energy level is back to normal--no more trucking on the treadmill early in the morning to burn off nervous energy or emergency meat, cheese and mineral water stops after yoga. It's back to lounging around to Chopin and Debussy in the morning and stopping at the wine bar for pleasure. I'm using the original Atkins book: Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution from 1972. While looking in the book for a way to make gelatin (which is allowed on induction, but Jello(TM) and products like it have questionable ingredients), I felt the earth move under my feet : those recipes from 42 years ago look delicious and they're mostly real food. It makes sense, though: the cooks who wrote the recipes probably didn't have had a palette used to low-fat food full of added sugar or a bag of tricks to make low-fat food edible. Anyone who writes a recipe called "Cottage Cheese and...

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog