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Originally posted by Brenda:
Wild weather here a while ago. Dark clouds rolled in then heavy rain which turned into heavy hail which went back to rain then a light rain. This was also accompanied by wind which was blowing the trees around. Wind and rain both stopped for now.

Off to get my supper.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Seems like every day is a "daily chore" day, and I'm having a hard time finding time to tackle the bigger stuff. But I've done my deep dive thru the medical expenses and I'm going to print out a spreadsheet for the tax guy, along with other deductible expenses, and let HIM figure out if it's worth itemizing or not.

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Managed to get my Easter cards in the mail (I hope they get across country in time)

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and sort mail/pay bills.

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I put a temporary halt on the outdoor work during this hot spell (it got up to 90F today)

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but will prolly be helping in the garage tomorrow to help put the bandsaw back in operation. Yesterday we re-arranged the wood supplies to bring the bandsaw out into the center of the garage; it's a good thing hubby put it on wheels!! I vacuumed it out, hubby has three new blades (including resaw blade) and with a little derusting of the table and a little new oil on the blade guides it should work fine.

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Also, during this hot spell I'm going lighter on cooked dishes. Today I cooked philly cheese steak on toast with greek salad for the family, and yesterday we had "oven fried" chicken with cole slaw and leftover sweet potato. But my latest "comfort food" is cooked oat bran. I can't taste it much, but it has the same texture as Cream of Wheat (which I always liked) and is presumably good for me.

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

THUGR posts about Putin so much, he must be in love.

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Wild weather here a while ago. Dark clouds rolled in then heavy rain which turned into heavy hail which went back to rain then a light rain. This was also accompanied by wind which was blowing the trees around. Wind and rain both stopped for now.

Off to get my supper.

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I'm glad the weather seems to be better now that you're out and about. Have a good one!

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
It's not that I'm not getting anything done. My house is more or less clean right now, and everything I needed to do outside is ready for reseeding the grass. But I still haven't been able to get back to working on the kitchen, which is really the thing I need to get back to.

My problem was stopping right before the worst part of the job before going to my bro's place. I've literally found every possible excuse to not get up on that ladder and finish sanding and scraping the insides of the top cabinets.

I haven't even done one of my paint shifts on the doors and shelves for weeks now. There's still two drawers and lazy susan discs that haven't gotten a lick of primer on them yet, and painting hasn't even started.

I thought yesterday was the day, but I didn't do it. Hopefully today is.

I'd love to get it far enough where I can justify opening that big tub of wood putty. As far as I know, I don't even need any on the bottom cabinets except to fill the holes where the old hinges are. Most of it was up top, along with a few patches on my front and back door jambs and the holes in the bottom step I made for my front entrance.


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" 'You're like the Nazis' is the new 'I don't like you'. That disqualifies her from marching around planet Who-Gives-a-Shit in a helmet? ~Bill Maher

PSA: Don't click on any links in Second's posts. He's trying to fish your private information out of you.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I've literally found every possible excuse to not get up on that ladder and finish sanding and scraping the insides of the top cabinets.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
"Some people" (yanno, those online articles with all kinds of helpful hints on how to live your life better!) say that one way to procrastinate is to fill in the time by tackling some of the OTHER things that you need to do, altho my experience is that I can find an infinite series of "yapping chihuahuas" to address which allows me to procrastinate for a long time.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Sometimes motivation is hard to come by. Especially if, as you say, you stop (or are stopped) partway thru a particularly onerous painful part, and get derailed. Then you wind up procrastinating.

"Some people" (yanno, those online articles with all kinds of helpful hints on how to live your life better!) say that one way to procrastinate is to fill in the time by tackling some of the OTHER things that you need to do, altho my experience is that I can find an infinite series of "yapping chihuahuas" to address which allows me to procrastinate for a long time.

I dunno. Pick a date that has a week of clear schedule ahead (maybe rainy weather ahead so you can't do yardwork?) and get to it?

I'm looking forward to your next post on your kitchen remodel. In the meantime, let us know how other things are going. m'kay?

