Fascia

HELLO! I’M BACK! Part 5 

I’m sharing my story because I am not alone in this. Almost every human being I talk with has a similar, if not milder, a worse experience. This is not a gender issue. Most people are unaware of existing mineral deficiencies and should be informed about the compounding effects of pharmaceutical drug-induced mineral depletions.

This is an extra long post (5,700 words). It’s doubtful that you will read it all in one sitting. But I hope you will read it and make use of the links provided so as to do your own research long before you need it.

Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting that you self-diagnose like I have. I take full responsibility for my choices. This information is for sharing only. Do your own research, speak to your health care providers if you need to. The following is my story and I am not recommending what I’ve done to help myself as procedure or protocol. 

In the years after 2005 and BEFORE 2014, once I figured out that all my bizarre symptoms were early onset peri-menopausal symptoms (or so I thought) (9a), I explored natural remedies, such as raspberry leaf and red clover etc. I would search for the top herbs used in female/ peri-menopausal health. I made my own ‘female tonic’ using plant recipes from ancient Mayan traditions as well as Hortence’s Formula (10). Hortence’s Formula was amazing and is what drew me to Belize in 2016 to study with Rosita Arvigo (11). You can read Rosita Arvigo’s remarkable story in Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer. She is also a novelist who translates turbulent ancient Maya times through historical fiction. Originally, I was introduced to Arvigo Abdominal Massage via Barbara Loomis (12) with whom I had a Skype session in March 2015, which led me to finding local practitioner, Renée Warner RN (13) in Vancouver. Renée introduced me to Hortence’s Formula and within a week of using it, I noticed that the Hydrocystomas (small bumps below the surface of my skin) on my forearms were shrinking, which was an interesting side effect since I was using it to deal with my irregular, tender uterus and too frequent menses. It was recommended to only use the heroic Hortence’s Formula once or twice, so after that I switched to the curative Female Tonic. 

I’m not exactly sure why I didn’t stick with Female Tonic. I still have jars of my homemade tincture. I can only speculate that my symptoms became more intense with time and I felt that I had to keep searching. Maybe it’s time to dust them off?

All the while, I’d played around with elimination diets such as the Blood Type Diet as well as did the more personalized ALCAT blood test (which in the end broadened the selection of foods I ate) and followed the plan according to my results. Remaining true to nature working with nutrition (homemade bone broths, reading Weston Price (14,15)/ Sally Fallon (16), and listening to Denise Minger’s cautionary tale (17), I tried to integrate more of that whole foods philosophy into my life. Even though I already was very whole foods minded, organic and local-source focused and avoided plastic — known for being a hormone disruptor. I learned about phytates, oxalic acid and the reason why sprouting nuts, seeds and grains was essential. I learned so much during those years but at the same time it was very exhausting because my kids were having their own worrisome health challenges and besides, as if all the details that go along with raising little humans isn’t enough, my declining health made it all the more difficult.

Brain Fog…

Looking back I can see how much I struggled with mentally processing the food preparation information into practice —my brain just couldn’t focus and it was becoming more and more difficult to finish tasks. I felt like an idiot — why couldn’t I do such basic things anymore? Nouns were escaping me. Starting projects or chores was always easy but the finishing was near impossible. I wasn’t a lazy person, I liked to get involved and help out and do things but my behaviour suggested otherwise. I was avoiding social events, one-on-one was manageable, and I’d figured out how to smile and fake it…sometimes. From this side of health, I can say that my lack of focus felt a lot like ADD. I can see the contrast now since I’ve been restoring my minerals, I’ve been back in the kitchen, some days easily whipping up recipes (even though I’m not one hundred percent back –there are still good days and OK days). It’s likely that it was these Whole Foods that kept me just getting-by until I became so much further depleted from sweating out minerals in Hot Yoga followed by the drug-induced mineral depleting effects of bio-identical and mainstream Hormone Replacement Therapy.

But I’m jumping ahead again. Hopefully, this isn’t too confusing to follow 🙂

LATE 2016, I experimented with over the counter tincture, Fémance (18) by St. Francis, but it didn’t seem ‘powerful’ enough for my symptoms. Then while waiting for delivery of Pueraria Mirifica, from the US, I tried over the counter Harmony Menopause Max (19) which, within a few days of starting, was super effective. But within a week the Pueraria Mirifica arrived and I was anxious and curious to try it so I stopped Harmony.

I learned about Amata Plus (Pueraria Mirifica), from Dr. Christiane Northrup (whose name is synonymous with Women’s Health “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom” fame and everything Menopause). In her book, The Wisdom of Menopause, the author gives many options for herbal/alternatives as well as suggestions for Hormone Replacement. I did not read the entire tome so don’t know if she talks about Zinc specifically, but she does talk about the importance of minerals and supplementing. I have since looked in the index and cannot find any references.

Why didn’t I read the book in its entirety? Brain fog, fatigue, inability to focus to name a few reasons. It’s probably a really good idea to stay a few decades ahead in terms of personal health reading. Although, I must say that I’d always been an avid reader about everything health and wellness but it really is different when it’s happening to yourself. And when you’re in a state of chronic brain fog without realizing it, processing information is not straight forward.

It’s like: 

Looking without seeing

Listening without hearing

Participating without engaging

Excessive Sweating Depletes Minerals

Pueraria Mirifica (20) is a root grown in Thailand that Dr. Northrup has processed in an FDA lab in the U.S.. PM is available from other sources but I felt more comfortable getting mine through her. It worked brilliantly well for 6 months, within a few days (no hot flushes, but still had chronic pain) then gradually it stopped working in early August, around the same time I was four months deep into sweating out the remainder of what minerals I had left in Hot Yoga, which by the way, historically, I never liked the idea of —stuck in a sauna climate room, packed to capacity with next to no ventilation, breathing recycled air, just didn’t seem like an excellent idea. However, this facility had no carpeted floors and they took care with hygiene. The Ashtanga Yoga studios where I had studied and practiced years before were always amply heated, I was always soaked from sweat and I always replenished with coconut water after practices. When I practiced at home I always felt warm enough, but as years passed, and because my body was experiencing so much chronic pain I felt that I needed this added heat source, besides it being encouraged by my Naturopath.

Please note that I don’t wish to bad mouth any health care providers. Not everyone can know everything; all of us work diligently based on beliefs, especially experts in their field. And clearly, this was a journey I had to take and write about. All the information is out there, and why I/we miss seeing the writing on the wall is another story.

