Can we have Old Style Forum back please.!!!. . . . This one sucks.!!

[phill05]

I’ve been though quite a rough time over the last 8 months going from 17st down to 14st mostly fat loss but I’ve also got some muscle loss in my arms, I’ve now been diagnosed with an underactive active thyroid this can affect people differently with some putting weight on and others losing weight, there is quite a few other symptoms that go with it as well but to sum up "The thyroid gland produces hormones which regulate the body’s metabolic rate as well as heart and digestive function, muscle control, brain development and bone maintenance."

For me I’ve had major problems with my joints/bones (some would argue the brain as well lol), if I do any kind of physical work the next day I’m in allot of pain and have massive swelling/fluid on my joints, this is mainly on my wrists with it taking me 10 mins to get out of bed in the morning depending on me having a good day or not, some days even if I haven’t a good day the day before as soon as I put any weight on my skeleton it hurts.

This is quite difficult for me mentally because I’m naturally a very active and physical person with lots of things that need doing, one day I could be doing a job laying 2x2 slabs/flags for someone, another day I may be fitting a new stair case, you get the picture - I’m very handy with my hands or have been :(. Most of the problem seems to be with my wrists to the point where it hurts to brush my teeth let alone open a can of beans for the kid’s dinner. I'm saying this here because one day someone may read this and notice my symptoms as being the same as theirs, for me this has been a long progression so allot of it while quite bad now has been going on for some time but because it’s been over a long time I’ve got used to living with it rather than noticing something is wrong.

There are a couple of other ones that stand out more like depression and so on but I’m not going into that, though that one dose get me quite a bit, fed by things like not being able to allow my kids to jump on me and play because they can hurt me really easily. Anyway I’ve got another blood test next week to see if my thyroid has picked back up, I don’t think has because come 4pm I’m shafted and need to rest for a couple of hours while my dinner kicks in, I’m on 50mg at the moment and that has made me feel better in a few ways but like I say come 4 I’m no good to anyone and I’ve clearly still got a problem with my bones, I recon I need 150mg but who am I to say.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, today I’m having quite a good day, I could get out of bed this morning and the only really problem today is my right knee, my wrists are still goosed but they always are so far, when it was just my right wrist it wasn’t to bad but now it’s both. Bummer!

So yea with all this sun we've been having I’ve managed to catch up on a few jobs around my own house that need doing, this week has seen new accommodation for the hens being built, doing an hour or two in the evening.

Hoping to get the last bit done later today (the top bit that’s missing), the framing is just roofing battens with the two top bits being hinged to allow for access. The rest is from some pallets I got off the local wood yard, at the bottom you can see the base is now finally finished for what will be my 24x12ft home workshop/shed (2 ton of type one, 5 ton of sand and 100+ slabs later), not much to show I know but it’s an achievement for me at the moment and I've been doing other smaller jobs as well when I can.

The last school run is approaching so I need to wrap this up, in September my youngest starts school full time so I will have my days back to myself, I’m hoping after putting food on the table I can crack on with the work I have planned for the forum and the other sites, with a bit of luck they can give my wrists back (the rest I can live with) and so I will also be able to get the workshop built and then enjoy having my own cnc machine up and running (4ftx2ft cutting area) finally!

Until then you will just have to be patient with me because as I’ve said above, life is a bit of a struggle at the moment for me and mostly I’m just getting by doing what I need to everyday to keep things going for the house and family.

Sorry for going on for so long but I couldn’t see any other way of putting out there that would give you an idea, I’m not looking for sympathy I’m not that type of person, it’s also been nice to get it off my chest as well, so if you read all of this, thanks and sorry for the delay in going forward.

.Me

Oh dear, It makes me so sad to hear anyone pour their heart out on such an emotive subject as a reason for not getting work done.

Being disabled myself 20+ years I know what it's like and I'm still working and I don't moan about it.
Sorry Lee you hit a sore spot.

me2

[Rogue]

Oh dear, It makes me so sad to hear anyone pour their heart out on such an emotive subject as a reason for not getting work done.

Being disabled myself 20+ years I know what it's like and I'm still working and I don't moan about it.
Sorry Lee you hit a sore spot.

me2

In fairness, you've had 20 years experience of adjusting. The transition phase can be physically, mentally and emotionally draining on anyone. I've dealt with plenty of people in that situation; some bounce back into a positive mindset and approach more quickly than others.

I've always had a lot of respect for Irving2008 since joining the board, but the way he posts about facing current challenges is both pretty inspirational and pretty rare. Everyone deals with things in their own way, don't complain when someone doesn't act like a superhero.

Back on topic, though, the change still doesn't sit well with me though I couldn't exactly describe why. The activity stream is fairly redundant considering the active thread list in the right hand bar.

