Your pain: could MSG foods be the culprit?

May 2, 2013 betsyjbell 1 Comment

Gentle Reader,

A friend and long time customer says “MSG and I are bitter enemies. Sometimes I get very wiggy in my heart and whole body, as I do when ingesting it, but don’t know why. Guess I’ll have to take these lists with me shopping and eating out!” She sent me this link to a blog post about MSG and MSG food. I thought I would pass it along. Clearly eating out and eating packaged foods, even labeled organic, could trigger wandering body and joint pain. Perhaps this post will help you avoid the problem. You, like Carolyn, might print out the list and carry it with you. That is, if you eat out often or shop for packaged foods. I love the picture of real food, which contains the same culprit protein, but because it is balanced with the other nutrients, does no harm.

Here’s the list. If any of these names appear on the package, watch out. For restauants, you’ll just have to ask the cook, who may or may not be truthful.

Hidden names for MSG and free glutamic acid:

Names of ingredients that always contain processed free glutamic acid (7):

Glutamic Acid (E 620)2
Glutamate (E 620)
Monosodium Glutamate (E 621)
Monopotassium Glutamate (E 622)
Calcium Glutamate (E 623)
Monoammonium Glutamate (E 624)
Magnesium Glutamate (E 625)
Natrium Glutamate
Yeast Extract
Anything “hydrolyzed”
Any “hydrolyzed protein”
Calcium Caseinate
Sodium Caseinate
Yeast Food
Yeast Nutrient
Autolyzed Yeast
Gelatin
Textured Protein
Soy Protein
Soy Protein Concentrate
Soy Protein Isolate
Whey Protein
Whey Protein Concentrate
Whey Protein Isolate
Anything “…protein”
Vetsin
Ajinomoto

I do not eat any processed foods except for those made by Shaklee. I seldom go out to eat in restaurants. But I do eat soy protein, and soy isolate. I think of the Shaklee products that have soy in them or are primarily soy as in the 180 smoothees mixes. I have submitted a querry to the Shaklee health sciences department about this issue. In the meantime, I happily continue to consume at least 2 servings of our protein power/bar products every day and feel only wonderful. I’ll keep you posted.

Please take a minute to tell us what reactions/problems/issues you have had with MSG and how it has effected your joint pain levels.

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving,

Fondly, Betsy

206 933 1889

Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Food Cures. Is there such a thing?

April 25, 2013 betsyjbell

Gentle Reader,

I’ve joined an on line face book arthritis support group to learn from others how they suffer and what they are doing about it. Following the rabbit trails I came to this web site maintained by a Joy Bauer. She has a slide show showing foods that are helpful for sufferers of arthritis. You can also take a survey here that will give you a food suggestion list based on your answers to several life style questions.

Here are the suggestions that resulted from my survery:

Step 1

Understanding Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis is due to a combination of factors, including genetics, past injury, joint use and overuse, and the aging process in general. The word “overuse” implies that it’s a concern for serious athletes, as well as those who have stress on the joints caused by excess body weight. Losing just a little weight can have a huge positive impact on OA. Because arthritis is a disease of inflammation, the most effective — and logical — treatment is anything that fights inflammation. Management of arthritis usually starts with ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory medications, eating anti-inflammatory foods, and improving weight and lifestyle. I will go into more detail on how to manage OA in the following steps and on the Food Cures Web site.

Step 2

Foods to Avoid

In order to reduce inflammation in your body, you should dramatically limit your intake of pro-inflammatory foods. It sounds like you’re already avoiding foods high in saturated fats — such as fatty meats, butter, whole and 2 percent milk, full-fat cheese, and rich desserts. However, there are a few other foods you should add to your “foods to avoid” list. Trans fats, which are man-made fats added to baked goods to give them a longer shelf life, are very dangerous and even worse than saturated fats for your health. The good news is that laws now require food manufacturers to list trans fats on nutrition labels — so they’re easy to spot. Choose packaged foods that list 0 grams trans fat on the Nutrition Facts panel and don’t list any “hydrogenated oils” — codeword for trans fats — in the ingredients panel. The other food group to avoid is simple and refined carbs — which set up a state of inflammation in the body. These foods include soda and other sweetened beverages, candy, sugary refined cereals, white-flour baked goods, and white rice, bread, and crackers.

