Beginning Steps to Living with Autoimmune Disease

What is an autoimmune disease? Autoimmune disease is basically when your own immune system attacks your own body because it has gotten completely confused and no longer functions like it is supposed to. Apparently there are over 100 autoimmune diseases, so far. The key to living with an autoimmune disease is learning what you can do to protect your body, regulate the immune response, and learn everything you can. However, there are some relatively easy steps to begin to take control of your autoimmune disease and live a healthy life. Here is what I have learned in dealing with my own autoimmune disease (hashimoto's thyroiditis).

1. Read and learn everything you possibly can about your disease and autoimmunity in general. You really have to become pro active in knowing about your disease. Doctors don't know everything and in maintaining a practice it is very difficult for them to truly stay up to date on research. You need to be a partner in your health and take an active approach to your own healing. Don't miss the free autoimmune summit taking place now online.

2.Find a doctor willing to work with you. If your doctor is one of those that thinks they are the end all be all and won't discuss your disease and possible treatment options then find a new doctor. I have gone through 14 doctors in the past 10 years with my disease. I have a wonderful GP now who listens to me and talks with me, not to me. unfortunately she doesn't have much confidence in her own abilities and I admit I am a complicated case, but I consider her a treasure.

3. Take a proactive approach to your diet. Diet definitely has a role in the immune response for many people with AID (autoimmune disease). I highly recommend trying an autoimmune or elimination diet and seeing if you notice a difference in the way that you feel or if your particular antibody numbers get lower. For me, grains raise my antibody levels and I notice I suffer much more if I am exposed to wheat especially. You may not think you have a problem with foods, but you really don't know whether you do or not until you stop the exposure and then re-expose yourself. Things that can cause a problem are grains (especially wheat), dairy, and legumes. This is a big one that most people tend to balk at, but really a few months out of your life eliminating some of your favorite foods to see if it improves the quality of your life is not that big of a deal. I love bread, hot fresh bread dripping with fresh homemade butter...yum! However, I don't tolerate wheat. My pain level goes up, I get a migraine headache, and I suffer for days if I am exposed to wheat. I have the same reaction with corn. So for me, the response is not worth it. The is simply too much to justify that slice of bread or piece of cake. You might not have the problem that I have, but isn't it worth it to find out.

4. Heal your gut. Consider probiotics, fermented foods, and other things that will help to heal your gut. This does go along with the diet above.

5. Detox your liver and your life. Our world is so full of toxins. Chemicals in shampoos, conditioners, cleaning products, clothing, furniture, etc. etc. etc. all work to trigger an immune response and damage our immune system. If we have an autoimmune disease then we don't need any extra help in damaging the immune system, it is already wonky. So, make a conscience effort of ridding your life of all those unnecessary chemicals.

6. Optimize your vitamin levels, especially Vitamin D and your B vitamins. Be cautious of using herbs that stimulate the immune system because you will stimulate the attack on your body.

7. Avoid stimulating your immune system when possible. If you know that someone is sick, avoid them if possible. A typical cold can take me a full 6 months to completely recover from, whereas a normal person can recover in a week or two. I avoid sick people like the plague. If I go to the grocery store, I am meticulous about washing my hands and wiping down the handle on the cart. I try to limit my grocery store trips. I don't go around sick people. If I know someone is sick or might possibly be coming down with something, I stay away. I also try to get all my regular doctor visits done when it is not cold and flu season. You will not find me at the doctor's office during that time if I can possibly help it. I am not saying live in a bubble and go over board being a germaphobe, but there really is no reason to overly stimulate your immune system any more than necessary.

8. Exercise to tolerance. Get up and move around. It does help. I don't mean that you have to start training for a triathlon, but a walk around the block or a morning yoga routine will help keep your body healthy and happy.

To live and thrive with autoimmune disease you have to become proactive to your own health. There is no miracle pill or cure. Some steps to healing are hard, but isn't your health and your life worth whatever it takes to be healthy and happy?

Blessings, Kat

Free Autoimmune Summit Online Now

The Autoimmune Summit is free online now here. Each day is full of several talks from doctors and experts about causes and healing with autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases are on the rise. I myself suffer from Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. The one thing that I never understood was that having one autoimmune disease greatly increases your risk of developing other autoimmune diseases. There is loads of great information about controlling the immune response, things that will trigger an immune flair up, etc. Blessings, Kat

Home Remedies to Heal the Sick

I have several home remedies that are my "go tos" when the children get sick. Now, I know that there are going to be folks thinking it so let me dispel any wrong ideas....These are my first line of attack on illness...if there are worsening symptoms or we don't start to see improvement we head to the doctor to get things checked out. However, 99% of the time these things work well for me and have been known to shorten the duration and intensity of a cold.

General All Around remedy
1 tbls. raw honey
1 tbls. raw garlic minced
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

Take a tsp. every hour. We have never had the cayenne pepper burn. Even my little one takes this with no trouble. Raw honey and raw garlic are both antiviral/antibacterial and the cayenne pepper helps loosen congestion along with numbing a sore throat.

To Loosen up Sinus Congestion:

1 pot of steaming water
3 drops oregano oil

Add the drops of oregano oil to the steaming water and lean over the pot with a towel over your head. Make sure that you close your eyes as the steaming oregano oil can burn them. This might not be for real little ones as sometimes it can burn, but it will really open up sinuses. Oregano oil is powerful stuff and will burn so please don't think that you need to add a whole bunch of it. 3 drops is usually good for a couple quarts of water.

