Category: Health

So, people want to know what supplement I took to cure my seafood allergy since I wrote about it last time. I did not put that in the blog because it may not be applicable to everyone since it was prescribed to me by the good doctor. However, for the sake of science, I will cover the topic in more details.

First, my seafood allergy is not something I acquire later on in life. No. It was there since I was born. I know because my mother likes seafood and I was allergic to her milk right from the start.

Second, the supplements I took is a combination of vitamin B12, vitamin A, vitamin E, flax oil and borage oil. Pretty much over the counter stuff you see out there. It is not any special magic formula at all. The most interesting thing though, is that the dosage I took is a lot higher than the recommended daily intake by whatever bullshit standard out there.

Third, the doctor had me taking the supplements for a full month. And he said that I must avoid all allergic reaction during the month or the treatment may not work, meaning that I have to restart the one month treatment after the allergic reactions ended. I was told that once the allergy is cured, there is no need of maintenance of any kind to keep me allergy free from seafood.

On the treatment method itself, I can explain it in the view of traditional Eastern medical practice.

From what I learned when I was young, that for certain types of long term body ailment, Chinese medical doctors often give the patients herbal drugs that mildly damage their bodies to induce self recovery. Moreover, similar to what I was told by this doctor, that if the ailment occurs during the treatment process, the delicate treatment process will have to be done all over again after the ailment is taken care of first.

So the concept is not that difficult to understand. For those who like investigate further, you now know the details.

I was allergic to certain kinds of seafood. Just some of them like lobsters and shrimps, not all of them. It has been a lifelong issue since I was a baby. Interestingly, I suppose it is now cured. It is a fascinating story to share.

Being allergic to food is not a minor issue. Many people who do not have such problem have all sorts of wrong ideas about it, making the life of those who have it suffer badly. Unluckily, both of my parents are not allergic to food. Just imagine what traditional parents, both Western and Eastern worlds, do when they think that you are just picky with your food but in fact just one bite would send you to hell.

The story of how bad my allergic reactions were can go on and on for many pages which I am going to skip them all for now. The main point is that my allergy is at the serious level for which rashes would flare up almost instantaneously and other symptoms like fever would follow as well. It used to take weeks of heavy dose of anti-allergy drug to suppress the symptoms until they go away.

The turning point is what I like to focus on here.

My friend found a doctor who cured his son’s allergy. And I saw it with my own eyes that indeed his seafood allergy is gone because he was enjoying a feast of seafood with no problem at all. So I determined to get an appointment to meet with this doctor to see if I can fix my allergic issue for good.

I eventually met with this doctor and went through the examination process. He prescribed a set of supplements for me to take over a month period. I faithfully followed the prescription for the month with a few days for which I could not do so when there was schedule issues.

That was more than a month ago.

Yet, I did not have the courage to try some seafood to see if the allergy is gone. It is not that I am afraid of the reactions themselves. What I worried about is that it would keep me in bed for days which would delay the progress of my projects.

Last week, when several projects were finally completely. I have decided to finally take the ultimate test of my treatment. I ate shrimp. There was no rashes, no itchiness and no other issues whatsoever. Since then on other occasions I tried to eat other types of seafood with no ill effects at all.

I am cured. A lifelong medical condition that is supposedly not treatable is now gone for good. Amazing!

Right after I arrived home, I knew I caught something on the plane. It was filled with people coughing all the way. Usually, I can withstand this kind of environment and stay healthy. Not this time – started with mild cough and runny nose, and then all of a sudden total outbreak of red eye several days later, I was infected in the eyes. Yeah, pink eye.

The Symptoms

I never had pink eye at very serious level until now.

Note: You can skip the next paragraph if you dislike gross details.

My eyes basically ooze out ugly pus (eye discharge) all night without me knowing. The next morning my eyes are glued together by this yucky stuff. I have no choice but to contact my family physician to ensure the problem is not something life or sight threatening. I went to see the optometrist. She gave me the bad news that I have viral infection in my eyes. The pus, however, is actually good news because my immune system is reacting to the virus and the pus is, exactly like the phlegm one gets in the throat from flu, the resulting product of expelled virus and my body fluid. If my body could not fend off the virus, there would be little or no discharge and the discomfort (including sharp pain) would be worse.

In short, I caught pink eye and it is in a form that I just need to take care of my eyes until the virus is cleansed out.

How It Started

So how did I get the infection? Nope, not the dirty hands or whatever you read from the internet. It is simply the virus gets into my eyes through the breach of the part of sinus connecting to the eyes.

How do I know? It happened right after I blow my nose and blood is found due to the dry condition in Canada.

It took just two hours after that to turn my eyes from clear white into bloody eye.

How to Handle Pink Eye Safely and Comfortably

Here is the good part on how to handle pink eye safely and comfortably. I have done this with my kids before so I know it reduces the discomfort a lot.