Step 3

Keep Drinking Your Water

Cartilage is 65 to 80 percent water, so staying hydrated is important for the health and lubrication of your joints. Maintaining proper hydration is even more important for individuals who suffer from gout. Water helps flush uric acid out of the body, and studies suggest staying hydrated may help prevent flare-ups. It isn’t necessary to count the number of glasses of water you drink in a day — the latest research suggests that if you take time to drink a glass whenever you feel thirsty, you’ll probably do fine. You are already drinking enough water, which is important for managing your arthritis. To spice things up, you might want to try flavoring your water with fresh fruit slices or drinking unsweetened green tea or herbal tea — there are so many delicious and fun varieties. And be sure to avoid sugary drinks like soda, sweetened water, fruit drinks, sweet tea, and froufrou coffee concoctions.

Step 4

Smoking and Arthritis

I know you don’t smoke, but I just wanted to share with you a few good reasons to stay smoke-free: Smoking delivers toxins throughout the body, causing inflammation and increasing the risk of arthritis. In one study, smokers were more than twice as likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than people who didn’t smoke. In addition, researchers from a multicenter study reported in 2005 that smokers had a greater risk of osteoarthritis of the knee, possibly because smoking interferes with the body’s ability to repair its own cartilage. The bottom line is that staying smoke-free is a wise choice!

Step 5

Maintain Your Healthy Weight
One of the best things you can do for your arthritis is maintain a healthy lifestyle and weight — and

you’re already there! Being overweight can put added physical stress on your joints, which can aggravate arthritis (particularly osteoarthritis) and increase your levels of pain. An unhealthy weight can also promote inflammation, which as I’ve mentioned is the root of arthritis. Another reason to keep eating right and exercising!

Step 6

Exercise and Managing Arthritis
You’re already exercising daily — good for you! Many people stop exercising at the first twinge of pain in a joint, but this can be a big mistake. Exercise can actually be a great tool for fighting

arthritis. It can help you lose or maintain weight, which reduces the overall stress impact on joints. Strong muscles can absorb shock from daily movements, keep joints stable, and protect against additional joint injury. Stretching and yoga can improve flexibility and range of motion and reduce joint stiffness. Swimming and water aerobics allow free movement without added stress on the joints. Walking is another manageable, low-impact form of aerobic exercise appropriate for most individuals with arthritis. All good reasons to maintain your active lifestyle!

Good luck changing whatever needs changing to find the pain free movement you long for.

Comments? Please leave your thoughts and comments. Pass this along on your facebook page.

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving,

Betsy

206 933 1889

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

I did not know him: a cycle of pain

April 18, 2013 betsyjbell

My brother died. I went to Boston to be with his wife and children. At first the pain and suffering was all about my loss. In Boston I became one grieving sister in a sea of grief. I did not know all these other grieving people. Not his wife of thirty-five plus years and their three children, and all of his wife’s siblings, their spouses and their children. And then his friends from high school and college and his medical practice and their church and his men friends. Six hundred people in various degrees of pain.

I listened. I discovered that I have not listened well; I let the stories of others come in unfiltered. These stories gave me my brother. How bitter sweet to have him and lose him at the same time. The acute pain is mediated by the truth, the fleshing out of the man he was these years we had been separated by a continent and our too-busy lives. Today back in Seattle, I feel less pain. I also have far more compassion for his wife and their children who now begin the work of knitting a life without him physically present.

How are emotional pains like our body pains?

I recently found an interesting web site called the Arthritis Management Program. They published a graphic of the pain/fatigue cycle which you may find helpful. In a closed loop, each new painful experience pulls you further down into the pain and suffering. In this downward spiral, pain leads to depression which makes exercise difficult. One abandons the good diet. Sleep is challenging. All of these challenges occur while a loved one is struck down and then dies. Each of these symptoms can by themselves contribute to the other symptoms, and all can make pain and fatigue worse.

Even worse, they can feed on each other. For example, inflammation from the arthritis can cause pain, which causes stress and anxiety, which can cause poor sleep, poor sleep can cause depression, depression can sometimes make it hard to eat as we should, and these can lead to more pain or fatigue, and so on. The interactions of these symptoms, in turn, make our arthritis or fibromyalgia seem worse. It becomes a vicious cycle that only gets worse unless we find a way to break the cycle.

