Post 38
By today’s standards I’m not all that old. At sixty-four most people aren’t even retired yet. Some of my friends are in their seventies and working out consistently. On the other hand, my father was bedridden by the time he was my age and died at sixty-six. Age treats everyone differently, and I’ve come to accept that. I’ve also come to understand that each person treats age differently. When our body begins to have more aches and pains, our gut doesn’t ignore our habitual junk food anymore, and/or our brain starts to feel a little foggy or downright confused, we each have to decide how we are going to handle these new realities. Are we going to just accept the inevitable decline of our bodies? Or are we going to make some changes in lifestyle that might create a healthier, more active life for awhile longer?
Personally, I’m not going to “go gentle into that good night”* . . . at least I'm not giving up the ghost prematurely as long as there is something I can do to have more time here with my family and more time to leave a few encouraging words to others. Not only is it my desire to keep my body above earth a little longer, it is also my desire to spend the rest of my time on earth in a healthy state—in a body that moves with as little pain as possible, a gut that digests food normally, and a mind that can still solve problems and reach out to others. I realize that each of us will have different issues to deal with in order to maintain our bodies to their optimum performance. We may also have to accept that in our younger years we didn’t care for our bodies as they needed, and there are consequences. There are also consequences to environmental toxins and trauma that we had no control over. Understanding all of these factors and looking for ways to deal with them has become my life in the last four years.
Although at first I didn’t understand its language, my body has been trying to get my attention since I was in my thirties. First, I always seemed to need a little more rest than others. After only four years of working with displaced Central Americans, I became completely burned out. I had to pull away to rest . . . and that became my lifestyle . . . I would throw myself into some type of caring situation . . . and after a few months or sometimes a few years . . . I was wasted. There were specific physical symptoms as well . . . constant pain in my shoulders . . . frequent viruses (or at least virus-like symptoms). Other pains that came and went, unexplainable allergic reactions that defied all allergy tests, and my digestive system was increasingly unkind to me. When I turned forty, a doctor told me that there wasn’t anything wrong with me, I was just experiencing more pain because of my age. I didn’t like--or believe-- this diagnosis.
It took awhile for my health to affect my ability to think clearly. In fact the worse my body felt, the more I seemed to accomplish with my mind. I home-schooled my children for several years, and then I went back to school to finish my BA, then an MA, and I finally earned a PhD at age 53. I began to teach ESL to international students the next year and loved the interaction with so many different cultures. And yet I slowly began to have less energy . . . my feet constantly hurt, the muscles in my shoulders and neck ached, sometimes I had strange leg pains and . . . and worst of all were the gut issues. I couldn't do the amount of work I had been accustomed to doing because I was so tired and my body and brain seemed to operate in slow motion sometimes. I often went to doctors about particular physical ailments, but no one had any answers.
One night I lay in bed experiencing a strong pain in my left leg. As I lay there the pain moved to the right leg, then into my arms, and in a few more minutes I felt a strong itching sensation all over my body (which was not uncommon when I ate a new food or sometimes medicines). I pulled myself out of bed with the attitude “enough is enough.” I sat down with my iPad with the intention of finding out what possible diseases or conditions could cause all of my periodic symptoms. The answer, as I’ve written about before, seemed to be Fibromyalgia.
To confirm the match I went to a neurologist, who eventually sent me to a rheumatologist. The rheumatologist was kind and encouraging as he pronounced the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia, but his only advice was to work with my primary care physician to find a pain medication and to get plenty of sleep. SLEEP! Can you imagine? The one thing that I haven’t mentioned is the terrible problem I was having with insomnia. But he was right. Even today if I can sleep for 7+ hours the day goes well, but if not . . it’s downhill with brain fog and inevitable pain.
To complicate this scenario is the fact that both of my parents experienced years of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. After watching our parents decline, my siblings and I have been keeping tabs on every new suggestion that might keep our brains healthy. . . crossword puzzles, coffee, wine, exercise . . . I even started playing the piano again . . . Unfortunately, one of those healthy brain suggestions that I tried exasperated another health problem that I wasn’t aware of—
All of my life I had wanted to drink wine in social occasions, but I just couldn’t find a taste I liked. After reading that a glass of wine a day had some benefit to the brain through the Resveratrol it contained, I taught myself to like Pinot Noir, particularly a brand made from organic grapes. After a few months of drinking one glass of wine each evening, my gastric reflux came back—stronger than before . . . and my digestive system seemed to have gone berserk. I began to have migraines and the insomnia worsened.
To make a long story short . . . I began to search for answers again and eventually found an integrative medicine practice where the doctors focus on individualized medicine (and they also accepted my insurance.) After having an extensive genomic analysis, I learned that I have a genetic variance that doesn’t allow me to process histamines normally, so I have to be careful to avoid food and drinks that are high in histamines or I get very sick—symptoms include itching, bloating, insomnia, migraines, and a host of other problems. ( There are many online articles on histamine intolerance. Here’s one to start with. https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/histamine-intolerance-genetics-part-2/)
Lesson gained: I’ve learned that I can’t just follow the latest health fads or even the medical establishment’s best general advice. I have to be proactive in finding out my own specific requirements for optimal health. I’ve found that an integrative or functional medicine practitioner works well for this goal. Yet they don’t usually take insurance, because many insurance companies won’t pay for this approach, which creates a conundrum for those of us who need to look for particular causes to our ongoing problems. My answer to the situation was to cut down on other expenses, so we can live on my husband’s income and use mine for extras such as genomic testing and natural supplements, which aren’t paid for by insurance companies.
I know that my solution is not a viable alternative for everyone, but if you aren’t living the quality life you want, you might be able to to save up the money for a genomic test (there are several advertised online)** and a one time meeting with a functional medicine specialist. Perhaps you can find a regular doctor who will help you manage from there. Additionally, you can find a lot of information from functional medicine doctors’ websites these days. Many times diet and exercise changes can do wonders to put you back on track. You may want to start with general health tips first . . . such as cutting sugar and adding in exercise. (It's best to get a doctor’s advice before beginning any new types of exercise or adding unusual things to your diet—especially alcohol.)
The point I’m trying to make is not to ignore your own health. Caregivers are notorious for taking care of others and neglecting themselves. Take steps to find out what’s driving your pain, lack of energy, etc. "Do not go gentle" into the darkness of pain, fatigue, and declining brain function. Find out what’s causing your decline in health and how it might be lessened or even alleviated.
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* See Dylan Thomas' famous poem Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
**Here's a good explanation about genomic testing and its use in diagnosis. https://resilienthealthaustin.com/genomic-consults/
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