Quotes by Raymond Francis M.Sc

From Never be sick again:
Modern medicine, pumped up with huge amounts of talent and money, is a strange dichotomy - technologically advanced and cutting-edge, yet obsolete and ineffective. Medicine does a superb job managing medical emergencies and disease symptoms, but is woefully incapable of curing disease or promoting a lifetime of wellness. In medical schools, physicians study one organ or system at a time and then specialize, without developing an understanding of health or the body as a whole. A lack of holistic understanding and appreciation transfers to medicine's focus on disease rather than health.

White rice and wheaten food

For years I have learned that how these two type of foods were unhealthy and I purposely avoided or reduced intake of them. However, after latest serious relapse I have realized my messed digest system demand those foods. As I increased amount of these two type of foods, my stomach feels better and better, and each day I feel more energetic.

White rice and wheat(or flour) products are two staple foods (main course?) in Chinese diet structure. And I grew up with such foods. I believe my digest system had been used to them so my purposely avoidance of them did more harm than good. And that might be the primary cause that my body could not get nutrition from what I ate daily thus caused my big energy trouble.

Based on over 2 months diet adjusting and result I am positive that this is the main cause of my recently years' health trouble. Even though I realized the importance of diet years ago, I was in a wrong track, and virtually made my diet structure worse. Now, by turning my diet back to what I used to when I grew up, I hope I could finally be on the road to a normal health.

Again, I should not be presumptuous. I should be aware of other possible consequences. Also, as soon as my stomach back to normal, I should not stick only on white rice and white flour. I will update my progress in very near future.

"Right" or " wrong" nutrition - who decides?

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I have been feeling better little by little each day for couple of weeks, by feeding myself with "right" foods that my stomach demanded. Actually all these "right foods" such as "white rice", "white wheat", milk and red meat, were all "wrong foods" by my understanding during all these recent several years.

For long time, I purposely cut off white flour and white rice in order to control my weight. Not only that, by candida diet theory sugar and white flour are both "the best friends" of yeast candida so they need to be eliminated completely from daily menu. However, after suffering my recent relapse, my stomach demanded me to eat white flour and white rice, otherwise I would get into serious trouble. And as matter of fact, I have been feeling better and better by listening to my stomach.

There are so many nutrition recommendations out there. So many researches by experts tell people what to eat and what not to. While I understand that many of these tips or theories were "scientifically" studied, I am still not completely convinced their efficiency, rather, I am quite convinced that "right" nutrition is really a "depend on each individual" business - especially for unknown chronic illness patients. In many cases, I think patients would feel better if they chose to listen to their own body instead of doctors.

I have never done any food allergy test, nor I understand what exactly the symptoms of food allergy are. Of course, just because I never had such experience doesn't mean other people don't have it. However, I have read a book written by some chronic patient telling story about his food allergy test: it ended like basically he was allergy to most types of food!

I thought I had "put my health on my own hands" since long time ago. I trusted doctors before, but they have convinced me that they had no clues about me at all. So I learned to take care of myself by reading informations online, from books or sharing others' experience. I have been also keeping an open mind in experimenting many different treatments/regimens by myself. Now, looking back, I "seem" to be able to get an idea of what's really going on with me: I have not really "put my health on my own hands". If my previous years of chronic problems were caused by my years of bad life style, my recent couple of years' problems mostly were caused by my "ruthless" "anti - Chinese traditional" experiment on diet. Basically, I ignored what my stomach wanted, forced my body to listen to my mind. Now, my body is launching her finally retaliation - forced me to eat what she needs!

More and more, I believe that the complexity of human body is beyond Newton's mechanics, and dealing with such a complexity with limited semeiological treatments, or, "scientifically" designing a few of certain "healthy" diet structures for all people is not only NOT ENOUGH but NOT RIGHT, and even DANGEROUS. I also start to believe that recovering from chronic illness is actually a personal business - each person has her/his own causes and treatments. Of course, knowledge from experts can help us understand our body function in general, but, if we admit that our body is more complicated than what our mind has already understood, we do need to respect it by yielding our mind to our body.

