All posts by betsyjbell

Hi Energy Grandma lives in Seattle, WA; Loves to write, hike, walk, garden and spend time with 15 grandchildren and their parents. Because of my Shaklee products and a healthy eating life style, I have excellent health at age 75. Because of my Shaklee business, I have the money I need to take trips to all the corners of the earth, spend my time as I wish.

Get out the tape measure!

Gentle Reader,

Here we go into the season ‘tis jolly with food and good cheer!’   It will not be popular to talk about belly fat being the death of you.  How has Santa survived all these years?

I keep harping on ‘keep moving.’  It turns out that even if you are at your ideal weight and your tummy is sticking out, that fat sitting there is dangerous.  You must keep moving to stay alive.  Moving includes not only cardio but also ab strengthening.

I struggle with that myself.  Is this pooch a wheat belly (see my post on Celiac disease) or is it excess fat that needs to be exercised into muscle.  The facts are in, so if you want to know just how serious this is, read on.

This picture is Crissie Bessinger, blogger about ways to avoid gluten with recipes and guidance.  Her blogs are here.

 

Belly fat increases the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes.
Here’s the research, and I want to thank Dr. Stephen Chaney for passing this on to me.

 

A group of scientists at the National Institutes of Health recently analyzed data collected from 44,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study over a 16-year period and asked if abdominal obesity affected their death rates from heart disease and cancer (Zhang et al, Circulation, 117: 1658-1667, 2008).

The answer was a clear-cut yes!

The study showed that women with a waist circumference of 35 inches were twice as likely to die from heart disease and cancer than women with a waist circumference of 28 inches – even if they were at ideal body weight.

But you might be asking “How can they be at ideal body weight and still have abdominal obesity?”

There is a natural tendency to lose muscle mass as we age. When we add in the inactivity associated with the American lifestyle that loss of muscle mass is accelerated and the muscle is replaced with fat.

Thus, it is actually possible in today’s world to have both normal weight and abdominal obesity – and that is not a good thing!

This gal looks good.  You’d be glad to have her figure, right?  Her excess belly fat is not healthy.

Of course, the women who were both overweight and had abdominal obesity were even more likely to die from heart disease or cancer.

So it is not just about not looking good in your bathing suit – abdominal obesity is a killer!

However, the good news is that you can do something about abdominal obesity.

A combination of exercise, a healthy diet and the “180 Turnaround Plan” is a proven way of getting rid of that unsightly belly fat forever.  Stay tuned for this 180 Turnaround Plan.  Details to follow.  Please get in touch if you are interested in learning more.

My current waist is 31 inches.  I’d like to get that down 2 inches.  Anyone want to join me?  It’s more fun together.

Take Action:  Leave a comment, perhaps even your waist measurement.  Go ahead.  This is a protected website and can’t be hacked into by just any one.

Call me.  I’ll let you know when the shopping page has these products available.  January 1.  If you can’t stand to wait that long, the Cinch products we’ve been using all along are available now, here.

Get going on some abdominal strengthening exercises.  Here is a youtube video by Amy Goodman.  I’ll have to think about this series.  Looks hard.  I think I’ll try it.

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

 

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Guess what the liver of an inorganic turkey looks like.

Gentle Reader,

Thanksgiving Day and 17 of the children and grandchildren are coming. The alarm went off at 5:15 so I could put the turkey in for a dinner time of 2 p.m.  When I chopped up the giblets, I thought, yes, it is worth it to pay for the organic free range bird.  The organs are deep purple-red, the tissue tight and resilient.  These are signs of health. Here’s an organic turkey’s innards.

One year I panicked when I realized 29 people were coming and one turkey wouldn’t feed the whole crowd.  I ran to the local Safeway to pick one up.  When I laid the two sets of innards on the counter, the poor cadged bird’s organs were full of lesions, had a grey tone and the liver dissolved into granules when I put my forefinger into it.  I wish I had a picture so you could see the comparison.  I wonder what my liver looks like.

When they say we are what we eat, I think they are referring to the health of our liver, our kidneys, our heart, and our lungs perhaps more than our joints.  It’s the joints that hurt because these organs are the means by which the joints are nourished. They cleanse the blood, absorb the nutrients into the blood and send health or harm to those creaky arthritic painful joints.

My house mate passed on a lot of frozen stuff from Trader Joe’s.  I know it is sacrilege to cast aspersions on Trader Joe’s, but the chicken patty I grilled, tasty thought it was, had a lot of stuff in it besides chicken.  Does the body know what to do with that extra stuff?  One rice concoction was so crowded with strange ingredients, I just didn’t want to eat it.  Guess what, the chickens wouldn’t eat it either and they are my bell weather.  They will eat anything.  Tasty, convenient?  Yes.  Recognizable by the liver, kidneys and cells as food?  I’m not so sure.

Some people dread the feast because it is so hard to resist over indulgence.  Relax, I say.  Eat something of everything. Enjoy the tastes.  Then take a walk.  The more you eat the longer you walk.

Hauling that 20 # turkey around yesterday made me wake up with a sore back. That old osteoarthritis and spinal stenosis kicked in big time this morning.  To be pain free by the time they come, I’m on the floor stretching.  I’ll take a walk before they get here.  I’ll let them move the furniture.  And I am fortified with plenty of the herbal pain relief pills I rely on.

There will be pie.  I’ll enjoy all three flavors.  I hope you are going to enjoy your day as well.  I’d love to hear how it went and what your anxieties are around the holidays and eating.  How does your body do when you change your diet for a few days?  Is it hard to get back to healthy normal the next morning?

We can support each other in our pain and agony!  J .  I am thankful for you and for all people in my life.

Fondly, Betsy

P.S.  What a fantastic day.  The 20# turkey was demolished.  Here’s the afters:

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

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Can we eat pie this Thanksgiving?

