Apple Crisp Poisoning

Nearly a year ago right at Christmas I discovered several dessert recipes almost compliant with the Paleo Diet with a Hashimoto's Twist. One of them was a glorious apple crisp recipe that maybe found under "apple crisp" in the index to the right.  It was healthy yet deliciously spiced with cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Around the same time I read that cinnamon lowers blood sugar. Well! As any proud American will tell you, if a little is good for you then a lot must be spectacular! This mindset is part of our capitalistic worldview. I began overindulging on this delectable and piling on the spices in lieu of sugar. What's not perfect about a sugar-free dessert filled with goodness as well as medicinal spices?  I thought I died and went to heaven.

Apple Crisp with Spices

A month later I began experiencing a sharp pain in my upper left abdominal area. The one stab pain every two weeks or so was tolerable...until a few months later when it didn't go away. For two hours the pain remained accompanied by a burning sensation through my chest area and excruciating back pain. I panicked.

Subsequently, I spent too much money on doctors who wanted me to spend more money on labs. Fear always makes one stupid. The stool test showed microscopic bleeding and my pancreas was not digesting fats. The blood labs showed kidney failure. The gastroenterologist ordered $3,000 worth of more tests. Not one doctor asked about my diet. Were these lab results connected to the abdominal pain and were they indicative of something serious?

The pain accompanied by burning and slight nausea became more frequent. I tried to track it with the foods I was eating, but few foods produced immediate side effects. The more frequent the symptoms, the more apparent it might be the apple crisp. Was something in the apple crisp causing the pain?  I decided to stop eating it to see if it would make a difference and after a few days all pain went away leaving a slight pressure reminding me it wasn't totally gone yet.

At the same time I started searching the internet for clues. Pancreatic insufficiency creating a lack of digestive enzymes can be caused by lifestyle habits such as junk food, sugar, alcohol, coffee or smoking. Hmmm...I don't do any of those. It can also be caused by gallstones blocking the bile ducts. I've never had a gallstone in my life, but I wouldn't rule it out. It can also be caused by pancreatic cancer. I hope not, but my blood labs aren't indicative of cancer. Pancreatic support involves taking pancreatic enzymes, or drugs, something I cannot do. Food sources for lipase, the enzyme I need, is avocados. I eat avocados daily so this didn't make sense.

It took me too long to connect the possible health issues with the spices. How can these simple, everyday cooking ingredients cause health problems? I guess that's like asking how can everyday products with fragrances cause health problems. I came across several articles warning readers of the side effects of common spices.

For instance, cardamom can create gallstones because our bodies do not absorb cardamom so easily. Whoa! Cinnamon does lower blood sugar which is the medicinal benefit, but too much cinnamon can cause LIVER and KIDNEY DAMAGE! One particular article stated one should never eat more than one teaspoon of cinnamon a day. As I said before, I was piling on the cinnamon, at least a tablespoon per recipe! Overdoses of nutmeg can not only cause sluggishness and miscarriages, but hallucinations! There are lots of documented cases of nutmeg overdoses and as a inexpensive high, drug-experimenting teenagers often end up in hospital emergency rooms. Allspice can cause not only allergic reactions, but gastrointestinal conditions like acid reflux, ulcers, and diverticulitis. It also poses a risk for promoting cancer!

Who would have thought these innocent, everyday dessert spices could reek so much havoc on your digestive system?? But you see, they are not just food flavorings. They are drugs. Since I am the one in a million who does not detox drugs due to weird-ass genetic mutations, I concluded aside from the known toxic side effects, they must be storing in my body rather than flushing out.

After a few days of no apple crisp and improved health, I thoughtlessly made a recipe which is also loaded with cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. I must have been in denial. Immediately the pain, nausea and burning returned. Hmmm...

I decided to do a liver-gallbladder-pancreas cleansing remedy. This involved drinking beet-apple-lemon juice mixed with olive oil every morning for several days. It sounds worse than it is (hold your breath and drink it down fast!!), but as a high-fructose concentrate, it can create some fatigue. After a few days, this seem to help.