I had been going to Hot Yoga 3-4 times per week from April – July 2017. My over the top hot flushes gradually came back in July and intensified so much that by August 2017, I had to put my membership on hold —I haven’t been back since. And besides my shoulder pain (that frozen shoulder pain so common among peri-menopausal/menopausal women), was getting worse and wrist pain had returned, despite everything. I also had a right hip issue that stemmed from my TFL (tensor fasciae latae) which seemed like a type of cross syndrome, left shoulder + right hip.

Sept 28. 2017 – Started Bio-identical Hormone replacement therapy with a Naturopath. (This means two different topical creams: bio-Estrogen in the morning and Progesterone before bed. I was also taking Pregnenolone (a pill) first thing in the morning. (I’ve since learned that there’s something called Pregnenolone Steal). (21)

The following 3 months (Oct., Nov., Dec., 2017) I was experiencing severe sleeplessness due to extreme hot flushes around the clock. 

-Each hot flush, some more intense than others, would last approximately 4 minutes, every twenty to sixty minutes/24 hours a day). Face, neck, complete upper body dripping wet, then clammy followed by chills. Most of the time I’d wear my full length down jacket, not in summer, but I was more bundled up (layered) in the warmer months than what is considered reasonable.  Sleeping at night was not really sleeping, I forfeited R.E.M and no longer was dreaming. I felt like a non-violent zombie during the day, just aimlessly going through the motions.

Why did it take me so long to do something about it? I was in a fog. I was just trying to get through the day. This kind of back and forth, hot/ cold extremes leaves a person rattled. Trying to make appointments or even getting to appointments only added to the stress.

It’s very distracting, to say the least, to experience this kind of interruption a few times per day (which I had no problem dealing with for years, which is why working with herbs was fine), but to have it go on all day long and throughout the night was beyond bearable — which made me a perfect candidate for HRT –I’d tried everything else! During the day the episodes stunned me and amazed me. Besides it being exhausting, it was fascinating to witness this physiological phenomena happening in my own body —at times it was mesmerizing. Now I recognize why t-shirt clad people have their car windows rolled down in sub-zero temperatures! :/ Because I was one of them.

In contrast, the sleep-interrupting hot flushes were not at all entertaining to observe; sheets soaked from extreme sweating multiple times per night, type of intensity. And my husband being, at the best of times a light sleeper, was now getting less sleep than me. Our household was hanging by its fingertips on the edge of a crumbling precipice.

January 2018, some tweaking was made to my bio-identical hormone treatments.

March 2018, I was ready to throw in the towel. I was becoming more fatigued, depressed, unable to make food for my family, attention deficit was increasing, chronic pain intensifying, hot/cold flushes persisted etc., I listed all the symptoms in earlier posts. At my husband’s urging, he suggested, maybe it was time to talk to my Ob/gyn, who dismissed bio-identical HRT as not effective and further research revealed to me that bio-identical is erroneously considered safer, (22) (which is why I finally agreed to go on bio-identical in the first place —it seems to be a huge misconception).

Depends who you talk to!

There is so much conflicting research. Each doctor seems to have a different philosophy with mounds of studies to support them.

One reported problem with bio-identical is that it is compounded (a blending or combining) of different hormones into a topical cream. According to some doctors, this makes it very difficult to measure each application as well as knowing exactly which hormones/medicines have been mixed together. However, CEMCOR states here that Prometrium (an oral pill) along with others are bio-identical. I had been led to believe that bio-identical was only available in compounded creams.

At this point, “throwing in the towel point”, I came to the conclusion that if mainstream HRT is what it would take to bring me back to life, even at the risk of developing something worse down the road like Cancer or shortening my lifespan, that I would rather have one, five or ten really great years than continue on this declining-zombie-aimless existence for ten or more years…I was no longer having any fun. I felt a burden to my family. It felt like I was just going along for the ride, watching them live their lives, I was no longer actively engaged but a non-participating observer. In my formerly depressed condition, I was of the opinion that longevity in this condition was no way to live.

Just a side note: A couple years ago, I spent so much money on physical therapy, supplements and alternative medical practitioners that the CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency) requested receipts to prove this over-the-top spending. “No one spends that much money on their health!” [my words]. Health Care in Canada is free but not for those looking for answers —non-pharmaceutical answers, like I was.

Having had a baseline mammogram done to ensure I was a good candidate for HRT we then filled a prescription for the lowest amount of hormones. If it didn’t help me we could increase dosage or if I had any sign of pre-cancerous cells, I was offered Effexor as the alternative therapy. Effexor is an anti-depressant whose side effects stop hot/cold flushes; that option remained on the table.

Backing up again to late 2016, I had gone to my GP for Prometrium, but was still on the fence. I couldn’t really remember all the previous attempts I’d made with bio-identical, specifically Prometrium (in 2011, see post titled Mother Nature) after reading Jerilynn Prior’s book Estrogen’s Storm Season. Brain fog was at it’s peak. I was given a prescription for Prometrium only (2016), but never filled it opting at the time, to explore over the counter herbal options. Talk about a scattered mind!! Not only was I juggling what was going on with my body and trying to keep it together, but also putting my all into doing the best job possible raising kids along with their mounting personal expanding lives.

Again, more time passed and before starting AMATA in 2017, I took my daughter to the doctor for something, so had an opportunity to discuss my current state, still trying to figure out what to do about HRT and feeling ready to dive in; strangely, I’d forgotten that I’d already taken bio-identical hormones for fourteen months in 2014-2015 or Progesterone topical cream in 2011 – 2013!!! As it turned out my GP was out of town and so saw a Locum. Within a few minutes of describing my situation, the Locum offered Effexor (this was the first offering of Effexor, second offering -2018 – was from the Ob/gyn as back up) touting its benefits for depression, anxiety and hot flushes. She warned me that everything I would read about it on the internet could be off putting, but that it was very effective.

I handed the prescription in to a pharmacist to put on my file, while I went home to do research. The Locum was absolutely right, everything I read convinced me that I’d never want to take Effexor.

I didn’t.

But came very close. 

At my darkest hour (while taking regular HRT), I was reduced to contemplating Effexor as my last resort. At a loss of what to do for me, my husband was weighing the alternatives, to call 911 or go pick up my Effexor prescription.

