Allergy to the Sun?

Apparently, my liver hates me and is totally jacked up. Or, at least, that's what Doc K told me yesterday when I had him do some acupuncture to get rid of my sun rash. Although the picture isn't the greatest, you can see quite a bit of the rash circling my neck.

Every spring/summer for the last 8 or 9 years I have developed a rash the first few times I go out in the sun. Although I can't pinpoint the exact cause of it, I believe the timing of my annual sun rash corresponds with when I was on major anti-inflammatory meds for what the docs though was carpal tunnel. Come to find out after one year of taking massive quantities of prescription and over the counter anti-inflammatory drugs (including a short run of Vioxx, which was soon after taken off the market... I didn't last very long on it because I noticed I got one of the red alert side effects which I won't relive for you hear, but I'm pretty sure it caused internal bleeding) that I did not have carpal tunnel thanks to going to a chiropractor who took xrays and noticed that neck from in between my shoulder blades and up was practically at a forty-five degree angle. Go figure right where the misalignment started was where the nerves that run down to you hands are. Isn't it amazing that "traditional" doctors just want to pump you full of drugs to manage the symptoms but don't really think to look in to the true cause of the problem? During that time I had one doctor actually tell me to a get a second opinion because he couldn't understand why I was in so much pain... especially since the cortisone shot he gave me didn't work. Long story short, a chiropractor saved my liver and internal organs from what was sure to be further damage from a never-ending amount of harsh prescription meds to manage the pain.

But I digress. The first year I noticed a rash from the sun during the spring was the year after I spent all of that time on heavy meds. And while I'm not on the heavy meds anymore (though, I was, until recent years, still taking lots of other prescription meds for allergies and whatnot) my health has not been the same since that time period. Digestive issues, rashes from everything, increasing food sensitivities, etc. Anyway, it was the sun rash that started first and has continued every year since. After about six or seven days of sun exposure the rashes stop and I just tan like most other people, but getting through that time period- which you have to break up and allow the rashes to heal in between each exposure- is near impossible because the itching is so intense and putting any sort of product on it to stop the itching causes the hives to turn in to boils and get worse. The only remedy was let it dry out and take lots of Benedryl.

However, when I started doing acupuncture last June I noticed something really amazing. My first session of acupuncture I had a rash on my hand that I had gotten from sun exposure while driving in my car for a long trip about five days prior. I also had a rash on my leg that refused to heal from sun exposure a full year beforehand (yup, that's how bad it had gotten for me). About two hours after my acupuncture session I noticed the sun rash on my hand had completely cleared, and the inflammation on the year old sun rash on my leg had gone down! After years of trying every medicine under the sun (haha :) ) and nothing clearing up my rashes one session of acupuncture was all it took to get my skin to start healing.

Naturally, upon getting my first rash this season I made sure to get some acupuncture yesterday. Doc took one look at my tongue and said something along the lines of "holy stagnation!" I can't remember exactly what it was, but I laughed. First, he confirmed what I suspected, things in my system have been stagnating again lately, and second that the rashes were a result of some of this. He explained that the rash was actually a result of my liver not functioning properly. The stagnation in my liver and other organs causing the body to not be able to react appropriately to even natural stimuli and as a result I get a rash instead of a normal suntan or sunburn. I paraphrase here of course, but you get the idea. Makes sense. The liver is the largest and most important organ in the body for processing anything your body is exposed to: food, sun, etc. So Doc hit some acupuncture points to stimulate my liver and wholla the rash cooled down and started to go away. As I expected it didn't go away completely, but it did calm down and start to clear on my hands and arms.

Being the baby that I am and hating being itchy, I did take some Benedryl last night to calm things down even more. The inflammation has gone away though I can still feel some small bumps under the surface. Hopefully I can sneak in another acupuncture treatment today and finish clearing everything up. I'm also planning starting up the Ebi-pro footbaths again. My body is in need of detoxing again, so it's time to refocus and get my act together again.

Eating Local

Friday night my husband and I made it down to the hot new restaurant in our town called June. The philosophy of the restaurant is local, organic, sustainable food served in a fine dining setting. To say that the food was good would be an understatement- it was sensational. And the best part for me was how happily they accomodated my food allergies! Not a single complaint from the staff and the chef went out of his way to make sure my entree had a sauce with it since I couldn't eat the sauce offered with it on the menu. I kept telling the waiter I would happy to eat the meat dry, but the chef wouldn't hear of it. How great is that?!

