Pain, Pain, Go Away!

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

A new job and a svelte new figure: what could be a better reason to buy some new togs? How about a shoulder that's as strong and free of pain as it was at age 18? When I was that age, I carried around 20 pounds of photo equipment for a job that lasted three years. After that, I carried 20 pounds of textbooks around a large campus for four and a half years. By my early 30s, I had chronic neck and shoulder pain, sometimes severe, sometimes niggling. I took to carrying a backpack instead of a purse to lighten the load on the shoulder. Besides seeing a chiropractor, which helped a lot, I learned yoga neck stretches from the book Yoga for Americans written in 1959 by Indra Devi. I learned to pop my neck--loudly--at will. Without the exercises, I'd have needed a lot more trips to the chiropractor. In the past few weeks, without thinking about it, I've been carrying my backpack on my left shoulder--the one that bore the textbooks and the photo equipment for seven and a half years

When I was nine years old, I had a allergy test that involved a nurse putting about 100 scratches on my back and applying a potential allergen to each scratch. If I remember right, I was allergic to about 90 things. I took weekly allergy shots for years after that, completely desensitizing me to needles. But the allergies never really left. It's the wrong time of year for allergies, but I've had them over the past few weeks. I used to just take a Sudafed and ibuprofin and suffer until the pain went away. Lately, though, I've noticed that allergy attacks happen when I eat something different: non-dairy creamer, a particular brand of sausage (which probably has something that's not on the label), and a cookie (which contained wheat). A test a few years ago showed that I don't have celiac, a condition where gluten (a protein in wheat) damages the intestines. But you don't have to have a permission slip from your doctor to eliminate things from your diet. A few mon

Last Tuesday I had a chocolate chip cookie. "I've been awfully good, and one cookie won't hurt me," I rationalized. But eating that cookie gave me a stomach ache, acid reflux for two days and painful nasal congestion--the viscous, sticky kind that won't move--for four days. How did one cookie make me feel so bad? Was is the extra carbs? According to Pepperidge Farm's web site , one of their chocolate chip cookies (similar to the one I ate) has 20g of carbohydate. That's quite a bit if you eat low-carb, but that's less than a Luna bar, which has 25g of carb--and which I can eat without any ill effects. The Luna bar also has more sugar. What the Luna bar doesn't have is wheat. I stopped eating wheat months ago; this was my first lapse since then. There's a saying that it's not the poison, but the dose, but in my case, wheat is poison in any amount. Some people are amazed at those of us who don't eat wheat, but I never found it the hardshi

It's been three and a half weeks since I stopped eating wheat (except on my weekly free day). I haven't changed my exercise routine, just my diet. Keep in mind I that about the only wheat I ate in one day was two slices of bread, maybe a pita too on a rare day. I've substituted fruit, beans, rice and potatoes for wheat. Results: My cravings for junk food have disappeared. I've stopped snacking on caramel corn, chocolate and diet soda on my non-free days. I eat two tiny pieces of chocolate per day, at most. My hair stays clean longer. Certain foods taste better. Coconut chai tea tastes like a candy bar in a cup (yes, I drink it straight) and even sardines taste better. Since I got a scale ten days ago, I've lost two pounds. I even had to tighten the straps on my backpack today. Three happy words: no menstrual pain. I have more energy. If I were a horse, my name would be Secretariat. My mother, who is diabetic and in a rehabilitation center with a broken leg, agreed

I eat right (well, mostly). I exercise (a lot). How did I put on 20 pounds since 2005? What have I been doing differently since then? My GP chalked it up to getting older. But I went from age 36 to (almost) 41, not 25 to 50. In 2005, I had been on Body-for-Life (BFL) for two years. Basically, BFL involves eating six small meals a day of balanced proteins and carbohydrates, plus two servings of vegetables. It also involves three strength training workouts and three cardio workouts every week. I was also dancing two or three nights a week. I don't know how much weight I lost, but once I started BFL I went down two dress sizes and felt great. All was well. The results of a car wreck and an unrelated illness in late 2006 and early 2007 no doubt caused some weight gain. The car wreck left me unable to dance or exercise for several months; the illness (an infection of H. pylori and acid reflux) made my stomach so sore that it was painful to eat fruit. I ate wheat products instead. About