Pain, Pain, Go Away!

For the past several months, I thought my hair was getting thinner. There was more hair in the shower drain than before and the hair at my temples was getting thin and wispy. I put it down to age until I changed conditioners. Immediately, there was less hair in the drain and more on my head. I'd been using a lightening conditioner (Sheer Blonde) that must have been damaging my hair. I've changed shampoo since then, too--both products (Herbal Essences) are free of sulfates, added phthalates, parabens and colorants. Stock photo from Pixabay.com My sister-in-law had a win, too. On a member's advice offered at Dr. Davis's Inner Circle (members aren't necessarily medical professionals), she applied tea tree oil on a toenail that had had a fungal infection for years. After three months, she said, the fungus was gone.  With that in mind, I applied Vick's Vapor Rub (actually, a store brand version) to a red, scaly patch on my ear that has popped up from time to time m...

Processed foods have a bad rap these days. "Just eat real food," everyone says, and the real food will cure anything from arthritis to migraine headaches. The people who give this advice do tend to be in good health and do tend to eat real food. Well, except when they're eating dark chocolate, or sugary fruit that's only existed for a few hundred years, or drinking wine. The first and third foods are about as real and unprocessed as a Cadbury egg. But if we can wink at dark chocolate, bananas and wine, why not fake cheese? Real cheese and cream give me acne. Fake cheese, like Velveeta and American cheese, don't. For me, they're better than real cheese (and Velveeta melts better than real cheese, too). If you'd like to add fake cheese to your real foods list, here's a wonderful recipe I made (up) tonight. It would have been good with shiratake noodles. 1 pound grass-fed ground beef 1/2 cup spaghetti sauce made with local, vine-ripened tomatoes...

Readers know I've had a stressful 18 months: family problems, a root canal that took three rounds of antibiotics to clear up, a move across the country, and a job change. My job back in Denver saw me going at ramming speed, spending two hours a day commuting, and dealing with a couple of vile coworkers. House cleaning and repairs took up my weekends and evenings for a few months, my realtor wildly overpriced my house, and I stepped on a nail a few days before I moved. I ate a lot of take-out while my house was for sale and figured I'd get back on track when I got to Indiana. It's taken five months to get back to normal. My stomach and skin were a mess from the antibiotics--I had cystic acne and just thinking about eating a lot of fat turned my stomach. I couldn't stand for long without a backache. I was so exhausted when I got here that it was a few months before I felt like working full-time again. Probiotics really helped my skin and stomach. I started taking two...

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...

A few weeks ago, I started using a moisturizer with super hyaluronic acid to heal my chapped lips. I used it along with Carmex. In two weeks, they were healed. Now, after three and a half weeks' use, they're as soft as they've ever been. During the first two weeks, I used the two products several times a day (even though the HLA stings a little on broken skin). Last weekend, two of my fingers got chapped from using a carpet stain remover without gloves. The sores were small, but surprisingly painful--so much so that I couldn't stand to run water over them. I tried HLA and Carmex, and they were healed (but still tender) in two days. Reading up on HLA, it looks like it's a natural substance that humans and other animals produce, but less so with age. It's a polymer that helps with joint and eye health, and healing. It's degraded by ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and iron. If you're using HLA topically, made sure you're not using it with a  moisturizer ...

I've found some great products over the past couple of weeks I'd like to share. I'm not affiliated with the companies that make or sell these products. Organicville Sesame Teriyaki Sauce Image from vitacost.com With four grams of carb in a tablespoon, this sauce is a lot lower-carb than most others. It's not too sweet, either. It has a bit of soybean oil, so it's not paleo-kosher, but it's just a condiment, eaten by the spoonful. I stir-fried some onion, broccoli, bell peppers and cherry tomatoes, added some pulled pork and sauce, and had a dinner worthy of my favorite Chinese restaurant in 15 minutes. Purchased at Sprouts. Nutiva Shortening It's shortening without transfats or frankenoils! This shortening is made with palm fruit oil, unrefined red palm oil and unrefined coconut oil. Palm oil is a source of CoQ10, carotenes and vitamin E. According to some other sites I've read, palm oil shortening is made by removing some of the polyu...

One study after another over the past few years has shown low-carb, high fat diets to be good for correcting weight and lipids. Other studies have found iron deficiency is very common in women. So why do so many young women in the paleo community advise limiting red meat (high in iron) and animal fat and eating lots of vegetables instead? They remind me of the Intelligent Design crowd: people who recognize intellectually that the creation story in Genesis is a myth, but emotionally aren't ready to abandon it or make waves with friends and family who still believe. Some of the authors say (credibly) that they have or had an eating disorder; others seem to want to keep on being nice girls who don't eat too much or too richly and don't want to lead others astray. At least, that's how it comes off to me, someone from a blue collar family who grew up in the 80s when priss was an insult and a lot of girls went to McDonald's for lunch. What no nice paleo girl woul...

