Chronic Twenties

What the heck is a nightshade?

The first time I heard the term I had no idea what the person was talking about.

“Nightshade,” she said, “Like tomatoes and eggplant? …They cause swelling.”

“Great, more dietary restrictions,” I thought.  Growing up in a non-Kosher observant Jewish household, I have pretty strong reactions to people telling me what I can and can’t eat… Until they can offer me some sort of empirically deduced proof anyway…

So, who is this masked vegetable anyway?

Nightshades are in the Solanaceae family and are widely used for food, spices and even medicine. Some of my favorite foods are nightshades.  Potatoes, peppers and tomatoes are all in this family.

What’d the potato ever do to you?

The reason these plants aren’t good for us Chronically inclined folks is that they contain Alkaloids, which can be toxic.  Alkaloids from nightshades have been linked to poor joint health, as well as the state of a person’s nervous system.  Basically, alkaloids cause a raised level of inflammation in the body — inflammation is bad for joints but also many other systems — and they can also cause calcium deposits to build up in your joints.  In short, alkaloids are bad for Chronics.

Where do you find Nightshades?

Nightshades are everywhere.  Here’s a short list of common ones:

• Potatoes (not sweet ones)
• Tomatoes
• Peppers (hot and sweet, including paprika, cayenne and bell peppers)
• Eggplant
• Gogi berries
• Paprika
• Tobacco (shocking, nicotine is an alkaloid)
• Petunia (yes, the flower)
• Tomatillos and tamarillos

And even if you decide to cut out all of these foods from your diet, you may not be in the clear.  Processed foods often contain these foods in modified or nondescript forms.  For example, modified food starch is usually made from potatoes. If a processed item has “spices” on the ingredients list, it’s probably packing pepper or paprika (also pepper).  Also, some of the most popular sauces and soups are tomato based–marinara, salsa, chili.   I can’t imagine a world without Mexican food, but it’s chock full of those nasty little, delicious nightshades.

So what’s a nightshade-loving Chronic to do?

According to the Jour­nal of Neu­ro­log­i­cal and Ortho­pe­dic Med­ical Surgery, “Of the 52% rigidly on the diet [with­out night­shades], 94% reported com­plete or sub­stan­tial relief of arthri­tis…” That’s an incredible number, but this Mexican-food-loving Chronic will be the first to admit that it’s not an easy get.  But we do the best we can with the information we have.  So for now, cut what you can, and see if it helps!

Resources:

• Hub Pages, “Nightshades”: http://hubpages.com/hub/nightshades
• Nightshade Free, “Where have you found nightshades?”: http://www.nightshadefree.com/where-have-you-found-nightshades/

The photo above is from passer-by’s Flickr stream.  Good stuff, and not all food shots.

Chronics have to reevaluate who they are in the context of their disease.  It goes back to my first post here, about illness narratives.  Unlike having a cold, the illness story for a chronic becomes part of the life time picture, part of how you view yourself.  Maybe not all the time, but you do have to acknowledge the illness in order to treat it.

The trouble is, if you believe in the Law of Attraction, actively thinking about your disease may be holding you back from your back.

Summarizing the Law of Attraction pretty simply, Maharishi says, “Whatever we put our attention on will grow stronger in our life.”

So how do you balance taking care of yourself and the law of the attraction?

Focus on the positive.  Taking care of yourself is a positive thing.  Attracting health is a positive thing.  When your mind starts to wander towards the negatives, the things you don’t like about your condition, your treatment, try to come back to something positive, like attracting health or perspective.

Image from PaperMonster Stencil Graffiti Artist blog.  Apparently the image is also available as a shirt.

Around this time last year, I took a juice cleanse at my yoga studio.  At the beginning of the class, they said take what you like and leave the rest — talking about food related things seems to polarize people and they wanted everyone to feel comfortable.  The folks running the cleanse are raw vegans and talked a lot about what that diet means to them physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Raw vegan sounds really intense.  It’s a huge lifestyle shift for many people–one that I have no intention of making at this point in my life.  But there’s a lot to learn about food and eating from our vegan friends.

During the cleanse, we discussed a book called The Anti-Inflammation Zone: Reversing the Silent Epidemic That’s Destroying Our Health.  The premise is that certain foods raise the level of inflammation in our bodies, everyone’s bodies — even our non-chronic friends.  I’ve definitely experienced swelling after consuming certain kinds of foods and beverages.  Alcohol, dairy leaves me feeling terrible the next day, not just that hang-over or that over full feeling, but swollen and in pain.  It’s part of the reason I no longer drink.

I have the book.  So I’ll be purusing it a reporting back.  For now, I’d say try to notice how you feel after you eat specific foods, grains, vegetables, and drink certain drinks.  Try to isolate what leaves you feeling crumby the next day, and what you don’t feel in your system the next day!

As a self-described morning person, coming to terms with the fact that there are things I just can’t do in the mornings has irked me since my Chronic diagnosis.

Listen here body: I like to do yoga in the morning.  I like to start my day off with physical activity.  I really do… But it turns out you don’t appreciate that much.

Oh yes, it’s frustrating to get up early to start your day and not really be able to get started for about an hour.  It means making an adjustment to how you structure your work, life and play.

With that said, I’ve learned a pretty straightforward lesson.  I don’t do mornings.

I recently learned something shocking about my family–I alluded to bits and pieces of it last week in one of my posts about gratitude, although it’s more complicated than I knew at the time…  It got me thinking about how one handles troubling news.

When I first was told I had arthritis, I didn’t believe it.  I think I was probably told that I have arthritis five times before I actually let it in.  Hearing that you’re sick is shocking.  It’s troubling to hear that you’ll be sick for the rest of your life.  More than that though, it changes how you view yourself, in your own mind, in the context of your family and relationships; and it also can change how your family and friends see you.   But initially, it’s just shocking.

When you’re shocked or frightened, your mind immediately goes to fight or flight.  For some people, that means a sort of frantic problem solving mode - how can I fix this?  What did I do wrong?

You just have to breathe.  Breathe and remind yourself that you’ve been okay until now, you’ll be okay tomorrow.  You’re allowed to be upset, disappointed, frustrated, etc.  Feel what you’re feeling but keep a progressive perspective.  Remember you’ll be ok.  Keep telling yourself over and over and over again, until you believe it.

What else can you do?