Battling For Good Health

heartbreak_star

Good to hear from you both - I think the last few days seem to have been up and down for everyone, I nearly fell asleep at the gym!

Positive thinking and good luck!

HBS x

spidystrider

The acid reflux is no fun money. I have mine pretty much under control with the probiotic, but there are still days when I feel the irritation at the back of my throat when I am eating and have to fight the urge to cough.

Stomach problems run in my family, my Dad had stomach ulcers and both my sister and brother have suffered from them and also have throat problems. My brother was actually diagnosed with throat cancer in November 2011, but has the all clear now.

Genetics wise, we have been served a pretty poor hand, with stomach problems, asthma, heart disease, strokes and arthritis running in the family.

I am still plodding on and have no intention of giving up the fight.

The positives so far are : my body definitely feels stronger, I am coughing much less (on most days), although my nose is still swollen, it's not as bad and it feels much lighter. My BMI is now 18.52 and I am just on the edge of 7 and a half stone. ( I have decided that BMI's are annoying, as although mine keeps going up, my weight doesn't seem to change very much ???). I am now in the 'healthy' weight zone, just wish I felt healthy. :mad:

The negatives so far are : no matter what I do, I can't get rid of the breathlessness and it has been really bad since Friday. I have also been finding all my exercises a lot more difficult since then.

Maybe the doctor will be able to shed some light on what is going on and give me an idea on how to get past it.

Keep taking care money & HBS and keep pushing for good health xxx.

moneyistooshorttomention

spidystrider wrote: »

Genetics wise, we have been served a pretty poor hand, with stomach problems, asthma, heart disease, strokes and arthritis running in the family.

I am still plodding on and have no intention of giving up the fight.

The positives so far are : my body definitely feels stronger, I am coughing much less (on most days), although my nose is still swollen, it's not as bad and it feels much lighter. My BMI is now 18.52 and I am just on the edge of 7 and a half stone. ( I have decided that BMI's are annoying, as although mine keeps going up, my weight doesn't seem to change very much ???). I am now in the 'healthy' weight zone, just wish I felt healthy. :mad:

.

Certainly keep up the fight.

On worst days I remind myself that my health almost certainly would be absolutely TERRIBLE if I didn't look after it much more than most people do - with a healthy (genuinely so!) diet. The only readymeals I ever eat are once a week at my parents place - the rest of the time I eat WAY more healthily than most people.

I know the "genetics" are very much against me when I look at my family. Hence the decision I made years ago to totally ignore the way the way my family eat/live their lives generally and work things out for myself. Both my parents and my brother have absolutely APPALLING health and I think must have covered about every ailment there is between them by now. I would absolutely loathe and detest having the health level that any of the three of them have got.

Whereas, pretty much all that is wrong with me is that temporary acid reflux and carrying a stone or two extra weight (also temporary). I hope that cramping is on its way out the door as well and fingers crossed that I won't have to keep taking the magnesium supplements for that much longer.

I wonder whether losing that bit of extra weight and toning up with the yoga will see off that acid reflux for good. Reading up about the causes of it, then I wonder if maybe a strong, toned midriff will deal with that problem - so must keep up that yoga.

Once those things are dealt with, then I reckon I will be able to start describing myself as healthy.

So, the fact that I am way way healthIER (even now) than my "genetics" indicate means I am obviously doing something very right and I will take that as encouragement to do more of the same:D

Re your breathlessness - I wonder whether there might be an anxiety element to that perhaps? I have been wondering it with myself and I think that its easing a bit since I retired (ie got rid of the job that was a major stressor to me). I didnt expect to normalise overnight after all those years of stress and am taking it that I must cut myself a little slack and be a bit patient with myself and that mine will have gone totally once its fully sunk in that I've retired and I've lost that bit of extra weight. I have info. that I must tackle re Buteyko Method breathing (which I've read a lot of good things about) that I will have a go at if this bit of breathlessness continues and think I might beneficially try even once I get to feel okay anyway.

spidystrider

Hi money, could you give me some more information on apple cider vinegar. I have read on loads of sites that it is good for gastric reflux. I am not having too many problems, but it hasn't gone completely and I'd like to try to get rid of it.

Where do you buy it? How much does it cost and how do you take it? Are you finding that it helps you at all?

Thanks for any advice xxx.

moneyistooshorttomention

I buy a locally-made vinegar actually with the "mother" in it. Before I found that, I think it was Aspall's cider vinegar I got (which also had the mother in it) and I found it in health food stores. From memory, I think the Aspalls is about £2 a bottle. You don't want to know how much the local stuff I get now is...rather a lot more..

At the moment, I'm a bit undecided as to where to go from here - on that front and others. Having gathered that there are several possible causes of acid reflux and so obviously its going to vary from person to person I got a bit confused. I think mine is probably down to slight overweight (that surplus stone or two) and a less toned midriff. I think I probably have low stomach acid (am sitting here right now - having downed two teaspoons of bicarb. of soda in water before I have any food or drink for the day and apparently that will have me belching like mad if my level of stomach acid is okay and nothing happening if its too low). I tried it yesterday and nothing much happened and then realised I'm supposed to do it before breakfast - so am having another go now.

