onikenbai

Actual physiological differences have been documented in people with fibro. If you do a brain scan and apply a small amount of pressure to the fibro body, the pain centres light up like a christmas tree on the scan, much more than a good dose of pain should do to a regular body. So it does exist as a brain amplification of a seemingly small signal. They just can't figure out why. Whether it is caused by an illness, a chemical in our food or an environmental factor, that is still to be determined. I personally got sick years before the great shift to artificial sweeteners so I wouldn't blame them entirely. Plus my great grandmother had a confirmed diagnosis (under the old name polymyalgia rhumatica) more than 50 years ago, which would go against the "chemicals of modern day are evil" theory. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation, but I don't think it's going to be a simple one.

If you have been working out that much, you may be putting on muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat so it would make sense your scale isn't changing. Pay attention to how your clothes fit as that may be a better indicator of progress.

I was going to go out and have a last meal with my brother, but then he cancelled. My last meal consisted of a few slices of bread because that's all there was in the house. How disappointing.

I'm convinced there's heroin in those biscuits. Nothing else could be that addictive.

So I wrote before about my problems with the Protein shakes and that they are mostly based on soy or milk, both of which I am allergic to, but now I have a new wrench thrown into the works. I did find myself some vegan protein powders without soy or milk and I gave it a whirl. Things were not good. Pain, nausea and many trips to the bathroom. Maybe I should have delved into this a little deeper before now, but I thought I would be fine with the no soy no milk thing, but I called up my mother today to inquire about my diet as a baby because I had serious eating troubles then too. So now she tells me that it was discovered that I was missing a digestive enzyme in my body completely, and I puked my guts out as a baby because I couldn't physically digest the protein in my food! I've explained the whole "high protein, low carb" diet to her many times and NOW she decides to say something! Woman, you've had 34 years to tell me about my biological inability to digest protein and you didn't think to mention this while I was speaking for weeks about a high protein diet?! :seeya: Until now I've always kind of steered myself away from the protein-rich foods and now I know why. I don't know which of the enzymes I'm missing and neither does my mother. Is there a broad spectrum digestive enzyme product that I could take or am I going to have to go to the doctor and be tested to find out exactly what enzyme I need?

I have a high risk of serious injury at work so good to know. I'll be updating my medic alert file anyway after surgery.

If you really want to have lapband on your tag, the Medic Alert team will help you with the wording. It's part of the service. You speak to them on the phone and give an explanation of what you want your tag to say and then they will compose the message with the appropriate medical terminology on it.

If you have a proper Medic Alert (because I know in the US there is more than one company), you can put instructions to call the data centre before administering invasive procedures. That way you can update your health data more often without having to buy new bracelets. Plus you can put a whole lot more detail in the file as to who to call and what can and cannot be done. I've had many bracelets over the years now and they get expensive it you have to keep replacing. It's free to update your online data as many times as you want. I personally won't be putting LapBand on my bracelet because I have too many nosy people who attack me to try to figure out what's wrong with me. I don't really feel that the whole world needs to know. NG tubes are most often put in for feeding purposes. In the case of dire emergency, the last thing they are going to do is feed you. By the time they get around to feeding you, it is likely that somebody will have arrived at the hospital to claim you and to provide information.

I was on trazadone for a bit and it did nothing for me. Part of the whole fibro problem is that every single person is a freakish entity... what works for one person is useless for another. At least if we had cancer there would be a general consensus of what drug to take. Fibro is a free for all and that's what makes it so hard to treat. Some days, I swear, my drugs are actually tic tacs painted a god awful orange colour for all the good they do.

So far all the Canadian places which say they carry Isopure don't list it in their product listings on their websites. Ugh. I'm probably going to have to go to each one to find out they don't really carry it. Been there, done that before. Edit: Shopper's actually carries Isopure Plus. It's $15.49+tx for a 6 pack of 237mL bottles. OUCH!

Isopure is, unfortunately, whey based. That brings me right back to my original problem of a milk allergy. Plus, it's damn near impossible to get in Canada. We have different laws surrounding food and drugs than the US and it causes a lot of things that are available in the US not to be available here... although I'm thinking I didn't miss much by missing out on the olestra debacle. Does the US still use that stuff or was the anal leakage just a little too much for the average citizen? My doctor knows about my allergies and we were hoping that the Vega shakes would get around those.

Yeah, the one I tried is a pea and hemp protein.

I don't officially start my pre-op diet until next week, but I thought I'd test fly the shakes before I have to depend on them entirely just in case things didn't work out. Being allergic to soy and milk, I've managed to scrounge around and find shakes that have neither so yay me. I was expecting to spend three weeks puking my guts out because of allergies. So I tried Vega's chocolate shake last night. Other than the fact it tastes nothing like chocolate, which I can deal with, all it took was a few mouthfuls before I knew something wasn't good. The shake didn't sit well with my tummy at all, and if I have to take these for three weeks and it continues like this, I'm going to have the cleanest digestive system in the history of medicine :thumbdown:. I do field work so I spend hours at a time far away from bathroom facilities. This could be a problem! Did anybody else have this same problem? Were you able to get your body used to the shake if you introduced it gradually, or was is pretty much a no-go no matter what you did? I'm already on a no dairy, no soy, gluten-free, no artificial sweetner shake, so there isn't much chance of getting a more inert product.

