Turning Points, Part I: ADD Meds

Wow.  Ok.  Where do I start?

Since I wrote my last post, when I was only 1733 words into NaNo and being distracted by music, there have been some huge, major turning points in my life, including but not limited to:

1. Getting started on ADD meds
2. My second NaNoWriMo win
3. Decluttering and repairs at home
4. . . . And my visit with my Someone Special

I think I may need to do this in multiple posts.  I’ll start with number 1.

Well,  after being terrified to try ADD medication for such a long time, for varying reasons (some of them based in logic and some not), I decided in September to make an appointment with my GP’s Nurse Practitioner to talk about it.  The appointment was in October and it didn’t go so well.  For a little while, I allowed that to be my excuse to drop the whole idea and not pursue it any further.  The thing is, though, the focus issues have been a big problem at work, and after making a lot of progress through therapy, and adopting new habits and new ways of doing things and keeping track of what I need to do and when, and paying attention to the need for proper sleep, and taking vitamins and supplements that are helpful, I still had a big problem.   A smaller problem than I had before, but still a big problem.  I talked at length with someone who has been surrounded by people with ADD all her life and has followed several of them through the medication experience, and I learned a lot about how some of the medications work and what I might be able to expect.  I spoke about it further with my therapist as well, and finally, I asked her to recommend a psychiatrist.  She did, one local and two about an hour away.  I made an appointment with the local doc and I saw him November 19th.  He started me on a very low dose of Ritalin, which didn’t do much but I was able to clearly tell when it wore off.  He let me increase it after about a week when I called him, and then I saw some results.  One more increase about a week and a half after that, and I’m seeing much better results.  The current dosage I’m on right now seems to be pretty good on normal days, but during my PMDD times and the three or four days following a glutening, it’s not as effective.  That’s something we’ll probably work on adjusting for, but for now, I’ve been going through a real learning transformation.

I’ve been learning all kinds of things, like:

• The fatigue and always-sleepy state I’ve been in since I was a teenager may just have more to do with ADD than with the other stuff I deal with.  I was amazed, that first day, when I climbed the stairs to my apartment and my legs didn’t ache.  That fatigue is physically painful, and any exertion often causes muscle pain that feels like I’ve been doing hard exercise.  When I’ve taken the medication, I still get winded when I exert, because of course I’m overweight and out of shape, but it doesn’t hurt.  It’s amazing.  Really amazing.
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  The always-sleepy state was something I had a lot of trouble explaining so that others could really understand it.  I think most people were under the impression that I gave into my desire to sleep much too easily and that I could have stopped if I’d wanted to.  (I’ve got the Inattentive type of ADD, not the Hyperactive type, so physical energy of any sort has always felt elusive to me.)  For years, literally years, I would come home from work exhausted to the point that sometimes I would sway on my feet as if I were drunk.  I would eat dinner, or sometimes not even eat until later, and go lay down for a “nap”, which usually meant I could not wake up for three to four hours.  (As my therapist said to me once, “That’s not a nap, that’s sleep”.)  It felt like I’d overdosed on sleeping pills and there was no alternative but to sleep.  But guess what.  Since I’ve been taking ADD meds, I no longer have that need to nap.  I am able to stay up until a normal bedtime and get a normal night’s sleep.  When I used to “nap”, I would be up until the wee hours because it took several hours before I was able to go back to bed.  I often did not get four hours and then another four hours, which would have totaled an 8-hour night, but even if I had, split sleep is still not as beneficial as a solid night’s sleep.  I often feel as if I’ve stepped into someone else’s life, lately.  Someone normal.  The absence of those symptoms I struggled with for, well, pretty much my whole life, is . . . I just can’t think of appropriate descriptive words other than “amazing” and “incredible”. Please excuse my over-use of those words.
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• The weird “feeling cold” thing I’ve been doing for about five years is better with the medication.  I’ve thought it was extremely unusual that I sit at work with a sweater when my coworkers, AC guys who work out in the summer heat on roofs and in stifling attics, don’t feel chilly when walking into the air conditioned office at the temperature I keep it set at.  Usually, the overweight person in a room is warmer than everyone else, but I sit with my sweater pulled around me.  Apparently, it’s a metabolism thing, and the medication corrects it.  I can tell when it wears off, too, without even checking a clock, because besides finding it more difficult to concentrate or follow a conversation, I become cold, sleepy, and hungry.  And sometimes cranky, which leads us to the next point.
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• My anxiety levels are dramatically better on the meds.  I handle frustration so much better, and my temper, which has always been a part of who I am whether I like that fact or not, is so much easier to keep in check.  Another thing that surprised me is that the palpitations I’ve been having, which I finally came to the conclusion must be anxiety-related after going through all the medical tests last year and having everything come back good, are almost gone once the meds kick in.  They still happen sometimes, but they’re less severe, and they come back when the medication wears off, which is another way I know it’s worn off, just in case the shivering, yawning, starving, and crankiness don’t tip me off.
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• Appetite suppressant.  Need I say more?
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• I once read a blog post by someone with ADD and she wrote about having taken her first dose of medication.  She remarked about how it became *quiet* in her head.  I remember sighing and thinking wistfully, “I want that.”  And guess what.  I can have it, now.  Instead of having a hundred or more thoughts rambling through my head at any given time, making it difficult or impossible to focus on or remember the ones I really need to be paying attention to at the moment, it’s quiet.  It’s orderly, inside my head.  I can think of other things and make either mental or paper notes (or make a note in the Palm) about them and stay on task with whatever it is that is the priority.  That is completely new to me.
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• I can read again!  That was one of the things I was most sad to see declining over the last several years.  I used to love to read for pleasure.  I always had difficulty reading for knowledge, going way back to my grammar school days.  I depended on classroom discussios of what we’d read for homework the night before, in order to process and understand, and to learn.  But I had been a big pleasure-reader.  As time progressed, I found myself taking forever to finish reading a simple novel, and I had to go back constantly and re-read sections in order to remember who the characters were and what had happened.  I’ve been pretty busy these last two months, so I didn’t try to read until last week, but I picked up a James Patterson novel (which I had tried to start a couple times before) and got sucked right into it.
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• And finally . . . most days, when the PMDD symptoms aren’t raging and I haven’t been glutened and I’ve slept enough the night before, I can get SO much done at work.  Absolutely incredible.  I feel almost like a different person.  I told the psychiatrist what an amazing learning experience this has been for me, to experience firsthand the concept of being able to decide to do something and then really do it.  (I became a little emotional and my eyes got misty, and he was visibly uncomfortable, so I made a mental note to remember not to do the “feelings” thing in front of him again.)  This is something many people probably take for granted, though, I’m sure.  After years of thinking of what I’d like to do, but being all too aware that I probably wouldn’t be able to, or wouldn’t do it right, or would start and never finish, and ending up feeling like “Why bother anyway”, I – ME – am able to set a goal and reach it.  Granted, my goals have been small so far in comparison to those of many other people, but I’ve been reaching them.  And oh, my God.  What a feeling.

