Category: Health

  • That Hyper Acidity Demon

    I’ve been struggling with hyper-acidity for a few years now. Like most illnesses, I prefer to take the holistic approach to addressing it rather than the instant gratification approach that calls for pills and reckless abandon in modern medicine. So over the years, I observed various tendencies within myself that seem to trigger the acidity spikes that often feel like a butcher’s hook has been inserted in my abdomen from below and is being pulled downwards with enough force that threatens to disembowel me. So I thought I’d share a few pointers about what has and hasn’t worked for me.

    Early on, I visited the doctor to identify the cause of the pain in my stomach. They immediately suspected an ulcer and promptly placed me on medication for this. So I received a standard dose of Nexium and was given some Gaviscon to go with it. It didn’t work. So I went back to the doctor to see what could be the problem. This time, because of the intensity of the pain and discomfort (tmi warning) and because of the fact that my stool was starting to get a mucose texture to it, I was given a double dose of antibiotics (i.e. two different antibiotics simultaneously) over a two week period, including a double dose of Nexium for a month. It didn’t work. The next step suggested by the doctor was a gastroscopy. The idea of having a tube shoved down my throat didn’t appeal to me, so I politely declined and set out trying to understand this issue more holistically.

    After a chance meeting with an iridologist at a local pharmacy, I discovered a homoeopathic tea that relieved the symptoms within 2 or 3 days, literally! Unfortunately, as fate would have it, that pharmacy closed down and the tea that was made as a family remedy by that lady disappeared along with it. But I recalled seeing that fennel was one of the active ingredients in that tea, so I got myself some fennel tea to try to deal with the discomfort of the acidity. I also came across a book by Louise L. Hay that provides insights into the association between emotional or mental state, and our physical state. This suggested that acidity was caused by an excessive need to please others. It made perfect sense because at the time, I was going through an absolutely troubling time in my marriage, which affected my work performance, which left me desperately trying to appease both my wife, my boss, and my colleagues at the same time. However, I just saw it as stress before that point, but after reading what Louise had to say, I narrowed it down to that effort to appease. Also worth noting is that with the stress, my caffeine intake increased substantially because I was struggling to sleep and needed an energy boost more often than not. So energy drinks and filtered coffee became my staple diet which only made matters worse.

    So I started adjusting my mindset to get more perspective on what was happening. I realised that trying to appease was never sustainable, so I started accepting my limitations in pleasing others or meeting their expectations, and slowly but surely it reduced the intensity of the acidity. But the damage had been done, so I was now predisposed to hyper-acidity because my love for orange juice suddenly became my worst enemy.

    To cut a long story short, after many years of finding ways to deal with hyper-acidity without invasive medical treatment, I’ve found that the following works well for me.

    1. Having peanut butter on toast with tea. For some reason, I’ve found that the caffeine in tea doesn’t affect my acidity, whereas coffee nails it almost immediately. Drinking filter coffee is like committing harakiri.
    2. I’m using a probiotic called Probiflora with 4 strains of bacteria. There’s one with 9 strains as well, but I’m hoping I’ll never need that one. It seems to help neutralise the stomach acids by just taking one each day as needed.
    3. I completely avoid Gaviscon and similar antacids. I do use fruit salts from time to time (a local brand called ENO works exceptionally well) which seems effective at alleviating the acid build up after an overly indulgent meal.
    4. Hyper-acidity usually makes me feel bloated and generally lethargic because of the other symptoms that it invokes, so I’ve found that taking a good (preferably natural) source of digestive enzymes usually helps alleviate the bloatedness as well.
    5. Fennel tea also works well, or rooibos tea, if you have access to that, to alleviate the bloated feeling that acidity causes. It’s particularly effective to maintain the health of your digestive system when under stress.
    6. I avoid sugar completely, and I avoid acidic fruit juices completely. The sugar is simply because after getting used to the taste of natural non-radiarised honey, I can’t stand the artificial sweetness that sugar offers.
    7. When my acid really spikes, I stay away from tomatoes, white flour products and cheeses, including acidic fruits like oranges, naartjies, pineapples and most berries, especially strawberries.
    8. Most importantly, I remind myself that my objective in life is not to please people, but simply to do right by them. If they’re not happy with me, and I’m being true to myself in the process, then I accept that I cannot make them happy and maintain as amicable a relationship as is warranted, or politely part ways if needed.