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera with me to take pictures of my meal for you, but I will try to walk you through it best I can. My appetizer was their signaturre beet salad:


Roasted candy striped and yellow beets, pickled red beets micro fines herbs, confited blood oranges, citrus vinaigrette.

My gallbladder especially like that one. :) And the beets were perfectly sweet and luscious. Here is a picture from the Chicago NBC 5 review of the restaurant.


The color alone is amazing, and the three beets each had their own distinctive flavor. If you've never had beets before, this is a great "intro to beets" dish.

For my entree I had to have the chef pull elements from several different dishes to make it "safe" for me to eat. I opted for the Prairie Pride Farm Berkshire pork loin with purple artichokes and mushrooms (can't remember the kind), and fingerling potatoes. The pork was suppose to have an apple sauce on it, but because I am allergic the chef topped everything with an aged sherry vinegriatte, which was a wonderful taste of sweet and sour to go with the meal. Had it not been inappropriate I would have considered licking my plate.

Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to get a dessert:

Caramel Panna Cotta, coffee caramel, housemade biscotti doughnuts, grape jam.

It was not friendly to my gallbladder whatsoever because of all the heavy cream in it, but boy was it tasty. And to save myself from getting sick from eating it all I made my husband eat quite a few bites of the dessert.

Eating local is my new focus to go along with my healthy eating, and it is so great to have a restaurant like June in my little city in the middle of a cornfield. My husband and I can't wait to go back there again and discover how great local food truly is, again, and again and again.

A little bit of stagnation again?

I tell you what, it's been a rough couple of weeks on my digestive system. Last Thursday during my bi-weekly massage my therapist discovered some serious swelling in my liver/gallbladder area. The area was so tender that just him laying his hand on the area made it difficult for me to breathe. Not good. By the time the massage was over (and thankfully my therapist decided to let me breathe and stopped working on the muscle knots in that area, which there were quite a few) everything was completely swollen and ridiculously tender to the touch. One of the doctor's did an exam on me to make sure it wasn't my appendix and thankfully, we ruled that out, not so thankfully we determined that yes, in fact, my liver/gallbladder were very swollen. We did some treatment to get the muscles in the area to relax the next few days and I iced it whenever possible. Knowing that a GB attack was coming I sped things along by eating some fried food (yummy Crab Rangoon). As expected I started to have a bit of an attack and began taking my supplements. What surprised me was that I never went into a full-blown all night attack, and things quietted down rather quickly with the supplements. Part of me wonders if there was just a stone blocking the duct and that what was causing all the swelling and that the mild attack I had was able to unblock it. By the next morning my liver/GB area was significantly less tender and swollen and by the following day was back to it's usual state.

Nonetheless, I am definitely experiencing stagnation this last week. Food feels like it's not digesting again, and I'm not doing my best to help it along all the time either. My sugar and carb cravings have been causing me to eat some not so good for me stuff: chocolate (full-fat dairy kind), bread with cheese in it (it was sooooo tasty though- and free from a friend- swiss and dill bread), and lots of sugary stuff. Need to refocus and keep eating beets and cucumbers and minimize the carbs.

Gameplan for the week: eat lots of salads, minimize carbs, make spinach soup for lunches and cut back on meat-based proteins. I also need to find time to eat fish this week, I haven't had fish in a good two weeks, which is weird for me!

Favorite new snacks

Maybe they aren't the healthiest snacks out there, but I have two new obsessions for snacking: Enjoy Life's Boom Choco Boom dark chocolate bar, and Panda's Raspberry "licorice" bar.

What I love about the Enjoy Life chocolate is that it is free of all the major allergens! You wouldn't believe it, but pretty much every chocolate out on the market has the allergen warning that says it "may contain a trace amount of nuts, tree nuts..." etc etc or is produced on shared equipment. Granted, some companies are just overcautious about things and put the label on no matter what, even if the non-nut and nut products are produced in completely separate buildings or on completely separate equipment. For example, I have never had a reaction to Ghiradelli chocolate even though it has the label, but I have definitely had reactions to Dove chocolate which has the same exact labeling. Anyway, the Enjoy Life bar takes away the mystery and guessing game that you get with other manufacturers, which I love. And you know what? The chocolate tastes just as good if not better! I will have to use it in my cooking soon...

The Panda licorice bar is just pure indulgence, long story short. But it is far superior to a Twizzler in that it is made with natural sugars as opposed to High Fructose Corn Syrup and Corn Syrup (which are, if I recall correctly, the first two and main ingredients in a Twizzler). It is made with Molasses, wheat flour and natural flavoring. And at only 100 calories a pop, they make a great sweet tooth fix. Honestly, after eating this I don't know why you would want to eat anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup in it... the taste and texture of these is far superior!