Sore throat remedy:
raw honey
coconut oil
cayenne pepper

Mix equal amounts of raw honey and coconut oil, then add a dash or two of cayenne pepper. Warm slightly, then take a tsp or two. Not only do the honey and coconut oil coat and soothe a raw throat but the cayenne pepper numbs it.

Colloidal silver
I use this in a nasal atomizer along with a throat atomizer and typically use with the above remedies.

The key with any of these remedies is to catch the illness at the very first sign and to use often. By often I typically mean every hour for the first day or two then you can back off. Often, if the children get sick and I know that usually I catch what they will I will start the General remedy while they are taking it and I never really get more than a few sneezes. Sure beats fever, chills, sneezing and coughing.

Good luck this winter and keep those hands clean! Blessings from the farm, Kat

***Disclaimer-I am not a doctor, just a mom. This is not meant to be a substitute for medical treatment when needed.

September 2014 update

Well, the health issue isn't much better. However, my thyroid numbers are now so bad that the endocrinologist finally agreed that I have a problem. My thyroid has grown in size and I will be having another ultrasound in the next month or so. She put me on synthetic thyroid and I am not tolerating it well. About an hour or so after I take it I then have a headache that lasts all day. I also tend to have some nausea, but not sure if that is the medication or the headache. We will see how things go with my next appointment as to whether she will remain my doctor. Most likely not because she is a TSH only doc. I am still trying to keep things together around here. I had been making some pretty decent progress on the before winter to do list, but now I am considerably much slower. There is a lot to do. The problem is that I have so little energy, my heart rate increases easily leading to heart palpitations which make me dizzy, I run out of breath very quickly, and then there are the headaches. Just feeding the livestock can be very difficult and wipe me out for about an hour or so. So, in this post I thought I would put a few thoughts on how to cope when you simply don't see how you can keep coping. Like I have said before the best thing I ever did while I was well was to make things pretty efficient. Even so, I now see some ways that I can improve on that. For instance, previously all the hay was put into one barn and this meant that twice a day I had to move hay from one side of the farm to the other. So, we have put a pallet in each rabbit colony so that the rabbit can use the floor space under the pallet and the hay is stacked on top. They actually seem to like this and it means that all that needs doing is to pull from the loose square bale on the top of the stack. We are also going to get small metal trashcans and put the feed for the rabbits that are in the middle colony in the middle colony with them. We have put more hay racks in the goat barn so that if I am having a bad day then I only have to put hay out once a day. I am really weak these days and my balance is really off, so the less I have to be mobbed by goats shoving and pushing the safer it will be for me. We are trying to come up with some way that I can pour their grain from the feed room. The problem is that they either knock over their feed trough or knock buckets down. This means that I have to go into the barn and pick all of that up with crazy goats running around and knocking me over. The garden is slowly being closed up for the winter. I won't have a winter garden this year. I am tired of hunting for eggs so we are adding onto the chicken coop and will put a metal trashcan in there to store feed. We have it so that we can water from outside the coop as well. Then the chickens will be locked up at least most of the day and let out in the afternoon to free range. I just have no energy to go looking for eggs everyday. As soon as I find a place the hens get tired of me taking their stash so then they go find another place and the hunt is on again. The goats will be dry lotted this winter so that I don't have to move them around or chase them down. Everybody will be deep bedded. Flylady was a blessing. Most of the excess junk is gone from the house which makes it easier to keep tidy. The children keep their own rooms and bathroom clean. Even though I can't keep to the deep clean schedule that she has right now, I can manage to get at least 2 rooms a month deep cleaned and keep everything else on a normal cleaning schedule. Like I said we are still looking for some other ways to make things a little easier on me right now so that I can keep things somewhat going. I have faith that things will get better for me and I don't want to just give up what we have worked so hard to build up. However, the struggle to keep it going is really tough. There are days that just the morning feeding chores has me in tears. So my best advice at this time is to take the time to do some organization and streamlining around your home and homestead because you never know when chronic illness might raise its ugly head and render you unable to do what you do now. A year ago, I was building fences, taking care of the house and livestock, making cheese, canning, taking care of the garden, and splitting wood for winter. Now, I do good to feed the livestock and my family and do schoolwork with the children. Hopefully, I will have better news! Blessings, Kat