More to follow in Part II . . .

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Feeling Crappy, Screwups, and Decisions

1.  Feeling Crappy

Turns out, I didn’t have a hangover the other day.  It was the beginning of my PMDD/Migraine/Depression/Misery Days.  At least they don’t drag on for as long as they used to.  There’s that.  It was particularly rough this time, though, and the inner critic really capitalized on the opportunity to run rampant.  I remind myself that it has been far worse in the past, but it’s still so hard to get through when it’s happening in the moment.  Things are getting back to normal now, since some time Thursday.  Phew.

I have noticed that during Hormone Hell Week (hereafter to be affectionately known as HHW), I am far more likely to misunderstand things people say, or to misread their energy.  It occurred to me the other day that a situation with my therapist that happened back in August, where I completely misread and misunderstood her and more or less mentally “checked out” from the whole process for a little while, probably happened during HHW.  I looked back on my calendar this morning, and sure enough, it was smack-dab at the beginning of HHW for that month.  Going back through emails to my therapist in the few days around that time, I can really see how I was melting down.

So, I have added a recurring reminder to myself in my calendar, to appear every fourth Monday: “HHW – Don’t let it get to you.”

*  *  *

2. Screwups

So, I went to the doctor’s office Wednesday (my GP’s office), intending to talk to the nurse practitioner about trying some ADD medication.  I’d already spoken with my therapist about it, signed a release, and she’d faxed the information to the doctor’s office last week.

When the nurse (or medical assistant?  I’m not sure) called me back (almost a half hour after my appointment time, although it’s common for that office to be running behind), I noticed she was new and I took an immediate (and at first, unexplained) dislike to her.  I smiled anyway and tried not to let it show, aware that I’ve been tense and hormonal for days.

I got on the scale, and while I was standing there waiting for her to move the little slidey-things and find out my weight, she was reading a note on my record.

I see you called in recently asking for a prescription for Yaz.”

“Yes, that was taken care of.”

“The doctor isn’t going to prescribe Yaz for you.”

“He already did.  It’s taken care of.”

(This was almost four weeks ago, when my prescription had run out and I’d had to cancel my annual gynecologist appointments a few times because of other issues, and the gynecologist wouldn’t call in another refill because she hadn’t seen me.  I asked my GP to call it in once, which he did, and then I saw the gynecologist last week.)

“He won’t do it again.”

“It’s ok.  I don’t need him to.”

“Yaz is dangerous.  There are problems with it.”

“L (who has worked there for years and years) called me last week and we talked about it.  I’m aware of the issues.”

“The doctor won’t prescribe that for you.”

“I don’t need him to!”

Why wouldn’t she mind her own business?

Then we went into the exam room and did the whole checking-blood-pressure and going-over-my-records thing.

“Is this a follow-up?”

“It was supposed to be, but I didn’t do my blood work yet.  I kept the appointment because I want to talk to her about ADD medications.  My therapist faxed over the information on Friday.”

Nurse-Or-Medical-Assistant rolled her eyes and said, sardonically, “She probably didn’t do it.”

“She did.”

Don’t'choo be talking bad about my therapist.  My hackles were up.