[Lee Roberts]

Re: My Health

Thank you to those of you who have shown concern towards the things I talked about in my last post here, as promised you can find an update below. If I have offended any one by talking about myself, then I apologise as it was not intentional.

So I’ve been for all the tests they want to do, been bounced around the system and finally have some of the answers as to "what’s up" with me.

Turns out I have psoriasis; this triggered the next revelation "psoriatic arthritis". While all this has been going on it turns out I’ve also had an underactive thyroid, we knew this when I last posted on this thread but things have become clearer now, I think I’ve had this since I was about 18 as I’ve always been 5ft 11 and 17 1/2 stone with no real explanation for it. They say I should be between 9 1/2 to 12 1/2 stone, what they are saying is that because my thyroid has been under active I’ve put all that weight on but now that the med’s are bringing my thyroid back into balance its reversing the effect and accounts for the weight loss. So that is a positive thing to happen at least, though there is more on the weight loss, continued below.

The thyroid thing is great I’ve never felt better lol; I’m currently 13 stone 7, gone down from a 38" waste to a 34. The sad news is though, I’ve got allot of upper body muscle loss mostly in my arms and shoulders. My knee is still quite bad and shot at, I’ve got quite a bit of muscle loss in my upper right leg as well, I think allot of the loss has come from not being able to use parts of my body because of the pain. I’ve always been a lump don’t get me wrong but I’ve always been a strong lump and a very able person when it has come to physical things. You know when you see that guy? who grabs a washing machine out the back of a transit?, chucks it up onto his shoulder and “boy’s-it-off” till he gets to the front door, well that used to me.

Let’s talk about pain.
I tried to live with it as much as I could, however it got to the point where I couldn’t even turn over in bed without extreme pain in my upper body, shoulders, my collar bone more than anything, it was like being hit with a hammer, right on the end of my collar bone. I did a little test with pain killers and it turned out that pain was right in my shoulder but had an echoing effect on my collar bone that made it feel like it was in my collar bone.

Anyway I had to give in, everything was shutting down and I was really starting to struggle. It’s weird because what I noticed was, say like I needed to go and drain the “bishop”, one part of my brain was saying “go on then, off you go” while another part was actually overriding those thoughts and telling me not to get up because it was going to hurt, I would find myself sat there, talking to myself mentally, I can see the funny side of it now but my Mrs came in a few times and asked me what I was doing, lol, I would have a slight rocking motion about me and would be staring at nothing.

After a few times I noticed myself what was going on, what I was doing, I was building up the courage to actually just get up and face the music, so then I just started overriding those thoughts and said no, get up, you’ve got to. Mind Games!

It’s a bit crazy really when you look at it, things like going to the loo or getting up to walk across the living room to the table at dinner time, are normally just spontaneous actions that you do without even thinking about it. It’s a real eye opener to what we sometimes take for granted and what others go through, day in, day out.

So anyway, much to my disliking I went to the doctors and started taking pain killers 3 times a day, 1200mg a day, this helped no end and I’ve been able to relax a little since.

My current situation.
Since the 4th I’ve now started my medication for the arthritis, they said that it will take a good 3 months for these meds to start working as although they are very powerful they take this long to start showing signs of working. Overall I’ve received a decent service, I did need to make two phone calls to get the ball rolling with regards to the arthritis meds, I was waiting for the specialist nurse to send me an appointment, however 5 weeks past the original quote of 8 weeks max, I felt it was time to give them a push, two weeks later I had my appointment and was starting the meds.

Basically the things I have wrong with me are all classed under the same umbrella; they are Autoimmune Diseases, from the wiki: “are the result from an abnormal immune response of the body against substances and tissues normally present in the body (autoimmunity). The treatment of autoimmune diseases is typically with immunosuppression—medication that decreases the immune response”.

There are a little over 100 different types of autoimmune disease, since finding out what is wrong with me I’ve been doing allot of reading up, I’m currently working my way through a book called “The Immune System Recovery Plan”, it’s by a lady doctor in the USA called Susan Blum. Susan has also suffered from autoimmune diseases herself, is lucky enough to be in a position to make a difference and also practises something called Functional Medicine.

If your remotely interested then get the book (I won’t spoil it for you here) because it is worth the read, even if you don’t have anything wrong with you at the moment, that you know of, it points out some interesting things about the food we eat and the body’s reaction to that information.

One short explanation to allot of the autoimmune diseases we know about is something called “leaky gut syndrome”, what Susan explains in the books is that many symptoms and diseases are caused by the immune system reacting to germs, toxins or other molecules that have been absorbed into the bloodstream via a porous bowel. In her book she gives many examples of how Functional Medicine helped to fix a wide array of problems in different people, she also talks about the current medical system and medicine. Something that I can say is true, is that, out of the handful of people I’ve been to see (doctors and so on) NOT ONE of them has asked the question WHAT IS THE CAUSE of the problems I have, true to what she talks about in the book, they have all diagnosed my SYMTOMS and true to form prescribed medication to deal with those symptoms, the problem with such medicines is that they don’t fix the REAL problem.

