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It’s Time To Take Deep Breaths

Or, the news cycle has been deeply unhelpful for me being calm enough for the liking of my chronic illnesses. But I still keep reading it, because our country and the lives of those who call it home are important to me. 

TW: Assault, Kavanaugh, all that shit.

Today was an exercise in remembering to forcibly unclench my jaw, and take a deep breath. Although I had appointments, errands, school, and homework to do, I couldn’t help but continually check in on the testimony of Dr. Ford and of Judge Kavanaugh in my free moments. The questions, the answers, the attitude of the whole thing reminded me, and will probably continue to remind me for years, how devastating this entire process has been for women and other survivors of harassment and assault. I am grateful to the #MeToo movement. I am grateful for the work and the bravery of victims to stand up and proclaim themselves survivors. I am grateful to those people who are unwilling to let these abusers slide without consequences.

One in five women, and one in 71 men, will be assaulted at some point in their life. The odds are that you know more than a few people who have been assaulted, and that almost every woman and some men in your life have been sexually harassed to the point of feeling unsafe. The statistics continue to get higher, and more troubling, when you take into account the LGBTQ+ community specifically and the sexual violence leveled at many queer and trans people. Every single woman in my life, and many of the queer people in my life, has been harassed or assaulted by someone. Almost all of those harassers were cishet men. Some of those harassers, and 80% of assault perpetrators, are people that we know, and/or have a relationship with. Can you imagine the amount of memories that have been brought up for these survivors, in this era of #MeToo? Can you imagine the fortitude it takes to continue on, when the true colors of those around you are shown by the political climate we live in? What you say in the coming days, and who you choose to support, will send a very clear message to the vulnerable people in your life about what you would do if they were standing where Dr. Ford stood today.

Some of us have to come to the unfortunate realization, again and again, that there are a lot of people out there that will not try to protect us from this violence. There are a lot of people who will do everything in their power to discredit us. And there are some of us, like Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who will rise above the despicable attempts to smear and discredit our testimony, and be brave enough to testify for the good of our country. I cannot say what truly happened, but I can say beyond a reasonable doubt that even if you never showed me Dr. Ford’s testimony, Kavanaugh’s behavior today alone would be enough to disqualify him from holding a spot on our Supreme Court. If you are truly so behind his politics that you want him confirmed, ask yourself why you wouldn’t simply replace him with another nominee who will not lie under oath, not act like a spoilt brat,  not rage during his hearings, and will provide a legacy without the cloud of probable assault over it?

Women are not allowed to be angry. Women are not allowed to rage the way Kavanaugh did, nor get upset and emotional. Women are not allowed the space, the credibility, the autonomy over our own bodies. We have to grab respect from people who would never give it to us. Often times, we must continue on without that respect or that support because we know that time marches on and if we do not march with it, we will get left behind. Dr. Ford (and Anita Hill) have shown our generations what having courage for your country really means. They acted with compelling force. They were brave. They knew exactly how much of the country was ready to spit vitriol at them, and wish them harm, but they persisted. From the testimonies I have seen today from people I know, I don’t think that the old men sitting on Capitol Hill know what’s coming for them. Or perhaps they do- and they’re foolish enough to think they’ll be long gone before the consequences find them.

But I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. I believe victims, and I want to empower them to be survivors who are supported, loved, and valued. Whether or not any Republicans grow a conscience or a moral compass on this, and vote no- the consequences of the utterly disgusting disrespect I witnessed towards women, survivors, and Dr. Ford will be coming back around, I can guarantee it.

Yesterday is heavy. The trauma of our lives can be so, so heavy. But if there is one thing about the rage you felt today, the rage we have felt over the past two years, the rage of all the things that have been taken from us over our lives by the arrogance and cruelty of abusers, it is that its weight can become something galvanizing. Yesterday is heavy. Put it down, for a moment. Rest. And then pick it up tomorrow, and use it as a battering ram of change.

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I’m Fat, and People Need To Get Over It.

When you deal with the medical system regularly (and when you deal with the general public, people at your gym, people at your school, your friends, your family, your neighbors, etc…) you probably know what an emphasis everyone puts on weight.

