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.

You know there's a problem when

Eggs. At least according to some establishments, eggs are more than just eggs.

Don't ask me why I was looking at Taco Bell's on-line "ingredient statement" - it was a temporary lapse in judgment... I tried to justify it to myself with the thought - "well, what if..." - as in, "what if we were driving a long distance, and Taco Bell were the only option at the time...?" But really, I think it was more driven by the "old me" pondering how nice it might be to have another 'fast food' option in our current gluten-free, casein/milk-free, soy-free, mostly egg-free, but sometimes fast-paced life...

So, I perused the Taco Bell "ingredient statement"- in awe at the complexity of what should've been rather simple food ingredients, amazed by the commonplace appearance of terms like "anti-caking agent," and perplexed by the sheer length of the list of ingredients for some menu items and then I noticed the entry for "egg."

Seriously - "egg" is the actual 'name' for this menu item for which I think 17 ingredients are listed (it's a bit hard to discern what is an "ingredient" and what is a description of an ingredient or what is a sub-ingredient)....

Wow! SEVENTEEN ingredients comprise the Taco Bell version of "egg." And no, it's not simply a listing of the wholesome, natural ingredients in the feed that some humanely treated hens were given prior to laying beautiful, fresh, free-range, organic eggs.

No, this is a list in which "Butter Flavor" has it's own parenthetical listing of eleven (I think I've got it right, 11) ingredients - including an "anti-foaming agent" and "natural and artificial flavors." Don't forget the undefined "BHT" which is apparently added to help "protect flavor" - really?...what IS BHT anyway? Do they abbreviate it because the chemical name is too scary for an average patron to read in a food ingredient list? (BTW, "BHT" is presumably butylated hydroxytoluene - which I'm pretty sure I don't want to purposefully ingest, but . . .)

Over the past couple of years, I have become more knowledgable about prepared and processed foods as a result of my family's need to eliminate certain foods from our diets (e.g., gluten, casein/milk, soy, and egg; and for a while at least, corn).

I have realized how artificial our food supply actually is in the U.S. and I have changed my way of thinking about what is a "healthy choice" in foods. I have realized that 'convenience' is truly a state of mind - and in the U.S., current beliefs on what is convenient in relation to food results in our consupmption of stuff that is called "food" but is not exactly what ought to be considered food.

I hope you'll tune in and join me as I continue to evolve as a scientist-turned-patent-agent-turned-freelance-editor-turned-home-birthing-homeschooling-mother who is discovering the joys of living gluten-free, casein-free, soy-free, mostly-egg-free. It's been quite a journey thus far and certainly more adventures await us as we work toward becoming more self-sustainable, delve into urban farming, and work to build a sense of community in our town of Altadena, CA.