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90% of heart bypass patients……

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…… 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!

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This Week, I Have Been Mostly Wearing……..

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……..a grumpy face.

I have been particularly grumpy, actually.  Annoyingly, people have noticed and it’s not good when people start pointing this stuff out to you.  Now, I could put this down to my age.  I’m 46, rushing headlong into the long dark tea-time of middle age, but happy-go-lucky with it and not usually a grumpy old bastard!

Well, I have been this week.  My wife, my kids, my workmates have all had to put up with “Scott, the Grump Who Stole The Mood.”

It’s not been a great week.  After feeling quite pleased with myself in my last update, things just didn’t get back to normal.  I was waiting for my hands to recover and they didn’t.  In fact, everything just went a bit mental, sprinted quickly downhill and I really felt like a creaky old arthritic.

It’s very difficult to put into words what being a creaky old arthritic feels like.  The only way I can describe it is like being a really old car, that someone does their best to take care of but it still doesn’t perform quite in the way you expect, it limps along and you never quite know when it’ll break down – and when it does, it always gets going again but it’s just a bit ropy.  Like a bad Top Gear challenge.

Anyway, my creaky old arthriticness left me with shock, upset, disbelief, upset, anger, upset, tears, introspection, upset, swearing – oh, the swearing!  Now, I know what you’re saying.  This is all being a bit melodramatic and one should really get a grip of oneself.

Maybe you’re right.  I was, however, reminded of the dreadful flare up I had a few years ago that started with sore feet (which I ignored).  I put the feet down to lack of sleep, a bit of stress and worry associated with having two little 34 week premature babies in hospital, trying to see as much of them as I could and still do my job (saving my paternity leave for them coming home, see).

Last week, I had sore feet.  Also, my fingers weren’t settling, my right wrist was immobile, washing my hair in the shower was suddenly the most difficult and painful thing to do (not to mention towelling – I would have killed for a man-sized tumble dryer) and my knees were behaving like the unruly 7-year-old girls my tiny babies have turned into.  And my knees – jeez my knees!

Knees.  They’re funny things.  The most awkward of human joints.  Not so much a joint as a very ill-conceived mashing of unmatched bone ends and Forth Road Bridge suspension.  Doomed to failure!

When my arthritis has been bad, I’ve been able to feel the ends of my bones, especially the tops of my tibiae – it’s a particular pain that’s somewhere between an itch and being stuck with a needle.  I suddenly had that pain again and it began to worry me a bit.

Time to take action and I reached for the medication.  I had to.  I honestly felt like I had failed and last Sunday was a rotten day – in my head anyway!  By the end of the day, the drug was kicking in and I was beginning to feel much better.  I’m lucky, Adilamumab works so well that I can go for ages without it and it’ll re-establish within hours.

This doesn’t, however, make me feel better emotionally.  I haven’t been as clean as I could or should have been.  I have given in to temptation in the last few weeks and paid for it.  Maybe, I’ve reached the limit of what I’m able to do without the drugs?

My wife, who is my greatest source of encouragement and support, put it very well.  She’s pretty clever, my missus.  “You’re trying to undo 46 years of habit, Scott,” she said.  “Look at what you’ve achieved?  In the last 14 months you’ve gone from being on weekly injections and not feeling great to maybe taking them once every 6 or 7 weeks and feeling brilliant!”

She’s right and I think I’m probably being hard on myself.  She’s right about the habit thing too.  You know, I LIKE bread, I LOVE naan bread with a curry, I ADORE cakes, I’d KILL for a stodgy pudding with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.  Custard, ice cream, crisps, sweets, loads of beer and Pickled Onion Monster Munch!

I am finding this quite a challenge and it’s a battle with myself and myself only.  Eating Paleo is easy, having the will to put all the other crap aside is the difficult bit.  I’ve always been impetuous, quick out of the blocks to try anything, do daft stuff and I’ve never thought of myself as having much in the way of willpower.  I like that side of my character, though, it’s who I am.  In the last few days, I have been questioning whether I am capable of sticking to what I am trying to do.

Maybe it is melodrama and I should just get a grip, because I know what it’s feels like to feel great and this is important.  This is about being well, feeling great, making the rest of my life good instead of descending into ever more ill health.  I feel great when I eat clean and I have to hang on to that.

Best get on with it then!

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Being Paleo on Holiday…….

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…..is all about making choices, some better than others!

Now, I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, because I’ve been on holiday for a week in the sun, but during that time I’ve been trying to dodge the various ways wheat has been presented to me.  I haven’t always succeeded, I’ve been a bit stupid and I’ve suffered the consequences.