You get measured for BMI in public school PE, your doctor probably has it on your chart, and if you’re over (or under) a specific number, you’re going to hear about it. A lot. And there are a TON of reasons why the BMI chart is not scientifically sound in the first place: a few, summarized, you can read here. There are a lot of issues with basing health off of weight, and “ideal weight” off of health. Systems like this often ignore the amount of muscle, bone, water, and fat that your average human has, for example. And then, beyond that, even when you do body mass composition scans (which are way more helpful for health predictors), these numbers fail to take into account quite a few things which have bearing on your weight.

Sure, it’s easy to tell me that there are a string of numbers which should determine my body fat percentage. It ranges anywhere from 10-12% for essential fat to live, up to 31% as the borderline for acceptable edging on overweight. 32% plus is considered overweight. And this number can be helpful to me, because now I know that my body fat percentage is about 35%, at the lower end of overweight. And that tells me, in a truly scientific manner, what my chubby looking body is made up of. It still doesn’t take into consideration a lot of things we should look at when treating a patient: economic status, ethnic background, regional background, genetics, family history, mental illnesses, physical illnesses, comorbidity, or previous healthcare. You can hypothesize about why I’m fat all day long, why anyone is fat or underweight, why any of us are measured by this metric at all- it’s theoretical, and it’s interesting, until it’s you, and then suddenly it isn’t very fun anymore.

I have been, since I was 11 and hit menarche, overweight. It has fluctuated a bit over the years, as I’ve struggled with various health issues, and realized that I have at least three different competing illnesses that mess with your endocrine system and metabolism. And yet, I was a sports playing child. My parents emphasized eating your veggies, and limiting sweets. I go to the gym 3-4 times a week, now, and eat a pretty low carb, fiber and protein full diet. I cut out foods that I have gastrointestinal sensitivity to. I have my medical issues closely monitored, and my chronic pain is followed carefully. My heart passes all the tests I’ve had done on it. My liver is fine. My blood tests are well within average. My lungs are pretty meh, but that’s linked to chronic bronchitis. I can do 45 minutes of cardio and get that pulse rolling up at “weight loss levels” every time I visit the gym. I have tried super restrictive keto diets, anti-inflammatory diets, low fat diets, low carb diets, food tracking, visiting registered dieticians, taking nutritional classes myself, super calorie counting diets, etc.

But I’m still fat.

And I run into the roadblock of weight every time I see a doctor.

It has taken years for me to understand the true consequence of dealing with weight in the medical field. It’s simply true that overweight patients get worse care. Weight can be a huge issue in the social world. Obesity stigma has wide ranging public health implications. Being overweight makes you predisposed to eating disorders: being underweight does too. We are obsessed with physical appearance, and we ignore mental health quite handily, setting us up for a crisis of health, both mental and physical. I have had doctors I was seeing for entirely different issues, unrelated at all to weight, tell me that my problems would melt away if I would just lose weight. Some of the greatest hits:

The doctor who told me, in highschool, that I should just walk “for four hours a day after school” to force my body to lose weight.

The psychiatrist who told me that my mental health would improve when I graduated high school because “boys will stop being ashamed to admit they like fat girls, and you will finally get some attention, which will improve your self esteem.”

The doctor who, I found out recently, told my parents that gastric bypass would fix all of my problems, while I was in an urgent care clinic for completely un-weight-related complications.

The doctors who told me that my neurological symptoms were caused by weight, and not the permanent damage I had in my shoulder, or the other health conditions I had, and then accused me of lying about my diet.

And, of course, the psychiatrist who told me that it was okay to have an eating disorder for “a while, as long as you lose weight while doing it” when I expressed that being on a super-restrictive diet was giving me horrible physical side effects and what I feared may be long lasting mental ones too.