Now I just need to cut back on eating these so much!

The Positive Impact of Music

For the past few weeks I have been trying to reconnect with music. For me, this is a HUGE factor in my health, as I have discovered. Much like any 16 year old, it grounds me and makes me feel connected with the universe and everything around me. While when I was 16 it helped me escape from the universe- admittedly I was one of those kids that locked themselves in their room listening to their favorite songs over and over again, granted, mine were Tchaikovsky symphonies and concertos, but nonetheless- now it actually makes me feel connected. Perhaps its because it helps me to feel again because the day to day ho-hum of eat-work-sleep makes you not want to not feel sometimes. Maybe it's just because classical music gets me going, I don't know, I just know that it makes me feel great and lifts my spirits. Anyone who thinks that Music Therapy is a silly type of medical treatment, just look at your 16 year old kid and see how music affects them... music is powerful medicine!

Today's music of choice: "In Trutina" from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. Very soothing and mellow... I could totally meditate to it.

Relief arrived just in the nick of time

This came the Monday after I ran out of my two favorite supplements (on a Friday). I made it through those few days, but nothing says happiness to my gallbladder like seeing my order from gallbladderattack.com arrive. :)

Asparagus Season

Spring is the best time of year for asparagus... it's in season and it's cheap to buy as a result. During the spring I feel like I could asparagus everyday and not get sick of it. My in-laws just planted some at their farm for the family this past weekend, so I am hoping to have a bunch of fresh, locally grown asparagus at my disposal soon. Until then, I have been buying the regular stuff from California at the grocery store.

A lot of my meals this past month have been featuring asparagus as a main vegetable (tonight's dinner will, as well, can't wait!) so I have quite a few meals to share since it has been a while since I last posted food pictures! Here is what I have been eating asparagus with lately.

Whole wheat pasta with turkey sausage and tomatoes and oven roasted asparagus.

Pan cooked (not well, admittedly, I'm still get the knack of it down) sea bass on a bed of brown rice with grilled asparagus and grilled pears. This was some of the first things we grilled on our new grill!

Lemon-pepper grilled shrimp and grilled asparagus with red and green pepper risotto. I put some parm cheese in the risotto and I actually think it didn't do it any good, I'm gonna stick with my cheese free version next time. Also, I allowed my hubby to season the shrimp on this particular occasion and he made the shrimp inedible with the amount of lemon-pepper seasoning on it. Needless to say, I was upset, but the funniest part was that even he couldn't eat the shrimp they were so peppery!

Brined pork with a pear and raisin orange sauce and grilled asparagus. The pork, despite my overcooking it, was outstanding. This was actually a Tyler Florence recipe from the food network that I altered to be allergen free for myself- the recipe called for apples and apple juice for which I substituted pears and orange juice. It was delectable. Next time I want to try plums instead of pears though, I think the plums would be a great flavor with this meal.

Feeling Kinda Blue

Do you ever come across something or do something that suddenly sparks a memory? I just did. While I was doing a very mindless organizing task of cleaning up an old e-mail account of junk mail (thrilling, I know) I came across some older e-mails that started to make me feel blue. At this point, I'm not sure what to make of these emotions since everything is so far in the past now, but nonetheless it started to make me feel sad. I wish there was some way I could come across these things and think nothing of it, moving on quickly with my life, but, alas, I was born a "sensitive" individual who is forever to be affected by seemingly minor things in large ways. So now I am feeling sad and it's not the emotion I would like to be having right now. Oh well. Perhaps a hug from the hubby will make it all go away. I sure hope so. :/

On a side note, my reorder of monthly gallbladder supplements is taking an inordinately long amount of time to get here and as a result I have run out of my two most favorite: Betafood (beet in a pill form) and Bile Salts. When I was feeling better a few months ago I had actually cut down to only these two supplements and was managing everything great on just that. Without them I feel like I have to watch my eating more carefully and am really worried about having a gallbladder attack with everything I eat. Thankfully, I haven't had more than some mild nausea that cleared with taking the Super Phos drops, but if I don't get those supplements soon I'm afraid my luck might run out at the worst time, especially given the two severe attacks I had a few weeks back! Fingers crossed I will have them by mid-week. I don't know if I can go much longer than that without! I did find some extra supplements to take at the local health food store that should help a bit, but they aren't my beets and biles that I have relied on for so long to keep things healthy. Get here supplements, get here soon!