    I hope that helps, because I see many people suffering with massive discomfort from hyper-acidity these days, and more often than not, they’re either on chronic medication or insane diets which is even more difficult to stick to because hyper-acidity often makes me feel hungry more often than not, which results in horrible weight gain, which nails my self-image, which increases my stress levels and perpetuates that vicious cycle. Hopefully this post will spare someone the torment of that vicious cycle.

  • Another Anon but same OCD…

    I have to wash my hands sticf´tfully and sometime more than two times and it injures my skin. If I take a shower I don’t really feel the need to be strict with my body but my hands always have to be clean. Or if I feel like something that touched my pubic area(awra) I feel like crazy washing that part. I just feel very impure and non of my deeds will be accepted. And yes I am wasting so much soap. I don’t know you said find the reason and I tried – part 2;

    Continued…SO I thought about my past and I found out that I was masturbating without knowing that it is wrong. When I got a guilty feeling after some time after doing such stuff I told my mom and she got mad at me. And since then it is a BIG NO NO for me. And since I did it with my hands they got kind of “ugly and impure”. I never touched my down there even if it was for cleaning purpose I would wear gloves and what not. But I try to learn that my body isn’t something impure. I am a teenager now and I got a boyfriend, I regret it and I didn’t have sex or anything I broke up befor but he was very sexually, like his jokes and stuff. And I didn’t have the power to say stop it. But one day I did and blaah. But now I felt like because of my loneliness that I have to masturbate. I did it without knowing. It just happened. And I got a feeling and I was WTH was that. And I just did it till one told me that you have to do ghusl. Soo.. this plus my OCD is freaking me out. I am loosing my self trust I start to question everything. Did you reallllyy wash that part, did you wash your mouth did you do it 3 times. And it is just exhausting. So I kind of got addicted to masturbating but I have to take ghusl after it but I can’t. Actually I do now since I know but it is like going through hell. Why do I have to masturbate? I have to think on sexual stuff all the time. I can’t controle it anymore. I just don’t want to do anything else than sex… it’s so embarrassing I don’t know what to do

    Assalaamu Alaykum,

    For starters, I would set the labels aside. OCD, although it may be a fairly good description of the behavioural tendencies you’re feeling about cleaning yourself, has such a huge stigma attached to it that without realising it, you end up trying to deal with the stigma more than you’re dealing with the actual problem. The real issue is what is driving you to feel so dirty or impure, and secondly, why the need to pleasure yourself as often as you do.

     

    I’m not going to go into the issue of labels again, because I think I’ve debated it ad nauseum recently, so having said all that, I think you need to start by accepting that the past is the past. Whatever you did then is done and cannot be undone. So rather than reminding yourself about past mistakes, limit yourself to referring to the past only to explain present behaviour, but not to undermine what good you may have achieved since then. And more importantly, accept that your duas for forgiveness have been accepted and trust in Allah’s mercy. Doubts around that are only encouraged by Shaytaan because that’s his way of convincing you to feel helpless which makes you do things to distract yourself from the guilt or persist in what you’re doing because you don’t see the point in stopping.

    The positive thread through all of this is that you appear to be genuinely concerned about changing the behaviour that is proving to be destructive for you, so that’s a good starting point. The problem with attaching negative labels to yourself is that it makes you feel inherently unworthy. In your case, that appears to be triggering a vicious cycle because you feel dirty, you try to clean, you touch yourself to clean and then get drawn into pleasuring yourself, which results in the guilt, which results in you trying to clean yourself excessively, which is leading to physical harm to your skin, etc. The cycle needs to be broken, but that’s always easier said than done.

