Mondays, migraines, and mercury

The past two weeks have been a bit quiet here at The Science Mom and you may have noticed that I've missed two of the proposed regular weekly posts - originally the "Sunday Surprise," later the "Monday Surprise." I wish I could say we've been at the beach the last few weeks, but the truth is that the last two Mondays were not so great for me - migraine the Monday before last and something strange going on this past Monday.

The migraine last Monday was surely brought on by a night of mostly-care free dining.  Friends wanted to take us to dinner to celebrate that the Professor is now a tenured member of the faculty (yay!).  I decided to only worry about gluten, keep it simple (ha ha), and try to enjoy the evening out.  

I truly did enjoy the evening out.  The food was fabulous - a yummy tomato/basil/mozzarella salad, a tasty filet with casein- and egg-laden accompaniments, fine wine, and good company.  It truly was wonderful to be out with good friends and enjoy a meal without thoroughly grilling the server and/or chef. I give lots of kudos to our server and the chef that night for seeming to be quite well-versed in all things gluten.  I don't think I'll "let loose" like that again any time soon on account of the repercussions I experienced, but it was a lovely evening.

I could go on and on with my theories of what in the world was going on this recent Monday.  I first thought I was still getting over the migraine and having a little added fatigue from Little O's late night/early morning wakings twice this weekend.  I was fatigued.  Very sensitive to light. Having a hard time keeping a train of thought going.  

I started to think maybe it was viral as it felt as though a cold sore was coming on.  (Interesting observation:  the other times I've had a casein "infraction" in the past year or so, one of the repercussions has been getting a cold-sore - as though it taxes my immune system in a way that allows the virus to emerge again.)

Taking some lysine and Olive Leaf Extract seemed to be helping, so I'm thinking the latter hypothesis is a more reasonable candidate.

I can say that I don't even have to look at the clock to know when I need to take my next dose, I start feeling badly - tired, brain fog, grumpy - and the tingling of the emerging cold sore comes back.  I can't thank the parents at the various autism/bio-med Yahoo! groups enough.  

The Os are not on the autistic spectrum, but some of Big O's digestive issues and our mercury issues have led me to these groups and those parents are brave, smart, and caring.  They openly and generously share their personal experiences (both positive and not so positive) with the various biomedical and natural remedies out there.  Without their collective help, I would never have thought to look to Olive Leaf Extract and Lysine for helping my body beat down a virus. Shoot, I'd have never even agreed to try these things without seeing such extensive anecdotal evidence produced by these families.  Thankfully, here I am, trying it out, and experiencing results!

But, there's this other pesky little thing lingering in my head - quite literally in fact - mercury.  It's in my mouth - lots of it.  It's in my body according to a urine porphyrins test.  It's in at least Big O's body (also determined via urine porphyrins testing) and I'm fairly sure if we tested Little O we'd see his body has some, too.  

It makes me sad, angry, frustrated, worried.  The Professor and I want to have more children, but there's part of me that just cannot enter another pregnancy with so much mercury in my body.  Thankfully, the Os are truly amazingly healthy and happy little boys. They are intelligent, kind, rambunctious, energetic, adorable, handsome, special people.  They are. I know this and am grateful.

But, there are little things that I am certain can at least, in part, be blamed on the mercury.  It's nearly impossible for me to articulate and every time I consider trying, I realize how trivial most parents would think my concerns to be.  I realize this.  I do.  But I also know there are things mercury is doing to their (and my) bodies that are less than ideal.  It's that whole mother's intuition tainted by science thing again...

The thing is, I am on the cusp of having the opportunity to have my amalgams removed finally and to begin chelating myself, and hopefully at least Big O.  It's an expensive endeavor - both in terms of money and in terms of health.  (It is truly unfortunate that children are still burdened with these mercury laden dental fillings.)  It should, and I believe will, ultimately result in better health.  But, it can be a tough road.  

I have this constant battle in my head about the next baby.  The Professor points to our two perfect little boys and wonders why I am concerned about having another before removing amalgams and chelating.  Sometimes I wonder, too.  But, the bottom line is that in my heart and way down deep, I know I know too much now.  No, we aren't getting any younger and I realize that as I push closer to 40 before having another baby our risk of issues like Down's syndrome and other chromosomal conditions increases.  But, I also want to be happy about being pregnant.  Enjoy it. Savor it.  I want to enjoy breastfeeding again.  Relish in providing my baby with the most natural, healthy nourishment intended just for her (yes, of course I'd love to add a girl to our brood!).  But, as long as there is mercury running rampant in my body,  I will have an underlying degree of guilt and concern throughout pregnancy and breastfeeding. 