Then I did the kidney/gallbladder stone remedy drinking 2 ounces of olive oil mixed with 2 ounces of lemon juice (double eeeewww). I have read all that oil enables the stones to just slide right out of the ducts and into the colon and I have heard if one is in the middle of a painful kidney stone or gallstone attack, this remedy will save you from an unnecessary surgery on the butcher's table. I didn't see any evidence this helped, but it couldn't have hurt.

A friend of mine said, "You know, you don't have to add spices to apple crisp." At first I thought, But then what would be the point? That would be like making chocolate cake without the chocolate. Who needs chocolate? Who needs spices? So I tried it. Apple crisp with no spices actually tastes better! I'm trying not to over do it on the new-and-improved Spiceless Crisp.

Spiceless Crisp - looks the same

Spiceless Crisp - yum!

My spice days are over and I'm learning too much of a good thing is never good. My diet is becoming more boring with each passing day, but...

NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS FEELING GOOD DOES!

Drug Intolerance...An Epiphany!

This thyroid medication has some interesting and not so interesting side effects. First, biting bugs all of a sudden love me. I haven't had any bug bites for years and now it's every day. A few months ago I came across an article that explained it's hormones that mosquitoes et al. are attracted to which is why adults get bitten more than children. I always thought they were attracted to sugar. Bugs biting made berry picking this year a bit uncomfortable.

Second, I've been getting less adrenaline rushes and hot flashes at night. For a while I was getting them once an hour all night long, now it's down to two or three. Hooray! I'm not quite sure if it's connected to the higher levels of thyroid, but I think so and this is a good thing. My new and wonderful doctor is thinking I should take a pill in the late afternoon and see if it helps even more.

Third, I have found every few days the nausea starts creeping up and the headaches begin and it lasts all day until 5pm. As I mentioned before, I start getting tired around 5pm and I've been assuming this is when the drug wears off so this makes sense. It stands to reason my liver is not liking the drugs. Most holistic thyroid doctors recommend you do a liver cleanse before starting the medication to help it work efficiently. So every few days I drink a glass of freshly juiced beet juice. Blah.

Blah Juice

One way to get the beet juice down is to mix it with other fresh juices. I mix mine with a little apple juice, but the best recipe is to mix beet juice, carrot juice and apple juice. There was a raw food restaurant in San Francisco that included this drink on their menu and called it "Blood". Aptly named as it looks just like blood.

I'm also trying to eat more cilantro, another liver detox food, and drink lemon juice in water, a kidney cleanser.

Of course, nausea makes me want to revert back to by childhood comfort food: cereal and milk. It reminds me of getting the flu at my grandparents' house and my grandmother telling me cereal is what one should eat for breakfast after having the flu as it is easier to digest than eggs. I associate cereal and milk with love. Comfort food. Every time I eat it I think of her and those are good memories. I caved to temptation and bought gluten-free corn flakes, milk, and bananas, all three are NOT on my diet, but do I care? It seems to help with the nausea, or maybe it just tastes heavenly. Or maybe there is something else at work here....

So...I'm laying in bed thinking I'll probably have to be on these drugs for the rest of my life if I want to be able to function with any amount of energy, but do I really want to drink that much beet juice in my life? First, fresh juices are high in sugar and not on my diet, and second, beet juice is blah. Not gross, just blah. What can I do? There must be a simple, or, not so simple solution.

There is...WATER.

 

WATER??? What an epiphany! The best way to clean out your body and detox your organs is water. Everyone knows that so why have I refused to acknowledge this? I know I don't drink enough water. It's all I can do to get four cups down in a day, and believe me, I've tried. I've justified my lack of water with not everyone needs eight glasses of water a day, a comment I made eons ago when I wrote a blog post on water. Or maybe they do? If you are eating sugary, salty, junky or unhealthy foods, I'm sure you need lots of water to wash it all out. I failed to realize I might not be eating unhealthy foods, but I'm certainly ingesting weird substances in the name of health. Maybe I need to increase my water intake and see what happens? Can it be that easy? And if it is that easy, why has no doctor I've seen in the past ten years made this simple connection when I tell them I'm drug intolerant? They all ask me how much water I drink. Even that last naturopathic quack asked this, but made no comment. (She didn't really talk at all so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised.) Cereal and milk craving? Is it the milk adding to my hydration which is why it makes me feel better? Hmmm...