So again, "listen to our body". We, ourselves are the only one who have direct contact with our own body, and our body never stops giving us clues to save ourselves, if we could only listen to it!

Wanton from scratch!

Growing up from south of China, where people eat mostly white rice, I never ever made wanton in my life. Today I tried myself with whole wheat and beef.

Below are the pictures of process in order (total about one hour job):

And I don't know how it tastes yet. Will know tomorrow morning!

The second day morning:

I tried it this morning: it didn't taste good! I guess I will use regular wanton wrap (white wheat) next time!

Oily Chinese foods?

I drove 25 minutes to this famous Sichuan restaurant and spent over $30 for some food I could not eat at all! Too oily! I probably have to throw them all away! I am sure these foods are oily enough to destroy the reputation my home town food (together with Chinese food).

In many Chinese restaurants (include mainland China) foods are indeed oily. But, I still don't think these oily foods represent the real good Chinese culinary tradition. There are tons of Chinese foods are made freshly and healthily. As matter of fact, I have not seen many deep fry stuffs before I visited Chinese restaurants in this country.

Monotonous diet - the invisible killer of my health

I recently have lots of trouble with my stomach - "she" refuses to eat anything I cooked for long time. "She" demands the variety of foods - even "junk" food. Each meal has to be different and delicious, otherwise I will suffer consequence. Of course I followed "her" orders (what else choices I have?) and take care of each meal, at least as much as I could, I started to feel better.

For years, I purposely got ride of certain type foods, based on the famous "caveman diet"/"candida diet", but what I didn't follow, was the suggestion/advice that it's only good to keep the diet for certain amount of time (I believe it was suggested from several weeks to 3 months). I was too anxious not to go extreme! Now my experience is giving me lessons: salads were proved to be bad for my stomach, at least I cannot eat too much because my stomach cannot handle cold foods. Meat is also necessary. And the very dangerous food "white flour" which I deliberately got rid of for years is somehow my stomach's current favorite - I had to eat it for every meal for several days straight! I guess my stomach simply misses it so much.

My primary symptom is extreme lack of energy and I have reason to believe it is caused by nutrition deficiency, especially during recently years. For long time I was so baffled about what I missed in my diet but now, it seems clear: the variety! My monotonous diet was somehow indiscernible problem to me but my stomach finally decided to force me to realize it.

I guess someone was just right to say: our body is our best doctor!.

First time I tasted my hometown foods for 4 years!

These beautiful delicious elegantly made dishes from the Sichuan restaurant (about 10 miles away from where I live) finally settled down my crying stomach! I don't want to be presumptuous but I like to believe that these real hometown foods would eventually stop my CFS symptoms in near future!

Mad about cooking - a struggle between brain and stomach

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I am a fan of western culture and that's why I came to US. But more and more I realized how patriotic my stomach is - diet has been such a big deal in my daily life. The very first thing I think every morning after I got up is no longer "what am I going to read today", but "what am I going to eat today?" Or even worse, "what am I going to cook today?"

I almost get to a point to believe that my all CFS problems are essentially caused by my bad diet here. It is not that American foods are all bad but, my stomach doesn't negotiate with American foods and I had been too "busy" to stay in kitchen before.

I just suffered another big relapse recently several weeks. I may have to say it was all about "foods". The upset stomach triggered all my symptoms. This morning I woke up by a sheer feeling of hunger, and whatever I ate just didn't satisfy my stomach, so I could not go back sleep again. The thing is, I spent so much money and time in kitchen everyday and cooked so much food but I still dislike most of them. And I feel like wasting so much time everyday!

Cooking Chinese food is time consuming. Everything has to be hot and cooked. Sometime I wanted to eat something but I just don't have materials, nor do I know how. Well, be fair to say, I am not a bad Chinese cook at all, but just not good enough to my stomach!

Why is my stomach so picky? Were my ancestors Chinese Emperors?

I thought about going back to China, but my brain said "no". There are so many things I dislike there. And moving back there might be a bigger "business" to do than just learning cook here.

Good news is, I heard there is an excellent Sichuan (where I come from) Chinese restaurant about 10 miles away. Hope it can be my part time "housewife"...