We love going to Mallorca in the school October break.  The big draws for me and my wife are not having to go to work (yeah, really), clean, organise the children’s social lives and cook.  For the kids, it’s the sun, the beach, swimming in the sea, ice cream and going to restaurants (a big treat).  Eating out is one of life’s greatest pleasures and the various restaurants in Puerto de Pollenca are fabulous.  As someone trying to reduce or remove his symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis with diet, I can avoid dairy easily.  Trying not to have wheat, on the other hand, has been a bit more difficult than I thought because it’s everywhere!

I’m writing this on the flight home.  At the moment, I am nursing a swollen index finger on my right hand, a sore right wrist, the bursa on my left wrist is a bit painful, I have swollen and sore feet, a painful right ankle and my right elbow (the barometer) is playing up.

Sounds like I’ve had a great holiday, eh?  Well, I have.  I’ve learned a few things as well, which is excellent!

I’m also playing at a party tonight.  We have a dash up the A1 from Newcastle, drop the wife and kids, then it’s off to the gig.  My band mates have come to my rescue (thank you Marky Mark) and have all of my gear, so I just have to pitch up.  With the state of my joints right now, tonight should be interesting and I’m a little worried!

But I’ve been here before.  I had a vicious flare up 7 years ago when I stopped responding to treatment and spent 2 years in and out of consulting rooms and trying different drugs to find something that worked.  I was a difficult case, resistant to some of the commonly used drugs.  I lost weight, I found walking difficult, I had constant, severe pain in most of my joints, I had trouble sleeping, my family, friends and work colleagues all looked at me with worried expressions as they could see I was in trouble.

I’m a drummer in a band playing at people’s parties – important events.  There’s a code, you don’t let people down.  It’s the ‘show must go on’ thing.  I continued to play throughout this flare up, only having to cancel one gig and only then because I was an inpatient receiving some much-needed bed rest.  I found drumming quite liberating, but I was exhausted after every gig and completely unable to tear down my gear.  My band mates, again, came to my rescue.

My consultants (I had 2 by this point) eventually found a combination of three drugs that worked a treat, but they gave me crippling indigestion so that was just no good.  Methotrexate was next, worked a bit but worked better when delivered by subcutaneous injection.  Anti TNF drugs came next.  Etanercept didn’t work but Adilamumab (Humira) did.  Within 4 hours of my first injection, I felt a noticeable benefit.

So that was me.  Self medicating with Methotrexate and Humira injections every month.  Over the course of the next 12 months, the dose of Methotrexate increased as did the frequency of both drugs, to once a week.  There they stayed until September 2011, when I started to think differently about what I was eating and I have been experimenting since.

So, what of this recent week of experimenting with food?

I love fish.  Eating in a place by the sea means that there’s always fresh fish on the menu.  But it’s not as simple as just grilling a fish, as we will find out.  Here are my good choices…

…and here are my bad choices…

…and here are the consequences…

 

As well as the above, I have sore feet, which is really poor show.  I hate having sore feet.  Standing and walking on sore feet is just crap, as anyone with sore feet will tell you.

Why?  Wheat is the thing that kills me and my feet.  I can stand (no pun intended) a little bit of dairy, but not much.  Wheat, on the other hand, is little more than poison.  Harsh, you think?  Wheat is the core of our system of nutrition, it is grown all over the world, it makes ‘our daily bread,’ it’s a major component of processed food and it’s in more things than you realise.  It is, quite literally, everywhere.

Wheat makes us fat, it contributes to the growth in obesity and diabetes, it inflames our guts, it hurts our organs, it makes approximately 40% of the human race ill in some way.  Yet we are encouraged to eat, eat and eat more whole grains!  We are killing ourselves slowly and, in people like me who have autoimmune problems, it is the thing that makes the difference between being well and being very ill.

Now, you probably think I’m completely mental.  I’m currently reading a very interesting book about the effects of wheat.  And, I have been experimenting with food for over a year now.  I know what makes my symptoms flare and it’s all things wheat.

Well, I’m off to be clean for a month.  I’m not going to spend that time in a bath – I’m going to do what I should have done this last week, make some good choices, which will cleanse my gut and make me well again!  I’ll keep you up to date with where these choices lead.

The wheat story hasn’t gone away, though, it’ll run and run.

Spectacularly Missing The Point, Twice!

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Oh for the love of goodness!  I just read this article on the BBC News website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19785006

In it, James Gallagher, the BBC’s Health and Science Reporter, says that scientists have genetically modified a cow so it produces milk that reduces allergic reactions. Flamin’ Eck!  He goes on to say that the poor thing was born without a tail. Really!  Then, as the beast hadn’t yet became pregnant, they pumped it full of hormones to kick-start milk production. Eeeeh Gads!