I have been recommended unsafe supplements, medications, diets, workout regimens, therapies, and lifestyle change plans to lose weight, all under the guise of helping me. Doctor after doctor has returned my truthfully filled out forms about my exercise and diet with doubt, and labeled me untruthful. Because to them, it is impossible- how can someone live healthily and still be overweight? People ignore the complications of healthcare in bodies that don’t fit a particular mold- take my friend who’s lost her appetite and a clinically significant amount of weight without meaning to, and can’t get a doctor to take her symptoms seriously, because isn’t that what women want? To be thinner? Or, for example, the doctor who was recently in the news for ignoring the symptoms of cancer in an obese woman so long that it metastasized and killed her. Our culture disregards the fact that simply because we know some health complications can come from being overweight doesn’t mean we need to stop looking for a definite conclusion. People of all weights need to be tested, and diagnosed accurately, because assuming all health issues stem from being over or underweight in anyone who doesn’t fit the flawed BMI chart is a public health risk we should not be taking. Perhaps part of the issue is that people of lower incomes and certain ethnic groups are more likely to be outside the range of accepted BMIs, and so they don’t have the recourse to demand the kind of testing the wealthy can. Perhaps part of the issue is that, when it comes down to it, doctors are only human, and humans have an inextricable bias to them that is heavily influenced by their culture.

This bias kills people of non-white ethnic groups, marginalized religions, different body types, non-straight sexualities, and gender-nonconforming people all the time. We have to realize, at some point, that doctors can be, and frequently are, wrong. That doesn’t mean you need to give up on allopathic medicine, and live in the woods with your essential oils to cure everything. But it does mean that we have to consider that maybe some people aren’t getting the best care, the care they deserve, because they are fat. There is a link, in certain cases, between being overweight and heightened risk factors for comorbid diseases. You are more likely to have sleep apnea, gout, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular issues, and gallbladder problems. This has, so far, been pretty well linked. But what drives me nuts about the concern-trolling comments on pictures online of overweight women, on articles about loving your body, on research about health, and in person from doctors and everyone else under the sun: that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to be heard, to be cared for, and to be thoroughly diagnosed. Fatness does not come first.

An example of fatness coming first when, for patient quality of life, it should not, would be certain styles of pain management. This is a field of study that I’m very familiar with and have also been a patient in many times. If I go into my doctor and complain of a full body pain that fatigues me, and makes my life difficult and miserable, I would expect to be treated for the pain. I would expect a pain medication to be prescribed, and tests to be done. Which, side note: I wasn’t asking for opiates. I was asking for a longer term anti inflammatory type of pain relief medication that would hopefully also lower system irritation. But, in my personal case, as a fat woman, I was denied pain medication, told to lose weight, and referred to another doctor.

What do I do in the interim? Suffer in pain, because weight loss is not exactly a quick and easy option, especially after all the things I’d already tried? Be miserable, because a doctor didn’t believe me that I’d put in years of good faith effort to be healthy, and passed almost all the other metrics for it? That’s exactly what I did. I suffered in pain, because no one I saw would give me a prescription other than “weight loss”, and I waited patiently for three months to see the other doctor. When I got to the other doctor, she grilled me about my lifestyle habits, accused me of “not wanting to be better”, told me she wouldn’t prescribe pain medication, and only decided to do a physical examination because I literally described my symptoms in textbook detail. She did what could have only been a 3 minute evaluation of my pain symptoms, pronounced that I was correct about my own damn body and did have fibromyalgia, and then reiterated that she wouldn’t prescribe pain medication until I lost some weight.

So we have multiple doctors in this practice network, now, that know full well I have a debilitating pain condition, who will not prescribe me as needed pain medication because I’m too fat.

Well, unfortunately for them, and me, I didn’t lose weight. I couldn’t lose weight. There was absolutely no healthy, no fad or yo-yo diet way for me to lose weight at this point. There still probably isn’t- I take several supplements that can support weight management, but aren’t contraindicated with my other medications. I live my healthy lifestyle. I am still in pain.

I am still fat.

