Vitamins - What is Old is New

And yet another reason to lose weight.

Good old vitamin D - Most doctors and researchers now agree that vitamin D is the key to strong bones and prevention of many of the diseases now associated with aging. The best sources of vitamin D are sunlight and fish oils.

Now the bad news. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and is stored in -- what else -- fat. But if you are storing too much fat you are keeping your vitamin D untouchable . It is not released because the fat is not used up.

Body fat is your first line defense against a toxic world. Everything that is not good for you that is not excreted from your body on a daily basis is tucked neatly away in your stored body fat. If necessary more body fat is created to store those toxins.

Now, those toxins are not limited to the mercury and pesticides you ingest and breathe, they also include the toxic foods. Sure you eat toxic food. Do you eat sugar? Do you eat processed flour and rice? Do you eat corn fructose syrup? Do you eat MSG?

Food sensitivities lead to an over abundance of fat storage as the body tries to protect itself from something it calls bad. Your best friend may eat that substance with immunity but not you. You probably don't even know what your food sensitivities are unless they are extreme.

Another vitamin making the news recently is vitamin C. Researchers are taking another look at the Dr Pauling reports that claimed a cancer cure using vitamin C. Attempts to duplicate his research used oral vitamin C which won't work and caused his research to be disregarded except as an alternative medicine approach. But, the follow up on people who were treated with intravenous transfusions of vitamin C is indicating a cure rate and a subsequent longer life cancer free. New research trials have begun. I don't know about you, but should this disease visit me, I am going for the IV Vitamin C.

I start back on my job today. Wish me luck. The toes are still draining so standing in shoes is not the most comfortable thing to do. Saw the doctor yesterday, and his comment was that when you do 2 toes at a time, it just takes longer for the body to get rid of all the chemicals he injected into the toes. Now he tells me.

until next time
Sharon
Answers For Your Health

The Overnight Success or Failure?

We all know of the overnight success -- the one who worked his or her whole life to achieve that goal. And though we may acknowledge that work, we still tend to think of it as just one "break" that got that person the prize.

If you think about it, everyone is on that same path. At least in terms of aging and health.

You work your whole life on your health. No you say, I didn't work at anything and I am over weight and weak and have many aches and pains. By default you worked at bad health.

Your overnight success came one morning or evening when you looked in the mirror and saw the wrinkles and the fat. It came on the day you could no longer turn the lid on a jar. It came the day when you had to run after - child, pet, the postman - and you were panting and out of breath.

Each decade we see the little changes. Wounds that don't heal as quickly, skin that bruises more easily, joints that pop and are painful with weather changes.

Perhaps it is hair that is thinning and growing more grey or the bigger size clothes in the closet pushing the smaller sizes to the back until they are released to charity because we finally gave up on losing that 10 pounds and besides they are not in fashion any longer. (Side note here, my mother-in-law still has clothes from the 50's because they may come back into fashion. No they don't fit.)

The only time you can have a flower one day when they was no plant the day before, is if you go and buy it. Someone, some where had to take the time and effort to grow that plant and flower.

Your success came from the daily intake of sugar and excess food. Just a bite here and there adding up so very much. As you grow older the fat builds up as the muscle mass decreases. Joints begin to hurt and the exercise becomes even more infrequent and painful.

When my mother was in her late 60's she would still get out and play basketball with the kids. She worked in her garden every day. She ate mostly good food - vegetables she had grown herself. Why did she die a painful death from cancer? My guess would be the extreme mental stress she put herself under. Plus the pesticides she used in the garden, plus the grief of losing her only son.

Am I saying that diet and exercise are not worth the effort, of course not. Will a good diet and healthy exercise keep aging and death from your door, of course not. Death is the natural end for us all. Aging is as natural as the seasons. But isn't the goal to be a healthy and happy and active for as long as possible?

I am a woman and the wrinkles bother me. The old looking hands bother me. But it does not stop me from enjoying life and being active. My hands have seen 60 years of stress - dishwater, gardening, burns and cuts. Thank God and diet I do not suffer from the arthritis that plagued my mother and father.

I have found that as I get older, my resolve to exercise becomes more wish than action. Especially now, with my toes so painful that walking is a real chore, the weather so cold and the TV so mind numbing, I find that days and days go by with no real movement. I have gained 10 pounds in a month since this all started.

I have a greater appreciation for people that have severe arthritis and still manage to walk and clean house and work.

Is it ever too late to change the path of your own overnight success? As long as you have breath and a little bit of muscle you can change that path.

If walking is beyond you right now, then use hand weights (or a can of vegetables) while you are watching TV. Better yet, tune in to the TV programs that are freely available that guide you through sitting exercises.

Have you found it impossible to give up those soft drinks each day? Yes even the diet ones are bad for you, worse in some ways. Try EFT to release the mental need. Still smoking, again try EFT and put something else in your hands. Are your hands too painful to knit or woodwork, then change up the diet. Add supplements to your diet such as Tumeric.

You cannot turn back the hands of time. You will never be that foolish 20 again with the feeling that nothing could hurt you and you would never grow old. BUT, you can begin now today to change that helpless feeling that aging has taken over and you will weakly go to your grave.

If you cannot get out of your house and TV is your only diversion, then use that.

During the many commercials, get up, pick up those hand weights or cans and walk around your house or apartment. If you walk to the kitchen, go through the kitchen without picking up food.

Count your steps and write down the number. Add them up at the end of the day and try to walk a few more steps tomorrow. It may be slow progress but eventually you will be able to go outside and walk around the block a few times. You will have an over night success.

until next time - smile
Sharon
Answers For Your Health

Just for Fun

I am still catching up and clearing out a ton of emails. Like everyone else, I get more spam than real emails but it does take some sorting. The emails that really upset me are the ones that look like I sent them. It is just out and out fraud that someone can use my name and address to send out their junk.

