Dances with DS

Well here I am this fair morning,  a rather shiny redhead with a twist!  I’m so pleased I decided to henna-indigo  the old hair.  Even if it was a mission!

Firstly to source decently priced  good quality indigo & henna in the UK is not easy.  It is a messy undertaking. It takes an age, I sat for 6 hours with glop on my head yesterday so it’s not good time management by a long chalk! If you want a brown colour as I did - it takes research to try to find out how and it’s risky.  You might not get it first time round.  I went for mixing henna & indigo in equal quantities and added Amla to the mix to try to keep the colour more ash brown than red brown.

I made multiple mistakes.  I wasted some time & money on the poor quality grit laden Mumtaz & Zarqua brands.  Then once I had found some better quality stuff,  I think I might have not applied the indigo properly. Some henna sites say one should use it straight away, not leave it to soak overnight.  Others say soak it until dye release.  Mine never had any dye release straight off, so I left it to soak.  I covered my hair with a plastic cap and then read 5 hours into the job that for oxidation of indigo no covering should be put on the head!  Bit late to do anything about that then.  

The indigo I bought from Baldwins was gritty too. Maybe that is just indigo?  It was a lot less gritty than the Zarqa though.  The henna was very slightly gritty too - but again, a lot less than the Mumtaz. It had great dye release and formed a good thick slush,  so I was not overly concerned. Maybe grit is a part of modern henna, but I am still not convinced it should be there at all.

After an age I washed it off with trepidation. My hair felt dry and stringy during this process and I was more than a little worried.  I lavished coconut oil & conditioner on it to wash out all the plant matter.  Not too bad, as after rinsing for quite a while the water went clear.  But -  would the grit further damage my already damaged hair?  Would the colour be okay?

After the henna-indigo-amla was out I was amazed at how instantly soft my hair felt. I thought it might be the conditioners & coconut oil, but I have used them before & never, never has my hair felt quite that good!

The colour - well it was not what I thought it would be. Last night my greys looked a bit brassy and the overall effect was quite red. But not unpleasant. It just was not the cool brown I had hoped for, most likely because I used the indigo incorrectly.  I was not deeply disappointed - I thought it was okay. I felt the fab condition of my hair was well worth the not so great but okay-ish colour. I read on the henna site that certain essential oils could darken henna, but it seemed they had to be added to the mix before putting it on. Again, a bit late - I thought. But nonetheless, I decided it would not hurt to oil up the head with some tea tree & lavender…in the hopes!

This morning the henna has oxidised. It usually does go darker for a few days post henna, so this efect might have nothing to do with the essential oils.  For me it has had a very dramatic effect.  I am so happy with it! The grey has been covered after all & merges with my other hair.  It is a unique colour. A dark amazing red that has a very good brown cast to it. It feels like the colour adapted to my colouring and personal chemistry - a bit like my DS!  It works for me. Not the other way around.

And the condition of my recently haggard hair?  Well it’s hard to believe how soft and shining it is, in only one application.  When I think of the chemical dyes I used that left a harsh manufactured gloss on my hair(initially), this is in another dimension. It has inner glow! lol.  I know I am waxing lyrical but I honestly never thought I would see the day that hair could recover so fast. And I hear this effect only gets better!

After WLS there is sometimes a time (I should say there will be many times!) that  one’s hair loses lustre. It also might fall out leaving one in fear of trying to colour it. If only I had known about henna!  I think it is a treatment for stressed hair that can’t be beaten.

When I henna’d my hair in the 80’s it was just a pretty uniform orange red colour  one got. But nowadays that has changed. By using amla, cassia, indigo and henna the colour range is excellent. From golden blonde, to red or blue black it is all possible. However it pays not to have expectations as I have discovered!  Perhaps it just takes time to learn the ropes of how to mix & use the herbs to get as near as dammit to what one wants.

I’m now determined to find a whole new way forwards and to create my own plant based shampoos and conditioners - no more chemical stuff for this girl!   I did try out the soap nuts btw. I can’t say I was impressed with them. I need lathering foam to feel clean!  That said they did clean my hair very well all things considered and I might try them again sometime. But they are not my new alternative. That is something I will need to create from scratch. I spent several hours last night in the depths of my henna-ing process looking through some great DIY cosmetic sites and getting mightily inspired. I have several ideas for making my family’s shampoo & conditioner’s. I have bountiful herbs in my garden that need using too!

Back to the henna -  I am plain delighted with my new hair colour even if it is not what I had in mind! To go in 6 hours from the condition/colour I had to this beautiful colour & condition - it’s well worth all the hassle imo.  I am dead relieved that I have found an answer to the constant chemical dosing I was having. I think henna-indigo-amla & me are going to be mates for a very long time! 

Here is a brilliant henna site if you are looking for an answer to tired, dull hair:

http://www.hennapage.com/

I’m still obsessing over my hair’s condition. I think I need to get a life!  Why is hair such an emotional issue for me?  It looks bad, I feel bad.  Logically I know this is pathetic. Emotionally I feel upset each time I see it. Such profound trivia.  

Perhaps it is partly fear that for all my effort I might still not be absorbing enough in supplement world to sustain longerterm health.  I’m tested for many things but some blood tests I have never had. Copper is among them as is selenium.  As I take loads of zinc I wonder if my copper ratio is all good. I don’t want to develop toxicity so I err on the lower end intake of copper,  but as my hair looks so depleted I think I am going to raise the boundaries for a while to see if it improves.  My body  is so often my personal barometer and I forget that. Maybe part of me still doesn’t trust it - after all these years!

