Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Are your eclipse glasses fake? The total solar eclipse over North America is almost here, and Indianapolis is in the "path of totality," meaning the moon will completely block the sun here. A lot of people have gotten special glasses to safely look at the eclipse. But the American Astronomical Society says , "counterfeit and fake eclipse glasses are polluting the marketplace." Some of the counterfeit glasses appear to be safe, the society says, but others are fakes that are no more effective than sunglasses. One of the counterfeits they describe matches the glasses someone gave me. I don't know where she got them, and she's not someone I'd trust to perform adequate due diligence. I just got over an eye injury and I don't need another one--I'll try the pinhole method instead to see crescents during the eclipse if it's not too cloudy. Picture from  Pexels .  Heart Centered Probiotic I started getting scary heart palpitations several years ago...

After adding some new blogs and YouTube feeds yesterday, I added Dr. Davis's podcast feed  so that readers can simply click and listen to his latest episode. Just to be clear for email subscribers, all of these are on my site ( https://relievemypain.blogspot.com/ ) and the three bars at the top right (where you can click to see feeds and other features) are for people with smaller screens. If you have a bigger screen, you should be able to see all the feeds on the right side of the page.  If you'd like to put some YouTube or podcast feeds on your site, leave a comment and I'll reply with instructions since there's no widget in Blogger for putting them in and the RSS feed widget doesn't work. Nor does the podcast player from Elfsight. At least, I couldn't get them to work.   * * * * * Quest bars used to be a great snack--they were one of the first healthy, low-carb protein bars out there. Ten years ago, the ingredients were   Protein blend (whey protein isolate, ...

By popular demand, I'm finally posting this recipe. People want cultured food besides yogurt--and here it is. It's tasty, it's non-dairy, and you can get apple and date goodness without the sugar.  After starting Ideal Immunity probiotics, my heart palpitations, which I've had since 2014, started improving. I can't remember the last time it happened. Another member at Dr. Davis's site said her atrial fibrillation improved on Sugar Shift (also made by Biotiquest), and now that she's taking Heart Centered (yet another formula they sell), she's better. I haven't tried fermenting those products, but they contain some of the same microbes as Ideal Immunity. It should go without saying that you need to make sure everything is very clean. No need to boil anything (I never do--everything around here is hand-washed); just remember that all microbes in the jar are going to multiply exponentially. Ingredients 2 apples, peeled and cored 2 carrots 4 dates, pitted...

I'm continuing to make progress on my emulsifier free journey, hitting a milestone over the weekend: my lawnmower ran out of energy before I did. I wasn't even using the self-propel feature. Image from Unsplash .  Six years ago, I had to mow the lawn in one little section per day. Granted, I have a better lawnmower now, but I'm in far better health now by any measure.  I think I am making progress on whatever nasty bug has been giving me heart palpitations for years (assuming that's the cause), along with another Inner Circle member. Both of us are taking Biotiquest probiotics. Different formulations, but they have a lot of the same strains. This member's atrial fibrillation is going away; my palpitations are improving, too. I started taking the Ideal Immunity formula again a few weeks ago, along with a fresh batch of apples and carrots fermented with Lactobacillus gasseri BNR17. A die-off reaction from all of those bacteriocins (bacteria killers made by bacteria) m...

 After suffering with heart-pounding palpitations for eight years, I finally have an answer: endotoxemia brought on by emulsifiers, which thin the mucus in your digestive tract and allow toxins in your gut to get into the rest of your system. I finally realized the cause (emulsifiers in food) and Dr. Davis suggested the effect (endotoxemia). He said in the Zoom meeting last night that was probably the cause, and that endotoxemia was a big factor in heart disease.  Since cutting out emulsifiers like guar gum, gellan gum, lecithin, locust/carob bean gum and even palm oil (used in almond butter to homogenize it), the palpitations have gone and so have my puffy face, neck pain and TMJ pain. I'm sleeping better, feeling better and thinking more clearly. Did I mention it's been eight years since I felt this well?  Victory! Photo from Unsplash . You know how you feel after you've had a very long day--or several in a row? That's how I felt for five days. It was such a relief t...

Cardiologist Peter McCullough talks about vaccine-induced myocarditis with biologist Bret Weinstein. I've transcribed highlights and found links to back up Dr. McCullough's statements. I had a hard time confirming his statements about background rates vs. VAERS reports (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System): myocarditis/pericarditis reports for the US total 4,242 according to openvaers.com (accessed today); they total 19,039 if you include "nondomestic" (foreign) reports. However, the CDC's own report  on slide 8 shows rates of myocarditis many times above the background rate for young men and boys. In fairness, though--almost all of these sources were difficult to find.  Link to the video is  here .  Our vaccine program would have been shut down in February for excess mortality in America--it would have been very similar to the swine flu vaccine in 1976. Our tolerance for new biologics and death is five cases gets a black box [warning] , 50 cases, it's off...

