Saturday, 1 February 2025

A Miracle Cure?

My troublesome guts have improved enormously. I no longer have to take Omeprazole or Gaviscon and I can eat a wide range of foods again. Several months ago I began working with a nutritionist based at Framar Health in Belfast. My first session with Sarah Trimble focused on allergy and food sensitivity testing. She confirmed my gluten intolerance and explained that I was sensitive to foods which are high in histamine (e.g. nuts, citrus fruits, tomatoes, chocolate, pickled foods, smoked meats, etc). This was very helpful, but not too surprising. I had been avoiding some of these foods for years, as they were on the High FODMAP list. She also recommended that I take a specific probiotic, to help rebalance my gut flora. The testing also indicated that I had an increased need for Magnesium and B vitamins. Sarah explained which foods I needed to eat to increase these nutrients, and suggested several supplements. I’ve followed all of her advice and it's helped me enormously. But the biggest single improvement in my gut health came from another source.

My dearest T used to have gut problems and she reads articles on gut health to keep informed. One of these explained that the symptoms of too much stomach acid (e.g. heartburn, acid reflux, belching) are much the same as the symptoms of too little stomach acid. There was also a simple test to determine which condition you have. I’d been treated by my GP for too much stomach acid for six years, so I took the test: two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar mixed with a little water before a meal. It was a revelation. The persistent and intractable gut problems that had been dogging me for ages disappeared almost overnight. I had too little stomach acid, not too much. This was probably a legacy of my stomach being in the wrong position for years after one of my cancer operations. Taking apple cider vinegar before every meal is a simple and natural solution. I rarely get heartburn, acid reflux or belching. Previously I had to take Gaviscon three or four times a day. Now it's only about once a month. You are what you eat, goes the old saying. I’ve become a new man.



Wednesday, 8 January 2025

Influenza

We had an unexpected Christmas present. A dose of the flu. It wasn’t from Santa or his elves. I think I caught it at a cafĂ© in Belfast where I was meeting a pal. So two days before Christmas I was in bed coughing my lungs up. And there I stayed for most of the festive season. T was most attentive, bringing me plates of Christmas food and hot drinks. I marvelled at her support and her immune system. Then almost a week after I got ill, T went down with the very same dose. It seems to have a long incubation period (5-7 days) during which you could well be infectious. T is now in bed with the terrible cough and streaming nose. And I am attending to her. She says it’s the worst dose she’s ever had in her fifty years. It’s certainly one of the worst I’ve ever had. The first week was particularly threatening. My chest was full of gunge and my nose was blocked, I just couldn’t breathe. I kept waking up every hour or so in the night. I suppose my body was doing this automatically. My blood oxygen levels were low and my pulse was high. I had to keep taking my inhaler to expand my inflamed tubes and get my oxygen levels up. It was a real ordeal. Thankfully I’m now on the mend.

This dose of influenza seems to be everywhere. We know that plenty of family and friends are down with it. Indeed, hospitals across these islands have declared emergencies, unable to cope with all the extra patients that are arriving with serious breathing problems. And the number of excess deaths is rising. So what is behind all of this? There seem to be several reasons.

Firstly, the current flu vaccine doesn’t appear to have included much protection for this strain of flu. I suppose that when the mix of strains of flu were being assembled for the annual vaccine, this particular dose wasn’t thought likely to become a major problem. Secondly, because the take up of the flu vaccination is relatively low in the UK, the levels of flu circulating in the community are increased. Only two thirds of adults over 65 got vaccinated this winter, despite the jab being free. Unfortunately, these are the very people who are ending up seriously ill in hospital. The misinformation of the ant-vaxxers on social media has had deadly consequences. Thirdly, the many years of underinvestment and poor management in the NHS mean that it is hardly able to cope with normal health problems let alone an epidemic of flu. So political decisions have had deadly consequences too.