My Teeth 2010

Here are my teeth as they look right now, quite crooked due to my narrow upper palate, and I did wear braces as a child so this is after they've been "fixed"....

It may seem strange, but I actually like the way they look, even though I understand they are far from what's considered esthetically pleasing in our society. I have also had several dentists directly and loudly laugh at me when they've first seen my teeth...(rude, I know) I guess in an attempt to convince me of how badly I need their expensive new braces...

However, I've always been into individuality, so I've taken much pride in having super original teeth. No one has teeth that are crooked in this exact way, just me! I'm the only one on the planet who can look like this. For better or worse, and this is one part of myself that I can honestly say I like.

One dentist once exclaimed: "please give me the number to your therapist" after I explained that I really liked my teeth because I felt they expressed my unique individuality, and that "no thank you" I would not like to change this that and the other about them. It's actually not something any therapist has had to work with me on though. As a child, my BFF's mum was a dentist and she was always saying that it would be such a boring world if everyone had perfect straight teeth. I realize now that she probably was wrong about that (since that world might be filled with healthy people eating only whole foods...or she might be right and talk about Los Angeles....), but it definitely had a positive impact on me.

However, now that I understand that my upper maxillary bones are indeed deformed, and that this may have a very negative impact on my overall health because a narrow area here may put pressure on the pituitary gland. I'm willing to part ways with my crooked teeth. It's with sadness in my heart, but with hope for a better future where I'm less stressed, and more healthy. Hopefully my unique look won't change too dramatically. I won't let them drill them down or anything, just "OK straighten them out" and get me that wide upper palate nature had originally planned for me.

Body Temperature and Breathing

I've seen a strong link between metabolism and chronic hyperventilation syndrome (CHS). I believe that I need to find out what that connection is in order to go forward in my healing. My CP is stuck and my metabolism is still low. I was hoping that one might solve the other, or at least improve the other.

1, First of all I am convinced there is a connection because I suffer from both, so at least within my personal organism there is clearly some connection.

2, Dr Buteyko (who discovered the connection between chronic disease and low oxygenation of the cells) himself writes this:
"Deficiency of CO2 caused by deep-type breathing[...]brings about alterations in metabolic processes."

http://members.westnet.com.au/pkolb/but_bov.htm

3, Clearing reactions ("side effects" of practicing the Buteyko breathing exercises caused by reducing breathing, ie increases in CO2 and oxygen in the body) most often include, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and food aversions. Ie, the digestive system seems particularly sensitive to CO2 changes, up or down.

4, Dr Buteyko noticed in his experiments that animal protein was very hard on the breathing, making the person more CO2 deficient. During intense training fasting is used because it helps improve breathing quickly. Interestingly ANY eating, of any food effects the CP negatively temporarily (kind of like how carbs temporarily increase insulin). This is fascinating for me since the primitive people clearly had phenomenal breathing and metabolism. For them, I'm sure the temporary drop in CP caused by eating a big meal, would have been insignificant (CP falling from like 60 to 55), whereas for modern people, it can be devastating (CP falling from 10 to 5 or so).

Although my morning CP seemed to go up during RRARF (likely because I only did 2 sittings per day instead of my usual 4 of Buteyko exercises during this time, allowing for the CP to normalize. When pushing the exercises, the CP often drops as a result of the intensity, but it's actually going up), my experienced breathing was incredibly labored during intense RRARF most likely because I was overfeeding so much, with a very low CP. Going to the grocery store, walking up stairs and lying in bed was all very difficult on the breath and I often had to do RB exersices just to get through the situation, not to mention sitting up several times during the night doing breath holds. During the bed rest period, I had to sit in bed instead of lie down. I can't seem to learn how to sleep while sitting, it's too uncomfortable.

5, Physical exercise increases CO2 in a healthy person, and is therefore good for the breath in a relatively healthy individual, however, if a person is unhealthy and has a low CP exercise should be avoided at all costs. Only after a CP of 20 seconds has been reached, exercise but only mild exercise, is helpful. Anything where CO2 levels risk getting lower would be counterproductive (like running while mouth breathing exhaling out huge amounts of CO2 and thus lowering cell oxygenation). As I understand it, it it is to be noted that even running with nose breathing on low CP might still deepen the breath enough to cause a significant CO2 loss. This goes along the lines of the 180 program: don't exercise until you are well enough to do so.

Dr Buteyko saw that his patients got more sick if they engaged in strenuous physical exercise, this led him to realize the importance of breathing, and in avoiding strenuous exercise in very sick patients. However, the Russian army noticed huge increases in CP among the healthy soldiers who ran long distances each day wearing gas masks, ie they didn't loose that much CO2 despite mouth breathing (or they might have been healthy nose breathers from the start).

6, According to Dr Buteyko relaxation is the best way to improve breathing. Any kind of stress causes both low metabolism and hyperventilation syndrome. Higher metabolism leads to less stress levels. It doesn't seem plausible to me that "a pinched nose" (that Weston A Price blamed for causing mouth breathing) would lead to hyperventilation, since a pinched nose would if anything reduce breathing rather than increased breathing, however, yes it is possible that a person with a pinched nose would get signals to the brain that too little air was coming in, although I doubt it.

7, I myself have a pinched nose, the reason I mouth breathe could be duet to this, but I would think the reason would rather be my allergies. The nasal allergies I had from early childhood, caused my nose to become blocked from over-breathing, (too low CO2 causes congestion). But this means that the over-breathing must have preceded the nose getting blocked in the first place.