As for dyeing my hair…I realised in my last post it might have sounded as if I was anti-grey. I am not - I would not mind being all grey rather than this brassy colour with grey roots. I decided to henna my hair. I ordered some henna and indigo dye to do this.  As I mixed them up with water I was horrified at how gritty they were. They ground against the bowl scratchily and I felt this was not on. The indigo actually had a clay like substance (or maybe dye) that opened up as I mixed into a powder. I am no expert but in my youth I used to get an Egyptian henna that behaved like leaves should.   I decided it was too suspect to even go there and binned the lot. Researching on the internet I dioscover my hunch might have been right - many henna products are filled with ‘fillers’ and indigo sometimes has a toxic black dye added to it. Charming.  The brands I will never buy again are: Mumtaz - Superior quality henna (my butt!), and Zarqa Indigo.   If you want henna and/or indigo research it to get the best because there is lots of inferior stuff out there that might wreck your hair if not give you a nasty reaction.

I ordered some from Baldwins which arrived last Friday.  It seems good quality but as I have not yet mixed it  I won’t know until I have. Hopefully this will sort the hair problem further but with my luck it could all go pear shaped!

The house stuff is going through a lull which is profoundly frustrating. It’s not helped by Pete flying around and working a day that is often a night & weekend too.

Hoping to pick up again next week. So far the improvements look good, but I am often wreck tired by it all.   It’s worth it from a quality of life point of view, but financially I’m wondering if it is worth it with the economy sliding as it is. Or even if it’s wise. Maybe we should be saving because the next years could be very tight.

More companies leave Britain everyday. Small businesses close daily & larger businesses must be considering getting out.  I might be wrong but it seems like the government have a vendetta on businesses.  They clearly hate wealth and prosperity, something I don’t understand. It must be my African background - look at the countries in Africa that businesses left if you want to see the effects longer term. It is not rocket science. If you want abject poverty, penalise and ostracise the entrepreneurs.

The thing is -  better off businesses don’t actually need to stay. They can go where they want.  And they will. And worse, they are.  And then, where is Brown going to find the money to sustain the people & the economy?

I have never paid much attention to politics - my personal feeling being that most politicians cycle the wheel of history.  Or the wheel of karma whichever way one chooses to look at it.  Perhaps they are just too stupid to work out a completely new way forward. Not a conservative or a labour way, or an any of the parties way. Something creative, fresh & new. Lately Gordon Brown riles me to the point that I just can’t even watch the idiot mithering on anymore as he perpetuates one disastrous decision after another while living in fantasy land & proclaiming his power.  It is SO shades of Africa.

Maybe tonight I am just feeling profoundly pessimistic about this recession.  So I’m off to be fickle &  mix the henna for tomorrow’s new hair experiment and to try to forget about politics for a while.

I stumbled across this article (see at the bottom of this page) last night and thought it very interesting indeed.  It might partly explain why pre-op I seemed to pick up every ‘bug on the block’ which often developed further into ongoing bouts of bronchitis. Post op I have had only one bout of flu in 7 years, which is remarkable. Could it be the daily Vit D I have been taking?

Using Vita4Life means I take around  3000 iu’s daily. This is not a large dose by any means but it might have helped.  Levels of 10 000 units a day have been given to people who don’t have  wls with no ill effects, it seems.  I currently supplement further with 100 000 iu’s in one weekly dose.  Although as a DSer I already take a fine whack of Vit D weekly,  I’m contemplating upping it still further for little while. With Pete travelling often on airplanes at the moment,  I’m putting my entire family on Vit D as well, in the hopes that if the winds of flu blow this way it will not affect us. Fingers crossed.

I know it might sound like I am punting WLS products - but I do buy a lot of my supplements from them, including 50 000iu’s Vit D, which is hard if not impossible(?) to find in the UK.  Their link is the first in my link box to the right hand side  of this page.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/51913.php

At last I have tested the bentonite clay. This time I mashed a flat teaspoon into a little banana and without chewing swallowed it.  Then I glugged back a glass of water - to avoid any constipating or heaven forbid, bowel blocking effects. This mitigated some of the grit factor in my mouth, but I still got a little crunch of sand (eeuch!). I found that chewing a few brazil nuts took care of that.

It is definitely more effective than zeolite alone and certainly gentler on my bowel. I had no aggravation of any kind on the bottom end.  It does not completely evict the smell but it does stop that ‘travelling air haze’ effect.  The stink factor just goes down to smell factor and reduces to much how a normal BM behaves on the smelly front!   I still think a combo of zeolite plus bentonite gave me the best results, but bentonite is the major player in my opinion.  I’m dead pleased with the outcome.  I will be keeping it on standby for difficult times as it is to date the most effective internal deoderiser I have found. I have a feeling that combined with chlorophyll it might perform even better - but that is open to speculation. I’ll give it a try soon.

As usual I try one thing and find myself going in deep!  First the bm experiments and then a whole lot of experimenting with clays & herbs for skin care.   I think part of this is that in my current stress and dust house, I long for a relaxing spa experience - lol.  Fat hope of that. Time is short but it does not take too long to mix up some clay and do a little diy pampering.

Thing is,  while I enjoy a couple of homemade masks made from the zeolite & bentonite plus fresh things like avo, kelp and herbs, once a week is enough for a deeply clarified skin.

I needed an everyday facial clay and stumbled upon Rhassoul clay. Now this you don’t want to take internally! I find it softer and more clay like than bentonite and it mixes very well with oils and other ingredients.  However as a ‘washing clay’ it is just the best thing out. For greasy skin it would probably do the trick just as is, but I have a mature (don’t you just love the euphimism!) skin. It is on the dry side, pretty sensitive and so Rhassoul alone was not perfect for it.