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Well, I finally got the bug today...

Put in a good 7 hours in the kitchen today. I only actually sanded and scraped out 2 cabinets out of the 6 I have left to do, but one of them was one of the two lazy Susan's which are about as time consuming as 3 cabinets.

But most of my day was doing stuff I hadn't planned on doing. I just realized today that I'd never re-set the build out that will hold the right side of the range hood. I thought I had done that when I did the left side. I figured it out real quick when I sanded over the screw sticking a quarter inch out of the bottom of the cabinet.

Once I had that all disassembled and ready to put back into place with construction glue and brad nails, I actually took the time to repair the gaping holes on the top and bottom of the cabinet. The idiots ripped out about 11"x4" from the top to put the electric in through the soffit and the bottom to pull the plug up from the range hood. Not only does it look like crap, but insulation constantly falls down from the soffit into that cabinet.

I had a lot of that Hardboard left from when I built out the side of a cabinet and fixed the drawer bottom, so I used that. That stuff is pretty awesome. It's like the poor man's 3D printer.

I cut it to the right size, sanded down the edges to a nice finish, used other cutoffs to build out the surface I'd be gluing them to and glued them on (and hit them with brad nails when I had enough clearance to do so). I cut out proper holes to run the electric through, then I glued and clamped everything into place.

Then I built that range hood bracket out flush and right without any screws poking through the bottom of the cabinet.

It's all ready for the wood putty and caulk when I get to it.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get to it and finish sanding and scraping the 4 remaining cabinets and vacuum and wipe them all down for the next step.

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I'm assuming it's the deteriorating drainage ditch that's the thing that has you concened?

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No, but it's not making me feel any better about the situation.

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If I understand the topography around your house, the ditch is across the street but you're downslope?

I have two words for you: Sand bags.

Also, my sis had continuing problems with the electricity going out for days at a time whenever there was windy weather. And this was just a few houses on the street, including hers. Once up to ten days, IIRC. And thru part of this time, our mom was on an oxygen machine, and they had to resort bottled oxygen, living in a cold dark house in the dead of winter. She called the utility multiple times, called and wrote her state representatives, but the thing that did the trick was getting in touch with one of those local channel broadcasts where they would fix problemss for you.

Well! With THAT bad publicity NYSGE finally got on the stick and trimmed the ONE TREE that was causing all of those problems. So, if you have a similar local TV program, that might be the leverage that you need to get the problem fixed.

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I've literally found every possible excuse to not get up on that ladder and finish sanding and scraping the insides of the top cabinets.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
"Some people" (yanno, those online articles with all kinds of helpful hints on how to live your life better!) say that one way to procrastinate is to fill in the time by tackling some of the OTHER things that you need to do, altho my experience is that I can find an infinite series of "yapping chihuahuas" to address which allows me to procrastinate for a long time.

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I too have discovered 'productive procrastination™'. At least it's productive. But yes, it can made to be be virtually infinite. For me, procrastination often comes from either 1) uncertainty plus anxiety - it's important but I'm not sure how to do it and how it'll go or 2) pain and fatigue, though fatigue tends to be a far more subtle problem. I can differentiate between fatigue and something else by checking how I feel about doing paperwork v getting up and doing something physical. If I'm up for paperwork but not a physical activity, it mean my mind is sharp and my emotions are unclouded, but my body is telling me no.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, SIX, think of the creaking and cracking nt as "settling" but as "rebound". As long as you have something solid under the frame, even if it's jacks, you're good.

FWIW I think you're doing the right thing, encouraging it to move back into position. You don't want to have to deal with a myriad of hairline cracks AFTER you've prepped and painted!

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SIGNYM:
So, SIX, think of the creaking and cracking nt as "settling" but as "rebound". As long as you have something solid under the frame, even if it's jacks, you're good.

FWIW I think you're doing the right thing, encouraging it to move back into position. You don't want to have to deal with a myriad of hairline cracks AFTER you've prepped and painted!

SIX: Yeah. From the outside, nothing at all looks amiss. The only difference that can be seen is the overhang is now straight.

