I love getting packages in the mail!

I was having a rough day today. Long story that we don't need to get into. The important thing is that I really needed a pick me up. Tada! The doorbell rings and the FedEx man is here with a new package for me. Yay! To my delight it is the scarf I ordered from novica.com to wear with a dress for a wedding we're attending in August.

If you've never heard of Novica, they are associated with the magazine National Geographic and their mission (copied from their website) is to give artists and artisans around the world a global platform to express their true artistic talents and to spur their creativity. "And, we want to provide you with access to unique, hard-to-find items at great values that only the Internet infrastructure can allow. At the deepest essence of our philosophy, we want to create a bridge between you and the many talented artisans across the globe. We want you to know about who you're buying from. We want you to feel that attachment to the product and to the hands that created it. In the spirit of the Internet, let us bring you together. NOVICA. The World is Your Market." How cool is that. I really liked how the person who created my scarf had a brief bio on the page and explained her techniques for her art. It made the scarf worth more to me than something I could pick up at Kohl's or Loehmann's even if it would've been cheaper to do so.

I loved the scarf on the web page (http://www.novica.com/itemdetail/index.cfm?pid=156468) but it was even nicer in person. To add to the pleasure of receiving it, it came gift-wrapped with a little hand-woven ornament
on the front of it, and a little card that taught me some simple phrases in the language of Bali (Balinese?). How cool is that? I'm a person who wishes she could be a world traveler but can't so I get my fix by reading about other cultures and this just made my day.

The scarf is even more beautiful in real life but this is a close-up shot of the detail on it.
I can't wait to wear this and I'm so happy I bought this. It is truly unique and not something I would've found in a store around here.

Doing a little happy dance now. :-)

I was raised to believe that doctors know it all and that we should trust them implicitly when it comes to our health care. However, over the years, I've learned that it's so important that we take control of our own health care and work as a team with the doctors. They are only human and make mistakes. This past week I relearned this lesson and thought I'd share my experience with you.

The past couple of months I've been even more exhausted than usual, dizzy and irritable. I knew something was wrong but didn't know what. Finally, I complained enough to my primary care physician that she suggested it might be my iron levels and that I get a blood test. So, two weeks ago, I went in for blood tests and they tested me for a number of things including Lyme, Celiac, the usual CBC, cholesterol, etc. I called a week later for my results and was told that everything was "normal" by the nurse.

In the past I would've let it go at that and just figured this was how life was going to be for me - exhausted without a clue. However, I decided that although this doctor's office was pretty good I wanted to see these results for myself. I requested they mail me a copy. I received it in the mail last Friday and a quick scan of the results did show that everything was in the normal range. However, upon closer examination, I saw that the ferritin (iron) result was 17 with the normal range being 10-154. That seemed a rather low normal to me and I did some poking around on the Internet. Several sites recommend that anyone with a result below 50 take an iron supplement. I should note that my total iron is perfect but this ferritin level also indicates anemia.

I called my doctor's office today and the doctor agreed that I really needed to start taking an iron supplement and that we'd retest my levels in six weeks. Now, if I hadn't requested my lab results I'd never have known that my ferritin was this low and would've continued to suffer. Obviously, the doctor thought that the levels were normal and wouldn't have recommended any changes. I'm not saying that this is going to cure me of chronic fatigue syndrome or anything but, hopefully, it will get me closer to normal than I have been lately.

So, my moral of the story here, is always ask for copies of your labs, ask questions and don't trust others to keep you in your best health. Doctors are only people, they make mistakes and it doesn't help that they see a zillion patients in a day and have people from pharmaceutical companies dropping in at all times.
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As an addendum I found this journal article which makes me feel very optimistic that my fatigue may get decreased!

BMJ 2003;326:1124 (24 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7399.1124

Primary care

Iron supplementation for unexplained fatigue in non-anaemic women: double blind randomised placebo controlled trial

F Verdon, general practitioner¹, B Burnand, senior lecturer², C-L Fallab Stubi, pharmacist³, C Bonard, general practitioner¹, M Graff, general practitioner¹, A Michaud, general practitioner¹, T Bischoff, general practitioner¹, M de Vevey, general practitioner¹, J-P Studer, general practitioner¹, L Herzig, general practitioner¹, C Chapuis, general practitioner¹, J Tissot, general practitioner¹, A Pécoud, professor³, B Favrat, consultant of internal medicine³

¹ General Practice Unit, University of Lausanne, rue du Bugnon 44, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland, ² Health Care Evaluation Unit, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Lausanne, ³ Medical Outpatient Clinic, University of Lausanne

Correspondence to: B Favrat bernard.favrat@hospvd.ch

Objective To determine the subjective response to iron therapy in non-anaemic women with unexplained fatigue.

Design Double blind randomised placebo controlled trial.

Setting Academic primary care centre and eight general practices in western Switzerland.

Participants 144 women aged 18 to 55, assigned to either oral ferrous sulphate (80 mg/day of elemental iron daily; n=75) or placebo (n=69) for four weeks.

Main outcome measures Level of fatigue, measured by a 10 point visual analogue scale.