As you know - I LOVE virgin cold pressed coconut oil. I get a huge jar from WLS Products (link on the side). It smells gorgeous and I can’t live without the stuff inside my body.  More and more I’m using it on the outside too.  It fits with my particular anatomy. You might need to experiment to find the best oil for your skin. I thought a rhassoul-coconut combo might work well even if it does sound like an unlikely mix. This has become my ‘base’ into which I add whatever else I have in the house.

Oils are my pet subject. I saw how they healed my dog, inside & out.  I feel it’s benefits for myself daily.  I could go on about the properties of oils forever.  They are anti-inflammatory, have healthful fatty acids, are cleansing and moisturising. And btw, as our bodies cannot produce fatty oils we need to ingest these everyday to sustain health. Some such as neem oil are antibacterial & antifungal too. Oils have been tested for safety by humanity everywhere on the planet for thousands of years.

For the Dser, they help carry vital vitamins into tissues & organs, help boost metabolism, help keep our skin and hair softer, nourish us. Some are antifungal and antibacterial.   For those of us struggling with constipation they can be an immense help  - without them I know I could not continue to ingest the huge amount of calcium I do without getting a totally impacted bowel.

But don’t fats and oils give us diahorrea?  Yes, in the first year move with low doses. Oils - even healthy ones can cause the trots. However if you use them in low doses to begin with your bowel should adapt. I began introducing them at 5 months out after my DS.  Go with something gentle like Udo’s oil and after your surgery has settled a little more, try other oils in low doses.  There may always be certain oils & fats that trigger the runs and I have usually found these to be things like animal based fats and cream for example. Coconut can initially also create a slick. It’s about building up a nice tolerance level so go slowly & gently at first.  Interestingly I note that this effect is not just confined to the newbie DSer. Older Dsers who avoid oils in the first year also seem to go through an adaptation period.

Nothing makes me worry more than when I see a DSer who is not willing to move forwards into the world of healthy oils.  I know it is difficult to rid the head of it - after all many of us are brainwashed into believing low fat and fat free is best.  Bad bad thinking!     And where did it get us anyway?

For each person there is an oil or combination of oils specially made from mama nature for the skin. It’s just a case of finding it!  Although coconut tops my list, I cannot live without Udo’s oil or olive oil either. I cannot live without sesame oil and rosehip oil. I can’t be doing without Argan oil and the thought of not having any jojoba around worries me.

I have tried nearly all of them over the years externally (and internally where appropriate!).    As Weight loss surgery patients we need oils even more than regular people…specially if the surgery is distal. So please if you are distal, consider going on a mission to find ‘your’ oils & use them often. They have served me very well over the years.

Here is my Rhassoul-Castile Facial Wash recipe:

Castile Soap, just a little goes a long way! This will help emulsify your oils into the mix of water.

Camomile tea, steeped until it has some good colour to it.

Rhassoul Clay.  I like it organic & unrefined as it then acts as a gentle scrub too.

Organic Virgin coconut oil

Some greek bio yogurt

Herbs from the garden if you have some: I use rose petals and lavender very finely chopped

Manuka honey - or a good dark honey

Aromatherapy oil - whatever fragrance appeals to you! I use Rose & frankincense at the moment because it helps me feel a little more peaceful than I actually am.

This is a recipe that does not need measures. It’s about having some fun finding out what suits you best. You can omit some ingredients and replace them if you like.   If your skin is very sensitive or raw you can omit the Rhassoul altogether and use a more gentle exfoliant like soaked dessicated coconut or even dried soaked rose petals that are organic and have not been sprayed with pesticides.

Pour warm herbal tea into the rhassoul and beat it until it has all dissolved into a very thick paste.

Add oils and aromatheraphy oils if you want fragrance.

Add yogurt & manuka honey

Blend well & thin out to a consistency you like with cool tea. I like mine to look like thick whipped cream.

Note’s:

Castile is a wonderful soap that is made with oils. There are supposedly no harmful chemicals in it and it’s bio-degradable and natural.  When I was deliberating buying some, I thought at first it might be very oily/waxy, but it is not - it foams as well as any other soap I have ever used and is just as cleansing. It’s a far cry from other so called organic soaps I have used in the past that never foamed and left my skin dry, tacky or both.

There are various brands - I like to buy an unscented one as I can then add my own fragrances to it.   If you want to make it creamy for body washing add coconut  oil - I’m quite lavish with the amount I use…but it is adjustable.  I tried to mix in some lemon juice so I could use it to clean  my kitchen but acid makes it clumpy!  I now use tea tree oil in it which is a good disinfectant. Dr Bronners is a good brand if you can source some.  I saw some on e-bay but I bought mine cheaper at my local health store. The only thing that spooks me  a tad are the biblical quotes all over the jar.  I’m sure the lord doesn’t care what I am up to with my soap!!! But that’s a minor issue.  I found I must dilute it as it is quite strong otherwise. It comes  unfragranced or with various fragrances.

For your face wash use more if your skin is oily, less if it is dry. I only use a few drops.

Any herbal tea you like will work well to dilute it.  I’ ve used rooibos tea & green tea, both are  wonderful. Rooibos and any brown tea needs to be quite dilute as one does not need to stain the skin, but green tea can be heavily infused.  Think, white tea,  comfrey , etc. If your garden is over run with nettles you can make a fresh nettle tea to use.

Oils: (This is just basic - the world has so many amazing oils one can try out!).

