Boning Up on the Facts

I hope my friend Carla won’t mind if I take a cue from her for today’s blog but she was pondering osteoporosis and its affects on her aging mother. I have osteopenia which means when I had my Dexa scan done there was some thinning of my bone but not enough for my functional medicine doctor to concern himself with. To quote him ” it is a normal thinning of bone”. My mother had osteoporosis and this was evidenced by the change in her general height. That said, she really never did break a bone until she was 90, and she fell more than any other person I know. When she did tumble from her walker at the nursing home she fell right on her left elbow and it did break. It was surgically corrected, and once they took the darned pin out it healed and she acted like she had never had a break. Mother started taking one of the Pharma drugs in her 80’s and it may have helped but it also may have contributed to some wasting in her jaw bone that caused her to lose some teeth. I guess we will never know and that is what the Pharma world counts on. I am left pondering my mother’s osteoporosis thanks to Carla and here are my ruminations.

I believe that my osteopenia and my mother’s osteoporosis were primarily caused by undiagnosed Celiac’s disease. We were a family of bread eaters and cereals, you name it there wasn’t a grain that wasn’t eaten at our house all in the name of healthy eating. Mother had the ability to clear her colon in seconds as her doctor told her “with any kind of stress”. I think we would now call that IBS and mother had it her entire life but not one person thought to alter her diet. I think of all the nutrients she didn’t absorb and I am no longer in wonder at her osteoporosis or for that matter her dementia. I have blamed my similar issues on anything and everything, that is until I started reading and then took to heart everything that Joe Mercola and others were putting out there about grain consumption. Once I eliminated grain from my diet, allowing for the occasional treat, my digestive issues all but disappeared.

Calcium is supposed to build strong bones. Well milk was huge at our house and mother dutifully drank her glass of milk at almost every meal ostensibly “for her bones”. Mother also took her tums. Pasteurized milk is truly useless and that “healthy” drink, skim milk, is just pure sugar and does little more than cause insulin resistance in the individuals who drink it (my father drank gallons of the stuff but ate no sweets and little bread and died with undiagnosed diabetes). In other words, calcium is not the only answer and most of us get plenty of calcium in our diet from various vegetables and if not lactose intolerant from cheese, cottage cheese, etc. What is often is missing is Magnesium to balance the calcium intake and Ionic Fizz and Peter Gilham’s Calm both easily add magnesium to your diet. I love my raw milk kefir and have some most mornings in my smoothie. By the way, there is no pasteurized milk in my house if I can help it but that is a recent revelation (last 10 years) and pasteurized skim milk used to be a constant in our refrigerator and I, too, took Tums regularly.

Mother exercised in her fifties but only then and it was always walking. She worked harder than anyone I know and had more energy than anyone I know but she didn’t actually do weight lifting or any kind of exercise that would cause percussion of the bone and a pulling of muscle on the bones. Lesson learned is exercise your muscles and pound a little on your bones with exercise like running, walking, climbing stairs, etc. T-Tapp actually does it all and also improves your mirror image.

Mom ate a lot of fish especially in her later years as they lived on the shores of Lake Superior but fish is notoriously high in mercury and she was still eating her oatmeal and bread, so whatever goodness she was supposed to get from her fish was washed down the loo. Omega 3 oils are vital to healthy bones and the best kind of fish oil I know of is Vital Choice Salmon Oil. It is a deep orange it is so rich in astaxanthan from krill, has a pure taste and is undistilled and has undetectable levels of mercury.  Omega 6 oils need to be minimized at least in the summer (we may have increased need for some if we live in the northern climes).