I believe, since the muscles that are supposed to hold up my jaw is very weak and it's a constant deliberate struggle for me to keep my mouth shut. This would be due to the deformation of my upper maxillary bone. So, I think that's what causes the mouth breathing to start with.

Even if my mother had encouraged me to keep my mouth closed as an infant (like native mothers used to do according to George Catlin in his 1830s book "Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life", Free download available here), I believe that my poor nutrition had kept my jaw muscles weak and had continued to cause me to mouth breathe. It is with greatest difficulty and constant reminding myself that I nose breathe today, and when I sleep I MUST tape my mouth.

However, it is said that once CP is high enough you will nose breathe on your own no matter if your upper maxillary bone is deformed or not. Dr Buteyko never mentioned much anything - that I know about - on crooked teeth (although Christopher Drake who studied under Buteyko, said that "it's a known fact that mouth breathers have crooked teeth"). So, perhaps it's some kind of feedback loop here. High CP, high metabolism, nose breathing, normal upper palate. Low metabolism, low CP, mouth breathing, crooked teeth due to deformed upper palate. Possible?

The question is: what causes what and how best to go about healing it? I guess my best bet is to do both, increase my metabolism by overfeeding, ie nourishing myself while avoiding refined foods, and sugars, avoiding physical exercise and do sitting resting, and also increasing my CP by Buteyko work. Both RRARF and Buteyko say relaxation is key, and that exercising has to wait until health is stronger. So, resting seems to make sense.

I also believe that a low metabolism does give the brain signals to breathe more. Perhaps that is what causes "undernourished" people like myself to mouth breathe to increase the amount of air pulled into the system. Being in a state of starvation is in itself stressful.

Perhaps there is some kind of connection a la (I'm totally guessing here): low leptin levels (or anything else related to low basal body temperature) cause cells to not get oxygen, or the hypothalamus getting too little leptin or something, so the brain is given the signal that the body is getting too little oxygen. Perhaps some entirely other chemical in the body is reduced when nutrition is poor, this chemical perhaps signals the brain to breathe more, and this is why Weston A Price saw malnourished kids mouth breathing (note that all the children in the tuberculosis hospitals he visited mouth breathed, and therefore must have had very low CPs).

This is my problem, Buteyko showed in his many years of research that his patients -over 90% of them - did recover by doing his breathing exercises, however, none of them suffered from a lot of clearing symptoms. But today, many people (including myself) struggle with extremely severe clearing symptoms such as violent diarrhea and daily vomiting. This is especially true for people living in cities. On the countryside people's CPs apparently improve faster with less clearing symptoms, possibly because they eat better more nutritious foods, and may have higher basal body temperatures. With severe clearing symptoms people like myself are basically unable to get their control pause to go up, despite doing the exersices. But since my CP went up while I was doing RRARF, and only 2 sets of Buteyko exersices per day, I wonder if there isn't a connection between people's lower metabolism today. In the 80s when Buteyko was working, people must have had higher basal body temperatures, and could perhaps more effectively take care of the infections that got activated by the higher CP.

Perhaps it's as simple as a person with a low basal body temperature is less able to deal with the infections that occur once the CP rises, so the body has to resist upping it's oxygenation to protect itself from infections overtaking the organism due to a low body temperature. This potentially creates a situation where no matter how hard we try to up our CP, the body has to prevent this from happening to protect the organism.

8, Another aspect of the puzzle is that Buteyko knew that people would begin to hyperventilate if they got externally overheated. I find this link to be fascinating.

Generally, the higher the CP the lower the basal body temperature.....at the same time, clod hands and feet are typical signs of hyperventilation....it's all so confusing....

Also, in the night Buteyko recommends sleeping in a cold room with minimal blankets to ensure that overheating in the night does not occur. At the same time it is my goal to wake up with as high a basal body temperature as possible. That seems like a contradiction. However, the Peruvian Indians did sleep in freezing conditions but didn't seem to get cold, their inner thermometer was clearly high despite the outside cold climate.

We know that the overall population is getting lower basal body temperatures, and we also know that the general CP has sunk and is sinking. Is there a connection?

I believe the connections between body temperature and breathing are huge.

For me personally, my basal body temperature is low and I can't get my CP to increase no matter how hard I work, and my clearing symptoms are unacceptably dreadful to handle and seem to only weaken me more.

Complicating matters even more: it is also entirely possible that my breathing won't improve until I get a homeoblock to correct my upper jaw deformity since that might cause an overstimulation of my pituitary gland giving my brain the signal to breathe more.

I knew where to start? With the homeoblock, the basal body temperature, or the Buteyko exersices. Currently I do all at the same time, while waiting for the homoeblock. The risk is though, that I increase my Buteyko work, and impair my digestion so much I can't up my basal body temperature, while exhausting my faith in the method and my stamina in doing the intensely boring exercises for 2 full hours every day month after month. In that case I'd be not only wasting my time, but causing lots of damage to myself and eventually give up completely due to exhaustion. If I don't do the Buteyko work though, it seems that if I begin by upping my basal body temperature using RRARF, I'll have to suffer through a lot of difficult breathing episodes and in the end I may need to do the Buteyko work anyways. Not quite sure what to do. Wish I had more answers.

I've also noticed that the colder I am during the day, the better my daytime CP, but this means my body temperature is low all day with cold hands and feet and I'm not sure that's too good when trying to up my metabolism. I guess that the metabolism has to increase from the inside out though and come from an abundance of good nutrition, so I'll stick to freezing for now.

