Learn to rest: doing nothing!

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!

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.

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Hypercoagulation, "feet bath" with hot water

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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.
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An open letter to people WITHOUT CFS

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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.

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Diagnose-me.com

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

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Explore the beauty of Tai Ji

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

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

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

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).

The first look of the fall

Finally, rain stopped. It is a fresh looking morning. Air is cool and dry. It's going to be a sunny autumn day.

I feel discernible change on my physical condition these days. I believe my diet play the most part of it. Acupuncture might contributed some positive energy too.

Yesterday I went to my second appoinment of acupuncture and felt a little nervous. I guess it is because my physical condition was better than the first time. The room was too cold to me so I got a little cold after treatment.

But again, overall I believe I am on the way to be good.

(the picture of my back yard )