Pain, Pain, Go Away!

The Geneva Convention prohibits the killing of our taste buds. -Hawkeye Pierce, M*A*S*H School lunches have never been known for being appetizing, but under the new Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, they're so bad that students are organizing protests. Some critics of the protests say that an 850-calorie limit should be enough, and if the kids don't like it, they should bring their own lunches. First, the calories. They're poor quality sugar and starch that's like Chinese food without the flavor and texture: it leaves you hungry an hour later--or a minute later for some kids. Google school lunch images : it's a beige sea of bread, breading and potatoes. The new guidelines call for more fruits and vegetables--which the kids have to put on their trays--but (1) fruit is mostly sugar, (2) it's hard to eat certain fruits and veg if you wear braces, (3) fruit and veg aren't filling , and (4) the fruit and veg are going in the trash anyway. Those whole g...

 Newly planted yellow sundrops line the path to my door. Photo from wildflower.org.  My fractured arm continues to heal. Tonight, I set out 15 plants in my front yard, then stopped only because it was dark. Tomorrow night, I'll plant five clumps of tall grass in place of the large spruce my neighbors cut down. I'm hoping the grass will shade and cool the wild roses and golden currants to the north of them. Friday, I met with my oral surgeon. As soon as I can get a temporary tooth made, he'll extract the broken tooth and (if possible) implant the titanium screw where the root is now. Down time should be about two days. The temporary tooth will be attached to my braces. It'll take four months to heal, and then my dentist will put in the permanent tooth. My insurance doesn't cover braces for anyone over age 19, nor does it cover tooth implants. (The alternative to an implant is bridge work, which destroys the two surrounding teeth.) They might m...

Since injuring my teeth, I haven't been eating as much vegetable food as I used to. (I'd already given up fruit, since it's one of the worst things for giving me acid reflux.) Why? I have a hard time chewing them--just like my mother, who has several bad teeth and a partial. Bad teeth are a sign of bad health and are associated with diabetes and low socioeconomic status. And they make it hard to chew certain foods. Sure, you can go to the trouble and expense of juicing, but people who do that are outliers who are probably doing several good things for their health. And V-8 is a bit like oatmeal for most people: the only reason they consume it is because they think it's good for them. For most people with bad teeth, it's just easier to eat tuna casserole and mashed potatoes or a hamburger and fries. Someone who's being funny might look at my case and say, "Aha! She became tired and weak and had several medical appointments around the time she stopped ea...

If I haven't posted much lately, it's because I've been resuming a normal life after a month spent getting well and getting by. I've weeded the yard, filed all my papers and amended my state tax return. I took my computer in for repairs and having lost all my data, reloaded my music and found a free home accounting program (mint.com) to replace Microsoft Money. My lindy partners have given my right arm some exercise (dance partners in lindy use one another's weight), my favorite stock screener brought up a promising company to research (Global Payments Network), and fold.it came out with a streptococcus puzzle and a "quick frozen" puzzle that have kept me busy.  My best effort at the new quick frozen puzzle folding proteins. I'm sheerbliss at #17, and my team is Go Science.  Something that seemed to help push me back into feeling well was resuming my GNC Hair, Skin & Nails vitamins. I always felt good taking those, but got nervous about ...

As much as people complain about stress, they go out of their way to create it. They over-schedule, overspend, under-sleep, and under-nourish themselves. I'm still working on getting enough sleep, but I've found some ways to reduce other sources of stress. Poor diet will affect your mood. Contrary to what's written by a lot of self-help authors, your mood isn't just a matter of attitude. Your brain is mostly made of fat and cholesterol and requires various nutrients to run properly. It needs glucose, but the glucose needs to be in your bloodstream, not your stomach in the form of carbohydrates. (Your liver can make glucose out of protein.) Drs. Phinney and Volek describe how low-calorie, high-carb diets can affect the brain in The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living. (The short answer: depending on how much you exercise, you can mentally and physically hit the wall.) If for example you decide to eat 1200 kcal per day, composed of 25% protein (75 grams), 25...

Falling off a bike, falling on your face, fracturing and spraining an arm, breaking a tooth and knocking two others loose sounds terribly painful. I certainly looked bad afterward: a lot of strangers in stores, on the bus and even on the street saw my black and blue face and arm in a sling and asked me what happened. At the urgent care center; I rated my pain a 4 out of 10 as long as I held my arm still. But 4 out of 10 isn't horrible pain. The bottle of Vicodin I got that day is still in the bag, unopened. My arm wasn't that badly injured--not as bad as my cousin's when she tripped over her dachshund and broke both of her wrists. And my jaw, despite landing on it and still having a bump on my chin, wasn't fractured or broken. Could be I'm a tough old bird--I'm descended from bull riders, homesteaders and blacksmiths. But I think diet has helped. I know that changing my diet to low-carb, taking vitamin D and later adopting the cavity healing diet made my t...

Tuesday I was back at the orthopedic doctor's office looking at x-rays of my arm. You know how a typical bone is slender in the middle, then comes up to a head? The head on my radius (lower arm bone) looks like a mushroom. It got smooshed in the accident--yes, the doctor agreed it was smooshed. "If you're going to have a fracture," he said, "that's the kind to have." It's better than the bone being cracked through its head, which sometimes happens. Mine was fractured because I'm double-jointed: instead of my elbow bending in the right way when I fell, it bent the other direction. "When will my arm straighten out?" "Hopefully never. Come back in a month if it isn't feeling better." The doctor also looked at my shoulder, hand and wrist, which still hurt from time to time, but that was about it. I've regained most of the use of my arm: I can unlock a door, open my purse and take the lid off the deodorant without ...