Better than perfect!

How could these babies turn out so beautifully without care?

What do I regret about my life?

Image by mikebaird via Flickr
At this middle age I recall the part of life I have lived, I would say that I regret nothing but exercise!

I had a typical Chinese mindset that tends to separate physical part from mental part of our life. Many Chinese people seem to believe that a strong physical bodybuild represents lower intelligence (of course this is not stately recognized notion but I believe it was implied in many aspects of Chinese culture). Not that Chinese people don't want to be physically healthy, but lots of them just don't care much about exercises and sports. I believe I unconsciously hold this idea through my early years of life. That's why I was never into exercise, even though I desperately needed it since I was a teenager (my health was already bad during my early teen).

Now, under chronic condition, I realized that my physical being played a dominate role in my everyday life - it affects my life plans, short term goals, my relationships, my mood, and eventually my intelligence.

Had I known the importance of physical health, I would've exercised everyday! But good thing is that I am still in my middle age, my life still have many years to come. So I made my mind: when my condition gets normal, I will exercise literally -

EVERYDAY!

Cold feet is to blame for my sinus problem- hot foot bath stopped my sneezing

Image by panduh via Flickr
For long time I had sinus problem. Allergy medicine did not do good on this. It killed sneezing but it also weakened my heart function. I just can tell because whenever I took medicine like "claritin" I would get palpitation easily and also breath hard.

This summer the weather is unbelievably hot and the AC made my feet frozen (my legs and feet are especially weak of dealing with coldness). This somehow slowed blood circulation and weakened my immune system so I sneezed very easily even it is no longer the season. One day I was sneezing like crazy all day long and at night I suddenly remember years ago hot foot bath stopped my sneezing (I thought it was a coincident at the time), so I did it again. Magically my noses felt smooth almost immediately, and in another few minutes sneeze was gone!

After I finished foot bath my feet and legs felt warm and my mind was clear again. However after a while when my feet got cold again and I started sneeze again. Then I went bed, put a small electric pad underneath my feet and had a good sleep. The second day, sneeze was gone totally.

This incident convince me that, sometime we have problems on one part of our body, the cause is really from somewhere else.

*This hot foot bath I believe can only work for sneezing caused by the slow blood circulation. Other allergy problems caused by different reasons would not be relieved by this method.

Ginger warmed my stomach!

Image via Wikipedia

I had a "hunger" problem once a while: if I didn't eat enough, or sometime even I ate enough, I felt so hungry that I had to keep eating. Someone would suggest it was caused by depression. I simply don't buy that.

By Chinese medicine, "coldness" is a real killer of your health. We need to keep certain temperature inside our body. My problem was "diagnosed" (I quote some Chinese doctors from online so it is not as professional so I put quotation mark:-)) as "Stomach Coldness", which sounds a little crazy, I know. However I was not sure about that until recently, one night my hunger symptoms occurred again. I frantically sought something to eat, and accidentally put some ginger to my oatmeal. I felt suddenly so good when I ate it, and immediately realized that my body liked ginger at the moment. So I ate some more and my hunger feeling just finally disappeared.

After this incident, I purposely ate more gingers especially when I felt my stomach felt uncomfortable (after I ate regularly) , it seemed that my problem has been taken cared of (and I could finally stop gaining weight! God!).

I realized that because of the "coldness" inside me, inside my stomach, my body was keeping in need of something to get heat, so I kept feeling hungry. And because ginger is something can generate heat inside our body, it finally warmed up my stomach, and stopped my hunger.

Now I accepted this theory about "stomach coldness". It makes total sense to me.

A perfect cucumber from backyard!

