Not sure the Buteyko Method is a Holy Grail. It's probably more like a work in progress. A loooong slooooow work in progress. As usual, I've found that my idea of long term is not nearly long enough... I was thinking months, my body/the method was thinking years. Or perhaps it's a dead end? No one can tell for sure. I'll just have to try it and see, as usual. I plan to give it my all until Christmas and then to re-evaluate. I know for sure that it seems unreasonable to only be able to hold one's breath for 20 seconds. I also think I'd need to be at a morning CP of at least 40 for a longer period of time before my body can heal. The trick/obstacle seems to be to get the morning CP that high in the first place....
At least, I am now stable as far as clearing symptoms are involved. I feel as good as I did before starting my breath work now, just not able to do yoga yet cause it's too hard on my breathing, but none of the other strange and difficult symptoms related to the breath work remains. I've also resolved my chronic diarrhea by drinking decaf coffee 3 times a day. It probably works because it's so strongly anti-inflammatory. I know it's not a cure, but a symptom treatment, but I'm ok with the thought of drinking coffee every day for the rest of my life. lol. In fact that sounds pretty great, all things considered!
I currently do only very mild EPs (Extended Pauses), of 32, 36 and 40 seconds, and I still do 4 sittings per day (about 30 minutes long sessions each). I also go for a daily power-walk with shallow breathing, and I tape my mouth each night. The Buteyko method is a lot of work but it holds a lot of promise. I'm also happy to be free from all those terrible clearing symptoms I had before. I got free from them by going back to basics and doing super short holds of 10 seconds only for a long time, and then slowly upping the holds, 1 second per day max. I'm still fortunate enough to be working with my own Buteyko practitioner and he thinks I'm progressing like I should.
The really frustrating thing though, is that my morning CP (Control Pause) is still only 20 seconds long, sometimes barely that. This after working so hard 4 times per day for 6 months now. It's definitely an uphill battle. I fear that a year from now my CP will still be 20 seconds. What do I do then?
My period cramps are still the same, or slightly worse because the Buteyko work is taking so much of my energy I forget about the hourly kegles, and because I am not supposed to engage my lower belly, this leads to less support for the uterus, and I don't always have the energy left to do my daily physical therpay program that is so crucial in my pain management. My overall health is still stable but my endometriomas won't go away, my edema, and my sunken eyelids are still a daily problem. My teeth however, seem to be improving a lot after beginning to eat egg shell calcium about a week ago. It seems I've been getting too little calcium. Those store bought calcium tablets clearly didn't give me enough. I've discontinued them now. Egg shell calcium is simply oven dried egg shells that have been crushed into small peaces using a simple wooden roller, and then I chew on them forever like a true Eskimo-wanna-be.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Weston A Price "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration"
I recently finished reading Dr Weston A Price's groundbreaking book "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration". It was a fascinating read, but it's left me feeling quite depressed and confused. Not only mourning for the suffering of the native people who got essentially wiped out by our modern diets, but also, wondering how I can use the still remaining old wisdom that is being communicated to me via Dr Price's book. My own personal struggle represents a generation of sufferers who all fight our own battles with various degrees of only limited success at best.
After reading the book, instead of finding answers to my questions and health struggles, I've ended up in the smack middle of the dairy controversy, and I don't know what to think anymore. On the one hand, I know for sure that my body does not tolerate dairy, because when I consume it my tongue gets more white and my belly bloated. It seem to feed my candida immediately. It is however possible that those symptoms are healing symptoms and are in fact a sign that I am getting better, not worse. If that is the case, I SHOULD continue consuming it. Talk about 100% confusing and contradictory....
Dr. Price writes "...drink about a quart of milk per day" page 493
Note: I'm ONLY referring to Organic Raw Milk dairy products. Anything else is not of good quality enough that I'd even consider consuming it.
The problem is that there is no information about candida or detox reactions or dairy allergies in Dr Price's book. No single mention of any such reactions. Just stories of children healing perfectly and swiftly when put on raw milk. If this is true, and I have no reason to think Dr Price was fabricating his research, then why can't I (and so many others with me) tolerate raw milk?
