Michael569

A lot of what you are recommending on the blog are pharmaceutical drugs that need to be self-injected. Things like cortisone acetate, human chorionic gonadotropin or fludrocortisone acetate are not accessible to the general public and may not necessarily be safe to take over the long term. Corticoids have a lot of long-term side effects. People do not have access to these things without prescription and I think most people don't need to go down this road. I appreciate this worked for you but I think people need to be empowered to fix their health problems without using synthetic hormone replacements with the exception of those diagnosed with hypopituitarism, hypogonadism and other cases of idiopathic endocrine deficiencies. I think this needs to be specified in the article that this is a protocol for people with pituitary deficiency and that nobody should be administering this sort of protocol without medical supervision.

not a good idea imo basically bunch of vegetables and legumes rich in amino acids needed to help you build more materials for collagen production. Collagen is a protein molecule made of 3 amino acids. Like I mentioned in the post you don't build collagen by eating collagen. Your body creates collagen from the amino acids you eat. Collagen molecule would have never been able to be absorbed, it needs to be broken down anyway and after that you have no control over where the amino acids actually go. The high risk of contamination from things like bone broth is not worth the tiny probability that those materials will land in your joints which they most likely won't but I might be completely wrong about this so definitely do your research

The idea of supplementing collagen is good but in reality, your body first has to break it down to a bunch of amino acids which then get metabolised and end up god knows where. It may as well be that your expensive college pill ends up turned into nail tissue or gut epithelium. It is impossible to diverse a targeted supplement like that to a specific tissue. The size of the molecule compared to the length it would have to travel is like throwing a bowling bowl into a direction of the moon and hoping it will hit it. A better approach would be to ensure you get cofactors for collagen production: Vitamin C, proline (amino acid), glycine (amino acid) & hydroxyglycine (another amino aid) and at the same time avoid activities that actively destroy your collagen tissue. Here is some advice on what you can try instead: GENERAL ADVICE * alcohol, smoking & obesity are very harmful to joint health * physical passivity will also ruin the joint health * avoid excessively frying and eating a lot of greasy food, excessive amounts of sugar, takeaways, processed food etc. All of these create free radicals in the body that can be damaging your joints. * make sure your diet contains a lot of alkaline foods (plant foods) as these counter the acidic effect of animal foods that can also be detrimental to your joints. * if overweight, it would be advisable to try to lose weight. * despite the pain it is still a good idea to put some pressure on the joint to force it to adapt. If possible try to walk a bit every day even if you had to use a crutch or other orthopaedic support * make sure your posture is good and that you don't sit on your legs or spend a lot of time in unnatural seating positions. DIET * look up sources of high vitamin C and eat them every day. You'll notice that most of them are fruits & vegetables so it is a good idea to make vegetables 50% of your plate size and fruits part of your breakfast especially berries * glycine & proline are commonly found across most of the protein-rich food sources so eat an abundance of legumes, whole grains, nuts & seeds. Tofu is also great & so is tempeh. Lean meats from sustainable sources can be helpful but can also be too acidic so I'd limit them to 2-3 portions per week max. * you may also look into vegan bone-broths (I wouldn't suggest a real bone growth as bones are lead-rich tissues and the risk of contamination is too high) * I believe cabbage juice can be very helpful as well SUPPLEMENTAL SUPPORT If you are looking for a supplement to help you rebuild the glycosaminoglycans in the joint cartilage, then glucosamine sulphate, chondroitin sulphate and methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) have some good evidence and history of usage. MSM seems to have questionable efficacy but the first two combined could be very helpful. You can often find them together...but this won't do it if the cartilage of the knee has either been completely destroyed or there are other factors damaging the joint such as inflammation (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis). * Ensure your Vitamin D is at an optimal level (50-65ng/mL) * If your diet is devoid of Omega 3 fatty acids, that should be looked into as well. * Ginger tea several times a day can help with the inflammation (this is not a fix thou) and so can tea containing turmeric. Hope that's helpful

What have you tried so far?

Low quality post aimed to trigger people's emotional buttons without adding any value.

That's ok, It is hard to quit cold turkey, the important thing is that mentally you are already a non-smoker, it is just the chemical dependence that needs to be tackled which is not easy and will take more time. That takes very slow gradual process that often feels like two steps forward, one step back.

I agree with @Applegarden , expose yourself to a lot of anti-smoking material. Follow @BlackMaze 's journal, he has made some pretty awesome progress in dropping this habit. Other than that, keep arming yourself with other good habits. Slowly and gradually start healing your body on all fronts. Eat an abundance of fruits & vegetables. They contain components that help your liver detoxify this stuff more effectively. Practice deep abdominal breathing & take cold showers in the morning. Exercise or at least walk daily, these help move your lymphatic system around, this is your waste-dump system that doesn't have a pump such as heart and it needs your skeletal muscles to work & to pump. As you become more health-conscious & healthier, your subconscious mind will become more and more attuned to wellbeing. All of this will help you (on a deeper level) to realise how bad the smoking is for you and will drive your motivation in those crucial moments when the chemical addiction & cravings kick in. In times where the cravings are overpowering you, drop all your clothes and jump straight under an ice-cold shower until the cravings go away. You can create this sort of "positive punishment" for yourself and your mind will wire itself to a connection: smoking craving = ice-cold shower. I don't know if this will help but could be worth the effort. Btw, if you take any supplement containing vitamin A or beta-carotene drop it until the time you stop smoking. It appears Vitamin A (or beta carotene) from supplemental source combined with smoking increases risk of lung cancer.