I love a good experiment! For the last two weeks I've been gulping down eight to ten glasses of water a day which is like drowning to me. I pour them all out in the morning so I can keep track and set goals. The first four glasses have to be gone by noon and it all needs to be done by 5pm. The first few days were not fun. The water retention was uncomfortable and I felt bloated and sluggish. The first few nights I was up and in the bathroom nearly every hour! What a pain! Literally! Driving anywhere for more than a half an hour and my bladder would feel like it was about to burst. But I persevered. Two weeks later and this improved a just a little so I have hope perhaps my body will continue to adjust. BUT the nausea and headaches went away immediately! Then by the second week, any time I did something strenuous or even got warm, sweat would drip from every pore. Profusely. Even my knees were sweating! This is a strange phenomenon as I've never perspired in my life! The nausea creeps in ever so slightly if I drink under eight glasses a day or with an empty stomach and I now start to crave water if I don't drink it. This is somewhat of a breakthrough for me.

It kind of makes me wonder if my life-long dehydration contributed to my chemical sensitivity? The premise, or so I've been told, is I don't detox fast enough or at all. If I've been constantly dehydrated, how could anything possibly be flushing out so that would make perfect sense. Why has no doctor ever made this kind of connection? That, however, is no excuse because I've always known humans are supposed to drink eight glasses of water a day. I am the person to blame. I am stubborn.

Excellent epiphany!

How many glasses of water do you drink?

Drugs

It's that time of the year where I get the courage to go to a new doctor and try something new for the fatigue, muscle weakness, muscle pain, and all-encompassing feeling of blah. The diet has helped a lot and I think that is the reason I'm rarely totally exhausted now, but it's not quite enough. I want to be able to function better and not feel so...blah...all the time.


I've been reading a lot on thyroid hormone prescriptions lately, but I'm definitely not an expert on this information. Here are the basics: There are two categories: natural and synthetic. The natural sources are dessicated thyroid or thyroid extract and the source is from porcine or bovine thyroid. Yep, real thyroid from pigs or cows. The brand names are Armour, Naturethroid, and Westhroid. Because they are from natural sources, they have natural levels of both T3 and T4 and seemed to be well-tolerated by many.


The other category is synthetic or derived from laboratory-produced chemicals. Levothyroxine is the most commonly used and well-tolerated by most. Brand names include Synthroid, Levoxyl, Liothyronine, and Levothroid. These are often just T3 as it is expected the patient will convert the T3 to T4, but based on my recent readings not everyone is capable of this conversion and some are even sensitive to T3 which can cause problems.


In the past I've tried Armour dessicated thyroid and various forms of levothryoxine. I've not tolerated any thyroid replacement hormone well. Armour made me nauseous for six straight weeks, sustained -released levothyroxine kept me away all night and made me nauseous all day long, and non-sustained-released levothyroxine made me so ill and in pain I almost took myself to the hospital. Through all the discomfort I continued hoping it would improve my energy level and fatigue, but nothing did. These prescriptions are very expensive so each failure is incredibly frustrating and financial discouraging.


According to Dr. Datis Kharazzian who saved my life with his dietary protocol and book Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms When My Lab Tests Are Normal, intolerance is often caused by the fillers used in these pills. I attempted to correct this by using compounded pharmaceuticals so I could control what goes into each pill. Still, adding something like a time-released feature takes an extra chemical and the pills must have some kind of filler. This came as a surprise to me. You can't just put the drug in the capsule without a filler? No. I'm learning.