Sitting in another doctor's office this week, I wondered if I was on my way to a 17-year bout with diarrhea, like John Nicholson in The Meat Fix . I wondered if this doctor would have any fresh insights. I wondered why Community Health sent me to a clinic 30 miles away when I live in a city full of doctors. This doctor saw that the lab never ran the lab test for ova and parasites as they were supposed to, so she opened the order for the test. After an examination and taking my symptoms, she suggested seeing a gastronenterologist. I countered with a request for a prescription for a gut zoomer test. She looked it up and was skeptical of it and admitted she wouldn't know know to read the results, but she did write out a prescription for it. No way was I going to get scoped and run the risk of ending up like Wolverine , who went in healthy for a colonoscopy and nearly died after getting perforated and needing an intestinal transplant.  Later that day, my stomach felt like it was bu...

We tend to want to do something. If we're tired, in pain, not feeling well, we often take something. And take more if a little bit feels good.  That was my problem with my thyroid medication--and adrenal medication. Last year when I started taking the stuff, I went from sputtering along to firing on eight cylinders. Then problems started: odd aches and pains, rapid heart rate--and I stopped taking the medication. When my hypothyroid problems re-emerged, I started over and ended up overmedicated again. Contrary to what you might expect, more thyroid medication, which amps up your metabolism, doesn't give you more energy, it just makes you sit and idle faster. The problem is that overmedication isn't addressed very much, unless you follow low-carb authors talking about statins. And then, the amount they say you should take is zero.  Dr. Davis actually addressed thyroid overmedication in one of his videos (just for Inner Circle members). He also said your morning temperature s...

I've kept a close eye on the coronavirus and found a few facts and trends: It seems to me the logistical plan here in the US is to have a lockdown for a few weeks, and in that time, set up hospitals and build personal protective equipment and ventilators night and day so that we don't end up with a bottleneck where there aren't enough supplies to go around.  Heart & lung disease, diabetes and high blood pressure (basically, diabesity) are high risk factors. This is worrisome for the US. I'm being careful to avoid high-carb foods that would raise my blood sugar. Some articles have said the virus is vulnerable to oxidation. I'm not taking high-dose vitamin C. It's being tried for people who are already very sick, but I'm not convinced it's a preventative. COVID-19 can be killed by UV light and heat (low oven for half an hour). Humidity seems to limit transmission. Light, humidity and UV rays sound a lot like summer, and countries in the tropics ...

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...

Saturday, I quit taking NDT (natural desiccated thyroid) for a while, figuring my problems (pounding heart, feeling hot, lack of energy) were from taking too much. The problems went away, so I was right. Yesterday, I felt great: normal heartbeat, energetic, cheerful...then I went outside after work and felt too cold. My heart started pounding again. I woke up later that night and felt puffiness behind my eyes. This morning I was up a pound and my face was so puffy it looked like Elvis circa 1976. My stomach was rumbling after lunch and sending acid the wrong way. Not wanting to repeat the misery I went through from taking too much NDT, I waited until this afternoon, thought about making absolutely sure my iron and adrenals were straightened out this time, and finally said, screw it, if I don't like taking NDT, I'll stop. So I took 150 mg--and felt better.  My face doesn't look like I need to lay off the peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwiches. What I'm doing now...

Reducing my NDT was a success: the aches and pains are gone and I can sleep at night again. However, my heart started pounding after meals, then between meals, and then I had to lie down after meals or any exertion like bringing a basket of laundry upstairs from the dryer. Google is a lot less helpful than it used to be for finding answers. No matter how I phrase search terms, I get answers involving high cortisol, which I don't have. And the top answers are from corporate pill pushers and official sounding agencies that are adrenal fatigue deniers. I finally found some answers from Nora Gedgaudas's book Rethinking Fatigue , which I heard about over at Jimmy Moore . The second suggestion in the chapter about low cortisol is to check your iron. It's a big deal in adrenal fatigue and thyroid problems. She also says that doing keto is going to be really hard with low cortisol (but to try anyway) and to dig deeper for the source of your adrenal problems. I respect what...

Merry Christmas! First, I'm happy to say my cold got nuked out of orbit before it had a chance to set in. Hydrocortisone and Mucinex FTW! Second, my health is much improved from a year ago. The scary palpitations are now infrequent and only mildly concerning and I'm starting to slowly lose weight after upping my thyroid supplements again. (My latest test showed free T3 in the lower half of the reference range.) My digestion is better, probably thanks to lots of Pepto-Bismol early this year, peppermint lattes (LC, of course), L. reuteri yogurt, and adrenal supplements. I don't have all my energy back, but I've lost the neurotic fear of trying things like making a slipcover and no longer have the feeling of being in la-la land. Next year I'd like to try tuck-and-point the masonry on my house--I think I could now handle a tuckpoint grinder. Third, I'm thrilled to see the complete turnaround in dietary ideas. When I started low carb almost ten years ago, peop...

