When you hear of the term ‘scorched earth’, what comes to mind for you? To me, this is the very last “take no prisoners” kind of effort. An all-out, no holds barred kind of effort. Scorched earth is defined as a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy. So, while I’m not destroying useful things, I am destroying my own beliefs in what is right or proper treatment for my psoriasis. My new approach may create some unintended consequences. These consequences are also goals but have to be mentally and closely managed to be successful. My definition of scorched earth is more to: This is it! And, my friends, this is the subject of this post: my health journey and a beginning.
I have written about my health struggles. After my mother’s death, I took a hard look at my own life and came up concerned. My own health was following in my mom’s path and I was not going to go down easy. My main concern besides my weight is my psoraisis. While I’ve had a weight problem since I was a child, the psoriasis is an adult problem. Or, a relatively new concern that is, now, 20 years old. I’ve been very encouraged by some additional data that I’ve accumulated, and I’d like to share this with you.
The medical community failed me. Truly. For my psoriasis, the prescribed remedies were steriod creams, powerful drugs or just a shrug of the shoulders. In one case, at a leading medical hospital in New York City, the doctor just shrugged without any real solution. I had been struggling with the psoriasis for about 5 years as it slowly got worse. Working in New York City, I realized that I had access to the top medical doctors. Making an appointment, I was once again given the psoriasis diagnosis and provided my next infusion of steriod and vitamin creams. This seemed to be the modus operandi for my initial visits because, of course, no other doctor did this. Right. When I voiced such to the doctor, she pretty much said that I would need to follow just her guidance so she could properly treat me. OK, I thought. Let me give this another try.
Determined, I salved myself up everyday, my legs becoming an oily, gooey mess under my slacks. The good folks at the hospital who shall not be named surely know their business, right? And, wouldn’t you know it? The psoriasis went away! My calf skin was so clear that I could not see any evidence of prior skin issues at all. My legs were clear, skin nice and solid, and my itching was gone. I found my cure! This doctor is a genius! Then, a few weeks later and out of the blue, I began to feel bloated and I retained fluids. My hands and legs were huge, and I felt miserable with problems walking on my huge feet and just feeling well. And, wouldn’t you know it? My psoriasis came back and with a vengeance for it was really angry that I tried to evict it from my body. (By now, I created my psoraisis into “a thing” independent of me.) My swollen legs had bright red patches covering 60% of my lower leg. Before, I had blotches – spots really – this size of dimes and quarters. After this event, I now had huge chunks of red, swollen flesh. My legs appeared to be chemically burned. Did this just get worse with all of my treatments? I was stunned, and called my doctor.
Time for another visit where the doctor just shrugged. She poked around a bit and had no other offerrings. The nursing assistant who processed me into the office for my appointment had more of a reaction for he actually gasped and recoiled when I pulled up my trouser legs. I was materially worse with bright angry red blotches that looked a second away from a bloody mess. Struggling to understand what happened, I asked the doctor why didn’t the cream continue to work? My friends, this was the FIRST time I learned that psoriasis was treated by steriods but that this treatment does not resolve the problem. What? How can that be? Why would I be given treatment but no cure? And, that is when it hit me: Steroid creams will not solve the problem. I asked if there could be any nutritional correlation or something I could be doing better in my diet? The doctor said not really. I pressed because I had always believed that good nutrition equalled good health. (Folks, just because I could not follow good nutritional guidelines didn’t mean I don’t know about good nutrition. Just sayin’. You may be surprised that most obese people really do know about proper nutrition. It is following these guidelines that is difficult…or so I used to think after I began to question said guidelines.) Then, the doctor said that there were some recent studies about nutritional implications in psoriasis. My thought then was this: Why did I have to ask you repeatedly to get this information? And my only answer to that question as I pondered the visit on my way home? My changing nutrition and healing myself does not sell drugs. Or medical visits. Or snake oil cures. I realized I was part of society that was sick and would follow that path. (Sociology studiers know about this.) I began staring down psoriatic arthritis and pictured myself tragically impacted by this debiliating disorder.