Reminder: April to June 2018 (for three months), I was taking regular HRT. Hot flushes were under control, I was sleeping soundly through the night but increasing depression, fatigue, listlessness, chronic pain, etc. 

Diana saved my life!

One day I walked into Pure Pharmacy (one of the places where I would replenish my supply of Multi-vitamins, Vitamin C, Magnesium, Iron etc.), and chatted with Diana, who recognized me as a regular.

Diana was very approachable and sincerely interested, as I noticed her taking extra time to chat and give undivided attention to all her customers. Every time I walked in, she’d ask for an update, and it seemed like I was getting worse with each visit. Finally, she stepped away and returned with a piece of paper which listed Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletions (23). At the very top of the page was the listing for Nutrients Depleted from Hormones (Conjugated Estrogens and Bio-Identical Hormones): 

  • B2
  • B6
  • B12
  • Folate
  • Magnesium
  • Selenium
  • Zinc
  • Vitamin C
  • Beneficial Flora

I found this very interesting since none of my health care providers had mentioned any of this to me prior to starting bio-identical or regular HRT over all these years. I can’t remember ever thinking about drug-induced mineral depletion. I’ve thought about how different drugs or supplements and even food can cause interactions; but effects on depleting minerals? No.

When I got home I placed the paper next to my computer. Either I was too fatigued to look into the information or got distracted.

I carried on, in a low/ depressed state of functioning. A few days later, on what my husband and I have coined my last and turning point of darkest days, he was ready to call for help (as mentioned earlier), he’d never seen me so low, somehow he managed to get me out for a walk and motivational talk. I can’t remember much from that day, but he explains that once we got home I went straight to my computer and spent the remainder of the day researching. Somehow, I intuitively latched on to Zinc from the list of depleted nutrients. 

He says that I came to bed angry: “It’s F@*#! zinc! I’m bloody zinc deficient!!”

Despite supplementing with iron, I learned that my chronic low iron levels would not improve due to my zinc deficiency. (24, 25, 26)

Zinc, Not Iron, … But zinc AND iron are both required to build red blood cells (RBC), and deficiencies often occur concurrently. (27)

So the next thing I researched was which Zinc supplement to take. Cross referencing gave me two to choose from and then narrowed it down further. I then had to figure out how to optimize supplement taking. As it turned out, it seemed like I had been doing everything humanly possible to further deplete my already low minerals. I’d been interfering with the absorption of my iron and some of my other supplements because I was taking them at either the wrong time of day or too close to taking my HRT or with other supplements that would cancel each other out and even the caffeine from espresso or the green tea I thought was beneficial. Also from eating beans, grains, nuts and seeds that weren’t sprouted. PHYTATES!

I found a useful info timing chart, A Guide to Timing Supplement Intake (28) to use as a model for my list of supplements.

And so here’s the what happened.

The next morning upon waking (from a hot flush) around 6am, I took 30mg of Zinc with water. Then I went back to sleep. I probably got up at 9am, which had become my wake up time.

The following two mornings I did basically the same thing except I woke up an hour earlier each day. Took Zinc at 5am then went back to bed, but got up easily at 7am. The following day woke up at 4am, took Zinc, then went back to sleep but shot out of bed by 6am.

Something was happening. My body started vibrating. I was feeling alert. Any of the old feelings of depression and sadness that shrouded me as a constant companion were nowhere to be found. Evaporated. It was difficult to even conjure memories of feeling that way. There was no therapy required.

My physical strength just reappeared. I had not been doing any physical training to acquire strength. My muscles had atrophied so much that in order to move a 12 inch pot of Rosemary on my deck I’d have to tip it over and roll it. This day, I reached down, using two fingers on each hand, effortlessly lifted this formerly lead-weighted pot. I will never forget that moment. I stood up feeling like Super Woman…super human strength had returned. This was freaking incredible!

Then my husband invited me to go for a bike ride. Normally, I’d take a pass. To his surprise and mine, I agreed. We rode on mostly level terrain but at the point for turning back home he suggested (always the motivator) either we head home or we could ride down the hill towards a relatives house. But that would mean having to ride back up the hill. Naturally, I could opt to walk the bike back up the hill, but I could tell that my former all-or-nothing attitude was hovering, waiting to get back in the game. Yikes!

I was feeling good so agreed to the down+uphill challenge. All the time weary of this being “too good to be true”. Up hill was challenging but not as impossible as I’d expected. My throat and upper chest felt that winded burning sensation that you get when you overexert yourself at a cardio vascular activity that you haven’t done in a long time. I rode up the hill switch back style, and started to imagine how I’d feel once delayed muscle soreness kicked in the next day. I knew I wouldn’t regret it, but wasn’t particularly looking forward to the aching muscles. To my surprise, I had no muscle soreness, and was suddenly going for long fast paced walks, making meals, washing up all the dishes, able to do the laundry — fold AND put away. My ADD and fatigue was gone. I could now finish a task. 

What has zinc got to do with fascia?

And my most favourite observation to share with you is about fascia. Gradually, over the years, my entire body had seized up like an aged person. My fascia felt brittle; to the point that I’d injure myself when stretching. Some of my joints cracked, popped and made grinding sounds. My hip flexors were tightening up more and more and I felt myself curving forward, bucket seat style. With each passing day, after starting zinc, without coaxing it along, my body became more limber and flexible. My hip flexors started to open up and naturally my body asked for lunge-style stretches, and back bending.

Two things to keep in mind, and they are not lost on me: 

1) the placebo effect accounts for 30% of all improvements. 

2) I was still taking HRT (the benefits could be attributed to a cooperative interaction between HRT and zinc.)

Everything works synergistically. Or does it?

“We think of ourselves as ‘in’ landscape, but sometimes we forget that landscape is also in us. We are formed by the ground we walk on: that which lies beneath our feet. That which holds us, supports us, feeds us. Ground is where we stand, the foundation for our lives.” —Sharon Blackie, The Enchanted Life

Both points separately and combined could easily explain my sudden burst of energy. But I don’t know how placebo effect alone could cause my lips to become fuller, and have noticeably more colour to them and my gums as though the iron was finally getting to where it needed to go. As well as past injuries or cuts started to heal? But the biology of belief is profound.

Zinc is to Progesterone and Testosterone as Copper is to Estrogen

By July 11/ 2018 (one month after starting zinc and three months after starting HRT) I reported back to my Ob/gyn how the zinc had made a huge difference. He was not familiar with drug-induced nutrient deficiencies so was unable to have a conversation about it. I was thinking about stopping all hormones but we had decided that carrying on for the next three months would be wise at which point I could just stop (not taper off) and should my symptoms return I could easily call his office for a new prescription. 

