Address All Issues
One of the things people seem to do when they begin pursuing alternative remedies and nutritional approaches is they pick one and only one issue to address. They have a particular health issue and they try to address just that issue by itself, ignoring any other issues they may have.
Please don't do that. If you have two potentially deadly health issues, you MUST address both at all times. You can't just pick one.
If you have three or more issues, you have to account for all of them.
Rest assured, I deal with a long list of food intolerances and health issues on a regular basis. I'm not "just" dealing with having a form of cystic fibrosis.
It's simpler to deal with one and only one but it will not get you the results you need. It's not realistic. If your body has three issues, addressing only one of them and ignoring the other two is a good way to potentially die.
If you have a PRIMARY concern, the other issues are likely part of the list of weakest links you need to address to make headway on that primary issue. These issues may well be interacting in ways that are not currently apparent to you.
Here are some things I routinely account for that are just background noise and I don't tend to blog about them. They sort of "go without saying" in my life, so I tend to not comment on them.
Rather than focus on what I can't eat, I tend to focus on what I can eat. I eat a lot of potatoes, corn, lettuce, certain spices (capsaicin from hot peppers being a staple of my diet -- it helps with my edema, among other things) and I eat a lot of cheese. I can have wheat and rice, but not too often.
I eat beef and chicken, but less than most Americans. I have in the past eaten catfish -- which is a riverine species, not seafood -- and lamb -- when I lived in Germany where it was available. I don't recall seeing it in US grocery stores. And I grew up eating game meat -- meat hunted by family or friends of the family -- like deer and squirrel, which has also simply not been available to me in recent years.
So what I eat is dependent in part on availability and I don't waste a lot of energy thinking about that detail or worrying about it, though I have suggested to my son with CF -- who has never tried deer or squirrel -- that if he is ever in a position to try game meat, he should. He might tolerate it better than store-bought beef. (He likes to cook his beef until it is very, very well done and drier than most people like and game meat starts out drier and with less fat. People with CF misprocess fats.)
So when I talk about specific examples of things on this site that work to treat X, I do TRY to list more than one treatment option. If I don't, that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't more than one. It may just not have occurred to me to include more in that particular post.
If you are trying to treat or deal with TWO things, what you may see is that you need to simultaneously NOT exceed a certain value for some nutrient because of problem A while not falling below a certain value for it because of problem B. And you may need to do that symptomatically -- i.e. by observing how your body reacts to what you are doing. In some cases, you may have SOME numbers to work with -- blood sugar testing or blood pressure testing, for example, are commonly available -- but that likely isn't the whole picture and you will still be relying on symptoms to some degree to infer exactly where you stand.
The way you do this is by having a multi-step process for handling your issue and you do the SAFEST things FIRST. You only risk taking more of the potentially problematic thing after a process of elimination suggests you actually need more of that in specific.
I did this when I used to take B vitamins FIRST to try to resolve my Restless Leg Syndrome and THEN iron if B vitamins alone didn't fix the issue. I did it in that order because you cannot POISON yourself with B vitamins (which doesn't mean there won't be any negative side effects, just that it's safer than iron) and you CAN poison yourself with iron. Iron is a mineral that stays in the body long term and B vitamins are water soluble and readily voided via sweat or through the kidneys.
You can also list out all issues and look at what seems to be the common denominator. That can be another means to point you to "No, I actually do need more of X nutrient/thing. It's clearly too low."
Recent things I've read about a different genetic disorder have convinced me that the fact that CF is a salt-wasting condition is probably the primary reason we are so vulnerable to infection. If you have a serious or chronic infection and also a condition where you are supposed to limit salt -- say, high blood pressure -- you will need to work at SAFELY keeping your salt levels up high enough without going too high.
Some things you can try:
Here are a few issues that get worse if you aren't getting enough salt. If you check multiple boxes here, it can suggest you need to try to safely get more salt (and other ocean minerals):
Do note that you can become OCD due to yeast overgrowth and you can get yeast overgrowth because you are killing infection. It feeds on detritus in the system. So if you are prone to being OCD and are also killing long-standing infection, the battle to keep your OCD under control may go hand-in-hand with trying to kill the infection.
Chronic infection tends to involve biofilm and biofilm is fostered by high acidity. There are posts about that on the site already. Trypanosomas are swimmers and LIKE IT when you have edema. If you have edema, getting it down will help you combat trypanosomas.
