Body And Mind

An Unexpected Relapse

2012-02-10T18:37:00.000-05:00

My January of 2012 was pretty bad, compared with previous "success" - I did feel wonderful during most of last summer and fall. Now it seems that I am in a more serious condition than I expected: my first major relapse in more than one year. I have nothing to do except rest, and rest again, because my heart simply doesn't allow me to do anything.

But I know things will be better. All I have to do is good rest, and good diet. I roughly have idea what was the cause this time - not much different from before. And I know very well that just because I know the cause, it doesn't mean I could prevent it from happening again, because... well, it's complicated, even a daily normal life can contain tasks that overdraw my energy. But again, I know I can deal with it, it's just a matter of time.

It seems that I do need to live a much more "reserved" life style than what I had before: accept the difficulty, spend much more time on cooking, sleep longer (as much as I need), never sit still for too long, and super important: do not challenge my body, exercise must be less than I estimate.

This relapse doesn't discourage me much, if not any, because my whole last year was a steady improvement. All these mess was caused by my recent negligence due to my feeling so well before the end of last year.

Lifestyle

2012-01-27T22:54:00.003-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

(Current energy level: ~70%)
In a Chinese forum an online friend said that all diseases are just warnings that our bodies giving us, telling us that our LIFESTYLES DO NOT WORK! I think this is a very true (Except the "all" part)! For my own case, I am fully convinced that 90% of my health problems are caused by my bad lifestyle. So changing life style is just what I need. Even after I recovered completely, I shall still keep in good life style: never sit down for too long! Always keep enough physical activities!

Winter - a season for storing energy

2012-01-25T12:05:00.000-05:00

Since a middle scale relapse over one week ago, I realized the most important regimen for me during the season is REST. I have been doing well on following this rule, no exercise except stretches or simple housework. I started feeling quite good for a couple of days.

I am convinced that during my past several of years "exercise" was my primary cause of all problems. "Exercise" became a "faith" since almost 10 years' ago, when I first realized walking helped my heart. However, my health situation changed along time but my "faith" did not catch up. Now, mentally I have completely come down and able to put all of elements together, I seem to find the simple solution, which was there always, but never truly appear to my observation until I was ready.

However, the past year was a major progress, mostly due to my careful diet. This year, I certainly look forward for a more completely improvement.

A Relapse

2012-01-13T16:13:00.002-05:00

After couple of weeks "hard" working, I had a relapse for couple of days. I would score it 7 (10 would be my worse). However it didn't last long, as I know the reason and I also coped it with right strategy.
Now I know my summary of 2011 end with 90% of my energy level was a little too optimistic.

My 2011

2012-01-04T11:51:00.002-05:00

Image by aliweb_gt via Flickr

It was a year of improvement! I had no major relapse and my energy level steadily climbed up from less than half (beginning of the year) to 90% (end of the year).

My last relapse occurred in middle of August of 2010. That was a cruel battle and it forced me to see my blinding spot in my diet, which I believe was the last missing piece of my health puzzle. Since then, by adjusting diet alone, I recovered from the worst symptoms, and my energy level was lifted up to over 70%. During late summer of 2011, I found my diet alone might not be enough, so I equipped my diet with supplements - Calcium and multi-vitamin. The result was positive - soon my energy level climbed up again to around 90% during the fall.

However with overall a upward progress, I still had often some small relapse, which usually took several days to be recovered.

I believe 2011 was the turning point of my "middle age adversity", during which my health went toward positive direction. Of course, after all these years' struggle, I no longer expect a sharp end point of my chronic condition, rather, I prepared for a long journey which requires the utmost patience. So I look forward patiently for more improvement in 2012.

Regarding "Diet", Humans Are "Opportunistic"

2011-11-20T12:38:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

By John McArdle, Ph.D.:
www.vrg.org/nutshell/omni.htm
I really like this part:"They are basically *opportunistic* feeders (survive by eating what is available) with more generalized anatomical and physiological traits, especially the dentition (teeth). All the available evidence indicates that the natural human diet is omnivorous and would include meat. We are not, however, required to consume animal protein. We have a choice."
However, I tend to believe we only have a choice as a "whole" (humans), individually speaking, some are more adapt to these or those (carnivores, herbivores, frugivores, etc.)and a counter account:ecologos.org/mcardle.htm

Is "Homemade" Food Really Healthier Than Restaurant Food?

2011-11-17T16:06:00.001-05:00

Image by Dimitrios Dalagiorgos via Flickr

I guess the answer is "yes", if you have a wonderful mother or partner who can cook "professionally", or, if you are a good cook yourself. If not, I think sticking on your own food might do more harm than good to your health.

In my experience, getting take-out foods from restaurants really is one of reasons that helped me tremendously on my health recovering. The reason is simple: since I can only be that much "creative" by myself, eating my own boring food everyday really could not supply all nutrition my body needs.

Recalling my past years, my diet had been never good but "Ok" until 2009, when I stopped almost completely eating outside of my house (because that's the time I started working at home). Back then I learned a "scientific" common sense that eating at home was always better than the junk foods from restaurant. So I started cooking myself everyday. However the truth turned out just opposite: after I mentally completely settled in peace, my physical health which was supposed to be on progress just went down, all the way down to the bottom. Finally, after my last serious relapse, which was summer 2010, I "woke up" from my false "belief" on some sort of healthy diet structure, and gradually realized that my own foods were the primary reason of my illness. So while I improved my "homemade" foods, I also started getting take-out foods from restaurant regularly, just give myself some alternatives on the taste and nutrition. Since then, my health started climbing up, from 20-30% of energy level to now, over 90% everyday.

Food, or diet, really is the last piece of the puzzle of my chronic health problem. I knew food was important many years ago but I did not really know what's exactly I missed until a little over a year ago. What I really learned? 1: listen to my body instead of listen to "professional". But of course, I do not mean "absolutely"; 2: diversity. Never stick on just one type of foods for too long; 3, health care is a personal thing, so is diet. It is up to everybody him/herself to find out what's the best.

Wellness

2011-11-09T09:50:00.000-05:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeI have been feeling pretty well for a while and this morning, I do feel 100%!

My last serious relapse happened one year and 2 months ago (August 2010). Since then, I believed that I found the "last" cause for my problems and believed that I would be on a right path to get well and it's only the matter of time. Looking back, I was right. I reached 80% over half year ago, reached 90% about half month ago (after I equipped with vitamins). And this moment, I do feel completely 100%. I have not felt like this for years!

I know I would not be feeling like this 24 hours a day 7 days a week straight from now on, but this is a milestone on my recovery. It proves that I am on the right path and I only need to hold on tight, continue to do what I have been doing, and eventually, even better than that "original" me - the person who always got sick sine very young.

Yes, I feel very happy and I do also believe, that the true happiness would not be possible without a good health.

Tobacco Trail - My Heavenly Free "Gymnasium" (3)

2011-10-05T16:31:00.004-04:00

I live only 2 miles from this trail, but just discovered it very recently. What a shame! I took bunches of pictures ( I simply could not stop taking pictures of those stunning looking trees!). Considering I come from a country where people don't have chance to get so close to nature, this is quite overwhelming to me. For longtime, walking around neighborhood has been already very enjoyable, but walking on this trail where I could feel more "intimacy" with nature, is just a joy beyond "ordinary"!