maybe universe is telling you to stop eating meat

Seems like you were looking for an analytical book to raise your EQ points through exercises, formulas and testing methods? This is not how you raise your EQ. I have known people with exceeding intelligence and logic thinking yet when it came to emotional understanding they were as hollow as a rock. Absolutely zero empathy & emotional recognition of others. This is because EQ development is a skill and one you need to hone and practice for a decade. If you approach this sort of material from an intellectual perspective it appears fairy and woowoo. The book teaches you not "how to increase some EQ number". It teaches you how to read yourown intuition, how to navigate your existence not using logic and rational brain all the time and how to REALLY understand what people are saying rather than just getting the facts. Maybe you need to switch off all your analytics filters, preconceptions & judgements and read it again.

You can always buy a ceramic pan, they do not leech any shit into the food. Also, do you use oil when cooking meat? Generally, oil is not necessary for 90% of the time you cook except when cooking meat. In such cases I'd probably use some olive oil. Cook on medium heat and turn it around more often to prevent burning. Alternatively, you could look into air fryers or pressure cookers. No idea about the salt bit, never heard about it

Hey man, thanks for sharing your journey. Stay strong and keep up the good work. We are cheering for ya!

Maybe in the process of self-actualizing, you have turned your life into too vanilla & mechanical. I think this can be a trap of pursuing highest consciousness living that a lot of things one would have previously enjoyed are now abandoned because (add your own reason). But actually, there are benefits of still having some entertainment and even shallow-type of fun in life. Maybe you need to experiment with a bunch of relationships, not restrain from all pleasures of life, watch a few comedies and play a bunch of video games. I am not saying you become a shallow-living dweller but that you don;t strip your life of all materialistic pleasures...unless you see that becoming your path which it certainly can. Maybe you need to take few steps back before you are ready to move on. Also as a doctor, you know that depression & anxieties could very much have a physiological cause linked to your digestive health, monoamine balance, chronic inflammation, toxicity etc. In my practice, I have seen these work for people who were extremely spiritual. A bit of gut work & blood sugar balance went a long way in improving their mood & outlook of life. It may be worth your time investigating causes like these as well.

Resveratrol has the same function as vitamin E but perhaps more systemic. It is a radical scavenger as well (among others) by having a spare electron on the outer shell of the atom that it can donate without becoming a free radical (a molecule with one electron missing on the outer shell) itself. As such resveratrol can this way neutralise another free radical and prevent damage that molecule could have done to a tissue or even DNA molecule. This is not its only function and it can exert its effect in other pathways such as impacting cell cycle, stopping a LOX or COX inflammatory pathway by blocking NF-kB from being released out of the nuclear core and other. I agree with you that polyphenols induce a small amount of stress in the liver but the human body needs to be exposed to small-grade stress constantly. Even things like sunshine exposure or exercise. They are actually harmful in the shortest amount of time but beneficial in the long-term by maintaining hormesis on the mitochondrial level. The problem is when we start to capsule polyphenols and create supplements out of them where they can turn toxic and pro-inflammatory. There are undeniable benefits of plant polyphenols on human health even things like phytic acid which is wrongly being accused of being toxic however humans have become greedy, started isolating them & selling them which is where you are asking for problems.

@integral If you think about it, vitamins are just a bunch of molecules that happen to play an important biochemical role somewhere in the body. It does not mean there are no other, equally important molecules. Take C & E, they are just antioxidants in a same way that resveratrol or EGCG is. Vitamin D isn't even a vitamin, its a hormone. Vitamin K is a clotting factor, a fibrinogen could easily be named vitamin F. The entire B complex ae just bunch of cofactors, kinda like screws holding important pieces together. Other molecules have similar roles but they probably have their own fancy names. Naming vitamins is mainly just playing around with words but we know that that are other more important molecules now than bunch of vitamins & minerals. Thousands of polyphenols & phytonutrients that we don't even know yet. You could take them and name them Vitamin Z complex or invent completely new names and sell them in capsules. It's kinda like naming planets. Greeks & Romans used the names of the gods on the planets they could see but now we know so many other planets that nobody bothers with names so they are just bunch of weird numbers and letters. I don't know much about Vitamin G or B24 and never heard about it but they could be known under different names in biology.

how's your immunity overall? Do you get sick often? Lot of mucous clearing (dry cough) throughout the day?