In writing about good skin in my last post, I should have remembered that taking vitamins and avoiding most dairy helps me, too. I started avoiding dairy after reading The Paleo Answer by Loren Cordain and noticed that indulgence in cheese or half-and-half led to acne and a few other problems. Avoiding it from there on has been a no-brainer. Taking GNC's Hair, Skin and Nail vitamins helps me avoid nosebleeds and improves my skin, too. Since I also have to take iron, which is an antagonist of zinc (a key nutrient in the vitamins), I've found it most effective to take the vitamins with breakfast and the iron with dinner. Being on vacation has made it easier to experiment. At the beginning of my vacation a few weeks ago, I was afraid I was going to fritter my time away playing video games. I did a lot of gaming, but also got my house in order. My dying computer and printer, software from the 90s, floppy disks, clothes and shoes I don't wear anymore, music I don't listen...

I've never been a shoe horse. Being wide, my feet don't fit into most shoes of the right length. I went barefoot whenever I could as a kid and even now I prefer tennis shoes and flat sandals to ballet flats and stilettos. But tall boots are handy this time of year. I have a pair of Italian leather boots that are a little too long for me and rubbed my heels--until recently. Now, they're as comfortable as socks. Since I hardly ever wore them, it's hard to say when the change happened. But I've also noticed that I can brush hot grease off my skin and forget about it where it would have left a burn before. Several years ago, a grease splatter from a pan of Moroccan chicken left a trail of blisters up my left arm. I don't have unassailable evidence that a low carb, high fat diet made my skin more resilient, but people on such a diet often find the same thing. Maybe it's better absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A and D and higher intake of zinc that make a d...

"You might want to read The China Study ." Good lord, there's someone still recommending that book after it was debunked by an English major and picked apart by Michael Eades and Chris Masterjohn ? Recommended by someone who works in a dentist's office, no less--where they're supposed to tell you to avoid carbage? Yet the dental hygienist did today. Maybe she was worried about business slowing down. Maybe she hadn't heard that at least two of its main critics got a mouthful of cavities on vegan or vegetarian diets. I didn't have any cavities, sensitive gums or other issues that a little more flossing wouldn't fix, and told her that I quit getting cavities after I started a low-carb diet. I added that since I'm from a family full of diabetes, that's another reason to be on a low-carb diet. "Well, if your diet isn't working for you, read The China Study. " I wasn't about to argue with a vegan holding a pick in my mouth. ...

This past month or so, I've had TMJ headaches in the morning, along with some mild stomach issues and acne the past week or so. I think it's muscle memory from years ago, back when I wore a night guard for TMJ pain. Since getting my braces off and getting dental implant in early June, I've been wearing an upper retainer at night. When I wear it to bed, it reminds me of the old upper retainer I used to wear when I was grinding my teeth some years ago after a car wreck. I think I've started grinding my teeth at night again. I wasn't grinding my teeth just before I got my implant, when I was wearing a retainer during the day. I'm not grinding my teeth now, wearing my retainer after dinner and before bed, as my orthodontist recommended. Since I haven't worn my retainer for a few nights, my headaches and neck pain are gone. My skin is clearing up, too. (Inflammation can become systemic and affect other parts of the body.) ***** The toe I stubbed a month ...

Someone asked me today what I used on my skin, saying that it looked good and that she'd like to improve her complexion. It's a question I never thought I'd hear back when I was trying everything available for acne, a time that covered most of my life. Partly, it's good genes. Except for acne, we have good skin in my family and tend to look younger than we are as long as we don't smoke. In my case, I had to change my diet and take supplements to (mostly) clear up my skin and make it softer and more resilient to abrasions and sunburn. I don't get razor burn now. Even with my fair skin, I don't use sunscreen anymore. It took a few years on the diet, but now, except for my shoulders, my skin doesn't burn under the Colorado sun. My diet is mostly low-carb paleo and I take vitamins D3, K2, and GNC Hair, Skin & Nails vitamins. I also eat half a pound of liver and two cans of sardines per week. Why this regimen? I started this a few years ago to stop...

Not many 44-year-olds can say that they still get acne--but I can. I've been on just about every acne treatment out there for pimples and cysts, but my acne came back every time I went off them. None of the over-the-counter products did any good. (Luckily, my skin didn't incur much damage from all this.) But on my new regimen, I'm almost 100% free of acne, and I've also noticed I don't sunburn as easily. I spent much of yesterday wearing shorts, but not sunscreen, in the sun and my legs didn't even tan, despite my fair skin and the high altitude. (My back burned the previous weekend, but didn't peel.) Here's what I'm doing: No dairy except for butter. Certain dairy spikes insulin beyond what the carb content would suggest; some people are also sensitive to dairy proteins. "Nuclear FoxO1 deficiency [which dairy can cause] has been linked to all major factors of acne pathogenesis," says this study . This article by Loren Cordain presents ...

