Balanced daily intake (grains?), menopause, neuropathy

Hullo everyone, I’m in Oz (“the land of wonder, the land down under”!!) and would love to go about 95-99% raw to see if it can improve my health thru the rest of my life! I’m a 54yo female, slim and theoretically very fit and healthy (according to medical tests and how people say I look) but have nevertheless had some unexplained (by doctors) health issues over the last few years, which make me somewhat concerned about what I need to eat every day – I feel my health problems may be caused by one or more of: (1) lack of grains in the diet, (2) hormone imbalance and/or (3) a neck injury.

Here is a timeline of what I’ve been doing the last few years (in addition to studying very intensively, running 5km 3X/wk and doing some upper-body weights 2X/wk):

MARCH 2003 - MARCH 2007: 100% ORGANIC/WILD “NO-GRAIN” DIET

BRKFAST: 1 grapefruit, blueberries with coonut flakes, then steamed spinach and tomato with wild salmon or poached eggs (butter or olive oil on top, sometimes avocado)

ALL DAY: green tea only

BEFORE DINNER: raw celery, nuts & seeds (walnuts, almonds, pepitas)

DINNER: huge salad (watercress/mesclun, grated purple cabbage & carrot, red capsicum, avocado, nori – topped with olive/faxseed oil, balsamic, herbamare) and some protein (grilled wild salmon or game); sometimes 2 stir-steamed Asian-style dishes incorporating a small amount of fish/meat, garlic, ginger, soy, sesame oil, and lots of colourful veggies – no rice)

OCCASIONAL DESSERT: mixed berries with organic yoghurt and raw honey

EVENTS DURING THIS 4 YEARS:
JULY 2004 broke ankle
AUGUST 2004 neuropathy (tingling, slight numbness) commenced in right foot – investigations found slight conduction deficiency, was told a nerve must have been stretched
SEPTEMBER 2005 injured neck in gym – sharp pain diminshed rapidly
OCTOBER 2005 neuropathy commenced in right upper arm, then in hand; MRI found no disc problem, but slight misalignment of 2 vertebrae
THRU 2006 intermittently did Dr Bookspans neck exercises and took “backrelief” tablets, which helped right arm somewhat; periods became irregular (age 53-54)
DECEMBER 2006 neuropathy started to occur in waves up the right side of neck, face and head; all medical tests normal

MARCH 2007 ADDING GRAINS TO DIET (2007), SLIGHT IMPROVEMENT:
MARCH 2007 commenced an intensive year of study, neuropathy was more frequent and had to be solved, so thought it may be diet-related (fasting all day while exercising & studying was too physically stressful, nutrients only available in grains in sufficient quantities?), so added the following, which made me feel more grounded, gave me more energy, I slept better and the neuropathy improved somewhat:

LUNCH: 2-3 thick slices of Essene sprouted-rye bread, 1 banana
AFTER DINNER: 1 bowl of rolled flaxseed mixed with water

JULY-DEC 2007 – NEW LEFT-SIDE NEUROPATHY, PALIPITATIONS:

Started to be awoken at night with a cycle of symptoms – LEFT upper arm neuropathy, then palpitations (heart rate still slow due to exercise, but could feel it and hear it very strongly), then pulsing and burning up the carotids, then a LEFT-brain fog and/or LEFT-temple headache, then feeling a wave of heat all over (NB: am NOT having “hot flushes” at any other time) – left brain fog and heavy left arm persist for some time.

ASsumed neck injury could not be involved, due to new symptoms being on LEFT side – all medical tests again clear except for slightly elevated BP (told it was due to stress), no clear direction, so made some minor changes below and got through the year without getting too much worse:

DINNER: Salad ONLY (no fish/meat) with dressing of yoghurt and flaxoil and garlic
GENERAL: no tea, lots of water, eating as much Essene bread and flaxseed as I felt I needed

DEC 2007-JAN 2008 – RELAXED + ATE COOKED GRAINS BUT NO IMPROVEMENT:
Saw neurologist who said palpitations caused by stress and neuropathy caused by migraines (though left-brain symptoms were only 6 mths old), was on holidays and very relaxed but symptoms reduced only a little; tried some homeopathy but no real improvement. Just in case, tried eating huge quantities of cooked grains (organic brown rice, buckwheat, oats) with no real improvement.

FEB 2008 CHINESE THERAPY, TREATMENT OF NECK, FOODS/HERBS for PALPITATIONS SLIGHT IMPROVEMENT:
The measures below (some or all – unknown) created some improvement in the palpitations during february – was able to sleep through the night without being woken up by symptoms and having to walk around and eat some grains/banana/yoghurt to try to get back to sleep.

1. CHINESE THERAPIST:
seeing Chinese therapist, mentioned neck injury and am receiving herbs (taken daily) and acupuncture (1X/wk) for general health and he said one patient did have palpitations caused by a neck iunjury, so commenced Chinese massage and acupuncture for neck 1X/wk.

