little furry anima
Aug. 19th, 2011 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanThings are actually feeling pretty good these days.
I have gone out. I have seen people. I have travelled twice this summer. I even went to a gig and no bad things happened to anybody, not even me.
I am now 100% off wheat and 95% vegetarian. My stomach is so much happier. My joints are still crunchy but I'm not in constant friggin' pain. Hell, even the humidity has started to let up and I feel like I can breathe normally again.
You know, I don't think I ever did post here about the final results of all the arthritis tests. It's "gouty" arthritis and is a direct result of uric acid crystals forming in the blood and depositing in the joints. The crystals are sharp and cut the hell out of the connective tissue - it literally feels like having ground glass inside the joint. Gout runs in my family (doesn't every fucking thing?) and I've probably been having episodes of it for years. Except that another thing that runs in my family is weird ass immune system stuff and so I don't seem to have a normal inflammation response. (I walked around with a septic gallbladder for six months in 2010 because I never developed a fever so nobody ever figured out how bad it was. Same story with the swine flu I got in '09.) So of course it was never diagnosed before now.
And here I thought that there was one genetic bullet I'd managed to dodge. Ha ha ha. Not so much.
Anyway, uric acid is produced as a waste product when your body breaks down animal proteins. [1][2]. I've been trying to cut back on the meat consumption all summer and holy crap does it ever make a difference. In a couple of months I'm going to go for more blood work and see where my numbers stand.
[1]Except for milk proteins oddly enough, which actually reduce uric acid. So I'm supposed to eat "low-fat" cheese. Pfft. Have you ever put low-fat cheese in your mouth? I'd sooner eat the wrapper.
[2]I'm also supposed to not drink beer. I leave the outcome of that conversation as an exercise for the reader.
In other news after almost two months of delays the house renos are finally moving again and they seem to be happening really fast. We have tiles! Oh right, pictures. I keep forgetting about that. This weekend maybe.
The brain weasels are still ridiculously active, but I think I've developed better coping strategies for undermining the predations of my evil Mustela overlords. With a little help from my friends, as the saying goes.
And on that note, when I stick weasels into Google, this is what I found. I may have to turn it into a user icon.
I have gone out. I have seen people. I have travelled twice this summer. I even went to a gig and no bad things happened to anybody, not even me.
I am now 100% off wheat and 95% vegetarian. My stomach is so much happier. My joints are still crunchy but I'm not in constant friggin' pain. Hell, even the humidity has started to let up and I feel like I can breathe normally again.
You know, I don't think I ever did post here about the final results of all the arthritis tests. It's "gouty" arthritis and is a direct result of uric acid crystals forming in the blood and depositing in the joints. The crystals are sharp and cut the hell out of the connective tissue - it literally feels like having ground glass inside the joint. Gout runs in my family (doesn't every fucking thing?) and I've probably been having episodes of it for years. Except that another thing that runs in my family is weird ass immune system stuff and so I don't seem to have a normal inflammation response. (I walked around with a septic gallbladder for six months in 2010 because I never developed a fever so nobody ever figured out how bad it was. Same story with the swine flu I got in '09.) So of course it was never diagnosed before now.
And here I thought that there was one genetic bullet I'd managed to dodge. Ha ha ha. Not so much.
Anyway, uric acid is produced as a waste product when your body breaks down animal proteins. [1][2]. I've been trying to cut back on the meat consumption all summer and holy crap does it ever make a difference. In a couple of months I'm going to go for more blood work and see where my numbers stand.
[1]Except for milk proteins oddly enough, which actually reduce uric acid. So I'm supposed to eat "low-fat" cheese. Pfft. Have you ever put low-fat cheese in your mouth? I'd sooner eat the wrapper.
[2]I'm also supposed to not drink beer. I leave the outcome of that conversation as an exercise for the reader.
In other news after almost two months of delays the house renos are finally moving again and they seem to be happening really fast. We have tiles! Oh right, pictures. I keep forgetting about that. This weekend maybe.
The brain weasels are still ridiculously active, but I think I've developed better coping strategies for undermining the predations of my evil Mustela overlords. With a little help from my friends, as the saying goes.
And on that note, when I stick weasels into Google, this is what I found. I may have to turn it into a user icon.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-20 03:07 pm (UTC)