Gentle Reader,

Are you shopping for Thanksgiving yet?  Tell me about your resolve to eat so your joints don’t hurt, the achy knees don’t creak, the back doesn’t twinge when you go from sitting to standing?  Have you been eating a dinner plate big on greens with a small portion of meat or fish and the starch in the form of a boiled new potato or rutabaga? I thought I’d better show you one in case you never bought or cooked it.  Really tasty, better than turnips.

Most especially, have you tried gluten-free?  And I don’t mean picking up those prepared foods that say gluten-free on them.  I believe, because I have tried it consistently over time, that a gluten-free diet helps with arthritis.  You’ll also lose weight which will help with arthritis pain.  At this time of year with your favorite recipes coming out of the box for your traditional offerings, you buy a big sack of white refined flour, white refined sugar and pounds of butter and plan your day of baking.  Unless you have greater resolve than I do, you’ll be eating some of those goodies and not just giving them to friends and family.  There will be more than one kind of pie on the table and it will be challenging.  Right?

Today I am passing on a web site I came across this week.  This gal, Christie Bessinger, has a serious celiac problem and has taken the time to research ways to identify hidden gluten.  Celiac is a hard condition.  Your body reacts with bloating and sometimes even more severe nutrient absorption shut down when you get yeasty things in your stomach.  Breads, pasta, lots of canned soups, other prepared foods.  Most of us who struggle with achy, congested joints are not severely impacted by gluten grains, at least not in the digestive area.  However, getting gluten-free for a few months would tell you a lot about how your body functions in a gluten-free atmosphere.  Two things will happen for you:

1.  You will lose weight

2.  You probably will have less joint pain, even if you have severe osteoarthritis or spinal stenosis.  Any of the problems affecting the joints will most probably improve with a gluten-free diet.

Enjoy Christie’s blog.  Here’s a nice place to start with her delicious cupcakes made from a company she trusts.  http://celiac-scoop.blogspot.com/2011/11/gluten-free-cake-bites.html  You can even order their mixes from her web site.  How sweet is that?  Christie has suggestions for eating out gluten-free in New York City, too.

Live in Seattle? We are lucky.  Here’s a web site for people who want to avoid gluten when they eat out.  http://www.urbanspoon.com/t/1/1/Seattle/Gluten-Free-Friendly-restaurants   and here is a retail store for delicious foods in Seattle http://www.wheatlessinseattle.net/ .

Before I go, dear Reader, a day or two of lovely indulgence never sent us to surgery for a knee replacement.  You know that, don’t you?  It’s the change we make over the long haul in diet and exercise that makes the difference long-term and keeps us moving.

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

 

 

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What helps when sitting around all day: Italian workshop

Gentle Reader,

This is the view from the grand guest house bedroom window at the Villa Lina, a working 80 acre farm in Lazio, just minutes north of Rome in Italy.  I was there to write with Natalie Goldberg, the guru I’ve been following for several years.  She begins each day with sitting in a meditation room large enough to hold 45 people in a square.  Breakfast is after that and then sitting again before instruction and writing begin.

Without daily stretching and exercise, I am toast.  Full of pain in the hips and knees.  Why we have to keep moving to keep from hurting, I explained in a lot of detail in my last post.  Let me tell you a couple techniques I used faithfully every day while away for the month, even when on the over night train from the Netherlands to Zurich Switzerland.

1) Use the theraband, towel, shirt, scarf to stretch those calves.  Lie on the bed/floor/rug first thing in the morning one leg straight along the surface, the other up over head.  The scarf is over the ball of the foot, and end in each hand.  Relax the ankle and let the toes be drawn toward your nose.  Hold it no matter how much it hurts, easing off and then drawing down again for 20 breathes at least.  Then take the ends of the scarf in the outside hand and draw the foot and outstretched leg to the side, not too far down, and pull the toes toward the nose for another 15 or so breaths.  Change hands and extend the leg across the body. This probably hurts a lot.  It certainly hurts when I do it.  It’s the T-band on the outside of the thigh that gets so tight.

2) No matter what keep moving.  At the Villa, I got up a little early and walked for an hour before the sitting began.  It was a spectacularly beautiful place.   There were ripe grapes waiting for harvesting. I picked a whole bunch and ate them as I walked.  I had my shoes with me that I could get wet in the morning dew. Don’t leave home without them even if they make your bag heavier.  The hotel consierge can tell you a safe route to walk in the early morning.  Even in Las Vegas when I was at the Shaklee convention in August and it was blazing hot, early morning walks saved me.  And there are always stair cases in the city.

pre-dawn, one of the pools at Villa Lina

3) diet is the hardest.  At the Villa our food was incredible, but still not enough vegetables to please me.  Or fiber.  I bought a package of prunes at a grocery store.  Helpful.  This is where you are glad to have your multivitamins with you and perhaps extra special vitamins that concentrate the good stuff found in fruits and vegetables.  The ones I like are here.  

4) Drink plenty of water.  Some people worry about water in a foreign country or different city.  You know your own body and how it reacts to digestive changes like different water.  Personally I don’t bother with bottled water.  If the locals drink from the tap, so do I.  I keep my system functioning with some friendly bacteria that comes in a little capsule.  These millions of little guys keep my bowels functioning and protect me from catching every little bug that comes along.  Did you know that your immune protection is mostly in the lower intestine?  Keep that area healthy and strange water and other bad bugs probably won’t bother you.