I was very surprised to read in Dr Price's book about the common use of dairy products among the wise native people, as I've read online that all dairy is a major no-no, especially for endometriosis and candida sufferers like myself.
"The cattle tribes of Africa, the Swiss in isolated high Alpine valleys, and the tribes living in the higher altitudes in Asia, including northern India, have depended upon a very high quality of dairy products." page 362
If all those native people made the decision to use raw milk as a part of their superior diet, developed over thousands of years, then surely it should be considered a healing food and be good enough for me and everyone else? Then why is raw milk seemingly not healing to me? Perhaps I'm just too far gone? Like the children with tuberculosis. There was no research on raw milk curing them....But I tend to think of myself as far healthier than that. Or perhaps raw milk is ONLY healing to a person of a certain degree of health. Just as saunas are healing to people with relatively high CP, but can be deadly to people with heart issues or very low CPs.
That strengthens the argument that we modern people of today were born sick due to our parent's faulty nutrition, and have been living sick for so long that our bodies can not tolerate breaking down the lactose in otherwise healing milk. However, Weston A Price treated children who were on their death beds. I'd have to believe that my current health/digestion is weaker than a dying child's in the 30s since all the children he treated did respond super well to the raw milk he gave them. Was it just by chance that these kids didn't have lactose intolerance? Or was it because their parents ate full nutrition foods? Or perhaps because their bodies, although dying, were not as filled with toxins as my modern body probably is. It somehow seems far fetched to me, but still entirely it's possible.
What I do know is that I can't drink raw milk, and I know that Weston A Price considered raw milk to be one of the best sources of phosphorus, calcium and other essential minerals. These are the most important building blocks for health and life he theorized, and the most difficult to get enough of. I find myself unable to follow the advice of Dr Price and the wisdom of the native people. Then again, if I had decided 3 years ago that if something made me bloated and gave me a white tongue, then that would be bad, then I'd never have done this current candida diet. When I began this diet my belly got more bloated than ever and stayed that way for 2 years until it normalized. Likewise, my tongue got white immediately and is still white today. SO, perhaps my conclusion should be to use raw milk for 2 years and then see if I feel any better. Obviously this seems like an impossible project. Perhaps I'll just have to wait until I've healed more until I can one day be strong enough to tolerate and utilize the healing minerals present in raw milk. Until then I can still consume the good raw butter fats and seafoods that don't seem to give me any problems.
Dr. Price further writes that "The basic foods should be the entire grains such as whole wheat, rye or oats, whole wheat and rye breads, wheat and oat cereals, oat-cake, dairy products, including milk and cheese, which should be used liberally, and marine foods." page 492
This puts me in the middle of another major controversy, "the grains or not" saga.
I understand that the wheat Dr Price used to treat the kids then was on an entirely different quality than what we can find today. It's quality has been lost forever due to genetic modification, and we are also not able to get fresh enough wheat anymore. (Wheat apparently goes bad very quickly in transportation) The wheat he used must have come from local sources and have been fresh enough to work as a healing food. Also, today many people have gluten intolerance due to over toxicity, myself included. However, if we take any of the gluten-free grains mentioned in his book such as quinoa, and millet, my body has a problem with that too. Even if it's been soaked in medium to get rid of all the phytic acids, these gluten free grains immediately feeds my candida with bloating, white tongue, and severe cravings as a result. Could it be the same as with raw milk, that I'm just too sick to be able to benefit from these whole foods?
Because I feel this grain issues is a problem that can't be solved, and I don't feel that grains are essential to my health, I am ok with staying on my current no grain diet. I do feel however, that raw milk might be essential for healing since it's so loaded with those crucial minerals. However, I question the wisdom of picking and choosing from Dr Price's recommendations. I don't come from a tradition of native people with thousands of years of accumulated wisdom, so who am I to make a guess? The problem with waiting and trying to heal on raw butter and sea foods alone, may be that I might never get there. I've been off grains and dairy and on raw butter for 3 years already. I doubt that I'm improving much.