Tonsils themselves are never the problem, they get inflamed because they are protecting you and warning the rest of the body at the same time. The root cause could be in your mouth. Poor dental health can cause migration of pathogenic bacteria down the digestive & respiratory canals. Especially if you have a lot of inflammation, cavities etc. Impaired immune function as well which could have many different causes. How's your digestion?

lol, probably realised that injecting herself with steroids doesn't cut it

Yeeeah about that.... Try extra virgin olive oil instead. Few drops, give it 10 minutes then turn around and see if anything comes out. Don't worry it won't enter the skull, the eardrum is covering the entire ending of the auditory canal. If that doesn't cut it, get one of those syringes and try some warm water, that should do it. HP can be extremely irritating and the more you disturb the inner lining of the ear the more wax you may actually get. Kinda like when mucous is building up inside an irritated throat, I believe the wax is a response to irritation of the auditory canal and also a means of self-cleansing, it's not necessarily a bad thing and there is likely a reason why its being overproduced which may be where the headphones come in.

It helps to have a bit of consistency and planning. And maybe a bunch of new recipes to add some spark and new flavours. What you can try is to do a little bit of planning. For example, on Sunday you sit down and plan what you are going to eat from Monday - Friday. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner. Write down all the ingredients and then go shopping for the whole week. Having a cookbook will help you with this and it is a good way to introduce new flavours. Once you know what to cook, it takes away the burden of having to think about it every day and you just go in the kitchen and get to meal prepared. As you are preparing the meal, you start building up an appetite. This is called a cephalic phase of your digestion. Where the brain observes that something is happening and it already starts to send signal via the branch of the nervous system called Enteric nervous system to your digestion. Digestive juices slowly start to flow, hormones including ghrelin & serotonin are building up and appetite is formed. Make sure you become present & mindful to the process of cooking. Smell the ingredients, imagine how the food will taste, take a little bit in your mouth as you prepare but prevent eating during the cooking, just taste tiny bits. All of this helps the appetite to build up & digestive juices to get flowing. . By the time the meal is ready, your appetite is at its peak. The second advice is to make sure to exercise regularly. This not only creates hunger by manipulating your blood sugar levels by exercise is an endocrine modulator, it helps you feel more cheerful, more positive and improves your outlook of the world. Enjoying your life more also increases your desire for food and alters your appetite. Third advice is to be mindful of how stressed you are. If your stress is too high throughout the day, your hunger will be suppressed. Cortisol will do that to you as you'll be switching to emergency survival mode. And final advice is don't play around with ketosis, intermittent fasting (for other than spiritual purposes) or any of that nonsense. Eat regularly and your body will naturally adjust. If there are any underlying health problems I'd speak to the doctor but dietitian may help you structure your meals better & your diet better. All the best !

I don't know where you live but that's still A LOT of girls. Most guys get nowhere near that.

This may be stress related but it could also be if you do lot of IF or keto diet and deprive your brain of essential glucose.

Your diet & lifestyle will play the most important factor. This is a bit complex to elaborate in a comment but here are few basic pointers for you to "tick" * don't skip meals * don't intermittent fast (unless you have a very good reason for it e.g. health condition. spiritual purpose etc). I know this is a big topic but I see a lot of people who do IF, destroy their metabolism & energy levels and can't go on without having 5 coffees during the fasting window. make sure you don't do that. * check your caffeine intake (if you can't make it throughout the day without coffee, this will likely be what is destroying your energy) * don't avoid carbohydrates but make sure you pick the "good" ones. * make sure your meals are well balanced (contain complex carbs, fats & protein) * make sure your portions aren't too small but not too large either. You should feel satisfied after a meal but not stuffed * Exercise at least 4 times a week if you can. * Make sure your eyes are exposed to daylight early in the morning even if it means having a tea on the balcony. Helps you adjust your circadian clock * go to sleep at the same time every day, don't overnight, don't stay up later than 11pm. (Aim for at least 7.5 hours) * If you are taking any medical drugs, some may cause drowsiness, tiredness and sleepiness throughout the day. If nothing of this is relevant from this list, you may need some blood tests to help you identify the cause.

Start by getting a source of income. It is difficult to make any decisions without money. You can't expect high-paid jobs without chipping in and either getting education or becoming very creative with your time. Get a basic job to start working on your morale & work ethics. In UK there are plenty of large chains that are always looking for people: Go to something like Pret-A-Magner, Starbucks, Subway, Sainsbury's, Tesco...whatever. Get a job and get an income. Getting a job will help you build up a work ethic. You will meet people which will improve your social skills. Having a sense of duty & obligation will raise your morale. Companies like Pret will probs pay you around 18-22£ K/year which is a good starting point. For now, forget about college and get your finances in order.

sorry, missed the reply. See if you can get any of these 1. Full blood count 2. ferritin (or any iron marker you can get) 3. B12 + Folate 4. thyroid - including. TSH, T4, T3 (not always possible) + thyroid antibodies 5. food intolerances 6. Vitamin D 7. HbA1C + fasting blood glucose

since deviated septum is a mechanical obstruction of your own nasal cartilage being in the way, I don't think you can fix that with herbs (but don't let that become a limiting belief, chances are there are techniques out there you can try to fix it yourself ). But I'd say this is one of those cases where cosmetic surgery can fix you up nicely.