mental health problems? 2/13 - 1st Meeting for RV Chronic Illness Support

February 8, 2010

Hi Cami,

Often there is a correlation between chronic physical illness and chronic mental

illness, meaning either can cause the other and often does. As a result of this,

often a person with prolonged health problems ends up with both chronic physical

and mental health problems.

It is my belief that an improvement in diet and other aspects of lifestyle are

hugely valuable when rebuilding any aspect of one's health. While sometimes a

medical doctor is needed to set broken bones and in the same sense a therapist

is sometimes needed to help sort out broken beliefs, diet and lifestyle are

often the determining factor in whether healing happens or not as a result of

the formal treatment for either physical or mental health problems.

More and more they are discovering that physiological problems are either the

cause or a major exacerbating factor in mental health problems. A classic

example of this is that within days of being feed a truly clean and healthy

diet, many hyperactive children start behaving like normal healthy children.

In light of all this, and especially because many people with chronic physical

health problems also have chronic mental health problems too, I was wondering if

people with chronic mental health problems are welcome at this group or not.

Also, I'm curious as to who is hosting or facilitating this support group, and

what their interest is in it.

May your day be filled with clarity, grace, strength, progress, and warm

laughter,

Roger

-

" Cami K " <cptnspeaking

Sunday, February 07, 2010 10:40 AM

2/13 - 1st Meeting for RV Chronic Illness Support

> Hi All,

>

> This group is open to people and/or family members dealing with auto-immune

diseases (MS, lupus, sjogren's, IBD, AIDS, etc), chronic allergies, cancer, or

any other chronic illness who are Raw Vegan/Vegan Curious and looking for

support. I imagine this will be good forum to exchange new methods for health

management or recipes to help deal with the day to day symptoms.

>

> We will be meeting at Chaco Canyon from 1-3pm on 2/13. It was suggested that

we reserve a table if the group is going to be greater than 4 people, so please

let me know privately if you are interested in attending. I will be easy to

spot because I will be wearing a big WSU hooded sweatshirt in the middle of Dawg

land LOL.

>

> I hope to see you there,

>

> Cami

>

> ---

>

> Visit the Seattle Raw Foods Community: http://.org! Groups

Links

>

February 8, 2010

Hi Roger,

You had some great points and I thought I would try to address some of them.

My name is Cami Thompson and I have several autoimmune conditions, most notably

systemic lupus erythematosus. I was daignosed about 3 years ago and have been

on a mission to find the most natural healing methods possible while maintaining

good quality of life. I recently became raw vegan - I had wanted to become

vegan sooner but was under the belief that I could not do so because I was

allergic to soy, several legumes, grains, and other " staples " of the vegetarian

diet as it is traditionally viewed. My sister in law sent me a book on raw

veganism, and I was so excited to try this new way of life and have felt much

better (for the most part).

I wanted to start this support group because I found that lupus support groups

are lacking in the area, and I felt the more mainstream groups may not be the

best place for me because a lot of my treatment methods are viewed as

controversial by the mainstream medical community (an example being I take low

dose naltrexone instead of the traditional immune suppressants and my diet is

viewed as extreme). Chronic health conditions are very difficult to deal with

over time and I thought it would be great if a group of us could get together

and encourage eachother, or even just complain about difficulties to people who

encounter similar problems. It's also nice to be able to share recipes or

healing stories so others can try new things.

I am planning on hosting the meetings. I am leaving the interpretation of

" chronic illness " fairly open because I think autoimmune problems, whether they

be allergies or lupus, have similar roots and impacts. I am not a mental health

professional, health professional, or trained in hosting support groups, and

this is meant to be a very casual open topic forum. Chronic health problems can

impact mental function (depression is very common because of malabsorption and

the strain of long term chronic pain and malaise), but I don't have the

expertise to address mental health problems/treatment specifically. My only

" expertise " is trial and error chronic illness management, research, and a whole

lot of food knowledge from a lifetime of allergies. While I definitely see a

need for mental health support in conjunction with chronic illness, I don't know

that I am equipped to run a group with that focus.

Thank you very much for your questions!

Cami

February 9, 2010

Hi Cami,

Thanks for such an open and thoughtful answer. I have a sense of the fine line

that would likely work for this group, and I'm thinking of an example that seems

to clearly illustrate the fine line. The example comes from my own life.

I'm 5' 8 " tall and medium in build, and in 2005 I was down to 119 pounds and

steadily loosing weight. Nothing the mainstream or alternative medicine doctors

did helped, and I was getting scared because my body had been cannibalizing

muscle mass to survive, and there wasn't that much muscle mass left. I was

already on a extremely healthy cooked diet, and there wasn't much left to try.

I was pretty desperate, and decided to give the raw vegan diet a try, figuring

that it wasn't likely to work any worse than what I was already doing, might

work better, and that any chance was better than none.

Among other issues, I had severe hypoglycemia, allergy problems, and digestion

problems, and the transition to raw vegan was really rough in trying to find a

way to get nutrients into me that minimized my symptoms rather than increasing

them. Eventually I arrived at putting 100% of my food into the blender and used

a mix high in almonds, flax, and lettuce. Then gradually I became less sensitive

to the sugar in the fruit, the pain in my abdomen was decreasing, I was starting

to digest my food and get some energy from it, and my weight loss stopped.

As a side note, there are a lot of gender specific hormones in both lettuce and

flax, I was using large amounts of them in every smoothie, and eventually my

breasts (I'm male) started swelling and my nipples started getting tender.