Oh well

Wanted to pass this cute little thing on to you. I got it from my daughter.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I'm a little late in sending out a holiday letter, just wanting to thank
all of you who sent me emails last year.

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat manure in the
glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet towel with every
envelope that needs sealing.

I now scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny
Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

In fact all my money is gone but that will change once I receive the
$15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for
participating in their special e-mail program

Or, I'll receive it from the senior bank clerk in Nigeria who wants to
split $7 million with me for pretending to be a long lost relative of a
customer who died intestate.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking
out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a
water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I
forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five
minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca-Cola because it can
remove toilet stains.

I no longer buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car
so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm filling up.

And I don't go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a
perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a
number and I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda,
Singapore and Uzbekistan

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown
African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when
it bites my bum.

And thanks to your great advice, I can't even pick up the $5.00 I found
dropped in the car park because it probably was placed there by a sex
molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70
minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00pm
this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back,
causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it
actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's
ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician.

By the way....a South American scientist after a lengthy study has
discovered that people with low IQ's who have infrequent sexual activity
always read their e-mails with their hand on the mouse.

A lot of nonsense goes around in emails, but there is that occasional gem of truth. Please do wash off the tops of your cans before opening them. If you don't believe in the rat poo just think about the dust (made up of dust mites, and human skin) that collects on the cans.

And, although we should all be careful and aware of our surroundings in this day and age, I personally would pick up the $5 bill.

Thanks to all of you who expressed sympathy for my nail-less toes.

until next time - smile
Sharon
Answers For Your Health

Twisted Toe Nails and Blood Pressure

I feel like I have been missing since just before Christmas. It started when I hurt my elbow at work. I had to go to the med clinic that the store uses. My blood pressure was 195/120. Since the blood pressure had nothing to do with the elbow injury, the doctor would not treat it and suggested I see my own doctor.

At the time I did not have a doctor so I made an appointment with my husband's doctor only to find out the practice had been sold and the new doctor did not have an office there - only the PA. The PA prescribed a blood pressure medicine and a stronger pain med for my elbow. Now like all doctors offices I had filled out the forms and listed my known allergies. Yes you know where this is going. The pain med was codeine and I can't take that. Thanks to the pharmacy.

As soon as I started the blood pressure medicine I started to break out in a rash on my left arm - the same one with the injured elbow. Went back to the PA and she said the rash did not look like an allergic reaction, it looked more like bug bites. I agree however I do not recall any swarm of bugs biting my arm. She switched me to a different blood pressure med and a diuretic. Filled the blood pressure med but not the diuretic because the diuretic was a sulfa base and you guessed it - I am allergic to sulfa.

I found another doctor. The PA apologized and said she was not used to reading that office's charts and so missed the list of allergies. A Physician Assistant has a place, but I do not believe that place is to totally replace a doctor. I also have a problem with the fact that I never saw her wash her hands when she came in to "examine" me. I do not care that she never touched me, never listened to my heart or lungs (but wanted a chest x-ray), common sense requires that she wash after the last patient. My opinion -- this office was just a money making proposition with no attention to the care of the patients.

The PA had given me a referral to a podiatrist for my badly twisted toe nail. I have been ignoring the toe nail for a couple of years now. The toe was looking a little blue so I decided it was really time to do something about it before I lost the toe. The nails had deformed due to wearing the wrong type of shoe for so many years. They just couldn't take the pressure.

On the 25th of January I had both big toe nails removed. Ouch. It is an office procedure and once you get past the shots to numb the toe, there is no pain during the procedure. The shots are dentist times 10.

I have included a shot of my toe with the "bamboo torture stick". The toe nails should not grow back. The toe nails next to the big toes are also twisted and he wants to remove them as well. Because of the high possibility of infection the doctor will only do 2 toes at a time.




I took 2 weeks off from work - that may not be enough time. My doctor says if I had a sit down job, that would be fine but standing up as I do, I may not be able to wear shoes that long. Of course my job requires closed toe shoes.

My daughter went with me to the doctor so she could drive and hold my hand for the shots. What a trooper she is. She did not want to watch but she said it was like a traffic accident - you just can't help yourself. She is the one who took the picture on her phone. Her comment - "That is so cool".

Once the tourniquet was removed, the bleeding started and by the time I got home, I had bloody socks. The primary bandage stays on for 24 hours and then you have to soak your feet twice a day. As the pain meds wear off you begin to feel the procedure. Ice packs help and Tylenol. There is no major bleeding after the first day but the toes do drain constantly.

The first 3 days I did nothing but sit with my feet up. I think following that advice is most important. It really cut down on the pain.

So here I sit, finally back on the computer but only for an hour at a time. The blood pressure is in control at an average of 130/80. The rash (after 30 days) no longer itches but the purple looking blotches are still on my arm. The elbow is good as new although there is still one painful spot. The new doctor ordered blood work which came back with all good news. I guess I am ready to get on with my life and begin to lose that 10 pounds I have gained since this all started. I will not be able to go for a walk for a while yet. I know one thing, I am tired of watching TV.

I do accept the fact that I cannot be on my feet for any length of time. Since my toes are still raw bloody looking things, the possibility of infection is still very strong, so the primary focus right now is to keep them clean and healing. Once the toes are healed I should be able to wear a variety of shoes which will be nice. My shoe wardrobe has been limited to tennis shoes and sandals. I even acknowledge that if I had done this several years ago, it would all be behind me.

My advice to you is if you have any problems with your toes, toe nails or feet, see the doctor now. The sooner taken care of, the sooner you can move with freedom and health. Of course he did tell me, the older you are the slower to heal. Whatever age you are right now, it is certainly younger than you will be in another year.