5) one last thing, at the end of a busy day either sitting and writing or tromping around as a tourist, stick your feet up on the wall behind your bed.  This restorative pose drains all the aches and pains out of your tired legs.  This is good for any person who has tired achy legs at the end of the day.  It’s hard to get into the position.  Here’s how to do it.  Sit next the wall on the floor (or at the head of the bed where the pillow have been cleared away).  Your left hip is against the wall, your bunt on the floor.  Swing your torso down to the floor (bed) and your straight legs up the wall.  Here’s a funny picture of me doing just that on a picnic table bench when spending a day with my grandson tromping around Montreal.  It embarrassed him, but not me.  Don’t let your pride get in the way of comfort.

Happy travels,

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

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The Nutritional Management of Chronic Pain

Gentle Reader
Are you like me, suffering from chronic pain?  Do you wake up every morning and check to see which joints are hurting?  A friend of mine describes sitting on the edge of the bed wondering if she can actually stand and walk to the bathroom.  I’m better off than that, but the first ½ hour each day is loud, you know the groaning and moaning.  Too bad there’s no one around here but the cats to sympathize.

I when it was announced that Dr. Frank Painter would give a seminar on Chronic Pain management.  This post contains careful notes from that seminar.

Dr. Painter is a major research and practicing chiropractor and maintains the research pages for the Chiro.org online resource for his profession.  It gets thousands of hits a month and is the most go-to site for alternative health care regarding chiropractic treatment.  You can look him up here.

He began with shocking statistics (sometimes I glaze over with too many statistics, but I know professionals quantify results so bear with me.) Chronic pain causes UNBELIEVABLE suffering, disrupts careers and lifestyle, and brings about unimaginable financial drains on our society. It’s now estimated that 24 percent of Americans (or approx. 48 million people) suffer from chronic pain. More than one-third of them regularly take pain medicine to manage their suffering. Those statistics are very frightening.

Pain is caused by tissue injury, surgical procedures, and a variety of illnesses. The common pain we experience from a cut or bruise is very well understood.  It is referred to as acute pain, and is accompanied by the inflammatory response, which involves local swelling, increased temperature, redness, and loss of function.

Damage to cell membranes during an injury releases two substances that initiate the inflammatory response. They are called prostaglandins and bradykinins.  These molecules cause nearby nerve cells to transmit pain information to the brain.  Following the formation of a stable clot, fibroblasts migrate to the site of injury to repair the damaged tissues. That is when acute pain is normally extinguished.  This explains how the acute pain and swelling when I hurt my wrist hiking gradually stopped hurting.  The body rushed repair mechanisms to the place where it was most damaged and in a few hours the acute pain was gone; in a few days all pain was gone.

Chronic pain is differentbecause chronic pain persists.

Dr. Painter focuses on safe supplementation as an alternative to pain medication.  He also talks about our diet and why chronic pain is so much more common today than in the past.

He reports on a recent study involving hundreds of patients who underwent surgery on their ankle or knee.  The patients who took 1000 mg. of vitamin C for 46 days after their surgery reported 80% reduction in what is called complex regional pain, compared to patients who did not take vitamin C.  If you are planning surgery, especially in a limb (knee or hip replacement for example) begin taking 1000 mg of Sustained Release Vita C before surgery and continue for at least 46 days to prophylactically avoid pain.

Can you believe that more than a 3rd of all people with pain take medication?  When we suffer acute pain from surgery or an injury, the inflammatory response, loss of function, redness and damage to the membrane is alleviated by medication.  And then you stop taking it.  With chronic pain, the wound never heals.  Chronic pain keeps on going.  Any pain that lasts more than 6 months and has no end in sight, like  arthritis, cancer is chronic.

A chiropractor once explained to me that injury sustained in a car wreck creates a pain path in the nervous and muscular system.  The next fender bender is nowhere near as traumatic, but the pain is worse.  This pain path is reactivated, familiar and more challenging to cure.  Believe me, I had a series of car accidents each one less violent than the previous one.  Funny how the pain increased with each one.

How does our diet contribute to chronic pain?

Because of radical changes in the American Diet since the 1950’s, our diet is now pro inflammatory and contributes to both chronic pain and autoimmune system diseases.  I’ll remind you what these changes were:  milling of wheat and other grain to make a ‘whiter’ end product, ie. refining our food; manufacturing foods with high amounts of hydrogenated oils.

Let’s see what’s going on here.  In a plain food diet (no processing), the oils—omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids are in equal balance.  Dr Painter points out that there are 49 known essential nutrients—nutrients our body cannot make but must get from food.  These two oils are among them.  They work in concert in the body regulating thousands of functions through the prostaglandin pathways.  I created a link here in case you, like me, are curious about these babies, prostaglandins, which I’ve been hearing about for all these years of studying nutrition’s effect on our body.  Check it out.  Fascinating.

Omega 3 (we eat salmon and buy fish oil for this one) helps the prostaglandins with inflammation, cardio health, allergies, immune response, mylin sheath protection, hormone modulation, and behavior.  Omega 6, found in borage oil, evening primrose oil, initiates the chemical cascade in the inflammatory response to any injury or infection.

Here’s the problem with this duet.  We used to eat a balance of the omegas 3 and 6, short and longer chain fatty acids:  one to one.  Now, with all these refined foods the balance has changed to twenty to one, omega 6 over omega 3.  Think of the Omega 6 as the gas pedal on your car i.e. body, and omega 3 as the breaks.  Omega 6 turns on the inflammatory response.  Omega 3 (fish) turns it off.

The car is headed for the cliff, folks and the brake pedal is too weak to stop us from hurtling into a world of pain.

We need both Omega 3 and Omega 6.  We need them in the correct ratio.  Omega 6 comes from hydrogenated oils which are found in virtually all processed foods.  Removal of the grain coatings (brown rice, wheat), increased sugar consumption (sugar interferes with synthesis of these fatty acids) and the increase in consumption of deep fried foods and margarine prevent with the healthy marriage of the two fatty acids.  The 1:1 synthesis isn’t happening.

