Take vitamins daily

I was just reading my past entries from early this summer. No longer do I have such sever hay fever symptoms. I am now working in a place where there’s a lot of dust, so I end up blowing my nose a lot there, but that’s normal. I don’t know what made it clear up. I haven’t been taking any vitamins.

In fact, I’m going to delete this goal soon. My dad and I are the healthy people in our family. I don’t see a need to take vitamins unless I’m getting sick. It’s a nice thought, but I don’t think it’s necessary for me.

I think I’m developing hay fever. My eyes are so itchy and they hurt so much I’m on the point of tears. I’m taking an antihistamine at least once a day. I go through half a box of Kleenex every day and I sneeze about 30 times every day. Frequently I go off the road when I’m driving because my sneezes are not polite – they’re violent, they jerk my whole body, they hurt. I’ve hurt muscles in my back just by sneezing.

I just used some eyewash on my eyes and it helped some. I took some kind of herbal allergy pill this morning (my mom said it might help). I just took an antihistamine.

I’ve never, ever been allergic to ANYTHING before! I’ve always had better health than my mom and sisters! And now I’m so completely miserable! I have a job interview tomorrow afternoon for a full time job. I really really want this job, but I’m worried that I won’t be able to function if I’m working and I’m like I am now!

Anyway, I’m going to bed; good afternoon.

Oh, and occasionally I’ve been taking a B-12 under my tongue. My mom suggested it once when I felt really angry at everything and was losing my temper constantly. Almost immediately after I took it, I felt like I had a choice about my behavior – like, I had a second to think “Do I want to become angry, or do I want to let this go?” Now I take one every couple days, whenever I feel like I need one.

Also, I was playing a game with my little sister who is 9 years old. I started to win, and she suddenly became angry, throwing her cards around and yelling at me, but accusing me of being mad at her! She stomped away from the game. I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t be reasoned with. I saw the B-12 bottle, gave her a pill and told her to put it under her tongue; then I walked away.

Within ten minutes, she found me and asked if I could come play with her so we could finish our game. She even apologized! I don’t know if it was the B-12 or not, but I’m going to keep taking it when I feel like I need it.

I don’t want to be taking random vitamins with no reason. I don’t want to take stuff I don’t need. Plus, while I have no huge health problems, I do constantly sneeze, have full sinuses, and a tickle in my throat. I take an antihistamine around once a week from bad, bad sinus headaches – and yet, I’m not quite “sick”.

An acupuncturist I met once tested me and said I’m a strep carrier. I don’t have strep, but I carry it. He said I should take two Chinese herbs, but the Chinese herb shop down the street was unhelpful so I gave up on that.

Now that I’m home, it’s gotten worse. As soon as I wake up, I have to have a box of Kleenex within a few feet of me for the first hour I’m awake. I use probably thirty kleenex when I wake up and I sneeze about ten times. Not dehabilitating, just annoying.

I finally did some research on the two herbs, and found out they are contained in a tea – Breathe Easy by Traditional Medicines – that we own! I had a cup of it last week and declared it to be gross. The taste is not that great, but I’m making myself a cup now. If I can cease to think of it as “tea” and more as “medicine”, I’ll be better able to silence my gag reflex.

So, while I still don’t have any established daily vitamins, I think I’m going to grab another box of this tea and aim for two cups per day. That’s all for now.

I got a migraine two days ago and another one just now. I don’t know for sure if it’s the garlic, but I’m going to stop taking it. I was migraine-free, with only one migraine occuring in the last three months, and now this.

Ugh. I hate migraines.

Bottom line, I don’t want to take garlic every day, strictly because it makes my body and my breath smell bad. I’m going to see if it’ll help if I only take it once a week. I took it a few days ago for the first time. I’m sneezing and blowing my nose just as often as before, so I haven’t noticed any change from that one time. I’ll take it again on Monday.

More answers to my question about the best way to eat raw garlic, gotten from online)

-Scrambled eggs topped with minced raw garlic

-Tomato sauce with chopped raw garlic added jsut before eating

-Yogurt cheese with minced raw garlic on whole wheat crackers

-Minced raw garlic on a baked potato

Some garlic sites:

http://www.geocities.com/allergylifeline/008.html

http://arneberg.com/columns/ch/2003/0827.garlic.html – very helpful article. I emailed Tom with some questions and he emailed me back within five minutes.

At Iron_Man’s suggestion, today I bought some garlic. Is a clove the whole clump, or is it one of the sort of teardrop shaped things? I ate a teardrop shaped thing just now. I don’t know about this. I cut it in half and ate one half and my mouth was on fire. I drank about half a cup of water. I cut the second half into four pieces and got down three of them, but I gagged and almost threw up on the last one. I swallowed the last eighth of a piece whole, without chewing. Then I ate some toast.

If I have to do this every day, I will dread it. Ew, I just burped.

I have somehow accumulated random bottles of vitaminish pills. I’m in the process of taking them until they are gone to see if I notice anything different when I stop.

At the moment, I am taking iron, cranberry, and echinacea daily. I have no kidney problems, but I really never have, so I think cranberry probably isn’t helping a whole lot. I lose my breath and get suddenly tired a lot, but that’s usually food related and the iron isn’t helping that at all, so I suppose I’m not anemic. And I have not gotten a bad cold since I started taking echinacea, but I always have full sinuses and a runny nose and I’m always sneezing and the echinacea doesn’t help that.

I’ll be done with the iron pills in 7 days. When I’m done with those I’ll start taking potassium. I’ve always hated bananas so I figure this is good.

Edit: Done with iron. Tomorrow my regimen will be cranberry, echinacea (gosh, I love spelling that word) and potassium.

I don’t take much – just Feverfew (which is an herb, not a vitamin) for my migraines (which have not existed since I started taking it) and potassium supplements which I take for muscle cramps (it helps.)

I’d like to start taking vitamin C, calcium, and iron again. Possibly a multivitamin as well. I just don’t like taking pills at all, so it’s a big effort to take more than two with a meal. I can always space them out over several meals, but that means more to remember.

Of course, vitamin C and calcium are available in yummier forms, so I might try those.