Luckily by the time I figured this out I was doing good enough that I could drop

the flax from my smoothies and cut way back on the lettuce. Then eventually my

breasts returned to normal. Its actually kind of funny, but I was dealing with

too many problems at the time and didn't have much of a sense of humor then.

While its moderately well known that flax is sometimes used as an alternative

for hormone treatments for women, its not well known at all that in traditional

medicine that lettuce is used to help stimulate lactation in new mothers. Based

on my experience, likely there is some truth to this

Then I started regaining my muscle mass and did this on a diet about 98% raw

vegan organic. The 2% was mostly an occasional piece of smoked salmon.

Officially I'm on disability for PTSD, however on a daily basis the allergies

and fatigue problems I have are more debilitating and constraining than the

PTSD.

Living with undiagnosed and untreated PTSD eventually trashes the digestive

system, endocrine system, immune system, and the kidneys and liver. Luckily my

heart seems to be doing just fine This was a blessing because this meant I

had at least one strong system in my body to leverage in helping to heal the

others. PTSD is a lot like cancer in that it keeps digging in deeper and

spreading until treated, and though PTSD starts out as a mental issue, if its

not treated, then eventually it causes pretty severe physiological damage to

both the organs and nerve cells. So I keep tinkering with my diet and am slowly

getting better at working with my diet and slowly my physical health is

improving.

Applying for disability is hell, and I doubt I could have successfully survived

the process without the extra strength, resilience, and clarity I gained from my

mostly raw vegan diet. Basically I credit the raw vegan diet for saving my life.

So on to my example of the fine line for the chronic illness support group. More

and more I'm sensing that my kidneys and liver are just limping along and it

doesn't take much physical or emotional stress and then they more or less shut

down. Then my blood and lymph start toxifying. Then my functionality starts

unraveling, and an increase of anxiety is just one of several problems such as

groggy confused thinking and reduced energy.

So I'm starting to feel my way through putting together a " be kind to my kidneys

and liver " program, and it would be nice to talk about this with other people

who are working on parallel issues. The better my kidneys and liver are doing,

the more stable, grounded, and capable my emotional state is. Likely most other

people with weak kidneys and liver have similar experiences when they are too

stressed to function and have similar gains when the kidneys and liver are

happily doing their jobs.

The fine line that makes sense to me is that dealing with why I have anxiety

problems doesn't fit into this support group. Talking over a " be kind to my

kidneys and liver " program, which among other things indirectly supports

emotional stability as the blood and lymph get and stay cleaner, does seem to be

a topic for the group.

Another similar thing I've found is that even very small amounts of spices like

cinnamon and cloves make me crabby and irritable. So the strongest seasoning I

regularly use is parsley, and am trying to find food that can be used as

flavoring and just skip the spices and pungent herbs. Sharing mild but flavorful

recipes, that don't irritate the central nervous system or digestive system,

seems like a good topic for the support group discussion.

I'm quite frustrated that so many of the raw vegan recipes use large amounts of

hot spices, and also use lots of the nightshade family which I and many other

people are quite allergic to.

If you dig into it, you will find that many of the hot spices and pungent herbs

effect the central nervous system. A typical effect is to numb or irritate nerve

cells, or to do both. I really don't understand why a food culture, that is

focused on health, tolerates " natural " food additives that so strongly disturb

the normal functioning of one of the body's main systems. Getting some

encouraging support for dealing with this would be nice and getting some new

gentle recipes would be a great bonus.

A recent idea I've just started thinking about is using guided imagery

meditation to help my digestive system and immune system cooperate better on

dealing with the food I eat in positive ways rather than in ways that cause more

problems.

Guided imagery meditation is the same practice used by people with cancer to

support their healing. Guided imagery meditation is used to help boost and focus

the immune system for dealing with the cancer. Its also used to ask the body

what it needs or what it needs changed. Guided imagery meditation can be used as

a two-way dialog between the conscious mind and the body to optimize support and

healing for the body.

If guided imagery meditation can do this, then it seems reasonable that this

might be an effective way to communicate with the immune system to clarify

misunderstandings about the difference between healthy and unhealthy food so the

immune system doesn't trigger an allergy reaction to healthy food.

I would really love to be able to eat carrots, and to eat raw pickled

vegetables, but can't right now. Its essential in a basic diet and health sense

that I broaden my very narrow diet, and having a wider range of recipes to

choose from would definitely increase my satisfaction in eating. So I'm starting

to think over how to accomplish this, and it would be nice to be able to talk it

over with other people with similar concerns.

Cami, does all this make sense to you? I hope so. Please let me know what you

think of these examples about what might and might not fit into the support

group for chronic illness.

May your day be filled with clarity, grace, strength, progress, and warm

laughter,

Roger

-

" Cami K " <cptnspeaking

Monday, February 08, 2010 10:55 AM

Re: mental health problems? > 2/13 - 1st Meeting for RV

Chronic Illness Support

> Hi Roger,

>

> You had some great points and I thought I would try to address some of them.

>

> My name is Cami Thompson and I have several autoimmune conditions, most

notably systemic lupus erythematosus. I was daignosed about 3 years ago and

have been on a mission to find the most natural healing methods possible while

maintaining good quality of life. I recently became raw vegan - I had wanted to

become vegan sooner but was under the belief that I could not do so because I

was allergic to soy, several legumes, grains, and other " staples " of the

vegetarian diet as it is traditionally viewed. My sister in law sent me a book

on raw veganism, and I was so excited to try this new way of life and have felt

much better (for the most part).

>

> I wanted to start this support group because I found that lupus support groups