Tobacco Trail - My Heavenly Free "Gymnasium" (2)

2011-10-05T01:37:00.002-04:00

I mentioned ATT (American Tobacco Trail) in my previous post. Since then I almost go there everyday. I also cannot believe I have been lived so close to this trail for over 5 years but just found it out by now.

Today I went another station which is just about 2 miles from my house. This part of ATT is paved road, feels nicer to walk.

The trees are so tall and straight up on both side of road. On left side they were completely in shadow, but the right side they were captured by bright sunshine.

Tobacco Trail - My Heavenly Free "Gymnasium" (1)

2011-09-26T22:54:00.000-04:00

I went to Tobacco Trail this afternoon to have a walk, and I had a wonderful time with nature!
It is a trail made for biking. This station is only 2 and half mile away from where I live. Since I still feel riding bicycle would be too much to me, I decided to go there for walk.
I am glad I did! It was so beautiful! However I still wish soon I could ride bike so I could go further.

Vitamin Supplements

2011-09-24T20:39:00.000-04:00

Image by Haydn Blackey via FlickrSince my last relapse (about one year ago), I have not been taking much vitamins. During recent over half years I absolutely took none. The reason is that since I carefully worked on my diet, I found the improvement made by foods were much more "tangible" than by vitamins. And this made me doubt the effects of vitamin. Of course I trust science and believe those elements are necessary but I was just not sure how well it works for my special condition. However, the recent several month my improvement was slow. I have been stopped in my 80% - 90%. So I wondered again. I suppose the diversity of foods is still not enough and vitamins might be needed.

Another symptom made me felt quite certain about my lack of calcium was arthritis on my figures (I had terrible arthritis symptom all over my body in this early spring, but later other parts were all fine except my left hand). I could not make a fist by my left hand, especially when I got up in the morning. So, I decided to "arm" myself with two supplements: calcium and multi-vitamin.

I bought liquid calcium and multivitamin in softgel form (liquid and softgel are supposed to be easier to absorb). I got them from Vitamin Shoppe (I like their quality of products and reasonable price. So highly recommended).

Pork Leg Bone Soup

2011-09-21T16:57:00.001-04:00

I found "pork leg bone soup" is extremely health! Lots of calcium and other nutrition factors. And it's so easy to digest.
I was feeling quite fatigue several days ago but this soup changed my energy level almost immediately. This was also because I felt I wanted this soup! My body was telling me what it wanted (and this made things so easy!).
This soup as matter of fact is popular among Chinese people (that's why I can only get it from Chinese supermarket), but somehow I did not make it often before. Now I acknowledged its "power" and will make sure to include it in my regular diet.
I learned several "tricks" to cook this soup:
1. cook it for hours until it turns white;
2. after water was boiled put some sliced ginger roots and little vinegar (vinegar can make calcium dissolved quite thoroughly into soup).

3. right before the water was boiling, clean those floating stained stuffs carefully to make the soup clean.

Donut Peach

2011-08-12T22:09:00.004-04:00

I found this "donut peaches" taste exactly the same as one type of peaches from my home town, except the shape is different. They are truly the best peaches in the world!

Delicious Discovery

2011-08-06T21:05:00.007-04:00

Image via WikipediaSoon it will be Full Moon Festival, a holiday celebrated in China by eating "Moon Cake" (and watching full moon at night, better with some romantic companies, of course). I was in Chinese grocery store yesterday and found there were many kinds of moon cakes already. What's even better was I found my favorite one: Five Nuts. I bought two boxes (each boxes contains 6 of them, each of them is quite small size but elegantly made) and tried some already. My God! It tasted good!

For long time I stopped the "hobby" of having snacks. And I was learned (where? healthy magazines?) that most snacks were not healthy. So for years I had been keeping myself in very "healthy" diet" which eventually brought me into big trouble. Now, time to get my life back!

This 5 nuts moon cake is best to go with tea!

Up Climbing Health

2011-08-03T22:10:00.004-04:00

Image via Wikipedia
For couple weeks I have been feeling quite differently from before. I do not feel much "risky" when I have to work a little harder, and light exercises never brought me problems.

A couple of days ago I quickly caught a fever but quickly I recovered. It was said that a cold or fever sometime is a process of detoxification that your body does for itself. Not sure if it's true but this time, after recovering from fever, I feel pretty good, even a little better than before the fever.

Now, with a condition I could exercise almost everyday, I feel I am on the way back to my normal.

Diseases vs. Health

2011-07-05T17:41:00.007-04:00

Image by NVinacco via FlickrWatching tennis tournaments such as Wimbledon is always a joy to me, and mostly because of Roger Federer. However, I am not writing about tennis nor tennis stars in my health blog, instead, I am writing down my little thought about "disease" and health, triggered by my favorite tennis star.

It was said that Federer has a disease called "mononucleosis". Such a fancy/serious name(!) which I wish I could have and "proudly" present to those who question my health problems. But the fact is I do not have a name for my "problems" (if we don't count "chronic fatigue"). To many medical experts this means I have no problems after all.

Really, modern medicine found me in perfect shape, even though in many cases I could not stand up still for a few minutes, yet modern medicine can find problems such as "mononucleosis" (not sure how serious it is, but at least with a NAME) on persons like Roger Federer, who can play tennis for hours!

I am not saying that Federer doesn't have this disease, or this disease doesn't exist, what I am trying to say is that modern medicine seems to care only about "diseases", not "health". In other words, modern medicine can kill diseases, but not necessarily bring health to people.

I recently know a person, an elder Chinese guy who only eat one meal (dinner) a day, yet he is in great physical shape (he could act normal even without sleep for a whole night, or a couple of nights. he could go hiking 12 hours without any trouble). I was quite amazed and talked about this to a friend who is working professionally in medical field of diabetes. She was actually a little worried about this guy by saying: "well, don't be fooled by your eye. He might not have a good results if he took a blood check."

Then I had to think: I had "perfect" reports of blood checks almost everytime, but I am not nearly as healthy as this guy, who might not have a "beautiful" blood report like mine. So here comes my question: who should we trust: our body, or the report of blood check?

My answer is simple: of course we should trust our body. A perfect blood check report doesn't necessarily tell us how healthy we are, because (again) modern medicine is focused on "diseases" only, it doesn't care about "health". Of course, I am not trying to denounce modern medicine, but simply point out a fact which I firmly believe: there is a huge blind (even dangerous) spot on its conventional theory, experiment and practice.

Can My Bike Cure My "Fibromyalgia"?

2011-06-27T18:07:00.004-04:00

I have been suffer quite serious joints pain/stiffness (rheumatism arthritis, I have this problem for years, sometime worse sometime better) since late spring, when weather got humid. I found riding bike made me feel better than walking. So I bought a bike. But I must do it slowly. Any tiny amount of "over-exercise" can do more harm than good. However, eventually I believe this is the "solution for my "Fibromyalgia".

Yoga on Time Square, NY

2011-06-22T11:15:00.004-04:00

On June 21, thousands of people gathered on Time Square New York to welcome Summer Solstice.