I will always agree that finding the cause of pain, or discomfort, or disease is necessary to a patient for them to live a good quality life. We shouldn’t be out here blindly medicating people. But we also shouldn’t allow people to suffer while standing on a perceived moral high ground, dangling the carrot of relief over them as though somehow, when they jump through a high enough hoop, we will be able to say, “see? It was your fatness all along.” and the problem will be gone. Even in the face of plain diagnostic results, fatness becomes a quicksand to medical intervention. In part, I imagine it has to do with that aforementioned moral high ground. We have come to view weight as a moral marker, beyond even our cultural obsession with looks. There are “bad” foods and “good” foods- no in between, no moderation, no internal discussion about the harmfully dichotomous nature of declaring fatness a moral failing and thinness an idealized dream. We look down upon “fat slobs” and mock them in our comedies, our dramas, our romantic movies. A fat woman is not desirable, and a fat man is a travesty. Conversely, we will also mock thinness when it goes outside of the accepted range- women with “pancake” chests and men with “noodle” arms. This cultural bias is popular, it’s deeply held, and it is dangerously intertwined with the doctoral hands that hold our lives, our health, and our happiness. Even among overweight people, I’m still nowhere near as stigmatized as people a few sizes bigger than I am, and that breaks my heart.

The biggest thing nagging at my mind through all of this, as I talk about all the ways in which I’ve tried my best to fit into the medical idea of what “healthy” is, is that people deserve care regardless of whether or not they are willing to, or are trying to lose weight. People deserve care, love, acceptance no matter whether they are unhappy with their weight or not. Beyond even the issue of how I have been pressured to make many lifestyle changes, most of which I’m happy with, is the issue of people who should not have to conform to any standard but happiness to get a good quality of life. There are only so many plates you can juggle in your life, and I would never begrudge someone spending the hours of daylight I spend on fitting into an allopathic definition of “trying to be healthy” on something more enjoyable and fulfilling for them.

I could philosophize more about being fat, and the many issues we face in this culture: about the lack of affordable and comfortable clothing, the stigma of working out at the gym, the mockery, the bullying, the laughter, the jokes, the culture of abuse that has led me to psychological issue after psychological issue, the body dysmorphia I struggle with, and the healthcare battle ahead. After all that, though, I will still. Be. Fat.

So I would like to cordially invite all of my doctors, and everyone who has had the passing thought, or the gall to mention it to my face, all of the people in the society I have to coexist with, to get over it. Get over my weight. Get over the hump of grilling me on my daily habits, and tsking like some overblown moral judge when I decide I want to eat a cupcake. Get over your reluctance to take me seriously when I come in with a genuine medical issue. Get over your inability to prescribe me medications that would let me live my life happily. Get over the euphemisms for being overweight, and the skirting around your own implicit bias towards fat people. Get over “heavier girls” and “curvy girls” and “husky men”. Get over all the terrible connotations you have towards the word fat, and the immediate need to correct me like you’re doing me a favor when I say that I am, in fact, fat. I get that you want to be kind. But when you treat the reality of my existence like an insult, it can feel kind of shitty.

It’s not an insult. It’s not a psychological disease. It’s not the body dysmorphia talking.

I am just, plain and simple, a fat woman. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. There are so many things to love about my body- it is functional in so many ways. It carries me to school and back. It enables me to learn amazing things, and experience wonderful days. My body can take me through the forest, my legs can get me to the top of a hill. And if yours can’t? That’s just fine too. Body positivity gets a lot of flack for “normalizing and romanticizing unhealthy behaviors”. But hardly anyone (save a few outliers that the world wide powers of the internet will enable you to find) sees the body positivity movement and decides to become unhealthy because of it, not to mention the fact that average sized people rarely receive that kind of feedback for other “unhealthy” behaviors. It is not a bad thing for us to love ourselves, whether we are disabled, or fat, or outside the cultural beauty norms for any other reason. When I look in the mirror, I struggle with my appearance because other people have told me to for so long that it feels like it’s stuck in my very bones. Would it be such a bad thing for me to not feel that way? Would it be bad for children to grow up loving their bodies for being such miraculous things, without struggling to access fair healthcare, job opportunities, and peer groups?

I’m fat, and I’m happy. It’s time for the world to stop worshipping the God of Outward Appearances, and leave my personal healthcare business alone.

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The beautiful gardens of Jardin des Plantes, Paris, France ~ Carin Olsson

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Trying to Forgive When it’s Hard to Forget

Recently, I joined a support group for people with endometriosis on Facebook. It has almost two thousand people in it, and from all over the world, we chime in with our daily chronic illness related gripes.

