Meal Planning for a Better Diet

I was feeling a bit run down earlier today, with a bit of pain in my right knee, a bit around my left elbow, and a bit of soreness/pain in the muscles near my groin. There are too many stairs in the Paris metro system and not enough escalators or elevators, and I think that having to deal with all those stairs is part of what caused me to be feeling run down. I think that I also haven't been getting enough Thiocyanate in my diet, which is absolutely unacceptable!  A bit earlier I had the idea to start planning my meals, that way they are thought out sooner rather than later, and even if I don't follow them to a "T" (which I didn't tonight as I didn't have enough room in my tummy for beets as well as the spinach with lentils and plantain I'd prepared), I'll still have a general idea of what to follow. It would also allow me to be a bit more creative with my meals. Who wants to eat boring food? Most certainly not me! That's part of why I came off my diet in July, because I was getting bored with the dishes I'd been preparing. But there are plenty of different ways to cook the same foods and come out with different, more interesting dishes!

Serrapeptase Effects?

I haven’t noticed any changes since I've started taking the Serrapeptase, but it's only been about 3 days, so I suppose I should patient. The thing with remedies is that I want them to act right away so that I can start feeling great with no delay, but that's just a false American mindset perpetrated by the media. These things do take time to go into effect, and I need to be patient with the way they work. The body runs in cycles, and my body must be getting used to the Serrapeptase as it quietly does its work. The good thing is that I don't feel any ill effects, so that's already a positive sign. I think that later today or tomorrow I will buy some bananas and start eating them regularly again, and hopefully there will be no nausea when I eat them. Bananas are packed with great nutrients for the body, and can help someone feel more relaxed if they're feeling stressed, increase Serotonin in the brain, and a banana or two a day can also help lower blood pressure! But don't take my word for it, Google it to find out the many wonders bananas contain!

Not Feeling Top-Notch Today

My body's feeling kind of tired and a bit weak today. It also feels a bit hurty today. I wonder if it's because I haven't been resting enough lately. I didn't set an alarm for this morning and let myself sleep for as long as my body needed. Lately I've been eating more spinach, but I haven't been eating as many lentils or even chickpeas, though I've been keeping up with a plantain a day. I stopped eating bananas because I was getting nauseous again after eating them (I have minor ulcers from taking NSAIDs - Aspirin and Ibuprofen - for pain management and I sometimes get a minor urge to throw up after eating, especially when it comes to bananas.) Maybe if I eat them on an empty stomach or right after eating eggs I will be okay and not feel nauseous. I have to make sure to keep up with everything, the Thiocyanate filled foods, the Liquid Chlorophyll, and the Serrapeptase to ensure that my body can function at its best.

Liquid Chlorophyll Update

The mysterious pains I talked about before only lasted a few days. I wonder if that happened because Hemoglobin is produced in the bones and my body was adjusting to having the chlorophyll added to it. Apparently chlorophyll acts as a form of hemoglobin in the body, and that gives my body the extra boost that it needs. I have been taking it regularly since I received it, and I don't feel that it has been affecting me negatively at all (asides from what I had noted before). I'm going to keep taking it daily as I have been.

My Decision to Go Public

For a week or two I have been thinking about making my journal public. What influenced me most was the blog Sickle Cell - Natural Healings, which is where I learned about Liquid Chlorophyll and Serrapeptase. That blog is a mother's experience raising a young son (about 4 or 5) who has Sickle Cell. I commented on her blog and she took the time to reply to me and explain what she has been using for her son. (Her regimen included Beet Juice, so I added beets to my diet, though juicing will release more nutrients if you can do that.) I appreciated the fact that she had taken the time to help me out. A few weeks before,  a Facebook friend had posted an article about how bone grafts of people with half matches were being done to cure Sickle Cell, and it worked in about 50% of the cases. I commented on his post with a link to the blog I posted above, and other links to the websites I had discovered over the summer that led me on my journey to health. He eventually put me in touch with someone who also has SC so that I could tell her what I've done.

This summer was incredibly difficult for me, and I seriously contemplated suicide because my relationship with pain was incredibly unbalanced. Pain with SC is not always normal or manageable by even the heaviest painkillers, as described in the first paragraphs of the article here. My greatest motivations to finding alternatives to my former lifestyle (which included drinking plenty of water, very little juice, and making sure I ate my veggies) was my upcoming 8 month stay away from home. I really wanted to be healthy and well, and lead a normal lifestyle. I was also incredibly tired of the pain. Anyone who suffers from chronic pain can tell you how exhausting it is to deal with, and I felt I was missing out on so much that I could be doing, if only I were well, if only my body to cooperate.

My research led me to a wealth of websites that I have listed in previous posts, which talked about Thiocyanate, among other things, and so I made a decision to change my diet from the moment that I knew what foods could help me. Making the decision to change was easy. What wasn't easy was sticking to my diet. My parents didn't understand why I wasn't eating their food all the time, and I didn't want to explain to people who didn't understand my disease (My father had it pretty bad when he was younger, but no longer has crises, to my knowledge. At one point my parents blamed one of my crises on the fact that I didn't go to church.). I was also getting tired of my diet, of eating the same foods, and so, I stopped. The changes didn't occur right away, but I had two more very bad crises (which again made me suicidal) in October and November. After the last one, I once more made the decision to change, and I have stuck with it. I want to live and I want to be as healthy as possible.

I have a dream of helping other people who have this disease. I want to share my experiences, what has worked for me and what hasn't. I want to help other people live better lives. Right now, I am tired, because I've been feeling so good that I've kind of forgotten that I need to rest as well. My disease hasn't been cured, but it sure does feel like it at times. I feel amazing when I don't have to think about it all the time, when it's not the ruling factor in my life. I won't let this thing rule me, and I don't want it to rule anyone else either. If my blog, my experiences, this information, can help at least one person, I'll be happy. If I can personally help anyone by commenting or emailing or just being there to lend an ear, I would be happy to do so.

A lot of people don't know about my experiences because in general I have a cheery outlook and love to cheer others up. But of my own pain, both physical and emotional, I have not much spoken. Now, I've decided that I've been quiet long enough. In the past, I used to be ashamed of my disease, I used to blame myself. I felt as though I were somehow at fault for all of my experiences. I know that now to be a lie, and I don't want anyone else to blame themselves either. No one controls their genetics. No one controls what life hands them. But what we can do is decide what we'll do with what we're given. This is what I've decided to do, and I hope I can help and inspire other people.

3 January

This is my second day on Serrapeptase. From reviews on Amazon, people have said that it has taken them up to 2 weeks to see results from it, and have gotten some weird side effects such as skin rashes. That doesn’t matter to me because I’m down for anything being as how this is a natural pain-killer and also is anti-inflammatory. I think I will turn this into an actual blog today.

Starting Serrapeptase

2 January 2013

Just got my Serrapeptase and took my first capsule. It’s 120,000 iu. I figured I might as well go for the stronger one because from reviews, some people say that they take 2-3 of the 40,000 iu ones daily, and multiply that and you get mine. I’ve been feeling good lately, but that also makes me a bit scared because this disease is entirely unpredictable. Last week I was having the pains around my joints and this week a tiny bit in my bones, but it’s gotten a lot better and much, much less frequent. I suppose that’s a good sign. Today I am going shopping for plantains to round out my diet and make it more full of the bigger Thiocyanate containing foods. I also haven’t had plantains in a few days though I’ve been eating lentils. I am thinking of turning this into a blog, that way other people who have SC can see my progression and my also draw information and perhaps inspiration from it. Hmm.