August 2014

Well, it has been a nightmare of a summer. We have been in and out of the hospital with my mom since May. She has Stage IV COPD and we were going in and out of respiratory failure all summer long. To make matters worse I am having thyroid issues again and again am having to battle doctors to get the right diagnosis and treatment. Still not there and still battling doctors. I am off all thyroid hormone while we run test after test after test. Right now things point to autoimmune or cancer. I have another doctor appt. next week so we will see if I can get her to run a more comprehensive panel for a more clear picture of what is going on. Needless to say life right now is a struggle. Each day I am able to function just a little less. I am beginning to think we might need to start thinking about getting rid of the livestock because I am simply unable to take care of the farm chores like I used to. We are waiting to see what the doctors will say and do about my thyroid issue. I haven't done any canning as that is so time consuming and just takes more energy than I have. I have put a lot in the freezer and even dehydrated some. The summer produce has done pretty well despite the fact that I have been home so very little this summer. It has been tough on Petunia since she has basically had to take my place and run the house and farm as best she can. She has done a wonderful job and I am so proud of her. The little one Pooter has made sure to give her a hard time about everything. The one thing I am thankful for is the amount of organization that I have done for everything over the past year. The house is on a schedule and when that schedule is followed it makes it pretty easy for it to be kept up. The farm chores are on a schedule and makes it easier for Petunia to step in and help. The schedule allows me to function despite the brain fog. Routine is absolutely necessary for me these days as my brain simply can't think. I am just barely making it from day to day. I pray that I will be able to get a doctor to help. My old ENT that removed half my thyroid 11 years ago is the one that said there is a problem. He referred me to an endo who ran only a partial panel and said there is no problem. I am headed back to my GP with the results of both those lab tests and hopefully she will see the problem that I see and my ENT saw. If not then I am headed out of town to another ENT that mine recommended. His words were if I couldn't get results here then I needed to go see this other ENT because he is brilliant with thyroid problems. He fixes what other doctors miss. He is 2 hours away though and hard to get an appt. to see. I have one in September, depending on what my GP says next week. If there is any advice I can give to anyone on this homesteading journey is to have everything as organized and scheduled and efficient as possible because you simply don't know what life might throw at you. Like I said, each day I am a little less able to function and just getting out of bed is a real chore. I have a good couple of hours in the morning when I feel ok and then the rest of the day goes downhill from there. Having things on schedule and organized means that I can easily tell the kids and hubby what they can do to help and when I am not here they can look at the schedule and see what needs to be done. Even though Mom is out of the hospital she still requires a good deal of my time, so I have to dedicate some of my energy to taking care of her. So that is what life is like right now here around the farm. Not much going on as right now we are struggling to just maintain some semblance of normal. I can't decide yet whether I will plant a fall garden. We are still getting some stuff out of the summer garden and to tell you the truth I just don't have much energy for gardening. However, we need the food more than ever because of the extra expenses of doctors and lab tests. So I am still trying to decide what to do about that. Hope you all have had a great summer. Please keep our family in your prayers as we struggle through this difficult time. Blessings, Kat

Keeping Wheat Free Affordable

One of the many things I hear or read about the Wheat free lifestyle is that it is expensive. It may seem that way at first, but I have found that I spend about the same amount of money. I just spend it differently. Right now I have no goats in milk and we have used all of our homegrown meat in the freezer. So everything we eat is being purchased, except for vegetables and some fruit that we put up over the summer. So, how is it that our grocery bill is not skyrocketing? Here's how I keep everything within budget.

1. Baking is a treat, not a staple. Almond meal, coconut meal and the like are expensive. I highly recommend buying them in bulk from Amazon because they are much cheaper than being purchased locally. However, they are still expensive. So, now any kind of baked good is a treat. Not a staple. The exception to that rule is the muffins that I make a couple days a week for breakfast because the recipe uses so little.

2. Buy produce in season. This goes for any budget. Right now I can buy fresh broccoli and cauliflower cheap, usually 2 heads for the price of one.

3. Organic meat is best, but if you can't afford it you can't afford it. It really won't kill you to eat non organic for a small portion of your life. It is the consistent exposure, year after year for years and years that will do the damage. So, if you can't get organic, great. If not, don't sweat it.

4. Typically, you can find manager specials early in the morning. These are meats that must be sold or thrown out that day because they have reached their sell by date. There is nothing wrong with this meat, the store just has to move it out. So they mark it down...oftentimes way down. I bought several skirt steaks a couple of weeks ago for 1.50 each. I bought every one that was marked down. It doesn't matter if there is a cut I have never used before, because I can either learn via the internet how to use it or I can grind it up and use it in a ground meat recipe. I also lucked out last week and got grass fed, organic lamb chops marked down. Not nearly as cheap as the skirt steak, but within my budget range and they were huge gorgeous lamb chops. I bought every package of those too. Purchasing the extra gives me some to put in the freezer so that when nothing is on sale at a good price I still have something to eat and I can stay within my budget.

5. I used to go through a lot of flour, which translated to a good portion of our budget. I have eliminated flour and greatly reduced sugar, tea, coffee.

6. We actually consume less food. This means that I cook less food. So those meals that used to be one meal are now two meals. The children don't feel the need to snack as much and aren't always hungry, so that translates into less food going farther for the week. So even though nuts are expensive, a small handful is a serving and satisfies a craving while keeping them feeling satisfied longer than a handful of crackers. Sunflower seeds are really big in our house, we love them. I buy them in buckets containing small packs and they last us a long time. One small serving packet will be a snack all day for us. Whereas before the kids could eat an entire box of cheezits and still be looking for something else to snack on. A 50 cent pack of sunflower seeds or a 3.50 box of cheezits. Hmmmmm....I think the sunflower seeds win in the cost department even though they seem more expensive to begin with.

7. Of course this goes with any budget, wheat free or not, but this summer hit those farmer's markets and u-pick farms and put upall the vegetables and fruit that you can put up cheap. Invest in a big freezer or canner or whatever and put up everything you can. It will save you money in the long run.

I have to admit that when I embarked on this, I was worried. Our food budget is tight, especially when we are still feeding livestock at the moment and getting nothing from them. I couldn't afford a huge increase in groceries. I have found though that with a little planning and maybe a different time schedule (those early morning grocery trips to get those specials)we haven't had that much of an increase, just a little bit. And if needed then I can cut back on the cheese recipes or absolutely no baked treats. It can be adjusted to fit into the budget. Blessings, Kat