Hot Chick coming up

For me it's been quick and relatively easy to bring up my body temperature using RRARF from 180DegreeHealth.com. My basal body temperature has risen loads in just 6 weeks of RRARF. It's been the many digestive issues and malabsorption issues that have been my struggle. But it's worth focusing in on the things that have worked really well and fast.

Ideally the axillary/underarm basal body temperature when a person wakes up in the morning should be between 97.8 degrees F and 98.2. (page 36 180 Diabetes, Matt Stone). The armpit temp. runs up to a half degree F below the oral temp. (page 21, 180 Degree Metabolism 2, Matt Stone)

Since starting RRARF my basal body temperature has been above 98.0 F 24 times (during the last two months), and note that this is the underarm temperature I'm measuring now. It hit below 97.0 F three times, but again this is underarm temperature which measures lower than the oral temperature anyways.

Before RRARF my basal body temperature was above 98.0 F only 6 times in three months, and this was oral temperature. It hit below 97.0 F 5 times, but spent most time hovering right above 97.0 F.

My top temperature on RRARF has been 98.9 (but I'd need to hit 99 degrees in order to become a "hot chick", chick as in chicken...ovulating...eggs...you get the picture....) and I hit that both months. Before RRARF I only hit 98.5 and that was only during one cycle, and again only in oral temperature. The rest of the 3 months I was not ovulating at all it seemed.

This is quite some improvement in basal body temperature I should say. And I have only just begun this healing journey! I'm impressed.

My goal is to hit 99 F so that I can finally join the Hot Chick's club over at 180 Degree Health. Like I mentioned before, feminism is no longer my life's main focus....lol. I just want to feel good. I want health and I want in on that club like nothing else....Feminism is a luxury I can't afford at the moment.

Below is my Basal Body Temperature chart for January, February, and beginning of March 2010 (which is when I gave up measuring...). It is the oral temperature and was taken before I began RRARF, and was on a strict low carb diet. Click on it to see it in a bigger format.



Below is my Basal Body Temperature chart for June, and July 2010. It is post starting RRARF and shows the underarm temperature. Click on it to see it in a bigger format. Note also the increased periods. Although it doesn't seem like such a great thing from a pain perspective, I realize it's a good thing that the body has plenty of hormones and is actively going through it's cycles. In the January, February chart, I was also doing a lot of heavy Buteyko breath work and was having severe clearing symptoms, ie I was super sick that whole time, so that might have delayed the period too. Usually I'm super regular.

Out of the Woods

After a lot of crying, filling up Matt Stone's inbox with questions, and desperate pleads, quickly loosing 5 pounds from not being able to eat potatoes nor yams, we may have found a possible solution: white rise. I now eat tons of white rice. So far, I seem to tolerate it just fine, fingers crossed (cause I CAN cross them today!) and my hunger is again controlled, so hopefully this will prevent further weight loss.

I've had rice as my only starch for only two days now, but it seems that already the terrorizing symptoms of arthritis are fading away. The toes, knees, elbows are all back to basically normal, and my left hand is almost normal, my right hand is somewhat functional although the fingers still have some stiffness, but it's definitely improved loads. It seems I'm out of the woods for now on this one, but it was a close call.

Without Matt Stones vast knowledge and experience in this area, and without the experience and collectively learned -and I can only imagine hard earned - wisdom of all the other people over at 180 Degree Health, who have broken out of low carb before me, I really think I'd be back on a life time low carb prison sentence with a very bleak outlook for my health and my life-quality.

Matt figured, correctly, that my reaction was one of oversensitivity, not canadida. Apparently it's common among low carbers to develop various sensitivities. Then when we try to go back to eating starches, we sometimes can't even eat regular root vegetables like potatoes, or yams, cause we react to micronutrients/substances within them. (What a full blown nightmare!) White rice however, is 90% hypoallergenic, that's why it's a good idea to start getting out of low carb using white rice. The body can then adjust only to the starches and get strong enough to hopefully be able to overcome it's newly developed sensitivities over time. That's the plan for me now. Stay on white rice for a month, and then start slowly re-intorducing potatoes, and yams.

Even though I ate full meals during this time of arthritis issues, I only took smaller portions of the starchy vegetables to try to lessen the symptoms, and my weight plummeted in no time. I lost 5 pounds in about a week. It's surprising to me how much food I require to sustain myself at this time.

It was scary and frustrating to not know what in the world to eat, to feel hungry, and to loose weight when I'm supposed to be fattening myself up on full RRARF.

It's so frustrating and scary when you feel yourself painted into this tiny little food corner where you can eat fewer and fewer things due to allergies and sensitivities and all kinds of malabsorption issues, and at the same time you know that the very food you can't tolerate is the food that has the potential power to heal you.

I remembered this British guy I saw on TV a few years back when I lived in the UK. He could only eat one specific type of strawberries. Granted I have to assume he was suffering from severe neurosis as well as allergies, but I can still understand and empathize with his feeling so well now, as he stood in the food store and cried cause he could see other people filling up their carts with different foods, and he was so hungry and he had just found out that his specific type of strawberry was now out of season. That's the place I never want to get to. It is my task to keep malabsorption, and neurosis far away from me.

