2010.12.25 — A Week of Baseness has Been Ineffectual and Weak

 Well, it has been a week since I tested my body's acidity. And in that week I have managed to not have a single cup of coffee nor a single cup of beer. Furthermore, I managed to avoid all alcohol.

Hmmm. Not a great way to start this, with a list of negatives, when what I am doing is helping my health! But, negative seems to be the way of it, as I also avoided all beef and reduced by more than half the amount of other meat proteins I've ingested. My intake of water, mostly with fresh squeezed lemon juice and green tea, has significantly increased, probably by double. The amount of dairy products has been reduced by 3 or 4 times because I've stopped eating yoghurt for breakfast, which was a regular thing with me. No peanut butter, which was one of my regular foods, along with bananas. The butter intake is near zero too. I haven't increased the dark green vegetables as much as I'd like, but I ate them quite regularly before commencing this experiment, anyway.

I have also been eating and drinking high alkaline foods and beverages, supplemented with pH Protector Drops by Body Health.


And at my health food consultant's recommendation, I have been ingesting something called 'greens+' by Genuine Health. The label blazons that this product  is 'The original research proven superfood.'

This experiment is a bit challenging right now, with 'now' being Christmas. But still, I am doing very well  with my ingestion of alkaline producing foods outweighing the acid producing ones. And, as noted above, I have eliminated completely the worst offenders.

So, in that week what has changed in my pH? Well, last week when I tested my saliva's pH, I learned that it was at least a 6, which is very bad. It could have tested even lower if the strip I was given — a sample strip — showed results below 6. Yes, that is how bad my acidosis was, the sample strip's worst reading was probably higher than my pH level. Today, on the other hand, I opened up the 'proper' strips (Genuine Health's pH Paper), and they go to 5.5 with increments up to 8.0. Well, this afternoon I tested both my saliva and urine, and both test strips showed a pH of around 5.9. That was disappointing, I must say. But, to look for the lemonade in that lemon, it does offer at least a partial explanation for the fungal infection on and in my ears continuing to grow worse — the acid level of my skin provides a positive environment for its growth. And it suggests that my pH was probably quite a bit lower than 6.

And it has indeed grown much, much worse. The description given at the link for this ailment's beginning aligns with how I think it got started — using my Bose ear buds for extended periods of time created a fungal friendly warm and moist environment within my ear — and how my using headphones exacerbated the problem. Right now the epidermis of both my ears has peeled off. The ears are painful and swollen and inflamed. Following some on-line advice about 'natural' cures for fungal ear infections, I am increasing my consumption of capsulated garlic (which I took daily before onset). This afternoon I actually anointed my ears with some garlic oil! I washed it off about 30 minutes ago, after having it on for 4 hours or so, and while there are no signs of improvement, it does not appear to have gotten worse.

After washing off the garlic I have now re-commenced with the off-the-shelf fungal cream I've been using for several months (to no obvious effect obviously!), but now I'm combining it with another on-line natural recommendation — tea tree oil, which has anti-fungal properties, and grapefruit seed extract, which has anti-fungal properties as well. Both products 'just happen' to be in my medicine cabinet because my acupuncturist 'prescribed' them to me to help combat the fungal infection I've had in my sinuses since 1990 or so. They helped alleviate my symptoms immensely when I first began to take them in 2001 in conjunction with the acupuncture.

On the positive side of things, I feel, physically, excellent! I have vibrant energy, and feel an extra zip in my walk and in my feet. I have been extremely creative, writing for many hours each day, as well as doing the Christmasy things and cooking, cleaning, etc.

And so, the experiment continues.