A support group for arthritis sufferers, a good blog (hehehe) or web site can trigger a cycle-breaking strategy. A memorial service in which all the sufferers participate can show the way to break the grieving cycle. Neither strategy is permanent. I have lost two husbands and this loss brings all that pain back. It was hard to sleep, to focus my mind on anything. I felt as though I was spinning. How must those much closer to my brother have suffered from the physical and emotional disruptions of death.

I always go back to my mantra of Keep Moving. If your arthritis pain gets too great to move in the usual ways, find new ways to move. A warm-water pool and a class for arthritics; gentle Feldenkrais movements; a quick trip to the Korean foot massage place (that was my strategy when I couldn’t sleep from the anxiety of my brother lying in the ICU with a stroke.) Call a friend and ask them to help you get out of the doldrums. Eat a salad with toasted pine nuts instead of chocolate cake.

You no doubt have been on this closed circuit pain path. How did you get out of it? Let us know.

If this has been helpful, pass it along, post it on your face book page, and like my business page while you are at it. 🙂

Fondly, Betsy

Be well, Do well and Keep Moving.

www.grandmabetsybell.com

www.dowellwithbetsy.com

Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness

The last man standing

April 11, 2013 betsyjbell 8 Comments

Gentle Reader,

The focus of my weekly blog is health and how to prevent disease. Sometimes nothing we do can prevent a health disaster. A stroke taking down a healthy man is hard to understand. I refer you to a TED talk by Jill Bolton Taylor, a research scientist who survived a stroke and recorded what was happening in her brain as she observed it taking her down. If you have ever wondered how a stroke does its damage, listen to her talk.

I have posted many blogs on diet and exercise to prevent disease. Many people who follow these suggestions, which are not original with me, still have strokes, heart attacks, or develop cancer to the head-shaking dismay of their closest relatives and friends. Things like “It’s so unfair.” “How could it happen to him/her?” are uttered in disbelief. I recommend another reading of those previous posts to refresh your memory about life style choices for yourself. There are no guarantees. No matter how hard we try.

Today’s post is about me and how it feels to be the last man standing. When my brother Eric died a few days ago following a massive stroke, his departure from this life left me the sole survivor of the original family of origin, two parents and three children. His wife and children carry the greatest burden of pain, loss and suffering. Their lives will be impacted daily by his absence, as will the circle of close friends, professional associates who saw or were touched by him. His kindness, intelligence, generosity and quiet humor will be missed. Profoundly.

A sister’s loss is different. I was not part of his life these last 60 years. We lived far apart and saw each other only occasionally for the FOO (Family of Origen) gatherings, Christmas, birthdays, weddings, funerals. We didn’t talk on the phone much, once or twice a year. So why do I feel this slicing away of part of myself? This aloneness? We never agreed on the family stories. Now there is no one left to curb my tongue. It feels vulnerable, frightening to be the keeper of the stories. They will always be “Betsy’s fiction” because memory is particular. This is not the collective memory of a people with an oral tradition. My recollections of Eric will be as far from Homer’s of Ulysses as two stories can be.

As very small children we were together much of the time. We made that migration after the war (WWII) from Westchester County in NY to the Great Lakes Navel base where our father was mustered out of the navy. That winter we woke up early on clear cold days, strapped on our roller skates and raced around the flat streets of Waukegan, IL. Once I rushed into the kitchen to tell Mommy that Eric was hanging from the tree. She flew to the back yard where his jacket pocket had caught on a limb and he was dangling upside down. My fear of heights probably originated from the time I was walking with my parents down the flat stone steps in Watkins Glen, NY. They spotted Eric running full tilt, Lyman right behind him, along the top of the low flag stone wall beyond which plunged a waterfall crashing 60 ft below. My mother whispered in that heart-stopping panic, “Port, do something.”

After Waukegan, our family made our way to Oklahoma City. Eric and I were squeezed together, the fillings of a sandwich formed by our belongings and the roof of the station wagon as the family drove south stopping in St. Louis for the night. Our little brother sat between our parents in the front seat.