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Juices are always good for health

Image via Wikipedia

I stole this from mylot.com:

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Carrot + Ginger + Apple - This Boost and cleanse our system.
Apple + Cucumber + Celery - This prevent cancer, reduce cholesterol, and eliminate stomach upset and headache.
Tomato + Carrot + Apple - This Improve skin complexion and eliminate bad breath.
Bitter gourd + Apple + Milk - This avoid bad breath and reduce internal body heat.
Orange + Ginger + Cucumber – This Improve Skin texture and moisture and reduce body heat.
Pineapple + Apple + Watermelon - This dispels excess salts, nourishes the bladder and kidney.
Apple + Cucumber + Kiwi – This improves skin complexion.
Pear & Banana - This regulates sugar content.
Carrot + Apple + Pear + Mango – This clears body heat, counteracts toxicity, decreased blood pressure and fight oxidization.
Honeydew + Grape + Watermelon + Milk – This is very rich in vitamin C + Vitamin B2; that increase cell activity and strengthen body immunity.
Papaya + Pineapple + Milk –This is rich in vitamin C, E, Iron. Improve skin complexion and metabolism.
Banana + Pineapple + Milk – This is rich in vitamin with nutritious and prevent constipation.

The first tomato from backyard!

It was delicious!

Is human a machine? --- some thoughts about modern medicine

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I am currently reading the book "The history of knowledge" by Charles Van Doren (even though I have not read many history books I still cannot help to say it's one of greatest history books I personally have ever read! Brilliant!). In chapter 8 "the Invention of scientific method" the author talked about how those geniuses' discoveries and ideas contributed to the later revolutions in Europe. One of the biggest idea changes at the time was the fact that people realized that our mind could truly understand the nature - the nature that works as a machine. Of course this idea was not new but at the time it was encouraged tremendously by Newton's mechanics. And one of scientific fields that was encouraged the most was modern medicine.

This part of reading inevitably induced my further thinking of modern medicine. Now, looking back, was it if not a mistake but a short-sighted perspective to consider human as a machine? My answer is "yes". Not only my personal experience but millions of other unknown diseases sufferers' situations already proved that this immensely complicated modern medicine system has been not enough to take care of us as it claims. It is getting very clear that even though each parts of our bodies can work perfectly fine but as a whole they just don't work as they are supposed to. So it is reasonable to say that by focusing on studying parts of our bodies like parts of a machines simply is not enough to deal with something as complicated as human.

Again I am not crazy about Chinese medicine but, there is one thing I believe very valuable about it - Chinese medicine consider our body as a holistic being. It was this view led Chinese medicine into a "superstitious" way because it believed that there was some "magic" power inside this complicated system - our bodies knew better how to cope with diseases than our minds did. There is a popular saying within Chinese medicine practitioners: Chinese medicine doesn't cure disease, it just helps our bodies recovering to a decent condition so they can cure disease by themselves.

As I have not really taken much advantage of Chinese medicine, I really don't have much proof myself to say how effective Chinese medicine is, but I do believe there is some truth inside of it, as thousands years of experience/practice is not something we could just ignore by claiming it as superstition just because we don't understand it.

Also, I do not mean to underestimate the achievement of modern medicine. I truly respect science and I believe the discovery of human body's mechanical functions was truly amazing at the time. However, I believe this achievement is only the first step of medicine. Now, medicine faces new challenges. As more and more unknown diseases comes out, medicine institutions will be demanded to rethink their starting point - the mechanical view on human, which by my belief is the true reason why modern medince is so clueless when deal with some new dieseases - and widen their perspective, develop some new methods and solution for diseases.

The first blooming!

I sowed the seeds over a month ago finally see a flower blooming!

CFS - the biggest challenge in my life

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My biggest challenge in my life is my many years of chronic fatigue syndrome - it challenged me on almost every aspect of life: relationship, financial situation, and the most crucial one - my self confidence.

The real challenge for most CFS sufferers, I believe is NOT the seriousness of this disease (even though it is far more serious than people have imagined), but the TIME – the long term's "disable" condition.

We all in our life would have serious diseases once or even many times, but we all can more or less keep our hope as long as we know we would get well again, sooner or later. But keeping being ill for years (some of them basically have to live with it), it takes totally different mentality to keep the grips on hope.

Second to the time issue, another challenge CFS patients face is the mental loneliness. Partially misled by medical professionals, almost inevitably most people would take CFS sufferers as mentally depressing people, because not only CFS doesn't sound like a real name for disease, not only CFS sufferers don't look like ill people, but also CFS never has been considered as any actual physical diseases by medical institutions. So CFS patients eventually have to give up on people’s understanding - which they well deserve to have - and choose to live alone, because even the loneliness is better to deal with than being treated without respect.