2. DR BOOKSPANs NECK EXERCISES:
Started doing this, which also seemed to help – palpitations reduced (and neuropathy partly switched back to RIGHT arm and leg at times!).

3. POSSIBLE EXERCISE EFFECTS ON NECK?
If the symptoms ARE caused by a neck problem, am uncertain whether jogging (not fast) or upper-body weights (not heavy) are contributing (since I am not the naturally robust type!) – tried stopping all exercise in the past, or just using the elliptical machine, and have had periods of a week with no exercise due to travel – but no conclusive results; perhaps I should try stopping again in conjunction with the other things I am doing for my neck – so far am just using lighter weights and jogging slower so I can try to keep my neck and back properly aligned as Dr Bookspan says -can really only be SURE of this while walking, so am wondering if may have to change exercise to fast walk instead (even though I find running makes me feel much better than walking!)?

4. HERBS etc to REDUCE PALPITATIONS & BP:
Also started having celery (5 stalks/day) and hibiscus tea (3 cups/day) for BP, and hawthorn tea (with hibiscus) and grapes for palpitations.

FEB 2008 - RAW FOOD ADDITIONS/CHANGES TO DIET:
GOALS + CONCERNS RE APPARENT NEED FOR GRAINS:
Concerned about my apparent great need for grains, versus the fact that most rawfooders seem to eat very little grains and there are few who have been on raw food for a VERY long time, I’m unsure how best to balance my daily intake on 100% raw. I can easily change what I eat, so I would like to have a plan that will work for the rest of my life! I would like to be 100% raw when I have a choice (95% of the time) but leave some room to eat fish or cooked veg/grains when social occasions require it.

ADDITION OF GREEN SMOOTHIES TO DIET:
Because of the concerns above, I’ve just ADDED 2 green smoothies/day (cucumber, spinach/bokchoy/kale, parsley, rejuvelac) to my existing diet, which is mostly raw except for 1/2 the breakfast, the Essene bread, and the kefir/yoghurt. I’d like to not need the bread and especially the flax, because when I started eating them in 2007, they added fat to my stomach and cellulite to my thighs (which disappeared as soon as I stopped eating grains, but I didn’t dare do this when the symptoms got worse).

PROPOSED WEEKEND RAW DAYS:
Wanting to try 2 fully raw days each weekend, prepared soaked oats and started sprouting wheat (cant tolerate sprouted buckwheat or quinoa, and sprouted wheat doesnt cause IBS the way ordinary bread does!) and lentils because I believe I can only do this with lots of grains (and if long-term lack of grains IS causing my health problems, I’ll have to eat a lot MORE grains, not few/none the way most rawfooders seem to do!) – the easiest way is to make some minimal changes to existing diet (with some room for occasional gourmet raw recipes when time permits!) as follows (NB: I alwasy feel better without grains for breakfaast, but by lunchtime I need them for grounding and energy):

BREAKFAST: grapefruit, blueberries with coconut flakes, green smoothie, salad of tomato, avo, tahini, soaked sunflower seeds, sprouted lentils/mung beans, purple onion, coriander/basil.

LUNCH: green smoothie, sprouted wheat and lentils.

BEFORE DINNER: celery
DINNER: big mixed salad as always (cress/mesclun, grated purple cabbage & carrot, red capsicum, avo, nori) dressed with tahini-lime-garlic-chilli dressing + Herbamare) – and with added soaked sunflower seeds and lentils/mung beans.

AFTER DINNER: soaked oats with almond milk and apple/banana.

MY QUESTIONS:
(1) does the above plan seem a reasonable, balanced long-term raw-diet daily intake? if so, and if it improves my health, I could do it almost every day!

(2) any ideas on possible hormone-related imbalance caused by my 4 years of no grains and daytime fasting? I think all the hormone systems are related and I would have had to produce a lot of cortisol to get thru long days with no food and heavy exercise and study – this may have depleted/unbalanced all sorts of things and casue d my neuropathy and tiredness?

(3) any women out there who started on 100% raw at my age and have kept it up successfully for a long time? is it a bad idea to start on 100% raw when I have these health problems?

CONCLUSION:
Yes, finally the end – SO sorry it’s so long, but I tried to put headings to make it clearer and more readable! ANY help/advice would be enormously appreciated! Thankyou so much in advance!
Meadow

Comments

  • modhinamodhina Raw Newbie

    Hi-
    flax seeds and evening primrose oil are supposed to be good for women-I don’t know what hormone issured you are having but I have heard and read this.

