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Smoothies would definitely be an option...problem is, we live in an apartment and the last time I tried to use the blender in the morning (I start work at 6 Am so I have to be up by 5 AM).....we received a complaint from the neighbors for noise....Is it ok to blend everything the night before?

Also, I love salads and usually use olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt & pepper...Is olive oil ok to use? Also, for cooking, what kind of oil to use?

I was able to schedule a brain and C spine MRI for Sunday morning...that's what the neuro wanted me to have done first...

I noticed the needles and tingling sensation in my left foot have increased...also, the needles in my left hand...What should I do about it?
I have blurry vision too...can't really tell which eye...might be both...the left one was slightly blurry because of nearsighting...now I feel like the right one is slightly blurry as well.....what scares me the most is that after reading some of the posts here, people are saying that heat worsens their symptoms....we're supposed to go to Jamaica for our wedding in a month...we'll be there for almost a week....what if anything happens because of the heat??
I'm cold all the time...my hands and legs are ice cold all day...I was soooo looking forward to some warm weather and now I read that it might actually hurt me!!...what should I do??

Thanks a lot for your replies!

hallo, i'm sure you'd be fine blending the night before and giving things a stir in the am. you're quite an early riser!

salads are great and olive oil is fine, however it's omega 6 and you need to ensure adequate intakes of omega 3 fatty acids. a fish oil supplement might be worth looking into. i also like to keep a bottle of flax seed oil on hand and add that to my salads as well. for cooking, if you mean frying, i use very little and what i do use is typically grapeseed oil. they say it has lower potential to turn toxic at frying temps.

you got a nice short time frame on getting those MRIs booked, the circumstances suck but some folks end up with a much longer and very frustrating wait! i was a lucky one too. i think it was probably because i was supposed to be travelling shortly too.

not sure what you can do re the tingling and vision that we have not already discussed.. since you've already made arrangements for adding nutritional testing, and started an improved dietary regimen, i think you're generally on the right track!

you might need to look at getting some supplements in addition to dietary changes. if your system is right out of whack, you could be in need of a short term therapeutic boost to several levels, in order to get your system back on track. testing will help clarify over time.

as for your temperature control, here are some things you could consider:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/53905 ... -and-feet/

and as for heat, why not just relax and wait and see. you're getting married! congratulations, try to see the definite positives in store, rather than worry about possible negatives. the opportunity to synthesized some vitamin d3 will certainly do you good (just don't burn!). and if you do end up heat sensitive need to spend more time in the pool with a cool drink, well, poor old you ;P hehehe!!

I definitely need to think positive...I tend to over - analyze things........hopefully those yoga classes I've just started taking will help relax me a bit...

Just had lunch...I'm lucky to work in a place where they're really big into healthy eating....I've just discovered this cafeteria wehre they make all sorts of healthy foods....and they have a great salad bar as well..
I had baked wild salmon with herbs (I could taste the garlic and the dill)...yummy!! I added greens salad with dried cherries and a tbsp of sunflower seeds...yummy!!

I have a question: why do most of the MS diets exclude potatoes, pasta, rice, corn, etc?...I'm just trying to understand.

Thank you for the words of encouragement!

starting yoga classes, awesome lunch options - both sound amazing!

as for the diets, it's probably just as well to take it easy on those considering the diabetic angle as well as ms - i think it has a lot to do with the glycemic index. the quick sugars are pro-inflammatory.

you can still have those foods, but check out the details on glycemic index and IF

potato
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/veg ... cts/2770/2

spaghetti
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cer ... sta/5798/2

rice
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cer ... sta/5804/2

best to use them quite sparingly, small servings spaced widely, and compensate with lots of anti-inflammatory veg and fish.

look at baked sweet potato by comparison - it kicks butt!!!

sweet potato
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/veg ... cts/2667/2

here's something i've been doing recently and really enjoyed - if you want mashed potato, try mixing potato, sweet potato, turnip and carrot. you could probably add 1/2c of milk and 1 tbsp of butter without a major problem.

here try this homework to see if it's okay ;)

calculate IF and glycemic index for each of the following:

1 baked potato
1 baked sweet potato
1/2c cooked turnip
1/2c cooked carrot
1/2c whole milk
1 tbsp butter

cocolulu wrote:I have a question: why do most of the MS diets exclude potatoes, pasta, rice, corn, etc?...I'm just trying to understand.