What’s the ratio in your life between corn, sunflower and sesame oils (which appear is most processed foods as hydrogenated oils) and cold water fish, sardines, salmon and anchovies?  Too many Omega 6’s = chronic pain.

Impact of chronic pain

 People hurt too much to get up and go to work.  We lose $3 billion in income each year because of pain. Stuff doesn’t get done because we hurt too much to do it.  $60 billion a year in lost productivity.  Sixty million of us have arthritis, 1 in 3.  Family members living with someone in chronic pain have to deal with the frustration, anxiety and misery of the suffering person.  How disruptive to family life it is to have all this depression and a sense of helplessness caused by pain!

How do we manage this pain?

 Standard medical management:  pain meds, the most popular, aspirin, NSAIDS.  We spend $2.6 billion a year on prescription NSAIDS and another $6 billion on over the counter pain meds.  Most of us are unaware of the lethal side effects of these pain killers. Stanford University reviewed Inflammatory rheumatoid  Arthritis (IRA) drug use in 15,000 patients. Projecting the findings from this well controlled study to the entire US population, they found that 107,000 rheumatoid Arthritis patients were hospitalized for complications from these drugs,  a large number of whom never left the hospital alive.  They bleed out before anyone can help them.  16,500 a year die this way.  That’s only the IRA sufferers.  What about everyone else who takes these meds?

You get no warning signs for the stomach trouble that results from taking these medications.  You just bleed to death.

People with osteoarthritis and IRA are more likely than the regular population to be hospitalized because of GI bleeds.  The risk of Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDS is constant but increases over time with continued use.  The longer you take these drugs, the higher the risk becomes.  Drugs used to coat the stomach do not lower this probability.  The only way to prevent this stomach damage is to stop taking the non steroidal pain medication.  Dying from bleeding to death because of taking too many NSAIDS is the 15th cause of death in America.

By the way, when’s the last time you picked up a bottle of aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxen and stopped by to chat with your pharmacist about possible interactions with any other drugs you are taking? No?  You are not alone.  Of all the readers of Consumer Report magazine who answered their survey, only 38% who picked up these drugs when prescribed by their doctor talked to the pharmacist about dangers or interactions.  Only 29% who bought the OTC versions checked with their pharmacist.  We used to be more cautious, before usage became so common.  Eight years ago, Consumer Report did the same survey and over 50% of the people purchasing these medications checked for side effects, dangers and interactions with other medications.  Our pharmacists are trained in drug, supplement and food interactions (not our doctor) and should be used for their expertise.  Avoid risk.

Two neurosurgeons at U of Pittsburg Medical Center decided to explore natural substances to use as a substitute for NSAIDS.  They gave their IRA patients fish oil and after 75 days, 60% of the people had been able to completely discontinue their NSAID usage and were also able to drop off their other pain meds.  88% were extremely satisfied with their pain reduction from taking fish oil.  They would continue to buy fish oil even though it costs more than the medication.

Natural relief

 I am going to shamelessly talk about Shaklee’s pain management products.  Dr. Painter is specific about Shaklee as the manufacturer in his presentation.  This company’s large staff of medical scientists studied the problem of prostaglandins and pain, created biochemical models and searched until they found herbs and safe substances that would interrupt the pain path.  I was blown away by the slide presentation Dr. Les Wong made at the annual conference the year Pain Relief Complex was introduced.

Pain Relief Complex.  A compliment of medicinal herbs designed to treat pain. The primary ingredient Boswellia extract has been used in India for a long time for joint and arthritic pain as it contains very powerful analgesic properties.  In a study people with severe osteoarthritis knee pain where able to get more flexibility and much less pain with Boswellia extract, and thereby increase their walking distance dramatically.  The frequency of swelling in the knee joint decreased.  Boswellia has also been used to heal the stomach from ulcerative colitis.  In other words, it helps heal a stomach damaged by Celebrex or other NSAIDS.

Jt. Health Complex.  When in pain we develop pain avoidance behaviors like limping.  Other daily activities are avoided because you know its going to hurt too much to do it.  I know I leave stuff lying on the floor and put off raking leaves because I know I’m going to hurt when I bend over too often.

When we stop moving to avoid pain, we actually increase the likelihood of increased pain.  Why is that? Joint tissue—ligaments, bone, have no blood supply of their own.  They eliminate their waste products through a pumping motion when the joint moves.  Nutrition to the joint also depends on pumping, or moving.  Waste products out, nutrition in, through motion.  Without motion, waste products build up around the joint which inhibits the nutrition from being absorbed.  Nutrients move from the high concentration in the blood to diffuse themselves into the joint. This process requires movement.  If your joint is smothered in waste products, the nutrients don’t go there—too crowded—and the cells start to die because there are no nutrients to feed them.  The cartilage begins to degrade and then the bones start to get closer and closer together.  The body tries to stabilize that joint by importing minerals like calcium and magnesium to build extra protection around that joint.  If you took an x-ray of the joint, you’d see little growths where they should not be.  The objective is to reduce the pain so you get more motion in the joint and clear the waste and allow nutrients to enter.  Joint Health Complex provides dramatic and speedy pain relief to get you moving again.

NSAIDS actually accelerate the deterioration of cartilage.  36% of liver failure is being cause by acetaminophen (Tylenol) toxicity.  One out of three liver transplants is because of the use of acetaminophen.  This research and the death of children from Tylenol drove the search for anti-inflammatories with no side effects.