    I love to sprout kamut for making raw bread/craackers. I am not your age, but definitely think that if you aren't vegetarian, it's not a good idea to eat dairy and meat together, and I stay away from eggs, generally. I love scrambled tofu, although it's not raw.
    And there is a great calcium supplement for kids that is chewable.
    Excuse me if I am not seeing u mentioned them but also cruciferous veggies-red bell peppers are great. Yoga yoga and more yoga start easy, go slow slow slow. Are you drinking pure water, and enough of it. Headaaches are often due to dehydration.
    Another thought, fasting all day and eating at night is fine, but I'm not convinced it's the all out way to live. What if you eat in the day and not at night if you want to fast, fast all day, then eat fruit next breakfast day, then a simple tasty meal in afternoon, with tea smoothie and fruit in eve.
  • modhinamodhina Raw Newbie

    well good luck reading that

  • stylistchickstylistchick Raw Newbie

    have you tried going gluten free for a couple weeks just to make sure thats not your problem?
    just a thought, i had some very atypical symptoms, and neuropathy was one of them. as well as severe problems with my back and neck, and ‘brain fog’.

    if you go gluten free, be careful with oats, some times they are not gluten free.

  • michigan romanmichigan roman Raw Master

    hi aussie , ide ask this question over at www.rawfoodtalk.com (click on the 30 day challenge to get to forum area) , theres alot of middle age women that im sure would have alot of great ideas from experience for you , plus theres an extensive archive you can search .
    cheers from michigan

  • Hi stylistchick – thanks very much for your reply, it’s amazing how similar your symptoms were to mine, but yes I was totally gluten-free for the 4 years I was on the no-grains diet, and that was when the neuropathy started, unfortunatley! It really IS amazing – I wish gluten was the answer for me as it is for you! I feel as if I’ve tried almost everything now, except 100% raw!

    Roman, thankyou, I’ll try that forum but I have a feeling I may have tried to post a question there and it never got up – was there something about them only wanting “positive” raw-food success stories on that forum and not wanting long detailed posts about health problems?

    Thaks Modina too – some great ideas there! Yes, I do eat cruciferous veg (bokchoy, watercress) and red capsicum (is that what you call bell pepper?) and since I made the changes in July 2007, I only started having the yoghurt dressing on my dinner salad when I stopped having meat/fish with it. I only eat fish/eggs in the morning at the moment. Would love to try sprouting kamut but I have to sprout wheat for now instead of kamut as I cant find any – tried spelt but it was too broken to sprout (same problem with oats) and when soaked it developed a crazy texture like chewing-gum (and I thought spelt was meant to have LESS gluten than wheat!)

    BTW, what time is it there in the US? Are you guys up really late, or are we so far ahead that it’s still friday evening where you are (it’s saturday arvo here!)?

  • modhinamodhina Raw Newbie

    Yes, capsicum is a pepper, but we usually think of hot pepper, and I am referring to sweet bell, but it seems you understood that.

    It’s about 9:50pm Fri.

  • stylistchickstylistchick Raw Newbie

    i must have missed that vital piece of information! sorry, your message was long!

    did you have a full work up on your blood to see if you had deficiencies? even meat eaters can become deficient of b vitamins.

    i hope you have good luck with raw food, it has done wonders for me.

  • Hi stylistchick – yes, they tested my blood for everything they could think of, even Lyme disease – not sure if there is a test for B vitamins in general, but my B12 levels were good. I did take some multi-B and B12 from time to time but no real improvement; nevertheless, the meat I was eating doesnt seem to have given me what I needed, and I do seem to need something in grains as far as I can tell so far, even though it hasnt created a dramatic improvement – large quantities of cooked grains did nothing, maybe LOTS of soaked & sprouted grains will help!

    I’m struck by the similarity of your symptoms and mine, and wondering if they could be a general response to a few different kinds of trigger, or even just to an allergy – I havent really tested each individual food I eat! Maybe you and I are genetically related and have very similar physiological responses – I read that everyone on this earth is no further apart than 1/16th cousins – obvious really, since all 6 billion of us are descended from only a few hundred individuals!

    I’m hoping my neck is a big part of the problem (maybe exacerbated by constant bending over books and computer, and also by jogging) – after the very FIRST neck treatment with the Chinese doctor, I slept through the night without beiong woken up, so that’s hopeful!

  • Hello There!

    I was experiencing the tingling, what felt like pulsing of a vein/artery in the bottom of the right foot, shedding of hair, heart racing after about 3 to 4 months into no-grains, mostly raw food and green smoothies diet. I was really freaked out. No one in the medical world knew what I was talking about when I said the bottom of my foot was pulsing like crazy and that I could hear my heart beats. (Some nights, my heart’s beating woke me up from my sleep.) The tingling of foot and shredding of hair have subsided; my heart has not palpated after I went back to a “normal” diet that consists of white and brown rice (total 2 cups a week), greensmoothies twice a week, vegetable juice twice a week, eggs 4X/wk, flexseeds, none to a few nuts and seeds, no dried fruit, a occasional 2 oz of steak, 4 X /week of chickens, fruit daily and lightly cooked vegetables, occasional bread/pretzel/cinamon roll/chips/ice cream.

    I suspected that maybe I was not eating enough calories. I don’t know why I experienced the symptoms, but now i know they were definitely diet-related. I hope you find the answers. You can see what I ate in rawfoodtalk under hungrygirl.

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