Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Creating Independent Kids

Here we go...the other day my 7 yr old came home with a bumper sticker that said "My child is an honored student at .....school" HONORED student! What the hell is that? I mean give me a break! I'm so sick and tired of our kids being coddled in the school system! Since my kids were in kindergarten, if they want to invite anyone from school to a birthday party, they have to either invite all the girls or all the boys (depending on if your child is a boy or girl), or the whole class...why? So no one has hurt feelings!!! Because as we all know no one ever gets their feelings hurt in REAL LIFE! So now it has spread to the bumper sticker. You're all Honored students...so the kids who bust their ass to get good grades get NO special recognition and the kids who are trouble makers and are disruptive get a pat on the back as honored students - why should they strive for any better? Why should they want to be honor students, they wouldn't get any special treatment or recognition!!!

I think this is why we have a generation of younger employees in the workforce right now that have no work ethics! They were never made to take responsibility for their actions! Everyone is always making excuses and making up reason why they did or could not do something - it's never their fault, there is always some reason. What ever happened to "I made a mistake" or "I used poor judgement"??

Intestinal Candida Foe Woes

OK, I kind of went on hiatus from blogging for a while, but I'm back and I'm looking for some help. I can't remember how I first stumbled across this information, but I now believe I have intestinal Candida. I've always been a little bit of a hypo chondriac, but I have so many small, non-threatening ailments, I feel I'm too young to feel so old! I can't stand when you go to see a doctor about something and they say "Well, you are getting older"...Hello! when did 38 mean I'm supposed to start looking for a cane!!! It's infuriating! I'm not saying I want to run out and start hang gliding, but I'd love to be able to go hiking with my family on a regular basis or go biking to stay in shape! I never wanted to be one of those people that just rolls over and stops doing things b/c they are getting old.

Sorry, I got off track...so intestinal Candida. I've been googling the crap out of this and I've taken many of the "tests" on various websites to see if it is likely that you have it...when a score of 180 means you most likely have it, my score was over 400. The more I read, the more convinced I am that solving this medical issue, could solve a lot of problems for me. Who would have thought so many seemingly unconnected problems, could really be connected: losing the feeling in your fingers and toes b/c they are cold, psoriasis, toe nail fungus, bad periods, migraines, feeling your heart pounding like it's coming out of your chest, shortness of breath...and many,many more!

Here is the dilemma, and it seems I'm not the only one who runs into this b/c many websites talk about having to treat yourself for this b/c some doctors don't believe it is real! The same thing happened to me when I was told I had Epstein Barr...shortly afterward I had to get a physical for a new employer and when I told that doctor that I had Epstein Barr, he said to me "that's what doctors tell their patients they have when they want them to stop complaining. There is no such thing as Eptein Barr!"...I also think that's what doctors used to say about Alzheimers and autism, so I can't understand why doctors aren't becoming more educated about this. Anyway, I do have a doctor who is pretty open minded, however after emailing her and calling her weeks ahead of my appointment to make sure she was informed on the subject, I was disappointed to find she knew nothing about it and tried to bluff her way through my appt. She did give me a prescription for an antifungal med, suggested a natural supplement to help strengthen the intestinal wall and even sent me for a blood test (I haven't heard any results yet)...but it was obvious during our discussion that she had no idea about the ailment I was referring to.

This is where I need help. From what I've read, it seems like there are two paths you can take to ridding yourself of intestinal Candida: you can go on a sugar restricted diet while taking an antifungal med and then I think once your symptoms go away you are supposed to take probiotics to put the healthy bacteria back into your body. Then you have to pay close attention to what you eat to see what your body reacts to; the other option appears to be taking something called ThreeLac or something similar which is supposed to do all the work instead of diet/meds, but costs a huge amount of money and, quite frankly, sounds a bit gimmicky. I kind of feel like I need some hand-holding here - I need a doctor who has treated this successfully before and can say, OK, take this and at the same time don't eat this, this and this. I need someone to tell me exactly what to do. I don't want to spend $250 on ThreeLac to find out it does nothing....I've done that enough on diet pills, etc. I spent $25 on brown sea weed pills that did nothing for me.

I would really love to hear from anyone that has been cured of Intestinal Yeast Candida whatever you want to call it...and I want to know how. I'm different things work for different people so it would be interesting to hear what works and what doesn't. It seems to tie a lot of things together, but am I just falling prey to some made up solution?

Another twist I just read online is that people with this affliction usually have elevated levels of mercury in their system! Obviously I don't know if this is true or not, but it mentions the fillings in your teeth having mercury in them...it wouldn't surprise me at all, and I have a ton of fillings! I wonder what my blood would show if I were tested for Mercury?