A Good Video Presentation about CFS/ME

2011-06-18T19:38:00.002-04:00

Some Pole Bean from Backyard

2011-06-14T21:50:00.002-04:00

A Cute Little "Thief" In Backyard

2011-06-05T22:29:00.003-04:00

This tinny hare kept perfect still just until I got a clear shot.

Cold Feet & Red Meat

2011-05-29T13:42:00.003-04:00

Now, after my taking red meat regularly for over half year, my "cold feet" symptom pretty much disappeared. And these couple of days for the purpose of detoxification I cut off red meat again from my meals, I found my feet started feeling cold again. So I learned this connection almost for certain, that red meat was a necessary ingredient of my meals because they have something to do with my blood circulation or anemia (if cold feet was due such causes).

Too Tough to Listen to Our Body?

2011-05-28T22:48:00.007-04:00

Many doctors/people suggested or implied that most CFS/ME sufferers were mentally fragile so that they exaggerate their physical conditions. I have found just the opposite: they usually are mentally tough persons. I even tend to believe that their mental toughness is not at all the solution of their illness, as some doctors/people supposed, but one of (important) causes of their illness: their tough minds consciously or unconsciously ignored their physical needs, always push themselves to do things that their bodies cannot really afford to do, so their bodies cannot receive right kind of cares (such as enough rest, right nutritions, etc.) and eventually are no longer able to sustain normal functions.

This is at least 100% true to me and mostly likely true to a few chronic ill persons I know.

Body and Mind (again!)

2011-05-02T18:01:00.007-04:00

Image via WikipediaWhen I mentioned sometime to people that in many cases our physical problems have not much to do with our mental states, I did not mean there is no connection between them (as many people mistakenly understood), instead, the connection is tight: our body has so much power over our mind, and our mind has limited power to our body.

Of course, there are always exceptions.

I further believe, even our intelligence, the way we think, the way we feel, our long last mental peace and our happiness all rely on our physical condition.

Of course, physical health doesn't guarantee our happiness, but our happiness cannot exist without our physical well being.

P.S. I consider "disability" and "chronic illness" (or "disease") two different physical conditions. "Disability" causes inconvenience but "chronic illness" causes suffering. People with disability may mentain healthy mental condition but people with long term illness, who constantly suffer pain or other physical unwellness can hardly stay mentally cheerful.

Weight Control

2011-04-28T19:35:00.004-04:00

Image via WikipediaI have removed the scale from my bathroom. I used to weigh my weight everyday and I got so tired of it and eventually realized it did more harm than good.

After I started to eat "normal" over half year ago, I gained a few pounds, on the top of many already extra pounds. As my energy got back, I have been able to exercise (walking and cycling) almost everyday. So my weight stopped increasing. Actually it seemed to decrease. I was very happy about that. However, about half months ago, I discovered some delicious Chinese food: a fired pancake, which I have not tasted for centuries. So I had one big piece of it every morning for one week straight and one day, I found my weight rushed back, increasing stealthily! Maybe I should not worry about it too much, but the thing is, not only my weight back up high, some other symptoms occurs as well! Of course, pancake is just one reason, not enough vegs is another. So these couple of days I ate vegs like a herbivore!

Did I not listen to my body? Well, I guess listen to our body doesn't completely equal to listen to our stomach.

Cilantro From Backyard

2011-04-21T18:53:00.004-04:00

I planted cilantro last year and did not do a thing this year, it grew up by itself! I can get this much once a couple days! How loving the mother nature is!

New Vegs in Back Yard

2011-04-12T22:53:00.002-04:00

This is one of my favorite vegs: green peas.

Moisture, One Way to Relieve Allegy

2011-04-08T16:07:00.005-04:00

Image via WikipediaI found that certain degree of humidity could relieve my allergy symptom, actually instantly!

During night sleep, sometime I would wake up by sneezing, running nose, etc., but if I turn on my humidifier, soon, probably within a minute, my nose stopped running and I could breath normally again.

This actually makes sense to me. The allergy sources, such as pollen, or dust, would be absorbed by moisture. That's why rain help help people feel better during the season because it washes pollen away.

Now I turn on humidifier even during the day, I tell you, it works!

P.S. Anything I write in blog are "personal experience".

P.S. Just heard that if you use carpet at home, using humidifier is not a good idea. I have wooden floor, which is not problem.

Chronically ill people & hope

2011-03-31T23:28:00.007-04:00

Image by o5com via FlickrThe best a chronically ill person (I am talking about the kind of illness that CHRONICALLY TORTURES a person physically) can do is keeping hope. As long as these people do not give up hope, they are the bravest.

To expect a chronic ill person to be happy, to be cheerful, to have a "positive" attitude, is not only an action of lacking sympathy, but also of senseless ignorance .

Allergy

2011-03-31T11:34:00.004-04:00

Just right after I posted that "magic honey" couple of days ago, I got severe allergy! Sneezing and running nose, just like what I had it before. However, I believe the reason was not pollen (it rained that afternoon), but my weakened immune system. My increased physical activities drove me tired that day. So all I need was again, to slow down a bit.

Again, I still hold the belief, that pollen is not the cause for our allergy, but the weakened immune system is.

Physical health is like mother's love

2011-03-31T11:01:00.008-04:00

Image by ithinkchaos via Flickrwhen we had it, we took it for grated, only when we lost it, we realized how important it was.

If mother's love is a foundation of our self-esteem, physical health is a foundation of our BEING - without it, our whole existence will simply collapse.

The Magic Honey

2011-03-28T19:25:00.007-04:00

Image via WikipediaI heard "local honey" can cure allergy all the time but never get chance to local farmers' markets. Early of this year, I bought a bottle of organic honey from Food Lion. It was produced somewhere about 100 miles away from where I live. So I gathered it might do some good for me. Having been taking this honey for over two months (mostly I put it into drink) pretty fine during Spring. I even walked outside like I never did in past years.

So I think it really worked!

P.S. I must point out that my overall diet changes also helped my immune system.

I found a way to rest my brain

2011-03-23T17:24:00.008-04:00

To be specifically: to rest my left side of brain.

As a person who enjoy thinking, I found I could not think as much during these years of chronic illness, as my body did not support hard brain work. Somehow about over a year ago, I tried a way that partially "inspired" by my Yoga instructor long time ago, and it worked very well to me. I almost use it daily, mainly when I took lap after lunch. Most of time I found myself refreshed after doing this, even though I did not really fall into sleep.

I figured that all this technique did was nothing more than numbing left side of brain. This makes total sense to me, because by my understanding about brain function , when we sleep, it was left side brain who takes off from its daily duty, our right side of brain never stop working. That's why doing meditation can let us feeling refreshed simply by stopping "thinking", or stopping using left side of brain, not by actual sleep.

Here is how I practice this "ritual": lie on bed face up without pillow. Take a towel, roll it up like a small ball shaped piece, about a tennis ball size (or smaller), and put it underneath somewhere at back of skull, just a little above the neck (as picture shows by red circle). Make sure it is slightly toward left side. Since lying down face up, the gravity will naturally drag head down and let the towel ball produce some pressure on that part of head. If the location of the towel ball is right, I would feel some strong nervous stimulation around that area followed by some sense of numbness in my left side of brain. Then I just let it go, feeling relaxed and dreamy. After anywhere about 20 to 40 minutes, I could feel refreshed and recharged.