Not wanting this for myself, I began a path that would take me to new heights, deep lows, meeting new friends (Hi Karen!), and ending up with a new focus: Education. I also realized that while searching for my own purpose in life, my obstacle is actually my purpose. For this reason, I plan to share my journey to healing with you in the hope that this message finds and helps someone else. What you will find out is that a kind person provided me with key insight that set me on my own path to wellness, a journey of insight, reflection, and change. Very scary but, if I can weather the storms, the results will be their own reward.
One thing I have learned is that there is a lot of information – and misinformation – available to us that is packaged up and looks really official. Check out this study on psoriasis here. To the layman, this looks really technical and must be legit because of all of the chemical notations. (This was my initial take!) However, the study has this language in its abstract section that had me wondering:
“Psoriasis patients often show unbalanced dietary habits such as higher intake of fat and lower intake of fish or dietary fibers, compared to controls. Such dietary habits might be related to the incidence and severity of psoriasis.”
Now, that is just – excuse my language here – fucking bullshit. I’m calling it. BULLSHIT. I have been on so many diets: Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, vegetarian, vegan, grain-free, AIP, liquid – you name it. I have never seen my psoriais improve with any of it. Now, most studies are reliable and probably okay. However, you needed to be really consider all of the possible issues within the testing to get the true picture. How are studies funded? What data was used? What preconceptions could there be? These are legitimate and valuable questions to be answered, too. Now, this study provided no scientific evidence for this statement, and the basis of this analysis may consider this unverified premise based on a societal viewpoint unfavorable to the obese. (And, if you don’t believe there is a bias towards people who are overweight, you need to buy the Brooklyn Bridge I’m now selling. Cheap.) I cannot tell you how many times my issues were discounted because my weight was seen as ‘the cause.’ (Hello, Endocrinologist, who told me my thyroid numbers were good only to find out – accidentally – that I had cancer of the thyroid.) Well, what if my weight is the RESULT of something else? What if our medical establishment actually focused on obesity not as a biblical failure or any type of failure of that matter. I would routinely sit with a group to eat lunch, gaining weight on my food which was half the volume of those around me. Yes, I think I gained their weight too!
Here is the dilemma for the average human: Any nutritional study is subject to interpretation because nutritional studies require very specific controls. Depending on the study, the data can be misinterpreted if the human factors influencing the measurements are not also considered. These types of trials are very expensive because you must provide for quite a lot of controls to really be able to assess the data. Therefore, most studies do not include this level of control or they are funded by large companies who have the currency to spend on biased studies to support their product. Additionally, each human is different and their bodies metabolize the same foods with different results. A lot of what I eat reacts differently with you as I described at my lunch table. Why is that? Well, my background – and genetics – are different. And, I then began to consider that I am a first generation American. My parents were German and immgrated in 1956. Therefore, they grew up eating very differently than we do today. I recalled years past and how different my diet and eating were…and when that changed, and correlated this to a specific point in my teenage years. I began to consider this approach.
First, I took on educating myself. Then, I experimented and measured success through my psoriasis healing. Then, I backtracked to clear my own journey, see what I learned, and deliberately used that learning to move forward to health. I’m doing a daily ‘check in’ on my journey right now and I’m seeing very positive results. However, time will tell if this path is one I can stay on, or if I will need to make a turn somewhere ahead. That is OK for progress – and marking progress – is extremely helpful. In the past, I buried my head to measuring progress for I didn’t want to acknowledge my own failures. (Area #1 that I needed to fix before beginning this new path.) I have many failures on my path to success. Just like dating, one has to meet many partner prospects before deciding the type of person you wanted to be with. I used to see my own struggles as failures. However, I now see these as little detours on my ultimate journey. Detours that gave me a two options: I could wallow in them, or I could pick myself up, dust myself off, bandage my wounds, and begin again. And, I remembered to bring lots of bandaids for this journey is not without injury.
To a new beginning. Peace.
The Wobble 