verushka70

I'd hate to jinx myself but... after a month and a half of seeing a naprapath and following her exercise and nutrition regimen (mostly), I am starting to see some results. (The chiropractor has helped, too, as the shooting pain alternating with numbness/tingling that goes down my R forearm is probably, as he suggested, at least neck-vertebrae-nerve related (if not wholly to blame, which is his hypothesis, but I'm going to go with "major contributory factor").

I kind of thought the naprapath was, well, overselling the fruit-veg smoothie thing. Not that I thought she was lying, I just thought "It can't be THAT much of a difference, and I already eat those foods, anyway!") What can I say, I'm a skeptic at heart.

The idea that I'd have a spare $400 laying around to buy a Vitamix just for fruit/veg smoothies (when I'm still paying off radiology, doctor visits, and PT from December when I had shitty market place insurance with a $5000 deductible) was a no-go.

But I lucked into a "personal drink mixer" for $14.99 on sale while it was a temporary offering at my local Aldi's, put in my path by the universe/God/whatever about 1.5 weeks after she said I ought to start doing this and I investigated the cost of Vitamix, Ninja and the other one, and was like, "There's no way, not with the bills from December and the new bills from January/February."

The frozen organic mango and berries are not cheap. And the blender is only 300 watts, with a caution in the manual not to blend more than 5 ice cubes at once or you'll burn out the motor.

But my local Aldi's also has organic kale and organic baby spinach, and Costco's prices for the organic frozen fruits isn't bad. So I have found that if I just take out what I need the night before, and leave it in the fridge to defrost, they blend right up together (berries/mango and kale/spinach) with no problem. I've had to go dairy free because of my acid reflux and acne, which returned when I tried to use plain yogurt.

But after 2 weeks of daily organic kale/mango or kale/mixed cherries, I felt so. much. BETTER. it was actually shocking how much better I felt. My mood improved a lot, which surprised the hell out of me. I was just hoping for a decrease in pain/inflammation. And I really didn't understand why the organic kale/spinach and avocados weren't doing the trick when I was eating them almost daily in salads. Apparently, blending the hell out of them into a smoothie and then drinking them helps you get more out of them! Who knew? Not me... not until recently.

I still haven't added the protein powder, but just the fruit/veg (and turmeric and Emergen-C) smoothies daily, combined with naprapathic manipulation every 2 weeks and weekly (or every 2 week) chiropractor visits has reduced the shooting pain &/or tingling/numbness from 15-20 x day to 2-5 x a day.

So excited! I actually have the energy to take the dog on long walks after I get home from work now, instead of just a 5 minute walk and then collapse on the couch after we get back (followed by letting him out on a 20' lead from my front porch).

I really felt like I was failing my dog. I felt so guilty I wasn't giving him the exercise he needed. It was ameliorated a bit by my ex coming by while I'm at work and walking him while I was gone, but I felt terribly guilty, even if the dog is getting older and isn't as bouncy or "now! now! now!" as he was a few years ago. (My sister, to assuage my guilt, would say, "Yeah, but that dog has a great life with you... I mean, for one thing, he could be dead; you saved him from a kill shelter" through the rescue group, plus "he sleeps on a BED... and a COUCH... and with his human, not outside in a cold dog house in the winter." Which is a fair point, but didn't really make me feel any better about not walking the dog as much as I should (for him *and* for me).

Maybe the days getting longer and more exposure to sunlight is helping too -- I'm sure that has something to do with it.

I remain a realist, which (to quote Rust from S1 True Detective, or Thomas Liggotti) "in philosophical terms, makes me a pessimist."

But I'm just glad I feel better. Not 100% but that would be asking for the moon. I was at a pretty low ebb before. Chronic pain interspersed with sharp, acute pain will do that to you.

It does not escape me that I, a Registered Nurse and representative of modern western conventional medicine, have been helped far more by "alternative medicine" than by conventional medicine.

OTOH, my new insurance through work with the lower deductible ($1,400 rather than $5,000 -- or the $6,000 my shitty marketplace plan was moving to) does not pay for "alternative medicine," so it's taking kind of a large chunk of money out of my life. But I don't go out much, and when I do, it's usually over to someone else's house or having them over to mine (less often), so it's not like I can't swing it, for the most part.

So this is what I make in the morning, EVERY morning:

fill personal drink cup with 1/2 organic baby kale OR organic baby spinach
fill with 1/2 organic defrosted frozen mango/mixed organic cherries
dump in 1 envelope of orange or berry flavored Emergen-C
add 1 teaspoon organic turmeric
fill 2/3 to 3/4 with unsweetened almond milk
blend
drink

I add no sweetener (the Emergen-C is sweetened -- it *says* with "fructose" but I'm not sure if that's really fructorse or HFCS (since food makers are now allowed to call HFCS "fructose")).

Sometimes I'll mix the mangoes and cherries together. Sometimes I'll use a banana or apple instead. Occasionally I've used celery instead of kale or spinach, just for variety and celery is supposed to be anti-inflammatory, too.

Every day, day by day, it's been helping.

Even if I'm only at 55-65% of my functioning -- hey, I was only at about 25-35% function two months ago, constantly in pain, and with no energy, barely able to drag myself to work and drag myself home. I had practically stopped socializing (except for phone convos, texting, and email).

This is so much better.

\o/