    The sense I’m getting is that there is a low self-worth underlying both issues, i.e. the ‘OCD’ as well as the masturbation. If you’re feeling disgusted about yourself for whatever reason, it would stand to reason then that you would not be able to imagine yourself as being attractive to anyone else (or at least not anyone that you would want to find you attractive), so automatically that would lead you sub-consciously to want to ‘take care of yourself’ since it’s unlikely that anyone else will want to take care of you that way. However, you’re also committed to your moral obligations, which leads to the guilt associated with doing what you’re doing, so that just adds to the vicious cycle.

    To break it, I think you need to consider a dual approach. Firstly, you need to identify what are the ideal circumstances under which you are able to masturbate without fear of being caught. You’ll probably be able to find some helpful ideas and information here about ways to break the habit. In fact, read through some of the posts relating to masturbation on that site and you’ll realise that firstly, you’re not alone in this, and secondly, it is possible to break the cycle.

    The problems you’re facing with excessively cleaning or washing yourself needs to be dealt with slightly differently. You’re doubting whether or not you cleaned a certain part of your body already, which suggests that there is again a lack of confidence or self-worth, hence you doubting yourself so easily; and secondly, you need to establish a fixed routine about how you go about bathing, or making ghusl. What I mean is, if you fix a routine that says that you’ll start with your hair, then wash your face, then your ears, then your arms, etc. and you ensure that you follow exactly that routine every single time, you’ll have less reason to wonder whether you cleaned a certain part already or not. Another option is to not rinse the soap off any part until you’re completely done. That way, if it’s still soapy, you know you already cleaned it.

    Insha-Allah as it becomes habit/routine, the confidence will improve and the self-doubt will decline, which will allow you to assume a more flexible routine around cleansing yourself. If you want to discuss this in more detail, please email me directly. You’ll find my email address on my homepage. I hope this helps, and please don’t hesitate to discuss this further with me or my wife, if you’ll feel more comfortable going into more detail with her.

    Insha-Allah you’ll overcome this and realise that your shortcomings do not define who you are, how you deal with them is what determines your character and your self-worth.

  • yesterdaysareoftenindigo answered your question: Sexual Orientation

    But you dont genetically like/dislike Mushrooms and you dont choose to like/dislike them its neither a choice or genes its a developed taste.

    Sometimes it’s a developed taste because we seek variety, and other times it’s a craving that our bodies have because we need the specific nutritional value that such a food item provides. I recall specifically from childhood experiences how a poorly prepared asparagus dish made me hate the texture and thought of eating it ever since. Not because I had a natural disliking to it, but because of that bad experience. What’s worse is that I also grew to despise any other food types that have a similar texture, not because they taste bad, but because they subconsciously triggered that bad memory. So it may not be a conscious choice, but I know that if I apply my mind to it, I would be able to get over it, the same way I got over many other vices or dislikes that were not necessarily good for me to maintain.

  • Sexual Orientation

    Or should that be ‘sectual orientation’? Someone used this term when asking me about my religious persuasion, but I think it applies in this case as well. After researching this topic for some time, and having been exposed to many people that identify as ‘Gay’, my original views remain consistent. Homosexuality is a choice, and not determined by genes. This is supported by extensive research and very well presented in a concise argument on this blog. Furthermore, as I’ve always stated, if it is natural, the simple acid test to prove this would be procreation. But that’s a debate for another day.

    Given the tedious debates about this subject, I felt inclined to put my penny in the plate as well (no doubt to add to the tediousness of it all). Before I share more of my personal views, here’s a few quotes from the site referenced above:

    American Psychological Association

    “[M]any scientists share the view that sexual orientation is shaped for most people at an early age through complex interactions of biological, psychological and social factors.”