There doesn't appear to be anything that needs jacking at this point, although I may choose to throw a couple of 3-4ft. jacks under the stairs to the basement. They have seen their share of water over the years. No serious floods since I've been here, but even still there's been a thin coating of water on the living space floor twice in the last 10 years. Who knows how bad it had gotten when the bank owned it and before all the flood remediation projects had been done in the area?


Been kicking some ass recently on what needs to be done, finally...

I finished scraping and sanding all 6 remaining upper cabinets in the last two days, and I even sanded most of the front of all of the bottom cabinets today. As much as I'd like to jump right into the wood putty and caulking on the upper cabinets, I think at this point I might jump to stripping the bottom cabinets so I can just get all of the sanding over with and have a relatively clean work area for the rest of the job.

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SIX: It's so nice to finally have the worst thing on the kitchen to-do list behind me. That was really an awful job. My right forearm was hurting pretty bad when I woke up yesterday and I didn't know if I'd get it done today, but I did some yard work and was stretching and moving it around for a few hours before I got back to the kitchen.




Sounds like you're making good progress on your stuff too.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I didn't know you were mechanically inclined.

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Nice crossing off another thing from the list even though it was so hot.

I'm currently looking at a dusting of snow on our rooftops.

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Current temp is 28, with a high of 36 and a low of 26 tonight. Two more relatively cool days and then it gets up into the 70's for the first time since last year finally.

It's pretty good timing though. It will be nice and cool for the work since I turn the heat down to basically off when I've got the stripping agent up so it doesn't dry out prematurely.

The bottom cabinets are definitely more of a challenge than I credited them for. Sure... I'm not up on a ladder and they don't have "tops" to strip and sand, but I forgot that they're twice as deep as the top cabs, and most of the work needs to be done while extended from a cross legged position. I'm going to strip as much as I can reach of the cabinet to the right of the sink today and put a little mud up on the back wall where the plumbing is in the cab under the sink to repair some damage I cut away from the wall. It seems I shouldn't have to prep the wood in that cabinet very much, which is a good thing, since I can't really get a power sander in there in at least half of the sides because of all of the pipes.

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I've been here 10 years and it never occurred to me to try lifting the two pieces of MDF on the floor of that sink cabinet that were lined for some reason with clear contact paper. They came right out without any fuss to reveal a terribly damaged sub floor (and evidence of yet a 4th variety of vinyl tile that has been on this floor over the years as well).

That's all staying down there. I'm going to put the MDF back after cleaning it, then I'm going to build yet another layer to go on top and put the same white contact paper I've got for the shelves on top of it.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Heading maybe for a slightly soggy easter. Taking my umbrella with me as a precaution today.

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Heading maybe for a slightly soggy easter. Taking my umbrella with me as a precaution today.

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Are you doing anything special for Easter?

We're not. It's going to be a stay-at-home, non-Easter style dinner.

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

THUGR posts about Putin so much, he must be in love.

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

FWIW I'm not nothing for Easter as well.

Lamb chops sound good, though! We rarely had them, but when we did they were baked with garlic salt. But IIRC, garlic and Brenda don't get along.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Aside from developing methods, one of my favorite things to do was repairing and modifying analytical instruments. There was one gas chromatograph that we had purchased, custom-built, but it just didn't have the required sensitivity bc it was using a thermal conductivity detector, so one Saturday I had to go in bc one person in my group had to analyze an emergeny sample (we didn't let ppl work alone in the lab) so I took my trusty schematic, grabbed a drill and a bunch of tools and parts, drilled a hole thru the oven wall, moved the insulation aside, pulled tubing thru, added a flame ionization detector and an external small oven for methanization, and turned it into a GC-methanizer-FID instead. we used the instrument that way for decades after that. It was extremely fast, sensitive, and handy.

I said goobye to all that when I was promoted from team leader to supervisor. Afer that, it was all paperwork.

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Nice. Comes in handy when you want to fix things now. Maybe you'll go back to tinkering when you finally get caught up with your to do list.