In Oklahoma City, we rented in a neighborhood peppered with giant grasshopper-armed oil rigs, pumping oil night and day. I remember sitting with Eric, our noses poking through the chain link fence, watching the workmen change out the pipes from the top of an oil derrick. One of the men lost his footing and plunged to his death on the ground a few feet from where we sat. I remember my first thought was to protect and comfort Eric, too small at 7 to witness such a thing. I would have been 8 ½.

My playground memories from that year figure Eric pulling my braids, my back up against a small tree in the school yard, his feet pressed against it, one braid in each hand, laughing sardonically at my surprise and pain.

We often sat on either side of our Grandpa, our little brother in his lap. Gramps took us to the library each Saturday and read us book after book in his deep voice. We stood together at his bedside when he died on Easter. I was 9, Eric was just turning 8.

We finally settled in Eastern Oklahoma, Muskogee, where we lived those formative junior high and high school years. He and I often rode our bikes to a dirt bank by the railroad track, sacks of match box cars and trucks dangling from the handle bars. We spent hours building roads, tunnels, villages in the perfect hard sand. Swimming on the swim team and playing the flute kept us together in high school when our lives were otherwise separating. Eric spent more time with our younger brother Lyman than with me as I began dating and spending time with girl friends, loathing the annoyances of younger brothers.

Why are those early formative experiences so vivid and important above all else? None of them matter to the people who weep at his funeral next Monday. They have little if anything to do with the man he became. His passing leaves them with me and me alone.

Is it totally weird to have this acute pain as if your childhood takes on a surreal, ghostly quality because one of the key players is no longer a phone call away? I never asked him to corroborate any of these stories—and I could tell many more—so I do not know if he even remembered them. There is something so final in the passing away of that one who could have said, “Yes, I remember that. Wasn’t it scary? Wonderful? Awesome?” The mirror is broken.

I would love to hear your stories of your siblings, whether gone or still among the living.

Be well, Do well and Keep Moving.

Betsy

206 933 1889

www.DoWellWithBetsy.com Would you love a ready-made blogging platform that could earn you money?

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com Would you love products that help keep you well and help the planet, too?

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Who is Peggy Cappy?

March 24, 2013 betsyjbell 1 Comment

Gentle Reader,

Whether it is the new exercise classes or the intense gardening, I cannot say for sure. backcaremed (1) What I am sure about is increased pain and then the magical release from it. Here is the unexplainable magic. I have mentioned it to you several times in the past. It is a 20 minute meditation tape by Peggy Cappy about Rejuvenating the Back. She talks in a soothing voice about how every cell in your body is capable of reproducing into a fresh, new creation, whole and healthy.

I come in from the garden hurting in every lower back, hip and knee joint, shoulders and hands, as well. I turn on the Ipod to her voice and prop my knees over the Back2Life machine (I have described this contraption several times in previous posts) and when the tape is over, I stand and walk without pain.

BAck2Life machine

Back2Life

The third thing I do is take an herbal tablet that inhibits the pain path. The Pain Relief Complex is helpful but does not bring such complete results by itself.

I urge you, if you suffer pain, to invest in Peggy Cappy’s cd. You might want the Back2Life machine, too, but it probably is less important than her relaxation/rejunvenation message.

I’d be interested in hearing your techniques for curbing acute pain. So let us hear from you. If you investigate these techniques and like what I have shared, please pass the message along to your friends. While you are at it, like my facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/BetsyBellsHealth4U.

Fondly,

Be Well, Do Well, Keep Moving

Betsy

Injured at 52. Diagnosed and sentenced to a wheel chair at 55. Hiking, skiing, dancing and walking at 75. Read my story.

206 933 1889 betsy@HiHoHealth.com www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

World champion at 86: How did he do it?

March 14, 2013 betsyjbell

Gentle Reader,

Every so often I hear about a person who just won’t sit down and quit. This guy ruined his knees running and went in search of a new sport which didn’t require so much stress on his knees. Here’s his story. Enjoy. And thanks to Bob Ferguson for passing it along.

Dean Smith Rows to new World and American Record

Dean Smith set new US and World records at the World Indoor Rowing Championship, hosted by the CRASH-B Sprints that took place on February 17, 2013 at the Agganis Arena in Boston. Over 2,200 athletes raced from more than a dozen countries, with competitors ranging in age from 14 to 95. Dean’s world record time in the 2000 meter row was 8:10.5. Just Google Dean Smith Rowing to see how he has been keeping active.