    The American Psychological Association’s pamphlet, “Answers to Your Questions About Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality.”

    “Gay Brain” Researcher Simon LeVay

    “At this point, the most widely held opinion [on causation of homosexuality] is that multiple factors play a role.”

    LeVay, Simon (1996). Queer Science, MIT Press.

    Dennis McFadden, University of Texas neuroscientist

    “Any human behavior is going to be the result of complex intermingling of genetics and environment. It would be astonishing if it were not true for homosexuality.”

    “Scientists Challenge Notion that Homosexuality’s a Matter of Choice,” The Charlotte Observer, August 9, 1998.

    Sociologist Steven Goldberg

    “I know of no one in the field who argues that homosexuality can be explained without reference to environmental factors.”

    Goldberg, Steven (1994). When Wish Replaces Thought: Why So Much of What You Believe is False. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books.

    The following is a comment from Dean Hamer, whose research in 1993 started the whole thing about the gay gene

    “Gay gene” researcher Dean Hamer was asked by Scientific American if homosexuality was rooted solely in biology. He replied:

    “Absolutely not. From twin studies, we already know that half or more of the variability in sexual orientation is not inherited. Our studies try to pinpoint the genetic factors…not negate the psychosocial factors.”

    “New Evidence of a ‘Gay Gene’,” by Anastasia Toufexis, Time, November 13, 1995, vol. 146, Issue 20, p. 95.

    This is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s obvious that social factors play a massive role in determining the sexual orientation of individuals. I often liken it with natural inclinations that people may have regarding acts or behaviours that are not associated with sexuality. The more acceptable an act becomes to society, the greater the prevalence of such an act.

    Therefore, the level of tolerance of an act is often the determining factor in its prevalence. Taking such analogies to the extreme is usually a good way to demonstrate a point, so here goes. At some point in our lives, every one of us has/had the urge to beat the crap out of someone, and maybe even want to kill them. This urge to act out violently exists in everyone. Whether a saint or a sinner, the urge is there. What prevents us from acting out is either one or all of the following factors. We either restrain ourselves because of the moral code that we subscribe to, our sense of fear for the punishment that may be received from a religious perspective, or the repercussions from a society that will not tolerate such behaviour.

    Should violent aggression become more acceptable, more people would act out on these urges to beat someone up, and society will become more accepting of the escalated level of violence. The same argument I’ve always maintained about mental ‘disorders’ versus chemical balance is what I maintain about homosexuality. i.e. the chemical imbalance that supposedly proves a person’s predisposed state to the condition is in fact a symptom of the thought processes and not the other way around.

    To avoid labouring the point and possibly delving into territory that I’m barely qualified to read let alone comment on, I would summarise it as follows. We all have urges to act out in ways that contradict societal norms, or even natural orders. Whether this is a result of a natural inclination to want to rebel against rigid structures that often stifle individuality or creativity, or whether it’s a result of other more complex factors, research to date proves that genetic predisposition is almost negligible in the vast majority of cases. We need to accept that people are not born gay, the same way that people are not born depressed. Environmental factors in our upbringing is what determines the dominance of these behavioural tendencies and not some mysterious gene that we have no power to act against.

    The power of the mind is often conveniently under estimated if acknowledging it rids us of our argument to justify our condition. I won’t suggest to know the answer to how society should deal with homosexuality. However, I think it’s disingenuous for people that choose to be gay to blame some hidden unproven force for their choice of sexual orientation, when in fact it really is a lifestyle decision that they’ve made. If every person succumbed to the fear and insecurity associated with interacting with the opposite sex, the human race would have been extinct many centuries ago.

  • You could double the number of synaptic connections in a very simple neurocircuit as a result of experience and learning. The reason for that was that long-term memory alters the expression of genes in nerve cells, which is the cause of the growth of new synaptic connections. When you see that at the cellular level, you realize that the brain can change because of experience. It gives you a different feeling about how nature and nurture interact. They are not separate processes.