Eight days later I stopped all hormones.

For a couple reasons. 

1) I had been feeling a bit too wired. It felt as though my own hormones were starting up. So it made sense to me that I could stop all the supplementary hormones and work with minerals and vitamins to bring myself back to homeostasis. And if it didn’t work then I would go back on the HRT, but this time at least my mineral stores would be on the road to becoming replenished and I wouldn’t risk falling into depression.

2) I wanted to know if it was the zinc that was helping or if it really was a placebo effect. I already knew that HRT alone stopped my hot flushes and that it did nothing for my chronic pain and put me into a deep depression. Piecing the puzzle together, I now know that it was the Estrogen + copper (yes, copper), which were likely the culprits for keeping my in chronic pain and depression. More on that down the page.

I also had been researching everything I could find on Zinc. I was really concerned about taking too much zinc and causing zinc/copper imbalance. I spoke to a white coat at one of the pharmacies (not Diana) who gave me some advice about stopping the 30mg of zinc I was taking and start taking 15mg zinc to 2mg copper balance. So I started following that plan around July 23, 2018. 

After stopping HRT, my hot flushes started to slowly return! Remarkable isn’t it?!

But now I question if it was the introduction of copper supplement to my already excess levels that nursed the hot flushes. 

By July 24, 2018 my hot flushes were back. It dawned on me to try Pueraria Mirifica since it had been so effective before, and I was hopeful with my new mineral support I could manage mild hot flushes. But it didn’t work. Very quickly the hot flushes returned to full power. I stopped Pueraria Mirifica on August 2 and the next day started Harmony Menopause Max, which had been super effective so long ago. Within three days I knew it wasn’t going to cut it. My hot flushes were now disrupting my sleep in a big way and I was having hot flushes all day long as before.

From the position I stand now, with all the information I’ve gathered leads me to believe that these very good quality herbs couldn’t stand up to the zinc deficiency and copper overload. Had I been in a more mineral balanced state they might have been sufficient.

ON AUGUST 6, 2018, I restarted HRT. Within a few days the hot flushes seemed to settle down a bit, but it might have been wishful thinking. My joints started to act up in mild and subtle ways and the hot flushes had returned now building with intensity even though I tried to deny them. Lots of denial: This can’t be, I just need to give it more time, It worked before…With each hot flush I told myself that the next one wouldn’t be so bad and so on. Now I was beginning to think I’d gone and totally messed everything up and that I’d probably have to tweak my prescription to calm the symptoms down. My brain fog was starting up again too as well as I was starting to be a lot less patient, more irritable.

At the time of discovering Zinc (June 11, 2018), I became worried about who I could go to to help me get my mineral levels where they needed to be. I didn’t feel very confident with going back to the practitioners that I’d been seeing all these years. I wanted to find a Woman Doctor who’d experienced exactly what I had, or find a regular person, someone who shared my story but figured it out for themselves. But really, I was still so overwhelmed and there is only so much time a person can spend on this type of research each day. So, in the meantime I took back complete responsibility for my health. If I messed it up, I had only myself to blame.

Q: What effects does Copper have on Estrogen?

By August 11 (looks like 11 is my number?!), I went back to google and asked the right question which helped me find Patricia Reed (whose symptoms very closely resembled mine). The Universe answers…

I’ve linked to her blog post–> (Part 4 here, which is longer than the post you are currently reading, so plan to read it over few days) because she explains everything!! No sense in me trying to re-write her findings, since I’m still decoding for myself.

“Copper and estrogen are directly linked – they feed each other.  The more estrogen you have in your body, the higher your copper levels go, and vice versa – the more copper in your body, the higher your estrogen levels.  There are also cases where low estrogen is observed, but with high biounavailable copper.  What is observed as low estrogen can actually be severely high estrogen trapped in tissues with unbound biounavailable copper, rather than showing up in the blood, making it very hard to detect through blood tests, making it appear as though you have low estrogen, when in reality, you may be very severely estrogen dominant.  In either scenario, the excess biounavailable copper wreaks havoc on your liver, not to mention your brain, your appetite, and your metabolism in general.  When you have too much copper in your body, it prevents your liver from being able to detoxify anything properly – including estrogen.  So you end up with more estrogen dominance, which feeds your copper imbalance, raising your copper levels even more.  It’s a vicious cycle.  And as excess estrogen blocks your body’s ability to convert T4 thyroid hormone to active T3 thyroid hormone, now you start experiencing symptoms of hypothyroidism, even if your thyroid tests tell your doctor that your thyroid function is just fine.  It’s not!                                                     – Patricia Reed

So after reading this above and researching more and cross referencing it occurred to me that it was likely that I was giving myself more copper in an effort to balance my zinc/copper intake was further contributing to my problem. In addition to wearing the Estrogen patch! OMG!! My copper levels must be just over the roof!

My zinc level as of July 24, 2018 was 11.9 μmol/L (optimal range of plasma zinc is 13.8 – 22.9μmol/L and my ferritin was 67 μg/L (Iron 51-100: Possible Iron Deficiency).

Note: I’d been taking zinc supplements for six weeks prior to testing. I didn’t know to stop taking zinc 24 hours before my blood test (see below). And I’d been taking iron on and off for years.

Serum and Plasma zinc tests are not always accurate. (31)

Plasma Zinc

This is the main lab test done to establish zinc deficiency. Although it is very good at picking up major deficiencies it is quite insensitive to marginal deficiency because a change in plasma zinc does not occur until zinc intake is extremely low. So a patient with `normal’ results may still be deficient.

Plasma levels of zinc can be influenced by hypo or hyperproteinemia, acute infections, stress, time of sampling (how long after a meal), pregnancy, liver disease, malignancies and pernicious anaemia.

Zinc supplements will affect the results of plasma tests so one needs to avoid taking these for at least 24 hours prior to the test.

***The optimal range of plasma zinc is 13.8 – 22.9μmol/L ( 90-150μg/dl).***

Clinical signs of zinc deficiency may occur when plasma zinc concentrations drop below 9.9μmol/L (65 μg/dl).

