There has been a lot of healthy activity in our household lately, and not just Tanya’s miraculous change in her well-being; we have also recently released a book of juicing recipes, “Faces of Juicing, Visual Juicing Recipes.” When the book was released Tanya suggested that she wanted to go on a juice fast; I just tried to change the subject when she brought it up. Since Tanya has recently learned that most of her health issues appeared to be the result of a profound Vitamin B7 deficiency, otherwise known as Biotinidase Deficiency, she started taking Biotin a week ago and is a new person today. This change has resulted in her appreciating juicing even more and has strengthened her resolve to increase her juicing at least for a couple of weeks. Since I know when I am beat, I decided to head over to the Torrance Farmers Market on Saturday morning and see what was available.
There is nothing like going to a farmers market to make one appreciate living in Southern California. So many vibrant colors and good smells; we have it all. The Torrance Farmers Market is held every Saturday at Wilson Park, located at 2200 Crenshaw Boulevard between Sepulveda Boulevard and Carson Street from 8:00 AM until 1:00 PM, on Tuesday and Saturday. I have not gone on a Tuesday yet, but Saturdays are definitely fun for the entire family as there is not only fresh produce available but there are over twenty vendors selling cooked foods as well. Take the entire family, enjoy some good food, live music and that great California sunshine. Continue reading
Since the primary care physician was pretty useless Tanya hunted down a doctor that practices naturopathy; figuring he would be more capable with vitamin deficiencies. She then picked up a copy of the test results so she could bring them to the new guy and discovered her B7 level was .05! People with B7 levels between .30 and .10 need treatment; below that is a profound deficiency and must be treated with urgency. While Tanya waited for her appointment, she did more research and discovered that almost every issue she has had since birth can be related to this B7 deficiency. In the 9 years she had been treated for Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), no one ever suggested doing a vitamin test even though all the tests they ran on her said she did not have RA. Doctors agreed, something else was going on, but no one ever thought to check vitamin or toxin levels.
Thursday we went to visit the naturopathic doctor; that was pretty eye-opening. The first thing we learned was that he had never dealt with anyone that had a B7 deficiency; he had just had someone with a B6 deficiency recently though. B7 deficiencies are not tracked much it seems; they do it on newborns, but stop after that. Not really sure why that it. He agreed to do a complete vitamin and mineral blood test, so we will see what happens from there. Continue reading
In a nutshell; my girlfriend Tanya was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) in 2004. In October of 2011 Tanya moved from Indiana to California and my life of living with RA began. One major change in my life was that I now had to start doing something I have most of my adult life avoiding; I started going on visits to various doctors. In case there is some confusion, I do not go to the doctor for myself. I tried it a few years ago but the experience was so frustrating that I said screw it. I admit, I was a little surprised when I first started going with Tanya on her visits to several doctors and specialists in Southern California. My initial impression with each doctor I was introduced to gave me the impression that each of these new doctors was a qualified, caring professional that was going to do their best to help Tanya. Unfortunately, as time went on, I came to the realization that there was one doctor that seemed to be basing his suggestions on kickbacks from a pharmaceutical company while the others seemed to be at a loss as to what Tanya’s problem is, because every “test” they ran seemed to come back normal; it was almost as if they were suggesting that she did not really have RA. Rheumatologists would send her to neurologists and thyroid doctors. Everyone that tested her said there was nothing wrong that they could see, and her complaints essentially were not typical RA symptoms. Various drug combinations were tried and only through Tanya’s insistence was a combination of drugs given to her that relieved her pain, quite significantly at that. The thing is, the new drug cocktail had side effects that required even more pills to be prescribed and some of the side effects got bad enough that she had to delay taking her primary pain relief cocktail. I started to notice Tanya experiencing the same frustrations that caused me to give up on doctors, but she does not have that luxury. Continue reading
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