 Jt Health Complex leads the way.  Boswellia seratta has a long use as an herbal anti-inflammatory.  It works.  It can be used to treat osteoarthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, RA and asthma.  Boswellia was first introduced in Shaklee Pain Relief complex in 2003.  It is so powerful they decided to add it to the Jt. Health Complex.  Joint Health Complex includes as a major ingredient glucosamine.  It has been shown in clinic studies that combining chondroitin with glucosamine reduced the body’s ability to absorb the glucosamine.  In redesigning the Jt. Health Complex, Shaklee scientists made sure there was no chondroitin mixed in with it.

 

Testing

Once they had the new formulation completed, they tested it head to head with the leading pharmacist recommended product, Walgreen’s Osteobyflex.  In a clinical trial they found that Jt. Health Complex was 28% faster acting than byflex for providing pain relief.  If you were beginning for the first time to take the product, it took only 5 days to get relief with Jt. Health Complex as opposed to 7 days with Osteobyflex.  With the addition of boswellia,  Jt. Health complex gave 45% better pain relief than the Walgreen product.  Shaklee found a vegetarian source for glucosamine.  Most glucosamine on the market is sourced from shell-fish.  They also made use of a carrier molecule that does not have salt (some products on the market are as much as 30% salt!) which, if you had high blood pressure could be bad—1 third of a tablespoon of salt? I don’t think so. Jt. Health Complex uses hydrochloric acid instead of sulfate to deliver glucosamine.  It also contains zinc, manganese, copper and Vita C to nourish the developing cartilage.  Glucosamine has been researched extensively since 1970’s and has been found to be at least as effective in relieving pain and NSAIDs without any dangerous side effects.  In one study it was shown that there was an actual increase in the cartilage with glucosamine.

 

Joint and muscle pain cream.  Helps with pain from over use during exercise.  Active ingredient is menthol. Shaklee improved on the healing characteristics by improving on the delivery of the menthol with a liposome delivery system.  This liposome delivery provides prolonged release and deeper penetration.  If you’ve used Flexall 454, Icy Hot and JointFlex, your may get temporary distraction from pain, but you are probably throwing your money away.  Topical local anesthetics, topical capsaicin are basically aspirin in creamy form and could affect your stomach the way taking aspirin does.

 

I strongly recommend this trio of pain relief products for chronic pain.  I use them to great advantage.  Dr. Painter provides the scientific back drop to prove the effect is no placebo.

 

If you suffer from chronic pain that does not seem to associated with a joint, Omega guard is the #1 nutrient solution.  Shaklee’s OmegaGuard, DHA, EPA and 5 other naturally found omega 3 fatty acids provides the missing link for halting diet induced inflammation.  Get the balance back between omega 6 and omega 3, supplement with Omerga 3 so the ratio is 1:1 and you will have less pain.  OmegaGuard naturally balances the prostyglandins that prolong the inflammatory response to pain stimulus.  Rather than using drugs to suppress the inflammation, re-balance the body’s own ability to handle pain by changing your diet to eliminate hydrogenated fats and excess sugars plus taking enough OmegaGuard to change the Omega3:Omega6 dance back to 1:1.

That’s it.  Thanks for reading all the way to the end.  May you be well, pain free and able to keep moving.

What’s next?

Tell us

Do you check your meds and OTC drugs with the pharmacist?

What pain relief rubs have your tried?  Results?

Have you given up hope or are you willing to try another way to get relief?

 

If you decide you want to try these products, go to my blog page, http://www.grandmabetsybell.com/shop-shaklee-products/ and browse the product guide.

Get in touch via the comment section.

If you have found value here, feel free to share on your FB page or with your friends and colleagues suffering from chronic pain.

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

 

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One more injury hiking the Engadin

Gentle Reader,

The 3rd and most dramatic day of my hiking-in-the-Alps adventure this past Sept. occurred on day 5.  Pedie Jolly and I left the other two hikers at the Via Engadina junction above Grevasalvas where they would pass the “Heidi” house. We trudged on up beyond the tree line to a high lake just below a dramatic escarpment, at 8261 ft.  The trail was far more exposed than anticipated with shear drops to the left of us and uneven boulders to climb over. We were both dangling our hiking sticks from the left hand while clinging to rocky outcroppings with the right.  There was no looking down.  It reminded me of climbing Mt. Shasta in 2006 when my right foot crampons had only the inside 5 spikes engaged with the icy ground and I steadied myself with a well planted ice axe.  Even a thin line of grass along the outside edge of the trail made me feel as though I would arrive safely at the lake.  It was an opportunity to study my mind and how just a bit of green changes fear to a sense of security.  Pedie and I were thrilled to arrive at this lake, hike in a moonscape, where two or three others were already having their lunch. 

The lake at the Lunghin Pass, above Maloja, is part of the most notable triple watershed in western Europe, from where the Inn (Engadin Valley where we hiked) flows via the Danube to the Black Sea, the Maira via the Po to the Mediterranean Sea, and the Julia via the Rhine to the North Sea.  Depending on which direction we emptied our water bottles, those droplets may have run north, south or east, something too grand to envision.

Finding the way over a knoll and down was tricky and the path was slick with thick frost anywhere the sun had not reached.  It was already 2:30 in the afternoon and we still had the entire descent to accomplish.  The view was breathtaking, and for one moment, I lost my focus on my feet.  The trail was steeply downhill, wet and covered with schist, extremely slippery. Down I went, putting my right hand out to catch myself.  Instantly I knew I had hurt my wrist.  The fingers and thumb still functioned but pain shot up my arm when I put any pressure on my hiking stick.  I collapsed it and stuck it in my pack.  Pedie, walking behind me, and I had a 1000 ft drop in 2 miles.  It was slow going.

We caught a bus to our hotel in Sils Maria whereupon a driver took me immediately to St. Moritz, the glitzy place we’d been avoiding. It was 5:30 on a Friday.  No problem for this emergency clinic used to mountain injuries.  After several x-rays, an examination and lengthy discussion of two young doctors, they decided to cast my arm.  Neither the x-ray tech nor I thought I had broken anything, but I was glad to have protection for the last day of hiking and all the hauling of luggage on and off trains over the next 5 days.  Here I am with my bright red cast riding the train to Pontresina at the end of our hike.