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Jeezus. Seriously??

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Yup. Snowed until around 1PM, but after around 11AM it wasn't sticking anymore and the snow off the rooftops had melted.

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Because you can't repair the subfloor unless you remove all of the cabinets.

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Yup. Not on my to do list for sure. I was blissfully unaware of it for 10 years and it's been fine. I will be building it out though so the only time anybody would ever know it was down there is if they ever rip the cabinets out. I'm hoping that this never happens though since I put all this work into them.

I've got a plan.

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Any idea what kind of damage? Water damage from constantly-leaking plumbing, perhaps?

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It's quite extensive. Unless there was a massive leak under there for years that never got fixed, I doubt it very much.

My guess is that this was flood damage back before the ditch was put in and water would get so high it would come in over the foundation. I bet the entire first floor looked like that at one point.




I just finished work for the day. Except for mudding the bottom of the wall in the sink as the last thing I did, I basically sanded the bottom cabinets non-stop except for when I was waiting on my batteries to recharge.

It's quite possible that tomorrow will be my last day sanding if I play my cards right.


Well... assuming my arms move tomorrow.




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" 'You're like the Nazis' is the new 'I don't like you'. That disqualifies her from marching around planet Who-Gives-a-Shit in a helmet? ~Bill Maher

PSA: Don't click on any links in Second's posts. He's trying to fish your private information out of you.

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Originally posted by Brenda:

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

FWIW I'm not nothing for Easter as well.

Lamb chops sound good, though! We rarely had them, but when we did they were baked with garlic salt. But IIRC, garlic and Brenda don't get along.

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I only have lamb chops on special occasions. Holidays and my birthday.

That is true now Kiki. Garlic and I no longer have a relationship. I still like it but it no longer seems to like me.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by Brenda:

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

FWIW I'm not nothing for Easter as well.

Lamb chops sound good, though! We rarely had them, but when we did they were baked with garlic salt. But IIRC, garlic and Brenda don't get along.

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I only have lamb chops on special occasions. Holidays and my birthday.

That is true now Kiki. Garlic and I no longer have a relationship. I still like it but it no longer seems to like me.

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I've tested allergic to nine different foods: beef, rice, tomato, potato, lettuce, rice, coffee, orange, and one other thing I forget bc I don't eat it very often. But I'm sure there are many other things I'm allergic to that they simply don't have test solutions for, and I noticed that my body doesn't like eggplant (same family as potato and tomato ... and nightshade) and ripe olives. Prolly other stuff as well.

Poor dear daughter developed food sensitivities after a bad intestinal flu four years ago. SHE can't eat crucifers (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, arugula, kale, etc etc), beans, onions, and a few other things.

Coming up with a menu that everyone can eat is like walking thru a minefield! In fact, I usually make different things or different versions of the same thing. Today, hubby and dear daughter are having burgers but... OOPS! Beef! ... so I'm having tuna salad. Hubby and I are having cole slaw but ... OOOPS! Cabbage! ... so dear daugher is having zucchini.

Anyway, for Easter we're having pork satay and Chinese-style braised vegetables. (ginger, carrot, celery, red pepper, snow peas, water chestnuts, and bean sprouts with soy sauce, a little sugar, cornstarch for thickening, and some fresh-sliced garlic).

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

THUGR posts about Putin so much, he must be in love.

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1KIKI:
FWIW I'm not nothing for Easter as well.
Lamb chops sound good, though! We rarely had them, but when we did they were baked with garlic salt. But IIRC, garlic and Brenda don't get along.


BRENDA: I only have lamb chops on special occasions. Holidays and my birthday.
That is true now Kiki. Garlic and I no longer have a relationship. I still like it but it no longer seems to like me.

SIGNY: I've tested allergic to nine different foods: beef, rice, tomato, potato, lettuce, rice, coffee, orange, and one other thing I forget bc I don't eat it very often. But I'm sure there are many other things I'm allergic to that they simply don't have test solutions for, and I noticed that my body doesn't like eggplant (same family as potato and tomato ... and nightshade) and ripe olives. Prolly other stuff as well.