These 2 reasons made me personally believe that the challenges that CFS patients face are greater than the challenges that many other people with more "serious" illnesses face, as long as their illnesses have "formal" names.

Under such challenge, I had big time doubt on myself because I used to be one of the most capable persons in dealing with challenges, but, for all these years I was inadequate for some very simple daily tasks. The consequence was I found people's attitude changed - I was taken as a "negative" person by many friends, even loved ones, thus I had almost no any support.

Now, not physically completely recovered, I am in much better shape. Once I thought all these years was a big waste of life, but now I take it differently. I have learned something I might not learn had I not have such experience - I have changed the attitude toward myself. If the reason that I loved myself during early years of my life was (only) because I was considered bright and loved by OTHERS, the love I have to myself now is unconditional - I love myself however I am.

Yes, self-esteem is unconditional. Someone might understand this easily but it took me huge chunk of my life to get it. Well, it is still worth it.

Physical vs. mental (again)

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It is my impression that many people over-state our mental power over physical condition, as if we human being really are only made spiritually. I might have agreed with this prior to my Chronic fatigue experience, but now I totally disagree with such subjective view.

Below is what one of my online friends said and it exactly matches what I have been thinking:
A physically healthy person can be either mentally healthy or unhealthy, but it's almost impossible for a physical unhealthy* person to be mentally healthy.

If we agree that physical part is the foundation of our whole existence, we would consequentially agree with this statement, and admit that physical part has more power to our mental part than the other way around.

I also have an impression that those whoever are physically healthy tend to believe that our physical unwellness are often caused by our mental problems, and whoever are physically unhealthy would easily accept the fact that mental unwellness in many cases are caused by our physical problems. I believe both views come from people's experiences so both are telling parts of truth. But to me it seems to be a problem here that most medical professionals can easily or willingly consider the first one as fact and role out, or at least do not pay enough attentions to the second one, especially when they face some unknown diseases.

Not only medical professionals, the theory of over stated mental power toward physical condition seems to be accepted universally as a "scientific truth" through some misleading medical and premature psychological studies. That's why CFS patients' suffering have been ignored not only by medical institutions but also ordinary people. CFS sufferers are not treated as physical patients but mentally frustrated/unhealthy people.

Forgive me for getting a little personal here again. I am very very tired and sick of this fact: whenever I mentioned I was physically not well (trust me, I prefer not to mention at all), people would look at me (just by look) and said: "You look fine. Don't just think you are ill." I promise, next time if someone say things like this again, I am ready to launch a tirade!

No doubt people can get so superstitious!

* "Physical unhealthy" here means those conditions that cause patients suffering. It does not include physical disability.

Lives in backyard

Vegs are growing...

June 6th, Day of visibility for CFS/ME Fibromyalgia, Lyme, POTS -UNITE!

Image via Wikipedia

So many diseases or illnesses have NOT been recognized by modern medicine and "mental issue" is always the most convenient excuse for doctors to ignore both their ignorance and patients' suffering. Most these sufferers from these "invisible" diseases are not considered as patients thus they don't receive decent respects and compassion as they deserved. Mistreatment and misunderstanding, NOT their "depression" are the reasons for them to stay solitude.

Here is the quote from a fackbook page for today's event:

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Invisible Diseases are often thought of as just making people really tired. -If only that was the worst of it! You want to know what we are tired of?

~We are tired of the majority of medical doctors sending us home for depression!

~We are tired of being shunned from our friends and families!

~We are tired of waiting and waiting as we grow weaker and weaker!

~We are tired of this constant internal pain and suffering!

~We are tired of being humiliated!

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texts source:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=346763190338&index=1

New life from backyard

the new seedling of green beans

mater convolvulus?

The history of medicine

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Trying to read a new book "The immune system cure" (by Lorna R. Vanderhaeghe & Patrick J. D. Bouic). On the head page, I just read this:
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The history of medicine

2000 BC: Here, eat this root.
1000 BC: That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1805 AD: That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1940 AD: That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1985 AD: That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic.
2000 AD: That antiboitic doesn't work anymore. Here, take this root...