The final day of hiking was in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland along a contour trail with many slippery, water soaked ups and downs assisted by chains or hand rails.  I couldn’t use them as they were all positioned for the right arm.  My right arm was cradled in a sling.  I was relieved to climb over the last of the tree roots, climb the last rocky stretch and walk into the most beautiful, remote high mountain village we’d been in yet: Soglio.  A long soak in the hot bath revived me.  Cold beer and good food gave a sense of triumph.  We had made it, a 50 mile walk in 6 days from the lower Engadine River to its headwaters and then down the other side.

Our bus ride back to the starting point took a couple hours. We could spot the ending and beginning points of each day’s hike as we retraced our steps to Pontresina.

What does one do when injured hiking?  Keep moving.  Get the injured limb as comfortable as possible.  Find a skilled clinic.  The x-ray tech in St. Moritz told me she does 6-8 of these castings a day in the ski season.  She knew what she was doing.  I had travel insurance and have filed my claim.  The clinic visit was $1000.  I took plenty of my herbal pain relieve and really didn’t suffer much.  By the time I got to the Villa Lina north of Rome 5 days later, I took off the cast and participated fully in the writers’ workshop for the week.

Will I have arthritis in this wrist?  Possibly.  Just like any joint injury, trauma creates structural stress and one is likely to pay the price with increased arthritis in the future.  I am using this right hand, wrist and arm fully, noting any twinges and backing off when necessary.  The osteoarthritis I deal with doesn’t seem any worse. In fact it is only on the days that I don’t get out and walk that I have pain.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the hike stories and will share yours with my readers.  Have old injuries come up to haunt you?  What are you doing to stay limber and keep moving?  Take a minute to leave a comment.  Come on over to Face Book and friend me, www.facebook.com/betsyjbell.  Sign up to get the next posts.  I have some great new research from Johns Hopkins about knee replacement to share with you next week.  You won’t want to miss it.

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

 

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Traumatic Injury: my story

 

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Hello, Gentle Reader,

In 1989, I lifted, or should I more accurately say, yanked a large drink box full of wine bottles out of the back seat of a two door Datsun.  I heard something go in my lower back.  I was angry about carrying these bottles up a long flight of stairs to the social hall of a large church.  My husband in his characteristic generosity offered to cook an elegant meal for a visiting prelate from the Russian Orthodox church inMoscow.  While I approved a grand reception for this honored guest and his entourage, I criticized my husband for trying to do this alone.  Plenty of people would love to cook with Don Bell.  My only task was delivering the drink.

I could feel the place in my back where the terrible sensation had come from.  I carried the box and several more like it upstairs anyway.

The next morning, I awoke early, still smoldering over the piles of potato skins on the kitchen counter and the olive oil slick floor, remnants of the single-handed cooking effort the night before.  Jack LaLanne was just beginning his exercise routine on TV.  I took my position on the large expanse of our hook-latched rug covering the living room floor.  I would work out my anger through exercise.  On all fours, he called out doggie leg lifts.  Snap.

Whatever happened lifting the box, leg lifts finished me off.  I rolled on the floor sobbing in pain.  All my previous judgments against people who complained of bad backs taunted me.  Pay back for lack of understanding and sympathy.   Those legions who suffered, did they suffer as I was now suffering?  Were they not the malingering lazy bums I judged them to be?  What was I going to do?

I could not stand or sit but remained on all fours.  I slowly in extreme pain pulled myself to the staircase and up to our bedroom where Don still lay sleeping.  Once I struggled into bed and lay on my back, I began to breathe more deeply.  I went into head honcho mode commanding my groggy husband to get my day planner and find the phone number of my massage therapist.  It was 7 a.m.

This amazing person came over two hours later.  Don had already gotten me a 24-inch bolster cushion so my legs were in a chair position while lying flat on my back.  This was the only pain free position I could find.  Mary worked on me for over an hour, calming the sympathetic spasms in my shoulders, neck, upper back and arms.  She persuaded me against my wishes to take a muscle relaxant.  She came back twelve hours later and repeated the treatment.

The next morning I was able to inch my way painfully down the stairs and into the car.  Ouch.  That move brought tears to my eyes.  Don drove me to my chiropractor who gently calmed the spinal column and relocated the offending L5 into its proper place.

I was 52 years old.  A skier, hiker, biker, dancer, runner, I valued physical fitness next to Godliness.  More than Godliness.  I was determined to overcome this glitch.  Little did I know what was in store for me as I set about healing from an L5 .

Tell me your story.  How did your back begin to hurt?  What makes you worry about ending up in a wheel chair?  How did arthritis begin and where has it taken you?

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Feldenkrais for back pain

 

Feldenkrais for back pain?

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Dear Reader,

Feldenkrais for back pain.  My neurologist, head doc for theUniversityofWashingtonsports teams, suggested I see Becci Parsons, former dancer, now Awareness Through Movement and private Feldenkrais practitioner.  “Watch out for your pants,” she said.  “Your clothes can be dangerous to your health.” Her levies were on the baggy side.  You could put your balled up fist between flesh and belt when she sucked in her breath.  I remembered that when I put a new (ValueVillage) pair of genuineLevis, hip hugger style, which I love, and my back talked to me nastily.

She laid me on a low table just wide enough for me with her kneeling next to me to move my legs, my head, my shoulders.  Her movements were minuscule.  I struggled to let go, to allow her to be the conductor.  I attempted to refrain from guarding, tensing, pulling back or from anticipating her next move and helping her lift, roll, twist.  My only job was to let her have my body, let her move it and pay attention.