At this point, I was disgusted and interested all at once.

Now, I’m no fan of dairy.  I stopped eating/drinking dairy products a year ago.  Since then, I have dabbled and experimented with bringing dairy back into my diet.  If I do have any, it gives me a sore head and I break out in various itchy rashes.  I am now even less of a fan.

Cows make milk for the same reason as humans make milk – to feed their babies.  As a race, we understand that human breast milk is absolutely the best thing for our children and we have Government sponsored and charitable/voluntary organisations to help, encourage and support new Mums in doing the right thing.  Respek!  We do, however, treat new Mum cows with no respect at all.

Calves are taken away from their Mums after about 3 days, they’re fed milk substitutes and are either slaughtered for veal or allowed to develop into adults.  Mum cows are then milked intensively for about 10 months and then inseminated all over again (they have 2 months off to let their udders recover).  Sounds nice, eh?  This is highly unpleasant, especially when the bond between a cow and her calf is very strong and will last until the calf reaches adulthood.  A bit like us, then.

This intensive milking has some nasty side effects too, other than making the poor cow go a bit mad! Lameness, mastitis among other horrible things.  While we treat mastitis in humans, we just kill the cows.  Nice human people!

Right. I’m in danger of ranting, back to the BBC.  They go on to say………..

Cows milk contains beta-lactoglobulin.  Human milk doesn’t.  Beta-lactoblobulin causes an allergic reaction ergo Lactose Intolerance.  Hmmm, doesn’t that tell us something?  The researchers have said, “It’s not surprising that it constitutes a major milk allergen.”

Now, isn’t this just missing the point?  It’s only an allergen because it’s not designed for humans, it’s for cows.  Would we feel just as comfy drinking a hippo’s milk, a domestic cat’s milk, a dog’s milk?  Of course not!  Those animals make milk for their own babies, don’t they and, anyway, that would be disgusting!

We have already genetically modified our bovine friends to produce LOADS AND LOADS of milk satisfying our voracious need for sustenance.  So, we’ve done it once, we can do it again, tail or no tail!  That’s humanity for you – superior, arrogant and doing stuff just because we can and missing the point to boot.

Missing the Point 2.  I’ve had a busy week.  Well, the truth is, I gave myself a busy week!

My band were playing at a wedding on Saturday.  Weddings are hard work.  At a party, club or pub, we’d normally start at about 9/9:30, play for 1hr 15mins, have a break, play for another 1hr 15mins.  At a wedding, start times are typically earlier, clients want certain songs learned and played, bands have to mindful of the demographic and build the set around that.  The reality is, you have to play for longer, need more songs up your sleeve and you need to pay attention to the crowd and change the set list on the fly.

That meant dusting off quite a few songs we haven’t performed in a long time and adding a few more that we hadn’t done at all.  So, we rehearsed a bit more than we would normally in the week leading up to it.  I also made a new riser deck.

What’s a riser?  It’s a wee platform that gets the drums off the floor so I’m at eye level with my muso chums.  It also makes the band look much more professional.  It has nothing at all to do with being a show-off and being seen, you understand.  Nothing!

I have a riser deck already, but it was too big for this gig so I needed one that was small, fitted around a smaller kit and could be set up in a corner.  Now, as my wife pointed out, I didn’t really NEED to build one, especially as the bath panel is still at the top of the stairs and there’s other shit to do in the house.  She’s right, of course!  But it is BRILLIANT being on a riser (thanks Ringo) and I really WANTED one for this gig.  I had from the Monday to the Thursday to make it – pressure was on!

I did myself in.  What with work, cooking, ferrying the kids to various places, 2 band rehearsals and just getting through life, I really didn’t have time to do this.  By Wednesday, I had sore hands, my right elbow was playing up, my knees and feet were sore, getting through a 3 hour gig on Saturday was looking shaky and, worst of all, I had pissed off my wife!  Thoughts of injecting myself with my drugs crossed my mind – and not just for the arthritis!

I reminded myself that I was missing the point of what I’m trying to do.  I want to be drug free and prove that you really are what you eat!  So I didn’t.  By Friday (gig setup day) I was feeling OK.  By Saturday evening, I still had a sore elbow but nothing nearly as bad as Wednesday and I was feeling good.

We played, in total, for 3 hours and 20 minutes on Saturday night.  I have never played for so long – this is Bruce Springsteen territory – or been so bloody knackered!

Did I last the pace?  Absolutely!  AND I had more to spare.

Did I suffer the following day?  Not at all, I felt brand new.  Nothing hurt and I was up early and back at the hotel to tear down the gear.  I have chronic rheumatoid arthritis, I’m thinking this isn’t too shabby.

