Today I Am Grateful For.....

I'm grateful that my old dad is back at home, on his feet and confident he can still cope on his own.

 

this is wonderful! Some priceless memories that you can read again and again.

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Today I found a key that, I thought, I had lost.

 

Thanks Shiney. They are already ISBN numbered through Amazon.

 

Today I am grateful for the internet, and the accumulated knowledge thereon.

In the latest example, a bit of research suggests that if I put ginger, cayenne, turmeric, rosemary oil and black pepper into a carrier of olive oil, it makes an effective anti inflammatory muscle rub which also helps to relax muscles that are locked in spasm, meaning that today for the first time in weeks I can walk relatively normally and painlessly.

 

Now what have we said about marinading your self?

 

that's fantastic, clueless, all the ingredients in the same proportions? PS what do you mean by "carrier" ?

 

I put a heaped teaspoon of ginger powder, half a teaspoon of turmeric, a good shake of cayenne, and a shake of black pepper. So of the powdered spices, it was mostly ginger. I also put a good shake of rosemary oil in.

I used olive oil as the carrier because extra virgin olive oil contains a natural chemical that is also anti inflammatory. When I say 'carrier', I mean that all spices need to be in something to carry them into my skin when I run it in. Some of the active elements in the spices are fat soluble, meaning that they have to be in an oil or fat to make them useful. Some compounds are water soluble, such as capsaicin in the cayenne for example, so I'm going to experiment with a water based formula later to see how it performs compared with the oil based one.

 

Yep. I've already dyed the sleeves of one top

I was kind of hoping to stumble across an entirely safe and natural fake tan recipe as a pleasing side effect of the anti inflammatory objective. I'd quite like to have a nice Mediterranean glow to my skin.

 

keep us informed, regarding the water version...

 

I'm afraid I didn't get as far as the water based one. Which brings me onto my thing I'm grateful for today.

While my knees are still clicking quite frequently when I move, I am no longer routinely taking powerful pain killers or anti inflammatory drugs or home made rubs. The walking stick has not been out for a while, and I've returned to training, albeit at a much reduced intensity but it's a good start.

 

is it your anti inflammatory remedy that helped?

 

It's probably a range of factors.

I don't believe there is such a thing as a cure for anything. I believe the best we can do is help our bodies to heal themselves. With muscle and connective tissue injuries, the site of injury needs too three things. It needs to be able to remove and dispose of waste byproducts of the repair process (dead cells, byproducts of chemical reactions etc). It needs a good supply of fresh, nutrient and oxygen rich blood, and it needs to not be put under tension and tear while the injured tissue is still weak. To that end, eating a protein and vitamin rich diet provides the building blocks for repair. And natural anti inflammatory rubs relax the tissue, taking tension off, while also dilating blood vessels, supporting the removal of bad stuff and the delivery of nutrients needed for repair.

So all in all, I think a combination of rest, carefully selected exercise, obsessively planned diet, and topical treatments all worked together to promote the healing process.