Unfortunately I wasn't told this until after I received pills filled with Avicel, a filler that made me feel like I was painfully digesting shards of glass. I know it was the filler because I replace the sustained-released pill with this one and I assumed they would have the same ingredients minus the time-releasing chemical. Nope, someone thought they needed to add an unknown filler without consulting me first. When I called the pharmacy and asked why I was so sick, I found out I should have had a choice of fillers. You can't imagine how irritated I was to throw a $100 bottle of pills away. So...what is Avicel? Wood pulp. It sounds fairly harmless. Another pharmacist told me problems with Avicel are rare unless I have an allergy to pine. Well, there you have it. My whole family is allergic to pine so it stands to reason I would be as well. Also, I always hear about how rare side effects are and I can state with absolute certainty if there is a "rare" side effect of any kind, I will have it. I'm just that sensitive.

Recently I read not only should you watch for fillers, but prior to thyroid therapy, one needs to make sure their adrenals are working properly to allow the thyroid medication to be effective. I tried licorice root, but it didn't seem to make a difference. Astragalus, another herb, is also used for this but according to Dr. Kharazzian, if you are TH1 dominant, this will worsen an autoimmune condition. Based on information, I thought I was TH2 dominate which is common with chemically sensitive people. Astragalus made me crash with exhaustion.

DHEA is another method to support adrenal function. You can buy DHEA supplements over the counter, but they are often high dosages and filled with additives and fillers. My new doctor said she avoids prescribing DHEA because it stores to toxic levels very quickly. Dr. Kharazzian suggests sublingual DHEA as it is less likely to store as quickly and is more effective. He suggests not to ever take it for longer than four weeks. It's only to jump-start the adrenals and once you feel a difference, stop taking it or your adrenals will shut down and stop working on their own. I found this to be interesting since so many of my friends take it continuously as an adrenal booster. The sources for DHEA are synthetic (chemical), wild yam or soy. My new pharmacist says the company uses yam. Perfect. I don't want chemicals or soy.

In addition, it is advised to do a liver cleanse before starting these drugs and this will help avoid any side effects and assist in the effectiveness of the drug. There are many herbal remedies that will detox your liver, but I like avoiding drugs when possible especially since I react to so many. Instead I started drinking beet juice and eating beets.

The reluctant patient

My new naturopath doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable and as a friend recently said, that is the concern with naturopaths or any doctor: will they know more about my condition than I already do? Not usually. But I need them to be receptive to my requests and at least respectful to my knowledge. Even this is difficult as most doctors want to be put on a pedestal and worshipped for their expensive advice. They often treat patients as stupid subordinates who are expected to nod politely, not talk too much, and be very compliant. Too much power play which for me ends up to be a waste of money and a personality conflict. This new doctor, however, was receptive. I told her exactly what I wanted, but left it open to her advice. In the end her "plan" for me was to eat vegetables at every meal and at least one fruit a day. Really? Was she not listening to me when I went into great detail about my diet? I pretty much kindly, but assertively bullied her into some prescriptions. She also suggested astragalus tea and I decided to try it since it only cost $1.50, but it didn't go well. I know I don't do well with herbs. I should have known better.

She was hesitant about DHEA, but I think my own concerns about its toxicity and proper usage must have given her some confidence. She agreed to prescribe a very low dosage (1 mg), for a short time (30 days), sublingual form, just to jump-start the adrenals. I interrogated the pharmacist so much that when it came time to make the sublingual tablets she waited to ask me about which kind of filler to use. (THANK YOU!) My choice was gelatin (horse hooves) or ethyl alcohol. I started to laugh when she said ethyl alcohol. Really? After all the questions I asked about chemicals, fillers and toxicity why would anyone think I would choose ethyl alcohol?  I'm so glad she gave me a choice. I'm not excited about gelatin, but it is gluten-free and might even strengthen my fingernails. She also said they add a flavor. Hmmm...nope. I don't want a flavor. She said she didn't know if DHEA would be bitter, but I decided to chance it. The tablets are weird:

Little squares of colorless, wiggly JELLO. Put one under your tongue on an empty stomach and no swallowing until it dissolves. I was surprised they tasted sweet so I wonder if someone added something to it or if the gelatin comes sweetened. This is the issue. They can add anything without your knowledge. I don't even want to think about what is in the over the counter form. Thirty sublingual tablets were $50.