Mother judiciously avoided sunshine. She slathered on sunscreen, put a large brimmed hat on her head and covered every inch of her body with thick fabric. In her last years she was seldom exposed to sunshine and when she was she squinted and asked to go back inside. I never had her Vitamin D levels checked but I wish I would have as it is easy to do and is so important. Vitamin D levels should be at least 50-60 ng/ml and even higher if you have any health challenges like cancer or even a virus. My functional medicine doctor ordered the test for me originally but now you can order your own online at the Vitamin D Council site. It is so cool that at my local Healtheast hospital (Woodwinds) you can walk in to the hospital lab and ask for a Vitamin D3 test without doctor’s orders and for $40 find out for yourself. It may be true of a lab near you and it pays to ask. Once you know your D3 levels you may need massive amounts of D3 to get your levels up (up to 50,000 mg temporarily) but you might just need daily exposure to midday sunshine. Sunshine prescription: 15-20 minutes midday sun on as much exposed naked skin as you can decently manage. In the north our sunshine is only effective from May-September unless you live at high altitude so another option is the Sunsplash from Mercola not only will it help your body produce its own Vitamin D all year you will also walk around with a healthy glow.

Lastly, Mom took a daily multiple vitamin but we know now those really aren’t adequate and with her digestive issues it was mostly a waste of her time and money. What she really needed were a host of minerals and vitamins that would have helped her keep her bones strong. Vitamin K2 is vital, selenium, boron, copper, zinc and B12 (a vitamin many of us have unhealthily low levels of) are all necessary to build and keep bone strong. Recently, I found quite by accident a product developed by Jonathon Wright called ProBone-O by Life Enhancement. It has no fillers or magnesium stearate and is easy to use as you just drop it in the vestibule of your mouth, let it sit 20 seconds and then swallow, even the digestively challenged will absorb the nutrients.

I can’t change things for my mom as she died in March at the age of 91 but maybe my ruminations can help you or someone you love. All of the experts I mention have numerous articles about bone health on their websites and they have all proven to be quite reliable. It really is up to you to bone up on your health.

Dizzying Facts

I just saw “getting dizzy from kefir” as a “search” on Google and thought it might be worth mentioning that when someone has yeast overgrowth or overgrowth of Candida they can feel dizzy from nearly anything containing sugar and kefir has lactose although not as much as a cup of unfermented pasteurized milk.
I had a friend who took a couple of sips of Kombucha and acted and felt quite inebriated. Kombucha and Kefir have a tiny amount of alcohol but around 1% as a product of their fermentation. It’s not enough to ever make you feel dizzy without precipitating factors, factors like Candida overgrowth.
People have been accused of being drunk and even arrested for “DUI” who never had a drop of alcohol but anything containing carbohydrates that they ate or drank was quickly converted to fuel for the yeasts that they had prolifically growing in their bodies and they were left “drunk” by the well fed yeasts according to the book  “The Yeast Syndrome” by John Parks Trowbridge M.D. and Morton Walker, D.P. M..
What to do? Treat the yeast and then control the yeast with a low carb diet like Joe Mercola suggests in his book “Take Control of Your Health”. Candida is a normal component of your gut but it can become a problem. How do you know if it is a problem? Have you ever had a “yeast” infection? You may have yeast overgrowth and you may have had it from birth as it is transferred from mother to her baby. All it takes is a blow to your immune system (like a 10 day round of antibiotics) and the yeasts grow, become a problem and leave you feeling dizzy for your sugar lust.

Tempted by Vaccination

Check this out before you take the advice of anyone to be vaccinated against the H1N1 virus.:

Bugged by Mosquitoes

Read all about it, people are sharing possible mosquito repellent ideas that aren’t repellent to those of us who prefer a natural approach to the chemical one. Some people are finding that 600 mg of Kyolic Odorless Garlic taken each morning will keep the little buggers at bay. Others from mosquito laden countryside like Alaska report that taking Thiamine in a dose of 500-1000 mg every four to six hours works very effectively. Dr. Wright shares these tips and states that this dose of Thiamine is safe but may cause sleepiness in some individuals.