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...

A few months ago, after suddenly gaining a pound a day, and by sheer coincidence, reading The Paleo Answer by Loren Cordain describing the insulin-spiking effects of dairy, I changed my diet. I gave away my custard and low-carb ice cream and cut way back on the half and half. I've kept eating cheese--it doesn't have much insulin-spiking effect, according to Cordain. I stopped gaining weight and dropped three pounds, but I'm still up five pounds from my weight before my sinus infection. Nevertheless, all my clothes still fit (albeit a little tighter). (I had just taken a gigantic dose of vitamin D. I like to imagine my weight gain being mostly bone mass.) Other effects ensued. Since I'm not sure how to put this delicately, I'll just say it: I smell better. Before, when I went for a leisurely walk in warm weather, my Right Guard took a left turn. I had to soak a lot of my shirts in Biz to make them smell fresh. But last weekend, for example,when I was putting i...

If you've shopped for anything basic lately, maybe you've noticed how hard it is to find products that haven't been tricked out. It's like trying to find prepared food that isn't scoured of fat and laced with wheat. The shelves at Ulta, a cosmetics store, were full of facial scrubs when I shopped there last week. I understand the need for hand scrubs if you're a gardener or mechanic, but have more women started packing their own wheel bearings and wiping their hands on their faces? (If so, may I recommend Gojo hand cleaner.) I wanted a basic facial moisturizer: no sunscreen (my mineral makeup is already SPF 8), no antioxidants (those acne bacteria need to be oxidized), no aloe to clog my pores, and no expensive anti-wrinkle cream that won't make me look 25 again. I ended up getting Aveeno Positively Ageless Firming Body Lotion--it's lightweight, reasonably priced, doesn't smell like perfume or fruit, and hasn't made my face break out. This, al...

I've had problem skin most of my life. Even at age 42, I still get breakouts. This time, though, instead of getting random skin care products, I thought about what was wrong and what I needed. I experimented a bit, and even after just a few days, my skin is looking a lot better. Here's my take on dry, flaky winter skin and what to do about it. Your skin gets dry, maybe because you don't drink as much water in the winter, or maybe because you sweat less. (There are enzymes in sweat; perhaps they break down dead skin.) Your skin gets flaky, and if you're prone to acne, your pores get clogged and you break out. Meantime, your fingers can get so hard and dry that they crack and split. Solutions: Cleanse. Obvious, but we all need to find a good cleanser. Different people swear by cold cream, coconut oil, or olive oil, but those are all too heavy for me. I've started using Burt's Bees Natural Acne Solutions Purifying Gel Cleanser. The salicylic acid comes from wi...

"Let's keep a record of the fool things we have done and criticize ourselves." -Dale Carnegie All winter, I've kept reading about how sun exposure isn't as dangerous as we've been led to believe. I also tested as mildly deficient in vitamin D . So today, I went to the park for a long walk for a couple of hours. My dog splashed in the water. When you've been sunburned in Florida in early February, when you've sunburned in 15 minutes in the summer in Colorado Springs, when you have visible blue veins, you should probably ignore expert advice and use sunscreen. D'oh.

Just over a month ago, I (along with my dog) set out on a cavity healing diet : low in carb, grain-free, high in vitamins A and D, and high in calcium and phosphorus. I've made some changes along the way and listed what Molly and I are now eating at the end of this post. Potassium Power The potassium pills seem to have put the pep back in my step. This weekend, I worked both days helping the tax secretary, whipped my house back into shape, and I'm ready to go out and tear up the dance floor tonight. The Dry Skin Epidemic Since starting this diet, after I stopped eating raw eggs (since I seemed to be allergic to them), my skin has looked better than it ever has. My skin improved last year after I started a low-carb, high-fat diet (more resilient, less callousing, and lot less dry), but now I'm cautiously optimistic that my niggling adult acne is completely gone. A diet's effect on skin was brought home to me while I read an article in People magazine (no jokes, please) t...

Having read about the benefits of krill oil for arthritis pain and blood sugar control , I bought a bottle for my mother. So far the results for her blood sugar have been encouraging if inconclusive. Her blood sugar levels took a dive into the normal range a few weeks after she started taking krill, but that was followed by some high-carb holidays. And her record keeping leaves something to be desired. She's not sure yet if it's going to help her arthritis. Since krill oil is supposed to be a great anti-oxidant (keep that word in mind), I decided to try it to see what it would do for me. What it did was commit the worst trespass any ingested substance can cause: acne. Straightaway, I got a cyst on my knee that was so painful I couldn't dance. Then I got one on my jaw; both of them went away within a few days, though--but I hadn't had one in years. My keratosis worsened and even showed up on my face. (Keratosis is having those hard little lumps in the hair follicles of ...