Update on being Wheat Free

We have been wheat free for 2 months now and I must say that it is great. We all feel so much better and I love the fact that finally after all these years I am losing weight. It is slow, because I still have thyroid issues a bit, but I am losing. I have noticed several big changes. I am not thirsty all the time anymore. I think possibly I might have been prediabetic or at least hypoglycemic because I simply could not get enough to drink. Now, I am not thirsty all the time. That really is a big change for me because I never went anywhere or did anything that I didn't have something to drink with me. I would even take a bottle of water to bed because I would wake up in the middle of the night dying of thirst. The second big change is that I sleep better. When I was a child, I could sleep through anything. That changed to the point where I couldn't sleep more than a couple of hours at a time and then I would be up and go back to bed and then get up again...all through the night. Now, I am back to sleeping like a rock. Nothing wakes me up at night anymore and I feel so rested when I wake up in the morning. It used to take me several hours to get motivated to get up and get started on the day. Now, I drink a couple of cups of coffee and within and hour or so I am itching to get busy. I am able to stay focused throughout the day and get my tasks done. So, because of that the house, schoolwork, farmwork are all staying relatively organized. Giving up wheat has made huge changes in my life, changes I never expected. I am reading the Wheat Belly Book now and am even more firm in my stand against not eating wheat anymore. Everybody else in the house is getting there, but they are taking their own time and making their own decisions ( well the little one has no choice). Hubby decided to have some wheat, a lot of wheat, last week and woke up with a "hangover". Said he felt like he had been out drinking all night even though he hadn't had a drop of alcohol...just wheat. Oldest daughter keeps testing, but she says after this last incident at church that she might be done testing. We had a covered dish lunch at church with the usual fare, loads of pasta dishes and rolls and everything else wheat. I fixed a broccoli and cheese cassWerole so that I knew we would have something to eat. Petunia ate a couple of rolls and had a migraine and allergy issues Monday and Tuesday. It amazes me the immediate health effects just from eating wheat. The thing is I know it is the wheat because it happens everytime they have it. If the little one eats wheat she is through the roof hyper and can't sit still or focus on schoolwork or anything else for that matter. She also becomes very irritable and verbally combative with everyone after eating wheat. She is so much more pleasant to be around when she doesn't eat anything with wheat in it. Wheat belly truly has changed our lives for the better. No going back for us. Now how to do this without breaking the food budget. That will be my next post, as our grocery budget hasn't changed much at all. Have a blessed day. Kat

The Ban on Wheat

Yep, you heard it...there is a ban on wheat...at least here in our house. I had read a lot from people who had given up wheat and there stories were amazing. I read stories of better health, feeling better, lost weight, no more tiredness, allergy relief, and better attentiveness. Well, as everyone knows I have struggled with my weight, tiredness, brain fog, muscle pain, joint pain and you name it for a long time. I mostly attributed it all to my thyroid problems. And when I got my thyroid back under control it did help with these things, but they didn't go away completely. So I started looking into this wheat thing and I discovered amazing things. Just reading the Wheat Belly Blog is an eye opener. I haven't read the book yet, but fully intend to. So, the day after Christmas we gave up wheat. Within a week I had lost a couple of pounds and didn't feel so lethargic. Now, over a month later I feel amazing. I only have muscle pain when I overdo something. Like the other day the weather was nice outside and I had a marathon shoveling compost and raking leaves and other outside things that I did. I was sore that night and a little bit yesterday. I used muscles in excess of what they had been used for all winter. However, I am not sore today and that is huge. Usually a marathon outside chore day would knock me out for a week. I no longer have the stiffness and pain that I had before. I wake up in the morning ready to go and do something. I accomplish more during the day than I ever have and our home is running smoothly again. I am doing yoga again because I feel well enough to do so and I think it has helped also. And the best thing is that I have lost weight. 12 pounds so far. All of this by giving up wheat. I am not the only one who has noticed a difference. Petunia's allergies were getting pretty bad and I must admit we had been eating a lot of bread and wheat items. Now, she is allergy free as long as she stays away from wheat. She went to a couple of parties the other week and ate a good amount of wheat..sandwiches, pizza, cake and for the next week she suffered miserably. We have noticed a huge change in Little Britches also. Her personality is much sweeter, she focuses better on schoolwork, she can now sit and enjoy coloring a picture, work on a craft project, or build her "creations". Prior to the ban on wheat, asking her to sit down and color a picture or any of these things was like torture to her and she could get downright mean and nasty. My hubby has lost that middle aged belly that he was getting and he feels better too. The boon is that we eat more vegetables than we ever have because we are replacing the wheat portion of our meals with another vegetable or two. Cravings have gone away as well. Prior to the ban on wheat I craved sweet all the time. Candy didn't last long around here as I could eat it all day long and wanted more. I drank sweet tea all day long. Now, I drink water all day with the exception of my morning coffee which I need less of. I don't crave candy and still have my Christmas chocolates, which had to go into the freezer because I wasn't eating them. The kids don't crave junk and ask for it all the time either. I have stopped eating all grains for right now because I really want to lose weight, but the kids still eat oatmeal and grits although not that often...once or twice a week. I can't believe all the pain that wheat has caused us and I can't believe the relief that we have all had. Banning wheat is probably one of the best things that I have ever done for our family. I won't get into the ins and outs of the evils of wheat here as there is simply too much so please if you are interested go to the wheat belly blog or read the book. It is truly eye opening. Blessings, Kat

Eliminating Wheat Update

Well, I haven't completely eliminated wheat as I still have small quantities once or twice a week. I must say though that I feel so much better. I still have pain and soreness, but most of that is due to the fact that I have been working physically very hard lately. My joints are not as stiff as they once were despite the workload. I have more energy and don't feel like I need to fall asleep every afternoon. I did take a nap yesterday for about an hour, but I had been splitting wood all morning (hubby is sick). And to top it off I have lost 5 lbs. That I can't believe as I have been at a stagnant weight for so long no matter what I did. I haven't missed wheat all that much although sometimes a hot butter yeast roll sounds so good. I think what has helped me do without the most is that I haven't completely denied myself and do indulge in one or two rolls a week. That way I don't feel deprived and therefore crave it just because I know I can't have it. I am exhausted at night, but them my days have been really busy and I still haven't recouped from the week of taking care of Shotgun with very little sleep. So, now that the holidays are done I can get my house back in order and decorations put away and move on to normal routines again. Anyway, the lack of wheat certainly is not hurting me and I certainly and feeling better. Blessings from the farm, Kat