I'm starting my pre-op diet next week and I'm doing all my pre- and post-op shopping now so that I'm not tempted while in the grocery store. In looking for foods I'll be able to eat, I'm noticing that there's a LOT of sodium in all of them, even the low sodium versions. Other than the Protein shakes and Jello, can any of you recommend post-op foods that are lower in sodium? I don't fancy blowing up like a balloon from the Water weight, not to mention that it's really not healthy. A can of Campbell's Soup has half the daily recommended intake, and if that's all I'm going to be eating for a while, I'm going to blow my sodium limit awfully fast!

I was also completely underwhelmed by the pre-surgery meetings. I learned more in 20 minutes online than I did in four appointments.

Chopsticks are also a good option, especially if you don't use them often. They force you into eating only small pieces and they tend to slow you down. Plus, they're very trendy and you can look way cool.

Speak to your pharmacist about it. Brand name and equivalent generics are not always identical. The pharmacist may be able to accommodate your needs by giving you a smaller version. Also, sometimes the 50mg pill is smaller than the 100mg pill and you can ask your pharmacist to give you double the number of 50s and you take two at a time.

100% cranberry juice is also excellent for the prevention of kidney stones. If you do get small stones, the doctor will often blast them with sonically and send you home with instructions of drinking cranberry juice to get them out of the system. Be warned though.... pure cranberry juice can be mouth puckering :tt1:

Tie him in a bag and beat him with a bat.... then let him out and tell him to clean the house. :tt1:

You get a better stretch if you bend over with relatively straight legs for a minute and then bend your knees a bit while still bent over to get maximum extension. Be prepared for crunching sounds (or at least my back does). I don't know if it gets worse because of stress, although stress certainly doesn't help it any. I like to quote Indiana Jones "It ain't the age, it's the mileage".

You've had a sore throat and fever for a few weeks and haven't gone to the doctor yet?! Get thee to a physician!

Until you bring up your weight loss in conversation, it is proper etiquette for another person not to comment on it. They are only being polite. You have to keep in mind that you know why you are losing weight; they don't. Imagine the following conversation: A: Wow, you sure have lost a lot of weight! B: Yes, chemotherapy tends to do that to you. (cue crickets) How uncomfortable would that be? If you want more feedback from others, you may need to drop the "D" word (DIET... not that other one!) in conversation to give them a hint of why you are looking so different.

What does the agave taste like? I've seen it in the stores and have been meaning to buy some, but they sell light and amber and I don't know which to buy. Does it have a honeyish flavour? Or is it more molasses-like? Or something completely different?

I've had fibro for a whopping 23 years... since I was 11. It is a vicious circle... the more inactive you are, the worse it gets. This does not mean you should go out and do the ironman, but you should try to do something each day, even if it's go grocery shopping. There will be those days though, when you get out of bed and promptly fall to the floor and have to crawl around the house. Try not to get too frustrated because stress only makes it worse. And for the love of all that is holy, do NOT buckle to the pressure to troop through something even though you are exhausted, in pain and know that you're going to pay for it for the next two days. Gentle stretching really does help keep you moving. I recommend yoga, but keep in mind that the average yoga video may be hard to keep up with as I find the poses move too quickly. Pre-natal yoga videos are about the right speed for me (aka yoga for hippos). The doctors all say that fibro is not progressive, but they aren't the ones who have it. Yes, it's technically not progressive as in it's not going to get worse and worse until you die from it, but you may find over time that new symptoms show up. My IBS didn't manifest itself until I was in my 20s, nor did some of my sensitivities. Just when you think you have things under control, something new pops up. I sometimes think that I got the better deal by getting sick while I was still young. I hear stories of all these people that were humming along merrily with their lives and BANG! they hit the fibro wall and it completely screwed up their lives. I've at least had the chance to build my life around this. I was pretty angry during my teen years that I lost my spot on the soccer team to fibro, and that my violin playing years came to an end much earlier than expected when I kept dropping the bow, but how much more screwed would I be if I had gone to university for music like I'd planned and then lost my ability to play? I had the chance to make education and career decisions around the dumb disease. This book is probably the best of the lot out there: Fibromyalgia & Chronic Myofascial Pain: A Survival Manual, 2nd Edition: Amazon.ca: D. Starlanyl, M. E. Copeland: books You may also want to check out the chat room at Fibrohugs. There's enough people on there to tell you something about anything related to fibro.

I'm friends with my vertigo... keeps me off the ladders at work! I was none too thrilled at the thought of climbing an 18ft ladder to sample ceiling asbestos with chronic vertigo, but luckily my health & safety person agreed that I should probably keep my feet firmly planted on the ground. So which way do you turn? I always feel like I'm spinning to the right. I always wondered if everybody was the same or if some people went right, some left and some all over the place?