Values less than 5μmol/L (33 μg/dl) are particularly associated with loss of the senses of taste and smell, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, skin rash, and loss of appetite. (32)

I have repeated a zinc tally test and tasted nothing — my kids too 🙁 

pylouria_zincleveltasteresponse

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

To really get to the bottom of things I have to do a HTMA test (Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis Test). (29, 30)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

***

“Mineral ratios are as important, if not more important than mineral levels.

***

Copper for example, may be seen at a normal level, however, if the zinc/copper ratio is low, one may experience symptoms of elevated copper.

This principle also applies to toxic metals. For example, if the cadmium level is only slightly elevated but the zinc level is low the cadmium toxicity is more serious.”

                                                                                                               – CanAlt Health Laboratories

Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn Cu Zn

In addition:

Look Up Pyroluria: Also known as Mauve Factor (due to the mauve color visible on testing paper during urinalysis) or pyrrole disorder, pyroluria occurs when the pyrroles bind to pyroxidine (vitamin B6) and zinc, causing these vital nutrients to be excreted from the body in large amounts.

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

– Thomas Edison

In following posts I will share a list of some authors that you can look into. My To Be Read (TBR) book stack has suddenly got a lot taller and less heavy on the fiction side of things.

In case you are wondering what I’m doing/taking now? I’ll share that too in the next post.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

(9a) 15 Zinc Deficiency Symptoms and Best Food Sources https://drjockers.com/15-zinc-deficiency-symptoms/

(10) Hortence’s Formula https://arvigotherapy.com/rainforest/node/96 

(11) Rosita Arvigo https://rositaarvigo.com/about-dr-arvigo/

(12) Barbara Loomis https://nurturance.net/meet-me/

(13) Renée Warner http://touchrootbodywork.com/about-renee

(14) Weston Price https://www.westonaprice.org

(15) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price https://www.amazon.ca/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-Weston-Price/dp/0916764206

(16) Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions https://www.amazon.ca/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges-Politically-Dictocrats/dp/0967089735/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=1WCQNZWASV6TM8Y7PFA4

(17) Denise Minger https://deniseminger.com/about/

(18) Fémance https://www.stfrancisherbfarm.com/products/vitex-combo

(19) Harmony Menopause Max http://takeharmony.com.au/product/harmony-menopause-max/

(20) Pueraria Mirifica https://amatalife.com/index.php/menopause-relief?SID=58a9cbbd46a1eb0aaf65b78059b6132d

(21) Pregnenolone Steal http://www.naturalendocrinesolutions.com/archives/the-negative-impact-of-the-pregnenolone-steal/

(22) [Is Bio-Identical Safer?] Women’s Health Forum with Dr. Jennifer Blake Ob/Gyn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBqqo8cvbRQ

(23) Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion https://nutritionreview.org/2016/12/practical-guide-avoiding-drug-induced-nutrient-depletion/

(24) Iron deficiency or anemia of inflammation? Differential diagnosis and mechanisms of anemia of inflammation https:/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5065583/

(25) Acute inhibition of iron absorption by zinc https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271531707000954

(26) Zinc and IGF-I concentrations in pregnant women with anemia before and after supplementation with iron and/or zinc. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10376783?dopt=Abstract

(27) Zinc, Not Iron, May be the Answer to Anemia http://www.chiro.org/nutrition/FULL/Zinc_Not_Iron.shtml

(28) A Guide to Timing Supplement Intake https://labdoor.com/article/a-guide-to-timing-supplement-intake

(29) HTMA Test https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/hair-analysis-test#1

(30) Hair Mineral Analysis https://www.canaltlabs.com/hairmineralanalysis

(31) Serum zinc levels in patients with iron deficiency anemia and its association with symptoms of iron deficiency anemia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26931116

(32) Zinc Diagnostic Tests http://accurateclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Zinc-Diagnostic-Tests…..-A-guide-to-zinc-deficiency-tests..pdf

 

HELLO! I’M BACK! Part 3

Let’s go back to 2004. 

At age 34, while nursing my second child (3 month old infant), I started experiencing my first hot/cold flushes. (Also known as “flash” —however, flush is a more realistic definition).

Hot flushes can be defined as a feeling of intense heat in the upper body, usually accompanied by an increased heart rate and flushing of the face, neck, and chest. As the body begins to cool down, women often experience chills, have cold feet, and begin shivering. Nearly 75% of women experience hot flushes and cold chills as they transition through peri-menopause and may continue long after menopause.

 Asking my doctor: “Do you think I could be peri-menopausal?” Reply: “No, you’re too young.”

Much to my dismay, I dismissed it to the fact that I was just working harder, managing an infant, toddler and two large Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs. It was mid-September, the weather was changing to autumn with mixed cool/warm climate fluctuations. My very supportive, physically fit husband managed himself (of course) and we’d divide and conquer chores and duties, so I was not doing it all!

But that which I WAS doing felt so taxing. 

My mother had died from cancer six months earlier, when I was pregnant with baby number two. Her voice echoed in my mind from her peri-menopausal years, when pushing herself through her usual non-stop chores, she’d breathlessly whisper, “I’m just so tired.” It was more of a question than a statement…she was normally capable of so much. It wouldn’t be long before I’d parallel my mother’s gasping sentiment.

Within a few years, I’d often say that I was barely surviving. But was reminded to buck up — living in a first world country hardly qualified as ‘barely surviving’.

True.

But feeling this way woke me up to consider what was causing so many people to suffer along with me, with their declining physical and mental health, though financially secure and able to access all the best doctors and or remedies beyond Health Care? Is this really what ageing was all about? Did a person’s health really, in the end, come down to LUCK?

9 months later (or so), my right knee became inflamed. I expected that it had to do with running along the forest trails pushing a double stroller. I’d read about forefoot running and thought to give it a try, even though for years I’d been adamant about heel strike first, unless one was sprinting. So maybe I torqued my knee, the trail was uneven after all, not to mention that my hands were fixed onto the stroller. Also, I wasn’t running in reality, more like jogging, so maybe the theory of forefoot running was best left for high-speeds after all? I never ran like that thereafter. 

Within a few months my knee felt OK. Out of nowhere, the metatarsals of my right foot became excruciatingly painful. For a month or two, I suffered with the pain, my foot felt fractured. Since it was mostly debilitating in the morning upon my first steps out of bed and would subsequently subside, I started to wonder if I had Gout? But how could I have Gout? My diet, as it was, gave no indication that that could be a reasonable diagnosis. Maybe Morton’s Neuroma? And quite possibly I’d done something to my foot while favouring my knee? Once I couldn’t endure the morning pain anymore or the inconvenience of random bouts of pain causing me to hobble around, periodically crippling me, I went to the doctor.

