Peripheral Neuropathy

I have a very good friend that I diagnosed peripheral neuropathy in a number of years ago. She has a lot of pain in her feet and has been put on some pretty hefty medications to help her with this. She also has some arthritis in her hands and when she saw how well I was doing this spring, she asked what I was doing. I told her about MMS (Miracle Mineral Solution).

She got some and I saw her after she had been on just one drop a day for a week. She told me her arthritis was not better. However, the pain in her feet was about 90% gone and she asked me what should I tell my doctor. I told her he would likely not understand and the best thing was to have him contact me and I would talk with him from a scientific basis. Not surprising, he never called. My friend is still doing very well, using less of the prescription medicine and her pain is continuing to be controlled.

Miracle Mineral Solution

Yesterday I mentioned Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS). This is a very inexpensive product that has many uses. As I said yesterday, I use it for arthritis pain. I ring hand bells - in case you don't know what these are, there is a picture to the left.

Miracle Mineral Solution has been an incredible discovery for me personally. Prior to finding this, I used to have to wear braces on my wrists and by the end of concert season in December and May, I could hardly pick up a bell at all. Not true any more!! In fact I don't always wear my braces now and last summer I had the opportunity to play at the International Hand Bell Festival in Orlando. We rang some days for 7-8 hours. That is a lot of ringing. I did have the MMS with me there and took it every day. Still no pain and I never had to wear my braces. This is truly an amazing product.

The great news is that it is not just for pain. I will tell you that acute pain - something that is fairly new resolves much more quickly than chronic pain. It took about a month or so to get resolution with my arthritis pain. If you have questions about MMS, please email me. I will be happy to help you and give you more information.

Acute Finger Injury

While I was away last week, I injured my ring and middle fingers. They were both very swollen and sore. Because of where I was, I did not have something with me that would quickly assist with the healing. So by Friday, when I did get home, they were both still very swollen, stiff and sore. So I immediately got back on my Miracle Mineral Solution. I routinely use this for arthritis pain in my wrists, hands and feet, but did not have it for the 5 days I was gone.

I restarted it on Friday evening and today, my fingers are almost completely back to normal with no more pain and the swelling is minimal. I had forgotten how well the Miracle Mineral Solution works!! More about this great product tomorrow.

Ear Infections and Flying

I got a phone call yesterday from someone asking about her son flying with an ear infection. Here's my advice on that one. If you have an ear infection you should be taking a decongestant for at least 24 hours before you fly. This will help take the congestion out of the eustachian tube so that when you take off your ear doesn't plug up. You can use any of the over the counter decongestants, just follow the instructions on the label.

If you have an infection, this should be diagnosed by a physician, who is treating you with antibiotics. Ear pain does not necessarily mean you have an infection. Get it looked at.

When you fly, ask the stewardess for 2 cups with a hot wet paper towel in each. As the plane takes off, hold these up to your ears. This will alleviate some of the discomfort of the take off. Do the same for the landing. You make look a little silly and feel a little funny holding the cups to your ears, but it is way better than the pain associated with the assent and descent. Cabin pressures are set to about 5,000 feet, so if you're landing in Denver, it will be less painful because your ears are used to that pressure. However if you're landing in Houston or somewhere that is sea level, the pressure will be intensified.

It would be best if you didn't have to fly, but sometimes that is not an option. Things that can occur are what we call barotrauma to the ear drums from the pressures outside versus the inside pressure behind the drum. This may lead to scarring and decreased hearing later in life. You can also suffer a rupture of the drum, in which case the pain will be instantly relieved. the bad news is that you will lose your hearing for awhile in that ear depending upon the size of the rupture. Ruptures heal, again leaving some scar tissue which can impair the hearing in the affected ear.

Swelling and Airline Travel

I just got back from a trip to California where I was doing way more physical activity than I usually do. The plane ride back was not a direct flight, so had a short layover and a connecting flight. I was also excessively tired, running on about 3 hours of sleep. As a consequence, I slept on the flights. This was not a bad thing, except that I did not move much for the 4 hours while I was flying. This means no exercising or moving of my legs. The result when I landed in Denver was excessive swelling of my feet, ankles, and lower legs.

This is a perfect set up for a blood clot to form. How I could have prevented this was every 20 minutes or so pulling my toes upward toward my shin and then pointing my toes about 10 times in each direction. When you are awake on the plane you may not be doing these exercises, but you may be moving your legs. You will find that when you do these simple exercises you can prevent the excessive swelling in the lower extremities and help prevent a blood clot from forming.

When I got home, I immediately elevated my feet above the level of my heart to help get the swelling down.

Sources of Potassium

Here is a short list of foods that actually contain more potassium than bananas.
Sweet potato, potatoes, plain yogurt, prune juice, yellow fin tuna, clams, winter squash and cod. My favorite though is black strap molasses which actually contains quite a bit more potassium than bananas. If you are a calorie counter, this will help you see. 1 Tablespoon of black strap molasses is 47 calories and contains 498mg of Potassium. 1 medium banana is 105 calories and 419mg of Potassium. A sweet potato is 131 calories and contains 694mg of Potassium.

So there are other sources of potassium and most vegetables contain potassium. So eat your vegetables and be a little wary about eating bananas.

Bananas

I was speaking with a diabetic recently who was telling me that the only fruit she eats is bananas. Of course her next comment was because they are high in potassium. What most people don't realize is that there are better sources of potassium than bananas.

The thing to understand about bananas is that they are a starch. Starch gets converted in your body directly to glucose (sugar). The process in the body is one that the sugar is not easily broken down and causes the blood sugar to stay elevated in diabetics for several hours. So I usually advise my diabetics to pick other fruits than bananas.