She searched my record on the laptop.

“Who was supposed to fax it?”

“My therapist.”

I told her my therapist’s name, and spelled it.  Twice.

“The cardiologist?”

“No.”

Seriously?  Did she really ask me that?

“Who was supposed to send it?”

“My therapist.”

I spelled her name again.

“And what was she supposed to send?”

“An ADD assessment and the release I signed.”

There’s nothing here.  She didn’t send it.”

“She sent it.  But if you don’t have it, there really is no need for me to stay today, since I didn’t have the blood work done yet.”

“Well, let me go check.”

She left the room.  I waited, and steamed, and finally decided she had five more minutes and I was going to leave, when she came back in (now more than an hour after my scheduled appointment time) and told me that they had received the fax but didn’t know where it was.

I stood up to leave.

“Wait.  Don’t you want to talk to her anyway?”

“About what?  Without that fax, there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Why don’t you just talk to her anyway?”

She’s not going to prescribe me amphetamines based on my saying I want them!

I left.

Oh well.  I had some reservations, anyway, about ADD medications, because I’ve already had problems with medications that affect neurotransmitter levels, and because of some other possibly illogical “terrors” that have arisen around the whole topic (“What if I don’t really have ADD?  What if I’m just lazy?”, or “What if the things that appear to be ADD symptoms are really just the cognitive symptoms of Fibromyalgia / Chronic Fatigue?”, and, “What if the meds make me feel crazy or out of control?”)  So it wasn’t terribly difficult for me to just walk way and drop the whole idea of meds anyway.

I do feel a little sad, though.  I had begun to imagine less noise in my head.  Being able to grasp and focus on what is important and needs my attention at the moment, rather than ruminating about things that just aren’t important right then and don’t necessarily even serve a useful purpose at all.  I’d begun imagining what it might be like to be able to stay on task more easily at work.  My job isn’t ideal for someone with ADD.  There are a lot of interruptions, often layering over one other, and while I multi task pretty well during the higher-intensity moments of being interrupted by more than one person who thinks their problem or issue is the most important thing in the world at the time, it’s the getting-back-to-whatever-I-was-doing-before that is so hard.  And with each new interruption, the getting-back is harder and harder, until I finally just sit and stare.  I had anticipated that becoming easier.

And reading.  I so miss reading for pleasure, and being able to follow the plot of a novel without re-reading the same sentence or paragraph multiple times, and being able to remember which character is which, so that the next time they appear in a scene, I remember how they fit into the story.  I miss that.

I’m leaning toward asking my therapist if she can recommend a psychiatrist.  If there is one she recommends who is also on my insurance plan, I might make an appointment to talk about the meds.  After doing some further research to find out if maybe, by altering the amino acids I take to keep my neurotransmitter levels where they should be, and by not taking ADD meds every single day, I could avoid the sort of neurotransmitter damage I experienced before.  I think the ideal scenario would be to find a psychiatrist who incorporates a bit more of a holistic approach into their work, and perhaps would be willing to order tests to monitor my NT levels once or twice a year.  Other than my PMDD times, I seem to be in a really good place right now, so I would think that whatever my levels are during my non-PMDD weeks would be a good base line to go by.

Just thinking.

*  *  *

3. Decisions

PMDD time is a bad time for me to make decisions, and ironically it’s also a time when I keep ruminating about decisions I shouldn’t be making at the time, but can’t seem to let go of.

One of those is whether or not to do NaNoWriMo this year.

On the one hand, I participated for the past five years.  This will be number six, if I do it.  It’s become such a big part of my fall.  I’ve loved writing for most of my life and it’s fun to prepare for NaNo, making notes and brainstorming with Sister to come up with the framework of a story.  It’s fun to plan what kinds of snacks I’ll have available while I write, and it’s fun to go to write-ins and enjoy the social aspects of the whole thing.

On the other hand, I have a lot of other things going on this year.  My older nephew is getting married in November (my younger nephew just got married in September).  I’ve been working on my clutter problem and preparing for a very special visit in December.  This last week or so, I’ve been pulled away from decluttering because I’ve been working on getting my taxes filed, since the extension I filed for back in April will expire on the 15th, and then I spent a few days in “dialed-down” mode because I didn’t feel capable of much other than dragging myself into work and home again.  In order to completely immerse myself in NaNo, I’d like to have the decluttering done by the end of October, and I’m just not sure I can do that.

I also have this other pressure-feeling this year, that since I finally won last year, I have to win again this year.

I did decide that if I do NaNo this year, though, I’d rather not continue on to the third novel in the series I’ve been working on, simply because without having finished either of the first two, it becomes more and more difficult to keep starting the next ones.  I’d really like to finish one or both of the first two before moving along to the third, even though I have notes and a basic outline and time line for the entire series.

I decided I’d like to do something completely different this time, if I decide to do it.  I thought about it, came up with a couple very loose starter-thoughts, brainstormed with Sister (who, on hearing my first loose starter-thought, said, “And then what?”, and I said, “That’s all I have so far.”), then brainstormed some more with SS, then with Sister again, and then even more by myself, and . . . I think I’ve got it.  It’s an exciting concept, to be done in a somewhat unusual way.  It’s getting more and more exciting, the more I work on my notes and the more thinking I do about the plots and each character’s individual story.