I've made an appointment next week with someone who is a conventionally trained doctor and also deals in "natural" health care. They asked me what the problem was over the phone and I got a confident-sounding "Yes...I think I can deal with that" back from them. I'm trying not to think about the size of the cheque I'm going to have to write to them...but if it will get my health back to normal then needs must.

spidystrider

Thanks for the info, money. I will wait a bit longer but might visit my local health food store and see what they have on offer.

I have had a rubbish week and today has just finished it off. :mad:

I have been feeling unwell since last Thursday/Friday and have been so bad this week that I had not done any exercises since Tuesday. My cough and breathing got so bad, that there was no way I could manage anything. I have been running to the toilet, as my bladder always feels full, even though it isn't. so not sure what's going on there. I know it isn't cystitis, as there is no burning sensation. As you mentioned money, anxiety may be playing a part in the way I am feeling, because on Tuesday I got a letter through to say my name had been picked for jury service, which is just what I needed. When I saw this I did start to panic, but decided that with my asthma problems the doctor would write me out a medical certificate without any worries. Yeh right!

Even though I have suffered with a cough for nearly 13 years, had nasal polyps for nearly 10 years and never seem to be able to get on top of it, I am not entitled to a medical certificate. I have been given steroid nasal drops for the umpteenth time, told to take even more inhaler and was nearly given 2 different antibiotics, one for what he believes is a bladder infection and the other for my chest. I thought I would have been asked for a urine sample to test for an infection, but instead they just chuck antibiotics at you, without testing!

Even though I was breathing really badly when I put on the appointment last week, I ended up with a junior doctor. He listened to my chest and thought he could hear something, but I am positive there is nothing wrong with my chest. Twice he had to leave the room to talk to a senior doctor and thankfully that doctor told him to give me one antibiotic, that would deal with both problems. Both doctors decided between themselves that although I have had health problems for nearly 13 years, that I will be fit and healthy in the next week or so, so I can do jury service. I remember now why I never go to see doctors. :mad: If I was a junkie I'd get a medical certificate in 2 seconds flat. I am now left worrying about how I am going to cope sitting in a packed courtroom trying not to cough my insides out, surrounded by loads of strangers!

I will be going back again in a week and will make sure I see a different doctor this time. Maybe I will find one that will put my health and welfare first, but I won't be counting on it.

Rant over and away to jump off a bridge.

heartbreak_star

Sorry to hear about your doctors issues that sounds rubbish. Bladder infections aren't always discernible from a dipstick test - usually the dipstick test is for sugar or protein in urine. Have you tried getting some counselling for your anxiety? If you treat that the rest might improve?

Try and look at jury service as a positive experience - I've never been chosen and would love it do it! It may not be a packed courtroom, it may be somewhere tiny with only a few people there. I've never known anyone to be signed off from it unless they were in hospital.

Good luck and lots and lots of hugs!

HBS x

spidystrider

Well, I'm finally back, it's been a hard few weeks. In the end I had to take two lots of antibiotics, as although the first lot sorted out the bladder infection, my chest still wasn't right.

I am glad to say that I am now feeling a lot better. It took ages to stop feeling constantly breathless, but I am now ready to get back on with my exercising. I have had a couple of goes on the Wii, just simple exercises like the step aerobics, which only last for 5 minutes. That 5 minutes actually gets me breathing a bit heavier, so I have a very long way to go. I wouldn't say that I am back to square one yet, as I am worse than when I originally started at the beginning of January.

I have also started to do my exercises for my nose again and my nose is not too swollen at all, so that is good. I am also weighing in at 7 stone 8 now, with a BMI of 18.83, so I'm delighted with that. My cough is also surprisingly under control. It was pretty bad up until the end of last week, but has improved quickly since then.

So here I go again, I will start building up my exercises from Monday. I'll get back on that treadmill, multi-gym and start up my Pilates etc again. It will take a while to get back to the amount of exercises I was doing before my health went downhill, but I will get there.

One things for sure, when I do finally get healthy again, I won't be slacking off. I definitely don't want to live my life like this!!!

ladylouise62

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I think I probably have low stomach acid ....

I just mentioned that to my doctor who said "I've not heard of that, it must be very rare". But, when I said that the heavy dose of tabs she gave me stopped acid altogether as it was too strong she didn't believe that either and didn't sound happy about giving different tablets. Funnily enough, my pharmacist (who is much younger) seems to have heard of it :-)
Needless to say, I hope to see a different doctor next time.

spidystrider

I managed to exercise yesterday and today, so I have made a start again. So far I have just been on the treadmill and the multi gym. I walked at 3.5 km/hr yesterday for 10 & a half minutes, but went up to 4 km/hr today. I was a little puffed out, but not that bad at all, so I'm happy to stick with that speed for now. I think I will try adding in Pilates tomorrow, as I am not finding it as hard as I had expected. It looks like the 5 weeks of exercise that I did do has paid off, as it usually takes me a lot longer than this to start feeling better, when I have been unwell. I am feeling pretty positive again today.