Gripes about pain, about people dismissing us, about targeted comments that cut us deep, and offhand ones that cut deeper. We have gripes about how many spoons we have left in our bodies (click the link to get a definition of spoon theory), and how wildly that number can vary. We ask for advice, for support, for our little village to remind us that we are strong, brave, worthy people doing our darndest when people in real life might not understand it. Although I had been in group therapy from ages 15 to 22, I never thought to use the internet to reach out to others with endometriosis (or interstitial cystitis, or PCOS, or fibromyalgia.) Perhaps it was because most of my doctors repeatedly reminded me that endo is a problem young women aren’t supposed to have, as is IC, and Fibromyalgia. I was isolated by a diagnosis code and a set of fellow patients in their forties and fifties. Now, though, logging on to this group, I realize that I’m far from alone in this diagnosis pool. There are quite a few younger people posting, looking for someone like them that understands. And the age barrier matters so much less on the internet, it seems. There’s even a woman who saw both of the specialists I saw, and was generous enough to share her stories with me. 

Generosity is definitely the right word, because it is devastating to cut yourself open again for strangers, even on the internet. It is generous of them to share their trauma, their experience, their advice, their profound sadness, and their bravery with me and the other members. It is the generosity of companionship, and being in a community of people who have suffered as you have suffered, and have come out the other side clean, with scars that match yours. We piece together a puzzle of confusing advice from doctors who can’t keep up with the latest research, nurses who mean well, and family members or friends who claim an essential oil will fix everything. In between, it is all glued together by the hope that some of our anecdotal evidence will be able to help another person suffering from this disease. If Gas-X worked for my after surgery pains, then maybe it will help you. If you tried raspberry leaf tea for cramps, I’ll order some from Whole Foods on my next paycheck. If you cried in the shower this morning, because you can feel the endo type pains coming back, let us be your digital shoulder. Let me show proof that someone else out there gets it, and they’re listening. When we are generous with our whole selves, chronic illness and all, we receive validation that none of this is just in our heads. None of this is a singular experience. We are not alone. Our trauma is real, and valid, and we deserve better.

But this revelatory experience has struck me at a point in time when I am two years into therapy for PTSD. It’s mainly PTSD caused by my medical experiences while dealing with several chronic illnesses. The choices I am making today are conscious ones that I have agonized over with my therapist, week after week, month after month, sifting through emotion after emotion repressed by my adolescent brain that was, to its credit, just trying to do damage control. For a long time, I was not allowed, by my own brain, to feel angry. Not that many people were outright stopping me, but the guilt of feeling anger and disappointment with people who were supposed to be helping me, or were helping in some way while hurting me in another, was so strong that I could do nothing but repress and deny that hurt. For a long time, I reminded myself that it could always be worse. I had a doctor, after my PTSD diagnosis, deride me and tell me that it couldn’t have been bad enough to give me PTSD, if I couldn’t even describe what was wrong about their treatment of me impromptu in an unrelated doctor’s visit. I have had doctors tell me it’s all in my head, it’s my weight, it’s my diet, it’s my anxiety, it’s my depression, it’s my PTSD, it’s hysteria. I chased after elusive weight loss (hard as hell even without endocrine problems,) eliminated many things from my diet, got medicated for anxiety/depression, and still the pains remained. I had surgeries, and biopsies, and treatment after treatment.

So now, after years of keeping that anger, hurt, hopelessness, and fear in, I make a conscious choice to allow myself emotion. I allow myself anger, to feel hurt, to feel that I am worth more than dismissal and derision. I wrestle with that all consuming guilt. I deserve to be recognized, taken seriously, treated well, and diagnosed thoroughly. But in learning to acknowledge these emotions that I had buried and ignored, in learning to accept that there are wrongs haunting me, and experiences that I can finally share with others, I have to wonder what room there is for forgiveness.