Aside from that, mercury toxicity can manifest in many ways and can take a slow toll over time.  Who knows how my health might be in two or three years?  If I got pregnant this month, I would not be able to have my amalgams removed and chelate until I'm finished breastfeeding.  That could be at least two, probably three or more years.  By then, maybe my health would really decline, who knows?

I think I'm at peace with taking a year off from trying to have another baby to get myself to at least a lighter mercury load.  I'll be 38 this year in November.  If I get amalgams out and chelation under way by, say, June, I might be in position to work on getting pregnant again by next June or July.  Yes, our chances of certain complications will increase over the next year.  But I still think the benefits of removing the mercury from my body before getting pregnant again outweigh the risks of not getting the mercury out before getting pregnant again.

Perhaps the weekly "surprise" post will now evolve into the random update on our mercury eradication process. . . .  

An experiment - GF/CF/SF/EF Shepherd's Pie

I had not envisioned doing much talk about cooking on this blog.  I do a lot of it and I usually enjoy it, but I'm no cooking expert.  I wish I had more time to devote to cooking, but I suppose I could make that if I were to give up time spent doing some other things (like trying to write a blog entry now and then...).  =)

Anyway, though I do not expect to be posting "our food" here very often, I sometimes wonder why people feel badly or sad for us when they find out what we do not eat.  The only time it really gets 'in the way' is when we try to eat out, which of course is such a big part of American life.  But I try to not focus on what we cannot eat, and think in terms of what we can eat.  It's a lot easier that way, and seems more positive for the Os as they grow up with our diet.  

If I were to be honest, I do miss cheese.  I do not miss other dairy products really, just cheese. And I have indulged in cheese on occasion the couple of months.  Probably three times.  No, it was probably four.  I have to say, it only lived up to my expectations, my memory of what it was like to enjoy cheese, one of those times.

And I wish we could eat eggs.  It would make gluten-free baking a lot easier and they are such a great source of protein and many other good things.

But, the truth is that I have very little desire to go back to eating gluten, milk/casein, soy, or eggs because I have seen the benefits and improvements in myself and my children.  And, more significantly, I have seen the setbacks and discomforts after an infraction.  My ears are still stuffy and 'bubbly' sounding, I have been tired and grumpier than usual after the last cheese indulgences (two of those aforementioned incidents were in the past few days).  Oh, and, yeah, the bowels have noticed, too.

I digress.  Sometimes I think people really wonder exactly what we eat - as if it were some strange gruel that our food choices have been reduced to.  It is simple, but it's not gruel.  

Fruits, vegetables, chicken, beef, pork, sometimes fish, home made baked treats, rice bread, rice or corn based cereals, coconut milk ice cream. . . various combinations of the above and other items like cocoa/chocolate, corn chips, potato chips, guacamole, salsa, hummus, rice crackers, etc.  We chose to buy organic and/or sustainable products as much as possible and I am continually seeking out ways to affordably acquire humanely raised and organic meats.

Supper can be as simple as bun-free burgers with roasted rosemary potatoes and raw carrot sticks.  Or, on days when I get a little more creative with the meat, potatoes, onions, fresh carrots, and frozen peas, I experiment with things like Shepherd's Pie.  I used the chicken left over from the previous night's roasted chicken.  I got the potatoes into boiling water and then sautéed the onions and carrots a bit, added in some home made chicken stock (à la Nourishing Traditions) that was in my freezer, and stirred in some potato starch to thicken.  I added in the frozen peas and chicken and poured the concoction into a casserole dish.  The potatoes were mashed with olive oil, coconut milk, garlic, and salt, then spread on top. I baked the whole thing a short while and served.  It wasn't bad for gruel.

Monday Surprise . . . . #1

It's official. . . The weekly surprise feature is moving to Mondays (shhhh. . . don't tell me - as long as I think of it as the Sunday Surprise, I'll surely be able to get one posted by Monday!).

I hope all the mommies and "like-a-mom" women out there had a lovely weekend and Mother's Day!  I am sure a lot of moms out there are receiving lovely gifts from their children and spouses.  My guess is that some of these gifts are for pampering Mom - day at the spa/salon, lotion/shower gel gift baskets, and other beauty products.  This was my inspiration for today's Sunday Surprise - skin care and beauty products.

When I first found I was responding to being gluten-free, I was surprised and a bit disappointed, but it was also serendipitous because I was beginning to feel differently than I had felt in at least my adult life.  And it was wonderful!  It was as if I found out what it was like to feel "good" - what "normal" must feel like for others.  

