Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Nuts seem like the perfect snack: they're portable, they keep well, they don't need to be cooked, and they're tasty. Problem: I don't feel good when I eat too many of them. Recently, I started snacking on macadamia nuts, which are high-fat, so I thought they wouldn't be a problem. But my stomach was upset, I got a bit of acid reflux and nosebleeds, and generally didn't feel up to par. Nuts have phytates, which bind to zinc and other minerals. This might have caused my nosebleeds. And I don't know what it is about macadamia nuts, but they don't seem to digest well for me; they felt like they were sitting in my stomach causing bloating. I've felt pretty much the same way eating more than a little bit of nuts or goodies made with nut flour. It could be that nuts are seeds and don't "want" to be eaten. Like grass seeds, they defend themselves by sickening those who ingest them. 

A few years ago, I had what I thought was the bright idea to take megadoses of zinc for my nosebleeds. It did help--but I found out that zinc is a copper inhibitor. Copper is important for your immune system. Could be the reason I had a persistent sinus infection last year. Without the big doses of zinc, my nosebleeds slowly returned, but a book called The Paleo Solution had the solution: zinc oxide, an ointment you can buy at the grocery or drug store. The author, paleolithic researcher Loren Cordain, lives in the arid Colorado climate, as I do, and recommended this. It started working on day one: I started dabbing some inside my nose once a day, and my nosebleeds are gone. Why didn't I think of that? The zinc oxide worked its wonders on the little cuts on my fingers that came from cleaning out the garage. (Aside: I poured some old paint into a big cardboard box; you can't throw away cans of paint around here. I left the box in the alley, and never saw it again--someone ...

Clear skin. When I ate some cheese last week, though, I had a crop of pimples that night. (They weren't hormonal.) Less frequent appetite. I spent an uncomfortable week adjusting to bigger, less frequent meals. It was nothing I tried to do--I just went by my appetite.I've been skipping lunch half the time, which I rarely did before. (I've been extremely busy at work, though, so this might have something to do with it.) Fewer and lighter nosebleeds.  I need less sleep. (My stress level from work and everything else might have something to do with that, again.)

Eleven years after my nose job, my nose has finally healed. Back in 1999, I had septoplasty to straighten the inside of my nose . My doctor told me it would help me prevent my frequent sinus infections. (It didn't.) For the first time, I could breathe through both sides of my nose at once, but at the cost of constant nosebleeds. The septum (the cartilage inside the center of the nose) didn't heal until a few weeks ago. Last May--seven months ago--I started taking megadoses of zinc. The nosebleeds mostly stopped. Then a few weeks ago after reading an abstract (1) on iron interfering with zinc absorption, I began taking iron at night and zinc in the morning. (According to the article, the interference applies only to non-food sources of the minerals. Go ahead and have your surf and turf without worry.) An aside: since taking my iron and zinc at different times, I've been able to cut down on the magnesium. I went from 750 mg to 500 mg per day. Over the past year, I've ta...

Back in May, I wrote that my continual nosebleeds had mostly stopped since taking large doses of zinc. That's still the case. What I didn't know until a few days ago was that the Flonase my doctor prescribed for my nosebleeds could have given me diabetes. (The other alternative he presented was cauterization. However, I tend to shy away from treatments that remind me of a Civil War battlefield hospital.) Jenny Ruhl at the Diabetes Update blog reported that a study showed a 34% increased risk of diabetes from taking inhaled steroids . When I asked her if Flonase was one of the steroids, she said it was, and added that a steroid wasn't likely to heal my nose and might have made it worse with time. As I've written here before, there is diabetes on both sides of my family, and I may have genes for the disease. Continuing to take Flonase might have made me diabetic. Why did I decide to take zinc instead of Flonase? The Flonase helped a little, but not much, and I was alread...

Until recently, I'd been having bad nosebleeds for a while. Specifically, since November 1999 when I had septoplasty surgery. My otolaryngologist recommended it because I had a deviated septum (that's the stiff middle part of the inside of the nose) and enlarged turbinates . I had frequent sinus infections and supposedly, this surgery would help prevent them. (It didn't. But it was nice to be able to breath through both sides of my nose at the same time.) About a month ago, I read the following in Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution p. 126, published in 1972: About vitamins in general, I don't believe in minimum daily requirements. I believe in optimum dosage. I have used vitamins in megadoses in my practice with great success. .... You cannot safely increase the standard dosage of Vitamin A (5,000 international units) nor of Vitamin D (400 international units). But so-called overdoses of the other vitamins are simply flushed away by the kidneys. And the mineral and vitami...