Poor dear daughter developed food sensitivities after a bad intestinal flu four years ago. SHE can't eat crucifers (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, arugula, kale, etc etc), beans, onions, and a few other things.

Coming up with a menu that everyone can eat is like walking thru a minefield! In fact, I usually make different things or different versions of the same thing. Today, hubby and dear daughter are having burgers but... OOPS! Beef! ... so I'm having tuna salad. Hubby and I are having cole slaw but ... OOOPS! Cabbage! ... so dear daugher is having zucchini.

Anyway, for Easter we're having pork satay and Chinese-style braised vegetables. (ginger, carrot, celery, red pepper, snow peas, water chestnuts, and bean sprouts with soy sauce, a little sugar, cornstarch for thickening, and some fresh-sliced garlic).

BRENDA: Some things I can't eat are related to my seizure meds and in the last few months my system seems to have changed. Hence the no more garlic and light on the pepper.
I discovered years ago that I can't eat onions as they make me sick to my stomach. Mind, I've never been a big fan of them anyways.
I don't buy jams or jellies anymore because I won't eat a whole jar and again the fruit acids. I found this fantastic peach jam that comes from France but I can't eat it because my seizure meds don't like peaches. I eat a little grape or raspberry or strawberry jam when I am in a restaurant but that is it.
Don't seem to have much of a problem with veg. Just some things I don't like or I eat them raw like peas.
I don't eat a lot of beef because it can be hard on my hypoglycemia. So, I tend to stick with chicken and pork along with fish. Love salmon but I was born on the west coast here and grew up eating it.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Not doing the Easter thing myself. But at least my family is. They've got 400 miles round trip to drive on Sunday. I'm certainly not doing that. And I don't care enough to go to put somebody out and make them drive an hour or two out of their way two times to come and get me. I don't think I've celebrated Easter in 15 years after my uncle who always used to host it died of cancer.

I was really happy to hear they were doing it though. They haven't done anything in so long I started to worry they might be among the people who will never do anything again.




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" 'You're like the Nazis' is the new 'I don't like you'. That disqualifies her from marching around planet Who-Gives-a-Shit in a helmet? ~Bill Maher

PSA: Don't click on any links in Second's posts. He's trying to fish your private information out of you.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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1KIKI:
BRENDA: Some things I can't eat are related to my seizure meds and in the last few months my system seems to have changed. Hence the no more garlic and light on the pepper.
I discovered years ago that I can't eat onions as they make me sick to my stomach. Mind, I've never been a big fan of them anyways.
I don't buy jams or jellies anymore because I won't eat a whole jar and again the fruit acids. I found this fantastic peach jam that comes from France but I can't eat it because my seizure meds don't like peaches. I eat a little grape or raspberry or strawberry jam when I am in a restaurant but that is it.
Don't seem to have much of a problem with veg. Just some things I don't like or I eat them raw like peas.
I don't eat a lot of beef because it can be hard on my hypoglycemia. So, I tend to stick with chicken and pork along with fish. Love salmon but I was born on the west coast here and grew up eating it.

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As a chemist and a mom with a daughter who was trialed on a dozen (literally) anticonvulsants and who has been taking levitiracetam for quite a while, and as a cook for our family with multiple food sensitivities, I like to get to bottom of everything that's going on.

Which makes me puzzled about some of the things that you've posted.

I understand onions making some people nauseous. After all, the onion/garlic chemicals are very strong defensive ones, and it's just weird that humans have learned to enjoy the taste of something that actually should be detering us from eating it. Same goes for hot peppers, horseradish, and strongly-flavored herbs like oregano, thyme, and basil. Not evolved to make our food tasty, they were meant to deter bugs and other animals (including us!) from consuming them.