Going back to me as an example, moving someplace with less ragweed has made it vastly easier to manage having CF and working to resolve my trypanosoma infection is most likely the reason I react a lot less allergically to anything and everything than I used to do. My ragweed allergy is most likely part of why my chronic edema is so stubborn and that would likely resolve if I could move some place with no ragweed, I just have no means to arrange that. (Rest assured, I have thought about it and looked at maps of the world to try to figure out options.)
And as I get generally healthier, it gets a lot easier to manage dietary issues. I have much more flexibility on things like how much wheat and rice I eat, though corn, potatoes and real butter are always safe foods for me (assuming they aren't prepared with something that is a problem). At one time, it was extremely hard to figure out what to eat at any given time without triggering some issue or other because there were too many health issues that I was bumping up against some limit or other on.
If nothing else, if you feel you cannot SAFELY treat your "primary" issue because of some OTHER issue, treat that other issue as much as you can because that other issue may be the weak link keeping your "primary" issue stubbornly alive. I cannot tell you how huge a difference it makes to reduce my exposure to ragweed even though cystic fibrosis is supposed to be by far a much, much worse health issue.
Please don't do that. If you have two potentially deadly health issues, you MUST address both at all times. You can't just pick one.
If you have three or more issues, you have to account for all of them.
Rest assured, I deal with a long list of food intolerances and health issues on a regular basis. I'm not "just" dealing with having a form of cystic fibrosis.
It's simpler to deal with one and only one but it will not get you the results you need. It's not realistic. If your body has three issues, addressing only one of them and ignoring the other two is a good way to potentially die.
If you have a PRIMARY concern, the other issues are likely part of the list of weakest links you need to address to make headway on that primary issue. These issues may well be interacting in ways that are not currently apparent to you.
Here are some things I routinely account for that are just background noise and I don't tend to blog about them. They sort of "go without saying" in my life, so I tend to not comment on them.
- I react allergically to a LOT of things, especially when I'm sicker than I am currently, but the medical establishment has only officially identified ONE thing to which I am allergic: Ragweed. It's part of why I live on the West Coast. There is no place in North America without ragweed, but it's less on the West Coast near the actual coast. I would need to leave the US to find a country without ragweed. (I would actually need to leave North America entirely and NOT move to Europe, in fact.)
- I rarely eat any seafood and I stopped eating shellfish after I began breaking out in hives in reaction to them. I don't tolerate seafood well and developed a shellfish allergy after having two contrast-dye CAT scans the year I was at my sickest. This was most likely iodine and seafood is high in iodine, especially shellfish.
- I eat a lot of cheese, though some of the cheese I eat is from goats or sheep, not cows, and I rarely drink milk. When I do drink milk, it's lactose-reduced milk.
- I avoid certain oils, especially peanut oil, but also a few others.
Rather than focus on what I can't eat, I tend to focus on what I can eat. I eat a lot of potatoes, corn, lettuce, certain spices (capsaicin from hot peppers being a staple of my diet -- it helps with my edema, among other things) and I eat a lot of cheese. I can have wheat and rice, but not too often.
I eat beef and chicken, but less than most Americans. I have in the past eaten catfish -- which is a riverine species, not seafood -- and lamb -- when I lived in Germany where it was available. I don't recall seeing it in US grocery stores. And I grew up eating game meat -- meat hunted by family or friends of the family -- like deer and squirrel, which has also simply not been available to me in recent years.
So what I eat is dependent in part on availability and I don't waste a lot of energy thinking about that detail or worrying about it, though I have suggested to my son with CF -- who has never tried deer or squirrel -- that if he is ever in a position to try game meat, he should. He might tolerate it better than store-bought beef. (He likes to cook his beef until it is very, very well done and drier than most people like and game meat starts out drier and with less fat. People with CF misprocess fats.)
So when I talk about specific examples of things on this site that work to treat X, I do TRY to list more than one treatment option. If I don't, that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't more than one. It may just not have occurred to me to include more in that particular post.
If you are trying to treat or deal with TWO things, what you may see is that you need to simultaneously NOT exceed a certain value for some nutrient because of problem A while not falling below a certain value for it because of problem B. And you may need to do that symptomatically -- i.e. by observing how your body reacts to what you are doing. In some cases, you may have SOME numbers to work with -- blood sugar testing or blood pressure testing, for example, are commonly available -- but that likely isn't the whole picture and you will still be relying on symptoms to some degree to infer exactly where you stand.