Though I was enjoying this new aspect of my life, I was not looking forward to the burden that I thought adding GF to our already CF/SF/EF (and at that time corn-free) diet would impose.  That said, I was willing to do whatever I needed to do to comply with the diet, because the return was so great on my investment.

The one thing I chose to not believe in the beginning of this journey was that gluten (or our other problematic foods) in topical products like shampoos, soaps, and cosmetics could actually be a problem.  I had read both sides of the story.  The "Mother warriors" and devout adult GF'ers were saying that gluten in ANY thing that comes in contact with the body (via ingestion or topically) was a problem.  The mainstream medical sources were saying that gluten was only a problem in items that are ingested and the only concern for topical gluten exposure was for small children who might stick fingers in their mouths after topical exposure, or perhaps, ingest enough by putting their mouth on mom or dad who had used a topical gluten-containing product.

In the beginning, I sided with the mainstream medical viewpoint, probably mostly because I wanted/needed to in order to not feel overwhelmed with the process of eliminating gluten from my life. Now I know that those who wrote the mainstream medical viewpoints I had come across were not, in fact, themselves gluten-intolerant.  Otherwise, they'd have known that using a topical product that contains gluten does cause problems for a gluten-intolerant person.

I saw my hairstylist shortly after having gone gluten-free and I did not even think twice about the products she would use.  I only indulge in a hair cut once in a while and I was just really looking forward to escaping into a different world for a little while and emerging transformed and feeling glamorous - if only for a few hours before returning to the mommy zone.  I distinctly remember feeling dazed and overly exhausted for a couple days after that visit.  

After that visit, I decided to take a look at my own products at home.  I wondered if it were possible that some of my topical products were the culprit of my being "glutened" rather than my food.  My shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel were all free of our irritating foods (gluten, milk/casein, soy, and egg) already.  That was good! But, a couple of the hand soaps in our house were not free of our allergens and some of my cosmetics seemed to have questionable ingredients.  After phasing these things out, I did notice a difference - I was feeling "glutened" less! 

A few months later, I went back for a hair cut, this time armed with the list of allergen-containing products from Aveda. (Kudos! to Aveda, by the way. I emailed with my query about gluten in their products and they quickly responded with a list that detailed a variety of allergens present in their products.)  My fabulous stylist used only "safe" products and, well, wouldn't you know it, not only did I feel glamorous when I left, but I did not experience the "down" I'd felt after the last haircut.  

Every once in a while, after being out and washing my hands in public bathrooms using whatever soap is made available, I start to feel junkie again.  Sure, it could be something sneaky in the food at the restaurant rather than the soap in their bathroom, but I will never know.  So, for me, when it comes to getting glutened (or "caseined," "egged," or "soyed"), I say better safe than sorry!  I'll tend to believe the non-mainstream medical view and live without gluten, milk/casein, soy, or egg in ny topical health and beauty products!

Dabbling in self-sustainability. . .

Last year, we started backyard gardening. It was more of an experiment, with our primary focus on providing the Os with a fun, outdoor learning experience. Whatever produce we were able to harvest would have been CF icing on the GF/CF/SF/EF cake. Thanks to poor location choice for planting many of the seedlings and seeds and most frustratingly, our local zucchini bandits, we did not get any real harvest from our garden last summer. You can read more about our 2008 gardening adventures in the April 10 edition of the Orange Cat.

In the course of the past year, I have become intrigued with the concept of urban farming and have realized the significance of working toward being more self-sustainable. I'm not interested in urban farming as a money-making endeavor, though that is an intriguing idea. It's hardly feasible in our yard which is mostly shaded by very old (but beautiful!) oak trees for a good potion of the day. There are only a few patches of our yard that receive, at best, six to eight hours of sunlight on any given day. Not to mention my novice gardening skills.

This summer, we are using the backyard garden as a fun and natural learning experiment again. But, we are expanding on that experiment to include more focus on actually generating fruits and vegetables to help reduce our dependence on produce from other parts of the country and from other countries. Thanks to the climate in Southern California, I expect we'll be able to enjoy some fall and winter crops as well.

To date, we have already enjoyed about 4 or 5 strawberries from our strawberry plant from the farmers' market. Some day, I hope to create a little in-ground strawberry patch and have a larger harvest of one of the Os' favorite fruits. We've also enjoyed one salad with a couple of handfuls of mesculin mix from the back yard garden and some dandelion greens.

It's still early in the season, but our observations to date indicate that we may be on the right track for a successful harvest this year. If we can stave off the zucchini bandits and other four-legged thieves, we might even have enough harvest to share some with our neighbors and to preserve some to enjoy later in the year.