Dean, a former world- class runner is used to being on the winner’s podium. Previously in Masters Track & Field he won World championship gold medals in Hanover, Germany and Gothenburg, Sweden for the 800 meter run, as well as several national championships. Bad knees brought an end to Dean’s running a few years ago, so he was delighted to find a new sport in which to compete. He joined the Rocky Mountain Rowing Club when he moved to Lone Tree, Colorado seven years ago. Since then he has won NINE World Championships in sculls on the water in Zagreb, Croatia, Vienna, Austria, Birmingham, England and Vilnius, Lithuania.

Dean is a young 86.

He attributes his edge for success to using Shaklee Sports Products.

Email deansmith3@msn for more information & complete sports history

My wish for everyone of my readers is a long active life. We may not all win medals, but we can all keep moving. Pass this along as an inspiration to your friends and family.

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving,

Betsy

Betsy Bells Health4u

206 933 1889

betsy@hihohealth.com

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Watch out for the metal detectors!

March 7, 2013 betsyjbell 2 Comments

Gentle Reader,

His long legs and narrow hips will soon carry him back to the gym. He will be back on the machines and lose the ‘love handles’ that have crept on from lack of exercise. The long process of identifying what caused the sciatica, the sharp pinching pain radiating down the leg, making his once strong stride impossible is over. It took months to identify a worn out hip as the culprit. He has a new one now.

No more arthritis pain from that degenerated joint. His bones were healthy enough at 70+ to give the surgeon something to work with. Other joints–knee, shoulders, ankles–still hold. No advanced osteoarthritis everywhere.

Rehabilitation takes time. His spirit is good. He hates hurting or talking about hurting, so he will use the special chair lifters, the raised toilet seat, and take the procautions he must take to avoid damage to the new joint as the supportive muscles and tissue and tendons readjust to the trauma of surgery.

This world traveler will soon set off the alarms in the airport again. What joy. What thanksgiving.

Here are some tricks to rapid healing that his doctor may not tell him.

1. Lecithin is an oil that helps emulsify, make more liquid, substances that are sticky. After an incision or any wound to the body, our own mechanisms for repair rush to the task of healing. This healing process causes lots of swelling, too many repair cells for the space. To help bring this swelling down quickly, an emulsifier makes the spent repair cells easy to slough off through the normal waste stream. Several lecithin capsules a day, not just one or two.

Caution: not all lecithin is the same. Granuals or huge jars of capsules can go rancid quickly like any oil exposed to the air and light. I prefer a small jar with 180 capsules. There should be no smell of rancidity. A rancid fat causes more damage than you can imagine, so take care what you buy.

2. Alfalfa. This food for horses and cows is King of Vegetables and helps all systems in the body with its nutrients. In this case when the hip joint and surrounding tissue need held, it is there to do the job. Here are a few of Alfalfa’s contributions to our body:

a great aid in digestion, aids in peptic ulcers, great diuretic and bowel regulator,
effective barrier against bacterial invasion, anti-inflammatory, anti-histamine.
Natural body deodorizer, helps support the natural ph of the blood .
High in protein: 18.9% protein as compared to beef 16.5%; milk 3.3% and eggs 13.1%.
Remember, muscles are composed of protein and the lack of it causes them to break down resulting in fatigue and weakness.
After surgery, naturally replenishes joints and tissues with its healing properties.

How much Alfalfa? Lots and lots. It is like eating peas. Take a big spoonful and wash the tablets down with your favorite smoothie. Or make a hot tea. Or chew them up.

Caution: Not all Alfalfa is the same. Often genetically modified, the brand I use exclusively is grown by a very picky company’s organic farmers in Antalope Valley. The leaves are picked at sun-rise. No stems are included in the tablets. Open the bottle and take a whiff of the farm land where it grew.

If I had to pick only one supplement to take, it would be Alfalfa by Shaklee. Dr. Shaklee felt the same way.

Happy healing to my friend, the best travel leader I have ever known. And Happy Travels.

Fondly,

Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving,

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com 206-933-1889

Arthritis, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Why do we work so hard to keep healthy?

