Reboot Your Life Challenge

Recently a friend had recommended a documentary entitled, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. It chronicled an overweight, auto-immune disease afflicted man, Joe Cross, as he infused his body with only fresh vegetable and fruit juices for 60 days straight to lose the extra 100lbs he was carrying around and to finally shuck his dependency on the steroids, Prednisone, that he was prescribed to keep his body from inflammatory reactions. Basically, to get well. He was going to train his body to heal itself from the inside out. He reasoned that when our bodies get a cut/injury on the outside, if you leave it alone  it has a natural tendency to heal itself. So, why can’t the same go for the insides as well? Joe Cross was on a mission to prove that it can be done.

Documentary by Joe Cross.

So, off he goes, traveling across the US with a juicer in the back of his car, inspiring the many people he meets to take the Reboot Your Life challenge. Reboot Your Life is a socially conscious health and wellness company that offers support, encouragement, community, media and tools to everyday people. Did I mention all this is free? You take quick survey and the results will determine which of the 3 programs would best suit your needs. I got the 15-day Reboot Entry Program. The entry plan is a 15 day journey to wellness. In this plan, you can juice and blend produce as well as eat raw and cooked vegetables and fruits in any order or combination that suits your life. This program is intended for those who are brand new to eating a plant-based diet, those who have recently completed a juice fast or those who would like to participate in a Reboot, but don’t want to exclusively juice, for 5 days.

It was a good place to start since I wasn’t sure if I was capable of juice fasting for 60 days straight yet. I eat a lot and would miss chewing. But, because Joe had such good end results, he lost 100lbs and was able to successfully stop his Prednisone altogether without having any flare-ups, I was sold on the getting off the steroids part since I was still also on the same drug, among others, to control my lupus flares. Though, in the span of a little over a year,I have already been able to reduce my dosage from the initial 60mg a day to alternating 1 and 2mg daily because I was already on the juicing bandwagon.

I have been juicing since New Year’s Day because I was inspired by Kris Carr’s Crazy, Sexy Diet book. Since I started juicing, I have noticed an overwhelming sense of well-being. I think clearer, faster, and dream more vividly. My skin is dewy and glows from within. I am bouncing off the walls with natural, non-caffeinated energy. My hair that I had lost from chemo has grown back extra thick with more color and bounce. Colds/infections are far and few between. The stiffness and pain of my arthritic hands are now gone and have regained back most of its original flexibility. I could go on and on about how my body has reversed most of the damage the inflammation had done but that’s a whole other post. I just feel good overall. This Reboot seemed just like an extra boost to continue on my road to wellness.

So, this is how I got to Day 1 of the Reboot Your Life Challenge. Follow me on my journey to wellness!

Exploring Chinese Herbal Medicine

I went to see the Chinese herbalist that my sister’s Chinese friend recommended armed with my list of ingredients that compose langchuangding, an herbal formula used in lupus study that I came across online during one of my many Prednisone-induced sleepless nights of looking for answers.

The herb group took a formula called Langchuangding as well as prednisone. Langchuangding was similar to the previously reported formula, with 18g rehmannia, 12 g ophiopogon, 9g ching-hao, 30g isatis leaf, 30g oldenlandia, 12g red peony, 10g moutan, 30g lithospermum, and 9g campsis, decocted in water, taken two divided doses, morning and at night.

Chinese Herbs

One of the objectives of the study was to measure blood levels of neopterin, a substance metabolized from the nucleic acid guanosine. It is produced from macrophages stimulated by ?-interferon and released by activated T-lymphocytes. The neopterin level can sensitively reflect an activated state of the cell mediated immune system, which can be widely employed for monitoring autoimmune diseases, transplantation immune rejection, tumors, and acute or chronic infectious ailments. This study revealed that the serum neopterin level of SLE patients was distinctly higher than that of the healthy control group (655 vs. 265 µg/liter), as had been shown in other evaluations, supporting the view that activation of the cellular immune system was involved in the SLE flare-ups. The addition of Chinese herbs to the treatment helped lower neopterin levels (to 354 µg/liter), as well as reducing erythrocyte sedimentation rate, complement C3 levels, and symptoms of facial erythema and oral ulceration. Similarly, it was shown that the immunostimulant soluble blood component interleukin-2R (sIL-2R) is elevated in patients with lupus, and declines during periods of remission and upon treatment with the Chinese herb formula.

In conclusion, Chinese medicine appears to be suitable as an adjunct to modern medical therapies when used for a period of about 3 months, a course of therapy that is to be repeated if necessary. While earlier Chinese reports suggested that Chinese herbs alone could function reasonably well as a treatment for lupus (5), this approach appears to have been largely abandoned, at least for the more serious cases seen in Chinese hospitals. For mild cases of lupus, using Chinese herbs as a sole remedy may be a reasonable choice, so long as modern medications are added in the event of a worsening syndrome. It is important that the treatment be sufficiently effective so as to minimize the chance of damage to the internal organs.

The herbalist said I needed to see the doctor in order to find the right dosage because each person is different and that I can’t just take a recipe from the internet and think it would work for me. Dammit. Defeated yet again. Good thing I have an appointment with Dr. Zhang on Saturday. He’ll give me the right dosage.

Langchuang stands for SLE, ding in Chinese means heal this disease.

Consider Me Disabled? Never!

Last week my boss called me into his office and asked me again what I wanted to do in regards to work.  He assured me that I would still have my job if I decided to take a disability leave or start working half-time.  At first, not wanting to admit defeat I was headstrong on staying on full-time.  But, just maintaining doctor’s appointments alone, was causing me to stress out which is not what I needed since stress is a known flare trigger.  I had used almost all of my sick days and my performance was declining because I was preoccupied with defining this undefinable disease.  So, in the safe haven of his office I broke down and cried and for the first time admitted vulnerability.  I was going to need help anywhere I could get it.  This wasn’t going to go away on its own.

He went to HR to confirm my options and came back with that I needed to maintain at least 30 hours in order to keep my health benefits, which I could NOT afford to lose.  We decided on a MWF in the office schedule and that I would be available for 3 hours each day on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I was going to take a huge pay cut and was unsure of how I was going to survive.  But, because of the sheer generosity and support of my company, by giving me an accelerated performance raise, the difference would only mean about $600 less each month.  It was going to be hard but at this point I didn’t have much of a choice.  I couldn’t maintain the full-time workload with 2-3 doctor’s appointments every week and the uncertainty of not knowing how all of this was going to pan out made me defeatedly decide that I needed to go part-time.  That was the least I would accept because I was NOT ready to go on disability.  I kept repeating the mantra to myself  that I was going to get better and that I wouldn’t need to admit defeat.  But, with my vision getting worse, half of me was starting to contemplate the ultimate option of moving back in with my parents  because just in case if I did lose all of my vision I would have people to be my eyes and provide for me.  It was a scary thought but a realistic potential.  So, I thought about it very obsessively.

Executive ER at 8am
Had my last infusion of the solumedrol.  Hopefully this prevents further damage to my vision.  Not sure if it’s working but I go in to see Dr. Hopkins tomorrow to confirm.