So coming back to my arthritis problem (as it’s the biggest for me at the moment), the med’s they have put me on for this are actually going to start suppressing my immune system. Hang on a minute! how can suppressing my immune system fix the CAUSE of my problem? How is it right that you would shut down a MAJOR function in the body, more concerning the one of the single most important assets the body has for defence...

The answer is, it WON’T “fix” my problem of psoriatic arthritis. When you think about it, above they told us that, it will take about 3 months for the effects of the meds to really show signs of “working?”, is that because shutting down/suppressing the immune system is actually quite an extreme thing to do?.

I’m taking the meds they have given me; however I am also getting ready to start an elimination diet. This diet will see me removing the different types of food categories from my diet, then after 3 weeks I will slowly be introducing them back in, one at a time. This will allow me to monitor my reaction to things like dairy, I will be looking at how my body reacts, how some food information makes me feel and so on.

If we pop back to my thyroid problem for a second or two, as you probably know, food contains protein, unfortunately for my thyroid and when the immune system is over active, the immune system can also start attacking the body and one of the things it can attack, is the thyroid. It does this because your thyroid also contains protein, it’s not quite the same protein but when the immune system is on such “high alert”, those proteins look the same, the result can be that it starts to attack the thyroid because it “thinks” it is a foreign object in the body.

We can’t blame it, that is the purpose of the immune system, what we can do though, is reduce the amount of nasty’s sneaking through the gut wall, giving the immune system a chance to calm down and relax.

From most of the above, you should now be able to see how my problems may be connected to the same cause, eventually the hope is that I will identify what food is no good for me and remove it from my diet and begin repairing my leaky gut problem. I am hoping that I can use the meds to suppress my immune system enough that life is better for me in the short term but also while I do the “self discovery” thing regarding the food and elimination diet. Eventually I hope that my body will be able to cope with my conditions on its own and that I won’t need to spend the rest of my life on pain killers and suppressive medicines developed in the 19th century.

At this moment in time, I feel better than I have for awhile now. Although they said the meds for the arthritis won’t act as a pain killer, since I started taking them on the 4th, I’ve only needed to take one 500mg tablet of pain killer since then, clearly this medicine has started to help me already even though I’m not at the full dosage yet (slow build up each week, for 4 weeks). This great because I really didn’t want to be on painkillers, there is somewhat of a match between when things started to go “wrong” for me and a time in my life when I was taking pain killers for something else, for many weeks. I don’t know for sure but I think taking the pain killers at that time may have been the cause of my leaky gut, as pain killers are known to strip the lining of your stomach and so on.

So I am in a better place now, true, my journey has only just begun, however it will be one that changes my life for good and forever.

Thanks,
Lee

[EddyCurrent]

Lee,
I'm being absolutely serious here, watch this video then live Paleo. I've been on this route for over a year now and will continue with it for as long as I live. My blood has come better and I'm not in constant joint pain any more. Wheat is the biggest cause for joint pain and many athletes now avoid it.

Unfortunately when people see the word 'diet' they think 'weight loss' but in this case it means 'the stuff you eat'

[Lee Roberts]

Hi Eddy, thought i had replied to this one...

O i know all about Wheat, Gluten being the real one we should all know about!

I watched the video shortly after you posted, all the way through, the same day me and the Mrs said ok no more Milk, since then we've been on almond and coconut milk. Its handy because the kids love it as well so that was no trouble, I also ordered his book as well, not started that one yet as i'm currently working my way through another 4 books at the same time (I alternate), but i do look forward to reading it and trying some of the recipes.

It was intresting to hear about the fat + sugar detail as well, generally I thought the whole thing was intresting, so thanks for sharing.

Been busy the last few days playing catch-up on all the smaller jobs i've let slip over the last few months, it's been nice to actually get my tools out and do some stuff, infact i've also had all the bits for my cnc machine out in the kitchen today, maybe one day this summer they will become "a machine of production" lol.

Been on these meds 4 weeks now, so will hopfully start seeing some noticeable differences.



.Me

[EddyCurrent]

Lee, I'm very pleased you have seen something that might be beneficial, if you keep to the foods he says for a month you will definitely see and feel a difference. I started on cocounut milk but now I don't bother with any kind of milk whatsoever.

This is my main book
The Primal Blueprint: Reprogramme your genes for effortless weight loss, vibrant health and boundless energy: Amazon.co.uk: Mark Sisson: Books

And this is his website, if you need Paleo advice on any food type this is one of the best places to search for it.
Mark's Daily Apple