February 27, 2013 betsyjbell

Gentle Reader,

Ever stop to question why we work so hard to keep ourselves healthy and active?

Obviously the main reason is to avoid the pain that comes from neglected arthritis. That knee pain, back pain, fingers and that thumb that got dislocated skiing years ago, and the old ankle fracture just get cranky if they aren’t tended to with a good diet and stretches, supplements and all the self-care practices we have learned and continue to learn. So we do this work to make ourselves happy and comfortable, even if you have the diagnosis of osteoarthritis or spinal stenosis.

I did have a sad and troubling thought the other day having to do with the people I love and care about who do not take care to keep themselves healthy and active. I have this thought that I will use my last quarter century sitting with people as they suffer and die, some before their time.

I have already lost two husbands to cancer. Neither of them shared my fervor for the kind of moderation I require (not speaking for others here) in sugar, alcohol, fat and refined flour consumption. Increasingly I notice friends and family eating or drinking or medicating in ways that may not lead to the best of health.

Then I notice that in this moment they are doing OK and are not searching for different answers to their problems with sore feet, aching hips, hands that don’t hold the driver or tennis racket without discomfort. I might say something like, “It must make you discouraged to have a hard time sitting in the theater when your back gets so tight and uncomfortable. I remember taking a special pillow everywhere when my pain was acute.” (I still fold up a jacket and place it behind my back to avoid that pain.)

I might say that I found some ways to keep that from happening to me that I could share, if they were interested. But only if they don’t know already that this is my passion in life and work and that I earn my living at it, sharing information for free and selling the supplements that I have found helpful.

Could it be that the second reason I work so hard to stay healthy and active is precisely so I can be around to give comfort without blame, unconditional comfort to those I care about. Those pesky thoughts still come up about how they might do their life differently and avoid all that pain and suffering. I get better at noticing “there’s that thought again,” and letting the judgment go. It seems to take daily practice. Staying out of other people’s business and loving them where they are.

Can you be a Health Nut with no judgment? Yep, you can.

Can you imagine how much fun it is when you find someone who is just as nutty as you are about all this prevention stuff, two heads together sharing information? So I just put it out there and if it’s right, it’s golden. If it’s not right, it’s golden, too.

Fondly,

Be Well, Do Well, Keep Moving

Betsy

Injured at 52. Diagnosed and sentenced to a wheel chair at 55. Hiking, skiing, dancing and walking at 75. Read my story.

206 933 1889 betsy@HiHoHealth.com www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Oh, my aching hamstrings

February 21, 2013 betsyjbell

Gentle Reader,

What a ski season it is here in the Northwest. The snow conditions surprise us every Wednesday as my band of 16-24 friends head up to the pass on a big bus (potty included). It’s a good thing to use this bus company for January and February when the road conditions are dicey and icy. The bus drivers have gotten stuck twice! The ladies who ski are mostly over 65. Yesterday I learned that one companion, a tall, slim brunette with impeccable make up and style is 80. We are still climbing logging roads and snow plowing down, but we have become partial to the groomed Nordic tracks, of which there are a few. One of oldest members skis with the blind across the US and Canada. We do have a special club here with a pair of set tracks for the blind skier and her companion guide. We often see dog teams, although mid-week is a quiet time to ski. People-watching happens on Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday the only viable skiing was on the reclaimed rail road track which snakes its way up from Seattle, through the pass and on East. Long ago this track was pulled up and remaining bed has become a favorite mountain bike and Nordic ski trail.

Pushing and gliding for 3 hours and 8 miles along this relatively flat track awakened muscles I had not used so strenuously. This morning I have been on the floor getting the creaks and groans out of my joints-back and hip and knee pain are no fun, nor are arthritis flare-ups. Several techniques work well.

1. tie a strong flexible tubing around your thighs, squat and walk to the left 20 steps and then to the right. In the picture, the tubing is around the ankles. I find the tubing stays put better at the thigh.

2. Lying on your side with your knees pulls up part way, lift one knee up and then back down in a clam-shell move. Several reps on each side.