Of course, it doesn't have to be towel, but I found it works the best.

A Support to Dominique, A Support to "CFS"/ME

2011-03-18T20:27:00.011-04:00

Image by sweethardt via Flickr

I like to post this for Dominique - a "CFS"/ME patient who struggling with this illness by her own, like most of other patients. This blog particularly described one of her "bad" days. I suppose any one with a decent sense about "fatigue" can understand, that this is far beyond just "fatigue".

Dominique has been in this illness for over 20 years. She used to run 7 miles a day before she got ill! Now, after 20 years living with this illness, most time bedridden, she was not tired, not sad, but ANGRY. And I am on her side, whole heartedly, sending the anger to medical institutes who dismiss this illness just because this illness doesn't fit their "scientific" theory, also sending the anger to the society and the people who refuse to give any sympathy to CFS/ME sufferers just because their suffering is "strange" to their life experience, or "strange" to their understanding of "illness". In other words, I am helping her to send anger to the "ignorance", the ignorance that kills lives.

Here is Dominique's blog:
A Glimpse of Severe ME: Opening the Door

Fish Head Soup

2011-03-06T11:27:00.004-05:00

I was terribly tired yesterday and realized that I had not been eating well for over just ONE day. During afternoon I suddenly felt the need of fish soup. So I pulled up a tilapia head from refrigerator and made my favorite fish tomato soup. It really restored my energy instantly!

I did not mean that this soup can work on any fatigue condition but it indeed worked for me at the moment.

Here is the recipe:

Fish head (I used one piece of Tilapia which was big enough), ginger root shreds, green onion, tomato, mushroom, tofu (optional)

1. Stir fry fish head with veg oil, until the color changes;

2. Add water and wait until boiled, then add ginger shreds, rice wine(optional), green onion; turn stove from high to medium;

3, About 5 - 10 minutes add sliced tomato, mushroom,

4. Boil the soup for another 20 - 30 minutes then it's ready to serve!

4 phases of my recovering

2011-03-03T09:38:00.012-05:00

Image by Cornell University Library via Flickr

I figured, my recovering from the worse relapse to the normal health condition (by normal standard or normal people, not the "norm" of my own - which was virtually not normal at all) consists of 4 phases:

1, get rid of the worst symptoms. Since my worst symptoms are heart and breath problems, this phase required complete rest, and good diet. Any kind of exercises (even walk) is dangerous.

With good rest and good diet, I could get rid of symptoms from anywhere like a few days to a month.

2, energy restore. This, is a long term job. It requires lots of rest and good diet. Exercise is still dangerous. Depend on how serious my relapse was, it takes from anytime like a few weeks to several months.

3, continuing energy restore and strengthening immune system. In this phase, I do need to continue to save my energy, and be very careful not overdraw. Also it's the time to start some light exercise to help metabolism and immune system. This phase is also a long term, takes about several months.

And this phase is also the trickiest period of my recovery, because, if I don't do any exercise, my heart would suffer from slow blood circulation and causes symptoms like palpitation; but on the other hand, if I do exercise, which seems no problem at all, I have to be extra careful not overdo, otherwise I would suffer serious relapse which draw me straight back to phase 1..

In fact, this phase triggered my worst symptoms countless times during my past years, and was most responsible for my endless circles of up and down. The tough part of this phase is, that my energy limit is very hard to foresee, because the symptom doesn't show up during my exercises (or any other physical activities), but usually after. So when I exercise, if I felt tired, it usually meant it's too late.

4, back to "norm", in need of maintenance and improve to real norm. This means my condition finally back to my normal health condition (I did in 2005-2006), which is the "normal" condition before I got serious trouble (over 10 years ago). It is still "sub-health" condition (because at the time when I was younger, I was never healthy). So when I reached this stage, I will need to fully engage in a healthy life style, which contains lots of physical activities, in order to boost me up to reach a real normal health condition.

Time to "kill" parasites!

2011-02-21T12:53:00.011-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

After more than 5 months "natural" diet I put another several pounds on my body, but my energy is getting much better so it's "Ok". However, I started to have muscle pain and extreme tiredness (different from my major symptom such as heart and breath problems which I have not suffered for 5 months), and my experience told me this typical CFS symptom usually caused by my over-grown parasites (especially yeast. As I gained weight those parasites also grew). I used to "kill" those parasites by vegetarian diet, plus reduced carbs intake. Massive amount of water with some lemon works well too.

I have been doing the cleansing for several days and the change is discernible! I knew this treatment long time ago and it worked wonderfully couple of time, unfortunately I either had other issues going on or, I overdid it, so my symptoms came and went. This time I hope I do it in a moderate level and pay more attention to my body's needs. Hope it will work better and bring me out of trap eventually.

In Between the Best and the Worst

2011-02-15T13:18:00.004-05:00

Having not suffered any major relapses and crashes for about 5 months, I feel very grateful. However, my energy is still not enough. I say I am about 50% of myself, in between my best and the worst.

Diet is still my priority and it affects my sleep directly. Keep myself away from computer is also important. I should avoid any heavy exercise and at the same time, avoid sitting still.

I expect some essential change this spring, but I cannot predict future, of course.

Happily Bored

2011-01-12T22:22:00.014-05:00

Most CFS sufferers were forced to live a lonely life due to lack of energy to social. And this fact gives people/doctors an impression that CFS sufferers' illness is mental - their depression caused their physical troubles. But most of us (CFS patients) know that the truth is just opposite - the physical disability causes lonely life style (and of course depression as well), not the other way around.

I recently found myself feeling bored often - I was constantly stuck in empty moments and tried to find something to do. I may feel sorry for myself but as matter of fact, I found myself surprisingly happy about this, because this means I started to have extra energy, and no longer (at least until now) struggle with all those incomprehensible symptoms.

Progress has been made!

2010 - my body's victory over my mind

2011-01-03T12:15:00.021-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

It's the third day of new year, I got to write something here! I like to put it in brief: The best thing I had in past year is: my stomach was finally liberated from the dictatorship of my mind!

After I was "forced" by my stomach to change my diet back to my "normal" - that means to follow my stomach, NOT so much to follow my mind - which was "armed" with "modern scientific nutriology", I finally stepped out of my worst 2 years' (2009-2010) energy struggle - I am able to do lots of things each day.

Also, I stopped worrying about gaining weight. This stress-free state of mind let my body finally had freedom to "speak out loudly" to my once "despotic brain" about what it wanted! Prior to this point, I always "carefully" and "wisely" chose foods that were "nutritious but less fattening", or the foods that "yeast candida' wouldn't like, or the foods would kill yeast candidas, etc. The consequence was serious - the more purposely I chose foods, the less energy I had and the more sick I was!

Of course, I only speak for myself. I learned that everybody has different health problems with different causes, so everybody does have (and should have) different solution on diet.

For this reason, I doubt that modern medicine could have some good ideas to cope with Chronic fatigue - if it continues standing firmly on its foundation: semiological and mechanical approach toward human. I even doubt that the new discovery of XMRV could do much good about CFS/ME, because it is still a theory/discovery that based on semiological view - and CFS is just NOT about symptoms but our body's inner harmony.

Still, I am not anywhere near my best health condition yet. I am still in the need of much rest and good diet. I don't know how long it will take to make myself in a completely good health but I do see the light.

