Plant Based Wellness

This article Plant Based Diet for Fibromyalgia shares the results of research of Fibro patients going to a Vegan (plant based) diet and the results.  The improvement was significant.

My Rheumatologist has long supported a plant based diet and has also seen significant results with his patients that have followed it.  This article is pretty straightforward in saying that most of us eat “crappy” food.  Well…it’s a vicious cycle, isn’t it? You don’t feel well so what do you reach for? Fast, easy, little effort food. Most of us are just happy to get food in our stomachs that stays down and doesn’t flare up in an IBS episode.  In doing so, however, we are actually worsening our condition. Tough to hear, I know, but it’s the truth.

This is the reason I suggest baby steps in diet changes…try “mostly” vegetarian, or as my doctor would say “the meat should be the accessory to the meal”.  While this article suggests that this type of change is not beneficial (according to “research”), I can tell you from experience that this is fundamentally not true.  Those that I have talked to that make even small changes see improvement and guess what? Sometimes that small improvement is just the foothold you need to make bigger changes. Another one to try is the Paleo diet, but this article gives some great suggestions if you are interested in changing what you eat.

So what’s the deal with plants?  As the article suggests, eating a plant based diet (or even gluten free diets) avoids several things: processed foods (chemicals, toxins, sodium, artificial agents), inflammatory agents, antibiotic and steroid injected meat, the list goes on and on.  Plants also clean the body (detox). For me, if I had to go Vegan, well…I would just starve to death. Call me a child, but I really, really, really do not like vegetables. So I educated myself on the aims of a plant based diet and went from there. Even going Vegan will not protect you if you don’t know not to eat GMO corn!

Ok, so what’s my point? Avoid inflammatory (beef) and processed foods as much as possible. If you love veggies, this will be easy for you, just make sure they are organic, healthy veggies.  The other option: plant based therapy – therapeutic grade essential oils**.

There are several aims of the Vegan diet that can be met through use of therapeutic grade essential oils. First and foremost  – detoxification.  Clean your blood, your liver, your colon. These oils have the ability to clear your body of not just nutritional, and environmental toxins, but emotional toxins as well, which should not be underestimated. Secondly, therapeutic grade essential oils actually have nutrients in the most concentrated form you can imagine.

One drop of therapeutic grade lemon oil contains the same nutritional value as one pound of lemon rinds!  And as I mentioned in my previous post, the oils go directly into your blood stream (just like anything else you put on your skin) and go straight to work enriching and cleaning your body. I haven’t researched this specifically for ingesting plants, but it is true that the oils raise your vibrational frequency, thereby allowing your body to heal itself.

As always, my goal is to provide information to help you feel better and give inspiration and ideas on how to get there. For more information on the benefits of a plant based diet, check out the movie Forks over Knives (now on Netflix).

As always, love yourself and little more today, and be committed to taking care of you.

**Be sure any oils you use are 100% pure essential oil. If the label says “not for consumption” or “do not use internally” it is not 100% pure essential oils, even if it claims to be. If it can not be used internally, why would you put it on your skin?

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New Research Sheds Light

My sister-in-law sent an article to me earlier this week which unveils some new light into Fibromyalgia. The ARTICLE discusses how researchers have found that FMS patients have “extremely excessive amount of a particular type of nerve fiber called arteriole-venule (AV) shunts”

(What??)

There Arteriole and Venules are tiny blood vessels that carry blood too and from the arteries and veins. (remember in biology class? arteries and veins carry blood to and away from the heart). These little guys are how blood gets from one to the other. Sort of the state highways between the interstates. Here’s visual:

Surrounding these highways are nerves. Up until now it was thought that these nerves only regulated blood flow. Now researchers are figuring out that they do, in fact, have pain receptors and that Fibro patients have *more* of those pain receptors (shunts) than average. The article probably does an adequate job of explaining what that means for us: more sensory means more pain. Researchers also believe this is the cause for the fatigue and inflammation that accompanies FMS, but also links that to the hyperactive response in the brain. Remember, only a few years ago they realized that Fibro patients have a neurotic response….(okay, not neurotic, but that’s what it feel like, right?) a neuro response of some sort which leads to the brain attempting to “fix” an injury that isn’t really there. This research links the two schools of thought together: rheumatology and neurology. However, no one has yet been able to determine why or how this problem came to be. What causes all these additional “shuts” to become present?

A couple of weekends ago I had a chance to sit down with my favorite massage therapist/naturopath who explained to me that just because an injury isn’t visible, doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Toxins we are exposed to daily, both environmental and emotional, are injuries. Until we wrap our heads around that the effects of chemicals in our air, food, products, and the effects of stress and emotional trauma have on our bodies, we are going to continue to bang our heads on proverbial brick wall.

What does all this mean for me and you?

First, a suggestion as to why this happens: toxicity. Maybe (and I’m just theorizing here) the body is trying to clean itself by causing faster blood flow. If these nerve endings regulate blood flow, maybe a response to toxins is to grow more of them. Whether or not this is true, my experience over the past six months is that detoxing our bodies is central to getting better.

Second, the oils!! This gives me so much more insight into why the work. If there are trace amounts of inflammation in the blood stream of Fibro patients, and the blood is traveling past and through these “shuts”, of course the oils work!  They go directly into your blood stream! Additional, when inhaled, they go to work on the brain, calming it’s neurotic response. The inflammatory oils like Eucalyptus, bring down the inflammation in the blood, while oils like Copaiba calm down the nervous system response (the shunts themselves).

So what happens when you stop using the oils? Guess what? Nothing. I’m happy to report that I am no longer taking any of my fibro medications. I am now on “maintenance” oils. Instead of using my blends every day, I use them once or twice a week.  This is not entirely a “get out of pain-free” card, however. I still cannot eat beef, and extreme physical activity (and I mean extreme, not just carrying a box upstairs) will send me into a flare. “Flare” however, now means I ache and whine for a couple of days as opposed to being bed-ridden.  So there are times that I do have to keep the hydrocodone handy. But I am far from my coffee & lortab breakfast that used to be my life.

I am so excited to share this news and have had such a huge response, recently, to those who are willing to try something new. I have been so motivated by the replies, questions, and emails that I have made a new facebook page.  Fibro Freedom  My hope is for a forum where others can share their journey to wellness.  While my story is about oils, others have found their way there through different means. It’s brand new so go “like” the page and we all will do our best to keep it updated with information and suggestions to a better, happier, more abundant life!