The "Your Not a Doctor" Look

My mom's health has been progressively getting worse over the past several years. This is outside of her spinal disease which we knew would get worse. We started with heart failure 4 years ago. In the hospital every year since then at least once a year. She has congestive heart failure more than likely (doctors agree with me on this)due to the heavy pain meds she is on because of her spinal disease. She has been on them for about 15 years. When she had her heart bypass surgery 3 years ago they put her on a cholesterol medicine, despite the fact that she has never had a cholesterol issue. They also put her on a blood pressure medicine for high blood pressure despite the fact that my mother has always run low to normal blood pressure. Seems these are standard issue for any heart issue whether you truly need them or not. So a couple of years ago I mentioned to mom all of the side affects associated with especially the cholesterol med since she was complaining of pain in her legs and inability to sleep because of it. She wouldn't listen since the "doctor knows what he's doing". Then mom is sleepy all the time, she will literally sleep all day and sometimes is so hard to wake up that she can't even eat a meal without falling asleep. When I check her blood pressure it is low, real low. When I mention that she should stop taking her BP meds I get "the doctor knows what he is doing". So this last time we were in the hospital, just a few weeks ago, during all the ER tests to see what was going on they found she had a calcified pancreas and that her blood sugar was 236. Heart enzymes were slightly elevated but according to the ER doctor more likely to be the stress of being in so much Abdominal pain and nausea than anything else. So then the hospitalist, yes that's right you don't see your doctor anymore if you go to the hospital, says that the pancreas is a non issue. Anyway, long story short....I could never get anyone to address the pancreas and high blood sugar. I tried to get Mom to listen to me but I always got,"the doctor knows what they are talking about". Now, I go to Mom's doctor appointments with her because 1. because of her inability to stay awake she can't drive anymore and 2. because of her inability to get her brain out of a fog she can't remember anymore. So yesterday we are sitting in her cardiologist's office and he comes in and says blah blah blah her EKG is great and it looks like her heart is doing just fine. Well....duh...it wasn't her heart, it was her pancreas. So I address this issue and he agrees that it might be a good idea to have her checked for diabetes or at least hypoglycaemia. Thank you...somebody finally listened to me after 2 years of trying to get a doctor to have those tests run. Then I approach the question of taking her off the cholesterol medicine and the side effects she is having, not to mention the myoclonic seizures that she is starting to have (that is a whole nuther story). He looked at me when I said "She has never had a history of high cholesterol and couldn't we at least try it until her next blood tests to see where she stands without it?" He said, "Well she has cholesterol and she needs it because she can't have that. She can't come off of it". At which point I started to explain to him that everyone needs cholesterol and Mom's heart issue was not blocked arteries or veins it was congestive heart failure (his diagnosis). I explained about the seizures she is now having (gee cholesterol is needed to maintain the myelin sheath of the nerves in the brain), the pain in her legs, the fact that cholesterol is need to maintain heart muscle health (important for someone who has congestive heart failure) and on and on. I explained that if you reduced the cholesterol too far all that happened was to trigger the liver to produce more, thus stressing the liver and having high LDL cholesterol( the kind you don't want). That is when it happened...the "Your not a doctor" look and his eyes glazed over as he emphatically stated that she was not to stop her cholesterol medicine that she needed it and would die without it. And then he rushed out of the room. So then Mom looks at me and says "See, I need it". Really?....Really?! Just because he is going by the playbook and hasn't actually done his own research means that he knows best. All of these pills that doctor after doctor keep poking in her are killing her faster and taking away the quality of her life (she can't even enjoy her grandchildren)than any disease could. I would rather die living a full life at age 58 than live in the bed sound asleep not being able to even stay awake for meals and having seizures all day long until I was 70. I was angry needless to say. I really don't like being dismissed because I don't have a set of letters behind my name because let me tell you those letters mean nothing to me if all you can do is follow a standard playbook of protocol to follow that someone else has told you to follow. If you can't make your own decisions based on the patient at hand and do your own research, then to me those letters are nothing. My background is biology, my dad was a chemist and I deal all day long with medical issues, health and nutritional issues of different species of mammals and aviary. Don't give ME the look. Ok rant over and my whole point is that if you let it modern day medicine will kill you quicker than anything and while they are doing they will make your life miserable. Blessings, Kat

More on Modern Wheat

Here is some general information about Modern day wheat that I have come across in my research. There is much more than I can say here and a good place to start is "The Wheat Belly" book by Dr. Davis. However, here are some things that persuaded me that we really need to back off wheat. 1.Modern day wheat is not only less nutritious but produces phytic acid which bonds to the minerals that you consume making them unavailable to your body. (Broadbalk Winter Wheat Experiment) 2.Wheat contains excorphins which bind to our opioid receptors in our brain, much the same way that cocaine, heroine, tobacco and alcohol do. So it is addictive and eating it leaves you wanting more. 3. Along the same lines of eating wheat leaves you with wanting more wheat is the fact that wheat is a carb and turns into sugar which promotes highs and lows in insulin release. When you get on a cycle of insulin spikes then when you are low you crave more sugar...ie carbs. and 4. Grains which are carbs are inflammatories. They promote an inflammatory response which can lead to digestive issues along with general joint pain and fibro pain. The inflammatory response is not specific as to what is attacked, everything is attacked thus causing the inflammation and pain in joints and muscles. These are the main reasons that caused me to decide to eliminate wheat and see how I felt. I know that the other day when I pigged out on wheat I felt awful. Yesterday was a no wheat day and I didn't crash after lunch and had energy the whole day. Also no upset stomach or digestive issues. I plan to keep this up for awhile and see how my pain does. Hopefully, I will see some relief. Just that simple little bit would be enough to make me swear off wheat forever. Blessings, Kat

