For the sake of providing a little
background information on what we are dealing with, I’ve outlined the most
prominent health problems that Mike has been diagnosed with along with links to further information.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is exactly as it
sounds – long term, debilitating exhaustion persisting longer than six months,
interchangeable with ME
Myaligic: muscle aches and pains
Encephalomyelitis: inflammation of the brain or spinal cord.
CFS/ME is a controversial illness for a few reasons. There is no one test
to diagnose a person with CFS/ME. It is up to the discretion of the Physician
to label a person with this condition after observing a set of symptoms
associated with the condition, which isn’t always easy because the symptoms and
their severity range from person to person. There is also no proof of
inflammation in the brain or spinal cord, which brings the “Encephalomyelitis’
into question. While doctors often use the Chronic Fatigue name, patients often
prefer the ME diagnosis because the Fatigue in CFS doesn’t accurately describe
just how debilitating the accompanying exhaustion is.
There is no known cause of CFS/ME, just theories. One popular theory is
that it is triggered by a viral infection like influenza or glandular fever. It
is almost as if the person affected becomes ill with a flu like virus, and then
never fully recovers the strength they had before becoming ill. Everyday is a
fog-filled fight with aches, pains, and debilitating fatigue. Not everyone with
CFS/ME is set off by an illness however. Other known triggers are: poor
immune system, imbalance of hormones, stress, depression, emotional/physical
trauma, and possibly a genetic predisposition.
Treatment for CFS/ME is virtually nonexistent and vague at best. Patients
might be advised to take on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help deal with the
diagnosis, given graded physical therapy, or prescribed pain relievers or
antidepressants to help manage the pain. It is also advised to avoid
stressful/traumatic situations, avoid caffeine, sugar, or other foods that
might cause reaction, and to relax more.
Autoimmune:
relating to
disease caused by antibodies or lymphocytes produced against substances
naturally present in the body.
In other words, your body attacks it’s
own cells.
Coeliac Disease in an autoimmune condition
where the body recognizes gluten (the protein found in wheat, rye, barley, and
more) as an unwanted foreign object and responds as such by attacking healthy
tissue throughout the body. Symptoms for Coeliac Disease are often associated
with gut issues i.e. abdominal pain, bloating, gas, diarrhoea, but can
also include things like mouth ulcers, weight loss/gain, hair loss—the list
could go on. Symptoms can also result in more serious problems when
left unattended for too long, such as: arthritis, infertility, osteoporosis, and
possibly even cancer of the small bowels.
In a healthy gut, the small intestine is
lined with villi (small finger like projections). The villi works to absorb
nutrients and electrolytes from food as it passes through, leaving the larger
undigested food particles to continue on to the large intestine. When a person
afflicted with Coeliac Disease consumes gluten, the small intestine becomes damaged and the villi is unable to absorb the nutrients of the food as these
particles pass through which in turn leads to malnourishment.
The only known treatment for Coeliac
Disease is to remove gluten from the diet entirely. Unfortunately, this is a
classic case of easier said than done. It’s not just a matter of ‘don’t eat
bread and pasta’. Coeliac’s must also be aware of what’s in their medicines,
lip balms, and vitamins because gluten is commonly found in everyday products.
Cross contamination is also a very serious problem that people with gluten
intolerances face. Since gluten/flour is an airborne substance, food prepared
in factories and kitchens that work with gluten containing products can and do
easily contaminate seemingly gluten free foods. It’s also transfers from
worktop surfaces, and through frying oils. To put it bluntly – this is a total
bitch for Coeliac’s who want to eat out in restaurants like everybody else.
Leaky Gut Syndrome is the plain English
name for “Hyper-permeable Intestines”. In other words, the small intestine in
the gut becomes porous due to intestinal damage, allowing undigested food particles, known as macromolecules, to leak
out of the intestine and into the blood stream. When the macromolecules enter
into the blood stream, your body reacts as if foreign invaders are attacking
the body and attacks right back. This can result in a wide range of inflammatory
responses like brain fog, headaches, IBS, arthritis, etc etc. Now, not only is
gluten considered the enemy, by formerly safe foods can set off an inflammatory
response because of the macromolecules entering freely into the blood stream.
The problem with Leaky Gut Syndrome is the
fact that it is not yet formally recognized fully by the medical profession as
being a legitimate condition. While it is known that consuming excessive
amounts of alcohol, taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, undergoing
chemotherapy, eating dairy products, and taking antibiotics can irritate and
damage the seals between cells causing the gut to become temporarily porous,
this is only seen as a temporary reaction of the body. According to the NHS
“Leaky gut syndrome” web page, certain diseases are also known to cause
inflammation and damage the gut for a limited time. Treatment usually involves
some sort of elimination diet to give the body time to heal itself or by taking
Probiotic supplements to balance out the flora in the gut.
The theory of Leaky Gut Syndrome is
currently too vague of an idea. It hasn’t been proven wrong, but it hasn’t been
proven to be right just yet.
Postural:
posture
Orthostatic:
moving in an upright position
Tachycardia:
abnormally rapid heart rate
Syndrome: a set of
symptoms that cause or relate to one another
In other words, people with PoTS experience
an abnormal rise in heart rate when moving into an upright position which then
triggers a number of different symptoms like: dizziness, headaches, brain fog,
fatigue, palpitations, nausea, and fainting. The trouble with PoTS, is that
most of the symptoms (aside from the fainting) are invisible. Symptoms often get blamed on other problems: dehydration,
exhaustion, stress, not enough food, or like most invisible illness symptoms
get passed off as being; “all in the head”. Because of the lack of awareness and
understanding surrounding PoTS and the difficulty in detecting visual symptoms,
it can be a tricky disease to diagnose which is why the final diagnosis cannot
be made without wearing heart monitors or performing a tilt table test. Cognitive
Behavioural Therapy is even listed one of the possible treatments for PoTS
patients, not because they are dealing with an imaginary illness, but because
PoTS patients often develop other forms of health anxieties after being told
for so long that their symptoms do not actually exist.
When life hands you overly ripe bananas,
it’s time to make banana bread. Or in my case, buy as many bananas as you
can carry and wait until they turn properly spotty so that you can bake to your
hearts content. I cringe thinking back on all the bananas I used to throw out
after they went too soft to eat. If only I knew what I was missing out on all those times!
INGREDIENTS
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