I can't tell you how much I loathe low carb now. Totally blows. Hate it for making me sacrifice, and suffer so much, and for creating new problems for me, when it promised me the exact opposite: better health. If you are considering a low carb diet, take my word for it: DON'T DO IT!!!!!

How did the Eskimos do it? Well, don't ask me....I can only guess they had perfect metabolism and if you do, you can probably eat anything and get away with it, or even thrive on it. If you don't, like me and so many others who seek out various diets from a place of trying to reduce ill health, low carb will likely do a real number on you, sooner or later.

What else did I learn? I have a new found respect and empathy for everyone with arthritis. It's such a terrible disease because it makes you an invalid in no time. Just loose the mobility in a few key joints and you're done. It's not the pain that's the problem, it's the stiffness. This disease has the power to make you an invalid in no time.

Being so badly handicapped, you loose not only the ability to handle the practical parts of life, but you also naturally loose the ability to do much anything at all of the things in life that are fun and enjoyable. How do you for example walk out into the middle of a streaming creek and feel the cool water on your legs and the rounded stones massaging your feet, if your knee joints won't carry you there? How do you slip into "pigeon pose" for relaxation if your knee joints won't bend? How do you read a book if your wrists and fingers won't cooperate? How do you work, or read health related or just fun blogs by the computer when your fingers are so stiff you can't even operate the mouse? How do you scroll the text and how will you email a friend without the use of your finger joints?

Seriously, I never understood what a severe situation arthritis can be. Knowing this is such a common disease today, (one in three Americans suffer from it!!! I have no idea how many people within that group have it effect their life a lot, or how much medication people take and how effective it is?) I feel for mankind right now, more so than I usually do, (and my thoughts are often on the suffering of mankind and how it can be lessened anyways). I know endometriosis is debilitating too, and I've certainly been bed ridden periodically, unable to shower on my own, make my own meals, unable to function much, not to mention suffer inhuman pain levels etc, but it's a much more uncommon disease (one in nine Americans suffer from it, and out of that group only about 10% gets the severely debilitating form of it with chronic pain. Most people with endometriosis have few, and very mild symptoms). Not that that number is any consolation to those of us falling within it, and I don't mean to minimize it at all, but for me it was a new experience to see how quickly arthritis can immobilize you.

At least now I have expanded my experiences in the world of suffering and disease even further, and I can tell you this: arthritis sucks, and crystal white Jasmin rice rules!

Thank you all 180 Degree Health people for the work you've done that is helping me today!!!!

New Darker Blog Design

I decided to change my design to as dark as possible to help metabolism since apparently bright light causes metabolism to sink. It's not a fun design but it's the best I could come up with for now. This is a great place to find color palates btw:
http://beta.dailycolorscheme.com

Arthritis still a problem, but I do think it's more a part of the healing journey than the beginning of a new health disaster. Here's to hoping.

Arthritis?

I'm kind of freaking out at the moment. For the last three day's I've woken up every morning with severe arthritis symptoms in my right hand and shoulder. At least that's what I think it is, since this is a symptom I've never before encountered in my life. (I didn't know how lucky I was.)

This is how it started: I noticed since getting on RRARF that I have on occasion, about once a week, woken up with really stiff fingers on my right hand. I didn't think much of it, just figured I had been sleeping on my hand in some strange way or something like that.

But now it's undeniable. I have a problem. This Thursday I woke up in the early morning hours with that stiffness again, but it was worse than before, in fact I was unable to bend my fingers at all. So, I made sure I lay on the opposite side with no pressure on the arm, and I fell asleep again. When I woke up, I still could not move the fingers. Then I knew it was not caused by me sleeping on the hand funny. The finger joints were mildly achey, but unable to bend hardly at all, I also had some ache in the shoulder and wrist. The stiffness and ache continued all morning for several hours.

I remembered a comment from one of the discussions over at 180 Degree Health about potatoes and joint pain. I then googled and found that potatoes could be bad for people with arthritis. I guess they might be able to actually provoke the onset of arthritis too. I suppose I've been eating too many potatoes, but I don't really like yams, I can't digest brown rice, and I feel that white rice is a little too refined for what I'd prefer something that's a staple food.

I emailed Matt Stone and he said that potatoes often have a toxin in them called solanine, and that the solution may be to simply peele the potato, or to eat some other starch instead.

I suspect that it's also possible that it's the buckwheat I've been eating that's been causing me this. Not sure yet. I'm now engaged in a process of elimination and error, trying to find what it is that has caused this, and keeps causing it. I know that arthritis is an inflammatory disease, so it's possible that the low carb diet that I was on, caused a rise in cortisol, and that increased my inflammatory response, so there might be no elimination diet in the world that can help me now. I'm not yet sure why it would only manifest itself now that I'm going high starch though? I've never in my life experienced anything like this. I don't really understand it since it seems my endometriosis has been stable on low carb and that is an inflammatory disease too. I'm stumped. Perhaps the endo will get worse now too? Damn low carb.....

It's beyond a bummer. I didn't realize what a cruel and torturous disease arthritis can be. Just my three day experience, of what I would classify as minimal arthritis symptoms, has been a slight nightmare. You need your hands for so much; doing dishes, taking out the trash, peeling and boiling yams, lifting heavy pans, soaking rice, grinding buckwheat, drying off kitchen areas, getting dressed, pressing garlic, flossing the teeth, washing the hair, typing on the computer, writing down the scores from Buteyko breathing exercises etc. Doing all this with the use of only one hand, (my weak one) is quite a challenge I've discovered. Seriously....how do people do this?