• For an oily skin: grapeseed, sesame or sweet almond

• For sensitive skin: camomile infused in almond, calendula infusion, rosehip, sesame, almond

• For scarred skin: rosehip oil

• For normal skin or combination: olive,  calendula , Udo’s , argan , jojoba , almond

• For dry skin: coconut, olive , jojoba,  argan ,avocado oil

• For acne: a couple of drops of tea tree oil or neem oil (use sparingly & ensure you dilute these in the carrier oils first (ie your coconut, almond etc, oil.)

I find tea tree quite harsh , but might just be me. Neem is more gentle and a very effective antibacterial too. Not everyone likes the smell of unrefined organic argan.  Deodorised versions can be bought.

Follow  with your toner and moisturiser and try to use something that is not too chemically laden that may undo all your good work.

As Castile soap is pretty alkaline it’s important to ph balance one’s skin with a toner after using. Tesco Pharmacy stocks distilled witch hazel , which I think is the biz for a facial toner.  It helps sort puffy under eye’s out better than anything I have ever used.   It’s cheap, lasts an age, can soothe & cleanse a raw tail end or help with piles.  I don’t know why but since my DS my brain always seems close to my bum! 

Failing that you could always dilute apple cider vinegar for a toner - or just use whichever brand you usually do.

Rhassoul Mask:

By adding in a few other botanicals or fresh fruit and veg you can use the above to make a powerhouse facial mask. Don’t use castile soap for the mask. Just rhassoul & herbal tea and whatever else you feel like using.  Fruits & veggies have healing properties. We all know about avocado pear in face masks, but things like papaya, finely grated and pounded carrot, a little lime juice freshly squeezed, mashed ripe banana, fig, mango, strawberry, cucumber, watermelon  - are all good. Use fresh ingredients sparingly, a little goes a long way.

Remember not to leave it on for too long the first time as you could get an allergic reaction to something you used. It’s very rare but as with any new cosmetic - try it briefly first. Natural does not mean you may not get a reaction.  If you use natural ingredients the wash/mask  is best made in small quantities and kept in the fridge to prevent bacterial growth.

Hand on heart I can tell you that a few weeks of using Rhassoul face washes & good old tesco witchhazel has done way more for my skin  than my usual face treatments (that cost me an arm & leg too I might add!).

My moisturiser is… errrm ,  oils, what’s new!  :lol:    I hope to create my own cream soon but that is chemistry & I don’t have the time to do the research required.  For now I find oils are fine for my skin.  In the morning I use a homemade base mix of sesame, argan, jojoba, coconut with essential oils: camomile, lavender, bergamot.   At night I use rosehip, argan, jojoba and rose attar.

I have a DS friend who speaks of having a ‘butterfly mind.’ I loved that description because it sums up my mind too. I must eternally flit from this to that otherwise I get bored. This extends to everything I do. It can be a good or bad thing!  Bouyed up with the whole homemade body care thingie and my new soft shining skin, I decided I needed to learn more about using ayurvedic herbs.  I have a pending order of various herbs that I will try out on the old face & hair in the weeks to come. Including an interesting possibility for another  facial cleanser, soap nuts.   I’ll be trying them out & I’ll let you know if any are good stuff.

Having investigated the body/face requirements, the next job is my hair.   It’s frayed, frizzy hair currently , on the dry side and it looks terrible. At first I thought it might be vitamin/diet related, but I’m not sure I can do much more nutritionally.  My protein is on form, my zinc is being well supplemented, my fatty acids are in alignment and I take iron once a week - just as insurance. I think I am getting in enough as my health otherwise is good.  Just this terrible bad hair day everyday.  This is not helped by the fact that  I am greying at a rate that is alarming. It might just be the aging hormonal processes causing havoc… sigh.

As I find time I think I will try out various natural methods to re-invent my hair care as well.  This will be the true test of whether or not natural ingredients do actually work…because this hair is almost past redemption!

The big question is where to begin?   I have for a small start bitten the bullet and stopped dying my hair. It’s tough as I watch the grey hair sprout through and the old colour fade into brassy orangatang orange. Lack of vanity is not my strong point.  I feel slovenly and as if I am not taking care of myself.

Anyway…hopefully I can find a solution that does not involve a chemical overload, but more about it next time. Right now the renovations beckon as usual and I must get on with it.   Holy cow -  the morning has gone already!!!

I have opened the comments box - it’s on the upper left hand side just below the title. I’d love to hear about any homemade cosmetics or oils you use, so please share if you have a mo. 

I was hoping to go to our WLS support group yesterday. I was so looking forward to catching up with everyone & hearing how they are doing.   However, Zenni had a booster vaccination on Thursday last week and on Sat morning a reaction blew loose.  He developed a hard large lump at the injection site on his neck. Apparently this is not life threatening in any way  and it does eventually go away in around 2 weeks - but the problem with Zenni is that this is the area we massage when he is struggling to breathe during a heart induced coughing fit.  We have learned just the spot to massage & without fail we can arrest the coughing before it turns into breathless gagging.

Suddenly we can’t help him as the lump is right on that spot.   And worse, the lump seems to have made the coughing enter the extreme zone. We have gone from 3 coughing fits a day to  hourly episodes.  This sometimes progresses to a terrible rasping struggle to breathe which is terrifying. All I can do is hold him & try to rub his chest & do his neck massage while trying not to panic my head off, which would not help him.  Anyhow, I had to scupper my plans because at all times I have to watch him. I kind of wish I had never done the vaccination at all now - but it’s rock & hard place stuff. I am afraid sometimes that I won’t have my little foo-dog with me much longer but I try not to think about it. Today I am applying hot compresses to his neck hourly in the hopes that I can reduce the swelling faster. 2 weeks of this will be hell for him…and me.