Meanwhile I will just focus on my each day and each meal.

Quotes by Raymond Francis M.Sc

2010-10-31T13:43:00.005-04:00

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

2010-10-21T21:52:00.010-04:00

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?

2010-10-10T11:35:00.009-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

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!

2010-10-07T21:10:00.010-04:00

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?

2010-09-29T13:53:00.003-04:00

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

2010-09-28T19:08:00.014-04:00

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!

2010-09-18T17:53:00.006-04:00

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

2010-09-18T07:21:00.018-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

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!

2010-08-31T19:05:00.005-04:00

How could these babies turn out so beautifully without care?

What do I regret about my life?

2010-08-21T11:57:00.032-04:00

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

2010-08-18T11:52:00.015-04:00

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!

2010-08-16T17:03:00.013-04:00

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!

2010-08-11T14:01:00.011-04:00

-------

Juices are always good for health

2010-08-10T21:49:00.003-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

I stole this from mylot.com:

----------------------------

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!

2010-07-16T22:01:00.001-04:00

It was delicious!

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

2010-07-03T16:40:00.020-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

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!

2010-06-29T22:17:00.002-04:00

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

CFS - the biggest challenge in my life

2010-06-21T16:36:00.022-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

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)

2010-06-12T17:16:00.033-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

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

2010-06-11T21:43:00.007-04:00

Vegs are growing...

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

2010-06-06T10:12:00.005-04:00

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:

-----------

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!

----------------

texts source:

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

New life from backyard

2010-05-28T11:29:00.008-04:00

the new seedling of green beans

mater convolvulus?

The history of medicine

2010-05-20T15:37:00.005-04:00

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:
--------------------------------
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
-----------------------------

Chinese medicine vs. modern medicine

2010-05-04T09:21:00.010-04:00

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?

2010-04-29T11:47:00.018-04:00

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

2010-04-22T19:07:00.005-04:00

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.

2010-04-17T16:04:00.013-04:00

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

2010-04-08T20:38:00.019-04:00

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

2010-04-06T15:17:00.014-04:00

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?

2010-04-06T09:58:00.004-04:00

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

2010-04-05T21:54:00.007-04:00

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

2010-04-02T17:14:00.029-04:00

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

2010-04-01T22:07:00.001-04:00

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

2010-03-22T14:51:00.007-04:00

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!

2010-03-20T19:32:00.028-04:00

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

2010-03-20T19:28:00.004-04:00

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

2010-03-16T14:38:00.033-04:00

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.

Winter, a time to "store"

2010-02-25T09:22:00.007-05:00

Image by *saipal via Flickr

Based on Chinese medicine, the function of human body follows the nature. So we should do differently during different seasons.

Now is winter, we should rest. Do not do too much exercise because winter is the time to store our energy.
Since I was suffering tremendous fatigue last fall, this anonymous Chinese doctor I met online asked me NOT to do any exercise until spring. I followed his advice. All these couple of months I have been doing is rest, massive amount of rest. Yes I gained some weight (which I hate), but my energy is coming back!

I don't know if this sounds superstitious to someone or not, but I believe our human is part of nature. So there is nothing wrong to follow the mother Nature.

An anonymous Chinese doctor online

2010-02-25T09:00:00.007-05:00

Image by ComerZhao via Flickr

I had bad fall last year. Out of desperation, I went online looking for help a lot. At the end of last year, a Chinese doctor I met on an online health forum started to take care of me amazingly: after given a detail email about my health history, he gave me a Chinese herbal prescription, and changed it once a while after my health problems changed. Now I am in the third prescription he gave me.
I knew him after I joined a debate about Chinese and Western medicine. This doctor's opinion drew my attention and soon I sent him an email with some questions. Then he asked me to write him a detailed message about my health. And after that, I finally felt like under some professional care! What amazed me was not only I wrote him often, but he also asked me often if he didn't hear from me. He is very confident about what he is doing.
And you know what? I didn't even know his real name!

Magic ginger and hot foot bath

2010-01-31T20:20:00.012-05:00

Image by FotoosVanRobin via Flickr

My health has been stable for a while. Not at all at my best, but I got some energy to handle my daily life.
What's new in my diet? Ginger! Based on Chinese medicine and my own experience, "coldness" in your body does lots of bad things, and ginger, as a herb also a veg, can magically make your body to generate heat, thus increases blood circulation and improve metabolism. So I put lots of ginger in my food, stir fry or soup.
Here is how I make my soup, very easy: put sliced ginger in pot, add water, little veg oil if you like, salt, then boil it. Sometime I would add sliced tofu too. After water boiled, put some green vegs you like, such as spinach, cabbage or whatever. Less than 30 seconds after that the soup should be done.

And of course, I am continuing my hot foot bath, every night. It does help my sleep!

My health update

2010-01-12T21:06:00.004-05:00

I have been taking some Chinese herbal medicine for about one week. Feels a little better.
I knew this doctor from a Chinese health forum. He gave me free advices and diagnosed me based on my detailed message through internet. What he said convinced me so I got herbal from New York China Town and cook it everyday carefully.
One thing dismays me: I cannot do almost any exercise (however the fact is I could not exercise for very long time)! Based on this doctor, I don't have enough stored energy to use, so I should not sweat! This is very tough to me because I hate to gain weight! I have already gain weight during these months and now it looks like I have to just let it go! But again, I believe what this doctor said, because during these couple of years almost every major relapses were due to my over-exercise!
So, I will watch myself gaining some extra pounds!

Be my own desperate housewife!

2010-01-12T15:27:00.007-05:00

Image by bitchymode via Flickr

"Housewife" certainly is not my type, at least during this life time. However, not only recently I fell in love with TV show "Desperate Housewives", I started staying in kitchen like Bree Van De Kamp!
During most years of my single life, I "spoiled" myself by not staying kitchen as often as most "normal" people. And this "hobby" no doubt contributed big deal to my chronic health problems. So, having been realized that life style is one of primary causes of CFS, I started cooking crazily, if not passionately. I made oath that I would take kitchen as my studio, make each meal like a piece of art!
So, if being a housewife of someone else is the last role I want to play in my life, being my own housewife is certainly not so bad.
So Bree, let me share your passion!

Muscle and joint pain, a possible easy solution

2010-01-04T10:14:00.010-05:00

Image by bluman via Flickr

I know many CFS patients suffer muscle and joint pain, especially after they wake up in the morning. I used to suffer the same symptom many times in my life but each time the pain did NOT last very long, because I found the reason: my bed was too "thin".
As seasons change I change my bed set. Almost inevitably every time when I got body and joint pain I would find that my bed was not thick enough to resist something bad for my body: cold air in winter, humidity in spring or summer. And soon after putting extra pads on the top of my bed, the symptom went away.
In China, it was a common sense that during winter, people need to put extra pads (or blankets or quilts) on the top of bed. Here is the reason (I am not a doctor nor a scientist so forgive me for not explaining this like an expert, but I try my best to make sense based on my own experience): when our body gets weak, out immune system would be too shaky to resist coldness, humidity, virus, etc., especially when our body is in rest. So when we sleep, we must protect our body in a nice and warm environment. Putting blankets on top of our body is just one side protection, the bottom side (top of mattress) should be also protected. If not, you may still feel "fine" but your body would struggle on fighting with those cold air or humidity, and exhausted when you wake up in the morning.
Of course, there are many other causes for body pain but, if your bed is thin (just a mattress and sheet), please just do an simple experiment by putting extra blankets (or pads or whatever other thing you have), and see what happen in next morning.
For back pain, soft mattress usually is the cause, but I guess this is already a common sense in this country.