My emotional reaction has been one of victimization, depression and disbelief with panicky thoughts like: "WTF?! How much is a girl supposed to take? Why me? I can't believe this! Instead of healing, I'm getting a new MAJOR issue......Where will this end? Is this the very beginning of yet another long, difficult journey through a disastrous health mess, year after year, after year? More suffering? What's with my karma? What's the lesson?"

My mind immediately goes to the worst case scenarios, cause that's been my lived experience....I now fear that I'll loose the little I still do have that is normal in my life. I fear that I'll impair my ability to help myself heal. Cooking whole foods, doing self massages, stretches, rolling on pilates rollers, etc....all those things that are crucial for my pain management and overall chance at healing. How will I do that with only one hand? What if it spreads to the other hand? Will I need to hire an assistant? It's all too terrifying to consider. How will I go back to school now? How will I be a happy and perky partner to my already empathy fatigued boyfriend? How much more can he take? I also see the much longed for return to my yoga practice slipping further and further and further away from me.

On a small, in many ways insignificant, but still factual note, I also love potatoes and will really miss having them in my diet.

There goes the Everything High Diet for me....no dairy products cause I can't tolerate dairy, no gluten grains cause of gluten sensitivity, no potatoes cause solanine may cause arthritis, no brown rice cause I don't digest it, no buckwheat or other gluten free grains cause it may also cause arthritis symptoms, no tomatoes nor eggplants, not to mention all the other regular no no's of refined foods, vegetable oils, soy products etc.

On the plus side. I'm still rocking the postprandial blood glucose levels as seen below! Take that, insulin resistance!!!! I win you loose!!!! This is so encouraging I think my inner hero is waking up from it's chock induced coma. It makes me think that "fine, if I get arthritis too on top of everything else, I'll deal with it, I'll fight it. I'm tough. I'll find a solution. I'll cure myself, and if not, then I'll find meaning in that too."

Check it out!:

Modern Times

"It's not that a low-carb or even zero-carb diet can’t be a healthy diet. Eskimos proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. The question is, given that the world seems to be in metabolic decline, with widespread insulin resistance, low body temperature, and more… is a low-carb diet the most effective strategy at fixing the core problem, or might it actually be counterproductive?"

180 Degree Health.com

This is such key observation by Matt Stone, and why his presence online is so important. You see I couldn't get two and two together for years....I was like "But why? Why can the Eskimos eat super low carb and be perfectly healthy and not me? Why can the Masai drink mostly raw milk and I can't even digest it at all? Why can the Swiss have perfect health on mostly rye bread and raw dairy, and again, I get sick from it? (being both gluten, and dairy intolerant) Why did the kids Weston A Price put on a whole foods diet, quickly heal their different health issues, and I get acutely sick when I try to follow his 1930s guidelines?

It shows how much more complex the problem is today than to just start eating whole foods, cutting out sugar, and then expecting to heal. It's never that easy in a modern human with multiple food intolerances, insulin resistance, leptin issues, low body temperature and very impaired metabolism.

Thankfully it seems Matt Stone has developed an emergency plan for us modern people, the RRARF program, that seems to work wonders in those who attempt it, like myself. Fingers crossed I, and my all too many fellow ill health sufferers, get all the way to the other side of metabolism hell and get to experience something closer to health in this lifetime.

Is it Mental or is it Dental?

In other news, I found this article by Raymond Silkman, DDS on the upper palate issues I've been writing about in other blog posts. Here

Have a look at the below quotes on upper palate expansion:

"When the bones in the head are underdeveloped or misaligned, the soft tissues are over-crowded and unable to assume their normal shapes and positions...the nervous system also suffers."
"...mouth breathers tend to have amped-up sympathetic nervous systems, always on alert, and they have a hard time getting their physical or mental bodies to relax."
"....people with poor facial development are not going to live very happily."
"many times when we do the procedures that widen the palate, correct the head tilt and allow a person to breath through the nose, that person suddenly becomes happy. It is amazing to see the things that happen when we take steps to expand the palate and the upper jaw."
"A lot of amazing things can come about just from changing the shape of the maxilla for a human being."

This all seems to point towards exactly the connection between poor nutritional status, mouth breathing, low metabolism and hyperventilation that I've been suspecting, and experiencing first hand for so long. I have all those symptoms and also suffer from Dyslexia, PTDS, Anxiety attacks, General Anxiety Disorder, Depression, and OCD. (Yes, I know, I often wonder too how I get through a day? lol)

I'm planning on getting my own upper palate widened, since it's not surprisingly extremely narrow (as seen in the image below of my current retainer that I use to help the jaws not tense up too much during the night). It's very expensive to get the Homeoblock though, so it will take me some time to get there. But I am hoping it will help me in many ways, especially in improving my CP, and of course in lowering my inner stress levels so that my body has a better chance to heal my body.

I totally feel like a detective of my own health, trying to figure out what went wrong, and how to fix it? If I can figure out myself, then I'd be filled to the brim with useable wisdom. So far, not too much luck....lol....I'll keep this blog posted for sure though....






Weston A Price called it "intercepted heredity", where the genetic hereditary development is somehow halted or intercepted by too faulty, too refined foods at just the wrong time during and right before conception. So, essentially the true expression of the genes could not develop due to too poor nutrition. In other words, it's not a genetic problem to have crooked teeth, it's a fundamentally nutritional one on the part of both parents before conception.