Over the years, at my husbands urging, I’d visit the doctor for minor but chronic bizarre symptoms, to which the ‘idiopathic’ cause was offered. As a result, I was beginning to feel like a hypochondriac and shied away from further complaining.

My GP, prescribed an over the counter orthotic/metatarsal support. I knew that that wasn’t what was going on but I had nothing up my sleeve to table. So, grudgingly I obliged and wore it for a while. And of course, in due time the pain subsided…

…to show up at my elbow! Like a slow moving hacked game of Tetris. The pain, being the ball, stuck in the same spot, banging in its corner until a player materialized to knock it to another corner and then forget about the game once again.

This went on long enough that finally, with enough examples, (knee, foot, elbow, other foot, shoulder, hands) to present to my doctor, I pleaded for help. 

LONG story short, I visited the Arthritis Society (I wrote about that visit here) and was diagnosed with Palindromic Rheumatism.

Palindromic Rheumatism = (PR) is a rare episodic form of inflammatory arthritis – meaning the joint pain and swelling come and go. Between attacks, the symptoms disappear and the affected joints go back to normal, with no lasting damage.

I never believed that that is what was going on with me. They prescribed (NSAIDS) pharmaceuticals, which I never took. I’ve always been more curious about what causes disease. However, there is a twisted comfort in giving a name or diagnosis to a mystery illness.

It’s safe to conclude, by that point I was pretty frazzled. Sometimes my hands would become incredibly sore that they felt broken at the metacarpals (much like the foot pain I previously experienced), but additionally, my knuckles swelled reminiscent of the evil Queen’s transformation in Snow White (not visibly as bad but they FELT like hers looked). There were times when I couldn’t tie my toddlers shoe laces, or twisting the handle for the faucet (a seemingly innocuous task) and worst of all was changing bedding: pulling the fitted sheet over mattress corners was just unbearable. 

Below is a list of symptoms over the course of these thirteen years. Here you can better understand why the analogy (mentioned in Part 1) of the frog in pot of boiling water is relevant. These symptoms would often present themselves in a mild and stealth fashion and then overlap one another and then some or all would disappear until the next month when my hormones would fluctuate again, triggering game on. My chronic pain would crescendo and then decrescendo to the point I would forget I ever had the pain only to have the pain return ever so slowly, not unlike the tepid water in the pot gradually increasing to boiling point.

-chronic slow wound healing

-one episode of Bell’s Palsy

-vision worsening

-chronic Raynauds (fingers and toes)

-palindromic rheumatism

-thinning of eyelashes

-Hydrocystoma, I pushed to have it biopsied to find out what the heck these bumps under my skin were! (I had multiple on underside of forearms, one at throat area, some have shrunk away, there are some tiny ones left).

-peri-menopausal symptoms 

-one episode of Menstrual Flooding age 36

-chronic hot/cold flushes

-Umbilical Hernia

-skin crawling (freaky! Sensations of invisible insects crawling on the body, so much so,  that you are compelled to brush it away — and I LIKE insects and don’t normally mind them crawling on me, but this is so freaky!).

-brain fog

-leg cramping in bed

Update: I forgot to mention Urine Leakage, called “stress urinary incontinence”. Often associated with a weak or damaged pelvic floor. There has been a lot written about the subject over the years. My friend reminded me about the time I visited and was jumping on their trampoline and how I commented that I’d have to be careful because I tend to leak. I must have been 40-41 at the time. She recalls being surprised, because of all people, I was very in tune with my body and particularly the pelvic floor.

Speaking-up about pelvic floor health was always something that I included in my personal training sessions — specifically to ensure that people weren’t overtraining (trying too hard to contract) the pelvic floor muscles and working towards better understanding o  body alignment . There is a “just right” amount of muscular tension that is helpful, beyond which are negative returns. Of course when this leakage started happening to me I wondered if I’d been “doing it wrong” myself all these years? Long story short, I noticed that my urine leakage was directly related to the fluctuations in my hormones. Almost like one week or two out of every month I’d have occasional leakage from sudden sneezing, laughing, coughing or jumping and other times no problem at all.

-Urine leakage, laughing, coughing, jumping, sneezing.

-irregular menses age 36 – 41 (10 days of bleeding every 15 -18 days), eventually able to get cycles to 22 – 25 days (ages 41 – 44). Then menses became irregular again until present, 60 – 105 day cycles, with only light spotting for 2 – 5 days.

-recurring benign cervical polyps. (Ob/Gyn suggested D&C; I declined, due to my tendency to heal slowly, I was concerned I’d open myself up to more problems.

-fibromyalgia type fatigue and chronic pain

-unable to get out of bed without stretching in bed 

-2011, mildly fatigued, my solution was to stretch in bed in the mornings. Started sharing this on my blog. But with each passing year the benefits from stretching didn’t seem to hold in my tissues. It seemed like the more I stretched the more I needed to stretch AND on many occasions, in the last couple years, I would injure myself from stretching! My fascia was feeling so tight and brittle like the posture we see in a 70+ person suffering from osteoporosis.

-chronic excruciating shoulder pain, nearly impossible to take shirt off over head type of movement. When hand pain was at its peak, even pulling up my underwear and stretchy Lululemon-type leggings was laborious due to searing pain — not a swift movement like it should be!

-chronic elbow pain, felt swollen but appeared normal. Any pressure from a jacket or propping myself up on a forearm would cause me to wince, and when propped, I’d have to collapse to escape the sharp pain.

Note: Just about daily, the need to bend the elbow would present itself or to prop myself up on my forearm, you’d think a soft mattress would be a safe place. Most of the time, there’d be no issue and so when the searing pain hit, it would always catch me by surprise.

-after completing Orthodontics (2014 – 2016), one tooth became grey. Dentist & Endodontist (second opinion) both suggested root canal. I said that I would look up alternative because of my slow to heal problem, concerned that I’d cause more problems for myself.

-snoring: turbinate enlargement

-tongue and gums developed lichen planus

-teeth: dentin (below the enamel) looks cut through (top front four teeth – can only notice it in certain light), a dark shadow approximately at the same level where Ortho wires went across the teeth. (It’s NOT from staining).