The negative effects of wheat

A few weeks ago I had been reading a thread on Homesteading Today about wheat. I learned a lot and decided to do a trial run without wheat. Over the past several weeks we have eaten very little wheat and I have eaten practically none. I actually was feeling pretty good. I didn't have that terrible crash in the afternoon, I wasn't stiff with sore joints and muscles (outside of overuse of my left arm while tanning a hide)and in general I felt pretty good. Well yesterday I fixed a big pot of chili and my favorite thing to eat with chili is bread and butter. I even made goat butter for the occasion. I figured one meal with wheat wouldn't be so bad. Well, guess what? A huge difference those couple of pieces of bread made. Thirty minutes after eating I was asleep and slept hard for 3 solid hours. Then I felt awful when I woke up, like I had a hangover (yes I remember what those feel like). My whole body was stiff and sore and still is this morning. I can hardly move. And the worst was...well this is embarrassing...the gas. Let's just say it is awful and leave it at that. And it wasn't just me that was affected. My husband got a headache(he ate crackers) and my little one(ate bread with butter) was bouncing off the walls. She spent the whole afternoon getting in trouble. The oldest who only ate the chili and nothing else was unaffected. You see what I discovered from that thread is that all modern wheat grown in the US is short stemmed wheat that was introduced in the 1960s. Because of its nature of growth the gliadin is concentrated and doesn't break down causing an allergic reaction. This isn't the same as Celiac's or gluten intolerance. Although the symptoms are similar and both can be an issue, not just one or the other. There are heirloom variety seeds available for long stem (therefore longer growing season) varieties of wheat availabe. They are very expensive, typically 25 seeds for about 7.00. However, I love bread and I can't foresee giving up wheat altogether. I love my bread with my chili and on occasion absolutely love biscuits and gravy. So I have decided to buy some of these seeds and working on building a seed supple from my 25 seeds. It might take me a few years to do that and I can keep wheat intake to a minimum during that time. I don't relish the idea. I have grown a small patch of wheat, threshed, cleaned and ground it. It is hard work and not something I wanted to do on a regular basis, but I guess now it will become part of the farm routine. My body simply can't tolerate modern day wheat and I wonder how long I will take to recuperate for yesterday's bread and butter consumption. I still haven't gotten around to starting a sourdough culture and I really need to do that. I believe that Weston Price says that the fermentation helps to break down not only the gluten but the gliadin as well. So we will see. I will try to do that soon and let you know how it turns out. Blessings, Kat

Apology for the State of the Last Post

I apologize the the last post being hard to read. I had everything in a list that would make it easier to read, however blogger won't publish it that way. I have tried everything I know to try and even in the preview shows up properly, but then publishes like this. Hope you can muddle through and I will continue to try to fix it. Sorry, Kat

Farming and Calories

When you are farming you can throw all those calorie recommendations out the window. Farming/Homesteading drastically changes your need for food and the kinds of food that you need. When I started to try to find out why I was so tired all the time, I began to realize that my lifestyle had changed and so had my need for dense calories. I work hard and in turn burn a lot of calories. In fact I found a great little calorie calculator online here. I like this one because it has activities that I actually do like farming/feeding livestock. Yes that is listed. So I put in the things that I normally do in a day or similar activities with similar motions and here is what it looked like for me: Activity Calories burned Showering 89 Walk / run play with kids 166 Raking lawn 166 Walking 3 mph 183 Mopping 189 Washing dishes 189 Standing 200 Cooking 222 Housework 244 Soccer casual 294 Construction/Remodeling 488 Sleeping 544 Farming/Feeding livestock 599 Garden 683 Total Calories Burned 4,256 So on an average day without any extra this or that I burn around 4000 or so calories a day. Well, when I ate a piece of toast for breakfast, a big meal for dinner and typically just some leftover vegetables for supper you can see that I really didn't consume many calories. Certainly not enough to maintain a normal day, much less a really busy hard labor day. At the time the average calorie intake for me was something like: Bread, white, toasting 180 Milk, goat 336 Rabbit, domestic, roasted 335 Beans, green gram, mature, cooked/boiled w/salt 212 Mashed Potatoes, prep f/recipe w/whole milk & butter 237 Eggs, hard bld, lrg 155 Banana, fresh, extra lrg, 9" or longer 135 Cheese, goat, soft 80 Tea, iced, sweet, w/o lemon, ready to drink, bottle 400 Coffee, French, w/sug, inst pwd 188 Rough estimate on calorie intake- 2258 So as you can see that was a full 2000 calories less than what I was burning. Not only that but if you notice a large portion, 588 calories were in my tea and coffee. Hmmm, no wonder I never had much energy and was burned up by noon. I made some changes and I have more energy and feel like doing the work I have to do. Without going through the whole list my current avg. calorie intake is roughly 2756 calories. However, the majority of my calories come from healthy animal fats and protein along with nut fats like coconut oil (I take 1 teaspoon per day) or peanuts/pistachios or pecans. I eat very few carbs, typically only one piece of bread a day and limit my fruit intake as well. I feel better and I have more energy to get through the day. Some days I do crash after lunch and I attribute this to my ongoing thyroid issues, adrenal fatigue and chronic fatigue. However, it doesn't happen every day and typically only happens when I have had a very busy active week. So, I know you are thinking...what about all that fat. I don't do anything lowfat. First, I need the calories from the fat and I need the lasting energy from the fat. Second, since I gave up lowfat and vegetable oils my LDL cholesterol went down along with my triglycerides. My husband's did also and was actually told at his last checkup that his was borderline too low. I don't think there is such a thing, but that is what the doctor said. So our bodies are healthier because we are eating healthier fats and I have more energy because I am putting in more fuel of the right kind to sustain my work level. Another benefit to all of this is that I no longer have nearly as many migraines as I used to when my calorie intake was too low. I know that is what it was because the result was immediate with no other changes. So my whole point in all of this rambling is, if you are having a hard time keeping up with the work load and seem extremely fatigued from the homesteading/farming life then maybe you really need to take a hard look at your diet. You simply may no be getting enough calories and especially the right kind to sustain the level of activity that you do each day. This life is much different than sitting at a desk and you need to eat to work. Blessings, Kat

