Excessively nerdy night at our house

We had an exceptionally nerdy night at our house yesterday.

First, I came home from belly dance class to Aaron live-blogging Canadian election results.

Second, we solved a Facebook argument using "Gardner's Modern American Usage". All parties in this argument/discussion were wrong -- there is an acceptable pronunciation in American English. Here is my paraphrase of what we learned:

If you don't know how to pronounce a word not commonly used in American English (e.g. the name of a country in the Middle East):

• Find the smartest person you know. Pronounce the word how they do. The "educated" pronunciation (not to be confused with the "pretentious asshole" pronunciation -- see below) is the correct one.
  
• Alternatively, you should try to pronounce the word as close to the original language, but using English phonemes.
  
• Don't use non-English phonemes or overly affected pronunciations -- you sound like a pretentious asshole. E.g. don't roll your Rs.
• Don't use chauvinistic pronunciations -- you sound like a regular asshole.
• Example: Iran - /i-rahn/ not /I-ran/ or /i-ran/

Third, we solved this word problem in bed:

"Aaron has 450 books in his backlog. He reads an average of 50 books per 4 month period. He acquires an average of 20 books per 4 month period. How long will it take Aaron to read all the books in his house?"

The answer: 5 years.

Confounded!

My doc prescribed me some pain meds and muscle relaxants for the "migraine". Turns out it isn't a migraine, but tight muscles in my head and neck causing pain. Good news is, my headache might go away. Bad news is, my study is confounded. I'll have to abandon the diet for at least the next 10 days and try again.

Food Test #1: Dairy

I'm trying to find some scientific evidence that the foods I'm testing are associated with chronic pain, but I can't really find any reputable sources. From what I can gather from these less-than-optimal sources, people who are sensitive to dairy are reacting to the casein and/or whey or are lactose intolerant (as most adults, including me, are to some degree). You will feel lactose intolerance in the abdomen -- bloating, cramping, etc. Milk makes my brother-in-law stuffy -- he's probably reacting to the casein or whey.

I did my first dairy elimination in high school. At the time, I was severly lactose intolerant. Over the years, I "grew out of it" a bit, but I'm still a little intolerant, especially eating the quantity of dairy I did yesterday.

As for pain, other than the migraine I've had for the past week, and sore muscles from walking in my Reebok Easy Tones, no spike in pain either the day of or the day after Dairy Day.

Conclusion: it's not dairy.

NOTE: I mapped out how long it will take to test each food group as suggested by the fibromyalgia elimination diet site, and it's upwards of 40 days! I've found other elimination diet sites that test one food after the other, as long as there's no reaction. I've decided to amend my methods a bit and test foods at a shorter interval, as long as I'm not reacting.

Elimination Week Summary

Elimination Diet Day 4

Other than a screaming headache, I feel pretty good today. I'm not nearly as tired as yesterday, but not quite at full speed. I want a cup of coffee or tea with milk and sugar real real bad. Ahh, withdrawl! My diet is pretty boring -- I've been subsisting off mostly Rice Chex and rice milk, almonds, and the fruit and veggies I can eat. I have no will to dream up dinner.

I'm actually quite surprised that my pain level (except for the headache) is lower. There might actually be something to this food sensitivity thing.

I'm at the point now where I need to plan out what food I want to test first. It's kind of a bummer that I don't get to add anything back into my diet until I've tested all the groups. I might start with Dairy, because it makes sense to me as a group and it will give me extra time to see which foods go into what group. Like beans: does that include soy, or is that a separate group? I also need to look into the science behind limiting these foods. Stay tuned.

Elimination Diet Day 3

Other than a slight headache from the caffeine withdrawl, my pain is quite minimal -- like almost gone! However, I am totally exhausted. I could sleep all day, but I've been dragging myself through life. And I can't remember anything.

Overall pain: 2
Joint pain: 1
Headache: 2
Abdominal: 0
Breast:0

Fatigue score: 9
Cognitive impairment: 8
Fatigue: 10
Low energy: 9
Low productivity: 8

Elimination Day 1

Breakfast: 1c rice pudding (made with rice, rice milk, sultanas and almonds)
Lunch: 3/4c vinegared rice, Costco salmon patty, 1c steamed asparagus with a little olive oil, s&p
Dinner: Stir-fry of red onion, chicken, cabbage, mango, garlic and ginger and ....rice.
Snacks: 1 peach. 1-100 calorie pack of Emerald dry roasted almonds

Exercise: 1 mile walk

I'm not feeling much pain today, but damn am I exhausted. All I can think about is coffee -- a gigantic cup of really dark coffee -- which I can't have. What can I say, caffeine is my drug of choice and Mama is jonesin'. I'd also like a pastry to go with that cup of coffee.

Methods: Scales for pain and fatigue

The scales I'm using to track my pain and fatigue are totally not scientific.

For pain, I'm using Allie Brosh's Pain Scale.

For fatigue, I'm using this tool from the University of Iowa. This tool is scientific as used properly (monthly assessment), but It's not been validated for daily use. I'm also weighting the calculated numbers to a 1-10 scale.

When interpreting my data and results, remember I'm looking at these numbers relatively, not absolutely.

For both tools, lower numbers are better.

Control Week Summary

Weekly averages:

Pain: 4

Joint pain: 3

Headache: 1

Abdominal pain: 2

Breast pain: 2

Fatigue score: 5

Cognitive impairment: 5

Fatigue: 6

Low energy: 6

Low productivity:5

This week was totally normal for me. I ate normally, I exercised normally. The only difference is I tracked my symptoms. Except for a bad flare on Thursday that kept me home from work, my pain was low-moderate. I also noticed a trend that joint pain and headache co-occured and muscle, breast and abdominal pain co-occured, but there was not much mixing between these types of pain. Flares seem to hit my joints. Surprisingly, the fatigue has been impacting my life more than the pain. Even when the pain is pretty low, I'm quite tired.

Possible flare culprits:

• Gin
• Peppers
  

Methods: What will I eat during the Elimination Period

During this period I can't eat:

• Eggs
• Dairy
• Wheat
• Oats
• Barley
• Corn
• Peas
• Beans (e.g. black, garbanzo, soy)
• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Sugar
• Fake sugar (e.g. aspartame, sucrolose)
• Citrus (e.g. oranges, lemons, stawberries)
• Nightshades (e.g. potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, paprika)
• MSG

I'll be posting "safe" recipies in this Cookbook.