Sunday (well, Monday) Surprise, #3

Once again, I’m late.  This time, really late!  Perhaps I should change weekly “surprise” entry to Monday, maybe even Tuesday, Surprise?  I’ll do better next Sunday, I will.  Really. . .

So, recently I’ve been trying to track down the sneaky source of gluten, or one of our other allergens, that has sent Little O in to a downward spiral of dermatitis of some kind and a few other of his “glutened” symptoms. 

We have eaten out more than usual in the last two or three weeks, enhancing our chances of exposure to one of our problematic foods, And, I have to admit, there is something I often let myself overlook, for the convenience of getting to eat out, despite knowing better. 

The oil used in deep fryers at restaurants is rarely gluten free.  That means that items like fries and corn tortilla chips, which one thinks ought to be gluten free, may in fact be cross-contaminated by having co-mingled in oil that has flirted with gluten, too.  (Also note, fries are sometimes coated or seasoned, which can introduce gluten aside from what might be in the frying oil.)

Honestly, when we first went gluten free, I did not believe (or, perhaps more correctly, did not want to believe) that something so seemingly minor as frying in the same oil as a gluten-containing food could cause enough “cross-contamination” to bother a gluten-intolerant person.  I’d read about it in various discussion forums on the internet.  I just didn’t (want to) believe it would pertain to me or my family.  I thought people were being overly dramatic somehow or parents were just misinterpreting their children’s reactions.  Really, how could some remnants of high temperature deep fat fried food really cause a problem for my gluten-free items fried in the same oil?

Yet, I can still vividly recall the day I realized that “glutened” deep fryer oil did, in fact, result in problems for us.  We had added gluten-free to our list of eliminated foods in January 2008.  In April of that year, we embarked on our first camping trip with the boys.  

On the way to the campground, we stopped in at a Jack In The Box restaurant (no, I’m not proud of that) and the boys and I ordered fries to go with our home made sandwiches and the fruit we brought with us.  At this point in our lives, I would have been perfectly happy to not have ordered anything for the boys and myself, but we were still transitioning and for Big O, having some fries seemed like such a big treat that it was nice to indulge him once in a while. 

Well, the first night camping, Little O was a complete wreck.  One might say that he was having a hard time sleeping because of the new surroundings, sleeping in a tent for the first time, the cold dampness at night, etc.  However, my intuition knew better.  This kid is so easy going and adapts to any new environment with ease, especially if Big O and I are there with him. No, I knew there was something going on internally, in his GI tract.  Backing up my intuition were the facts that 1) Big O did not have a bowel movement the whole camping trip and was experiencing his “urgent” pee incidents and accidents, and 2) I was a bit more tired and irritable than usual.

What I can say is that this was a turning point for us.  I stopped trusting any fried restaurant food, and until recently the boys and I have not had any fried restaurant food except for the occasional order of fries from In-N-Out burger because I know the only thing that goes in their fryers are potatoes.

And, don’t get me wrong.  This is not a complaint.  I have no desire to eat typical ‘fast food’ ever again.  It’s not food by any stretch of the imagination. I do long for a convenient way to get whole, real, nourishing foods in a quick and affordable way, but I do not desire to eat typical American fast food ever again.  In fact, there are not many affordable, family-friendly restaurants that I like to eat food at anymore really.  In our society and culture, it is hard to avoid the convenience of eating out and with young children, dietary restrictions, and a tight budget, our choices for eating out are limited (until I open my restaurant, that is…. some day…). 

Oh, there I go digressing again…

A long story made short – today’s Sunday Monday Surprise is that fried foods can elicit gluten reactions.  I'm guessing all the corn tortilla chips and crispy tacos at the Mexican restaurant we've eaten at several times this past month may have sparked Little O's rash and all of our irritability and, shall we say, slower GI tracts.

Of course, many a fried food is dredged in flour, batter, and/or coated before frying – that’s generally an overt gluten clue.  What I’m talking about is foods that would otherwise not be considered to contain gluten, such as corn tortilla chips or potato fries, which are fried in oil that has been used to fry gluten-flour dredged/battered/coated foods. 

Some restaurants claim their fries to be gluten free (as many fast food restaurants do) and some will say that the fries are gluten-free but that the oil is shared with gluten-containing foods. I think it is safe to assume that any restaurant fryer used for both gluten-containing foods and “gluten-free” foods, such that no fried restaurant food is truly “safe” for a gluten-intolerant unless the restaurant can confirm they use a dedicated gluten-free fryer. 

Guess the boys and I will stick to our occasional indulgence in the fries from In-N-Out.  But I’ll continue to bring our own bun-free burgers and fermented organic catsup. Now, if only they’d start using organic potatoes and expeller-pressed oil. . .