Thyroid Health Update

I have been doing better since i started treating my chronic fatigue by addressing my thyroid issues and my adrenal issues. I think I pretty much have the thyroid on the way to being under control. However, my adrenal fatigue is definitely taking some time. I still have difficulty sleeping through the night. One thing that I have noticed is that I have to be very conscientious about how I eat and what I eat. I spent the afternoon at a friend's house last week and we decided to have pizza that evening and let the children play longer since none of them wanted to stop and we girl's were enjoying ourselves talking. However, I paid for eating all that bread as the next day I felt so lethargic. It took me two days to fully recover. I have also noticed that my system doesn't handle 3 normal meals a day well anymore and I do much better on 6 small meals. If I miss the small meals and resort back to a normal meal then I pay for that as well in excess fatigue. The large rise in blood glucose levels puts excess strain on my adrenal glands and when you are trying to de-stress your adrenal glands then that is something that you really need to watch. 6 small meals a day keeps a much more steady blood glucose level, therefore limiting the stress on the adrenal glands to compensate. However, I feel better and more like a human being rather than a zombie simply going through the day. It is nice to feel that way. One thing that I have noticed is how much nutrition and what you eat plays such a huge role in how you feel. No wonder there are so many complaints in society today about not feeling well, hurting more and no energy. The fix though isn't an energy drink or a pill. It isn't quick. It means that you really need to be in tune to your body and what goes in it and how. Maybe it is a good thing that modern day medicine failed me. Now, I see that it is a whole body approach to getting well and being well and there is no magic fix or pill that I could take that would work long term. Anyway, I am wholeheartedly glad that I decided to do the research and take matters into my own hands. So far so good. Blessings, Kat

Thyroid Health Day 5

I have had a great couple of days with loads of energy. I really believe I have found the keys to my health issues and am beginning to see what good health feels like. Day before yesterday a friend and I took our children on a little road trip and I was completely worn out by it. Then yesterday I worked in the garden, cleaned the rabbit grow out cages, cleaned the stalls and re-bedded them, cooked, cleaned up the house and did some laundry along with a few other odds and ends here and there. I was tired last night but that is to be expected at the end of a busy day. However, I wasn't in tears kinda tired all through out the day. I really can't believe that good health was in such easy reach for me and yet I couldn't find a doctor willing to help me simply because my blood tests fell in the "normal" range. I think that has a lot to do with they simply don't understand how involved the endocrine system is and that if one thing is out of whack then other things are likely to be out of whack. Then too I don't think they truly understand the relationship of T-4, T-3 and Reverse T-3. A GP is just that and they only have a general understanding of things. I could never get a referral to an endocrinologist who might have understood a little more. Anyway, I am still kind of scared to get my hopes up that this will last but between my diet and my thyroid/adrenal protocol I am feeling great these days. I can't believe how much I am able to do. I still have the pain of fibro, I have had that all my life and I can live with that. The fatigue is what I couldn't live with and I think I have that under control. At least I am praying that I am. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Thyroid Health Day 3

Well, yesterday was a good day. I really felt good for the first time in a very long time. Although, here it is 4:00 in the morning and I have been awake for the past hour. Just another sign that you can't fix something that has been wearing itself out for the past 8 years. It will take time for my adrenal glands to rest and heal so that I am not experiencing symptoms of adrenal fatigue. I did find out though that I am sensitive to licorice root, which I knew could be a possibility. My adrenal support has licorice root in it and when I took a whole pill yesterday morning my blood pressure went up and I developed a headache. However, it went away within about an hour and I felt better. So my afternoon dose I only took half a pill and experienced no problems. I did have more energy yesterday and didn't experience my typical daily crash. I did some work around here then went to the feed store and the grocery store which normally will completely wipe me out. However, while I was a little tired I didn't crash. That to me was amazing. Now, if I can just get back to getting a full nights sleep. I don't think I am going to continue feeling great with only 5 hours of sleep a night. We will see how today goes. Blessings, Kat