I also can't just explain away raw milk's healing properties in the 30s and unhealthy properties today with a "soil depletion" argument because that same soil depletion must be true for everything else we eat (except perhaps seafoods). In that case we should not be able to eat beef either since they eat the grass from the same depleted soil that their milk products would be produced from. In my mind if we can eat grass fed beef, then we should be able to eat grass fed raw milk. A healing food is a healing food. Isn't it? Did the natives consume it or did they not? If the answer is yes, shouldn't I be able to consume it? That being said, the Peruvian Indians did chew on cocoa leafs daily. I'd say that is not something healthy that I'd like to add to my diet, but clearly it worked for them.
I'm so confused and all this is too controversial to even discuss on yahoo groups. I'm definitely on my own here.
In reading Dr Price's book, I also found that my upper palate is very narrow. This is something that I am not sure if I need to address or not in order to heal? Weston A Price did see a connection between a narrow upper palate, mouth breathing, poor nutrition of the parents and child, dental caries, and ill health. It's possible that the narrow upper palate is pressing on the pituitary gland and this may cause so much stress on the nervous system that hyperventilation is a result. Or it may be that the facial muscles aren't working like they should, so closing one's jaws is actually physically more difficult and requires conscious thought and effort as opposed to something that happens more or less automatically in people with wide palates. The maxillary bones are involved in this too because of it's proximity to the pituitary gland. But the native mothers did teach their newborns to keep their mouths closed by gently closing their mouths after feeding. So, perhaps it's just caused by poor habits neglected by our modern mothers. Buteyko says hyperventilation is caused by faulty information like the common "deep breathing" propaganda, and our too sedentary life style. But why then can mouth breathing be seen more often in children who's upper palates are narrow? It's a question of crucial interest to me. I sense a connection here.
I am now considering widening my upper palate, but that would be a very expensive endeavor, and it would also mean that I'd have to change how my teeth look. They are very crooked, but I've learned to love them, and it would be difficult to see them change now after all these years. But it would be a price I'd be willing to pay for health. The question is as usual, would it help improve my health or not? There is no research on this so I'd have to experiment on myself again. This is something I've been doing for the last 10 years so I might as well continue my "research-program-of-self-experimentation". But this might be a very expensive way to test the theory, and I'd end up with teeth that look worse to me. Not sure yet what to do. It may also be difficult to find a dentist that will understand how to widen the upper palate, not just straighten the teeth. I'm not even sure myself if there is a difference? The whole issue has left me feeling very alone and confused. So reading this book might have opened an even bigger can of worms for me? But I still believe that looking into reality is the best way to find solutions, not to hide my head in the sand and make a guess. The best educated guess would have the best chances of success in my opinion. I feel that in the confusing world of the myriad of current different diets, my best bet is to go with the wisdom of the native people who have been able to thrive, not only survive, but truly thrive, that is show immunity to dental caries, and other disease like tuberculosis, and on top of that have superior physique, and doing so for thousands of years on their whole foods diets. The life style such as active vs sedentary, may have been secondary, as siblings living in the same household, working the same job, but one eating whole foods and the other refined foods, can show such radical difference in tooth decay. But I'm not sure. I think that an active life style is surely better, but it might not be the most important factor.
In my lonely Google searches, I finally did find this blog of another group of people who have felt the similarly to me after reading Dr Price's book. It really made me feel very happy to learn that I'm not all alone in my wonderings. I love the internet. Without it I don't know how I'd cope.
http://ryan-koch.blogspot.com/2010/03/adult-palate-expansion.html
After reading the book, instead of finding answers to my questions and health struggles, I've ended up in the smack middle of the dairy controversy, and I don't know what to think anymore. On the one hand, I know for sure that my body does not tolerate dairy, because when I consume it my tongue gets more white and my belly bloated. It seem to feed my candida immediately. It is however possible that those symptoms are healing symptoms and are in fact a sign that I am getting better, not worse. If that is the case, I SHOULD continue consuming it. Talk about 100% confusing and contradictory....