But I don't understand the connection between beef and hypoglycemia. Like most meats, unprocessed beef has very little sugar in it. It should never drive a hypoglycemic reaction (too much insulin causing low blood sugar.) Since I have hypoglycemia and my husband has to watch his blood suagr, and dear daughter was on a medically=prescribed stringent ketogenic diet for seizure control, I'm highly aware of the carbohydrate content of just about every food out there, and what causes a spike in blood sugar, leading to a reactive crash. Generally speaking, eating starchy .... and especially sugary ... foods after a fast will cause a bout of hypoglycemia. If blood sugar is really low and you need quick recovery, sugar is the best way to go. But the BEST way to avoid hypoglycemia is to avoid processed starches and sugars in the first place, especially easily-digestible carbohydrates (flour products like crackers, cookies, cakes; mashed potatoes etc) which "dump" into the bloodstream quickly, and instead focus on starches that contain soluble fiber (like oat bran) which slows the absorption of food. (However, don't eat soluble fiber in the same window as taking meds, since it will also interfere with the absorption of meds as well.)

So, what happens with you and beef?

Similarly, I can't imagine what kind of reaction you get with "fruit acids" and levitiracetam.

Levitiracetam is not metabolized by the liver enzyme cytochrome p450, so unlike MOST anticonvulsants, you can take it and eat grapefruit and bergamot (the two fruits that seriously mess with cytochrome P450.) In general, levitiracetam isn't affected by the presence, or absence, of food.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15978308/

AFA as "fruit acids" are concerned, there are a lot of various acids in fruit - citric, ascorbic (vitamin C), oxalic. Strawberries, for example, contain five different kinds of acids: citric, ascorbic, malic, ellagic, and pantothenic. Apples contain a fair bit of malic acid. Peaches primarily contain malic acid. Grapes contain tartaric acid.*

https://www.compoundchem.com/2016/02/25/a-guide-to-common-fruit-acids/

But even vegetables and grains can contain problematic acids. For example, spinach contains high levels of oxalic acid, and whole grains contain large amounts pf phytic acid, both of which prevent the absorption of minerals like calcium and iron.

Acids in foods just can't be avoided.

It would be helpful to know WHICH acid is the source of the problem. Perhaps it's not an acid at all, but something used to make jams and jellies (pectin? fructose? sugar in general?). Do you have the same problem with canned, fresh, or frozen peaches/fruit? Sussing out the specific compound might help you to avoid problems without having to avoid vast swaths of food items.

If you narrow down the food items and symptoms, it might be possible to disentangle what is happening with each.

BTW ... vitamin A "palmitate" ... is vitamin A combined with palmitic acid. Unlike fruit acids which tend to contain four, five, or six carbons, palmitic acid contains 16 carbon atoms and is an oily acid, not a crystalline one. Except for the presence of an "acid" functional group (O=C-O-H) fruit acids and palmitic acid have nothing in common with each other, so I wouldn't focus too heavily on the "acid" part of the molecule because it's contained in so many foods that you DON'T have a problem with.

But there are so many minor food components: misc sugars (raffinose and lactose), sulfur compounds (onion/garlic family, beans, crucifers), the bergamot flavor compound (found in grapefruit, bergamot, and Early Gray tea), various proteins etc. which wreak havoc with people's systems that tracking down the specific compounds takes quite a bit of sleuthing. Since I'm trying to track down my food allergies and dear daughter's food sensitivities with the idea that we can avoid/eliminate them, I know how difficult that can be! I'm currently working on the idea that she lost some essential bacteria from her gut and they are no longer producing butyric acid (essential for gut and brain health). Replacing/restoring butyric acid might help her gut heal. Since I seemto have "leaky gut syndrome" it might help me, too.

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

THUGR posts about Putin so much, he must be in love.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
KIKI:

* Dear daughter and I have been puzzled by whatever it is in grapes that causes kidney failure in (many) dogs and (all) cats and is so highly toxic to them.

Grapes seem like such an innocuous fruit!

You mentioned making your own aluminum-free baking powder with tartaric acid sources from grapes, and that made me wonder if THAT was the offending compound. I know I've seen tartaric acid crystals in the bottom of wine bottles, so clearly grapes have a fair bit of tartaric acid in them.