Thyroid Health Day 2

I have been working on my adrenals and watching my diet like a hawk for the past several weeks. I have felt better, but still not there...still not normal. I thought I would blog a little bit about this journey. I am hoping that the journey will lead me to feeling like a normal human again. I am scared to be too hopeful. However, I have noticed improvement with following Weston Price's research and then following that with working on my adrenal fatigue. Now, as of yesterday afternoon I am finally working on my thyroid. I am not going to post about what all I am doing or taking because I simply don't want it to be construed as medical advice. I am not a doctor. I am a patient that is fed up with modern day medicine refusing to acknowledge that something somewhere in my body is not working right simply because they are relying on unreliable blood tests instead of symptoms. I have a laundry list of symptoms. I guess the one thing that I have learned from studying Weston Price's research is that symptoms typically mean that something is not working like it should and that there is always an explanation. So a diagnosis of chronic fatigue simply means that a doctor has given up trying to find what isn't working like it should. At least that is my theory. All I know is that several generations ago things like chronic fatigue and fibro rarely existed. Something has changed. So much has changed...food, chemicals, lifestyles, etc. What are these changes doing to us? What have these changes done to me? Growing up in a world loaded with chemicals, ingesting chemicals, processed food, fast food, food lacking nutritional value...the overload and underload has wreaked havoc with my system and something is not working right anymore. I am on a mission to fix it even though modern day medicine says there is nothing to fix. I will let you know how the journey goes. In one way I am hopeful and in other ways I am scared to have much hope. I have to trust that the good Lord will lead me down a path to wellness. I have to trust that He would never wish his children to suffer so much pain physically. I have to trust that He did not design our bodies to be so weak starting at such a young age. I pray that I am right and that He will lead me on the path to healing and wellness. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Thyroid Health

A couple of weeks ago my little one and I had the flu. Before I started coming down with it she wanted me to take my temperature just like I did hers. So I did and then I took it again because what I saw couldn't possibly be right. The thermometer read 97.4, both times. I was curious but a little busy with a sick child so I determined to address this later. Later in the day when I had another moment with the thermometer my temp once again read 97.4. So I got on the internet and discovered a whole lot of things that I wish I had known years ago. 8 years ago I had 1/2 my thyroid removed due to some benign cysts. Prior to removal I was classic hypothyroid. You could have knitted a sweater with the amount of hair that was falling out of my head and I slept every single moment that I could. At the time I was working and when I headed into the office to do the paperwork at the end of the day I would fall asleep sitting at the desk. The doctors told me it would get better after surgery....it didn't really. It did get slightly better as my hair wasn't falling out so much and I could stay awake a little more. However, I still had that overwhelming deep to the bone fatigue. I still gained weight just by thinking about food. I asked my doctor to check my thyroid levels. He did and said they were fine. Over and over again over the next several years I asked for my levels to be checked and each time they told me I was fine and that it wasn't my thyroid. Three doctors later I finally get the exasperated diagnosis that I have chronic fatigue and there is simply not much that they can do...but it definitely is not your thyroid. Well, here I am 8 years later and I am still convinced that my health issues are strongly related to my thyroid and I don't care anymore what the doctors tell me. By this point I am also hovering between stage 3 and 4 adrenal fatigue also. A person's body can only take the stress of not feeling well so long. For days I have taken my body temperature and it stays a pretty constant 97.4. I can raise it to 98.2 or so by taking a hot shower, but within a couple hours it has dropped back down. I have less and less tolerance to heat and cold, so thank goodness it hasn't been that cold this winter for us. I used to love 60 degree weather and now I find it intolerable as I just can't get warm, no matter how many clothes I put on. So, I have been reading and reading and I have found that there are loads of folks just like me. People who present classic symptoms of being hypothyroid yet their doctors tell them they are fine. So I am going to take the matter into my own hands first addressing my adrenal fatigue. The nutritional information at the Weston Price foundation has helped and will continue to help because much of what I have discovered is that many of the things I have learned about nutrition there goes hand in hand with having a healthy thyroid and healthy thyroid levels. So here is hoping that I will soon be able to find out what normal is. I don't think that I really know anymore. I just want to feel what other people feel when they have the energy to get through their days without breaking down in tears because they simply don't know how they are going to be able to put one foot in front of the other. I would like to go to sleep and stay there instead of sitting on the computer and updating my blog at 3:30 in the morning. Wow! A full 8 hours of sleep all in one stretch....what a delight that must be. For anyone interested check out these websites: Stop the Thyroid Madness, Wilsons Temperature Syndrome, and the Cold Body Page. Blessings, Kat

Genetically Modified Mosquitoes

According to the Natural News article here, the state of Florida is set to release thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes. Apparently, these mosquitoes have an extra gene and without treatment with tetracyline will die. Supposedly, these mosquitoes will mate with wild populations and transfer the gene so that wild populations will die without tetracycline treatment as well. Am I the only one who sees this as a bad idea? The biologist in me is absolutely going nuts as this has the potential for destroying a balanced ecosystem. Bats, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish all depend on mosquitoes and mosquito larvae for food. Are we going to see large reductions in the numbers of these populations, some of which are barely hanging on by a thread anyway because of this. Has anyone thought about the long term repercussions of this action? I don't think they have, just like they didn't think about the effects of spraying DDT back in the 60s and 70s and how that would eventually wind up damaging the raptor populations and song bird populations. Then what about the effect if one of these SM mosquitoes bites a human. We already know that mosquitoes transfer other viruses (which are genetic material) to humans, so what happens if they transfer this particular genetic material? Admittedly most of the mosquitoes will be male which don't bite but they will be releasing some female mosquitoes and then once they breed with the wild population that genetic code will be in both male and female populations. I hate mosquitoes as much as the next person, but I also believe that we need to understand and work within an ecosystem without potentially sending it into a tailspin. God put mosquitoes here for a reason, so obviously they belong and are necessary or He wouldn't have done so. We experience issues with out of balance ecosystems all the time. I don't know, but I think this is a very very bad idea. I think man needs to quit playing God because we are so going to pay for it in the end. Blessings, Kat