NEDlife

Paul and I recently re-took the Myers Briggs personality test and thought it would be educational to do it for our kids as well. Paul, Jackson and I are all the same: INTJ but Caroline is an ENFJ. This explains a lot of things!

Here’s a quick blurb from Wiki about INTJ’s:

(Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging) is one of the rarest of the sixteen personality types from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. INTJs belong to the temperament of the rationals and are called Masterminds. The INTJ may also be referred to as “the scientist.

Hallmark features of the INTJ personality type include independence of thought, strong individualism and creativity. Persons with this personality type work best given large amounts of autonomy and creative freedom. They harbor an innate desire to express themselves; that is to be creative by conceptualizing their own intellectual designs. Analyzing and formulating complex theories are among their greatest strengths. INTJs tend to be well-suited for occupations within academia, research, management, engineering and law.

Differentiating the INTJ personality type from the related INTP type is their confidence. They tend to be acutely aware of their knowledge and abilities. Thus, they develop a strong confidence in their ability and talents, making them “natural leaders.” It is this confidence that makes this personality type extremely rare.

Persons with this personality type are very stable, reliable and dedicated. Harmony in relationships and home life tends to be extremely important to the INTJ. He or she tends to withhold strong emotion and does not like to “waste” time with irrational social rituals. This, however, may cause non-INTJs to perceive him or her as distant and reserved.

Noteable INTJ’s:

• Aristotle
• Nietzsche
• Tolkein
• Edison
• Hawking
• Newton
• Jefferson
• Eisenhower
• Dr. Gregory House
• Gandolf the Grey (Paul’sfav)
• Severus Snape (my fav)

Now here is a blurb about ENFJ’s:

(Extroverted Intuitive Feeling Judging) is one of the sixteen personality types from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, ENFJs belong to the temperament of the Idealists and are called “Teachers“. They are generally a very reliable group that do not like to disappoint others.

ENFJs are people-focused individuals. They live in the world of people possibilities. More so than any other type, they have excellent people skills. They understand and care about people, and have a special talent for bringing out the best in others. An ENFJ’s main interest in life is giving love, support, and a good time to other people. They are focused on understanding, supporting, and encouraging others. They make things happen for people, and get their best personal satisfaction from this.

In general, ENFJs are charming, warm, gracious, creative and diverse individuals with richly developed insights into what makes other people tick. This special ability to see growth potential in others combined with a genuine drive to help people makes the ENFJ a truly valued individual. Their genuine interest in humankind and their exceptional intuitive awareness of people makes them able to draw out even the most reserved individuals.

Noteable ENFJ’s:

• Lincoln
• Reagan
• Oprah
• Andy Griffith
• Diane Sawyer
• Johnny Depp
• Ben Stiller
• Lauren Graham (my fav)
• Tony Blair
• Ralph Nader
• Barack Obama
• Mickael Jordan
• Peyton Manning

For those of you familiar with the Myers Briggs Test, you can imagine how interesting the dynamic in our family is with Caroline being so different from the rest of us:) You wonder why when people say, “It must be so difficult to raise Jackson (who is autistic)” we reply, “J is our easy child, it is Caroline who confounds us.”

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We started our 2nd round of chelation (heavy metal detoxification) on Saturday night. We tried DMSA a few years ago, but J’s liver enzymes spiked and Dr. Megson pulled him off of it immediately. Ever since we have stuck with more mild forms of chelation such as glutathione and Xango juice.

The reason we decided to go ahead with this latest round of chelation (Calcium EDTA) was because we just got back the results of J’s “Paris Test” urinalysis. Mercury toxicity is almost impossible to detect. It does not show up in any standard blood, urine, stool or hair testing. Within hours of mercury exposure, the body absorbs this dangerous neurotoxin straight into fatty tissue (mainly the brain) - making it undetectable. For this reason, doctors have been unable to confirm or deny that autism is in fact caused by mercury / thimerasol.

Thankfully, there is a new urinalysis that measures certain enzymes levels which are required for the breakdown of mercury, aluminum, and lead. Since the only job of these enzymes is to break down these heavy metals, if they are elevated in the urine, that body is currently trying to break down these toxins. The higher the enzyme level, the more heavy metals. It is so simple, yet so smart.

Anyway, Jackson tested moderately high for mercury and lead. Chelation is no joke and has to be done under the supervision of a medical doctor with experience in these complicated protocols. We preped J with a few weeks of glutathione and anti-fungal treatments. We also flooded his body with high doses of probiotics to ensure good gut health. The issue is as you pull neurotoxins from the brain, they are dumped back into the bloodstream, filtered through the liver and ultimately expelled through the urine. This can put a lot of strain in the digestive system, liver and kidneys. So it is essential to keep your eye on those and get periodic blood tests to ensure their health.