I have not taken the bentonite yet…mainly because I forgot!    I’ll take a slug of it as soon as I finish this blog as I am keen to know  if it’s the fonk removal factor.

Other than that,  I can’t seem to get a grip on my life at the moment. It’s a domestic upheaval due to the ongoing work in the house. We were going to move out into the office that sits way down the bottom of our back yard , but we cling to the old comfort of an accessible kitchen etc.  I’m dreading moving out as the office is cramped and I am not fond of microwave food & take outs (suffer the thought!).  But it is fast coming to that. Already my food input and quality is suffering due to stress and lack of time.

Thankfully Matt - my youngest son has developed an amazing interest in nutrition & he’s a natural at cooking. I’m so pleased that my two younger children have both taken their nutrition on board and know and marvel in the benefits of good food as much as I do. It’s great & especially because I have never drummed it in. I think since my DS when my eating life changed dramatically from carb laden meals to fresh meat/dairy/veggies & fruit, a good seed of ‘proper eating’ has taken hold in them.

So Matt has been cooking most of our dinners of late & today  I asked him  to please help me with ensuring I get lunch this weekend, as I was falling off the wagon &  doing a protein drink just a wee bit too often this past week.   He is savvy about my needs and I have just had 2 hardboiled eggs, a big mixed salad, some tuna and cottage cheese with pineapple & passion fruit. Plus cherries & litchies to finish off. A lunch fit for a queen! :-)  And btw - the pineapple passion fruit cottage cheese tastes lovely. It does have sugars in it but I think it’s benefits outweigh it’s risks…and as a dessert with fruit it is lovely!

I seem to move between euphoria that at last work commences, then  depression because it is so endless, so messy, so unbelievably time consuming. Family and friends are deeply neglected by me…I feel really bad about it. My inbox still has some unattended e-mails which I hope to respond to tomorrow.

And we are the people of the BIG plan. I keep thinking why could we just not opt for click together ‘wood’ flooring!  Fix the blinking radiators and be done with it!   Simple. But not us!  Nope - stone tiles with UFH. Which means new boiler replacement ( the old one is ancient & inefficient), lifting a wooden floor that has seen much better days, strengthening struts to take the weight of UFH & stone. Cement, dust, chaos! Add to that that I in my infinite wisdom decide if we are going to do all this we should add on a small extension so that the laundry in our kitchen can be relocated giving me more space for cupboards. This means planning permission, further delays, kitchen revamp - omg what am I thinking!!!

The weeks are going to become months - this I feel in my waters as much as I wish I did not.

Speaking of more space for cupboards,  I had to laugh as I found myself realising that I need a supplement area in my kitchen! No - I am not kidding you.

Had someone suggested to me that I include a ’supplement area’ in my kitchen,  in my first years with the DS I would have roared with laughter. But the truth is - and I have said this often - I could open a mini health store. And have you seen the size of protein containers?!  Massive biggg  space glugging things.They don’t make for a classy kitchen space, that’s for sure.

Add to that : zinc, iron, Vita4Life, Vitamin C, Calmag D, Vitamin K2, Acidophilus ( 3 types including a chewable), Udo’s greens, Nut mix ( my own blend of nuts & seeds that I have on most of my meals), Udo’s oils, Virgin Coconut oil, Various Nut oils,   Co-enzyme Q10, nut flour, low carb flour, High potency Vit A, High potency Vit D, various tissue salts, milk thistle, beano, micro-minerals. That’s just my list!  For the dogs who get homecooked meals & Zenni’s heart & skin health: Dog vitamins, Calcium, tissue salts, fish oil ( that I borrow!), Carnatine, Taurine, more Q10, pro-kolin acidophilus, hawthorn extract, enzymes, kelp, starflower oil, Vit E, hemp oil (skin plus a flea deterant!)calendula oil, seed mix, nettle & dandelion mix.

I won’t bore you futher with the rest of the families supplements but suffice to say my countertop and fridge spill over with all this stuff.  And don’t fear,  I don’t take it all at once - lol! Still - a good whack of it enters my body daily and the rest has to be on standby.

Looking at my list in black & white it’s a far cry from the days I had one bag of protein supp, 1 punnet of vita-4-life plus one bottle of acidophilus in the fridge - oh & wind-eeze! (No longer need that except on the rare occassion I go carb overboard.)  Add to that the usual household meds and it’s a crisis in my kitchen.

So - I have decided to invest in a huge chest of  drawers that will house the supplements adequately. I looked everywhere but found nothing so far. I know what I want though, so just have to source it - at least 10 drawers should sort it! It’ll have to be adaptable so that it fits under my kitchen counter top.   The other bright plan I had was to buy a mini bar type of counter top fridge that can keep my nut-seed powder, oils, flours, acidophilus etc fresh & my fridge space more free.  I might need two of them but am hoping one will do the trick.

You know what the truly pathetic thing is - of all the work in the house - it’s the supplement area that most breathes the life of inspiration into  me.  The idea of a seamlessly organised system where there will be no more muttering under the breath. No more squirreling about endlessly trying to find something my body is calling for and  first having to unpack an entire shedload of stuff. Bliss in the making!

I just keep saying to myself it will be worth it and IT WILL END!  but some days the honest truth is that I don’t know! All I know right now is that this is going to take an age to accomplish…but we’ll get there.  I have to believe that.

