It's Time

And my own fault.  I've been very irresponsible lately with my meals.  Yes, pretty much eating anything and everything I wanted.  Bad Barb.  Bad, bad Barb!

Now it is time to pay.  If you've been around for a long time then you will know that I used to suffer from terrible migraines.  I finally cured them on my own.  By juicing.  No more drugs that could kill a horse at twenty paces.

Or so I thought.  Last week I would have killed for some of those drugs.  I had a choice to make.  Go back to the whole doctor ritual, including a slew of drugs or have some more juice.  I chose juice.

You may be wondering why I even hesitated.  Simple.  The juice that works best includes kale.  Have you ever had raw kale juice?  Trust me.  It's truly nasty!  As in one tiny sip is enough to make my skin crawl for three minutes.  Drinking a whole glass is a true challenge.  But still, in the long run, it is better than endless migraines.

So here, on the outside of the pic are my breakfast and lunch tomorrow.  Kale, cucumber, celery, ginger, apple and a splash of pure, natural orange juice.  I've discovered that OJ makes it slightly more palatable.  Tonight's dinner is a treat.  Kale, cucumber, celery, banana and super sweet pineapple!  Much better but not really as effective when it comes to eliminating migraines quickly.

One interesting thing I learned with tonight's dinner combination - Banana brings out the taste of celery.  Had no clue it would do that but I'm eternally grateful it didn't enhance the kale.

Juice Update

About to finish day five and I had no Excedrin today.  None!  The first four days I had a total of five.  Yes, I have a tiny headache but it’s so miniscule it barely counts.  Today is another hot, humid, mucky day, as the last four has been.  I should be curled up in a ball, contemplating moving enough to seek death.  Is it really the juice?  Or have I convinced myself so thoroughly that this is going to work that it is?  Don’t know.  Don’t care.  It seems to be helping and that’s all that truly matters.

Some observations.  Kale is not something I will ever willingly have again in my life.  There’s no way to put it other than to say, in my opinion, kale is foul.  Nasty.  Icky.  Disgusting.  You get the idea.  But it is so loaded with nutrients that I am going to continue to juice the vile stuff and force myself not to gak as I drink it.  The original plan to have some twice a day has been abandoned.  Once is more than enough and there are plenty of other non-vile veggies out there to sustain me.

The best part of this are the juices I make for breakfast.  Fruit, fruit and more fruit.  I made a strawberry-rhubarb-apple with cinnamon that was absolutely delicious.  Serious numminess!  And then, the second time I made it I added in a chunk of pineapple for sweetness and it was even better.  Makes me wish I had much, much more of those items and had skipped the other fruits.  But, when I was purchasing produce, I thought a variety would be best.  Now I know better.

Day three was the worst.  Not only was it 92 and extremely humid, I had zero energy.  My head hurt.  I felt blech.  And I was snarly.  If I’d been able to move there was an annoying someone who very likely wouldn’t have survived the day.  Luckily I ended up watching movies with Kya most of the day.  She’s been the best buddy through this time.  She’s enjoyed hanging out and getting all the attention.  The boys were sprawled elsewhere and couldn’t be bothered to be jealous as they usually are.  I just wish she’d stop choosing movies that had food in them!

All Set

I went to one of the local farmers’ markets for supplies after work today.  I left with a cart full of produce.  Literally.  And yay, more than I expected was locally grown.  Already!  Isn’t that awesome?  I wasn’t sure I’d fit it all in my refrigerator but with a bunch of rearranging and some purging, I managed.

Here’s what I have:

Kale

Spinach

Red Cabbage

Cucumbers

Beets, with the tops on

Carrots

Celery

Summer Squash

Tomatoes

Rhubarb

Blueberries

Blackberries

Raspberries

Apples

Pineapple

Pears

And for added flavor:

Ginger

Lemons

Limes

Mint

Parsley

Oh yeah.  Let’s not forget the never-ending supply of strawberries growing right outside my back door. 

Let the juicing begin and the headaches end!

Reclaiming Me

A few weeks ago, I posted about Excedrin being pulled from shelves and how I was okay because I went online and ordered some to hold me over until it was back.  I’ve been pondering this off and on since then because I really didn’t like my reaction.  I felt like I would panic if I couldn’t get some to have on hand for when it was needed.  Odd, since when I’m in the midst of a really bad migraine Excedrin is just as useless as everything else.  But it does help to some extent with minor migraines so I wanted, needed to have some. 

Yeah, imagine that.  Calling any migraine minor.  Sadly, when you suffer from these, you learn to live and function with the less severe ones.  Oh, don’t misunderstand.  It still hurts plenty.  You still want to curl up somewhere and have the world leave you alone.  But you learn to deal with it and get on with life since it could be worse, so very much worse, tomorrow.

As I see it, I have several choices.  Go on limping along as I have been with some level of headache 358 out of 365 days a year.  No.  That is not an exaggeration.  Find a new doc since my old one is no longer covered by my insurance and get some other form of drugs that will be ineffective two-thirds of the time or may make things worse.  Find an alternative medication that is not covered by insurance at all and steal someone’s first born to sell in order to pay for it on an on-going basis.  Or take matters into my own hands and make changes that I have the power to make.

A week or so ago I was chatting with a friend who asked me if I’d seen the documentary, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  As you can guess my first question was if it was being recommended since that describes me although I’m not nearly dead even though it feels like it on bad migraine days.  No, that wasn’t the reason.  The film, and book, were done by a man by the name of Joe Cross.  He has a disease that required him to take prednisone in order to function.   Not thrive.  Function as in just getting by and barely a lot of days. What he decided to do was detox his system and see if being healthier overall helped.  He did this by going on a juice fast for 60 days.  And while fasting, he travelled across the country, chatting with people, telling them what he was trying and how it was working as he went.  By the end he was down to very minimal prednisone dosages, which with continued monitoring of his diet, has now been eliminated.  He’d also dropped almost a third of his weight, become more energetic and felt alive in ways he hadn’t in years.

What interested me most was the segment in which he chatted with a woman who has chronic migraines.  She tried the juice fast and in ten days was migraine-free.  I can only imagine what that feels like.  But I want to know.  So I got me a juicer and I’m going off to the farmers’ market Thursday.  Friday I begin.  I’m intending ten days but if it’s making me feel better and the headaches aren’t quite gone that will be extended.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  Wish me luck.