After 2 days of the calcium EDTA, no noticable issues - no aggression, lathargy, headaches, diarrhea or mood swings. The treatment is 3 days on and 11 days of.

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I know if I don’t write something quickly, I will keep putting this off.

After 30 days of gluten free, we reintroduced gluten to Caroline and that night she had nightmares, stomach cramps, and cried most of the following day.  Needless to say, she has been GFCF ever since.  It is really no big deal to convert her to GFCF - she was already CF, so the GF part wasn’t too bad.  I have actually reintroduced real-milk yogurt with no problems.

As for J, we have gone hard-core SCD recently with tremendous results.  I read the book “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” and  it reminded me that J’s gut is still healing and he needs to periodically remove all carbohydrates and add mega-probiotics for continued healing.

So we have hin in Bio-Kult and are loving it.  We will keep him on SCD for another few weeks and see if we can reintroduce carbs after a good 12 weeks with the probiotic.

Caroline doesn’t even ask for gluten foods anymore.  At this age (6), they are super flexible.

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How do you know if it is time to try a gluten free diet with your kids? Simple answer: if you’ve got any family members with Celiac Disease, Parkinsons’s, Lupus, Diabetes Type 1, Crohn’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Autism Spectrum Disorder, or Alcoholism. I have always thought that considering 5 of my 12 Duni-related family members are gluten free (and 10 casein free), I should do a 30 day GFCF trial with Caroline just to make sure she didn’t have a problem with gluten.

She got a stomach bug last week that wiped her out for 3 days (and she rarely gets even a cold). Ever since, she has had these dark circles under her eyes, rashes on her face and white lines across all her fingers. She has not been sleeping well, complaining of headaches, and she has been very emotional. Her stools have been unusually loose and pale colored. All those issues mixed together tell me it is time to investigate a gluten intolerance.

I decided to do this late Tuesday night and thankfully found I had everything I needed to make a GFCF breakfast and lunch for her on Wed. I simply switched out her PB & J sandwich for chicken salad and everything else she eats for lunch is already GFCF (carrot sticks, apple, Gorilla Munch rice bar, chips, and Vitamin Water). So that was easy. As a treat, I bought some GFCF chocolate chip cookie mix yesterday from Harris Teeter and today she has 2 cookies in her lunch as well. The only other change I needed to make was getting a box of Vans waffles and some more soy yogurt for breakfast. She had Jackson’s rice pasta for dinner last night and didn’t even know it was gluten free until after.

So thankfully, being GFCF for a month is not going to be difficult for her, and I will let you know how this little trail turns out at the end of February.

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Ever wonder if you are the only one who has to get up and leave the room when uncle Phil slurps his soup or chews his steak with his mouth wide open? Are you starting to get freaked outbecause your 3 year old won’t wear anything that is wet or spends 10 minutes getting the seam of his sock exactly perfect across his toes? You are not alone:)

Sensory Integration Disorder is an extremely common problem. It reminds me of Fibromylagia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in that “medical experts” have not until recently acknowledge that it even existed despite the millions of people who suffer from it - mainly because there is no single lab test to diagnose it or drug to conveniently hide it away.

Anyway, my point is that people with sensory integration issues are often incorrectly labeld as having mild OCD, bi-polar disorder, depression, anxiety, autism, developmental delays or ADHD. Now, that is not to say that someone can have both, but it is not fair to label someone with OCD when they simply have a severe form of tactile sensory integration disorder.

What causes sensory integration issues? Researchers feel that people with heightened sensory awareness have low levels of serotonin - an extremely important neurotransmitter in the brain that controls everything from mood to appetite to sex drive to sleep to sensory perception. A person with low serotonin often has very sensitive hearing that not only causes magnification of sounds, but the ability to pick up multiple fringe sounds causing auditory processing overload (which can look a lot like ADD to the untrained eye). Similarly, low serotonin can cause advanced visual and spatial processing capabilities which can both bless and frustrate a person who becomes almost addicted to optical movement and color theory.

This neurotransmitter anomaly explains why so many brilliant artists and musicians struggle with depression and other mood-related disorders. Low serotonin causes not only sensory stimulation, but mood depression (most anti-depressants are serotonin boosters). Hence the blessing and the curse.

But it is another part of this sensory integration disorder / low seretonin connection that I find so interesting. There are more serotonin receptors in your gut than in your brain. To me, that speaks to a much bigger issues - can what we eat regulate our serotonin? Addressing the receptors in the gut verses addressing the receptors in the brain. I find that possibility very interesting.