And that, I believe, means I’ve made a decision.

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Rambling Thoughts About Climbing Back On The IF Wagon

I’m working back toward the anti-inflammation diet again.  I’d gotten away from it, after the two or three weeks or so in June and July that I did really well (I don’t actually remember when I let it go by the wayside; I just stopped writing about it at some point, just as I did in January when I was trying to lose weight).  Money was an issue the week I gave up, and I couldn’t afford the right foods to continue properly.  By that time, though, I’d already begun the process of letting go of it gradually, first eating some of the inflammatory foods I’d been craving, justifying it to myself by thinking the anti-inflammatory foods I was still eating would make up for it.  I knew about that tendency in myself, to justify, yet the Inner Enabler (I don’t know if that’s an actual psychological term or not, but it seems to fit) can effectively wipe that knowledge from accessible memory and make it seem like it makes sense in the moment.

“I’ll just have one.”

“I’ll just have a few.”

“Well, half the package is already gone.  I’ll just finish it so I won’t have any more left to tempt me and I’ll start again tomorrow.”

“It could be worse.  I could have eaten (fill in the blank with something worse).”

My sister and I once developed an entire diet plan called the It Could Be Worse Diet.  It works like this: Whatever you want to eat, just think of something worse that you could be eating but aren’t.  (“I want a big bowl of ice cream, but I won’t eat the whole container!”, “I want a second donut, but it could be worse; I could eat the whole dozen.”  ”This burger and fries has to be better than eating an entire pizza.”)  Bingo.  Your Inner Enabler is happy, you get your comfort food, and all feels right with the world.  Granted, you won’t lose much weight,  but it kept us amused for a while.

My food addiction is making it so difficult to eat the way I know I need to.  The other day, while walking through the grocery store and picking out healthy items, I fought tears, facing that I would be giving up my comfort foods again.  It felt something like walking a tight rope without a net, a comparison I have made to the fighting of fears in a few areas of my life.

In the last month or two, I’ve been feeling the effects of the inflammation growing steadily worse again.  The knees, the hip, the back pain (especially after sleeping for any length of time over about five hours).  Then, last week, my left shoulder started to hurt again and got worse every day, and finally my jaw started hurting again by about Thursday.  I was afraid the stabbing headache pains would be next, so that was why I went to the store and bought a supply of some of the easier anti-inflammatory foods to incorporate back into my diet: tuna, sardines, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, salad greens, avocado, V-8 juice, baby carrots.  I still had frozen strawberries, which, along with cantaloupe, I hadn’t actually stopped eating regularly since doing this in June and July.  I still have some frozen Brussels sprouts and some frozen spinach.  I’ll pick up almonds the next time I go to the store, and olive oil for cooking.  Maybe a jar of olives.  According to the book I have, one jumbo green olive is worth 8 IF (Inflammation Factor) points.  Two tablespoons of chopped raw onion is worth 52.  A quarter cup chopped red bell pepper is 45.  So, adding those things (and counting out maybe five jumbo olives) to a salad would add 137 points to a salad eaten with dinner, and will add a whole lot of flavor, as well.  If I include raw kale in the salad, that can really boost the IF ratings even more.  (A quarter cup is worth 128 points, according to nutritiondata.com [the book doesn't list raw kale, only cooked].)

I’ve been in the habit of looking up foods either on the Nutrition Data web site or in the book when certain ones are listed in one place but not the other.  Sometimes I look things up in both places, and sometimes I can’t find specific listings anywhere.  There are a few things I am finding extremely difficult and frustrating.  One is when the web site and the book contradict one another.  Another is when I can’t find something anywhere.  And yet another is not knowing how to figure out packaged foods or gluten-free foods that aren’t on either list or show the IF Rating as N/A on the web site.  So I do the best I can and hope I’m right, and that if I’m wrong, I’ve done well enough with the rest of my day to make up for it.  I’ll just continue to hope that the concept of IF Ratings catches on and becomes something that more people will want to pay attention to, and that that may mean more access to information about more foods in the future.

I think the most astounding thing I noticed last time I did this was that I was suddenly able to sleep through an entire night without waking up with back pain.  For years, I felt I had a choice: either get enough sleep to function on all cylinders or be able to stand upright and walk in the morning.  I’d had no idea that it was any longer an option, at my weight and age and without buying a new bed, to have both.  But eating anti-inflammatorily (I still like that phrase, even if I did make it up) made it possible.  And, of course, it went back to the way it was before, when I stopped.  Because a decent night’s sleep is imperative for so many things, including ADD, fibromyalgia, and depression, and because allowing those things to be any more out of control than they already are (especially the ADD) could very well cost me my job, I’ve come to the conclusion that avoiding inflammatory foods is something I’m going to have to do.  (I’ve decided to talk with my GP about trying ADD medication when I see him in October, but even if I  find a medication I like and it helps a lot, proper sleep is still vital.)