---Unknown
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Chinese medicine vs. modern medicine

Just read an article about Chinese medicine practice in North America.

It was about a 10 years anniversary party for a Chinese medicine practitioner Tongnina Zhuo, in Canada. The party drew quite a big attention not only to his friends, but also several news reporters from major medias. Even prime minister of Canada and governor of province were in the list who sent him congrats cards. About total over 300 people came to the party.

Chinese medicine practice in North America never be accepted by mainstream. The author of the article asked the Chinese doctor about how he could have such influence, his answer was very simple: he cured many patients.

Here is a quote from the article:

Chinese medicine can let you live without a reasonable clue; modern medicine can let you die with many (scientific) reasons.

I believe in science, also I believe there are truths behind seemingly superstitious Chinese medicine. I also believe in future, many magic phenomenons of Chinese medicine would be demystified by science.

Am I cursed? How much phyical illness to do with morality?

Image via Wikipedia

This morning I received an email from an old friend. It was a link to a video of a lecture about how our spirit affects our physical health. It sounds good I know, but just after watching about 10 minutes, I was feeling like wasting my time to some superstitious crap!

Not only the speaker's (he looked nice and health) sluggish tone made me impatient , the contents was mostly irrational. Be fair to say, there are a few interesting things in his speech like how those ancient masters such as Confucian or Buddha made their core theories based on Five Elements - the ancient Chinese interpretation of the nature, but the relationship he made between human beings' physical illness and "moral" quality is just a pure ignorance to me.
It seems to me, that when people have no answers to some physical phenomenons, they tend to believe there are something to do with spirit, such as moral quality, faith creed, whatsoever. But the facts are out there: so many evil-spirited people are physically healthy, and so many nice people get ill. I really don't think there is a need to write an research paper to prove this. But the question is still there: do most people tend to be superstitious or religious when they are lost?

Since the video was sent by my friend who knew that I was chronic ill, I had to assume that she must believe that this video will do good to me. Even though I understood that her intention was completely innocent, I still could not help to write her an email to express my feeling of being offended (I didn't really say the contents are all crap though. Maybe I should).

Frankly speaking, I have been having trouble with my friendship for a while.. During earlier years of my illness, most of my friends seemed to be more understanding, but for such a long term, they must be tired (which I understand), or, simply don't know what to do. They either estranged themselves from me, or tried to convince me that I am not physical ill at all. So I end up losing patience because it is so much energy taking to keep communication. And needless to mention, some of their "understanding" are just destructive to my health.

Once upon a time, I had to doubt myself: am I really cursed? or do I really have big problem with making friends? Until one day I found online community and discovered lots of CFS patients had been experiencing exactly same situation like mine (guess collectivism works in some way). So I no longer doubt myself, no longer put relationship above the truth of what I know.

And that this attitude itself - putting truth above relationship - is against Chinese tradition, because due to Chinese moral tradition, (mostly confucianism) ethics is almost totally based on interaction with people, which I think is one of the most poisoning elements in Chinese cultural heritage.

So, as I mentioned earlier, as a rebel, I choose truth, instead of relationship: yes, I am chronically ill, but I am a moral and mentally healthy person.

Ginger roots and Chinese dates

Image by chaos™ via Flickr

There is a Chinese saying:

men cannot live without ginger roots even one day; women cannot live without dates (Chinese dates) even one day.

One disease, two causes.

In the book "Never be sick again", Raymond Francis (a biologist who cured himself by his own wisdom) thinks that modern medicine made diseases way more complicated than what they really are. He believes that we only have "one disease": "cell malfunction", with two causes: "lack of nutrition" and "toxicity".

More and more I am convinced this is exactly what "chronic fatigue syndrome is: lack of nutrition and toxicity. With all junk foods and drugs, also lack of exercises, our body cells get "poisoned" and weakened. So even without any visible problems in any parts of our bodies, our bodies as a whole just don't function like the way they should do.

To fix these problems, diet is so the most crucial: eat organic high protein products to feed our healthy body cells also starve yeast candidas or any other parasites by NOT eat any junk food.