Here are a few things researchers do know about serotonin and the gut connection. Serotonin can not be taken orally in pill form because it can not cross the blood brain barrier. But the main building block of serotonin is tryptophan…does that sound familiar??? That’s right - turkey. The reason you fall asleep after Thanksgiving dinner is because the tryptophan is the turkey builds serotonin which is lulls us into a blissful relaxation. Tryptophan does not put us to sleep like melatonin, but it does relax us and act as an anti-depressant.

Tryptophan can be found in high concentrations in all proteins including turkey, chicken, beef, eggs, cheese, fish, peanuts, whole grains, etc… That is why so many people feel sleepy or calm after a big meal. Most big feasts in this country include tons of meat, cheese and grains. Fruits and veggies don’t build serotonin as well. A lot of women I talk to say that they typically feel anxious or edgy if they haven’t eaten in awhile - which is why eating 5 small meals a day that have protein in them is so effective for weight and mood control. Your are building serotonin a little bit every few hours.

My son and I both have huge sensory issues. I find that if either of us are becoming overwhelmed, 20 grams of protein seems to help in the short term followed by a stricker 5 meals a day policy to get out serotonin levels back on track.

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We received a copy of Jackson’s first real report card on Friday. I wanted to share it with you all as so many folks ask how he is doing in school. They give out O (outstanding), G (good), S (satisfactory) and N (needs improvement), instead of A,B,C and D. I didn’t know what to expect when he brought it home. In fact, I didn’t realize he would even be getting a report card.

They had every subject broken into 2 categories: Achievement and Effort as well as a section for “Work Habits”. His achievement averaged to a G and his effort to an O. The only S’s he got in his subjects were for music and writing. The writing I totally get - he hates to write, but the music cracks us up, because here is a kid who can hear a piece of music on the radio or TV and play it on the piano by ear. But I can see how being in a music class of 25 kids does not lend itself to his strengths in that area.  His best 2 subjects were math and social studies - O’s all around!

As for work habits - he averaged out to a G as well. He only got 1 N on the whole report card…and for those of you who know J, I bet you can guess what that was for - “Self Control”. We pray for self control for J every night and we know how hard he tries to control himself, but most days it is just too much for him - and that includes controlling both his temper and his silliness.

So all tolled, he has a G+ “grade”. The whole idea of J getting a report card with a grade is weird for us. We were never sure we would put him in formal school, let alone a school that has official grades. We planned on going the home-school or private tutor route for him. We are thrilled with how well he is doing and how much he is learning. His teachers are wonderful and they all seem to really enjoy Jackson.

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Paul and I decided to finally re-do our basement rec room and turn it into a much more family-friendly space. We live in a mid-century modern ranch in Falls Church that has a fully-finished basement level with equal the square footage of the main floor. Up until now all the walls were white with light grey berber carpeting. Our main T.V. in down there along with a nasty old couch and the kids toys strewn everywhere.

So we decided that since we spend a lot of time down there, we should actually put some effort into making it a more comfortable and usable space. Since the ventilation down there is not great (a few of those small basement windows that don’t ever open), we needed to be extra mindful of the materials we used so Paul, Jackson and my dad (our main laborer who had a kidney transplant in March) would not incur any unnecessary toxic burdens (they all have poor liver and/or immune function).

I wanted to make a quick list of the eco-friendly things we did:

1. We used Benjamin Moore Eco-Spec paint. My sister also told me that Lowe’s carries a VOC-free paint that is much cheaper: Olympic Paint. The closest Lowe’s to us is a 30 min drive, so we opted for the local Benjamin Moore instead.

2. We shampooed the carpets with the non-toxic Bi-O-Kleen Traffic Lane Cleaner instead of the highly toxic carpet cleaning agents typically used in those machines.

3. We bought all of our wood furniture and fabric from IKEA since they do not use the highly toxic flame-retardant PBDE in their products that has been shown to disrupt the endocrine system and mutate DNA and is found in all the major brands.

4. We placed multiple bags of zeolite around the room to absorb any lingering or trace amounts of VOC’s in the air.

5. We are re-using old tree stumps from Paul’s parents house and turning them in to side tables and a large coffee table instead of purchasing new items.

6. We are using Flor Carpet Tiles, which are made from 100% recycled materials, for area rugs.

7. Paul is brainstorming ideas for cleaner and more efficient heat distribution. We have a fireplace down there that we will use in the short term with a thermal fan to project the heat more effectively, but he wants to learn more about heating alternatives to wood burning for better indoor and outdoor air quality.

The next big project is a full kitchen remodel. We hope to start knocking down walls in January after the holidays. I will keep you posted on what eco-friendly things we do for that space!