Do you think it's possible that in some animals the tartaric acid crystallizes in the kidney's and explodes the tubules, causing kidney failure? Similar to the adulteration of Chinese milk with melamine causing dog deaths?

Just a thought!

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BTW, grapeseed oil is supposedly entirely safe for pets.

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BTW, did you see my ?? in your Wuhan virus thread about vectored virus vaccines?

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Originally posted by Brenda:
The beef thing is just if I eat too much I find it heavy and therefore my system has to work harder to digest it. Chicken and fish, pork are lighter.

The first time I discovered the reaction to peaches was just after I first started taking Keppra. I bought a peach and ate it around noon. I first started noticing that my throat got a fuzzy feeling then I had an upset stomach. Same thing happens when I eat cherries now as well and love them too. The upset stomach tends to last all day and very annoying. So, I cut both of them out. Also lemons as well. Oranges though never been a big fan. Discovered that I like clementines but again the same reaction as what happened with the peaches.

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
The beef thing is just if I eat too much I find it heavy and therefore my system has to work harder to digest it. Chicken and fish, pork are lighter.

The first time I discovered the reaction to peaches was just after I first started taking Keppra. I bought a peach and ate it around noon. I first started noticing that my throat got a fuzzy feeling then I had an upset stomach. Same thing happens when I eat cherries now as well and love them too. The upset stomach tends to last all day and very annoying. So, I cut both of them out. Also lemons as well. Oranges though never been a big fan. Discovered that I like clementines but again the same reaction as what happened with the peaches.

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That actually sounds at least like food sensitivities, or even actual allergies.

FOOD SENSITIVITIES
Sensitivities can be caused by an inability to digest certain foods. One common example is lactose intolerance. Lactose is a milk sugar that doesn't spark an allergic reaction. But after childhood MOST non-Anglo people lose the enzyme that breaks down lactose. The intact lactose passes into the gut, where bacteria that CAN break down lactose go crazy, and create gas and spark diarrhea. The same could be said for other types of sugars, starches, and other compounds.
DIFFERENT PEOPLE HARBOR DIFFERENT GUT BACTERIA
The bacteria that people harbor in their gut is an individual mix for each person. And why some people harbor some bacteria and other people don't, but harbor something different, is a mystery. Each person can harbor up to 150 different species of bacteria, though there are a few bacteria species that make up greatest portion of the mix.
GUT BACTERIA CAN CREATE AN UNHEALTHY GUT, OR A HEALTHY ONE
The existing bacteria in each person seem to have a huge role in gut health and digestion, but which bacteria are 'helpful' is mostly unknown ...
... As opposed to which ones are harmful. (Certain strains of E coli like O157:H7 are severely harmful; as is Clostridium difficile.) They create a very definitely unhealthy gut.
That said, some bacteria help create a healthy gut. They are really good at making what are called short-chain fatty acids from undigested starches. And these short-chain fatty acids - one of them is butyric as Signy mentioned - seems to provide food for the gut cells that keeps them healthy. And a healthy gut keeps undigested food out of the bloodstream because the gut cells are locked together tightly. But an unhealthy gut has big gaps, molecularly-speaking, because the cells are shriveled and separated from each other. And those big gaps let all sorts of foreign substances into the blood stream. And once in the bloodstream, the deep immune system can 'see' them and react to them.
FOOD ALLERGIES
Food allergies are a different story from food sensitivities. They involve the immune system creating unhelpful antibodies that treat ordinary compounds as if they were attacking invaders That sparks allergic reactions - swelling, redness, itching, and so on - all the way to severe anaphylaxis like some people with severe peanut allergies. Remember when Jack had a problem with hives from eating a spice mix? That was an allergic reaction.



In any case, the Keppra may or may not be related to sparking a food sensitivity/ allergy. It could be something entirely coincidental. I personally developed many actual food allergies (a genuine allergic reaction to foods) out of the blue, for no reason I can think of.

Either way, you're wise to avoid foods that cause you problems - whether they're sensitivities OR allergies.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, the bandsaw is done (except the bracket that holds the fence, which hubby says he's not gonna use. I'm de-rusting it anyway).

