90% of heart bypass patients……

…… revert back to their old ways within 2 years.

That was the interesting, if alarming, statistic I learned recently.  It’s been an interesting time all round since I last wrote.  Until this morning, my health had been pretty stable, I’ve been feeling pretty good, my knees, feet and elbows were all excellent and I was walking with confidence!  A result of my medication?  Maybe, but the drug will have left my system by now as it has quite a short half life, so I was feeling pretty cool.

The band had a gig – another wedding.  Here’s me waiting to rock the party.

It was a strange set up.  Usually, we try to be in when the room is being prepared, get the gear ready, check the sound so we don’t have to interrupt the proceedings by turning up with a van full of boxes!

This time, it was quite a small room and the wedding party were using the whole space.  We had a 45 minute window to get in and ready to rock while the room was being prepared for the evening celebrations.

So, we set up as much as we could under a gazebo in the car park.  It was dark, cold, damp and not very pleasant.  By the time we got inside, my hands were like ice and we were all a bit grumpy.  Especially my bass player – a wee hug, though, and he was OK.

Anyway, all that aside, we were up and running almost within the time, it was another fab gig and loads of fun, as usual.  My hands were still a bit dodgy but everything was working pretty well.  We kept the dance floor filled and our clients were very happy.

Then, at the end of last week, I was at a seminar/forum/event thingy with the ‘process folk’ from across my company.  I work in Business Change and my employers are very keen to build a community of connected change professionals in the organisation.

OK, now, before you start yawning, I’d just like to say that I think it’s a good thing and it works.  My colleagues work all across the company and you can go for months without seeing people in your team.  So, every three months, we get to see each other ‘en masse’ at a forum.  I like these things, I’ve presented some of my work at one, it’s good.  So there!

This time, we had a couple of guest speakers and the guy who had my attention (totally) was Craig Smith from Flint Consulting.  Now, this wasn’t just because he had a really funky presentation (I do want some of that, though, I do!) but because he was a very engaging speaker too.

He started his talk with the above statistic and related it to how a lot of change programmes in companies fail.  Due to the fact that people go back to their old ways, the stuff that’s comfortable, easy, the path of least resistence, etc, etc.  I have experienced this kind of thing in my workplace first hand and I couldn’t help relating it to what I’m trying to do right now.

My wife said that I’m trying to undo 46 years of habit.  She’s right and I suppose that’s what it must also be like for heart patients.  Now, you would think that, faced with death, people with a dodgy heart would take note and put being alive before anything else.  It just goes to show how complacent we can be and how comfortable old habits are, even if the risks are great.

If I was complacent, my path of least resistence would be to start injecting my meds again, start eating rubbish again, start not getting better again and be quite happy to pass this off with a, “Well, it would never have worked anyway” or a, “All these bad things’ll never happen to me” kind of throw away remark.  So, Craig’s talk struck a chord with me on a personal level.

To succeed, I have to be stubborn, stoic, relentless, learn from my failures, drop my complacency and never give up – just how you would lead an organisation into making a change for the better.

For example, this morning (Wednesday 21st November) I woke up with a very painful swelling!  Oooh er, missus!  Not what you might be thinking, my right wrist had swollen up overnight.  This does happen, although, it hasn’t for ages.  To be honest, my wrist had been grumbling for a couple of days, but this morning was dreadful.  I couldn’t move my wrist or my hand.

Here it is as of midnight, 21/11/12.  Compared to my left side, you can see that the right wrist is still swollen (although eased off enough to allow me to type) a bit red and it has an arthritic ‘heat’ about it.  Anyone who suffers with rheumatoid will tell you that when it’s active, joints can feel like they’re burning.  I can move my fingers now, although they’re pretty crunchy!

Anyway, back to earlier today.  I had to delay going into work because I couldn’t do anything.  Shaving was almost impossible, brushing my teeth was almost impossible, putting my cufflinks in was almost impossible, shoe laces – bloody hell, they were a nightmare and putting on a tie, that was COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE!  Today was the first day I’d gone to work without a tie.

Now, I could’ve jumped the gun, thought that the diet isn’t working well enough and reached for the syringe.  I nearly did.  BUT, that would be allowing complacency to rule my head and I would be merrily careering down the road to failure.