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I titled this blog like I did because I want to stress that I would never tell anybody whether or not they should get the flu shot (unless they were family, then they won’t stop hearing about it:) But since this is such a hot topic and I am always getting asked my thoughts on it, I thought the best way to address it was to simply tell you what we do and why - not tell you what to do.

I actually already wrote this blog once and then deleted it because I was getting to technical in my response. Bottom line - there are 3 reasons no one in my family will ever get the flu shot:

1. If you don’t want to get the flu then take better care of yourself. The flu shot is the lazy man’s way out. If you want to have a healthy winter - take your vitamins, eat well and exercise. It is not rocket science folks. But we are a nation of quick fixes and we don’t want to have to put the effort into our health - many of us would rather inject ourselves with the actual virus and hope our immune systems hook us up with a “get out of jail free card”. Except it doesn’t work that way…short cuts rarely work.

2. The flu vaccine rarely works. While some people do find that the flu vaccine does help prevent them from getting the flu, it has little to no protective power for the grand majority of us. Most bodies either do not create and antibody or they create and antibody to a strand that we never get exposed to that year.

3. The flu vaccine contains thimerasol. There is no way I would ever allow a neurotoxin (mercury) to ever be injected into my children, myself or my husband. That is a no-brainer.

So our version of the flu shot consisits of:

1. 500 - 1000 mg of Vit C per day
2. 30 - 50 mg of Zinc per day
3. 1 - 2 Tsp of Cod Liver Oil per day
4. 1-3 oz of Xango per day
5. 2,000-6,000 i.u. of Vit D per day

Not only does it prevent the flu - it prevents asthma, eczema, ADHD, depression, digestive and sleep issues, arthritis, autoimmunity, heart disease, etc… So sure, we could get the flu shot, but we would rather just be healthy people all the time - it takes a lot of work, but for us, it is worth the effort.

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So many people ask me, “How do I know if it is time to try a gluten free diet for myself or my child?” They wonder if they should get a Celiac test done first or if they should try enzymes instead. There are a lot of conflicting messages and information out there on the role of gluten intolerances and most doctors are painfully unaware of this growing health problem and/or what to do about it.

Gluten is the protein in wheat, barley and malt and for some individuals does not adequately breakdown during digestion and therefore can trigger and immune system attack on either the gut lining or worse yet, leak into the blood stream and convert into a gliadamorphin - a dangerous peptide.

Regardless of what reaction your body has to the gluten protein, the American Red Cross estimates that as many as 1 in 100 Americans have a gluten intolerance while on 1 in 4000 are diagnosed. That means a lot of folks are walking around thinking they are falling apart, when in reality they have an easily treatable foodintolerance.

So, how do you know if you are one of those people? Unfortunately, most docs will only suggest Celiac Disease if you have severe digestive issues or failure to thrive / significant loss of body mass. The reality is that most gluten intolerances do not even have a digestive component - most are strictly an inflammatory issue. Check the following list for gluten-related symptoms:

• loss of appetite
• bloated belly
• chronic diarrhea
• delayed growth
• fatigue
• anemia
• bone and joint pain
• weight loss
• irritability
• depression
• dermatitis herpetiformis (blistering skin rash)
• discolored tooth enamel
• auto immunity
• sleep issues - night waking
• moodiness
• headaches
• dizziness
• diabetes
• adrenal fatigue
• leg cramping
• dark circles under eyes
• OCD-like tendencies
• sensory integration
  
• foggy / hazy mentally
• inattentive
• frequent viral infections

While this list might seem long and random, that is exactly why it is so difficult to determine if a person has a gluten intolerance.  There is no cut and dry symptom checklist like there is for other major diseases like diabetes or heart disease.

So what is the best way to figure out if your health issues are related to gluten?  3 options:

1.  Have Celiac test done:  blood test and/or scope
*  Not recommended by most gluten intolerant people due to its high false negative results.  There is simply no reliable lab testing for gluten intolerance.  Researchers are experimenting with a few new urinalysis, but nothing airtight has come down the pike yet.

2.   Go gluten-free for 30 days
*  Best way to evaluate your sensitivity to gluten is to take it out of your diet for 30 days.  The key is not to evaluate your health until after you reintroduce it.  If after reintroduction of gluten, your symptoms get worse, then you can determine if it is worth it for you to remove gluten all together.

3.  Try digestive enzymes
*  If you are not willing or able to commit to a gluten free diet for 30 days, then try adding protease enzymes before you eat anything with gluten (which would be every meal for most Americans).  We recommend Peptizyde  (also in chewable form) by Houston Nutraceuticals.  2 capsules before every meal for 30 days.  Then after, stop taking the enzymes and evaluate as I mentioned above.

If you do decide to try a gluten free diet, be sure to pick up Gluten Free for Dummies by Dana Korn.  The best GF book on the market - hands down.

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