The Craziness Of It All

Life has been plum crazy lately. We have been over run with doctor's appointments. As many of you know I have been struggling with what I thought was joint pain in my elbows and muscle pain in my forearms. I visited my regular doctor multiple times and they came up with zero. My neck started bothering me about a month ago so I broke down and decided to visit a chiropractor. Low and behold there is nothing wrong with my elbow joints I actually have myofacisitis in my muscle and tendons in my arms. So now I am visiting the chiropractor two times a week for my neck and arms. When I went to have a regular eye exam the doctor found a retinal scar in my right eye which means today I am off to a specialist to do a retinal scan to see if the scar is old and needs no treatment or new and needes treatment. Grace had some minor surgery done on her big toe about a month ago at the podiatrist and had a reaction to some of the medication involved so the toe has been pretty painful. That required a couple of visits back for rechecks and now anitbiotices. Two weeks ago I had a horrible respiratory virus that required two visits to the regular doctor. Two days ago Daisy the pug start with gastro problems and has been at the vet for the past two days. Needless to say we are all doctored out. It will be nice when we can go one week without any doctor's appointments.

Aloe Vera Juice

Aloe Vera Juice has been a recent find for me. I use it for my acid reflux. My reflux has gotten so bad that I had to see a gastro specialist in December. Currently I take a prescription acid reducer in the morning and the gastro doctor added an over the counter one at night to try for three months. I have what is actually consider secondary symptoms. Irritated tongue and roof of mouth as well as sore throat especially when swallowing food instead of the routine burning in the throat or stomach. A couple of months ago I started drinking the aloe vera juice morning and night. At first it was hard to tell if it was helping because of all the other medication I am on. But recently I ran out of it and was off the juice for 5-7 days. My sore throat came back. I picked juice up yesterday and upped my dose to 1 1/2 oz. twice yesterday and could already see a difference today. My gastro doctor has no confidence in the aloe vera juice helping. I don't understand why so many doctors have a problem with endorsing alternative methods for healing. There are about 250 types of aloe vera plants so don't try to make it on your own. A specific type is needed so please get the one from a health food store, etc.

Health Update

I just thought about the fact that I never came back and let any of you know how it was going with the insomnia. Once starting the new medication almost 4 weeks ago I started sleeping much better. I still wake up in the middle of the night a couple of times but falling off to sleep is very easy now. Of course if it is not one thing it is another. I have suffered with acid reflux for 5-6 years. Been on multiple medications. As soon as the sleeping got under control then the reflux started back. Called the doctor yesterday and they are referring me to a gastro specialist for scoping. So not looking forward to this. I started taking over the counter Zantac today to add to my daily dose of dexilant. Hoping and praying for some relief over the next few days. Consult appt is set for December 14th.

Time To Get Serious

About exercise that is. I have jumped started an exercise program for me and Grace several time over the past two years and nothing seems to stick. The funniest time I ever seemed to have with exercise was going to Jazzercise, but for the two of us to join was just to expensive. Well this weekend I got a one time deal for this week to join for the year for $199, normally it is $470. Luckily I know the owner very well from church and she let me add on Grace for just $99 for the entire year. So much to Grace's dismay (she really doesn't want to do it) we will embark on this exercise journey together starting at the end of the week. Grace is not athletic and has never participated in any sports so I feel it is important to instill in her the need to stay healthy and starting an exercise routine early on in life so that it becomes a habit. Of course this is not going to be easy for me either. I have gained 20 pounds in the last 1 1/2 years and my health has not been the greatest. Stamina way down. I am sure it will be a slow process to bring me back to speed.

The Sound of Silence

Sorry I haven't been posting lately. As I have mentioned in some previous posts I am dealing with some health issues. All my tests so far have come back good with the exception of low vitamin d and slightly anemic. But I still don't feel normal. Joint and muscle pain ebbs and flows, no stamina or energy, hard to get through 30 minutes of a walk without feeling like I have run a marathon. This just isn't normal for me. Well I decided to go to the local health store and talk with the owner about something to help me. He was very informative and seemed to know his stuff. I left the store with New Chapter's zyflamend softgels and One "n" only Superior Tonic Multiple Vitamin. The zyflamend is a bunch of high potent herbs that create a good inflammation response in your body and helps with joint, muscle, tend, or nerve inflammation problems. The vitamin is super potent and has alot of B vitamins as well as some herbs to help with energy. The first day I took the zyflamend I woke up in the middle of the night with a full blown panic attack and couldn't go back to sleep. In the past I did suffer from anxiety and was on medication for about 3-4 years right after I had Grace. I know what an attack feels like and thought maybe after three months of not feeling right it was starting to get to me. So the next day at lunch I took both pills and again had trouble sleeping and was up much the not with anxious feelings. I read further about this herbal supplement and discovered the anxious feelings were probably coming from it. I took it one more night which was last night and sleep more than the first two nights but did wake up twice with feelings of anxiety (like I was scared to fall back asleep). Hubby also took one of the pills last night to see if he had some of the same feelings. He did feel quite a bit of energy and didn't need to go to sleep at his normal time. So for know I have decided to stop taking it even with it being very expensive. I just can not go around feeling tired as well as amped up on drugs all the time. My nerves would suffer to much. I am going to try to continue you the vitamin supplement and hope it will help with my problems of lack of energy. So sorry for no posts, I could hardly form some coherent sentences over the past few days. Prayer would be greatly appreciated for calm and healing.

Eat Your Fruits and Veggies

Since we watched "What's on Your Plate" last week Grace has turned into a brand new person as far as her diet goes. I have had to purchase produce twice in 10 days and about to go back for more tomorrow. Of course there are three other people in the house eating it too. I am so proud of her. Instead of eating chips and crackers, etc. for snacks and with her lunch she now picks carrots, apples, pears, nuts, mandarin oranges, and cantaloupe. She even looked at all the labels of the items we purchased at the last grocery trip and was disgusted at the long list of ingredients. As each week goes by we are trying to change some things about our diet. The local produce store we have is small and doesn't really carry organic items. I do purchase nuts and honey from this store too. On the list tomorrow to purchase will be apples, bananas, pears, strawberries, cantaloupe, nuts and honey.

Movie From Netflix - What's on your Plate

Grace and myself watched a live streaming documentary from Netflix today that we enjoyed. In Science as many of you already know we are studying gardening/plants. The movie I chose for us to watch today, "What's On Your Plate", was created by a couple of middle school girls with their families. The girls live in one of the inner cities of New York. One of the girls went on vacation in Ohio and tasted a cherry tomato from a farm and couldn't believe how wonderful it tasted. The thought process started about why the tomatoes she ate at home didn't taste as good. This kickstarted an entire process of learning about how food is transported, eating locally, obesity, organic gardening, CSAs, what ingredients are in our foods, etc. I thought the documentary was well thought out and enjoyable to watch. After viewing the film Grace's mindset was really changed about what food she put in her mouth. This afternoon it prompted a visit to the local produce store to purchase grapes, pears, apples, bananas, carrots, avocados, and baby spinach. She has already eaten a carrot and apple and plans on a pear for snack tonight. I hope this continues. I told her after the movie that I wished we had a local CSA or farmer's market to attend. Then I stopped myself and remembered in a couple of months our garden will be our very own farmer's market, it just won't cost us anything.