When the session was over, I could identify my surroundings but I seemed to inhabit Oz’s Scarecrow navigating uneven ground.  A dreamy hand opened the car door.  Taking the wheel, putting on the gas, I began to reengage with this road, this stop sign, this merge onto the freeway.

Subsequent sessions began lying on the table with the gentle rocking, lifting, moving by Becci while I slowly allowed her to propel my limbs in tiny unchecked movements.  She taught my muscles to reclaim movement appropriate to healthy, uncomplaining joints.  She brought me to homeostasis.  On the table.  To teach me to roll out of bed, to sit on the side of the bed, to lift myself off the bed, to take steps, find the bathroom, lower myself on the toilet and rise again, she gently rocked my hips, held my hands, lifted my leg and set in down.  Retraining.

As a girl, I proudly walked to school several blocks with a marble held tightly between my buttocks.  In 4th grade, I could carry that marble clamped tight all day as I sat at my desk and walked to the black board, to the coat closet, out the door for home.  What glut control!  My father, the orthopedist, had a cartoon on his office wall of a woman whose naked breasts sat on top of a dresser.  The top drawer, open just a little, pressed her ribs; the second drawer down, open about half way, pressed her waist; the bottom drawer pulled out all the way pressed her pelvic girdle forcing her butt to tuck under.  The female version of the military stance.  I aspired with all my 9 year-old might to conform my body to this most unnatural posture.

As a slouchy teen ager, my father poked my butt every time he passed by and commanded, “stand on two feet.”  “Tuck your bottom in.”  I danced tap and ballet and swam all summer, movements that relax and produce flow.  Or should.  Again constant reminders of  “stroke, kick, kick, kick; stroke, kick, kick, kick.  Lift your bottom” (I was a back stroke champion).

Feldenkrais method took me back, back to the earliest movements.  A gentle curve relaxed down my spine.  I learned the pelvic clock where you tilt your pelvis from 12 to 6, from 3 to 9, back and forth in ever smaller movements until the mind images and the body feels the suggestion.

“Becci, now come and show me how to get in my car,” I entreated after successfully getting in and out of a chair with no pain, no firing of the muscles in jerky movements.  It took about six months of weekly sessions for me to graduate to private and semi private Pilates.

I strove fiercely for pain free movement and returned strength.  My daughters Ruth and Eleanor and I planned the hike around Mt.Rainier on the Wonderland Trail.  I had to be strong enough to carry a 35 pound pack and walk 95 miles in 11 days, each day gaining and losing around 2200 ft or more in elevation.  We wanted to make this trip in August of 1990, one month short of a year after the injury.

Burroughs Mt. hike from Sunrise Visitor Center on Mt. Rainier, August 2009

Burroughs Mountain from Sunrise visitor center, Mt. Rainier, August 2009

 

This reminiscence of the Feldenkrais process is fresh in my mind.  I just had a session with Erik LaSeur, Alki Moves, Feldenkrais practitioner here inWest Seattle.  I met him at a West Seattle Chamber meeting and was drawn to investigate his work as a way of refreshing my body’s acceptance of organic flow.  I have developed my own set of muscle and posture strategies designed to avoid chronic, daily pain.  I wanted to discover how I was getting in my own way.  Erik’s session helped enormously.  A salsa CD has me dancing, hips swaying, legs gently and loosely swinging.

What is your experience of Feldenkrais?  Ready to try it to see if it would lessen your chronic pain?  I would love to hear your comments, questions and suggestions.

Be Well, Do Well and most of all Keep Moving.

Betsy

 

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Heart attack? Climbing high

Gentle Reader,

How do you survive trekking at a high altitude?  The second day of our Engadine Valley hike in Switzerland began and ended from the little village of Zuoz, a bus and train ride from Guarda where our 1st day ended.

No more sciatica or lower back pain.  No more arthritis troubles with Pain Relief Complex on board.  Now the only task was to climb from 5700 ft to 8400 ft. to Escha Hut.  We knew it would be hard, but we managed to make it harder.  Instead of muscles spasms and a struggle with osteoarthritis, the pain and suffering of the day was mostly in my head.

As we climbed, I was short of breath. Then came the unsettled stomach.  Then a feeling of light headedness.  We passed a couple in their late 70’s from Zurich who had been in Zuoz over the weekend to play bridge and stayed on for a couple days to “take a little walk” in the area with their retired seeing-eye dog.  Looking very out of shape and carrying only a light nap sac, these two seemed to climb this trail with ease.  They did turn back when the path left the farm road and joined the cow tracks leading straight up the treeless slope.  Paging through all I know about women and heart disease, reviewing in detail my mother’s congestive heart failure symptoms and subsequent death AT MY EXACT AGE, I managed to get myself into a panic, anticipating a heart attack any moment.  At one point I called out “Would you just glance back here once in a while to see if I’m still upright?”  At this point Jaco, my Dutch friend, decided to walk behind me.  I later learned that all of us were struggling with shortness of breath. Chris, the 83 yr. old veteran of several Mt Rainier climbs, reminded us of deep inhales and slow, whistling out breaths.  The gals in front were already taking 10 steps and resting for a couple breaths.  I was absolutely sure I was having a heart attack.

At the top, we had the most delicious pumpkin soup, thick and creamy, sitting in the sun, our backs against the stone wall of Escha Hut, a busy place in the summer and even busier in the winter.  A mountain biker peddled up the way we went down, paused for a drink and went down the way we had just come up.  Way more impressive than Lance Armstrong.  No doubt powered by his own lungs, blood and muscle, this cyclist was out for recreation.