My doomed 2009 -- A lesson was learned

2010-01-01T16:59:00.005-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

In 2009, I met the toughest challenge in my life: jobless paired with terrible health condition. While I poorly "conquered" the first one during the first half of the year, the later one remains problematic.

CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) is really a monster. It doesn't kill you like some cancers, but it makes you to be only half of yourself, or even less than half. You may suffer symptoms of heart diseases, or of diabetes, or of many other diseases but as matter of fact, you have none of those diseases. The causes for CFS are still unknown, or too complicated to be detected. For sufferers, this means there is no cure for you. Or, as many doctors claimed, "you are fine".
The worst part of CFS is that it is the most misunderstood thus the most commonly misdiagnosed and mistreated illness ever. Usually it starts with normal tiredness, gradually gets severe until it's too late. During the course, patients inevitably and frequently feel inadequate, which is exactly how people with depression would feel. Thus CFS are often diagnosed as depression and given anti-depressants. However there is no study shows the effectiveness of these treatments. On the contrary, there were plenty cases showed the opposite (A young lady Sophia Mirza was one of the victims who DIED under mental treatments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mZMpvtD3rg). To clear this confusion, people (esp. doctors ) should know that it is chronic physical illness cause depression, not the other way around. However I don't mean that depression doesn't cause ANY physical problems at all, it only means that it is not most CFS sufferers' cases.

As a longterm sufferer, I personally diagnose my CFS as "energy overdrawn". By Chinese medicine, our energy is like a bank: we make withdraw everyday also we make deposit everyday. When we make withdraw but not make deposit, we bring ourselves troubles.
How do we make deposit for our energy? Answer is: Foods, sleep and exercises. These 3 things are the most important "deposit" we make for our energy bank. They together make a concept called: "positive life style". If we keep these things on going everyday, we should have no problems at all.
So my personal conclusion on the cause of CFS is " bad lifestyle", which mean failed on these 3 things. For CFS patients (not real depression sufferers), making effort on changing your physical life style would do much better job on recovering than focusing on what's wrong with your mind (like doctors said).

As a person who never cared about my physical being, this is the biggest lesson I learn in very hard way during my struggling in 2009. I had to shift my whole interest from "spirit" to "physical matters", such as cooking, sleep, exercises, etc. (the first one --- cooking --- is very hard for me to do because my stomach doesn't like American food so I have to work very hard to please such a patriotic organ!)

Of course, there is one thing I did not mention on my good life style menu:good spirit. I used to think this one is the most important thing and it is above all physical issues, but after physically problematic for so long, I had to doubt my former belief. All I can tell now, is that we must take care of every aspect of ourselves: body and mind. Being balanced is the key.

May I have a blessed 2010! And you too!

01/01/2010

Hot foot bath works for me!

2009-12-26T09:48:00.005-05:00

Image by jmurawski via Flickr

I have been doing hot foot bath for about 2 months. First I soak my feet in a bucket full of hot water. After water gets cold I add more hot water so my feet always feel very hot. I usually do it for about 20 minutes (it is said that doing it for half hour to 40 minutes is the best) and after that my body feel very relaxed.
It really helps my sleep! I highly recommend this method to those who have trouble to sleep and whoever's feet are always cold.

Our body's self-regulatory function

2009-12-19T10:00:00.006-05:00

I had not quite believed the health effects of meditation, Qi Gong, yoga or other similar motionless "exercises" before. However, recently I started to change my mind. I have realized that the body actually has a major self-regulatory function, and these type of exercises (motionless) are able to let this function to work at its best.
I roughly understand that this function is mastered by our autonomic nervous system. However when we are thinking or learning something, information keeps coming into our mind (nervous system) and interfers with this system, thus it cannot work much for our inner body needs. The busier our brains are with external information, the less our body's self-regulatory function succeeds. That's why people with high anxiety or stress would suffer considerable degree of body exhaustion. Meditation, yoga or other breathing techniques can block external information's coming in by forcing our brain to rest, thus the autonomic nervous system can work full time on self-regulation.

“Hypochondria”: truth behind the pseudo-science

2009-12-17T09:47:00.010-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

There are always people out there who are gifted with imagination: talking to Jesus Christ, meeting with God; or, having muscle spasm, heart irregular beating, or, difficulty of breath, etc. The former is called religious so we could freely doubt their factuality, but the latter is nothing to do with belief --- it is called “hypochondria”, “diagnosed” by physicians and psychologists and accepted by most people as a “scientific fact”.

When I first saw this word I did not pay much attention. However when I was chronic sick and could not get a descent diagnose and treatment, I started to doubt the authenticity of this term. Personally I have never been diagnosed as “hypochondria”, but if I had kept “doctor shopping”, I might have been sent to psychiatrists long time ago.

I have finished two readings recently: “Wellness, piece by piece” by Pat Sullivan; “Never be sick again” by Raymond Francis. The former is a well-known entrepreneur who was seriously ill. He was told by many doctors that his illness was created by his imagination. However, he did not buy that. Instead, out of his own effort he was eventually recovered. The author of the second book was a successful biologist who also was deadly ill. Once he was even “sentenced” to death by physicians. But just like Pat Sullivan he was cured later by using his own knowledge. Even though I do not agree with everything they said in these 2 books, I agree with them (especially Raymond Francis) with this thought: modern western medicine is not as efficient as most people believe. As matter of fact, lots of treatments do more harm than good to human bodies.

Thus my doubt to the word “hypochondria” increased. Let’s examine the definition first.

“Hypochondria is a belief that real or imagined physical symptoms are signs of a serious illness, despite medical reassurance and other evidence to the contrary.”
https://health.google.com/health/ref/Hypochondria

“Somatoform disorder, characterized by imagined sufferings of physical illness or, more generally, an exaggerated concern with one’s physical health. The hypochondriac typically displays a preoccupation with bodily functions such as heart rate, sweating, bowel and bladder functions, and the occasional minor problem like pimples, headaches, a simple cough, etc. all such trivialities are interpreted as signs of symptoms of more serious diseases. “doctor shopping” is common, assurances of health are futile.”*1
(There are many more definitions you can find online or books.)

For all these explanations, we could find two premises: 1, imagination of patients; 2, the illness patients claimed are undetectable. The first premise is at fault without any further study, because we all know that there is no way we could tell whether human’s imagination is truth or not (otherwise there would be no disputes about God’s existence). So the real premise of this definition is the second one: undetectable. That means, patients were “accused” to imagining illness ONLY because doctors could not find what’s wrong. I personally believe that only under ONE condition they can do so: modern medicine is a perfect science --- it knows human body (and mind) completely and it needs no more progress. But we all know this is not true. Human beings catch new diseases everyday and even within the existing diseases, there are still many of them are untreatable. That’s why what doctors really should do when they facing undetectable illness is: admitting the limitation of medicine, instead of “victim blame”.
In the book “Never be sick again”，Raymond Francis said：

“Physicians often assume that if they do not understand what is wrong, their ignorance is not at fault, but rather the patient is imagining the problem.”*2
“ A few suggested that I was hypochondriac, imagining ill health. Many physicians assume that if they do not understand what is wrong, the patient must be imagining his illness.” *2

Our knowledge is always (maybe forever) limited compare with the reality. That’s why modern medicine need to develop and progress. So to judge unlimited reality by using our limited knowledge and experience is truly an attitude of ignorance.