I have been feeling a bit off colour since, though, but I think it’s just because I’ve not caught up with my sleep.  I still haven’t resorted to injections and I’m determined not to miss the point again!

Nuff said.

Why Bread Really Isn’t Good For You……

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…..and yoghurt too!

“Bloated, inflamed, stiff joints and a bit sore” is how I’d describe myself today.  Oh, so your diet isn’t working after all then, Scott ya big liar?  Actually, yes it still is – if I had stuck to it!

The family had some excellent fun on Saturday visiting my sister’s place – it’s always a houseful, loads of kids, a lot of noise but great craic when the family is together.  One big draw is the food.  My sister and her husband are great cooks and Indian cuisine is their forte.

This time, though, we were being treated to something a bit different – tandoori chicken and homemade nan cooked in their new wood burning tandoor oven.  This thing is a beastly, massive, heavy thing that sits about 4 feet high and can get up to 500°C.   When I stuck my hand in it – well, you have to really – it was a mere 320°C.

Why on Earth would anyone stick their hand in this?  Well, one has to get the dough into it somehow and I hadn’t had a shot.  After losing most of the hair on my right arm, I had a good few nans cooking beautifully inside the tandoor, as you can see….

Now – and this is where I put my stupid hat on – you can’t go through all of this without trying the stuff you’ve had a hand in cooking.  So I did.  3 actually.  AND some raita (yoghurt based condiment in case you didn’t know – I didn’t know what it was called until I looked it up just there).

So there’s me, paleo, clean, eating primally, feeling great and stuffing my face with the kind of food I know is very bad.  My wife did warn me – several times!  Even the youngest of my children drew an audible sharp breath when she saw what I was eating.  “I’ll be alright,” I said, “You just pay attention to your own food!”  There was no alcohol involved, this was my sober decision.

And now I feel like crap!

I was very busy all day Sunday too.  My band were having a technical rehearsal as we have a new mixing desk – always a good idea to spend some time getting to know the equipment (especially important stuff like the mixer) before getting to a gig and realising you can’t work it!  Anyway, it took about 5 hours to do everything and we ended up playing quite a lot.

This is when I noticed I wasn’t feeling so good.  I was a bit lethargic, a little sweaty after very little effort, slightly out of breath  and my right arm was getting quite sore.  My right elbow is my barometer.  If that’s sore, I’m generally under par.  It was sore.  I was way under par and not in a good golfy sort of way.

My skin was itchy too.  That’s what the slightest sniff of dairy does to me.  By the time I returned home from the rehearsal, I was completely knackered, feeling bloated, etc, everything I said right at the start.  Why?  Because I ate shit that’s no good!

Wheat inflames the gut.  People generally don’t notice this – but loads of people complain about feeling bloated after eating bread.  And it feeds your pleasure centre, releasing endorphins and making you want more.  Ever found a really nice loaf, french stick or speciality bread that you simply MUST HAVE MORE OF?  That’s what wheat does.  All we do is keep our guts inflamed.  Makes us fat too, but that’s another story!

In people like me, predisposed to autoimmune problems, an inflamed gut can trigger the autoimmune response.  Rheumatoid arthritis in my case.  So, cut out the crap food and reverse the disease – that’s the plan anyway.

Or it would be if I stuck to it – which I generally do, to be fair!

Dairy, on the other hand, is just simply perverse!  I have a memory from about age 5 when I thought, “It’s very odd that we drink another animal’s milk.”  Surely – this is me back to the present day now – we are designed to drink our mother’s milk up to a certain age and then never have milk again.  After all, our paleolothic ancesters didn’t milk cows and they lived during the time when the modern human genome was fixed.

We’re the only animal on the planet that does this AND we’re not genetically designed to take milk – no-one can argue that our genetic makeup has caught up since we started farming and milking livestock between seven and ten thousand years ago (depending what you read).  It’s a good source of protein, though, and it’s sustainable and available!  But, anyone who cuts out dairy for any length of time and goes back to it will have a bad reaction – end of.  Why would that happen if it’s so good for you.  The slightest sniff of dairy gives me a sore head and makes me want to have a wee barfamundo!

All of this nonsense that we call ‘healthy food’ is just making us sick.  Coeliac Disease, Lactose Intolerance, Vitiligo, Eczema, Rheumatoid Arthritis.  None of these would exist if we ate what we were designed to AND can you imagine what that would do for our crumbling healthcare system?

Well, my healthcare system is going to benefit from me.  My treatment costs upwards of £12,000 each year.  If I’m drug free and well, the NHS would save that money and I’d be WELL into the bargain!  Just by eating the right stuff.

So, no more wheat, dairy or anything else that’s not natural.  I will be drug free by the end of the year.

I will.