As we sat there gazing at the Bernina mountain range in the distance, completely covered with snow at 13,000 ft, I remember my first ascent to 10,000 ft on Mt. Shasta and realiz

ed I was suffering from altitude sickness, not heart disease.  The relief was so great, I fairly danced down the far side of the valley, past this amazing high mountain field of art. 

To avoid the precipitous downhill trail, we cut through a pass and circumnavigated the mountain in front of us, extending out trek by an additional 7 miles, making it a 14 miles day.  The benefit was this shot of a marmot late in the afternoon, one of many familiar critters scampering and diving into their burrows.  I’d been looking for them as all the telltale signs of marmot, just like in the Cascades, were everywhere.

One more physical challenge before our 6 days RyderWalker self guided trek was finished.  Tune in next Thursday for more pictures and that story.

 

 

 

 

Now let’s hear from you.  Have you had altitude sickness?  Were you aware of what was happening to you or did you think you were having a heart attack?  We’d like to hear your story.  If you enjoyed this read, pass it along.  Check me out on Facebook:  betsyjbell, and while you are there, ‘like’ my business page, https://www.facebook.com/BetsyBellsHealth4U.

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

 

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Hiking the Engadine: Avoid arthritis pain

Gentle Reader,

I am back safe and sound from my hike through the Engadine Valley in the Alps in Switzerland and the Writers Workshop in Villa Lina north of Rome.  And my body is not suffering from arthritis!  Sitting in the airplane for the long flight to Amsterdam, the first stop of my journey, I actually slept with the help of medication, Lunesta is my sleeping aid of choice, a prescription only drug that costs plenty.  I used it twice on the trip to help me get into the European hemisphere and the first night back home.  Otherwise, Gentle Sleep Complex, an herbal combination of Valerian, passion flower and chamomile.  It works like a dream to take 3 before going to bed, no matter what hotel I found myself in.

The real challenge to a body with a lot of spinal stenosis and potential joint discomfort is hauling suitcases and loading the heavy hiking pack up onto my shoulders.  Paying close attention to all the good advice I have posted over the past 1 ½, and asking for help getting in and out of trains—“you’re looking strong.  Can you help me with my suitcase, please?”—I managed to arrived back home without pulling a muscle from lifting suitcases.  Read on to see what a silly thing I did to pull a muscle badly.

I’d like to share my challenges with you in case you ever encounter similar problems.  You might avoid the same pitfalls.

First, a little back ground.  I am in a hiking group that hits the trails in the Pacific Northwest every Wednesday, rain or shine, except for January and February when we cross country ski.  Keep moving to keep arthritis at bay, is our motto.  Of all the gals in our group, Pedie took me up on taking a hike in Switzerland.  Jaco, our friend and fellow hiker who has returned to her homeland in the Netherlands to live out her life, was eager to join us as she missed our weekly hiking and friendship.  She, Pedie and I all celebrate our 75th birthdays this year, so this was an added incentive.  Our fourth hiker was Chris, already 83 yrs old. May I just add here that we met plenty of older people hiking as this sort of trekking is not unusual in Europe. Jaco and I took an overnight train to Zurich and then a train to the southeast part of Switzerland to join the other two.  You’ll recognize the place names St. Moritz and Davos if you follow the rich and famous.  We stuck to smaller, less glitzy places.

Our first stop in the Engadine valley was a town called Scuol.  It is famous in Europe for its mineral baths and the modern spa is worth the trip.  I had so much luggage that I had exploded into a collapsible cloth bag to make my back pack as light as possible and still not leave anything behind that I might need on the trail. We were walking from one village to the next, up over the mountains and needed to be ready for any change in the weather.  Ryder/Walker, our self guided tour company, arranged for our luggage to be taken to the next hotel along the way, arriving in our rooms well ahead of us.

Helping with jet lag and pounding our muscle into jelly, we spent a luxurious afternoon soaking in the mineral baths, going from super hot indoors, through the watery opening into the sun, blue sky and swirling outdoor pool with its jets and waterfall showers.  By the time I got back to the hotel, I was a noodle.

Here’s the trouble #1.  I spent half an hour bent over my luggage rearranging things to begin hiking the next day.  When I tried to stand up, all the muscles in my lower back had stretched out and refused to budge.  Here I was, pain shooting through my body, unable to catch my breath or stand and walk to dinner.  I got out my theraband and hit the floor with stretches and exersizes; filled the ice bag I had brought just in case and took a couple Pain Relief Complex herbal Cox 2 and 5 Loc inhibitors, pain pills that don’t hurt your stomach.  I’m the one who put this great hiking experience together and I wasn’t going to be able to walk a mile, much less carry a pack.

After a fabulous 8 course dinner and a bottle of Swiss wine between us, more ice and Pain Relief Complex, a good night’s sleep, and a ice bag tucked into my hiking pants, I was ready to walk it out this next morning.  It worked.  Walking is the best thing for lower back pain.  After about a half hour, I was ready to dump the ice and the rest of the 6 days I was free of lower back difficulties. 

The take away from this is

1.  Never do any extreme movements after a hot tub, deep tissue massage or the pummeling pleasure of a mineral springs spa.  I should not have bent over rearranging my luggage, and a little voice told me that at the time, to which I paid no attention.

2.  Don’t give up on yourself when you do pull a muscle.  Ice, stretch and do your best to walk it out.  This idea of lying flat on your back and taking muscle relaxants, in my opinion and long time experience, is not the way to handle lower back pain.  I have loosened up sciatica several times in the past by icing, stretching and walking.

Now, Please, tell us your methods for dealing with this kind of muscle pain, how you got yourself into the mess in the first place and how you got out of it.  We all want to learn from each other.  So go ahead, leave a comment, and sign up to get notification of my next posting which will take you on down the trail in the Engadine to the next near calamity on our great adventure.

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com

 

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