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Health Blog - thebroadroom.net: January 2006
Disclaimer: all of the following is purely from personal experience. We are not doctors, nurses, or otherwise trained
medical personnel.
Hmmm...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
at 10:55 AM (Pacific)
Well I'm back. It turns out I had something more than just PMS. I started throwing up that same night, actually I threw up the calcium supplement too. The next day I couldn't do anything. I just had to stay in bed.
Anyhow, so I'll probably resume the calcium supplements tomorrow, I just don't feel like taking them today.
I'm really curious now to see if it works. There was a little blurb on the How Stuff Works page:
"Some researchers believe that a deficiency of calcium and magnesium (which affects nerve-cell communication) or low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) can trigger PMS symptoms, but these links have yet to be clinically proven."
I don't know for low blood sugar but that calcium/magnesium thing is intriguing.
 
Does anything work for PMS?
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
Monday, January 09, 2006
at 9:16 PM (Pacific)
I asked myself that today...I don't get it nearly as often as I used to, but when I do get it, it's crippling.
Since most information of this kind can typically be found only on the Internet, I did some googling around...frankly...not much new. I could just as well be asking this same question twenty years ago.
The one thing I found to try is calcium/vitamin D:
How PMS Works
PMS Relief
Apparently you are to take 1,200 mg calcium and 400 IU vitamin D per day. You are supposed to split this amount and take it twice per day...in order for the calcium to be absorbed better. You are to do this over two to three months, possibly, before seeing results.
I actually have some Costco calcium supplements that I never take. It's 500 mg calcium and 200 IU vitamin D I think. On the bottle it says to take it two or three times per day...which coincides with the above googled info.
Okay! So I took one of the calcium pills tonight.
There might well be something to it, if only because other "mysterious" health problems such as adult acne seem to be caused at least in part by, a lack of certain nutrients in our food. I know it seems outlandish, because we eat so much and seemingly so much better than previous generations...but, we don't know what we're eating anymore. It's mass produced and genetically engineered. I've heard elsewhere that our food simply doesn't contain as much vitamins and so forth as it used to, hence the need for supplements.
On a personal note, I can admit to being extremely annoyed that there isn't more research done on this condition. It's not a brand new condition. I went to that Lifetime TV forum site to see if anyone had found something that worked for PMS. I read the first three pages of it and it was all the same...woman after woman basically crying out for help and saying that nothing worked for the damn thing.
Another thing I find irritating beyond belief is the advice to exercise and eat better. That's a treatment? That's a cure? Exercising and eating better, would make a cancer patient feel better. But no one would insult someone whose health is suffering, by implying that working out is the cure. It isn't.
In fact, it seems to me that only female-only pain...menstrual, PMS, and childbirth...is ever treated by "mind control," "eat better and exercise," etc. To me it's an extension of "suffer in silence," or, for that matter, "go drown yourself in the village pond."
Oh well let's see if that calcium doesn't do something.
New Year's resolutions
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
Saturday, January 07, 2006
at 7:41 PM (Pacific)
Those sound like good resolutions.
I tend to make only one NY's resolution per year but I do tend to keep whatever it is. Last year...my daughter was still in kindergarten while my son was in the regular grades. K and the other grades do not start at the same time, much less finish at the same time; K is only three hours per day.
So unless you put your kindergartener in daycare, you're stuck coming and going and coming and going and coming and going, all day...it's insane.
I really wanted a regular job last year. It's hard to explain if you've never been through it. What people think of as a daily grind, is at least a daily grind...it's not this thing of constantly constantly working, seven days a week.
In some few ways it is good. I've never regretted staying home to take care of the kids although current American society, at least around here, is hostile toward that. They call it "not working."
When I was growing up...during the "nice" face of capitalism :D ...motherhood was sacred. No one would dare accuse you of not working because you stayed home to raise your kids.
And it has occurred to me, that the skill set I learned growing up...the housework stuff, cooking, baking, cleaning, mending, yadda yadda...is sort of like being a typesetter. Or some other profession that became outmoded. I can accept that it is outmoded.
In fact I highly support a technological solution, rather than a caste-based solution, to "who is going to do the housework." Everything else has a technological solution to it. Why simply create another caste to do menial work?
Enough of the blather...so that year I wanted to work more conventionally, and I did, actually it coincided with the beginning of the school year.
This year I would, ah, like to work some more.
I'm really into the job I have now...
So for me it's more work, more money.
Now...here is how I would think about your painting resolution. It'll no doubt sound like the capitalistic American that I am :) , here goes...
You can think in terms of selling your paintings. Not right away...you would want to practice...figure out what you can produce. But ultimately you will want to sell your stuff. You can sell it on Ebay or otherwise on the Net.
That is how I think of my beading or jewelry making. Right now I'm in the experimental phase. I'm producing pieces slowly and wearing them.
If a piece becomes something I somehow never reach for, I'll dismantle it...and make a new one.
Most days I don't have time to do anything jewelry wise unless I really make the time for it. But that's okay. I'll go for days without producing anything but it's always in the back of my mind, what I'll make next.
There is some up front investment in your project but it shouldn't be that much. Since you are using raw materials, the cost of what you do is mainly in the labor, which is specialized.
New Year's Resolutions
posted by Raphaelle,
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
at 4:32 PM (Pacific)
I actually wrote up my resolutions on December 30th and started on them the 31th. I was sitting on the couch feeling blah for no reason and got sick of it. I've had those blahs for months and I know they're because of work. However, it just makes no sense to look for another job just now. So I made up a list of things I need to do.
Daily:
1. at least one hour of physical activity including at least 10 minutes of yoga. The goal here is only to keep moving.
2. healthy eating with focus on getting in more vegetables and whole grains.
3. write something positive in my diary. Here, I want to make myself look at the bright side. It's been too easy to go on and on about what I don't like and I know that's just been bringing me down. Focusing on the positive should help me out a lot.
Weekly:
spend at least 4 hours on an artistic activity of some sort (painting, drawing, etc.) I love love love using my creativity and I need to make time for it. I'll often want to paint but end up not doing it because it's such hard work and I feel too tired.
The physical activity part has been going well. What's helping is that I don't have to do heart pumping cardio or heavy weights. Just keep moving. I've also been good about the diary. It only takes a few minutes before bed. The food part is a bit harder but it's going OK. I had a whole acorn squash for supper... (I put maple syrup, walnuts, and cranberries in it. Yummy.) I'm planning the artistic stuff for next weekend. We'll see how that goes. I have new paints I want to try out...
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