To top it all Pete suddenly has to go to Croatia. Only a couple of days but more organising to do at short notice.  I find myself missing his presence more even on the short trips.  I miss the times I would travel with him and adventure without a care in the world through  amazing places.  Oddly it makes me determined to get this house in order fast as I can. There is a world waiting for me out there & my only frustration is that I am not partaking right now!

Well I tried the zeolite only. No Bentonite added, to try  to assess if that was indeed the fonk remover. I’m not convinced. It did lower the emissions rate and instead of the smell permeating the loo it seemed confined to the toilet bowl . No drifting diffusions into the air. But it was nowhere as effective as the combo.  I also think the zeolite might have irritated my piles as my butt was a tad burny.

It’s very hard to tell  if the zeolite was a bit too rough on my bowel as my piles seem to have a life of their own & can just flare up sometimes for little reason.  I also had a diahorreac stool first, instead of my usual pretty solid (if not constipated one) which floated, unlike with the clay-mix…but again hard to tell as occasionally this still does happen to me au-natrel.  I would need to test the zeolite alone a lot more I think, to get a better insight into any changes it is causing, but the current result is not really worth it imo.

I have allowed my bowels to rest, the dratted piles to subside and to be sure I am benefiting from my vits/minerals & am ready for phase two - which will be taking the bentonite alone to see what transpires.

Someone asked me if they could use the clays at 6 months out from the DS for both stinky poo & diahorrea and I have to say that I think it would not be wise.  I should have put that into my first blog but sometimes I forget that  I was once a young Dser!

The DS is an evolving surgery, during the first 18mnths to 2 years much is happening in the intestines. With any luck (and the benefit of good nutrition) the villi should be thickening up, the intestine compensating somewhat to hopefully effect a good balance that will set us up longerterm.  There are hormonal things going on and personally I would leave any experimental processes well enough alone for at least a year post op.  Clay & other experiments can wait until longer term.  I know the experience of  smelly poop is not fun especially as one adjusts to it, but there are safer ways to help oneself until one’s body is in a nice stable state & not undergoing such an enormous change.  As for diahorrea and the possible binding capability of clay I’d personally never use it for that.

My only interest in it is as a possibility for short term emergency situation use for odours only.  I have had several such times in my life. It’s good to know I might have found something that really works for me in those situations, which is why I’m sharing my trial and errors here. I think only a malabsorptive  WLSer will know how anxiety inducing they can be and in the future -  I will use clay temporarily for these difficult times. But that’s about the breadth & length of it for me.

So why would I not use it for diahorrea???  Firstly because chronic constant  diahorrea in a DSer would require everyday use. Koalin (another clay) was shown to  be inconsistant at diahorrea resolve. Some positive reports are out there of it used in conjunction with pectin as an anti-diahorreal but there are also grey area’s relating to it’s use. It appears it was replaced in medicines with another adsorbant,attapulgite, which was also later replaced. I read some blurbs on it’s use while it was in circulation & they warn not to use if if one is using citric salts (such as calcium citrate).  I could not find out why however.  In any event other adsorpants such as zeolite and bentonite might require the same cautions.      I know that a dog based preperation I give to my dogs to stop diahorrea that is a combo of koalin & acidophilus works incredibly well. For humans I just don’t know.

Diahorrea in year one seems to often resolve itself once we start to add more veggies & fiber to the diet. Sometimes new Dsers confuse diahorrea & steatorrhea. Steatorrhea is part of DS life and to be expected. The stool is half formed, and can border on diahorrea but not quite be there.  It happens up to 3-4 times a day in year one for some of us. Diahorrea exceeds visiting the loo 6 times a day. The stool is very fluid & unformed…it always needs medical/dietary attention and imo no DSer should consider it normal.

The best plan is to visit your surgeon to discuss strategies…which might well require use of antibiotics. That’s the first line approach for WLS diahorrea along with dietary modifications. It’s an area of sensible drug use that I’d take any day over mucking about. Fast to work and usually effective.  Bowel overgrowth is serious stuff which can have far reaching effects on both one’s health & one’s organs. There is a study that links untreated overgrowth to liver disease…I think that warrants drug use.   If that fails,  revision should be investigated. Clay with it’s potential ability to leach nutrients in potentially already nutrient leached situations with malabsorptive surgeries …mmmmm, I just can’t see it as viable. Shame really as would’nt it be just great to find a totally natural solution!

Meantime I did whip up a lovely face mask with the clays - avocado, clay, yogurt, kelp and little fresh sage from the garden.  It looked revolting on and I felt like a green faced bogmonster,  but afterwards my skin felt terrific and purified.

I do love that natural things can sometimes help one so much.

In fact what happened with Zen and the healing of his severe doggie skin problem (for those who are new readers of my blog - he had almost no hair on his back and his back legs & tail had bare black patches plus he was covered in flaky scales)… really woke me up in many ways to the power of carefully  thought out use of natural ‘medicine’.

Using good old mother natures herbs and oils  both internally & externally plus a nutritious diet that only consists of cooked biologically appropriate foods ( not canned junk food) this old boy’s severe skin disorder has healed. There is not a day that we don’t love the fact that our once rat tailed little man now sports a bushy tail. It still fills my heart with thanks, to see his belly covered in PINK FRESH skin. For so many years as I frantically tried conventional Hills science diets etc, it was dry, wrinkled and scaly.    I only wish I could do something about his heart but as it is genetic I doubt it can be changed. Still never say never!