Results 136 (94%) women completed the study. Most had a low serum ferritin concentration; 20 µg/l in 69 (51%) women. Mean age, haemoglobin concentration, serum ferritin concentration, level of fatigue, depression, and anxiety were similar in both groups at baseline. Both groups were also similar for compliance and dropout rates. The level of fatigue after one month decreased by -1.82/6.37 points (29%) in the iron group compared with -0.85/6.46 points (13%) in the placebo group (difference 0.95 points, 95% confidence interval 0.32 to 1.62; P=0.004). Subgroups analysis showed that only women with ferritin concentrations 50 µg/l improved with oral supplementation.

Conclusion Non-anaemic women with unexplained fatigue may benefit from iron supplementation. The effect may be restricted to women with low or borderline serum ferritin concentrations.

Wrinkles and silicone oh my

I recently placed an order online for a soap I use on my kids. It's good for super-sensitive skin and although it doesn't improve my son's eczema it doesn't make it worse. The site I usually order the soap from was out of stock on the economy size so I did a search to find the best price available. That price was at a store that primarily stocked cosmetics and moisturizers but they did have the lowest price and, with a coupon code I found online, they had free shipping. Yippee!

I received the order very quickly and was pleased to find some samples in the box when I opened it. Who doesn't love free samples? This sample was obviously not for my kids but me as it was called an intensive wrinkle corrector. As a 37-year-old (and counting) woman who's really starting to notice these pesky things around my eyes I was excited by this notion of a corrector. In addition, it claimed to be fragrance-free and preservative-free. Yay!

However, having been indoctrinated in label reading due to a kid with food allergies, I quickly developed the creepy crawlies. Check this ingredient list out: (By the way, I googled info on every single ingredient so it may not be 100% scientifically accurate but Google would never lie to me.)

• Propylene Glycol - solvent
  
• Cyclopentasiloxane - silicone
  
• Ascorbic Acid - sugar acid
  
• Glycerin - chemical
  
• Cetyl Peg/PPG-10/1 Dimethicone - silicone
  
• Dimethicone crosspolymer - silicone
  
• Lauroyl Lysine - amino acid derivative
  
• Acrylates Copolymer - binder, emulsion stabilizer provides water resistance to personal care products without the undesirable waxy, greasy or heavy feel. Copolymer of acrylamide and one or more monomers of acrylic acid, methacrylic acid or one of their simple esters. I still don't know what this is!
  
• Adenosine - A nucleoside - molecule of adenine attached to a ribose sugar molecule, has anti-inflammatory properties.

So, after my small amount of research I'm afraid that I'm going to keep my wrinkles. All that silicone makes me think of people like Michael Jackson and, frankly, I wouldn't want to look like him even if he didn't have any wrinkles. Shall I learn to embrace the aging process? Unlikely but at least I will futilely cling to my youth without resorting to chemicals, silicone and other wacky ingredients. It's just not worth it.

Cleaning... ugh!

Sunday morning I decided it was high time I tackle our master bedroom. I couldn't remember the last time I cleaned it and my allergies have been horrible. I'm just terrible about cleaning. Maybe it's because I have two young children, could be the CFS, or maybe I just don't like to do it. Regardless, I always feel awful health-wise when I'm done and then I have to deal with the rest of the hurdles my day is throwing at me. However, on Sunday, Doug had been home for a three-day weekend and he was watching the kids so I felt relatively well-prepared to tackle the task and felt assured that he could help take care of them if this cleaning threw me for a loop. That didn't mean the cleaning wasn't accompanied by a lot of grumbling on my part but it got done. I am embarrassed by how much dust I removed and wish that I hadn't let it get to this point. However, it was done after an hour. Ugh.

Coincidentally, a woman in my CFS/Fibromyalgia support group that I run on cafemom.com posted about how awful she feels about how she's let her house go. I made a response that came down to sympathetic murmurings about feeling the same way. However, the woman who posted after me was a genius - just clean for 15 minutes a day and then rest. My wheels started turning and I thought ah ha, I can do that. Instead of not cleaning at all and waiting until it would take me an hour to get a room presentable, if I just did 15 minutes a day my house might start looking a lot better and maybe every one's health in the house would improve. So, I'm going to make this a goal of mine - 15 minutes of cleaning per day. Today, I spent just 15 minutes on the downstairs bath (the powder room) and what an improvement. It's really amazing how much can be done in 15 minutes. I did stop exactly at 15 minutes and then treated myself to a bowl full of fresh cherries and bite of dark chocolate (70% cocoa thank you). As a result, I don't feel that wiped out and I really do feel like I accomplished something.

Another valuable tip I gained from a member of this same group is to keep an accomplishment journal. She posted that at the end of the day she writes down everything that she accomplished that day. Upon looking back at what she wrote she finds that she feels much better about herself. I think this is a great idea. I know that I really need to forgive myself for my limitations and to celebrate what it is I can do. I think that focusing on the negative all the time only hurts my health more. I really would like to focus more on the positive - think about what I can do and what I can accomplish. Maybe I'll be able to find some value in myself as a person again.