Easy to say but hard to do, because organic foods are expensive. But or me, I really don't have much choices: at this point, nothing (even love) is as important as health.

Sunshine, another good way to improve health

Just read an article (in Chinese) talking about the importance of sunshine. It mentioned about one of cancer survivor Armstrong, cyclist. It is believed that one of reasons he could survive from cancer is his life style: outside sport let him received lots of sunshine.

Why? The article was written by a Chinese doctor and he believed that cancer tumors are considered as "cold", "negative" element which is opposite of "hot" and "positive" element. Of course sunshine is "warm", "hot" and "positive" so it is believed by this doctor that it can fight against the "negative" elements inside our bodies.
Even if this might sound superstitious I am still sure there are some scientific truth behind.

I realized that I have not been staying outside enough to get enough sunshine for years! I ignored such a free gift from the Nature which can make me healthy. So, as soon as the pollen is gone, I shall stay outside all day long!

Puzzle of wellness, piece by piece

Image by Steffe via Flickr

For people with CFS or any other unknown health problems, they have to get well by their own efforts --- living in the dark with huge amount of scattered pieces of puzzle, put them back one by one by guessing, lucks, or frustration. Each right piece they found took huge amount of energy, time, and money. And there is no guidelines, the only "instructions" are their own bodies.
Of course, our bodies are actually the best teachers on this course, but, we need to learn to listen to her first.

I was somehow convinced that most of us lost this ability --- listen to our bodies --- during our progress of history. Of course, this could be another huge topic but right now, all I am saying is, "listen to your body" is not as easy to it sounds. It takes nothing for someone to do it, but it could take a life time for someone else to learn.

Drinking tea is better than drinking water?

I am always wondering which is better: water, or tea? Not sure if this is the answer:

Drinking Tea Is Better For Health Than Plain Water

An article about candida yeast

I like to collect these websites for my future use. Lots of good info:
Candida—Eliminating Yeast/Fungal Overgrowth.

Candida Diet Guidelines

So it's not salad this time but Chinese dates

I had been expecting a "fundamental" health change since spring started, like I had experienced before. But, just at the time I thought it's coming, I got a backlash instead... However, today, the magic mercifully came! Not with salad, but some Chinese herbal "supplements".

Here is what happened to me this morning, I woke up feeling as weak as yesterday but I suddenly realized another day I had blood test: they took 5 tubes of my blood. I didn't feel the difference right after, but problems started from that day, with all other small issues they gave me a huge backfire. So this morning I decided that I had to do something good for my blood (I don't necessarily have animia but it used to be my problem). So I put some dray Chinese dates,Astragalus membranaceus and some Angelica gigas together with a small chichen (the tiny one that has no fat, all natural, I got it from Chinese market), just boiled them for about 2 hours then eat them also drink the soup. Guess what? I felt so good right after! I felt the "tangible" change inside my body!


(Dry) Chinese dates ("Hong Zao") is the number one herbal product to enrich blood, esp. for women.










Astragalus membranaceus ("Huang Qi") is the most popular Chinese herbal used to replenish vital energy of our bodies, for both men and women.









Here is a very popular Chinese traditional herbal "prescription"(more like a recipe): mixing both of these products together and boil with water a while and drink it like tea. Dates alone should also do very good. Another thing important is, it's better to break the surface of dates before cook, otherwise it will make some "fire" in our body and produce some "pinpoints" on our faces (for me, I would get pinpoints on my lips, which of course is disturbing).

This is supposed to be the best for women who feel weak and cold all the time, and it is supposed to work the best DURING SPRING (or during spring we need it the most)!

Outside activity

Image by Bukowsky18 via Flickr

I used to believe, that all my problems would be gone if I could find a job that let me working outside everyday. I never get chances, but I still believe in it. Today is such a beautiful day that I could not help planting 21 pieces of green onions (it just happened to be 21, 3x7! 3 times luckiest number!) on my backyard. After that, I felt the difference: I breathed better and felt better.
Yes! Stay outside more! Each breath of fresh air I take is a does of best "medicine"!

