ABC Endo: A Trinbago Survivor's Guide

Why be slow to take immunity boosting into your own hands

EASTERN PHILOSOPHY ESPOUSES mindful eating: which is simply fostering the practice of thinking about what you plan to put in your mouth. Of course, you can think good, healthy food to high heaven ... but then you have to actually eat it or all the thought was for naught.

Before I go on, perhaps you’d like to peruse the two posts directly before this, for Covid-combating immune boosting information I’ve delivered thus far.

Now then … the body’s impressive natural array of defences block, trap and kill outside organisms considered threatening. This system also has a memory, to prevent these same attacks again.

“Wonderful!” you declare with a sigh of relief. 

But remember: women with endometriosis have immune system abnormalities and impairments.

Without this strong, properly functioning immune system defence, most people would constantly fall ill from the wide range of pathogenic assaults to the body. Oops! That seems to actually be happening all around us.

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE … 

Imagine if as an endo-coper you could live almost entirely free of fatigue, headaches, listlessness, repeated infections, diarrhea, weight issues and inflammation agonies—all symptoms accepted as being caused by endo; but may be caused by weak immune systems.

That’s why we are at high risk for Covid.

BOOSTING IMMUNITY VIA NUTRITION 

My new live-by motto is: “Control the “controlables.” 

The immune system works more effectively when internal and external factors are under control. It may be difficult to control everything in the outside world; but bet your bottom dollar you can control what goes inside your body.

Here’s the simple equation: 

Good diet = GOOD HEALTH 

Look this up, ladies! I’ll start you off with a taste (pun intended) of what wholesome, healthy foods to try. 

So, antioxidants are a great group of vitamins, minerals and enzymes that prevent the formation of free radicals—which can damage cells and cause infections and degenerative diseases. Antioxidants also safeguard our DNA, the genetic material necessary for healthy cell reproduction. 

Many herbs, natural foods and nutritional supplements contain powerful antioxidant ingredients that can preserve and heal the body. A diet made up of foods rich in antioxidants is a truly superb (and delicious) way to strengthen your immune system. I bet you lose weight, too 😤. 

Changing your diet is also an equation: you have to add, sure; but also subtract. Cut out, or considerably cut down, alcohol, specific caffeine, tobacco, cow’s milk, refined flour/sugar. Even small amounts can serve as “food” for unwanted microbes.

WHAT YOU WANT TO ADD ARE … 

• VEGETABLES like cabbage, spinach, garlic, peppers
• FRUITS like coconut and coconut oil (superfoods!), berries, citrus, apples. These provide soluble fibre, which can help to alter the “personality” of immune cells, turning them from pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory. A WORD OF NOTE: some good foods contain salicylates, like apples and broccoli, and may make you feel drained, bloated, etc. Citrus fruits can produce alkaline urine, thus encouraging bacterial growth.
• HERBS are fantastic—like oregano, turmeric, ginger, licorice root, fennel.
• TINCTURES AND EXTRACTS like astragalus—a superb adaptogen; oregano oil, mushroom extracts, echinacea
• TEAS like ginger, holy basil (tulsi), peppermint, chamomile, lavender
• Even BEAUTY PRODUCTS can transfer nutrients through skin absorption. So invest in antioxidant-enriched face wipes, spritzers, massage oils, hair products. And get some sunlight on your face and neck. Before 8AM and after 3PM are deemed the safest hours.

Graphic illustration by Jhaye-Q Baptiste, from photos by Patrick Joyce.

Investigate the inventive array of recipes using many of the above cited foods on the Internet (for starters). 

We eat to live. So change your lives, dear hearts. Your bodies will love you for it … then you’ll love your bodies for it.

       In beauty may you walk

Living stories from Trinidad and Tobago via: Trinbago Come Good

Access free to use island insight visuals via: Jhaye-Q Trinbago Photography

Always happy to be helped to heal

Let’s meet this friendly essential oil properly:

1. Castor oil is mono-unsaturated
2. More than a few of you reading this might have “met” castor oil even before you were born, because it was used to help you be born. This oil has been used for centuries to stimulate labour.
3. It is a wonderful moisturiser (add droplets of lavender, apricot, orange essential oils to enhance the smell and add further benefits)
4. It is a renowned laxative (so good, in fact, it can cause diarrhoea, so use sensibly)
5. It promotes wound healing
6. Rich with ricinoleic acid, a main fatty acid, castor oil is anti-inflammatory, thus, reduces pain and swelling
7. It is anti-microbial, so fights bacterial overgrowth and fungus, such as Candida albicans
8. It keeps hair and scalp healthy (can cause allergic reaction in some)
9. The plant was called Palma christe, because its leaves resembled the hands of Christ. (Maybe that’s why it’s so healing 😇.)

CASTOR OIL PACK-UP AND DO!

• Identify a comfy place to lie down, where your needed items can be easily reached
• Cut a piece of flannel to cover your lower abdomen: hipbone to hipbone in width; under your navel to below where your crotch hairline begins in height (see illustration) 
  
• Make ready all  your items, then lie on your back with your lower body flat and exposed
• Carefully pour enough castor oil on you lower abdomen to generously slather onto your skin. You just need to rub it on, not rub it in like lotion
• Cover the oiled area with the flannel and so it begins absorbing the oil
• Now cover that with the plastic wrap
• Cover it all with the towel or Tee
• Place the heated pack atop everything
• Voila! Relax for 15 to 20 minutes. Read, knit, nap: just anything “Me time”
• When done, remove each layer in turn. Use your handy wipes to clean up
• Try doing this every day for a couple of weeks, or every few days for over a month. Note the effects in your endo diary (Diary of a Bad, Red Woman-Disease)

       In beauty may you walk

       Thanks girlfriend!

WHAT YOU NEED

1. Castor oil (to local sistuhs, PLEASE, not that stuff sold in pharmacies by a certain charlatanesque local brand, that's mixed with who knows what. Check an authentic essential oils outlet, like Mustapha's on Henry Street, Port-of-Spain).
2. Plain white flannel
3. Saran wrap (or recycle clear plastic bags like your bakery bread comes in)
4. Heat pack of some kind (check on-line for make it yourself ideas)
5. Wipes
6. Scissors
7. Old Tee or towel on standby

In beauty may you walk     

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels 

Carnival-baby bypass

       It's like we say: "If your neighbour's house is on fire, wet your own." Well imagine endo is the house on fire, and your body needs to be kept "wet" to prevent that fire from spreading through and affecting all of you.

In beauty may you walk

  Happy Christmas and a Heartily Healthy New Year