I think I’m better than that – I think we all are.  I’m not completely cured, but I have come a long way so why start doubting now?  I could easily go backwards, put back the weight that I’ve lost and resign myself to injecting medication every week and maybe not feel so good while posing a risk to me and costing the NHS a small fortune.  I don’t think I should settle for that and I don’t think anyone else should either.

That’s why I am happy to tell anyone with anything autoimmune to try changing their diet before doing anything else – and be stubborn with yourself because you owe it to yourself!

So, on that note, I am taking my diet a step further by following an Autoimmume Protocol for the next 30 days.  Really, it’s just the diet I follow just now but cutting out tomatos, eggs (both of which have become staples in my diet) bell peppers and spices.  All of these things have been shown to affect people with autoimmune problems.  It should be interesting.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Thomas Edison, which I found quite interesting.  He said, “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

Hmmm, haven’t had that experience yet!

5 thoughts on “90% of heart bypass patients……

  1. I think I may have traced the cause of my flare up. I accepted the offer of some absolutely terrific spicy food from my neighbour (also Paleo, by the way, and a great source of information and ideas) and within a day, bang, it was all over for my wrist. I had already made the decision to follow an AI protocol, so it was a good test. Well, I now have an idea that really spicy stuff might not be quite right for me. Time will tell. Oooooh, this is getting interesting!

  2. Rheumatoid arthritis is an auto-aggression disease caused by a certain type of incorrect nutrition, trough-like. There are at least 10 variations of the disease.

    I hope your diet works. If not:
    Don’t use plant-oils/fats

    Eat just: EGGYOLK: the most healthiest fats and other animal fats, collagen as cartilage, jelly, pigs’hocks, trype and lung. Eat lots of butter, cream, lard, pork rind, pig’skin and bacon. Drink beefstock soups, Eat as much as you want but do not overeat.
    DO NOT SMOKE. The ERS should decrease at the rate of 40% every two weeks. Joint pains should abate within a few, or a dozen days. The use of selective currents stimulating the parasympathetic system markedly accelereates the treatment. Using at first 1:2 protein to fat ratio . When de 1 hour ESR falls to 30, change the proportion to 1:4-5g protein to fat.

    This comes from Dr. Jan Kwasniewski, Homo Optimus

    • Wow, thank you for taking the time to comment.

      You might be interested to know that, about a year ago, my ESR was skirting around the 25-30 mark and I was on some heavy meds. Now, I’m lucky if it reaches 4. I’m waiting for some blood results taken a week ago, when I wasn’t feeling too good, so will report back in next week’s instalment.

      I was a smoker, but stopped 7 years ago. I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere near cigarettes now and the whole thing seems quite abhorrent.

      I’ve learned a lot about good nutrition in the last 15 months and I will take your advice on oils and fats. I haven’t touched vegetable fat/oil in over a year.

      It’s also interesting what you say about animal fats, pork rind, etc. I have changed my view of animal fat since starting this diet and I now don’t trim anything – I’ll continue to do that. It’s also interesting to note that I really don’t overeat, in fact, I would say I eat way less than I used to and feel more full for longer.

      It’s all counter intuitive, isn’t it?

      Thanks for your interest,
      Scott

  3. Nuts and seeds have also been found to be problematic for AI folks, so you may want to consider trying a period without those too. I’m on the AI protocol as well, and it’s been challenging, but worth it in the end, I think!

    • Hey Erin, thanks for the information.

      I eat quite a lot of nuts and seeds so I’ll try to cut back.

      I agree, the AI protocol is quite a challenge. I’ve been following a paleo diet for ages now but I think I may still be missing something that disagrees with me – hence me starting the protocol. I didn’t do this when I started paleo and maybe should have done.

      Anyway, 5 days in and I’m missing eggs with my bacon and tomatos and peppers in my salads! Aside from my right wrist, every other part of me is feeling great so I think it’ll be worth it in the end. I’m certainly looking forward to introducing these foods again and seeing what happens.

      Best of luck with your quest – I hope AI works out for you.

      Cheers,
      Scott

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