Wondering

[coffeelover]

OH yeah!
Thumper
Trix and that scarey diseased rabbit.....the Velveteen Rabbit!

In regards to Carols comment on "working" at making herself better....
Does anyone have a nutrition diet that has been a "cure all" of sorts. My rheumy mentioned that she has a WG patient who started to see a dietician (an expense I prefer not to have) and swears by her new found diet? Is this wishfull thinking or is there some truth in that? Opinions?
LIsa Coffeelover (and don't tell me to give up coffee!)

[Sangye]

Hi Lisa,
While there's no "one size fits all" when it comes to nutrition, there is a lot you can do on your own without paying a dietician. Google "anti-inflammatory diet" and you'll find tons of books, lists, etc... Wegs is an inflammatory disease. Keep the inflammation down, and you have a better chance of keeping the Wegs down, too.

(Supplements, herb and natural remedies are a different matter. You need to see a holistic doctor for that. Wegs is tricky business-- following what you read in a book or asking a health food store clerk is just not safe.)

Ah, coffee. I see you looove the stuff. I won't tell you to give it up, but try to keep it to regular (ie, not espresso), and no more than 2 cups a day. REAL coffee cups, not the cereal bowl ones.... More than that is PRO-inflammatory, meaning it's creating inflammation. It also overacidifies the stomach, making pred harder on you.

And the biggest problem is that it "whips" the adrenal glands to make adrenaline (this is why you get a caffeine high). When you're sick, your adrenals are already wiped out. Pred basically shuts them down. So asking them to do MORE stresses them to an unbelievable degree. It will weaken you considerably over time, and you'll have a much harder time getting strong again. Weaker adrenals also mean you're more susceptible to infections, your brain chemicals are more likely to be imbalanced (eg, more anxiety, depression, inability to deal with stress), and it's much easier to injure yourself (adrenal weakness causes ligament weakness).

Worth keeping your coffee intake low?

[Doug]

Great additions to the Famous Bunnies Hall of Fame!

I was told to eat "normally", though my doctor did put me on Vytorin. "I could put you on a diet for this, but you would not like it...!" Yeah, from how he discribed it, I'd probably wish for a bunny to hop over and clean up my plate: a high fiber diet it was with lots of oatmeal and other scary things. You'd have to move your computer to the bathroom to use this diet!

If there is a real diet Weggies can flourish on, I would be interested to know about it myself.

(p.s. Trigger is the name for the giant rabbit in my avatar)

[Sangye]

It's sad that most MDs don't even recommend for their patients work with diet to improve their health. I understand if they don't feel comfortable with making recommendations, but they tend not to refer patients to those who do. Telling someone to eat "normally" without further discussion is just unacceptable, in my opinion. "Normal" to most Americans is a very inflammatory, disease-promoting diet. Guess he wants to keep his Vytorin sales rep happy.

A healthy diet isn't necessarily boring, and it won't keep you in the bathrooom. Andrew Weil has some good books. Not that he invented it-- he just figured out how to market what holistic docs have been telling their patients for 100+ years. I'm just glad the public loves his stuff, because it means more people are eating and living healthy.

On a more important topic, I think Thumper is my all-time favorite rabbit. Well, I dunno...maybe it's "Rabbit" from Winnie the Pooh. Remember how fast he talked? The guy was totally on pred.

[Doug]

It's sad that most MDs don't even recommend for their patients work with diet to improve their health. I understand if they don't feel comfortable with making recommendations, but they tend not to refer patients to those who do. Telling someone to eat "normally" without further discussion is just unacceptable, in my opinion. "Normal" to most Americans is a very inflammatory, disease-promoting diet. Guess he wants to keep his Vytorin sales rep happy.

A healthy diet isn't necessarily boring, and it won't keep you in the bathrooom. Andrew Weil has some good books. Not that he invented it-- he just figured out how to market what holistic docs have been telling their patients for 100+ years. I'm just glad the public loves his stuff, because it means more people are eating and living healthy.

On a more important topic, I think Thumper is my all-time favorite rabbit. Well, I dunno...maybe it's "Rabbit" from Winnie the Pooh. Remember how fast he talked? The guy was totally on pred.