As life style changes more and more people caught many unknown diseases. Chronic fatigue syndrome is one of them. It is also one of most misunderstood and misdiagnosed diseases. Because of lots of doctors and psychologists hold modern medicine as “religion”, they truly believe that these patients has mental issues. Since these patients are treated as mental patients, they have to take wrongly prescription like anti-depressants and other drugs. Thus their already very weak immune system are completely damaged, their physical condition worsen.

An English young woman Sophia Miaza is one extreme example of this treatment. Her illness was diagnosed as mental and she dead at very young age. Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mZMpvtD3rg

As more and more people got CFS (Chronic fatigue syndrome), more and more CFS patients stand up for themselves, some open-minded scientists/experts started to study these unknown diseases and some new theories started challenge conventional medicine. By Raymond Francis, one of the most important reason for the failure of western medicine on so many diseases is, modern medicine takes symptoms as enemy, thus ignore the more important or the only effective fact --- causes:

Modern medicine has a poor understanding of disease and relies on suppressing the symptoms of disease rather than addressing its true cause. (see *2)　

Another limitation (if not mistake) of modern medicine is that it separates human body into parts, so it has to deal with disease separately. But the truth is human body is a holistic being, partial problems are usually related, or caused by other parts or, the whole body function. But since modern medicine study human diseases by separate them to different categories, it doubtlessly leads to some bewildering results: undetectable; unexplainable or, a more face saving “solution”: hypochondria.

…breaking medicine up into medical specialities becomes obsolete and counterproductive. (see *2)

Of course I do not mean the partial studies of modern medicine is worthless. What I believe is the study of parts should work only for partial problems, or it should only help understanding the whole. It cannot be taken as the only right pathway to deal with everything.*3

By Raymond Francis, the author of “Never be sick again”, modern medicine made disease way too complicated than what it actual is. He thinks that we human only have “one disease”, which is “cell mis-function”; only two causes: nutrition deficiency and toxicity. I personally cannot judge the scientific accuracy of this theory but I appreciate its revolutionary perspective and I believe it would be a profound impact on traditional western medicine.

Beside “imagination”, another blameful factor of undetectable diseases is “depression”. Depression causes body illness is another wild spread and accepted “scientific fact”. I actually believe there is truth about it and I do not deny our mental conditions can interfere our physical function, however, I doubt it as the only or primary cause for all baffled unknown physical diseases, as most physicians do.

"We should not confuse the fact that the vast majority of fatigue patients are depressed because of chronic illness, not chronically ill because they are depressed. This is a very important distinction and (one) that most doctors fail to draw … to treat the depression as causing the whole illness is wrong!" *4

Many emerging illnesses, before they have gained acceptance by the medical community, have initially been discounted as being hysteria, depression, somatoform disorders, etc. One hundred years ago, polio was dismissed in just that fashion.
http://www.cfs-news.org/faq.htm#2S

At the end of this writing, I like to share some information about the origin of the word “hypochondria”. “Hypochondria” originally didn’t mean “disease phobia”, but an actual disease found by ancient Greeks:

The word hypochondria is derived from the ancient Greek terms hypo, which means below, and chondros, which means cartilage, and it refers to a set of symptoms which were thought to have been caused by a disorder of the anatomical organs beneath the cartilages of the ribs.

In fact, “symptom phobia” or “preoccupation with imagined illness” could be much more accurate than “hypochondria”, but I think the reason of choosing “hypochondria”, in addition to its sarcastic effect on those “superstitious Greeks”, might be because this discovery of ancient Greek did not pass the test of “modern medicine". But whether this theory passes the test of truth or not, is certainly not the concern of those who take modern medicine as “God”.

Life is short. We all want to fill our time with enjoyments. I simply didn’t believe from the beginning that so many people would spend time on endless “doctor shopping” just by imagining their illness. Labeling those people with unknown disease as “hypochondriacs” is absolutely a behavior out of arrogance of conventional western medicine. Blaming patients imagination just because of the limitation of medicine study is pseudo-science.
And needless to mention, as the consequence of this “modern superstition”, millions of patients not only suffer from physical pain, mistreatment, but also misunderstanding even disrespect from families, friends, and society.
The hope is, more and more open-minded scientists/ specialists started to put efforts into studies of these “undetectable” diseases (I saw CFS patients interviews on Dr. OZ show). And more and more patients started to take advantage of internet to stand up for themselves, to speak out, to tell people the truth behind their “imagined illness”.

As a long term CFS sufferer, I hope one day I could see the term “hypochondria” disappears from psychology dictionary. In medicine dictionary, I hope one day this word no longer stand for “symptom phobia”, but some real physical diseases that receive right diagnoses and treatments.

-----------
*1.Dictionary of psychology, by Arthur s. Reber, Penguin, 1995
*2.Never be sick again, by Raymond Francis, Health communication, Inc. 2002
*3.I have to give credit to Chinese medicine on this account, even though I do not believe it completely from scientific perspective.
*4.A that I found is that so many physically healthy people have depression. One person I known had severe anxiety but he didn’t even get insomnia.
*5.Wellness, piece by piece, Pat Sullivan, Health Press NA Inc., 2005

*6.http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~posture/HypochondriaWebpage.html

A website about Hypochondria

2009-12-08T17:29:00.005-05:00

I always doubt the word "hypochondria" and thought it is something doesn't really make sense. Here is some information that justify some of my thoughts.

http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~posture/HypochondriaWebpage.html

by information from this website, "hypochondria" IS an ACTUAL desease
by acient greek's study, but because it didn't fit any one of western
medicine catagery, it was used as a substitute word for "imagined"
deseases!

Stress

2009-11-12T15:55:00.006-05:00

Since I adopted into this lazy life style, I realized that indeed, I was too stressed before. It seems to me that we just cannot know how stress we were until we are relaxed.

Busy on feeding myself!

2009-11-10T13:23:00.005-05:00

From morning till now, still busy with foods.
8:30am: breakfast: two steamed eggs (inside put some tomato, onion, etc.); a bup of coconut milk; a small bowl of stir fried green beans (purposely cut off starches because newly learned a scientific combination of foods!).
but these food only subsist my body till 10am! I had to eat another breakfast! a small bowl of oatmeal; a piece of bread, a glass of milk (mixed protein and starch! a violation of scientific food combination! but i was so hungry to care about science!).
Ok, two breakfast! already ate like pig! but only a little after 11am, I was hungry again. I had to eat again! around 12, i had a small brown rice (it was in refrigerator for several days. not fresh!); two small piece of salmon; 8 shrinps (medium small size); a little vegetable salad. And my body still felt not enough so I had a cup of protein shake.
I thought this should be enough, but, 20 minutes after I sat down I felt hungrey again! Now I am preparing for a piece of steak!
What's problem with it? The answer right now is: even though I have kept feeding my body, I have not give what it really needs. But what does my body really need? dinosaur meat? I can't find!