The table came out like I thought it would after sandpaper/oil, a really good wipedown with rags/mineral spirits (don't want to leave iron particles on the table bc whatever wood you're cutting will pick it up and stain), and carnauba wax finish. It's smooth as silk.

Hubby re-assembled it with the old resaw blade, adjusted it, and did a couple of test resaw-type cuts into scrap wodd, and it works fine.

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BRENDA:The beef thing is just if I eat too much I find it heavy and therefore my system has to work harder to digest it. Chicken and fish, pork are lighter.

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The first time I discovered the reaction to peaches was just after I first started taking Keppra. I bought a peach and ate it around noon. I first started noticing that my throat got a fuzzy feeling then I had an upset stomach. Same thing happens when I eat cherries now as well and love them too. The upset stomach tends to last all day and very annoying. So, I cut both of them out. Also lemons as well. Oranges though never been a big fan.

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Discovered that I like clementines but again the same reaction as what happened with the peaches.

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BRENDA: I do remember about Jack. My brother has sever food allergies that can cause him to go into anaphylaxis. He has to carry an epi-pen on him.

I had no problem with eating peaches or clementines or oranges or anything lemony before I started taking the Keppra. And even my GP and neurologist at the time admitted it was the med causing the reaction. It was a new drug when I started taking it.

That is why I avoid certain foods. It is a truly miserable feeling.

PS. I'm not suppose to eat cheese either as the retin in it is not good for me either. But I do it a little bit because of the calcium.

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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BRENDA:The beef thing is just if I eat too much I find it heavy and therefore my system has to work harder to digest it. Chicken and fish, pork are lighter.

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Hubby says the same thing. He only eats beef if it's been ground or minced fine or cooked until it's very, very tender. Otherwise it sits in his stomach and takes forever to digest.

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The first time I discovered the reaction to peaches was just after I first started taking Keppra. I bought a peach and ate it around noon. I first started noticing that my throat got a fuzzy feeling then I had an upset stomach. Same thing happens when I eat cherries now as well and love them too. The upset stomach tends to last all day and very annoying. So, I cut both of them out. Also lemons as well. Oranges though never been a big fan.

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Me neither. So I don't mind being allergic because I hardly ever ate them.

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Discovered that I like clementines but again the same reaction as what happened with the peaches.

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Keppra, as far as I know, doesn't have a history of causing food allergies unless you're allergic to Keppra itself.
Was Keppra the first anticonvulsant after surgery? Because surgery itself would involve a lot of drugs including anesthetics, antibiotics, possibly steroids, exposure to latex and excipients and chemicals leaching out of medical supplies, and any of those might trigger allergies. Also, and I hate to bring it up but ... have partial seizures been ruled out as the cause of these symptoms? In rare cases, certain tastes can trigger seizures.

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BRENDA: I do remember about Jack. My brother has sever food allergies that can cause him to go into anaphylaxis. He has to carry an epi-pen on him.

I had no problem with eating peaches or clementines or oranges or anything lemony before I started taking the Keppra. And even my GP and neurologist at the time admitted it was the med causing the reaction. It was a new drug when I started taking it.

That is why I avoid certain foods. It is a truly miserable feeling.

PS. I'm not suppose to eat cheese either as the retin in it is not good for me either. But I do it a little bit because of the calcium.

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Well, as I posted, Keppra doesn't have an established history of causing food allergies/sensitivities. They may have developed spontaneously or as a result of the rigors of surgery.

But, far be it from me to say it's not so. I have a history of having bad reactions to medications including this advancing arthritis that seems to have been kicked off by Levaquin (Drs say it doesn't happen) and heart stutter from SAM-e (another rare side effect).

Still, if you can figure out WHICH compounds are giving you the heebie-jeebies, then you might be able to add some things back into your diet. For example, soft cheeses made without rennin. However, they're made with citric acid (fruit acid) so you may be reacting to acid, not rennin, or the other way around.

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If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

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