First, the good news: I'm well enough to exercise. I made it though a 15-minute workout I couldn't get through the last time I tried. The heart palpitations are going away and I don't feel out of breath and exhausted with every little bit of exertion. It's been almost a year since I started another go at getting my health back, and I've come a long way. I've put on about ten pounds (unintentionally) and I'm hoping that adding muscle will increase my metabolism. Now, the bad news. This has not been cheap. It hasn't been ruinous, but my health insurance hasn't covered anything. I can't even use my HSA (health savings account) to pay for my lab tests or thyroid or adrenal medicine. (But I could use it to pay for prescription sunglasses!) So I have over $900 in my HSA that I can realistically only use for sunglasses or an emergency. I'm stuck making more contributions to it for almost another year, since we just made our benefit elections at w...

It's been quite an adventure riding this sparking and sputtering thyroid. It started back in the highly stressful year of 2014 when I had mountains of work on my desk, an hour-long commute, and aging parents who themselves were sputtering along and constantly needed me to come over to help them. Then my coworker quit and I had all the work to do. I asked if I could go live with her in Mexico, only half joking. My father died. My mother nearly died of kidney failure. Then stayed with me for two weeks during and leading up to the estate sale. We surrendered her dog when she couldn't take care of him. In thanks for my hard work, I was accused of elder abuse. (The county found no grounds for the accusations.) I had a root canal and three courses of antibiotics. Then I moved across the country: I bought one house before selling the other (albeit in Denver's hot real estate market) and had no permanent job lined up in Indiana. Then finding my best friend had changed quite a ...

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder . ...

My apparent reaction to epinephrine from a root canal continues. I know the epinephrine is long out of my system, but I'm still having to pop magnesium and potassium pills several times a day. People who dismiss palpitations as a reaction to a very low-carb diet probably haven't been through it. Peter at Hyperlipid called palpitations from ketogenic diets "interesting." Here's something I think is interesting: the change in my complexion. A few days ago I saw I looked like I was wearing orange makeup, which had matched my skin before. A cosmetologist selected a new shade for me. L to R: the new foundation and the old. I haven't been this pale since the early 2000s. I've been taking my iron pills every night (my complexion darkened when I started taking them some years ago). Maybe I'm not absorbing minerals well... But I'm happy to say my energy levels have been stabilizing--I'm even tired at 10PM, something brand new for me--and I...

Last time, I addressed some misconceptions and pitfalls of Atkins induction. It's a simple diet, but it doesn't work with some current fads. First, a word of caution: if you take amphetamines, diuretics (including high blood pressure medicine) or diabetes medicine, you need medical supervision on Atkins induction. Low-carb diets increase your adrenaline (not good if you're already cranked up on amphetamines), flush out excess fluid (bad in combination with diuretics), and normalize your blood sugar (you can get a hypo with LC plus medication). If your doctor objects to your doing Atkins, just ask him or her to monitor you. You might say that low-fat, low-calorie diets haven't worked for you and exercise hasn't worked for you either, but you've given low-carb diets a lot of thought and want to do a two-week trial. If you use insulin, I'm sad to say you'll probably be on your own. I can't tell you how much to use, nor can anyone else on the inter...

Note to new readers: please note I'm not a health care provider and have no medical training. If you have heart palpitations, I have no idea whether the following will work for you. Over the past several days, I've had a rough time with heart palpitations and feeling physically jittery. I was wondering if I was going to turn into one of those people who can't sit still. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would be a major lifestyle change. Kidding aside, something wasn't right and I really needed to get back to normal. I tried popping potassium pills like candy. I ate more. I doubled up on my iron dose. I went to yoga and even got on the treadmill at 6 AM yesterday. I tried the nuclear option of eating more carbs to stop peeing away minerals. Most of these things helped, but the problem kept coming back. A comment from Galina made me look up epinephrine, one of the drugs my surgeon used to anesthetize me Friday. First, the assistant at the surge...

Last time I wrote about getting jittery and having a rapid heartbeat on VLC (very low carb). I cut way back on nuts a few weeks ago and felt remarkably better: more energy, and I can tell I lost a little weight because of the way my shoes and watchband fit. As I mentioned, taking a potassium pill helps the jitters and rapid heartbeat, and if it gets really bad, I can just eat a candy bar (we don't have safe starches at work). So for the first time, I tried Atkins induction. Why Atkins induction? It started with shorts. I'd been shopping for shorts and everything was very short (think Officer Jim Dangle on Reno 911 ), wildly patterned, ridiculous (where do you wear lace shorts if you're not starring in a Korean drama?) or knee length. There was even a high-waisted, pleated, acid washed pair from circa 1985. So when I saw a gray pair with sailor pant buttons, I bought them--even though they were pretty short (but not tight). Think Officer Dangle again. Being conscious of wea...