I read an article yesterday that said:

The fatty tissues of the body secrete hormones that regulate the immune system and inflammation, but in the case of an overweight individual this can become out of control. Three of the hormones that play a role in metabolism are leptin, resistin and adiponectin.

• Leptin is involved in appetite control.
• Resistin is a hormone that increases insulin resistance.
• Adiponectin lowers the blood sugar by making your body more insulin sensitive.

The fact that it is the fatty tissue that produces these hormones makes the fat self regulating, as the hormones should act to bring the increased fat under control. Bodies with more fat will produce more leptin bringing the appetite under control. However in cases where the body is inflamed there is often a problem with leptin resistance, and the self regulation of fat does not occur. Leptin resistance is where to body stops responding to the appetite controlling effects of the hormone.

In addition to these metabolism regulating hormones your fatty tissue also produces chemicals that cause inflammation and this can make the problem of leptin resistance worse. This is why obesity can cause an increase of these inflammatory chemicals which in turn inhibit the correct balancing function of the weight controlling hormones. This results in a vicious circle of weight gain causing inflammation which inhibits hormone function thereby causing further weight gain.

And this drives home the point that I not only need to avoid inflammatory foods; I need to lose weight as well.  I suppose that saying “I’m not doing this to lose weight, but to feel better, and the fact that I’ll end up losing weight anyway is just a bonus” is becoming less effective at distracting my fears.  Fooling myself into thinking I can skirt around the Inner Enabler unnoticed isn’t going to work anymore, either.

I suppose it’s wake-up time.

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The UPS Guy and Dick Clark

There are a few different regular UPS drivers who deliver to the office where I work.  One of them is a guy who used to be the regular UPS guy for the place I worked back in the mid-to-late-80’s.  I don’t think he remembers me from back then because I’m quite a bit older now, but I remember him because he hasn’t changed a bit.  Seriously.  Like the way Dick Clark didn’t change for so many years.  It’s almost creepy.

When he delivered a package yesterday, I got to thinking about just how many years ago it was that he used to deliver to the other office, and how much has changed.  Twenty years ago, in 1989, I was 25.

In 1989:

• My hair was still dark even without my dying it.
• I weighed (muffled, unintelligible word) pounds less than I do now.  I wasn’t “thin”, but I weighed a whole lot less.
• I had no arthritis and no symptoms of fibromyalgia (other than depression, which is related, but then again, is related to everything I deal with).
• I was able to sit with my foot under me in my chair at work.
• I still smoked.
• My migraines hadn’t started yet.
• I had a lot of sinus trouble.
• I wore aqua-colored contact lenses, which prompted a lot of compliments, but I always felt I was cheating, since the compliments weren’t for my real eye color, and I went back to clear lenses.
• I used to occasionally wear heels to work, but I never got the hang of walking in them, so I eventually blamed my height (I was about 5′11″ at the time) and quit trying to wear them.
• I wore makeup at least a few times a week then.
• I smoked pot.  A lot.
• I had been in love with my best friend for five years and finally admitted it.
• I came out.
• I still had my small, old, black and white TV from when I was a teenager, but it never bothered me that I couldn’t watch TV in color.  Even though it seemed to bother my friends.
• I was still years away from knowing what gluten was, let alone that I shouldn’t eat it.
• I ate a lot of Whoppers back then.
• Burger King Whoppers, not the malted milk balls, although those are also a no-no on a gluten free diet.
• I’d felt the loss of a pet, a year or so before that, when I had to have my beloved cat, Indigo, put to sleep.
• I didn’t know, yet, what it felt like to have a relationship, or a breakup.
• My parents were still young and the looming reality that I will have to say goodbye to them one day was not part of my daily ruminations yet.
• I had no idea that within a year, I would begin a relationship that would change the lives of everyone in my immediate family, in ways I would not have believed, had I been given a glimpse into the future.
• I’d been in counseling before (may have even been in counseling that year) but I’d never stuck around long enough to call it therapy, or to make the kind of progress I’ve made this last year.
• I did not know that I had Adult ADD.
• I thought I knew what fatigue was then.  I had no idea it could get so much worse.
• I thought I had a clutter problem then.  See second sentence of the point above.
• I’d heard of Microsoft Windows but had never seen a computer with it installed.
• My niece and nephews were all under seven.  They’re all grown up now, and have spouses or fiances; the boys both have either children or a child on the way.
• I didn’t know any of my three closest local friends yet.  I have been getting back in touch with some of my older friends on facebook lately, though, which is nice, but I’m not in touch with the two friends I was the closest with, back then.
• I thought I would never lose touch with many of the people who were in my life at the time.
• I had no idea that SS existed, or that my life wouldn’t begin to be lived with the depth of feeling that I’m seeing is possible until my hair turned silver.

Yes.  A lot has changed.

I should ask the UPS Guy how many things have changed in his life.

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Made It Through A Week

Well, I did it.  I made it through the first week of eating anti-inflammatorily.  (I made up a new phrase.)