Fructose Malabsorption?

This article/blog entry over at 180 Degree Health is just amazing.

"In Grand Canyon National Park, deer were getting accustomed to eating processed junk food that was being fed to them by tourists. They developed drastic health problems, physically and behaviorally. This may not come as no big surprise. What’s shocking is that they were unable to return to their diet of grass."

"By feeding refined foods to his animal subjects, he was able to induce all kinds of dire health problems. Control animals had flawless health in every measurable regard when receiving well-balanced rations of whole foods. Yet, although refined foods had caused the health problems, returning to a whole foods diet was impossible. The animals could no longer digest whole grains and vegetables like the controls. Thus, the apparent cure for a refined-food, nutritionally devoid diet – providing the same diet that the healthy animals were on, fell short."


This is what I've been experiencing first hand for years!!! It's also what made me go crazy reading Sugar Blues, when the author suggests that all problems are solved once one quits consuming sugar. Not for me. I've been left with severe issues that make it so difficult for my system to digest, that my health simply couldn't improve once I changed to an unrefined whole foods diet.


I've wondered for years why my healthy eating never really seemed to help improve my health (until RRARF that is). The part about the deer in the Grand Canyon is particularly illuminating for me. It shows how it's not possible to just go back to a whole foods diet and expect things to heal from that alone. The damage has already been done so to say....It's been my experience these last 10 years as I've struggled to regain my health through, among other things, changing my diet to an unrefined whole foods diet. It's been difficult to do it, cause I've had to exclude so much food, like dairy and grains, since those foods now seemed to do more harm than good, and it has not led to drastic health improvements (again until RRARF which seems to be best able to nourish my body without doing any harm. So long as I continue to avoid any dairy and gluten of course). But I still struggle a lot, and I have problems with my skin, numerous physical and mental health issues and of course many food allergies. My PMS is just getting worse and worse, and no sign of my endometriosis symptoms improving yet. I assumed it's all just because my body is readjusting to RRARF, but I suspect that I could do even better, perhaps if I did cut out fructose for a while. Just as my body immediately responded positively to RRARF, I suspect that there is something else I can do to get quick symptom reduction.

If I understand the blog post correctly; malabsorption of fructose causes hypoglycemia (and insulin resistance, hormonal issues etc). Then if I have that problem of malabsorption, how do I heal it? Can this malabsorption be healed at all? Is it as simple as cutting out fructose, and does that have to be a for life cut out or a temporary one?

I have a history of severe sugar addiction and hypoglycemia, allergies since childhood and auto immune disease, so it seems very possible I don't absorb fructose well.

Again, I ask myself the question: can I really trust my biofeedback when I'm this unhealthy? Should I eat fruits because I "feel like it" and "it's so yummy", or is part of the reason I love to eat some berries every day caused by possible malabsorption issues?

Not giving up your Power

"the main thing is to not get blindsided by one theory vs. the other, but hold on to your own decision-making power - and make your decision based on your own biofeedback."
Matt Stone 180 Degree Health

I find this to be the most challenging thing because I have not been able to trust my body, ie my biofeedback system, cause it's been so overtaken by sugar cravings. In addition my mind is not very capable of making great decisions due to for example my very low CP, ie oxygenation to all cells including to the brain. It's a challenge for sure, but RRARF is helping me get in better contact with myself. To know that it's ok to nap whenever the body requires it, and to eat whenever the body feels hunger even if that happens 5 minutes after a big meal. There is still some wisdom remaining in my body and I don't have to be a babysitter to it anymore, but can allow it to lead me instead.

"If your adrenal glands are healthy, you'll respond to many things in the list of what raises catecholamines with a decline in appetite, a rise in energy levels and mental focus, very quick fat loss with no lean losses, and so forth."
180 Degree Health

This is probably why I never did respond well to the low carb diet. My adrenals were shot long before I began low carb, so I never got to feel the honeymoon period at all. Went straight to:

"health problems like food allergies, horrendous athletic performance, insomnia, and digestive problems..."
180 Degree Health

That just about sums up the symptoms that came with the low carb experiment.

"As for me, I'm kinda done fooling around with catecholamines. I eat until I am full, when I am hungry (usually 3 times per day evenly spaced, starting with an early breakfast), and eat a very high-carbohydrate diet with very little cardio-style exercise." "bodyweight exercise sessions once every 3-4 days."
180 Degree Health

That sounds healthy and inspiring. It actually feels so good to be really, truly full. It's a feeling that I hadn't felt at each meal for a long time. I didn't even know what I was missing out on. I never felt hungry, I just felt nauseous. So sick for hours after each meal for the three years I was on low carb anti candid that I had to use sea-bands and cinnamon capsules all the time not to throw up. I couldn't nap for those three years since lying down meant such severe nausea I nearly couldn't keep the food down.

Freezing and hyperventilating

In Weston A price's book "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" he writes about how the Andean Peruvian Indians were able to walk with bare legs in freezing conditions without difficulty, and that they also slept outdoors with nothing on their feet or legs in extremely cold temperatures. He also noted how the children in the Swiss Alps were running around barefoot, and lightly dressed in conditions where he and his team had to wear heavy coats etc. This speaks to the high metabolism and likely high basal body temperature the supreme diet afforded these people. Me, in contrast, I'm constantly cold. I wear double cardigans, and extra wool socks indoors in already fairly warm conditions. There is never a risk of me overheating though, and I'm apparently far from unique:

"...even the New York Times has taken notice of the drop in average body temperature in their article – “Rethinking 98.6"
page 18
180 Degree Metabolism

I also noted while watching Partick McKeown's DVD on the Buteyko method how he made sure each of the participants "felt warmer" while they were doing their reduced breathing exercises. He said that as the CO2 levels increase, thanks to the reduced breathing, more oxygen can be released to the cells, and that's why we feel warmer when the breathing normalizes. This seems to clearly indicate that over-breathing (hyperventilating) lowers the body heat. Perhaps that's what makes us hyper-ventilators more susceptible to infections, infections that in turn slow progress in reducing hyperventilation. What a bad cycle.