Within the last year:

-tongue swelling but Lichen Planus went away

-vision continuing to deteriorate

-Facial ageing: lips wrinkling, shrinking and loss of colour. Bronze discolouration and swelling at medial point of eyelids (upper lid sulcus –not sure if this is the correct anatomical term for the area I’m describing, but I noticed this same problem on a relative who had Emphysema and Addison’s Disease.

-while driving, hunched forward like a little old lady, nervous/overly cautious to change lanes. Normally, I’m like Leilani Münter 🙂

-zero libido 🙁

-depression, weepiness, quick to cry or feel put down, anxiety, avoiding social situations, eventually a loss of zest for living.

NEXT week on HELLO! I’M BACK! Part 4…Learn about the prescribed treatments I used, and WHY and HOW they spiralled me further down into a rapid declining health AND finally, I’ll share what brought me back. #KatCameBack

Get The Fuzz Out

My friend Joanna, was at the Vancouver Yoga conference last weekend where she took a couple workshops with Leslie Kaminoff (author of Yoga Anatomy) and he showed Gil Hedley‘s, Ph.D., (founder of Integral Anatomy Productions, LLC, and Somanautics Workshops, Inc.) video “The Fuzz Speech” explaining why stretching is necessary for our body, perhaps an explanation you have never heard before. Outstanding!

Joanna told me about this video. I thought it might be a helpful addition to the fascia series I’ve been building on. Thank You, Joanna!

Warning: there are some images from a human cadaver which is helpful in understanding the topic. If you’re squeamish, close your eyes and just listen.

Here is a link to Gil Hedley’s YouTube Somanaut’s Channel.

Below, I have typed out Gil Hedley’s The Fuzz Speech, for those unable to view the video.

“Here’s the thing about the Fuzz: You can see it now, I’ll put it in [the video] over my voice.

The Fuzz yields to my fingertips. Sometimes I come across a stronger or thicker strand that doesn’t yield to my fingertips – that represents older fuzz sometimes, or maybe that represents the nerve. But each night when you go to sleep, the interfaces between your muscles grow ‘fuzz’, potentially – and in the morning when you wake up and stretch the fuzz melts; we melt the fuzz. That stiff feeling you have [in the morning] is the solidifying of your tissues, the sliding surfaces aren’t sliding anymore. There’s Fuzz growing in-between them.

You need to stretch.

Every cat in the world gets up in the morning and stretches its body and melts the fuzz in the same way that the fuzz melted when I passed my finger through it.

When you are moving it’s as if you are passing your finger through the fuzz, just like I did on the cadaver form here.

So you have to stretch and move and use your body; in order to melt that fuzz that is building up between the sliding surfaces of your musculature. The sliding surfaces, those shiny white surfaces, of the rectus femoris sliding against the vastus intermedialis. So, these sliding surfaces are all over your body and the fuzz is all over your body and as you move you melt the fuzz.

Now, what happens if you get an injury? Ah-ha! My Shoulder! [He grabs his shoulder] My shoulder is stiff now, I’m holding my shoulder. I go to bed, I wake up in the morning, I don’t stretch my shoulder – I’m afraid, it hurts. So, I’m wandering around like this, [demonstrates walking with his arm stuck to his side] – last nights fuzz doesn’t get melted. I go to bed; I sleep some more. Now I have two nights fuzz built up. Now, two nights fuzz is more fuzz than one nights’ fuzz. What if I have a weeks’ fuzz or a months’ fuzz? Now those fuzz fibres start lining up and intertwining and intertwangling and all of a sudden you have thicker fibres forming. You start to have an inhibition of the potential for movement there, It’s no longer simply a matter of going ooh-ahh stretch. Now you need some work. Now you might need to do a more systematic exploration of that place to restore the original movement that you lost; usually this is the case – we have a temporary injury then we restore movement but sometimes we call this ageing. The build up of fuzz amongst the sliding surfaces of our bodies so that our motions become limited, that limit cycles become introduced into our normal full range of motion and we start to walk around like this [he mimics frozen robotic movement]. We’re all fuzzed over, our bodies are literally solidifying. We’re reducing our range of motion in the individual areas of our body and over our entire body in general.

So, I believe that one of the great benefits of body work – whether it be massage or structural therapies or physical therapy or any kind of hands on therapy – These types of therapies introduce movement manually to tissues that have become fuzzed over through lack of movement, whether the lack of movement is because of an injury and a person is protecting that injury or because of personality expression. There was many years I just walked around like this: I was very still and monk like. So, then I became more dynamic in my personality when I realised what I was doing to myself and the kind of life that I wanted. So, you can grow fuzz by choice or by accident or whatever and yet here, now that you have heard the fuzz speech, you know that you can take responsibility for melting the fuzz and if there is too much fuzz in your body and it’s frozen up, you might want to seek help in order to introduce movement so that the new cycle is a little more movement and a little more movement and a little more movement instead of a little less movement and a little less movement and a little less movement.

Fuzz represents time. The easier it is for me to pass my finger through the fuzz, the less amount of time it’s been there. If I’ve got to whip out my scalpel, to dig my way through one otherwise sliding surface and another, you know that that’s been building up for a long time. So you can actually see time in fuzz.

That’s The Fuzz Speech.”

What If Working Your Butt Off Is Making It Bigger?

A top-down view of a skeletal muscle

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been trying to compose this post for quite some time now. I feel that there is a need for a basic explanation of how our muscles work. Maybe it’s already been written, but I just haven’t found it.

So here goes…

The subject is complex beyond belief and I would err should I give it a simplistic explanation; however, this is for those with very little background in the subject. So forgive me – to all the professionals who may shudder at the following post.

Months ago I innocently left a comment at BodyRock about modifying a workout because my aim was to narrow my hips not expand them.  A few people commented-back: What? You can narrow your hips? So I promised to explain this, but in order to understand it we need to go back a ways. I don’t believe in the ‘bottom-line’, we need back-story and must be well informed to process the bottom-line otherwise we’re just like a fish flailing in a puddle of shallow water – it might look like we’re swimming but we’re so far from doing the same sport.

It can take a lifetime to really get to the root of the following, as with any subject – it is remarkable how the layers continue to unfold as if looking through a microscope. It brings to mind the Origami artist, and in particular Eric Joisel, who “could spend more than 100-hours folding a single piece of paper in order to create his amazing pieces of art.”  Not everyone has passion for details but what if everyone could be more interested in everything they do – from what we eat to how we move, for starters.

