A couple of years ago I wiped out while walking on the sidewalk. It was a bright October morning. I was not drunk or coming down from mind-altering drugs. I was simply walking a bit enthusiastically to Kilwins, to get Halloween candy—not for myself, of course, but for all the little children. I was also wearing my daughter’s Birkenstocks, a form of shoe wear I was unaccustomed to at the time. Thinking of candy (for the children), I simply stepped right out of one shoe and tripped over the other.
This was not a rom-com cute-fall. Time slowed down, as it does during such things. I had plenty of time to predict where and how I would land, and how badly it would hurt. And thus it came to be. First, my left knee, ripping open my jeans, and then ripping open my skin. Next, the palms of my hands. And lastly, the bridge of my nose and glasses, miraculously breaking neither. As predicted, it all hurt badly. I felt the most pain in my bloodied knee, but as time went on all of the pain gravitated to my thumbs, especially my left thumb. Specifically, the soft fleshy part, which is called the themar muscle group, which should be the name of your brother’s friend’s next garage rock band.
This is all to say that I have something called post-traumatic arthritis (PTA). Google AI says PTA can resolve itself quickly, or it can linger for awhile and then fade away. But in some cases PTA can trigger a case of full-blown chronic osteoarthritis that might have otherwise taken years to present itself. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m in that last camp. It didn’t hurt all that much, but it kind of always hurt. But now, in just the past few weeks, it has become an ever-present level of pain that sucks quite hard. Every other day I revisit the oracle at Google AI, asking it over and over how to alleviate the pain. Unsurprisingly, it keeps spewing out the same answer. Eat better.
The universe, time and again, keeps nudging me to take better care of myself. And I have all the resources a girl could ask for in order to understand how to do it. Selene River Press—just one website in a whole constellation of health and nutrition resources—offers a deep and endless well of proven knowledge from the past and present:
- Back in 1949, Dr. Royal was already explaining the devastating effects of nutritional malnutrition to the public.
- In 1952, he explained in great detail the relationship between nutrition and arthritis (in the space of a lil’ ole’ pamphlet, mind you).
- In 1965, Dr. Lee asked and answered the question, Should food be our medicine? (Yes!)
- Plus there was that time when he invented the whole concept of protomorphology.
- Today the SRP Historical Archives makes an A to Z of essential nutrition information freely available to any rando off the street.
- Just about every week SRP uploads smart-as-heck blog posts on nutrition (like this one on eliminating inflammatory foods, and this one on the awesomeness of walnuts, and this super excellent one about a long-ago dentist who was disappointed in us all).
- And then there’s the book published by SRP literally subtitled Guide to Healthy Food Shopping that tells you what to buy at the store, and why. This book makes the whole thing uncomplicated and unintimidating to us food dolts.
At this point, it’s not rocket science. Drink more water, preferably purified. Eat better foods, preferably organic and whole. Take whole food supplements, definitely from Standard Process. Cool it with alcohol. Cut it with sweets. Move your body. The classics. I do some of these things all of the time. I do some of these things some of the time. But I have never done all of these things all at the same time, at least over the long-term. And my failing is always in the same area: I eat too much of what I shouldn’t (processed and white), and I don’t eat enough of what I should (whole and green). I’m also fond of a classic gin & tonic, but that’s another story.
Now, because of the ever-present pain in my hands cause by the ever-present inflammation in my body, I’m sicker of my bad habits than ever before, figuratively and literally. (If you read my post on getting type 1 diabetes as an adult, and now you’re asking yourself just how dumb a person can be, I get it.)
Friends, any tips for me out there? Did anyone else grow up without a fresh vegetable in sight and actually learn how to enjoy them as an adult? I’d say more, but making my keyboard go clickety-clack hurts as much as anything else. Maybe I’ll ask my husband to go start choppin’ broccoli.
Images from iStock/comzeal (main), gguy44 (change sign), IvelinRadkov (typewriter).
