The
road to health and well-being is a long and winding one, and one that
takes a fair bit of perseverance.
Sometimes it seems as though it is going in a totally irrelevant
direction, but I’ve discovered that the journey is a bit like travelling
through Nottingham’s notorious one-way system: it does have some kind of
logic and you do get to your destination, eventually.
My background is that
of a social worker and counsellor and I am used to considering the effects
that the environment can have on one’s mental and physical health. It is
obvious that someone living in a damp and draughty tenement (as many
people did when I first started my social work career in London and then
Nottingham in the early 1970s) were going to be faced with additional
problems such as bronchitis. Someone managing for years on what was then
called Supplementary Benefit would have difficulties in maintaining a
sense of dignity and self-respect. I also knew that poor nutrition would
play a part in a person’s ability to cope, but then just saw this as a
question of inadequate quantity and of a lack of fresh fruit and
vegetables.
I
certainly didn’t see myself as someone whose mental and emotional
health was affected overmuch by my environment and certainly not by the
food I ate. I had a well-paying job, had a warm, comfortable home and ate
“well and sensibly”.
I
had pre-menstrual tension each month and regularly had colds – but that,
I believed, was normal.
It
was a long time before I discovered that what
is “normal” is not the same as what is “necessary”.
As the song has it – “It ain’t necessarily so”… that PMS is
inevitable, that colds can't be avoided, that a general decline in health
and well-being is a person’s allotted path, until the grave makes it
permanent.
Before
I learnt this, I had some pretty rough travelling to do:
Polio
makes an unexpected return call
I’d
had childhood polio, but – although needing to use a cane for
walking – had by and large put it behind me by the time I was in my
teens. One legacy that wouldn’t go away was the tendency to develop
bronchitis at the drop of a cold virus. Two or three times a year was not
uncommon.
I
was conscious of how much schooling I had lost, because of years in and
out of hospital, and so began a habit of driving myself to achieve and to
be better than other people. (I feel sure now that a feeling of inadequacy
was what I was fighting). Whilst I was young and brimming with energy this
habit stood me in good stead: - I rose reasonably swiftly within my
professional career, and still saw myself as being in good health despite
regular chest infections, eczema, headaches and chronic dyspepsia.
But
I had given my body a battering over the years and it gave me notice not
long after my fortieth birthday: In quick succession I had influenza, an
emergency hysterectomy and a lumpectomy on my left breast.
I
succumbed to what is now known as Post Polio Syndrome, as my body went
back, under the onslaught, to the level of disability that I’d had as a
child, wheelchair and all. The organisation that I worked for kept my job
open for a year, but it was eventually clear that I would have to
retire early.
I
was living alone at the time and the experience of suddenly finding myself
needy – of being on the “other side of the case file” as I put it at
the time – was disorientating and depressing, as was the removal of all
my valued social roles. Who was I if I didn’t work?
I
now started to experience my own version of the vicious spiral that I had
so often witnessed in the lives of my social work clients: The pain and
exhaustion caused by the post-polio effects made walking and exercise
difficult; the lack of exercise in turn made underused muscles weaker –
but too much exercise, I was warned would, wear out such a weakened system
completely. I had already lost partial use of my right arm through over
use and was terrified of doing it with other muscle systems. I was damned
if I did, and damned if I didn’t and I was completely at sea.
Quite understandably, I
became depressed. (Seasonal Affective Disorder and the menopause added to
this somewhat …) Fortunately, I asked my GP to refer me to a
psychiatrist for advice and I was fortunate to see to Dr Alan Lee at
Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre. To my amazement, as well as
prescribing Prozac, he advised that I should take a “very good
multi-vitamin and mineral supplement”! I had already had some contact
with the Women’s Nutritional Advisory Service about managing the hot
flushes/flashes that I was suffering, and the appalling mood swings that
were making my life (and that of my husband) hell, so already had some
information about the effect of nutrition on health and well-being.
I
began taking supplements, and after trying several major brands over an 18
month period, I started to take the supplements that I use now - and the
resulting improvement in my physical and mental health has been profound.
I taught myself as much as I could about nutrition and applied all I
learnt.
After
4 months on the supplements I bought via my friend and complementary
therapist Julie, my husband (oh yes – I got married in
this midst of all this!) said that I seemed to him like a car that had
suddenly been given a thorough engine tune and has been given the correct
grade of petrol for the first time! Certainly I feel rather like that.
I
now take Maximol vitamin and mineral solutions, manufactured
by Neways,an American firm, who are extremely coy about there being any
possibility of them being seen to be "making medical claims" for
their products. This has an enormous mixture of sixty or so
minerals and more than twenty vitamins, plus various trace elements and
amino acids. It is in
micro-colloidal liquid form which helps to ensure higher absorption, and
this probably contributes to it being noticeably more efficaciousness that
the vitamin and mineral supplements that I had been taking.
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If
I were a car, the vitamin and minerals solution is the fuel that keeps me going.
It makes sure
that my ordinary diet is supplemented fully with all the little bits and
pieces that I probably won’t be getting from food bought from a
supermarket. where things have been picked some months back, perhaps,
when they are not ripe and which will be losing their vitamins for a quite
long time before they actually get to the shelf and get bought by
me.
I
used to think that, eating a lot of fruit and vegetables as I do, that
supplements were unnecessary. But, once I realised how our modern
food-chain is organised, I realised that although a good diet is fundamental
to good health, it is actually impossible now in modern urban conditions for you ever to get a decent
diet unless you grow all of your own food organically and pick and
eat it straight away. I'd love to be able to do that - but it just isn't
possible for me in my circumstances.
The
next most important thing that I take is the antioxidant complex,
Revenol, also manufactured by Neways. Again, using the analogy of the car, I
think of this as anti rust treatment and as the equivalent of the oil and WD40 that
would be used in and on a car.
This is an pretty exact analogy, as
rusting on metal is very similar process to the damage that free radicals
do to humans and animals, causing us to get achy, get problems with our
immune system, develop cancers and so on.
I
took antioxidants initially to help with my eczema and to help with the care of
my skin. To my amazement have found that it has now almost completely got
rid of the oedema
(oedema/edema) in my feet and ankles which had been very severe
and painful and had worsened in recent years since I began using a
wheelchair following the onset of Late Effects of Polio. My husband, a
research scientist, looked up the research on the components parts of
Revenol and we found that two of the ingredients – oligomeric
proanthrocyanidins and
ginkgo biloba - are used in some countries as treatment to strengthen the
circulatory system. They work by making the cell walls of the veins,
capillaries and arteries stronger and more resilient, which of course
helps the blood flow.
My long term problem with urinary urgency lessened and then
disappeared. This has been reported to us by many other people since, and
Paul is looking into the research as to the physiological mechanisms
involved. (Additionally, my memory, concentration and studying ability
seemed to improve. Gingko Biloba helps the flow of blood to the brain and
is used sometimes for people with senility problems and Alzheimer’s.
All antioxidant complexes will also havevitamin E in them, which has been shown
scientifically to help in the early stages of the onset of Alzheimer’s.)
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My
Current Regime (as off
3rd May, 2001)