The way you do this is by having a multi-step process for handling your issue and you do the SAFEST things FIRST. You only risk taking more of the potentially problematic thing after a process of elimination suggests you actually need more of that in specific.
I did this when I used to take B vitamins FIRST to try to resolve my Restless Leg Syndrome and THEN iron if B vitamins alone didn't fix the issue. I did it in that order because you cannot POISON yourself with B vitamins (which doesn't mean there won't be any negative side effects, just that it's safer than iron) and you CAN poison yourself with iron. Iron is a mineral that stays in the body long term and B vitamins are water soluble and readily voided via sweat or through the kidneys.
You can also list out all issues and look at what seems to be the common denominator. That can be another means to point you to "No, I actually do need more of X nutrient/thing. It's clearly too low."
Recent things I've read about a different genetic disorder have convinced me that the fact that CF is a salt-wasting condition is probably the primary reason we are so vulnerable to infection. If you have a serious or chronic infection and also a condition where you are supposed to limit salt -- say, high blood pressure -- you will need to work at SAFELY keeping your salt levels up high enough without going too high.
Some things you can try:
- Work at bringing your high blood pressure down generally. Aloe vera may help. One study suggests coconut oil plus exercise may help, though coconut oil is contraindicated if you also have high cholesterol. Bringing edema down can help. (Hot peppers plus walking can do wonders for chronic edema -- when I began doing that, total strangers would stop me and ask me for diet tips because I shrank so dramatically in just a few weeks.)
- Treat for acidity first -- acidity seems to interfere with the body's use of salt -- such as by having a bowl of lettuce or eating corn, especially white corn. Solid foods that are alkaline are the safest way to bring down acidity, though if you are extremely acid you can also drink diet tonic water (four to eight ounces, one or more times per day). You don't want to overdo it on taking antacids or drinking alkaline beverages because if you overalkalinize your stomach, you stop digesting food entirely and begin throwing up.
- If treating your high blood pressure and treating for acidity are not enough to resolve your issues, take on more salt as a last resort BUT ideally it should be sea salt containing other minerals. The other minerals in salt are micronutrients and we tend to have less info on how the body uses them and they are important to how the body uses salt. If you BATHE in water with sea salt in it (such as Celtic Salt, a brand known to have a lot of other minerals) or go to the beach (even without necessarily going in the water), letting your body absorb it through the skin will also be the safest means to get more salt and OTHER MINERALS than taking it orally.
Here are a few issues that get worse if you aren't getting enough salt. If you check multiple boxes here, it can suggest you need to try to safely get more salt (and other ocean minerals):
- Neurological issues generally.
- OCD as a reaction to mold exposure. Salt kills mold. If you can't shake OCD with other treatments, you may need more salt.
- Sinus, respiratory and gut issues. They are all lined with mucus. If your sinuses are too dry or your lung issues are acting up, you may need more salt.
- Chronic infection.
Do note that you can become OCD due to yeast overgrowth and you can get yeast overgrowth because you are killing infection. It feeds on detritus in the system. So if you are prone to being OCD and are also killing long-standing infection, the battle to keep your OCD under control may go hand-in-hand with trying to kill the infection.
Chronic infection tends to involve biofilm and biofilm is fostered by high acidity. There are posts about that on the site already. Trypanosomas are swimmers and LIKE IT when you have edema. If you have edema, getting it down will help you combat trypanosomas.
Going back to me as an example, moving someplace with less ragweed has made it vastly easier to manage having CF and working to resolve my trypanosoma infection is most likely the reason I react a lot less allergically to anything and everything than I used to do. My ragweed allergy is most likely part of why my chronic edema is so stubborn and that would likely resolve if I could move some place with no ragweed, I just have no means to arrange that. (Rest assured, I have thought about it and looked at maps of the world to try to figure out options.)
And as I get generally healthier, it gets a lot easier to manage dietary issues. I have much more flexibility on things like how much wheat and rice I eat, though corn, potatoes and real butter are always safe foods for me (assuming they aren't prepared with something that is a problem). At one time, it was extremely hard to figure out what to eat at any given time without triggering some issue or other because there were too many health issues that I was bumping up against some limit or other on.
If nothing else, if you feel you cannot SAFELY treat your "primary" issue because of some OTHER issue, treat that other issue as much as you can because that other issue may be the weak link keeping your "primary" issue stubbornly alive. I cannot tell you how huge a difference it makes to reduce my exposure to ragweed even though cystic fibrosis is supposed to be by far a much, much worse health issue.
