Improvements on Milder Adrenal Medication

Changing my adrenal medication has done me some good. I'm now taking one that's just adrenal cortex. That's what the last one was supposed to be, but I'm sure it had adrenaline in it. I've been a lot less jittery and the heart pounding has all but stopped. It was so distracting when I was trying to sleep! I can't quit wholesale--I start catching cold every time I try. Even in the few days after I quit the one and waited for the other to arrive, I got cold and tired.

So Saturday I had groceries delivered because I didn't feel like leaving the house. I filled up my online cart with about 20 items, then tried to change my address from work to home. I couldn't. The site said my home and work were in different regions. So I emptied the cart, changed the address, and started again. I got a pop-up message saying I'd changed my address--did I want to change it? I clicked yes, I wanted to change it. When I was ready to check out, there was my work address. Dammit! That wasn't what I meant! I emptied the cart again and by the time I finished shopping, the delivery window I wanted was closed and I had to choose a later one. I eyed the street, hungry, while I waited on the groceries.

As long and bumpy as this road to recovery has been, I've made definite progress. I don't have the aches and pains I had a year ago. I'm off the thyroid medications and so far, I don't think I have any hypothyroid symptoms. I'm off the stronger adrenal medication. Mentally, I'm happier and feel more purpose. A year ago, I felt very apathetic. And I'm wearing clothes from my thin closet. I can do keto without getting scary heart palpitations, which was a problem for me some five years ago.

I now know I've had symptoms of low adrenal function all my life: hypoglycemia, allergies, sinus infections that went on and on, then frequent neck pain, then poor digestion, then lack of energy, and finally, low thyroid. So I don't think I'll ever be able to go off adrenal medication, nor would I want to. If I hadn't done something about my health problems starting a year ago, I'd have ended up on disability. Things were going that far downhill. I'm not quite back to where I was about five years ago, but other things like palpitations, neck pain (which started in my 20s) and struggling to stay under 130 pounds are improved or gone.

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Thanksgiving recipes for Pumpkin Pie & Cranberries--printable!

If you'd rather read a printed recipe than watch a video, here are my recent recipes for Better than Grandma's Pumpkin Pie and Probiotic Cranberry-Apple Relish. Hat tip to Dana Carpender, whose pumpkin pie recipe inspired this one. The cranberry-apple ferment is entirely my own creation. Pumpkin Pie--no grains, sugar or emulsifiers Crust 2 cups shelled raw pecans 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon monk fruit powder* (or 3 tablespoons sugar substitute) 4 tablespoons butter, melted 2 tablespoons water Pumpkin Pie Filling 1 pie pumpkin 1-1/2 cups half and half (with no thickeners) 3 eggs 3-4 teaspoons monk fruit powder* (or 3/4 cup sugar substitute) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice Preheat the oven to 350F. Stab the top of the pumpkin all the way through the flesh in a few places at the top. Place the pumpkin on a cookie sheet and bake for 1 hour. Let cool. While the pumpkin is baking, put the pecans in a food processor with the S blade and run until they are finely...

Fly with Reuteri

If you're planning to travel by plane and you want to keep enjoying the benefits of l. reuteri yogurt, you might have gotten sticker shock from the price of l. reuteri probiotics. MyReuteri * costs $46 to $83 for 30 capsules, depending on the CFUs (colony-forming units, or the number of viable microorganisms). If you're thinking about economizing by putting some yogurt in a sturdy container and taking it with you, you can do that. I'll break down the pros and cons and look at some alternatives. Photo from Unsplash . Cost Yogurt might be less expensive than probiotics, but it isn't free. A half-cup serving costs about 70¢ to make if you start with a previous batch. It contains about 90 billion CFUs if fermented for 36 hours. This is a lot less than $5.56 for two capsules of 50 billion CFU MyReuteri, but for a one-week vacation, you'd only save $34 by eating yogurt instead. (You can freeze any unused capsules for later.) Furthermore, the yogurt would have to go in ...

Cigna is Making Progress

Yesterday as I put my lunch in the refrigerator at work, I noticed a bunch of unfamiliar people in the break room. One of them, Pepe, started in: they were there for the health fair, they would check your cholesterol, the sugar in your blood, your height, your weight, and it would just take six minutes. A coworker asked him if he'd ever considered a career in sales. Just for blog fodder, I participated. They really were fast, and one even found me at my desk (in an office nearly half the size of a city block) after the tests were finished. My HDL cholesterol was 65--up from 42 from a year and a half ago, and up from 57, where it was last year when I'd been three months a low-carb diet . A level over 60 is considered good. I haven't taken any medication to make this happen. I went on a low-carb diet and eliminated wheat. I also take vitamin and mineral supplements in addition to a high-nutrient diet. What impressed me more, though, was that the nurse (and Cigna) said that bl...

30-second Fix for a Cracked Stick Blender

Use Mighty Fixit (if you still have some from 2012) or Rescue Tape (which looks like a similar product) to fix a cracked stick blender. After I fixed the attachment, I washed it in the sink and the tape held up. I also wrapped a knife handle several years ago, and it's been through thousands of washings.

Grandma's Pumpkin Pie but Low-Carb and Creamier

Here's an update on the classic Dana Carpender recipe for pumpkin pie--this one has no emulsifiers and it's made with fresh, roasted pumpkin. Each one-eighth serving has 10g net carb. The original recipe is here .

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

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