About Chinese medicine

I have been seriously using Chinese herbals since the beginning of January, under a "remote control" of a Chinese doctor online. Now I do feel better. However, honestly, I cannot tell how much of this is caused by Chinese herbals and how much is caused by my good rest/diet.

I tend to believe this: if any medicines/ herbals/ supplements took too long to be effective, they cannot be the only thing that worked, our body's self-regulatory function very possibly contributed more on the positive results.

But still, Chinese medicine believes that's what the Chinese medicine does: helping our body to do it's own job - makes its self-regulatory system works.

Simple, healthy salad again!

Image via Wikipedia

Today I enjoyed my own homemade salad first time in several months.

During my years' struggling with CFS, twice my "sudden recovery" had something to do with salad, and both of them happened in Spring.
The first time was 2005 spring. I was advised to eat salad by a guy who was helping me with yoga and other exercises. he believed that I had something called "yeast related syndrome". Later I learned that it was very true to me and most chronic illnesses/tiredness really have lots to do with this "yeast" - a natural parasites live inside our bodies. Some allergists discovered this phenomenon and they believed that when yeasts overgrown, they would stress our immune system, and we would physically be weaker and weaker because our immune systems get so busy to deal with yeasts. So killing yeasts would be a effective way to cure fatigue or other problems.

One effective way to kill them is stopping feeding them by eliminate the foods that yeasts like. It was believed by most researchers or allergists that, suger, processed flour, oily foods are yeasts' favorite foods, and healthy vegs especially raw vegs are their "enemies".
So I took advice and started salad diet. The effects were immediate. The first time I was feeling healthy during part of 2005 and almost whole 2006. Last year, I started in later February, and it worked perfect as well. However, I overdid last year. I ate salad and fishes only for about 4 months. It produced some opposite overcome --- lack of nutrition. So later I had to quite eat any cold and raw foods otherwise my stomach would feel upset.
Interesting thing is, many Chinese people used to eat cooked foods and they just don't like salad. I personally cannot eat salad all the time. By Chinese medicine, raw / cold foods are not good to stomach especially if your stomach is weak. This is true to me especially after last year's experience. However, I understand that western people grow up in different foods stype and they used to eat salad completely so they would have no problem at all with it.

Now spring is here, after a whole winter's energy store, I feel like eating salad and killing yeasts again:-)

The salad I made by myself is simple:
Lettuce, a little sliced red onion, cucumber, and some walnuts (or any other vegs, but onion for me has to be little bit and very thin sliced). I don't use dressing from market. All I had is some minced ginger and garlic (ginger produces heat so it is important to have when we make raw and cold foods, garlic can do cleansing of course) , a little sesame oil, some olive oil, very little salt and some vinegar. That's it.

Another important thing to do in Spring

Keep warm! People tend to wear much less as the weather gets warm, but by Chinese medicine, we may want to deliberately stay warmer than we feel like, because the sudden change would very easily make us get cold.

Just a small tip.

Spring - sleep early, wake up early

Image via Wikipedia

So what should we do in spring? Here is the quot from the best known Chinese medicine book " Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon": "lying at night and get up early, walk around the court"* ("court" means "outside" here, not "courtroom". of course)

By Chinese medicine, spring is the time that our positive energy start to grow, just like the nature. So if during winter we should sleep early and wake up later in order to store our energy, during spring, we should sleep early, wake up early --- get to outside and follow up the rhythm of nature. Also, we would feel more sleepy in spring but, Chinese medicine theory insists that do not sleep too much even you feel like (so what about "listen to our body"? ).

Light exercises (and sex?) are definitely encouraged.

Interesting thing is, by Chinese medicine, each internal organ belong to different season. Liver belongs to spring. The function of liver controls our temperament ( i.e. an easily irritated person is supposed to have some sort of liver malfunction). It is also said that based on records of history that most liver diseases occurred during spring. So, during spring, we should be extra careful with our temper: do not get too much excitement or anger (excitement by sex won't be counted I guess) .

Superstitious or not, I guess it won't hurt to have a try. I will.

*皇帝内经．Original Chinese text: 夜卧早起，广步于庭.