If you are partial to lotions and potions at Mercola.com they sell a bug repellant, Bug Off, that I have found quite effective, it smells good and is good for children and pets as well. Many people say that avoiding sugar will keep them away or that body heat attracts them, so the lower your normal body temperature the less tempting you are. Whatever your particular attraction to the venomous little creatures take heart there are possible treatments that work and if one doesn’t work for you try another. That which doesn’t kill you (and none of these will) might help!

Cycling and PACE

If you enjoy Al Sear’s PACE exercise, cycling in the Stillwater, Minnesota area has to be one of the best ways to do PACE. If you aren’t going down hill you are going uphill and every change in topography is a change of heart rate and exertion.
If you happen to be in the area and want to PACE yourself Stillwater proper has plenty of challenge and fantastic river city scenery. When you want to just cycle with no particular exertion or rest hit the Gateway Regional Trail and enjoy the ride through forest and open prairie or even in to the city of St. Paul and beyond.

Opening Closed Doors

I was thinking this morning that my pendulum has been safely stored away recently but it is a shame to only use it when you are looking for answers to your health, so I have taken it out and will ask for divine intervention regarding more simple questions like “should I plant pepper seeds today?” or “is it to my higher good to quit my job?”(I think I know what my higher self would answer that question with, so that might not be a good question to ask)

A pendulum can be any kind of object that you relate to or like that will move back and forth if placed on a chain or leather strap. I use a lovely piece of amber that not only feels silky smooth but provides just enough weight to respond to my questions. Crystals work very well, some people use silver or metal  but since rods are also used for divining I am guessing you could use anything to open the closed doors to your inner self, so long as it can respond to your question with movement.

It might seem sacriligious, evil or too spooky to try but you are simply tapping in to the inner workings of your mind much like muscle testing does in Kinesiology you are able to dig deeper and get answers you didn’t know were stored away. We only use a small part of our brains and divining just allows you to use another small bit of that gray matter tapping in to a room guarded by a closed door. The room is your higher self and dowsing opens the door very easily.

There is a great site that explains pendulum dowsing with a downloadable pamphlet. Walt Woods gives you charts and exercises and a brief history of dowsing (divining) that will help you tremendously. In brief, you will need a pendulum, a string, chain, or strap and a quiet room where you can concentrate. Walt gives you charts to train your pendulum but when I first started I hung my pendulum in front of me and asked it to show me a “yes” a “no” and a “maybe”. It would change some from day to day, so you always need to ask until you have programmed it with Walt’s charts.

I think it is great for food sensitivities, so let’s say you think you are allergic or sensitive to eggs. You would simply ask first if your pendulum is ready. On the odd day when you get no response put the pendulum down and wait a day to use it again. When you get a “yes” or “ready” response then you can ask the question “Would eating an egg right now be to my higher good?” if you get a “no” response you could then ask “Would eating an egg later in the day be to my higher good?” If you then get a “no” response you could continue with “Are eggs to my higher good?” If you get a “no” that is pretty clearly your signal that eggs are not good for you, at least for now. You could give them up for awhile and try them again in 6 months or ask your pendulum in 6 months if eggs are to your higher good.

Dowsing isn’t for everyone and you always need to be very respectful toward the skill. You never ask question that predict the future. You never ask about someone else unless you have been asked by that person to help them. Always ask the pendulum to tell you if it is to your higher good to tell a friend about dowsing before you just blurt out a story about your new skill. Their reactions can vary from total amazement to thinking you need a trip to the local shrink and you never know who will react one way or the other. You may choose not to share it with anyone but in any case opening the closed doors of your mind has never been more fascinating.

Sail on

I have just returned from three days in Bayfield, Wisconsin and I thought I would share with my readers the delights of the area even if some are not specifically delightful to me (I will explain momentarily).