Sangye- I will head for the web soon as I finish this "Thank you for you recommendation!" note. Please give Dr. S., my pulmonologist, a bit of credit, however, as he did give me a general "does" and "don't" sort of talk after asking specific things about how I do eat. He didn't exclude oatmeal (Hey! my primary cultural, ancestral background is Scottish, so you know I eat my oatmeal!) or dead animal flesh, which I barely can choke down anyway: my idea of a good meal doesn't include a 16 oz. steak. He did note the food pyramid (for non-US readers, that's the US Government's way of presenting how many portions of any given foodstuff one should have a day. I'm sure it's on the web.) as a basic guideline, but that I could contact a dietician for more in depth detail. At the time, my next door neighbor (I live in a small town of barely over 8000 people) and good friend just happened to be, tuh-duh!- the local hospital's dietician! Later, when I was going through all of the Herpes zoster issues, I did have a dietician walk me through healthy eating. I know nothing short of a veggan diet is suitable for a Buddhist nun, and, sitting here in the middle of cattle country, it still would be best for me, too. I am a bit shy of anyone making nuitrition claims as that approaches religion in our culture. A friend of mine at work, as mentioned in another posting, wanted me to drop all medications because medicine is poison (which, in controlled doses, it definitely is!) and control my disease with natural herbs. Two members of her family have/had (one died) MS. I don't know what her sister said if my friend told her natural herbs would cure her MS, but I remember well how her mother handled such things, "Sweetie, I love you 'cause I'm your mother, but if you think you can cure MS with herbs, you can .....- fill in the blank! Anything to get off Vytorin, which has a bit of a reputation now anyway, eh!

[Sangye]

Doug, even way out in Nebraska, I bet you heard my "Ugh" as you referred to the Food Pyramid. You'll see what I mean if you check out Weil's stuff.

Actually, I'm not a vegetarian. Vegetarianism is not very healthy, and veganism is deadly. I was a vegetarian for many years and really wiped out my adrenals. Took me years to build them back up. Vegetarianism is not widely practiced in Tibetan Buddhism-- even the Dalai Lama eats meat. Theravadan Buddhists (mostly southeast Asia) are usually vegetarians.

And yeah, substituting herbs or supplements for drugs is a sure way to die from Wegs. (Not true for many other autoimmune diseases. MS can be treated quite successfully using a combination of holistic and allopathic medicine. And--sorry to Mom--there have been cures using holistic medicine only. )

[Doug]

Interesting! Well, never let it be said I know everything! I did check out Dr. Weil's website (He looks like my brother!). He's just come out with his own pyramid, one that looks more do-able to me than the government one. Don't give up on me yet, Sangye! I have chores this afternoon, so need to get off the computer for a time, see if my legs still function for all of the time I've spent on the Internet since I gained access to it. (Oh, man! If you want the ride of your life, download Google Earth. You can visit virtually anywhere in the world, including Carhenge, a building where I lived while stationed in Germany, all the major capitals of the world and all the minor ones, too. There are videos on some. You can... well, this is off topic.)

[andrew]

I've just spent a very pleasant 20 mins catching up on this thread. You guys are very funny!! Who knew!? Hehehehe

(Oh, man! If you want the ride of your life, download Google Earth. You can visit virtually anywhere in the world, including Carhenge, a building where I lived while stationed in Germany, all the major capitals of the world and all the minor ones, too. There are videos on some. You can... well, this is off topic.)

Yeah Google Earth is amazing. My start location is Pevek in Russia. I want to go there one day.

If there is a real diet Weggies can flourish on, I would be interested to know about it myself.

(p.s. Trigger is the name for the giant rabbit in my avatar)

As Sangye said, there's a lot of information on anti-inflammatory diets. A couple here though:

A friend of mine has a site with info: Anti-Inflammatory Foods

Also this one is good. Hasn't been updated for quite some time but Cyndi does some good work: Cyndi's Page

Worth keeping your coffee intake low?

Sigh...I must admit to being a coffee freak. I love the stuff. I was however on the wagon for quite some time and fell off it again about a year ago. I'm scoffing up to four cups a day, sometimes more. Generallywill stick to two but might have to be more stringent based on above comments.

Also, I have attached an image of the WG molecule we all have. Just so it's clear what the cause is

Doug...that is a truly bizarre avatar!

[Luce]

Back to rabbits (I'm determined to make up for my earlier post), what about Dylan from The Magic Roundabout?
He was a weggie in my opinion as he never had any energy and was always dozing off!

[andrew]

BAHAHAHAHAHA, yes you could have a point there.

What about an analogy between WG and the movie Harvey.

James Stewart had his own personal rabbit that no one else could see. Even though they couldn't see it, they could see what affect it had!

Oh wow, that was deep. I think my blood sugar must be low. Gonna go lie down....