Dr. Price writes "...drink about a quart of milk per day" page 493
Note: I'm ONLY referring to Organic Raw Milk dairy products. Anything else is not of good quality enough that I'd even consider consuming it.
The problem is that there is no information about candida or detox reactions or dairy allergies in Dr Price's book. No single mention of any such reactions. Just stories of children healing perfectly and swiftly when put on raw milk. If this is true, and I have no reason to think Dr Price was fabricating his research, then why can't I (and so many others with me) tolerate raw milk?
I was very surprised to read in Dr Price's book about the common use of dairy products among the wise native people, as I've read online that all dairy is a major no-no, especially for endometriosis and candida sufferers like myself.
"The cattle tribes of Africa, the Swiss in isolated high Alpine valleys, and the tribes living in the higher altitudes in Asia, including northern India, have depended upon a very high quality of dairy products." page 362
If all those native people made the decision to use raw milk as a part of their superior diet, developed over thousands of years, then surely it should be considered a healing food and be good enough for me and everyone else? Then why is raw milk seemingly not healing to me? Perhaps I'm just too far gone? Like the children with tuberculosis. There was no research on raw milk curing them....But I tend to think of myself as far healthier than that. Or perhaps raw milk is ONLY healing to a person of a certain degree of health. Just as saunas are healing to people with relatively high CP, but can be deadly to people with heart issues or very low CPs.
That strengthens the argument that we modern people of today were born sick due to our parent's faulty nutrition, and have been living sick for so long that our bodies can not tolerate breaking down the lactose in otherwise healing milk. However, Weston A Price treated children who were on their death beds. I'd have to believe that my current health/digestion is weaker than a dying child's in the 30s since all the children he treated did respond super well to the raw milk he gave them. Was it just by chance that these kids didn't have lactose intolerance? Or was it because their parents ate full nutrition foods? Or perhaps because their bodies, although dying, were not as filled with toxins as my modern body probably is. It somehow seems far fetched to me, but still entirely it's possible.
What I do know is that I can't drink raw milk, and I know that Weston A Price considered raw milk to be one of the best sources of phosphorus, calcium and other essential minerals. These are the most important building blocks for health and life he theorized, and the most difficult to get enough of. I find myself unable to follow the advice of Dr Price and the wisdom of the native people. Then again, if I had decided 3 years ago that if something made me bloated and gave me a white tongue, then that would be bad, then I'd never have done this current candida diet. When I began this diet my belly got more bloated than ever and stayed that way for 2 years until it normalized. Likewise, my tongue got white immediately and is still white today. SO, perhaps my conclusion should be to use raw milk for 2 years and then see if I feel any better. Obviously this seems like an impossible project. Perhaps I'll just have to wait until I've healed more until I can one day be strong enough to tolerate and utilize the healing minerals present in raw milk. Until then I can still consume the good raw butter fats and seafoods that don't seem to give me any problems.
Dr. Price further writes that "The basic foods should be the entire grains such as whole wheat, rye or oats, whole wheat and rye breads, wheat and oat cereals, oat-cake, dairy products, including milk and cheese, which should be used liberally, and marine foods." page 492
This puts me in the middle of another major controversy, "the grains or not" saga.
I understand that the wheat Dr Price used to treat the kids then was on an entirely different quality than what we can find today. It's quality has been lost forever due to genetic modification, and we are also not able to get fresh enough wheat anymore. (Wheat apparently goes bad very quickly in transportation) The wheat he used must have come from local sources and have been fresh enough to work as a healing food. Also, today many people have gluten intolerance due to over toxicity, myself included. However, if we take any of the gluten-free grains mentioned in his book such as quinoa, and millet, my body has a problem with that too. Even if it's been soaked in medium to get rid of all the phytic acids, these gluten free grains immediately feeds my candida with bloating, white tongue, and severe cravings as a result. Could it be the same as with raw milk, that I'm just too sick to be able to benefit from these whole foods?