Weston A Price noted that among the children in the tuberculosis hospital, every single one of them was a "mouth breathier", ie one must assume they were hyperventilating. He also of course saw this trend among all the primitive people who had just gone over to a refined diet, that they began mouth breathing (not just the once with tuberculosis). Weston A Price believed this was caused by a "pinched nose" due to an underdeveloped skull. This might be the cause, however, it's not that we're not getting enough air, it's that we're pulling in too much air. Pinched nostrils sound like they'd actually prevent over breathing, I personally believe it has got much more to do with a pressure on the pituitary gland caused by the narrow upper maxillary bones created by the poor nutrients consumed both by the parent and child. This pressure would cause stress to the system, and in turn give signals to begin hyperventilating. Or perhaps it's as easy as the kids getting mild allergies like rinithus (stuffy, rinny nose) once they began consuming sugar, and that is what clogged their noses and caused mouth breathing? But who am I to guess? Generally speaking, I think it's safe to say that it's unknown why a refined diet would lead to hyperventilation, but that the evidence points towards some kind of connection between the two.

Most people today apparently hyperventilate to some degree (that is, very few modern people, if any, have a natural CP of 60 seconds), and I guess most people also have some degree of cranial deformity (that's just me guessing again, since Weston A Price saw this trend increase so much and one sign of it is crooked teeth. I mean, who didn't need braces as a kid? And who has a perfect, wide upper palate today? Just from looking around, I can tell it seems pretty common with upper palate deformities).

To tie it together, it's possible that when Dr Buteyko was doing his investigations on hyperventilation in Russia, people had a much higher basal body temperature, and thus responded faster, and with more ease to his breathing program. Not as much infection would have been present in theses people's bodies and clearing reactions would therefore perhaps have been milder, as described in literature on the subject. See, Chapter 22 "Doctor Buteyko's Discovery Trilogy" by Sergey Altukhov, or read it online here:
http://www.doctorbuteykodiscoverytrilogy.com/cleansing-reactions.cfm

I know I've written about all of this before but now I see the connections a bit more clearly between low metabolism/body temperature, poor nutrition, and hyperventilation. I don't know anything for sure, or what the solution to all this is, but I can say that I find all of this totally fascinating.

If I didn't have all these health issues myself I'd be prone to not care at all, I think, first of all because I wouldn't likely be reading Weston A Price, or finding out about the works of Professor Buteyko in the first place. So, I'd be blissfully unaware of the health crisis facing us today. The fact that I'm dealing with all of this makes me suspect some degree of meaningfulness. That it's a big mystery that has fallen into the laps of myself, and many, many people today and together we're all trying to figure it out.

The situation is also made more complex by the fact that people's overall health states are diminished. Not only is it more difficult for a person like myself, with far less than optimal oxygen flowing to my brain for clarity and sharpness. The expression "brain fog" is probably a great way to describe what happens to a hyper-ventilator as myself. This makes it difficult to take in all the important information that is out there, process it, remember it, and then analyze it and finally convert it into useful conclusions.

In addition, the fact that so many people today can't digest the casein protein in milk, this suddenly makes, for example the raw milk diet null for a huge portion of the population. The fact that wheat is genetically modified, no longer locally grown and available, and that the gluten protein is so hard for us to digest today, again makes all of Weston A Price's own main dietary suggestions impossible to follow. So, it's not just about dusting off the books from the 30s and then applying the wisdom in then, if one can be mentally clear enough to do so, cause things have changed really fast in our overall health status.

Because of our ever failing overall health, It's no longer enough to just cut out sugar and refined goods to regain health. No, so much has gone wrong with us we need other tools to get the healing going. I think the best place to find info on this, and to find other people who are doing the work in real life every day is at
180degreehealth.com

I am sure that we'll figure out the best solution to how to solve this problem of the epidemic of a lower basal body temperature, mouth breathing, hyperventilating and other diet related health issues somehow. How it all is connected is important to find out, but how to reverse the problem is even more important. It is possible that it's as easy as everyone learning the Buteyko breathing method, but from my own experience that's a long, difficult road that is not going to be realistically implementable for most people. If it's this hard for me, (a dedicated health nut with a well established compulsive obsessive personality, that can very easily turn on the inner robot and perform 4 long, boring breathing meditation sessions every single day for 8 months while not improving one bit....) then how can a regular normal person with no such inner Drill Sergeant capabilities (or should I say disorders...) that may be even more acutely sick than I am, pull it off? No, I'm not bitter...I'm exhausted...

As much as I feel quite crushed by my lack of progress in the hyperventilation department, I feel excited that my blood glucose levels continue to improve.



Finally something is going my way, a program for health is actually seemingly working the way it's supposed to for me. I don't think I ask for too much, all I want to see is some sign of improvement over time, and the RRARF program is definitely giving me plenty to be happy about.

