Open Question: Does my brain MRI look normal? Migraines and Overall Symptoms Getting Worse?
About me: I am a 25 year old woman who has pretty good health up until this past year.
Several months ago I developed severe migraines that would hit at least once a week, and knock me out for 2-3 days at a time. My Primary started me on Topamax, which helped with the pain, but the visual effects became much worse and never really went away. It also made me realize that I’d been experiencing the visual effects associated with migraines on a 24/7 basis for years, though I must say it is much worse now that it’s ever been.
I’ve also been dealing with chronic severe fatigue and loss of strength- I make a point of working out 10-12 hours a week, so this has been very noticeable for me. I try to push myself as hard as I can to keep up with my normal schedule, but at times it’s just been impossible. My legs feel so weak that at some points they’ve actually given out on me.
I’ve lost nearly 30 pounds since I started the Topamax (which I know is a common side effect for the drug), but for some reason my blood pressure seems to keep going up despite the weight loss, a healthy diet and exercise. I’ve also developed a heart murmur (discovered last week) and have been running a low grade- moderate fever for the past week and a half.
I had an MRI done two weeks ago, that was reported as normal, but I’m not so sure. I know one image from the study doesn’t tell you everything, but any thoughts?
One image from the study: I’m thinking the space between my brain and my skull near the top front looks a little strange.
http://i28.tinypic.com/161yddf.jpg

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:52:57 GMT
Open Question: Any experts on Atkins or South Beach or other low carb high nutrition diets for comments?
I am looking for any expert advisers who would take the time to comment on my views.
Simply because I do not want to steer anyone down a path to poor health since I have been down several myself and with bad results.
So I am seeking comments on my post at:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090913201940AAgdoBu
The post was as follows:
>
Hi,
After reading your question I thought I would give you some pointers I have learned the hard way from my own bad ‘uninformed’ choices.
Keeping to any plan that fights against bad habits is tough but being fit and strong versus being fat and sickly is all about how many calories you eat versus how many you burn and IF the calories are mostly the BEST QUALITY PROTEINS or mostly junk sugar-carbs.
Many years ago I found that the Atkins Diet Plan made me healthier compared to my old high carb diet since it put my diabetes symptoms into remission, but PLEASE consider my experiences when I used the Atkins high cholesterol and fat philosophy for my long term nutrition.
After the Atkins plan promoted many diseases, what now works best in order for me to keep my pruritus-urticaria in remission, after my gallbladder-biliary-liver and heart disease problems, is a VEGAN diet that is low-carb low-fat and HIGH-PROTEIN. Because of my gallbladder-biliary-liver disease I no longer can eat nuts or olive oil or dressings or other fats or any cholesterol because it causes immediate pruritus since my liver?s biliary system is plugged with cholesterol and calcium sludge, and I can not eat too many carbs because of yeast infections that break out after one, two, or three high carb meals.
What I now do is what they teach most students in high school nutrition classes - which is to add up the vitamins and minerals from my ?digestible? foods and calculating the RDA’s [Recommended Dietary Allowances] or DV’s [Daily Reference Values] for each day to see if I am more than 100% for Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Zinc, Thiamine-VitB1, Riboflavin-VitB2, Niacin-VitB3, VitB6-Pyridoxine, and Folate-VitB9. Things like bran are not digestible and not added since it is like a work horse or work oxen eating straw instead of digestible grass or alfalfa leaves.
Also, after I accidentally poisoned myself with supplements, I leaned that supplements like iron and magnesium and colloidal silver etc are super toxic since they are ‘metallic’ minerals and oftentimes raw fertilizers with a 1000 fold markup. These ?metallic? mineral supplements have not yet been converted into a non-toxic food when during photosynthesis the electrons in a fertilizer are stripped away making it the more positively charged ?non-metallic? and non-toxic mineral element within the plant. Also, the highly profitable synthetic vitamin supplements I used to purchase have no unambiguous research backing them, and there is some obviously valid research concluding that they are more toxic than beneficial to any animal that has ever consumed them.
What now keeps my diseases in remission is mostly a diet of cooked lentils then mixed with tomato sauce and boiled celery to make a quick microwave super high protein veg-chili. I boil all my foods since my digestive system is in such poor shape and I need as many nutrients as I can get out of the semi-expensive foods I buy.
I used to eat much more meat when I was an Atkins dieter, before my pruritus attacks became so obvious that the cholesterol and fats in the meat or eggs and the calcium in the homemade yogurt I was eating was the root cause to the problem. FYI - IF you know of people getting colon cancer, it was during my Atkins period I learned to always eat enough vegetables to be a minimum of 2 x the weight of the meat that I ate - in order to not have any constipation or worse. I used to have reddish stools since I was likely on my way to getting colon cancer myself from eating much more meat protein than I could ever digest properly in my stomach and colon.
After the Atkins Diet allowed my present health issues, I replaced the crock potted round steak or beef heart or chicken and sometimes river trout in my chili with lentils, because I learned that the nutritional content of lentils ranks high alongside, and comparable to, very lean meat or lean fish if it is grown in well fertilized soil. [Note: e.g. the labels on store bought spinach sometimes have a 4 fold difference in nutrition based upon the fertility of the soils and the growing methods for the farms it is grown on.]
I also eat a-lot of boiled frozen broccoli and boiled organic or re-washed and re-boiled canned spinach with a vinaigrette of organic sugar with glass_bottled_cider_vinegar. The glassware is because of some friends that got lupus from eating too much plastic stuff, or inhaling it since they were house painters who used vinyl paints.
The nutritional DV numbers that I now eat are three times what most others in my family ar
The nutritional DV numbers that I now eat are three times what most others in my family are eating every day. I keep at about 100% and they are about 25 to 33%, but they are all morbidly obese diabetics. Even though I was once morbidly obese myself and had a heart attack from too many carbs for too long, (which I think gave me all the symptoms of beriberi, scurvy and pellagra, along with the beginnings of my gallbladder-biliary-liver disease,) I am now more fit in comparison to most others I know.
I hope you have learned something from my ?mistakes? that will soon help you along your way.

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:55:02 GMT

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