To help the eyes recovering faster, we have to flush out those discharge so that they do not scar the eyes and do not damage the sensitive skins around the eyes. To do that, warm water is better than cold water, unlike what majority of things you read out there. Warm water made from boiled water is safest. Add coconut oil to the mixture too as it helps to soften the discharge coming off the eyes.

Remember not to rub the eyes harshly because the mucus actually stick to the skin. Trying to remove them by force can bruise your skin. You have to start with just soaking the eyes with the warm water mixture first. Only until the mucus are dissolving that you move onto using very soft material to clean out the pus.

Once the cleaning is done, use regular eye drops that simulate tears to flush out the hidden mucus. Then clean out the pus again.

Once you are done, you can apply coconut oil all around the eyes to help the skin to recover.

At this point, if the eyes are swollen and in pain, using a cold compress on the eyes will sooth them.

If there is no mucus to deal with, you can keep the eye drops in the refrigerator so that they can sooth your eyes on contact.

An important thing to remember though is that if you have only one eye being infected, you should be extremely careful not to contaminate your other eye by your hands or the environment. One good way is to wash your hands (or using hand sanitizer) often.

To Speed Up the Recovery

Well, drinking lots of water and having enough rest are the two most important things to do to get rid of pink eye.

Since the discharge from the eyes are highly contagious, it is also advisable not to travel around so that you will not infect the others.

Seriously, when your eyes are constantly discharging yucky stuff, it can be quite scary for anyone meeting you face to face.

End Notes

My eyes are getting better. Most of the redness is now gone. Overall I do not have much discomfort from my eyes, just inconvenience.

However, my work schedule is totally disrupted. I managed to response to some email every day but nothing much can be done beyond that when your eyes are not cooperating. I can tell that another catch up race is in the making.

This bout of sickness reminds me to be grateful for having pretty good health overall. I should take good care of my body from now on even when I am traveling. If I were not that confident of my fitness, this round of illness could be totally avoided.

Another good lesson of “pride goes before a fall”.

After years of sickness free life, the flu in this season finally got me. The soreness and aches are real, as the battle between my immune system and the flu virus is going on fiercely. Since there is really no cure for flu, I have to tough it out. However, there are ways to reduce the ailments and shorten the recovery time.

To manage the symptoms, the obvious choice is using painkiller like acetaminophen to control the fever and reduce the pain from muscles and bones. For cough related symptoms, however, I find using oregano oil is much better than using the cough syrup from the drug stores.

First, make sure you get at least food grade oregano oil. If you happen to have access to oregano essential oil, it is even better.

Put a few drops (5 to 10) of oregano oil in small amount of water. If it is essential oil, put in 1 to 3 drops to start with because they are way more potent than the regular one. Then mix it hard with a spoon or whatever because you do not want to consume too much of the oil all at once. Some people choose to mix oregano oil with coconut oil instead and that works well too in my experience.

Sip a little of the mixture and keep the liquid under your tongue. This is the fastest way for us to absorb the substance within the oregano oil. The burning sensation will kick in pretty quickly. The experience here is the reason most people will give up the remedy. Hence start with a more diluted liquid and increase the concentration of oregano oil up to a level you can still tolerate.

After 30 seconds or so start letting the liquid to dip down your throat. Oregano oil has anti-inflammation property and the ability to cut through the phlegm. It also helps your throat to recover a bit faster. Aside from its awful taste to some, I think oregano oil is a much better cough control substance comparing to the cough syrup out there because it does not make you drowsy so that you can actually carry out your day like normal if you choose to.

Repeat this process 3 to 4 times a day will keep the coughing under control.

There are other benefits with consuming oregano oil like keeping our appetite up which contributes greatly towards a speedy recovery.

Just a reminder though, to recover from flu, the tried-and-true method of resting a lot and drinking enough water is still the best way to go.

This is a clip from a long interview of Steve Maxwell at the YouTube channel London Real. As an expert in training all kinds of athletes, his wisdom on exercise is very interesting. I agree with him that we should not over do exercise if our goal is to stay fit only.

You can find more video on Steve Maxwell online.

Last few weeks I have to travel far frequently to take care of things in remote areas. My daily routine was totally disrupted. Cannot exercise when there was not even enough time to sleep. Now that things settled down, I learn some important effects on my health that is very useful.

First, when I finally get to do my daily exercise routine, strength in my legs is not affected much. Feels awkward for about a minute and then things just go back to normal. My guess is that I have to walk a lot over the past few weeks, my legs still got enough exercise to stay in shape.

Then problem started to show when I did my ab exercises. I was able to do what I usually do but with difficulties at the end.

Finally, pull ups and other upper body exercises became so difficult that I am not able to do half of what I did 3 weeks ago. This sucks big time.

A good lesson learned – better planning necessary to stay in shape no matter what.

And the question of striking a balance between enough sleep and exercise – if we have very limited amount of time left for both, what to do?