If you are unfamiliar with Bayfield, WI it sits on a peninsula on the south shore of Lake Superior. It is the great Gitchee Gumee, the  Ojibwe word for big water and a fitting name it is for this vast  body of cold, but absolutely pristine water. This area attracts sailors from around the world because it is surrounded by the Apostle Islands, which stand like sentinels protecting the peninsula. Those islands also create fabulous sailing and/or boating that takes you around mostly uninhabited islands in water so clear you can see the bottom in many areas? As my spousal unit said to me the other day “What could be more boring than just sailing in vast water with nothing to look at or explore?” We weren’t discussing Bayfield we were talking about Chicago and places in and around Lake Michigan as they have nothing very interesting to sail/boat around they just have vast water. Bayfield has interest and a character that can’t be beat.

I, personally, am not a sailor as I do not like my hotel room tipping and dipping my toes in water but I love the romance of sailing, as gliding silkily through crystal clear water without making a sound is very appealing. Unfortunately, I get on the boat and spend most of my time wishing I were at the dock listening to the water lap against the side of the boat and perhaps holding a tall Gin and Tonic in my hand, so no one really wants me on board anymore.

Okay so what does a person do if you don’t sail? Plenty. You can canoe, kayak or just wade in the water at various local beaches that are free and clean. You can take the ferry to Madeline Island and stay at the state park, or bike around, hike around and return on the ferry of your choice.  You can hike the Jolly trail, Brownstone hiking trail,The Big Ravine hiking trail or numerous other trails. There is always Big Top Chautauqua with entertainers who have big names and some who are just entertaining. I think golfing at Apostle Highlands would be fabulous as the views of Lake Superior and the Apostles are truly unique to that area. The shopping is varied and my favorite shop at the moment is Encore where you can buy a gently used jacket for $1 or pick up a pot for that plant you just got for $.50 and all the money goes to help the elderly and home bound people in the area. Depending on the month there is a bountiful selection of fruit such as cherries, strawberries, blueberries and many varieties of apples.

Which sagues nicely to autumn and The Apple Festival. The festival and all it has to offer occurs on the first full weekend of October and starts on Thursday. Artisans come from near and far to sell their wares, all form of apple delights are sold, music is offered by various artists, entertainment for the young at heart is plentiful and you just feel good celebrating the harvest like people used to do and should do again. Oh did I mention the autumn colors? This area offers one of the nicest displays of autumn color thanks to the Sugar Maples, Paper Birch, and Oaks.

If you find yourself in Bayfield and hunger pangs strike a stop at Maggie’s is a must and my personal favorite is their white fish livers. They have a way of fixing white fish livers that no one else can beat in taste and texture and you can get an appetizer portion or make it your whole meal. Ethel’s offer good fare including a pizza with chicken, barbeque sauce and apples which is delightful. Ethel’s also offers arias that will melt your heart (if you are lucky and the girl with the gorgeous voice is working) and generally a waitstaff that will keep you laughing. The Rittenhouse is a classic and definitely worthy of your special occasion. There are also places for a good cup of coffee, a tasty ice-cream cone, or just a sandwich, so whatever you desire will be at your fingertips.

Need I say more, pick up the phone and reserve a room at Apostle View, Seagull Bay Motel, Bayfield Inn, or any number of B& B’s like Pinehurst Inn. There are many other places to stay including a camp ground but I have met the folks who own or run the accomodation listed and I can personally recommend them. Go ahead treat yourself this summer to, as my father used to call Bayfield, God’s Country.

Soak Those Nuts

This isn’t commonly known but if you eat nuts like walnuts, pecan, almonds, hazelnuts, etc. you should give them a good soak in filtered water and salt for 6 hours or even overnight, let them sprout slightly in a colander where they are draining and then gently dry at your ovens lowest setting or preferably dehydrate them in an Excalibur dehydrator.
Soaking them neutralizes the enzyme inhibitors making them far more digestible. With the enzymes increased the B Vitamins will be utilized more completely by your body. If nuts ever bother your digestive tract soaking them will virtually eliminate this issue but keep in mind if you have nut allergies, you will still have an allergic reaction.
Generally to effectively remove the enzyme inhibitors you need to add a good handful of sea salt to a large bowl of filtered cold water. Put the raw nuts in the salty water, soak them overnight, drain them and dehydrate or dry at low heat in your oven until they are crisp and totally dry.
If soaking them seems like too much work even roasting them lightly will remove some of the enzyme inhibitors and help your body benefit from all that nuts have to offer.