Overall my health that of course took a bit of a nose dive when I began RRARF (as a normal reaction to overeating, and thus waking up the low metabolism) is slowly becoming stable. The migraines are finally gone, thankfully. For a while there I feared that my chronic migraines that I suffered from earlier in my life, would return, and that would have been hell. They didn't it seems, and I've recently noticed that my energy levels are much better. I'm again able to bike to the food store on my own, making my boyfriend's life easier. My skin is getting better again, and the acute dizzy and nausea spells are totally gone too.

I guess I'm having a good day today. I feel strong, and confident about my work and my progress, I even feel good enough to resume social life and am going to a cafe with a good friend for some serious chatting. I see the resemblance of a normal life returning. I'm still doing RRARF but instead of eating every 30 minutes I'm eating every 2 hours now, and I'm more active in daily life, but I still am not exercising. I feel OK about that too though and right now I'm turning more of my focus onto my breath work. The trick is to find a level of work where I am stable and not getting too sick from clearing reactions, but still pushing enough to go forward. It's a very hard to find "sweet spot" that I'm currently looking for.

Last but not least, it's also very possible that trying to push a low-carber through Buteyko training is a failing strategy, and that I'll have better luck this time around.

Feminism, Crying Camels, and Double Rainbows

It's getting harder to eat a lot now. I'm kind of falling behind schedule. If I don't focus all my life energy on cooking and eating, it seems I forget to cook, and then I stand there late at night with sudden acute hunger and nothing to eat. It's not ideal but I'll just have to get on it and focus on always having cooked potatoes available and ready to be eaten. Canned tuna saved me twice in the last couple of days, but last night despite eating several slices of buckwheat bread after my four main meals that day, I still had to go to bed hungry. Bummer cause that's no good for metabolism. With allowing hunger to exist, I'm telling my body that we're still in starvation times, but that's not true anymore, and I've been trying to convince it that times of plenty are here to stay. Talk about giving conflicting signals to my body.....

Yesterday I saw a film called "the Story of the Weeping Camel". It was amazing, and inspiring. It's about this nomadic Mongolian tribe in the Gobi Desert. One of their camels is rejecting it's calf, so the family performs a sound healing ceremony for the camel. I won't tell how it ends.

Makes me want to leave my regular life, get a tent and move out into some wilderness with a few goats and camels. The only problem, in addition to my totally lacking skills, and know how in the herding area, is that I'd still need a community, because doing it alone or with only a few people couldn't work. I realize I'll never, in this life time get there. Perhaps in my next life? If there is one. That would be wonderful. I'll probably have to earn my way through quite a few life's to a high enough karma to get to be reborn a sheepherder though....(do they know how lucky they are?) lol.

It's just so enticing to me, cause the life of the Mongolian nomads seems so calm and harmonious. It makes me feel that I don't have a chance at regaining my health unless I do that level of change to my lifestyle.

On a side note, I know the gender roles among these nomadic people, are super traditional and that, in a perfect world, there would be individual choice, and total equality, but I frankly don't care about that so long as I am this unwell. I have found that for me, feminism has become secondary to my basic health. When health is lost, all bets, all ideologies, all ideals, all political struggles, are off and the only thing that matters is to regain health. Not that sexism in our society stops driving me insane with rage, but it's all secondary now, I just have to stay focused on my day to day coping, and leave the feminist struggle for later. When health is there, then there is energy to fight for equality, but for now I'm just struggling to heal myself. This is probably why health is, or ought to be, an important feminist issue. A really crucial one. Without healthy people, there won't be enough people to fight any kind of fight. Political change will be stalled by ill health.

Anyways, I also wish that there was some healing ritual for me, that there were people playing and singing for me to heal, and that in one magical moment all could be restored to harmony. I wonder if it's too late for me? If I'm too far away from my body's natural harmony to ever fully restore it, or if there still is a chance at a balanced health for me?

My breathing is still so bad and my Buteyko teachers wants me to start pushing again. I feel too tired to push anything at all at the moment, but am unsure how else to get out of this low CP hole....?

I wish there was an easier way, a way of calm relaxing breath restoration. What happens to me is that I get violently ill with clearing reactions when I push my breath holds. I get to a level of total exhaustion and symptoms so severe I become handicapped, and completely home bound. I'm not sure what to do yet. All I know is that my breathing is really bad, and something has to be done to restore it, but my energy reserves are running low after daily breath work since December -09. Frankly my faith is falling too. The effort and suffering has been immense and the improvements minimal. So here I am, trying to find a way as usual. Making my own treatment decisions. Trying to be level headed and wise and rational, while my brain is not getting enough oxygen due to my severe hyperventilation problem. Sigh....(no I mean, short breath hold of 5 seconds, then shallow breathing. No sighing allowed at this low CP).

I'm totally like those kids Weston A Price came upon, skinny, unhealthy, weak, neurotic, with crooked teeth, deformed skulls, and open mouths, hyperventilating to get air.....I'm a mess. I do think though that I have it within me somehow to find a solution. I'm such an optimist.

Here is another fellow mouth breather that is getting hysterical at the sight of a double rainbow. It's so endearing to know that I'm not alone. lol. But I think I've laughed so much at this video that my CP has dropped several seconds. It's quite possibly worth the cost in CO2 though...On a more serious note, I think the video is a great example of how much we have lost our connection to nature, and how deeply we crave it, and how meaningful it can be to us.