I also figured out what to do about chocolate cravings.  One ounce of semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 60 chips) has a -80 IF rating, but I can either eat them with 1 ounce of mixed nuts, which has a +49 rating, so long as I eat 3 Brussels sprouts (12 points each) beforehand, or I can skip the nuts and have just the chocolate chips if I eat 7 Brussels sprouts first.  It’s a pre-pay system.  I won’t allow myself to say “I’ll make up for it later,” because I won’t.

I tried it last night, with the two ounces of nuts.  I didn’t eat the three Brussels sprouts first, though, because it was right after dinner and I’d had my “spinach scramble” for dinner (approximately 500 points – sauteed onion and mushrooms with spinach and parmasan cheese, cooked with enough egg substitute to make it hold together like scrambled eggs).  It went well, and the chocolate tasted so much more amazing than it did before.

The thing with the Brussels sprouts is that I really don’t like Brussels sprouts.  I never did, although I can force myself to eat them if I have a good enough motivation.  They’re an easily countable anti-inflammatory food, and so it works for me to weigh negative-rating foods against Brussels sprouts to decide whether they’re worth it or not.  For example, a 2 ounce Snickers bar would cost 14.17 Brussels sprouts.

My jaw is still a bit sore when I open my mouth very far, but it gets better by night time each day and doesn’t hurt at all anymore to bite down.  Knees are still hurting a little, but the pain isn’t distracting like it had become.  My back is only hurting right now because it’s PMDD time and even that is tolerable, considering.  All in all, still feeling very good results.

I also haven’t had the palpitations after eating that I’d been having.  Huh.  Go figure.  (Seriously, most of that seems to have been from eating too much at a time, and a good bit of it was from eating specific foods that I evidently shouldn’t eat.  My GP doctor agreed with the findings of the cardiologist when I saw him in May.  He said I don’t have MVP either.  So now I can be comfortable that the palpitations were food related.)

Now if only I hadn’t screwed up my sleep schedule again and stayed up in the middle of the night last night.  I’m sooo sleepy.  I’m off work tomorrow, though, so I can get it straightened out again.

The First Big Pitfall

Last night was really hard.

I wanted chocolate.  Or something else sweet, like cookies.  Or something fried.  But mostly chocolate.  I had nothing like that, because I didn’t buy any.

Because my jaw had started to hurt worse again during the latter part of yesterday, and I had some moderate Fibromyalgia hurt going on for more than half the day, I decided that I’d been a fool to think I could (or even should) do this IF diet.  It obviously wasn’t working, if after five days I still felt like crap.  And besides,

it’s

just

plain

too

hard.

See, the thing is, I could buy a package of cookies or a bag of chocolate chips for craving times, and just eat one serving, allowing for the negative IF points by eating enough high-point-rated foods in the same day, except that I don’t seem to be capable of eating just one serving of those things.  (And, also, because I don’t know the IF ratings on the gluten free cookies.  According to the book, gluten free bread is almost twice as inflammatory as plain white bread [but only half as inflammatory as French bread or sourdough bread].  So I would imagine that gluten free cookies might [maybe?] be more inflammatory than regular ones.)

So, since I can’t seem to manage to stop at one serving, I decided it would be better not to even buy that kind of stuff, because then I’ll just start rationalizing and convincing myself that the tuna I had for lunch can make up for all the hundreds of negative points my binging would rack up, and the logical part of my brain that knows the truth would be outvoted and drowned out by the illogic that I “need” to believe.  (Just like I’d had myself convinced that taking fish oil could make up for the way I was eating recently, which, when I do the math, looks to have been averaging close to -1000 points or worse every day.)

Well, the final outcome of my pitfall last night is that I still don’t know if I can do this, but for now, I’m still trying.  And my jaw is not as bad again today, and the FM pain has subsided again, for now.  I didn’t eat anything bad because I didn’t have anything bad to eat.  On the pat-myself-on-the-back-side, however, I didn’t get up and put my shoes on and go out for ice cream.  I could have done that, easily, but I didn’t.  And that’s something.

Inflammation Update

Today is the fifth day since I started avoiding inflammatory foods, and my jaw is almost completely back to normal.  If I had to rate the level of jaw-pain now on a 1-10 scale, it’d be about a 1.  Almost totally gone.  My knees are much better, probably down to about a 3-4.  Headaches are for the most part gone, with just an occasional twinge.  The most shocking thing, to me, has been the fact that both Friday night and Saturday night, I slept for 8 consecutive hours each night and was able to stand straight up and walk Saturday and Sunday mornings!  Amazing.  I’d been blaming the fact that my bed is old for a lot of my morning back pain.

What I don’t know how to explain, though, is that most of yesterday, my right elbow was aching like a toothache.  It was horrible, and the pain radiated down into my hand.  There was a pink patch on the skin just below the elbow and the skin was warm there.  I tried applying heat, taking Tylenol, ginger root, and the only thing that seemed to help was to hold my arm perfectly still.  As soon as I moved even my hand, it was hurting again.  Then, by last night, it was better.  So strange.

Maybe inflammation doesn’t go away without a fight?  Maybe it gets worse before it gets better?  Maybe the dietary changes caused a short-lived Fibromyalgia flareup?  I don’t know.