Because beyond acknowledgement, there lies the choice of what to do with that emotion. You can let it ride, and you should feel it fully and understand it, but then… Then you have to find some way to let it go. It may take years. It will resurface, and it will dog your steps like a shadow, but every time, you have to understand what choice it is you must make to let that anger go. And that is the place I have arrived at, now that I have found a community of people who understand my hurt, and validate its place in my life. I can finally feel those emotions fully, express them, keep them anywhere but inside me where they burn like acid and degrade your protections against the hurtful situation. It is easy to say that you must forgive- but how do we forgive when there is no way to forget?

There is no chance we will forget the wounds, here. There is no chance that the traumatic memories can simply be erased. I will not forget these things, but even so, I have to find a path to forgiveness, or they will stagnate here in this stage of emotional processing, and continue to cause me more pain.

What even is forgiveness, anyway?

“Psychologists generally define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.”

It’s not giving anyone a free pass. It’s not ignoring your feelings, or their transgression. It’s a conscious act you make to help yourself in the long run, because you do not deserve to be burdened with the consequences of their actions.

There are quite a few theories on how to forgive someone for what they’ve done. Dr. Dwayne Dyer offers the 15 Steps to Forgiving Someone. They follow a pattern of moving on, not going to sleep angry, understanding yourself instead of focusing blame, taking responsibility for your part, and learning to let go. Well, that’s less than helpful, here- many of my traumatic experiences were not my fault. I had no responsibility in a situation where I was a child, and an adult hurt me. I can’t let go- that’s why I’m here. And I understand myself pretty damn well, but that won’t erase the blame that falls squarely on a professional who mistreated a child. So this method, while couched in a very, shall I say… evangelical, and rather victim-blamey way, won’t help me. It is designed, it seems, for spouses in a very specific model of relationship. How to move on, is, in fact, the biggest issue.

Then you have the religious manners of forgiveness- something unfamiliar to me, in many ways, because I grew up wholly separated from religious language and customs. I recently read a Seven Steps to Forgiving article authored by a Catholic sister that I tried to ruminate on for a good while. You be careful about venting your anger, not hold grudges, ask for a spirit of gratitude, involve as few people as possible to prevent public shaming, ask forgiveness from others, don’t sweat the small stuff, and act for the perpetrator’s good, even if we don’t feel like it. This, I’ll come back to- because despite growing up outside this style of communication, and this method of faith, I think there are valuable things that inform my future in forgiveness. Third, you’ve got the general psychology method of forgiveness. It’s simply four steps. Think about the incident that angered you, acknowledge the growth you’ve made as a result of or around that experience, think of the other person, and then decide whether you want to confront them or simply make this choice internally.

The last one seems the simplest, but to me- it lacks steps, detail, practical knowledge. And that’s why I’ve come up with a game plan that draws from a few different sources. Because I’m trying my hardest to forgive things, so as to loosen their hold on me. I am trying constantly, one day at a time, to lessen the impact of experiences that I don’t want to relive for the rest of my life. I may not be able to forget them, but I desperately want to heal the wounds they caused.

1. Acknowledge the trauma. It’s happened: I can’t make it un-happen. I cannot, so far, do any time travel and change what has occurred. I have to think about it, understand it, and realize its impact on me.

2. I don’t want to hold grudges. I don’t want to vent my anger in hurtful ways. But I do want to vent somehow- in a healthy way. Art, writing, talking with someone I love, and having sessions with my therapist are all great ways to do this. Even just going out to the oceanside and screeching into the waves for a little, when it feels too pent up inside me. When it builds up, create a venting system, and let that steam go.

3. Ask for the spirit of gratitude from your chosen deity- or, acknowledge by yourself the learning and growing you’ve done from this experience. Whichever way works better for you. There are lots of things I did get out of these years. There are lots of happy moments. They don’t have to invalidate what was wrong about the situation.

4. Think about the other person. Not because you must pity them, or validate what they did. But because it might help you to try and understand what they’ve done and why. Did they think they were helping? Don’t dismiss your own hurt. It’s not made up. It’s not just in your head. Just try and gain a little perspective, so you can gather distance from it.

5. Decide whether you’d like to confront them- and whether you just want a spectacle to feel your revenge, or whether it will actually change the future. Because a spectacle won’t help you, in the long run. But changing the course of the future will.