The Pilates Method, Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique and Emilie Conrad’s Continuum Movement are a few methods that I have spent time studying over the years, some in more depth than others.  When given the chance, these exceptional methods teach functional movement from the foundation.  These methods aren’t meant to be a ‘workout’ but rather the exercises are tools to better comprehend healthy movement patterning, which in the end can only support ones’ workout or sport.

My task is to explain the following for readers who have no background in physical movement and have spent very little time focusing on how their body actually functions. To have succeeded will mean that your eyes won’t have glazed over.

As the title suggests, what if you’re literally trying to work your butt off by doing exercises that you have been led to believe target a certain muscle group, such as doing endless squats in the hopes of minimizing your gluteus maximus?

What if the infinite number of side leg lifts you’re doing, in the hopes of slenderizing your ‘saddlebags’ is actually giving them the appearance of becoming over-full?

Or what if the long endurance walks or runs you do are not giving you the results you are after?

What if, what you’re doing isn’t very effective at all but you console yourself by saying, “well, at least I’m doing something”.  True, some is better than none, but what if, that ‘some’ is literally a waste of time by making things worse?  And by worse I mean dysfunctional movement patterning.

The spin-doctor in me will tell you that there is no such thing as a waste of time, because it seems to be that through failure we learn the most…with the assumption, however, that through failing we search for another solution, rather than just accepting our fate.

You get the idea…there’s a lot of what if‘s.

Oftentimes, we turn to exercise to tighten loose areas of the body.  Everyone seems willing to put in even a little bit of time to tighten body parts.  Yet, very little time for stretching and lengthening muscles. This is the root of the problem.

In order for muscle fibres to function properly they have to be healthy.  So, what exactly is a healthy muscle, anyway?  A healthy muscle at rest should feel like a bag of water, not a bag of steel; however, ‘Butt of Water’ just doesn’t sound all that sexy and doesn’t have much shelf appeal.  Surrounding the muscle is more tissue called fascia.  This might gross you out, so fair warning, but whether you eat chicken or not (perhaps you have prepared some for dinner at some point), when you peel the skin from a raw chicken you may recall a sticky transparent film, which clings to the skin and the meat.  That transparent film is called fascia – and of course it reacts differently when alive.  It surrounds all of our muscles, nerves and organs.  For our muscles to function properly this film of fascia must slide and glide smoothly over the the muscle fibres, nerves and organs.

Alison Coolican, RMT explains that “the sliding happens three-dimensionally, rotationally, up and down.  So in the forearm the tubes of muscles surrounded by fascia must all slide against each other when your forearm twists to allow for lengthening and twisting of the tubes.  The fascia and the muscles are all connected and exist more in a fluid state, some connections are very loose and airy (more sliding) and some are tight and organized (takes more strain)  the muscle fibres must move smoothly below the fascia.  Injury and repetitive movement (whether with correct alignment or not) can impact this fascia/ muscle glide relationship.”

An unhealthy muscle/ fascia relationship would be one whereby the tissue has been, from correct or incorrect repetitive movement or injury, forced into a dysfunctional pattern.  This dysfunctional pattern thereby impacts the correct anatomical patterning of the skeleton in movement.  Have your eyes glazed over yet?

Consider that the body is made up of guy wires (muscles and tendons) which are meant to stabilize our skeleton providing support and function. Over years these structures become over tight in some areas and weakened in others and therefore can affect the way our structure appears and functions.

Personal example: My bowed legs.  BUT as a child I had very straight legs.  Here’s what happened. I started gymnastics at age 4, Ballet and Track from age 7.  By the time I was 18 my legs had started to bow slightly.  At 21, having spent a lot of time teaching Aerobics/ Step/ Spinning and bodybuilding I had over-developed the lateral aspect of my quadriceps and buttock muscles and over lengthened my inner thigh muscles by working on improving my middle ‘Russian’ split.  I had created an imbalance.  This imbalance caused a painful knee condition called Chondromalacia (Patelofemoral syndrome). Which meant that my femur (the thigh bone) would grind into the underside of my patella (knee cap).  The remedy was to re-create balance by strengthening the medial side of the quadriceps (Vastus Medialis Obliquus – VMO) and Adductors, and to stretch the lateral, over tight muscles.

My over tight muscles and fascia were dysfunctional. My skeleton was not functioning as it should, hence the aberration at the knee cap. Later this sticky fascia caused more dysfunction at my right hip and so on.  If something is stuck at one point the body will compensate elsewhere.  Moishe Feldenkrais said it best:

“Force that is not converted into movement does not simply disappear, but is dissipated into damage done to joints, muscles, and other sections of the body.”

Long story short, the physiotherapy worked only to the extent that I truly understood what I was doing and that I took it on as a daily job – this was the beginning of daily body maintenance, I just didn’t know it yet.

For a moment, let’s return to the bowed legs and dysfunctional movement patterning. When I’m out and about I watch how people move – their mechanics. It’s not a judgment, it’s just what I see and I don’t analyze it all the time. When I see people running or cycling, I watch their alignment.  Sometimes I cringe, because I see faulty mechanics which is being repeated and I can feel the pain that will ensue. And other times I see mechanics that make me stop, take my breath away and hear myself say, wow.  It’s rare to see movement that is pure and effortless but you’ll know it when you see it, as you will know it when you feel it.  Have you ever heard someone point out an athlete and say, he/she/they run like a gazelle?

Let me just say that even with the gazelle-like athlete, there can still be injury and dysfunctional movement patterning- there is no perfect – just the aim towards it. Our aim with movement, art, literature, what-have-you, is that “once we accept our limits, we [must] go beyond them.” (Albert Einstein).  So in my opinion, from experiencing a lot of physical movement I have found that refining movement is on going.  Knowing that I swim, people come up to me from time to time and state (more than ask), “Boy, I just can’t swim for exercise – don’t you find it boring?”  I am amazed by this because it is often very accomplished athletes who say this.  People whom I imagined would know about refining.  Each stroke for me is a new combination of possibilities – the accuracy of the kick, placement of pelvis, rib cage and head to the rotation of the arms and angle of pull…who has time for boredom, my neurons and synapses are on overdrive. This is not some mindless activity. If we show interest in what we do, we learn from it and can add on and continue to refine.

Which takes me to the next point, but I’m sure your eyes are beginning to glaze over, so I will return with “What If: Part 2” another day and go into more detail about the narrowing of the hips comment.

M. Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement, (NY: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 58.