I also received a prescription for dessicated (pig) thyroid (Thyroid USP) which is much like the old Armour Thyroid that was re-formulated a few years back. My previous experience with natural thyroid was the stuff loaded with unknown fillers which may have caused the nausea. I asked about the fillers in advance and they gave me a list of types (this is when I found out about Avicel being pine-based) and then off hand it was mentioned they could use rice flour. Rice flour!? Although the thought of raw flour stuck to my stomach like glue wasn't appealing, I know I can tolerate rice flour. I'd have to buy a bag of rice flour myself and bring it in. I'm not sure why they don't have their own supply. I forgot to ask if I could use coconut flour as rice isn't on my diet, and later I was told it would depend on the texture so I'll try that next.


I think the capsules are gelatin and I wasn't given a choice. This is another question I failed to ask and I've found only with experience does one know WHICH questions to ask. I'm learning. Previous pharmacies have used tiny capsules that are about the third of the size of normal ones, but I received normal size which seems to be an excessive amount of rice flour. There is often a vegetarian or vegetable capsule, but again, I wasn't offered a choice. I requested an extremely low dosage of thyroid (30 mg.) to avoid shocking my system and I'll work up to find a suitable level. The doctor called it into the pharmacy, unfortunately, as I really wanted to double check what they were doing before they did it. I didn't really want to pay for a 90 day supply in case after my normal four days they made me ill, but they were already formulated by the time I went in. Ninety capsules cost $95. OUCH. But this is how the compounding pharmacy works. If I only received, for instance, 14 capsules they would have cost me around $70 due to the effort it takes to create the pills individually by hand.

So...

First step: liver cleanse with beet juice
Second step: jump-start my adrenals with DHEA
Third step: thyroid replacement therapy

I am ready for another pharmaceutical adventure, or, hmmm, experiment. At this point I feel like I've done everything in my power to be successful. Wish me luck!

Diet and Diets

Most of us were raised on the Standard American Diet (SAD) filled with chemically-grown and manufactured foods. Junk food. Fast food. Getting rid of unnecessary chemicals means eating only organically grown produce, organically, grass-fed meats with no additives for preservation or taste enhancing.

So many people have said to me, "I don't see the difference in organic versus chemically-grown food other than the price." Well, these critics aren't chemically sensitive...yet! There are some non-organic foods that have made me violently ill with stomach or intestinal cramps, headaches/migraines, rashes, nausea, dizziness. Even if you don't react to non-organic food, you still need to reduce the load in your body. Going organic is a step in the right direction.

Organic, whole food is pricy, no doubt, but as you make other changes to your lifestyle you'll find it'll all balances out. For instance, the amount of money I used to spend on cosmetics, facial cleansers and make-up removers, hair products, beauty parlor visits, soaps, lotions, detergents and toxic household cleaners would feed a small, third world country. I'd much rather buy quality food that is an investment in my health and in my future.

In addition to an organic diet, there are many other diets to consider:

Sugar-free Sugar isn't good for anyone. Besides weight gain, it also screws with your blood sugar levels. Because sugar has no nutrients and we need nutrients in order to digest, it sucks the nutrients out of your body in order to be digested. If you have a cold or illness and eat sugar, you'll have a really hard time getting over it.

Dairy-free Dairy products like milk, cheese, cream, ice cream, cottage cheese, and cream cheese  create inflammation and are difficult to digest for most. Non-organic dairy products have all kinds of chemical additives from artificial nutrients to preservatives, not to mention the antibiotics and growth hormones given to the animals so they may produce more.

Gluten-free  I've read most people are gluten sensitive in some way. Our bodies just aren't good at digesting grains. In addition, leaky gut is caused by undigested foods, usually grains, and bacteria permeating the intestinal tract and it is believed by many those toxic compounds are then leaked into our bloodstream causing a host of health problems including chemical sensitivity. And gluten is in nearly everything from cosmetics to tuna to chili powder! It's really sneaky.

GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) Diet This diet eliminates grains, dairy and sugars in order to heal leaky gut.