    Eric R. Kandel, Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist.

    A Quest to Understand How Memory Works.

    (via storyseldomtold)

    The fact that the brain changes because of experience, as I’ve mentioned in several of my previous posts on the subject, to me, confirms that our study of chemical imbalances to prove the prevalence of psychological disorders is focusing on the symptoms rather than the root cause. But it’s easier to be a victim to chemicals than a master of your thoughts. 

  • Alternate view about cancer treatment

    : muhammadkhairyfarhan: LATEST CANCER INFORMATIONAFTER YEARS OF TELLING…

    muhammadkhairyfarhan:

    and there you go. from the student of medicine herself. 🙂ilikeireblog:

    muhammadkhairyfarhan:

    LATEST CANCER INFORMATIONAFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY AND ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY …[Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins ]Read More

    This is definitely a…

    Whilst it’s obvious that this content is not attributable to Johns Hopkins, that is as far as the claim of this being a hoax can go. I can assure you, from personal experience with immediate family members (not just one, but many) that there is definitely merit in the recommendations and explanations that are contained in the original post as an alternative to chemotherapy.This is not conjecture nor urban legend. I know people personally that opted for invasive treatment and chemotherapy as recommended by their doctors, and I know others that have opted for the holistic alternate healing approach. I can assure you that the quality of life of those that opted for the latter was significantly better, let alone not nearly as financially devastating. Do the research and you’ll find that alternate healing also has a higher life expectancy post treatment than chemotherapy.Think about it. Cancer is a lifestyle disease. It is not a contracted disease, except where genetically inherited at birth. The day modern medicine looks beyond symptomatic relief and instead takes a holistic approach to health, rather than prescribing a pill or a slice to remedy every ailment, that’s the day you should follow them blindly.If you leave any ailment to a point where it results in physical damage, then by all means consider physically invasive options for treatment. Otherwise seriously consider your lifestyle and dietary changes that are needed to restore balance in your health and stop looking for quick fixes to everything. There’s infinitely more harm than good in quick fixes. Instant gratification is not recommended when it comes to health and well being.

    “Most cancer patients in this country die of chemotherapy,” observes Dr. Alan Levin of the University of California Medical School. “Chemotherapy does not eliminate breast, colon, or lung cancers. The fact has been documented for over a decade…. Women with breast cancer are likely to die faster with chemotherapy than without it.” ~ Click here for source

  • If I had it my way

    Bipolar Disorder would be called Bipolar Personality. You could be so colourfully delightful if you just weren’t so extreme.

    Obsessive Compulsive Disorder would be renamed as Obsessively Impulsive, since chances are good that you’re mostly giving in to impulse and ignoring reason because at times we all feel like we don’t give a damn, and that perfection must be worshipped.

    Schizophrenia would be something like Spurious Mania, because we all have those inclinations to want to role play and act out our fears and hopes in unrestrained proportions, but some of us don’t because we’re shy and introverted, and others don’t because they have other ways of expressing themselves more creatively.

    People who ‘innocently’ refuse to take accountability for their actions should be punishable by law and forced to do community service.

    People who deliberately provoke others to bring out the worst in them just so that they can say ‘I told you so’ must be dragged out in public and flogged with whips made of foreskins. 

    And most of all, people that pretend to be normal must be placed in homes for the handicapped, because if you are able to maintain normality in a world like this, then you either haven’t been paying attention, or you lack the faculties with which to understand what is really happening, both of which are a threat to society. To be normal is to be complacent. There is far too many normal people in this world. 

    Personality ‘disorders’ wouldn’t exist because people will realise that we all are screwed up when in a weakened spiritual state. Don’t confuse spirituality with religiosity, too many people do that already, which would probably contribute the most to the group of those that deserve to be flogged in public with foreskins.