I can't comment on "most of the MS diets," but I would recommend sweet potatoes, whole wheat pasta and brown rice.


NHE

jimmylegs wrote:salads are great and olive oil is fine, however it's omega 6 and you need to ensure adequate intakes of omega 3 fatty acids. a fish oil supplement might be worth looking into. i also like to keep a bottle of flax seed oil on hand and add that to my salads as well. for cooking, if you mean frying, i use very little and what i do use is typically grapeseed oil. they say it has lower potential to turn toxic at frying temps.

Olive oil is high in oleic acid which is an omega-9.

http://www.oliveoilsource.com/page/chem ... cteristics

Oleic Acid (C18:1), a monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid. It makes up 55 to 83% of olive oil.

http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=132

Olive oil has long been recognized for its unusual fat content. This plant oil is one of the few widely used culinary oils that contains about 75% of its fat in the form of oleic acid (a monounsaturated, omega-9 fatty acid).

NHE

ok to clarify olive oil is 'more of an' omega 6 oil than an omega 3. 10 times more, specifically. and yes, even more of an O9 product. the point is, boost good sources of O3s.

Thank you all for your replies! You guys are a great help!

Jimmylegs, that recipe for mashed potatoes kicks butt! I love it!!...the IF rating is well over 200 (strongly anti-inflammatory!!)
Could you please recommend other recipes for breakfast?....I'm having a hard time finding food that is in the "OK" list.

Also, ran fever over the weekend...I got a cold...I think it explains my crankiness from thursady/friday...and I woke up yesterday morning with a fever blister...I started taking L-Lysine (1000 mg 3X daily) for it to go away faster....does anyone know whether L-Lysine depletes the Zn and vit D3 that I'm already taking?

Thanks again for your help!!

heya! glad you like

i will have a think re breakfast. we talked about smoothies prepped the night before... and you might want to browse my regimen thread for ideas too:

here's one going back about a year - i think that's about as long as i've been doing any detailed IF math associated with meals...
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/regimens- ... ml#p155699

and one going back to july 11...
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/regimens- ... ml#p170147

as for your other question, not sure about the l-lysine impacts on zn and d3... but...

here is a very tangential abstract on a potential connection between selenium status (se is low in ms patients, by the way) and fever blisters

http://www.thisisms.com/forum/chronic-c ... ml#p168723
(re 'Host selenium status selectively influences susceptibility...')

also, info on selenium status and viral resistance (obviously, specifically HIV)

High Risk of HIV-Related Mortality Is Associated With Selenium Deficiency
http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Abstract/ ... ted.7.aspx

Mortality risk in selenium-deficient HIV-positive children.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10225235

Role of selenium in HIV infection.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20961297

hth

Thanks a lot for the info provided!! really appreciate it!!

My neuro called today....he said the MRIs were clean....both the C spine and the brain MRI show nothing......my blood work showed iron deficiency....he said everything else was "normal"....he will send me the results in the mail...

Why do I feel like this then????? It is sooooo frustrating!! I have all the MS symptoms yet again...the neuro says he rules out MS because of the MRI.....

I am so confused!!! Why do I feel so weak, why the twitches, blurry vision, shaky arms and legs, tingly foot????? WHY??
I started taking 10 mg of iron this morning...I take another 10 tonight....it's in a solution that also has B complex vitamins.....I wrote about it previously...
Should I start taking magnesium before I get the results in the mail? I also take 30 mg Zn and 2 mg Cu....how much Mg should I take?
I have pretty bad acid reflux....how does that interfere (if at all) with absorption?

Is it possible that this is my first flare-up and they can't see anything on the MRI yet?

cocolulu wrote:Is it possible that this is my first flare-up and they can't see anything on the MRI yet?

