Food Thoughts 1: My Health Crisis

Often when people hit their 40s, their eyesight starts to go bad, and I was no exception.  In my early 40s I basically lost my ability to read without full light.  It was striking because it was not a gradual process.  One minute I could read at night, a month later I couldn't at all.  A year later I needed reading glasses - just 1.0s (the weakest variety) that I bought at the dollar store.  Over the next 2 or 3 years I needed them more and more, but I still didn't use them very often - I didn't want to "train" my eyes.  The good news is that my distance vision is fine.  The other good news is that I don't have problems reading my computer at home or at work.  This may be because of how I situate my computers.  I place my computer monitor an arm's length away with the keyboard next to it so that my arms can lay flat on my desk - this combined with using an ergonomic keyboard means there is no pressure on my wrists and they are not at an awkward angle which helps me avoid Carpal Tunnel (at least it has so far!) and the distance away is large enough for me to avoid eye strain.

In 2012 I occasionally started to get headaches (not migraines which I had years earlier).  Then BOOM, it happened.  I was grading exams for two of my classes and I got a headache.  This was an out-of-control Debilitating Headache, and it lasted all day and night and into the next day.  I had to go home and miss the rest of the day and I think the next day too.  It did go away, but then it returned - and then Did Not go away.  I started having chronic headaches.  The Eye doctor could finally see me and I found out that my distance vision was 20/20, but my near vision was terrible.  The problem was that one eye was 20/80 and the other eye was 20/150.  So, my doctor had some eye glasses made for me (the "readers" weren't going to cut it any more).  He told me that it would take some time for the glasses to come and more time for the eyes to "adjust" to the glasses.  The appointment was on Halloween 2012 and I was 48 years old.  The glasses did help but the chronic headaches did not end.  3 or 4 hours every other day I did NOT have a headache!  It wasn't that bad, not excruciating or anything - just a constant in the background sort of thing.  The headache was definitely worse when I did reading.  There is also a cost to be paid for going to bed each night with a headache, waking each morning with a headache, and hurting all the time - to you and to those around you.

For those who don't know about what life is like in your 40s here's the deal.  When you have problems you don't know if they're EVER going to go away.  If your eyes go bad in your 40s you will probably going to need glasses permanently.  If your knees start to hurt in your 40s you will probably have to give up playing basketball permanently.  So, I was having chronic headaches and I was worrying that they might not ever go away.  

Then one of the worst things that could happen happened (actually it was the best thing that could have happened because it shook me to the core making me change my ways permanently) - I caught a particularly heinous variety of the flu:

Virulent Flu + Chronic Headaches = No Fun

I completely lost interest in life:

• I could not think of a food that would make me happy.
• I could not think of a vacation spot that would make me happy.
• I could not think of a TV show or Movie that would make me happy.
• I spontaneously got e.d. and lost interest in sex. (The e.d.  lasted 3 days and I never had it before or since).
• Being with my kids, my wife, or my friends did not make me happy.
• There was nothing I could think of that I really wanted except for the headaches and the flu to go away.

I felt like I was looking in the future - I felt like I was 90.  I wasn't suicidal or anything, but dying really did not seem that bad of an idea.  I had hit Rock Bottom.  I was desperate.  I didn't want to live the rest of my life like this.  Even if the flu went away, I knew that something had to change, and I knew that something had to be Me.  So, I set about changing 2 fundamental things about my lifestyle:  My Diet and My Attitude.  These changes could not be incremental, they were large and they were sudden.  I've been trying incremental changes for 15 years - now I was not only ready, I was desperate. 

However, I still don't know if that was enough.  I have  transformed myself because in additional to supplicating the Emotional Me, it also appealed to the Logical Me.  Here's how:  Since I was in high school I have had trouble breathing.  My good friend Paul Lewis once called me "Darth Vader" because of it!  I was and am a "Mouth-Breather."  I had allergies, and I did get checked out.  The doctor stuck me with about 40 needles in different parts of my arms with different bad stuff in each needle.  I had reactions to numerous things, but here's the big problem:  I was allergic to stuff you can't get away from: dust, cat dander, a couple of different types of pollen.  I recently had the test redone and the results were basically the same, but this time I have it documented.

The net result is that I have had and still have Chronic Inflammation due to environmental allergens that I can't get away from.  Now here's more bad stuff:  Both the Alternative Medicine Community  and the Medical Establishment now agree that Chronic Inflammation will kill you, and it does so in multiple ways - arthitis, cancer, heart problems, ...  There are foods that promote inflammation and there are foods that inhibit inflammation.  The really good news is that Alternative Medicine folks and the Medical Establishment also agree on what many of what these foods are.

Logically, I needed to change my life because I have Chronic Inflammation.  Emotionally, I needed to change my life because I didn't enjoy living any more.  Together, they were and remain Powerful Forces in my Transformation.

In relation to the changes I've made, this is the Why.  Next up:  The How.