Then there are my teeth - once doomed by periodontists. I was told the lot had to be removed 10 years ago AFTER I had undergone destroying painful gum surgery some years before that.  They are all still in my mouth but only because I found out how to treat the disease by myself ( with the help of a dentist abroad who had the insight to look at periondontal disease in a bigger context than the extract and chop up the gum brigade.)  I still shudder at the thought of a periodontist near me although I did see them for several years only to have the life poked & prodded out of my gums.  My program now is rigorous - much cleaning and self administered herbal and other treatments under the gum tissue plus dental cleans 4 times a year minimum…but like I said my teeth are still all here.

So in no way am I averse to using natural alternatives.  Yet even having seen such dramatic results personally with use of natural ‘medicines’ the skeptic in me does not go out the window, as you can see.

Here is a purportedly Scottish saying that I love: ‘ Keep an open mind but not so open that your brains fall out.’

Even natural medicines can have negative effects and can also interact with other drugs, supplements as well as human or dog medical conditions.

Just like drug use, these interactions should always be considered in the bigger picture of the individual and well researched before one tries anything.

As you know, there are  a lot of ’snake oil’ remedies about and man, those salesmen can sound so darned convincing!  Really their brains have fallen out.  At times I have found myself drawn into ‘the speak’ and have to step back & do other research to verify if what is being said is actually such good lookin’ cookin’.  Invariably I usually find the flip side and have to  work out risk vs benefit scenario’s.  Then there is the quagmire but absolute necessity of ‘human testimony’ - again I think while it is fantastic that something has had a miraculous effect and we must take heed and listen - it should be tempered with wisdom. Wisdom only arises out of longer term retrospect. I seem to have learned this fact the hard way quite often. Alas.

Take WLS  - so often in year one people are over the moon (as they rightly should be! I was too.)..but this testimony is not the B all & end all. Now don’t think for a moment I am trying to suppress the natural joy that arises with WLS - I love to hear of how people are transforming on so many levels. And I witness and validate the beauty of living in that sense of release and happiness. It is right to be in the moment in a great many ways.  However, later on is when the real challenges arise more often than not. People researching WLS should be aware of this.

But enough - the day is shouting at me & there are myriad things to be sorted on the home front.

I am going to try bentonite today.  I’ll take it last thing at night having taken all my last supps for the day around 3 hours before I take it - to give the supps enough of a head start.   I will update about whether it is better than the zeolite alone. Until then look after yourselves and keep well!

I hate it when I leave so much time between posts as where do I begin?   Firstly the fight between my dogs was only a small if painful warning. I chalked it up to Zenni’s old age induced irritable nature at the mo, bought him a dog crate and thought peace would prevail if the old boysie could sleep without Ruby constantly nosing him.   All was well for a few days and then one night all hell broke loose again. This time I thought Zenni might die. As I extracted him from Rubys jaws a spray of blood shot allover me and apply pressure as I might it was clear within seconds that I was not going to stop the flow. My clothes,  floor & walls were covered in blood. The boys rushed him to the emergency vet where he had a stitch put in the back of his ear & antibiotics. Hours later he was back home with me, sore, groggy but mercifully alive. However he was set back & seemed to age in a few days.  Moreover he would not eat and so I had to spoonfeed him every few hours. Now he is back to his old self bt I was scared there for more than a while.   I had learned my lesson and as a result I do my level best to keep both dogs under supervision at all times - but it’s not easy. Hopefully we will win the day eventually.  There are triggers at play & I have sat down & tried to eliminate all the sources of friction.  The good thing is that they are not at each other all the time - so while it is a pain to try to prevent the ’sparks’ I have hope they will eventually be okay together.  I’m just not kidding myself anymore that if Ruby bites Zen again it could be death. Scary stuff & not great to live with.

In this unsettled house of mine further chaos ensues as we begin some big house renovations.  The heatwave sets us back significantly & I’m not delighted by the progress so far. I think I was hoping we could do it all fast but it drags on and tbh I am sick of excuses, mess &  dust.  Add to that that my internet system is down half the time which really annoys me. I am typing this via some back door Pete organised but I can’t post up links unfortunately.

Inbetween the mayhem, mainly to save my sanity which is tethering on the brink currently,  I decided to research making organic shampoo for the household after I tried some organic dog shampoo (on the dogs and my hair!) and was impressed. However the price is off putting especially as Zen needs frequent washing. So hence the research.  But as usual I got off track & ended up buying some clay for a face mask.   

Clay can be used internally and externally. Internally people report amazing results with all myriad of ailments. I’m always a tad sceptical because there is so much hype around. The hype is often (predictably) on ’sellers’ pages. I started to look for the negative reports and there are some out there.  But nothing too dire that I could find.

However I also think that when something actually does give one results when nothing else has -  then an open mind is not a bad thing. Nor is a frikking heavy dollop of research come to think of it.  Bit like my DS - when I state it is my personal miracle people can look at me sideways and tbh I don’t give a hootnanny. Because it is…compared with living one’s life severely obese.   So I kind of understand how one can wax lyrical in the land of miracles, but I never say it is the cure-all and omit it’s potential side effects. I have hesitancy when it’s all sunshine & roses - but maybe clay is for some people.

Anyway - in what little spare time I have, I started to research these ingestable clays.  In Africa clay is frequently eaten by indigenous people & the lady who used to work for me would often use clay that she had brought back from her village to heal cuts & health conditions she had. She said the clay healed her people of many things.   At the time I confess I thought it was strange,  but now in my older age I understand that the lore we get from ancestral use of herbs and other healing sources from nature are sometimes as valid as scientific papers. There is a heck of a lot to be said for personal experiences even if they are sometimes not objective, but subjective.  We should be listening.  And  because there is some science about - using that too,  to balance our perspectives & draw our own conclusions. Just be warned that the science part regarding some clays effects internally are pretty limited.