I made a pretty good raw veggie dip yesterday, though.  In the blender, I mixed canola oil, a little apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, minced onion, low fat cottage cheese, salsa, and about 3/4 of an avocado.  It turned out pretty good.  I have no idea of the measurements, though, since I just kept adding some of this and some of that until it tasted right.

I am confused about a few discrepancies I’ve seen in the IF ratings of certain foods listed in the book vs the same food listed on NutritionData.com.  I’m going to try to contact the author and see if maybe there is some other information I’m missing.  One of those discrepancies is salsa.  The book says 1/4 cup is +52, but the web site says 1/2 cup is -15, which would be about a -7.5 for 1/4 cup.  Another is cottage cheese.  The book says 1/2 cup of 1% fat cottage cheese is +9, but the web site says -14.  The book says a large red tomato is +52, and the web site says +17.  The tomato is still positive either way, but some of the discrepancies are enough to be the difference between hitting a +50 for the day and falling into the negative for the day and not knowing it.  Of course, I’m going for way more than +50 a day, but I still want to know that I’m not defeating myself.

My two biggest fears are that (1) the next time I go through a depression, my lack of ability to care will be just strong enough that I’ll revert back to those highly inflammatory comfort foods, since I am, after all, a food addict, and (2) the next time I have more difficulty than usual with focus and organization, I won’t be prepared with the food I take to work and will be left with very few good choices, which opens the door for failure.  What I keep reminding myself, though, is that (1) Even in the worst depressions of the last two-plus years, I haven’t purposely ingested even a crumb of gluten, and if I can think of this the same way as that, I ought to be more successful, and (2) Maybe by keeping inflammation down, I can also lesson the severity of things that cause me to lose focus and become disorganized.

We’ll see.

I Can Grit My Teeth Again!

Well.  Progress.  Since Wednesday night, I’m seeing steady improvement.

I no longer feel like I’m being stabbed in the head (that finally stopped yesterday), my knees still hurt but the pain is only a fraction of what it was, and I can actually bite correctly where my back teeth meet again, although my jaw still hurts.

The most noticeable thing, however, is that I slept eight hours last night and was able to stand almost completely upright as soon as I got up.  My back still hurts, but not nearly as badly as it did.

And come to think of it, I’m not as sleepy as I’ve been.

I’m actually glad that the improvement is slow and steady rather than fast and miraculous, because if it was fast and miraculous, I would have trouble trusting that it would last and was not some kind of crazy fluke.

This is good.

Oh, Yeah. The Food.

So, Wednesday night, while I was sitting on the couch, squinching my eyes closed and holding my breath every time I had that stabbing-into-my-brain pain, and remembering that I forgot to mention in Wednesday’s post that my jaw has also been very sore and I can barely open my mouth when it gets bad like that, and the fact that my knees have been killing me for a couple months now, it dawned on me.  Duh.  Like being hit over the head with a board.  Literally.  A board with nails sticking out of it.

It’s the food, stupid.

I knew that.  I did.  But I seem to manage to forget it over and over again.  I suppose that may be part of the nature of food addiction.

What dawned on me, specifically, was the fact that when I went shopping last Friday, I bought some containers of Lays Stax (they look like Pringles but they’re gluten free [and cheap]) and a bunch of Ore-Ida Easy Fries (also gluten free, also cheap).  And I proceeded to eat french fries with dinner every night since Friday, and eat all the Stax chips as snacks or with lunch, and I went out for dinner last Thursday and again Saturday and had baked potatoes both times.  White potatoes are an inflammatory food.  I haven’t even mentioned yet that I eat a lot of egg sandwiches.  With cheese.  And, you know, bread.  (Gluten free bread, but still bread.)  Eggs, cheese, and bread are all inflammatory foods.  So is ice cream, which I’ve been buying more often lately.  And milk chocolate (although a plain milk chocolate bar is less-bad than M&M’s).

The point behind the Inflammation Free Diet is that foods are more or less likely, in varying degrees, to cause inflammation.  The book lists over 1500 foods with their IF (Inflammation Factor) ratings.  The negative numbers are more inflammatory and the positive numbers are more anti-inflammatory.  The idea is to eat foods in combinations so that the numbers balance out, and to stay at a total of +50 or more per day.  I explained this a little more thoroughly in my January 14th entry, when I was trying to incorporate this into a weight loss diet.  (I actually briefly forgot that I’d done this in January; I’d been thinking I hadn’t tried it since last fall.)

That last weight-loss attempt served to remind me that I probably need to deal with the issues that are the reasons I turn to food for comfort, and frankly, I’m just not ready to do that fully yet.  I do, however, think it’s remarkable that I’ve been able to stay gluten free for over two years when I can’t seem to stay on a weight loss diet for more than a week or two.  The main reason, of course, is that eating gluten causes an immediate and easily associatable reaction which is extremely unpleasant.  I can see that eating more positive-IF-rated foods and fewer negative-IF-rated foods will cause me to lose weight, because the more anti-inflammatory foods are also lower in calories, fats, and sugars.  But I can’t afford to let myself look at this as a weight loss diet.  I’ll have to associate the negative-rated foods as causing pain.