Paleo (caveman) diet Similar to gluten-free and GAPS in eliminating grains, sugars and dairy and going back to the natural diet of our ancestors. No processed foods, no chemically-grown foods, no genetically-modified foods.

Raw food diet This diet involves eating only raw food as high temperatures kill the nutrients and enzymes making food less beneficial. Raw food is easier to digest and more nutritious.  Any diet should consist of at least 75% raw foods for optimum health.

Juicing  Fresh, organic fruit and vegetable juices are like blood transfusions - liquid nutrients. And they taste so good! Beet and apple juice are natural liver detoxers. Fresh lemonade is heavenly. My favorite is carrot juice. There is some warning about the sugar content of fruit juice especially if you have any blood sugar issues, and juicing isn't really "natural" as it removes all the good pulp fiber from the plant. But it's fabulous!

Rotation diets For anyone who is finding themselves sensitive to any foods, be sure to rotate the foods you can tolerate so you don't develop a sensitivity. If you eat too much of one thing, your body starts seeing it as an "invader" triggering an immune response. Try to eat foods no more than once every four days so you have a variety.

There are also low-histamine diets, low-oxalate diets, low-salicylate diets, anti-Candida diets, anti-inflammatory diets, etc., etc. You name it, it's out there, but if you start mixing them your list of what you can eat gets very small!

Currently I'm doing a mix of the GAPS and Paleo diets with a Hashimoto twist. (It sounds like an alcoholic beverage!) No sugar, grains, dairy, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, soy, iodine,  high-glycemic fruits along with all kinds of other weird rules. What that leaves are some meats, some veggies, some fruits, some nuts with coconut milk, olive and coconut oils. I'm being creative with meals, but I'm damn hungry all the time. I'm not really hungry,  just unsatisfied. I really miss the freedom of snacking.

There are also a number of cleansing diets designed to help the detoxification process:

Master Cleanse, or lemonade diet This lemonade is absolutely yummy made with fresh, organic lemon juice, Grade B organic maple syrup and a dash of cayenne pepper. Drink only this non-stop for a day or a month, alternating with herbal teas. The recipe and directions are online with many people gushing about healing miracles. It was yummy, but I got really tired of just lemonade. I wasn't hungry, just bored. You must follow the directions especially  coming off of it to avoid gastro-intestinal problems.

Liver and gall bladder cleanses It involves drinking lots of apple juice (a natural liver detoxer), grapefruit or lemon juice with 1/2 cup of olive oil. I know that sounds gross. It is. Hold your nose and drink it down. What's worse is drinking Epsom salts. Eeeww.  I did this once with great results. This is also a natural remedy for gall stones and kidney stones and is much cheaper and safer than surgery.  AND you won't be missing any body parts in the end!  Get proper directions online.

Fasting  Total water fasts for one day to two months.  This sounds crazy, I know, but fasting has been practiced for centuries. Socrates use to require it of his students as it cleans the body and opens the brain. One theory is all animals stop eating when they are sick to rest their bodies in order to heal. This makes sense to me. I think only the human species feeds itself to death. I tried it following Loren Lockman's protocol which he uses at his Tanglewood fasting clinic. Lockman claims with periodic fasting and a raw food diet, he cured himself of fibromyalgia.  It is said you stop craving food and stop being hungry after a few days. At day four I thought I was starving! I went right into a raw food diet which also says after seven days you stop being hungry. At twenty one days I still felt like I was starving. BUT I have to say, in the end, I was less reactive to chemicals and felt better. An option to water fasts are juice fasts, but again, the sugar content in fresh juices are a concern for many.

These are mere ideas to consider. With any special diets or dietary changes, it would be advisable to get specific directions online so you don't hurt yourself or seek the advice of a doctor or dietician. Not that I'm saying doctors or dieticians would even know about half these diets or approve of them. My personal rule is: follow your instincts and what makes your body feel good, unless it tells you to eat chocolate everyday then assume your body has been hijacked. Addictions will make you crave what they want, but in most cases your body will tell you what it wants.

What kind of diets have helped reduce your chemical overload?

What were your most difficult sacrifices?
What do you miss the most!?