“Chew On That”

Recently, I was reading an article about chewing licorice gum for your digestive complaints and was reminded that I wanted to update the information on anti-carious items you can easily incorporate in to your day, one simple way being chewing gum. Anti-carious simply means that a substance has inhibitory properties when used in the oral cavity. In other words it can stop decay (caries) in its tracks. Let me start by giving you some basic background on how decay occurs.

Every time you eat or eat/drink sugar laden foods you decrease the pH of your mouth to a point where the bacteria that cause decay (cavities) thrive. To put it simply the bacteria feed on the sugars and get all sticky and glue themselves to the surface of your tooth called enamel (enamel is the outer layer of every tooth and is 3 mm thick). These bacteria that are now attached to your tooth actually defecate on your tooth surface (yes, that is right they poop on your tooth surface) and their excrement is laden with acids and those acids are detrimental to the enamel. About 15 minutes after you eat or drink the pH of your mouth will return to a more normal basic pH of 7 but if you then have one more sip of soda or eat a piece of candy your pH returns to an acid state and some people keep their mouths constantly acidic by sipping soda all day or sticking one more piece of red licorice in their mouth all day.

Just imagine now that you have this acid factory going on in your mouth, it is rather like an atomic bomb of decay. If you don’t brush thoroughly every 24 hours the layer of sticky acidic plaque gets thicker and more viscous and more difficult to remove with just a toothbrush often resulting in a need for a hygienist’s instruments to remove the now hard layer of calculus (not just a math term, it is Latin for tartar) but in the meantime the bacteria are laboring away in an attempt to eat your tooth away.

By the way, if you were to put that plaque (the sticky substance that is on your teeth and needs to be brushed off) under an electron microscope you will see thousands of microscopic bugs moving around and each one of those bugs produces acidic waste that they spew on your teeth and the acid eats away the enamel. If you leave this acidic plaque on your teeth it will destroy the enamel and eat in to the dentin of your tooth. Once it is in the dentinal portion of the tooth it spreads like wildfire because dentin is soft, much softer and more porous than enamel, and it is easily destroyed.

We fast forward to your six month preventive care appointment at the dentist. She is “picking ” away at your teeth and she says to her dental hygienist “Let’s watch number 21 occlusal” (listen to them they will say things like that). That  simply means that there is some decalcification (white chalky areas) on the enamel chewing or flat surface of a back tooth. It hasn’t etched the enamel enough to drill out the sticky part but it is on its way in to the dentin and they want to keep their eye on this area, so it is recorded in your chart and watched with eagle eyes. These white chalky areas can be remineralized and the decay stopped dead in its tracks with proper care.

Or let’s say you look at your teeth and you see chalky white spots on a flat vertical surface (called facial or buccal) of your front tooth. Those are also areas (”watch” areas) where you have left bacterial plaque and the bugs are working hard at destroying your tooth and you will soon need a “filling” which simply means the dentist will remove the soft decayed bacteria laden portion of your tooth leaving a cavity that needs to be filled with a plastic tooth colored or silver amalgam filling to keep it from decaying again.

Children are notorious for presenting with white chalky areas on almost any tooth surface and while the first time they come in and we find “watch” areas they may not have a cavity or need a filling they are dangerously close. If their oral hygiene cannot be improved the next time they come they will most assuredly be returning to have the dentist remove the decay and leave in its place silver amalgam or a composite of tooth colored plastic. The same is true of an adult, if there are watch areas there are things the person can do to halt the decay but it requires better oral hygiene and other useful adjuncts.