6. Repeat, as many times as you need to, until you feel that suffering and anger lift from your chest.

I’m going to do this every day, every time the trauma comes up, every time I have the strength for it.

Because we all deserve the lightness of forgiveness in ourselves, and we deserve to acknowledge our trauma as part of us, not something to hide away and feel ashamed of.

Don’t forgive them for their sake.

Learn to forgive them, in a way appropriate to the situation, for yours.

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Supplement Science: Turmeric

This is the part of the blog where I talk about supplements that are potentially useful for chronic illness, collect and  briefly summarize some of the science behind them, and then give my personal opinion of the supplement.

This week, I’m talking about turmeric, also marketed as curcumin or curcuminoids which are both derived from turmeric. Turmeric is a rhizome or root in the ginger family, used in many Indo-Asian cuisines. It has a distinct yellow-orange color, which you may see in your supplement pills. Curcumin is the yellow chemical in turmeric, and the one that is proposed to have inflammation fighting benefits as a supplement.

Curcumin itself has poor oral bioavailability, making it difficult for our bodies to absorb in order to see any real benefits in small doses. This may mean that we need to take more of it to see a real change. How much, though? Clinical doses of 1 gram of turmeric showed significant serum curcumin. A study of 117 people, at that dose, did prove relative anti-inflammatory properties. Other studies have shown that chronic stress, oxidative stress, and chronic illness related inflammation may be linked and able to be suppressed or depressed by the effects of curcumin on inflammatory pathways. It can prevent against oxidative stress in human microvascular endothelial cells, according to another study. It’s even been shown to improve fine motor function in adult rhesus monkeys, which bodes well for human reactions to the compound. It may even improve the inflammation of the ovaries in patients with PCOS. So the question is, if there’s all this research promoting the idea of giving curcumin and turmeric a chance, how do you go about doing that?

I think turmeric, as a supplement, is a pretty good option. It’s a good complementary therapy supplement, it doesn’t interact with any other medications, and it’s not difficult to find. The current science is fairly positive on its ability to affect the inflammatory pathways of the human body, and more promising research continues to come out. I don’t think getting a turmeric latte or drinking tons of trendy turmeric smoothies will be the cure you’re looking for. But I do think that in terms of reducing overall inflammation, it’s absolutely possible for turmeric, in specific quantities, to have benefit. The science is fairly clear thus far that a dose of between 500-1000 mg of curcuminoids or straight curcumin itself, or alternatively a dose of about 1 gram of turmeric powder per day, will provide clinically significant levels of curcumin in the human body. At this point, if you’re going to see improvement, you will- provided you’re patient enough to wait 4-6 weeks. Reducing inflammation is not a simple, nor a quick task.

Here is a disclaimer, though. Curcumin alone is not going to improve your arthritis. It seems most helpful in an overall regimen of other anti-inflammatory lifestyle changes.

In essence, turmeric/curcumin: good as a supplement combined with other anti-inflammatory lifestyle options, scientifically researched, and complementary to many other chronic illness regimens.

Trusted brands of curcumin/turmeric supplementation for good bioavailability and actual clinical research seem to be Theracurmin, Longvida, and NovaSol. Natural Factors sells a well reviewed Theracurmin supplement in many places, including on Amazon.

And that concludes our Supplement Science- if you have a supplement you’d like me to research, please send me an ask!

Sources:

Cavaleri, Franco. "Presenting a New Standard Drug Model for Turmeric and Its Prized Extract, Curcumin." International Journal of Inflammation, 15 Jan. 2018, pp. 1-18. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1155/2018/5023429.

Tweed, Vera. "Curcumin Reduces Dangerous Chronic Inflammation." Better Nutrition, vol. 77, no. 4, Apr. 2015, p. 10. EBSCOhost, 

Yan, He, et al. "Curcumin, Inflammation, and Chronic Diseases: How Are They Linked?." Molecules, vol. 20, no. 5, May 2015, pp. 9183-9213. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3390/molecules20059183.

Bowley, Bethany G. E., et al. "Oral Curcumin Supplementation Improves Fine Motor Function in the Middle-Aged Rhesus Monkey." Somatosensory & Motor Research, vol. 35, no. 1, Mar. 2018, pp. 1-10. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/08990220.2018.1432481.