Because I feel this grain issues is a problem that can't be solved, and I don't feel that grains are essential to my health, I am ok with staying on my current no grain diet. I do feel however, that raw milk might be essential for healing since it's so loaded with those crucial minerals. However, I question the wisdom of picking and choosing from Dr Price's recommendations. I don't come from a tradition of native people with thousands of years of accumulated wisdom, so who am I to make a guess? The problem with waiting and trying to heal on raw butter and sea foods alone, may be that I might never get there. I've been off grains and dairy and on raw butter for 3 years already. I doubt that I'm improving much.
I also can't just explain away raw milk's healing properties in the 30s and unhealthy properties today with a "soil depletion" argument because that same soil depletion must be true for everything else we eat (except perhaps seafoods). In that case we should not be able to eat beef either since they eat the grass from the same depleted soil that their milk products would be produced from. In my mind if we can eat grass fed beef, then we should be able to eat grass fed raw milk. A healing food is a healing food. Isn't it? Did the natives consume it or did they not? If the answer is yes, shouldn't I be able to consume it? That being said, the Peruvian Indians did chew on cocoa leafs daily. I'd say that is not something healthy that I'd like to add to my diet, but clearly it worked for them.
I'm so confused and all this is too controversial to even discuss on yahoo groups. I'm definitely on my own here.
In reading Dr Price's book, I also found that my upper palate is very narrow. This is something that I am not sure if I need to address or not in order to heal? Weston A Price did see a connection between a narrow upper palate, mouth breathing, poor nutrition of the parents and child, dental caries, and ill health. It's possible that the narrow upper palate is pressing on the pituitary gland and this may cause so much stress on the nervous system that hyperventilation is a result. Or it may be that the facial muscles aren't working like they should, so closing one's jaws is actually physically more difficult and requires conscious thought and effort as opposed to something that happens more or less automatically in people with wide palates. The maxillary bones are involved in this too because of it's proximity to the pituitary gland. But the native mothers did teach their newborns to keep their mouths closed by gently closing their mouths after feeding. So, perhaps it's just caused by poor habits neglected by our modern mothers. Buteyko says hyperventilation is caused by faulty information like the common "deep breathing" propaganda, and our too sedentary life style. But why then can mouth breathing be seen more often in children who's upper palates are narrow? It's a question of crucial interest to me. I sense a connection here.
I am now considering widening my upper palate, but that would be a very expensive endeavor, and it would also mean that I'd have to change how my teeth look. They are very crooked, but I've learned to love them, and it would be difficult to see them change now after all these years. But it would be a price I'd be willing to pay for health. The question is as usual, would it help improve my health or not? There is no research on this so I'd have to experiment on myself again. This is something I've been doing for the last 10 years so I might as well continue my "research-program-of-self-experimentation". But this might be a very expensive way to test the theory, and I'd end up with teeth that look worse to me. Not sure yet what to do. It may also be difficult to find a dentist that will understand how to widen the upper palate, not just straighten the teeth. I'm not even sure myself if there is a difference? The whole issue has left me feeling very alone and confused. So reading this book might have opened an even bigger can of worms for me? But I still believe that looking into reality is the best way to find solutions, not to hide my head in the sand and make a guess. The best educated guess would have the best chances of success in my opinion. I feel that in the confusing world of the myriad of current different diets, my best bet is to go with the wisdom of the native people who have been able to thrive, not only survive, but truly thrive, that is show immunity to dental caries, and other disease like tuberculosis, and on top of that have superior physique, and doing so for thousands of years on their whole foods diets. The life style such as active vs sedentary, may have been secondary, as siblings living in the same household, working the same job, but one eating whole foods and the other refined foods, can show such radical difference in tooth decay. But I'm not sure. I think that an active life style is surely better, but it might not be the most important factor.
In my lonely Google searches, I finally did find this blog of another group of people who have felt the similarly to me after reading Dr Price's book. It really made me feel very happy to learn that I'm not all alone in my wonderings. I love the internet. Without it I don't know how I'd cope.
http://ryan-koch.blogspot.com/2010/03/adult-palate-expansion.html
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