3. Put one end of the flexible tubing in the door jam and loop the other around your foot. Stand side ways to the door and take the outside foot, lifting straight legged 10 reps. Turn and draw the foot away from the door across the body. This is a classic standing Pilates move. Change legs and repeat. Years ago I bought a heavy steel foot stool off Ebay to use for this exercise as it works better if you are standing a few inches off the floor. Gyms have portable durable plastic steps that can be used. Personally, my little upholstered foot stool would never be taken for an exercise prop as it sits by the front door. This is the best picture I could find. Imagine the end of the theraband as a knotted tube in the door jab, the bottom around your shoe.

4. face the door and, with the foot in the loop of the tubing, push it away from the door while standing erect, in perfect posture, on the other foot. Several reps on both legs will help.

I am glad I climb stairs every week (200), going up and down sideways with the grape vine step. I found yesterday that straight way skiing tired the knees. Most women have slightly knock-knees and prolonged straight walking, hiking or skiing stressed them. Whenever you have the opportunity to go up or down stairs side-ways, one foot behind, then in front, do it. Your knees will not stress on the straight-away as much. I am going to get someone to film me doing this. There are no pictures on the web that I can find.

Avoiding arthritis pain in the knees, back and hips can be challenging, and fun. Get out there and enjoy the winter weather if you are lucky enough to have snow. Don’t let the diagnosis of osteoarthritis or spinal stenosis keep you from moving. Browse the techniques I have offered in my blog postings and try some of them. Better still, leave a comment about the techniques you have found work well.

Fondly,

Be Well, Do Well, Keep Moving

Betsy

Injured at 52. Diagnosed and sentenced to a wheelchair at 55. Hiking, skiing, dancing and walking at 75. Read my story.

206 933 1889 betsy@HiHoHealth.com www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

Arthritis, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Is it Woo-Woo?

February 14, 2013 betsyjbell

Gentle Reader,

Climbing up a long snowy track on cross country skis yesterday, my companions and I talked about little miracles, ‘woo-woo’ magic, the unexplained healing that sometimes occurs. The husband of one friend has suffered from arthritis in both ankles for about 5 years, so bad that he could barely walk. He is in his late 50’s. The friend herself worked a stressful tech job that required her to bend over patients. She suffered from excruciating pain from her head down her neck, along her shoulders and down her arms. In time the pain reached down her back.

The man, slim, fit, an avid cyclist who couldn’t walk without extreme pain, got one of his ankles fused, a newish operation for arthritis. They chose the more painful of the two to work on. The operated ankle no longer hurts. The ‘woo-woo’ miracle is that the other ankle no longer hurts. He can walk 5 miles. The x-rays indicated that both ankles were equally damaged by the disease. Hum. . . . . .

The friend with the pain from bending over at work? Her doctor’s diagnosed fibromyalgia and offered drug therapy. After much consideration, she retired from her job. All the pain has vanished.

Were the x-rays wrong? Were the doctors missing something?

In my own case, I hurt my back badly at age 52. By the age of 55, I was diagnosed with a severe condition that my doctor said would put me in a wheel chair. At age 75, I am pretty much pain free. I haven’t had any of the operations they suggested. A check up with more pictures at age 65, the doc said, “If I didn’t know you, I’d say you should be in a wheel chair.”

What’s going on here? These three stories, my friend with diagnosed fibromyalgia, her husband with arthritic ankles and me with a back condition so bad I should be in a wheel chair all have to do with pain and the skeletal structure, nerves and pain messaging. Compelling research has been done with thought, intention and cancer. Here is a short video about this healing work. Do Thoughts Have the Power to Heal? Could similar healing happen with skeletal and nerve problems? Even if you don’t direct intention to the condition such as with my friend’s husband? He’s not interesting in discussing the ‘miracle’ healing of the second ankle.

You can read my story and what I’ve done to be pain free today in past blog posts. Perhaps the most important thing is hope, belief and action, in that order. I seldom miss my morning routine to limber everything up. I listen to a CD meditation that declares night after night that my cells have all the right nutrients to recreate themselves new and healthy, even the ones in my back that are supposed to be all messed up.

Miracles of healing? As the doctor says, “whatever you’re doing, keep it up.” And so I do. How about you?

Fondly,

Be Well, Do Well, Keep Moving

Betsy

Injured at 52. Diagnosed and sentenced to a wheel chair at 55 and 65. Hiking, skiing, dancing and walking at 75. Read my story.

206 933 1889 www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com Betsy@HiHoHealth.com