Learn to rest: doing nothing!

2009-11-03T19:36:00.010-05:00

Image by the grey sky morning via Flickr

It has been not easy for me to do this: doing nothing! I started to wonder that this might be the primary reason that I have been chronis ill. My body never really got rest and my nervous systems never been able to get balance.
I used to believe that I had a tireless brain and it had to be always busy with something. Now, my body says no and it overpowered my brain.
Something different happened: satisfaction --- or laziness in another word. I started to feel satisfied about lots of things and I am fine with not being able to do things. Finally I am lazy and I am fine with it! I believe that by a mental condition like this, my body would be finally relaxed, and then it would find a way to recover ifself, without any interfering of my mind.

Listen to you body!

2009-10-27T10:33:00.013-04:00

I was told to "listen to your body" ages ago but never really did good job on it. Or, I just don't know how. Of course, it should not be very hard to do, but when you had so many problems going on inside your body, and so many "can't eat this" or "can't do that", you would get lost sometime.
I had been strictly sticked on to candida diet for over 4 months since this March. I felt great during first 2 months but later, all my old symptoms came back. After about 2 months struggling, I suspected that I suffered from lacking nutrients. I did a comprehensive blood tests trying to find out what I missed. But the blood tests didn't support my "hypothesis", they suggested just opposite --- that I should get rid of lots of things, as if I had too much nutrients intake.
After being totally perplexed for a while, I decided that I should listen to my body instead of trying to understand the complex blood tests. So I started eating normal again --- not only fishes and vegs, but some meat, and lots of fruits (many type of fruites are forbidden foods in candida diet because of the suger they contain). And the result of this action was ecouraging --- I immediately felt better! Starting from these couple of days, I went even further: I started take some suger --- the number one product that should be cut out in candida diet (it's also a product I had been strictly avoided for years!). I put a little organic brown suger in milk and whole wheat pancake. Guess what? They taste wonderful! At night before I sleep I also ate something (include some milk with suger) and it helped my sleep (for years I used to eat nothing within 2 or 3 hours before I sleep)!

For years I tried so hard to follow my mind --- to understand everything logically and plan things carefully, but now, my body demands me to listen to her: she overpowers my mind!
So I am going to eat whatever I feel like.

P.S.
While I am ecouraging myself to eat normal, I am not saying that "candida diet" is not good. I still believe this diet and at certain point, it is crucial for the health. For me, it works when I am over-weight. Now, after several months diet my weight dropped (I understand this as a sign of massive dying out of candida yeasts) and my body is in need of somethings else that candida diet cannot offer. So switching back to normal but healthy diet is definitely the right thing to do.

---

Hypercoagulation, "feet bath" with hot water

2009-10-21T15:08:00.009-04:00

---

Image via Wikipedia

Recently I was convinced that I have "hypercoagulation" --- thickened blood problem that causes chronic fatigue. Here is a link you can get more information:http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C546624.html

For hypercoagulation, a Chinese herb called "san qi" or "tian qi" is supposed to be very effective. I just started to use it and cannot tell much yet. but what definitely helped me is this:
put your feet into very hot water for about 20 minutes (longer is better, and you better add hot water when the water gets colder). this would help blood circulation trimendously!

Ok, here is the theory: when you suffer hypercoagulation, your blood travels slow, especially when it travels to the feet, where it is fartherest stop from heart, so your feet feel so COLD. And cold feet also make blood travel slower. Eventually this would affect your heart.
The best way to help thickened blood is exercise. But if you are too weak to exercise, bathing your feet with hot water is definitely helpful. i did "feet bath" twice a day when I was in severe condition a few days ago. Now, I really feel much better and albe to do my daily walking again.

Actually, "bath feet" with hot water is not my invention, it is a Chinese traditional custom.
---

An open letter to people WITHOUT CFS

2009-10-21T14:38:00.003-04:00

---

http://notdoneliving.net/openletter/id

This letter also tells my experience. It is painful and lead us (CFS sufferers) to social isolation.
I believe all these misunderstanding come from a "common sense" --- that is people's unknown chronic illnesses are usually caused by their depression. And this "common sense" I believe is come from a medical name "hypochondria" --- a name that was invented by doctors (or medical scientists) at the moment when they could not give a diagnose to their patients who claimed they were ill, because blaming to patients' mind was much easier than blaming science (as if medical science is perfect, no need to have any further progress).
So here we go, better to see a psychiatrist instead.

---

Diagnose-me.com

2009-10-16T10:32:00.010-04:00

I found this site helpful. First with doubt I answered a questionnaire (total over 900 questions!) and got my free computer report in just a few hours. The report made some sense to me, and I went ahead paid $77 for a doctor's (Dr. Fisel) review. Again, it took no time at all, I got it on the second day. The report is very comprehensive and I must say, it is better than any analysis I was given before.
One might doubt the accuracy of the diagnose as doctors or computer just spend little time on reviewing your questionnaires, but I found it was quite trustworth. I believe this is because the questionnaire itself is so detailed and comprehensive --- it covers almost every aspect of your health. So even if the final diagnoses are not 100% accurate, they would still be very helpful in some way.
I would recommend this website "diagnose-me.com" to anyone who need helps. At least, it's worth a try. It is really not expensive, except you may have to spend sometime on answering questions.

Here is the report produced by doctor:
http://www.diagnose-me.com/reports/hrx/1108153.html

----

Explore the beauty of Tai Ji

2009-10-10T19:13:00.008-04:00

I started learning Tai Ji. This is one of videos that I am learning from.

I understand that Tai Ji is all about BALANCE: balance between pose and movement; balance between body and mind--- which mean you have to concentrating, also relaxing, let your body and mind work together and find their way to the harmony.

Another possible cause of my problem

2009-10-05T00:51:00.006-04:00

Image by mralan via Flickr

Lack of fruits?
Since fruits contain suger, most of them are on the "forbidden" list in candida diet. I have been eating very little fruits since half year ago. Now I seriously doubt this non fruits diet might be one of the causes for my health trouble!
No matter what, buying some fruits will be my first thing to do tomorrow!

My blood test result

2009-10-01T12:15:00.002-04:00

These tests are not normal:

cholesterol, 239 mg/dl (normal range 100-199);
LDL cholesterol Calc 161 mg/dl (normal range 0-99);
ACTH, plasma, 66 pg/ml　 (normal range 4-48)

It looks like my nutritions intake is not bad. Or maybe too much?

Recipes of simple ginger soup

2009-09-30T12:44:00.014-04:00

Image by FotoosVanRobin via Flickr

Tranlated from a Chinese health forum, by lily7:

Benifit: Ginger soup is a traditional Chinese health diet therapy. It is supposed to have several health benifits such as making your body temperature higher (for those who feel cold all the time. In another words it helps body to gain energy); weight loss; smooth out skin. etc..

Recipe (1):
put about 10 kg mashed ginger root into cup, pour boiled water, add one teaspoon of honney. Done!

Recipe (2):
Boiled sliced ginger root together with black suger (like you make tea). Drink it morning and night (somebody just suggested that it is not recommanded to drink it at night).