JUN, SHI, et al. "Curcumin Pretreatment Protects against PM2.5‑Induced Oxidized Low‑Density Lipoprotein‑Mediated Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in Human Microvascular Endothelial Cells." Molecular Medicine Reports, vol. 16, no. 3, Sept. 2017, pp. 2588-2594. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3892/mmr.2017.6935

Mohammadi, Shima, et al. "The Effect of Curcumin on TNF-Α, IL-6 and CRP Expression in a Model of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome as an Inflammation State." Journal of Reproduction & Infertility, vol. 18, no. 4, Oct-Dec2017, pp. 352-360. EBSCOhost, 

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A Timeline of My Medical Issues

It is far too difficult to chronicle the entirety of my medical issues into one single post, but a timeline might be helpful for those of you who are unacquainted with my personal struggles. 

I want everyone to understand the things I have dealt with mainly because I think context is valuable- and knowing where I come from will hopefully help others remain convinced that happiness is possible in unfortunate and painful circumstances. 

For those of us with chronic illness, things can seem to blur together and become an indistinguishable amalgamation of suffering. But these are the building blocks of triumph, and it is important to remember how far we’ve come. 

2009: Age 14

- Diagnosis of PCOS

- Beginning hormonal birth control

- Separated shoulder that leads to frozen shoulder

2010: Age 15

- Prolonged diagnostic procedures with a gastroenterologist lead me on a red herring chase trying to discover the source of my persistent abdominal pain that is not related to PCOS

- First colonoscopy, first panic attack, and beginning of seeing a therapist

- Group Therapy begins

- I begin partial independent study to maintain school attendance. 

2011: Age 15-16

- Referral to Stanford Pain Clinic

- Referral to Stanford OBGYN Management

- First laparoscopy for endometriosis and positive diagnosis of endometriosis

- Appendectomy

- Second colonoscopy

- Beginning of pelvic floor physical therapy for pelvic floor dysfunction caused by my first laparoscopy

- Beginning of severe nerve pain, diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome in left arm and permanent partial separation of the joint

- Beginning of neurology visits

- Diagnosis with hydromyelia of the cervical spine, and lipoma of the cauda equina

- I get awarded a high school diploma on the basis of testing, but decide to keep going to school in order to try and maintain social contacts, and get the full experience. 

2012: Age 16-17

- Continued maintenance of pain clinic yields little results

- Dietary issues present themselves, and I have to cut out gluten, dairy, nuts, shellfish, white flesh squashes, and limit acids. 

- Brief few months with conversion syndrome (where pain causes cut off nerve supply to the lower limbs, and causes issues walking) 

2013: Age 17-18

- I graduate high school, the average way this time! 

- Chronic bronchitis leads to scarred airways and post infectious constrictive airway disorder. 

2014: Age 18-19

- Steroids for post infectious constrictive airway disorder end up giving me internal bleeding, and I end up getting to have my third colonoscopy on Valentine’s day. 

- Serotonin syndrome from a change in SSRI medication causes partial amnesia, and I end up taking a semester off college. 

- In the fall, my endometriosis pain once again reaches an untenable degree, and I schedule my second laparoscopy. 

- Second laparoscopy, fourth colonoscopy, and first cystoscopy reveal more endometriosis, adhesions, and interstitial cystitis. 

2015: Age 19-20

- I experienced the greatest recovery thus far in my life from my second surgery!

- Diagnosis with several different environmental allergies

- PTSD diagnosis.

2016: Age 20-21

- Beginning of true menorrhagia. I am sent to urgent care for emergency fluids quite a few times because of heavy, heavy bleeding. 

- Beginning of full body pains, aches, joint issues. 

2017: Age 21-22

- Diagnosis with fibromyalgia

- Recurrence of endometrial pain

- Uterine biopsy reveals atypical endometrial hyperplasia

2018: Age 22-23 (to the present day!)

- chronic vestibular migraines diagnosed

- ganglion cysts in wrist diagnosed

- carpal tunnel and De quervain’s tenosynovitis diagnosed