In the midst of the science bit of the research… I did find that zeolite clay is being used extensively on pig farms along with the feed, because it cuts the odour of swine poo dramatically.  My little interest suddenly takes on a new life, because this is pig shit - the worst most vile smelling poop on planet earth & if it cuts that - it might just help a DSer???   Booger the face mask. Later for that!   On a mission I order the clay.  Bentonite & Zeolite.  I tentatively swallow a quarter teaspoon of  zeolite & 1/2 teaspoon of bentonite, staying as low dose as possible.  Tbh, I  feel rather ridiculous swallowing clay.

Was it my lucky day that I chose to swallow the clay?  My timing was impeccable because I had overindulged in the morning on white carbs  and by early evening I was doing a DS related phantom pregnancy act. Sigh.  The clay did not help my bloating. Anxiously I wondered if it might be a side effect of it until I remembered that eating 4 biscuits and a double white sandwich was very likely the real cause & selective amnesia was not gonna help me!  And serve me right!

Of course I began to release wind ( a wonderful euphimism that!lol), large volumes of it too. Now I can vouch that a DS wind release of this magnitude has in the past even turned me a little green at my gills with the usual accompanying smells, but this time I was in shock & disbelief. Just the faintest FAINTEST smell!  It was still going to happen I told myself because no way in hell with that carb load - was the stink not going to come.   I waited & pooted away,  but to my amazement it did not.  It was less smelly than a normies wind.  Moreover it did not linger. (And if you are a DSer you know what I mean!) I was just gobsmacked.

Internal deoderisers are topics that come up on forums relatively often. I have taken Devrom which ‘worked’ - in huge doses (difficult to do when one is already shooting a small pharmacy/health shop alone!).  The ‘worked’ was a bit flawed for me. At first I thought it was quite good but after 2 weeks ofuse a new smell arose which smelt to me just as unpleasent as DS poop. So back to square one. I have used chlorophyl tablets with better success than devrom, but again the doses must be huge and maintained to really cut a difference.

Roll on the morning poop.  It arrived on time. I was slightly constipated.  That could just be me though - not drinking enough on these hotly active days.   The anecdotes out there report some getting relief from constipation with betonite (not in my case!). Others say it helped chronic diahorrea.  Anyhow,   the real shocker was the lack of stink. It did smell but again less than a normies poop does. It also had sunk?  Mine seldom sink - only Vit K2 makes it sink.   Maybe the clay absorbed all the excess oil that I usually evict as well.  We know it is partly due to the malabsorbed oil that there is fonk.  I still could not believe it. I asked my poor long suffering family to please see if they could detect any odour - thumbs up from them all and utterances of real surprise, bless them.

Have I stumbled upon the magic answer to the stinky poop of WLS life?

Maybe partly, or,  it might just work for swines & me.    Possibly some unscrupulous manufacturer will begin to market this clay for WLS use.  To date no WLS patient I know of has reported any use of these clays evicting poopie odours.  I think I might be a wild card first! Sheesh, what a claim to fame. lol.    I say unscrupulous because nada is without risk.   It is not clear whether the high adsorption properties of the clay might not leach certain minerals from our bodies as well with longerterm use.  I trawled as much data as I could find and it was not enough to set my mind completely at ease.  This is the stuff that should be properlyclinically trialled and tested to determine if it affects the absorption of vitamins and minerals adversely or positively, or maybe a bit of both, longerterm. But who truly wants to know if the odour a-la WLS poop can be resolved? I very much doubt that those in the frontline of WLS would concern themselves much with it…perhaps in time though.

As usual, I did think hard about to post this up or not.  But one’s got to trust that the bulk of humanity are not plain stoopid.  This is hard to do I know - but it’s part of growing up!  

And it might help someone who could do with some help facing one of those awful situations where one’s anxiety peaks about a day spent where a public loo situation will arise, etc - who knows.

However,  just because the pigs are thriving & actually laying down bone to boot, does not mean that we will.   This is guinea pig stuff.  I write of it here with many ‘cautions’ attached even though I know you are not stoopid in anyway.  But you know with litigation rife on the planet I am not going to take my chances! ;-)  So, don’t use it if you are on any scheduled drugs without consulting your GP first. Some clay users say never use it with high blood pressure - although I could not find out why.  Don’t use it daily, in fact, only use it when you absolutely require it. Such as when you are going to be staying with a mate overnight.  Don’t use it if you have ongoing constipation issues - you don’t need a bowel blockage!   Don’t use it if you have bad nutrient deficiencies.   Do your own research carefully. Be aware that some clays might be heavily cleaned with industrial chemicals for example.

Finally - I can’t tell if it was the zeolite alone that diminished the fonk.  It might have been the bentonite - or the combo. So today I swallowed zeolite only.  We shall see if alone it is as potent a stink inhibitor.  If it is this will join my survival box for times that I worry about smells only.  I don’t plan on making this part of my daily routine until I have a fuller picture about it. I might yet discover some terrible thing about clays taken internally - lawd forbid!   It took around 7 hours for the clays to kick in but this might vary from person to person.

As for the people that write that they love the taste of it and that they happily eat the stuff - more power to them. What nearly cracked me up were recipes for bentonite shakes!  8-O  To me it tasted like drinking grit and a gritty shake is my idea of a nightmare. I took it in as little water as I could followed by a huge glass to get rid of the grit in my mouth.  Not pleasant but not impossible!    When I have time I will report back on my findings with the zeolite & add links once the computer is back to normal as well about the clays.  Until then please think kindly of me up to my neck & still sinking in house dust and chaos!