Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Falling off a bike, falling on your face, fracturing and spraining an arm, breaking a tooth and knocking two others loose sounds terribly painful. I certainly looked bad afterward: a lot of strangers in stores, on the bus and even on the street saw my black and blue face and arm in a sling and asked me what happened. At the urgent care center; I rated my pain a 4 out of 10 as long as I held my arm still. But 4 out of 10 isn't horrible pain. The bottle of Vicodin I got that day is still in the bag, unopened. My arm wasn't that badly injured--not as bad as my cousin's when she tripped over her dachshund and broke both of her wrists. And my jaw, despite landing on it and still having a bump on my chin, wasn't fractured or broken. Could be I'm a tough old bird--I'm descended from bull riders, homesteaders and blacksmiths. But I think diet has helped. I know that changing my diet to low-carb, taking vitamin D and later adopting the cavity healing diet made my t...

Tuesday I was back at the orthopedic doctor's office looking at x-rays of my arm. You know how a typical bone is slender in the middle, then comes up to a head? The head on my radius (lower arm bone) looks like a mushroom. It got smooshed in the accident--yes, the doctor agreed it was smooshed. "If you're going to have a fracture," he said, "that's the kind to have." It's better than the bone being cracked through its head, which sometimes happens. Mine was fractured because I'm double-jointed: instead of my elbow bending in the right way when I fell, it bent the other direction. "When will my arm straighten out?" "Hopefully never. Come back in a month if it isn't feeling better." The doctor also looked at my shoulder, hand and wrist, which still hurt from time to time, but that was about it. I've regained most of the use of my arm: I can unlock a door, open my purse and take the lid off the deodorant without ...

Pumpkin pie in August? Chareva's butternut squash crustless pie ? Is it a meaty cheese or cheesy meat dish? Peanut butter bars? Nope--though all of those are great, save the last one. It's marrow and mushroom custard from The Odd Bits by Jennifer McLagan. Even if you don't require soft food, it's well worth making. I get marrow bones cut about 2" long and steam them for 15 minutes, then extract the marrow with a filleting knife. Boil the bones for a few hours for broth for another dish; save the marrow for custard or making croutons. (Roll them in almond flour and fry them in fat.) McLagan recommends having a sharp-tasting salad with the custard; I had a bit of V-8, a few bowls of lemon ice cream , some nut butter and dark chocolate.

Want to be like cardiobunny Mom and bounce around like it's 1989? Have some healthy whole grain waffles. Gotta carb up so you can work out, and you gotta work out so you can burn off those carbs! Since all those lovely whole grains and complex carbohydrates break down into sugar , the kids will soon be bouncing off the walls, too . Want to relax and act like a normal person? Eat some sausage instead.

Best conversation yet: Cashier: How did you get hurt? Me: I fell off my bike. Cashier: Are you going to ride a bike again? Me: Nope. Cashier: So you didn't lose your common sense. That was Sunday. It's Friday, and strangers have stopped asking what happened to me since I'm a lot less black and blue now. I'm washing my own hair, putting on makeup and getting through a day at work without exhaustion. I don't do much at home besides cooking and dishes, and out-eating a teenage boy. Two eggs or a quarter pound of beef is a snack; either one used to be a meal. Rebuilding flesh and replenishing blood (I bled for a day when I fell) must take a lot of nutrients. I'm not wearing the extra calories--I've lost weight. The braces are working. My front teeth are straighter than they've been since I was a kid, and I can chew a little bit, very carefully. Since the tooth that broke was narrower than an implant, I'll have to have my top teeth re-aligned t...

A diet of soft food doesn't mean you have to live on protein shakes or broth. Over the past week and a half, I've been making real food, mostly paleo, that I can eat with my dental injuries--and that I can make with an arm injured, and that doesn't get stuck in my braces. These three recipes, along with others on this blog I've labeled "soft food," are my best results. A suggestion: get a food processor strong enough to puree meat. The Cuisinart 9-cup food processor does the job, and I can put it together with one hand. A battery-powered can opener that sits on top of the can as it works is indispensable if you can't open cans and have few plug-ins. For opening jars, run hot water over the lid for a minute, hold the jar between your heels, and twist. For portable dishwashers--let's just say it can be done. Clam Chowder 2 strips of bacon 2 cans (~3 to 4 cups) clams, with juice 2 cups stock 2 cups clam juice 1 medium head cauliflower, chopped ...

A gift from my neighbor. I'd cite the source if I knew it. ETA 10/9/2012: Using a Google image search, I see that this photo is from the collection of Robert Flynn Johnson, a collector of old, anonymous photographs.

Never again do I want to hear how hard it is to do an elimination diet. If you think you have a natural right to happy and content and eat whatever you want without consequence, of course it will be hard. If you see life as a series of challenges to be met, and see that every food has consequences, it will be easier. And in fact, I find eliminating certain foods easier than eating them in moderation. My recent bike accident has left me unable to chew and with limited use of my right arm. (I'm right handed.) I can't eat wheat or carrageenan, can't tolerate more than a little dairy, and can't tolerate a high-carb diet. That leaves me with a low-carb, high fat (LCHF) diet of soft foods. So far, it's been a minor challenge. No, that's not an understatement, and no, I haven't had any protein shakes. I'm snooty as a Frenchman about food. To live on a soft LCHF diet of real food, you'll need a food processor with a motor powerful enough to puree meat. ...

My bike accident a few days ago left me with bad road rash. To help keep it from getting infected, I've been applying coconut oil to my scrapes and rinsing my mouth with it. In my last post , I linked to a couple of papers about coconut oil's ability to kill certain bacteria, and in some cases, its superiority over traditional antibiotics. So far, I don't have any infection. What has surprised me is how fast my scrapes are healing. I don't have a photo of myself from four days ago, but the pink spot on my chin was a bad scrape, so red the nurse called it a cherry. She put two bandages on it. Here's how it looks today: This isn't Photoshopped--there's just a rosy pink spot of intact skin and no scar. Same story with my knee. Look very closely above my kneecap and you can see the thin brown outline of where a large bandage was. I didn't bother applying coconut oil to a scrape on my foot. It was small, so I figured it would be fine on its own. A...