This is going to be hard.  But I’m working hard to find ways to make it easier.

For the first week or so, I’m going to just eat mostly positive-rated foods and avoid all negative-rated ones (except for coffee creamer, and butter on the sweet potato I’ll order when I go out for dinner with my parents tonight).  Then I’ll work on adding other stuff, knowing that I’ll have to make up for every negative-rated thing I eat.

And I’ll finish reading the book, so that I really understand how it works.

Falling off the diet wagon hasn’t all been due solely to my food addiction.  There is, of course, if I’m not extremely careful, the danger of failing as soon as I miss a beat in my planning and preparing-ahead of food to take to work, etc.  And, by far, the hardest obstacle to overcome is money.  I may get off to a good start, and start feeling better and/or losing weight, but the food budget is what always has to be cut when the money doesn’t stretch far enough, which is most (all) of the time, and let’s face it: hot dogs and egg sandwiches are cheaper and require buying fewer “ingredients” each week than cooking actual balanced meals.

So.

Yesterday, I was remembering the Deal A Meal system that Richard Simmons used to have.  It was a card system for an exchange diet.  You’d have so many cards representing servings from each food group for each day, and as you would eat throughout the day,  you’d move the corresponding cards from what you have available for the day.  I’m thinking of making a card system with a card for each of the positive-rated foods I’ll commonly eat, and a few for the negative-rated ones I’ll work into the mix, like chicken.  I’ll put the IF rating and serving size on each card and write prices on the backs of the cards.  Each week, I can make my shopping list by deciding what to have for meals that week, and I can estimate the costs and figure out what fits into that week’s budget and what doesn’t.  And then hope I can afford to keep it up week after week.

I’ve been taking selenium, ginger root, Vitamin C, and salmon oil daily for a while now, to combat inflammation, but I guess they just can’t make up for the way I’ve been eating.

Incidentally, ginger root capsules work well in place of ibuprofen for someone who can’t take NSAIDs.  Years ago, my doctor, who also deals with migraines, told me that on the onset of a migraine, I should take two Tylenol, two ibuprofen, and a caffeinated drink.  I’ve found that really works a good percentage of the time and I share that little tip with others anytime I can.  Since I had to stop taking NSAIDs because of the potential interaction with Yaz, which I take for PMDD, I take ginger root capsules in its place and it works as well.

That’s my helpful-information-sharing for today.  I’ll update on how this goes.

A Funeral For My Lost Hair

I got my hair cut today.   Short.  I wore it short for most of my life because I have a lot of hair and it’s very curly and woolly and difficult to take care of when it’s long, and most people through the years have said I look better (and younger) with short hair.  I can’t argue the point that short hair looks better on me, but I have wanted long hair all my life.  I’ve tried to grow it long several times only to give up in frustration when it got too hard to manage, but this time I made it between two and two and a half years.  It was the longest it had been since I was about 14 years old.  It was probably about three inches past my shoulders. 

Well, it reached the point that it took a long, long time to rinse the shampoo and conditioner out, and it hurt every time I combed it because it would tangle to badly in spite of using good conditioners, so my morning routine was complicated with extra time and pain.  

This morning, I woke up with the stiff neck and sore shoulder/upper-upper back muscles that I get periodically when the fibromyalgia flares up, and I was almost in tears while I was combing my hair, because tilting my head and raising my arms to reach and to work through the tangles really, really hurt.  That was when I finally made my decision.  It just (sniff!) isn’t worth it.

I went at lunch time and got it cut.  The lady who cut it understood my disappointment at having to give up on the long hair dream, and she made a braid in the back and cut it off for me to save.  I’ll put it into a plastic bag and stick it in a drawer so I can remind myself periodically of how long it was.

It does look better short.  And I know I’ll appreciate the ease of taking care of it, and how much more quickly my getting-ready in the mornings will go.

I had another reason to go back to short hair, also.  Coloring is a problem.  I can’t seem to color it without glutening myself, and glutening myself every three to four weeks is just not good.  I can’t afford to have someone else color it for me, and I don’t know of any gluten free haircolors (though I suspect there are some out there).  Before I went gluten free, though, I had tried just about every haircolor on the market, it seemed, and the brand I’ve been using is the only one that really covered the gray.  I even stopped using their conditioner and would only use mine, knowing mine is gluten free, and I would shampoo the color out and condition afterward, but it’s just not possible to not get at least one drop of dye-water either in my mouth or up my nose before I’m done.

One alternative would be to have someone else color it, but I can’t afford that, which leaves the other option: not coloring it anymore (which requires cutting it short) and letting the gray all grow in.  I have a whole lot of gray (white) hair.  I will probably look ten years older than I am by the time it grows in.  I’m not happy about having to let the gray come in when I’m only 45 (in a couple months), but weighing all my options, it seems to be the only realistic one.

And maybe, since everyone says I look younger with short hair, it will balance out with the fact that I will look older with white hair, and I’ll look the same age I’ve been looking, which is still probably older than I actually am.