Lesions aren't guaranteed to be visible by MRI -- they might be too small, for example...

Without any lesions on your MRIs, you are not likely to be diagnosed with MS for a long time (they'll need evidence of multiple attacks and have to eliminate every other possible cause). On the other hand, if your next MRIs show both active (gadolinium enhancing) and inactive lesions and/or lesions in multiple (specific) areas your neuro will have all you need for a dx.

This article explains the criteria pretty well (read the 2010 revisions): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_criteria

hey there.

you feel how you feel, and the MRI can go stuff it. you can take action based on what you do know... and luckily, MRIs are not the only test options you have available!

here's the weird thing about MRI. the findings don't have a lot to do with how you feel. they have found lesions in people after they died, who never knew they were even there while they were alive. also, without digging up a study at the drop of a hat, i am pretty sure that the number and distribution of lesions don't have a whole lot of correlation with EDSS. of course, if you have a c-spine lesion and lhermitte's sign, that's pretty easy to correlate. personally, i take MRI findings with a large grain of salt.

the good thing is, you can start working on symptoms one by one. while the docs run their other tests.

for now, you have an action item re iron deficiency, and you can see what else you find out when the other results come in the mail. 'normal' is an interesting concept - it's just the bell curve. it's still worth knowing what spot on that bell curve is ideal. that's just my opinion.

with iron i like to keep my levels above 100, but not much higher. i can't recall the units off the top of my head. what did your results say?

good for you taking the iron. that along may help explain your weakness, twitching and shaking, but i don't know (just yet) about the vision and tingling aspects.

anyway. it's obviously good to take iron if you're deficient, and especially so since you are taking zinc too. (they compete with each other so consider taking the iron solution at one time and the zinc/cu at another time.

yes, you can start taking the magnesium. which form do you have again? the form and the timing are things to consider if you are dealing with GERD. do you know what's causing it? anything on this list look like possible causes?
http://heartburn.about.com/cs/causes/a/ ... causes.htm

i used to get acid reflux symptoms (horrific cough) taking magnesium glycinate on an empty stomach at bedtime, where it would sit there in my stomach and relax the heck out of my LES (my hypothesis). now i take it daily, but before meals, and a good while before bed. cough gone. whew basically, you just want to get magnesium pushed down through your stomach quick and into the intestine, so that it won't relax your LES and cause GERD issues.

hope that helps!

cocolulu wrote:......my blood work showed iron deficiency....

I am so confused!!! Why do I feel so weak, why the twitches, blurry vision, shaky arms and legs, tingly foot????? WHY??
I started taking 10 mg of iron this morning...I take another 10 tonight....it's in a solution that also has B complex vitamins.....I wrote about it previously...
Should I start taking magnesium before I get the results in the mail? I also take 30 mg Zn and 2 mg Cu....how much Mg should I take?
I have pretty bad acid reflux....how does that interfere (if at all) with absorption?

You brought up the question of absorption – is it possible that there is a problem with the villi in your small intestine where nutrients are normally absorbed (duodenum)? Maybe you need an alternative route to get the iron inside you. I know there are "shots" or injections available for some things (a friend gets a B vitamin shot regularly; I seem to recall that my grandmother's physician gave her an iron shot on a regular schedule); could your physician overcome your iron deficiency in this way? Adequate iron might solve your problem of feeling so weak.

If you have a problem with absorption of nutrients from your gastrointestinal tract, maybe your doctor can investigate for it; otherwise, it might be a waste of money to take the supplements. Just a thought. All the best to you.

hmmm, well iron deficiency is pretty common though... maria if the doc has you on the 10mg product to start, i would keep it up for the time being and see how you go

JL – perhaps I misunderstood. I thought Maria was taking an iron supplement on her own; I did not understand that her doctor had prescribed it.

Maria, if the 10 mg of iron is prescribed by your doctor, of course you need to continue with it. If the level continues to be deficient in your blood, you need to discuss other options with him.