Self heal and sunshine

[smokingboot]

I like researching what I like to research. Right now I am looking at stuff that I find tedious and difficult, I am irritated by a couple of small nothings that shouldn't get to me, and the result is that I am snappy and not quite myself, not where I wanted to be after Crete.

None of this is helped by R coming home ill again. In the space of 5 weeks we have had 3 colds between us, and that's with a fortnight's dose of Aegean sunshine intervening. I don't know what is going on. Of course, R is travelling every couple of weeks between England and Scotland, not exactly the most healthy environment, and my cold came on right after spending a long time in an airport that grew colder into the night. Me and my flappy little summer dress had no chance!

But still, I'm wondering what's lacking in our diet, what we can do to improve this. There are very few issues about living in Scotland, it's a kind place full of kind people, and it has immense beauty, heart, history. But there's no getting away from the fact that we have faced multiple health issues since we moved here, and I wonder if the lower temperature, damp, and lack of sunshine has anything to do with it. It could of course just be the aftermath of Covid, immune systems that haven't been out and about enough, is it possible that some of it is age related?

I confess that my first thought is 'let's move to the Med.' Yes, yes, I know! It's not as easy as it was thanks to Brexity half-wits and anyway nowhere is perfect, no-one lives forever in the holiday vibe, though I'm indignant at fate not giving me the chance to try. I enjoyed Crete but we were ready to come home when we did because there are delights here. Yet I sit now, exhausted, hearing my husband cough upstairs, it's the first of July the heating is on and I'm just overwhelmed with fatigue. Again. Why are we always so tired?

So, to the refreshment of spirit a garden brings. The UK is a land of manicured lawns. Through the summer months I try to leave ours alone so that bees can find lots of food; the result includes spotted orchids, white clover, daisies and buttercups, self heal.





Self heal. How to heal the self? My solution's always to leave. I'm like a cat; if I feel uncomfortable in one place, I go to another place, if that doesn't work, I try another and then another. It takes a while for me to accept I may be carrying the problem with me. Having said that, I never had a problem in my life that wasn't helped even a tiny bit by sunshine.

Comments

[bleodswean]

Lovely wild yard!

I know exactly what you're talking about. I developed asthma!!! Of all the things! About a year after we moved up here. Adult onset asthma they told me but I was like -_- because I had never had anything remotely like that in my life. Several other bizarre physical things began to occur, but the opposite for D. His annual hay fever, which was debilitating, simply disappeared. I'm sure I have some sort of conifer related allergy. (I won't even go into here why seeing an allergist is impossible lest I rage against the Obamacare machine.) Anyway, my point is, that YES!!! You can have a situational health issue. I think you're wise to explore this deeper and wider.

Besides which, if your heart is calling you to the Med....it bears listening.

[smokingboot]

I hope the issues get easier for you, and somehow the right kind of care can be found; it sounds very frustrating. I too was diagnosed with asthma as an adult. They assumed it was always there but I've never had an asthma attack in my life. I lived with London pollution for a long time, so am used to endless sniffles and throat itches, minor hay fever too. But these constant debilitating colds/chest infections etc are something else. I'm charting them through my timeline; Singapore, Manchester, Scotland... the one thing these places have in common is high humidity. Hmm.

My heart does call me to the Med (My mum is Spanish and lives in Andalucia, and at some point I will have to go across to look after her) but I also love Scotland, so it is difficult. The almost instant health benefits are stark in contrast, though R has issues with heat levels above 32 degrees celsius. For me that's just nature's way of telling one to get in the shade and replenish necessary fluids with a gin and tonic!

[mallorys_camera]

Ah! An epidemiological mystery.

Could be an underperforming immune system. Could be a misdiagnosed cold.

Immune systems are very susceptible to stress (R's job), not enough sleep, dehydration, and deficits of certain nutrients (vitamin C, vitamin B6, zinc, etc)

On the misdiagnosis front—

One curious thing about the first of R's recent colds that I remember reading about here is that it got better after he took antibiotics. Colds do not respond to antibiotics, you know. Colds are viruses. Antibiotics are for bacterial infections—and, of course, a chest filled with gunk is a perfect incubator for secondary bacterial infections.

So maybe R's original secondary bacterial infection didn't respond fully to the antibiotics he was given? Maybe the antibiotic killed most of the secondary bacteria but not all the secondary bacteria? It's a thought.

The fabulous bleodswean cites asthma. It's a thought! Though generally, you can tell if you have asthma because it's kind of hard to exhale. (I have asthma, and I refuse to use inhalers, which is why I'm always coughing like I smoke five packs of cigarettes a day. 😀)

My entirely uninformed guess is that you might have asthma—because asthma is often linked with other allergies, and yr food sensitivities suggest the presence of allergies.

But that R had a common cold that developed into a secondary bacterial infection that never really went away

One other thought—you might have environmental allergies. From something growing in your heat/air system or (and I really hate to say this) some plant growing in your lovely wild outdoor meadow.

Hope I haven't rattled on at boring length! 😀

[smokingboot]

Not at all boring! Thanks for your input, it always gives me food for thought.

It feels like every respiratory disturbance gets called a 'cold' in lieu of actually working out what it is. His was evidently a chest infection, because the anti-biotics worked like a charm. I hope it's not a case of the bacteria still lurking in his system!

Yes, I've been diagnosed with asthma, though only one test confirms it; you probably know this better than I, it's the one where you exhale into a tube for as long as you can, then they put some kind of mask on your face and pump you full of gas (spot my medical knowledge!)and then you exhale again. If you can exhale longer the second time, it proves your lungs/windpipe/whatever weren't optimised the first time, hence asthma. Something like that. But allergy tests have found nothing unusual.

R was diagnosed with asthma when he was a kid. Recent tests had him assured he wasn't asthmatic, merely 'bronchially sensitive' or something,which is ridiculous as I've seen him have an asthma attack, and it was terrifying. I was very sensitive to respiratory issues as a child but I never had an asthma attack in my whole life. I swear diagnoses change by the trend!

But what's weird is that this all disappeared in Crete, likewise the tendon issues. Though we were by the sea, the atmosphere was very sunny and dry - not as many green things, but they're close by, no health issues at all except mosquito bites and possible sun burn.

[mallorys_camera]

Not weird. That's why tubercular poets and artists used to traipse off to Italy in the 19th century. To dry out their chests.

[smokingboot]

I never thought of it that way before, but it makes sense.