That segues nicely to what you can “chew on” to halt the progress of all those nasty bugs hanging in your mouth. I have in a previous blog entry discussed Xylitol a natural sweetener traditionally made from birch bark (although now made from corn in China by many manufacturers). One of its many beneficial properties is that it disables the bacteria that cause decay, it destroys them and thus their ability to cause decay is foiled. Xylitol can be found in mouthwash, mints and gum. Global Sweets is a good online source of birch tree sourced Xylitol which is unquestionably the best Xylitol and the superior Xylitol products. However, if you aren’t an online shopper there are several products you can pick up at your local Target, Walgreens, CVS store and in today’s world where simpler is always viewed as better what could be easier?

When you shop for Xylitol containing products the one thing you need to look for is that Xylitol is the first ingredient listed not sorbitol, mannitol etc. The ability to deter decay is directly proportional to the amount of Xylitol added to a product, so if it is listed as the third or fourth ingredient as it is in Trident sugar free gum it is doing you very little good. Look for Xylitol to be the first ingredient as it is in Ice Breakers Ice Cube (IBIC) gum. IBIC gum is available in several flavors, so every palate can be sated. I don’t really want to encourage gum chewing but if you have an insatiable need for sugary soda or one more piece of red licorice chewing a piece of Xylitol sweetened gum for 5 minutes afterwards will neutralize acid and halt the production of those hard working cavity bugs. If you are at work and cannot brush after eating lunch chewing a piece of Xylitol sweetened gum for a few minutes will not only make your mouth feel fresher it will help prevent decay.

Altoid peppermint and cinnamon gum also list Xylitol as the first ingredient and it comes in these cute useful little tins that once empty can hold your daily supplements or jewelry if you are traveling. However, if you look at the list of obnoxious ingredients those gums contain it would be better to risk decay than chew on the chemicals. Spry gum and mints are a tasty option but again they are difficult to find as are XyliChew products. One might be better off using Biotene mouthwash or gum which is found in the dental section of your convenience store and does contain Xylitol not to mention enzymes known to inhibit decay and periodontitis. It is primarily recommended for people with xerostomia (dry mouth) but its gentle flavor and Xylitol content make it okay for everyone to use.

As a dental hygienist I think everyone could benefit from putting some Xylitol in their mouth once in a 24 hour period perhaps the best time would be right before you go to bed.  When you sleep your salivary flow slows and no longer has the decay preventive action it does during the day. If you brush your teeth and then coat your tooth surfaces with Xylitol before you go to bed you are adding a coat of armor that the cavity bugs will have trouble penetrating and hopefully keep you out of the dentist’s chair now and forever. Chew on that.

T-Tapp Update

Just a quick update on my T-Tapp exercise program. About five weeks ago I injured my back and the unusual result of that back injury was profound dizziness. I was needless to say, scared to do Total Workout Slow again, so I took some time off exercise until I was healed and the dizziness went away.
I did have a chiropractic adjustment about three weeks ago and with the subluxation corrected my dizziness went away and the injury healed totally.
I then slowly got back in to the T-Tapp program and I am trying very hard not to overdo as that is my temptation i.e. if they say hold your upper body rigid I hold it so hard I ache. I am doing the Lady Bug Workout, the Total Workout tweaked to help menopausal women with their trouble spots.
Yesterday, I went to the chiropractor for a followup and I was in great shape, no subluxation. My conclusion is my injury was not caused by the T-Tapp Total Workout but by a damaged scapula (wing scapula) from years ago. My intuition tells me that the pain I had may have been stimulation of the damaged nerve that supports the muscle that normally keeps your scapula in place but mine doesn’t. I think the entire issue may have made the area stronger in the long run. In the short term, it caused a pulling of muscles in my back that subluxated my neck and that may have contributed to the dizziness according to John Hilpisch.
That is the latest on T-Tapp. I still love it and so many things are better since I started that I can wholeheartedly endorse her exercise program. Listen to Teresa when she says “only go to your max” there is really nothing to be proved by hurting yourself and being forced to give up your favorite exercise program.