kimberlysteele | Living With Less, Part One: Health

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Living With Less, Part One: Health

As a former member of the upper middle class, I was not raised to be conservative with money or resources. I intimately understand why certain people are still driving around in Grand Cherokees and Teslas in 2022 and why they think it is normal to live in what their European counterparts would consider to be an ostentatious palace. I empathize with the reasons young women and men will trade their personal integrity and most of their short time in this incarnation to move into the fancy apartments by my town's train station. They cling to the last of the salary class jobs and in return, they get a newly-constructed temple to modernity with hallways that smell like department store perfume and floors that you could eat off of. It took a great deal of conscious rejection on my part to shake off the desires implanted in me to be comfortable.

Even now, after several decades of being fallen and deplorable, the comforts of the upper middle class still reach out to me. I still eat avocados, though it is not often that I choose to afford them. From what I can see, the upper middle classes are set up for an increasingly hard fall. As the economy gets worse and worse, it is those who are the most attached to luxury and chasing luxury who will suffer in direct proportion. That's why I am sharing some of my own strategies and observations for living with less, and I hope you'll share yours in the comments.

Life Without Health Insurance

I am not suggesting anyone should try to go without health insurance. Nevertheless, I have not had it on a regular basis since my husband lost his salary class job in 2006. There's a rough chance I might not be alive if we didn't have health insurance in 2002 as newlyweds. I had a mysterious gall bladder ailment that came within about 30 minutes of ending my incarnation as Kimberly Steele. Luckily a pair of good doctors figured it out (one was a clinic MD and the other was an emergency room doc) and I live and breathe today. Health insurance, like other insurances, is a racket. It is a money making vehicle for the miserable salary class with the point of making obscene amounts of unearned wealth for a few who float at the top of the money and power pyramid.

Doctors no longer heal for the most part, and when they do, they charge so much for it, it is only affordable if you have a salary class job or are willing to go in to tremendous amounts of debt or both. First and foremost, I accept my health as my own responsibility. If my health is bad, I have options, and the first of those is not running to the doctor for every sniffle, ache, and pain. There are herbs for everything. For constipation, I drink senna tea and exercise vigorously for at least five minutes. If I have a headache, I take white willow and/or drink a cup of black tea. If I sneeze a few times, I put a tiny amount of Dollar Tree off-brand Neosporin in each nostril. Neosporin and its knockoffs are essentially zinc ointment and zinc heals wounds while soothing inflammation. Sneezing often results from small stress wounds up high in the nostrils. If I am sneezing and stuffy, I do the Dr. Peter McCullough protocol that involves snorting salty Betadine (more zinc, this time in fluid form) water into each nostril and letting it pass through the back of my throat. Usually if I am taking the correct array of vitamins and exercising daily, the sneezing and wheezing does not get that far. If all of my treatments fail and I get a cold, I do the sensible thing and drink plenty of fluids and sleep as much as possible. Personally, I don't go see a doctor because I cannot afford the visit. Additionally, I don't know what they would tell me to do aside from what I am already doing.

For me, the secret to my robust health is a triad. One part of it is mental: I accept that I am going to die and that it will most likely be painful. Death is no picnic and dying sucks. Complaining about it 24/7 does not help, and the type of person who abuses his or her personal relationships by constantly serving up litanies of his or her aches and pains is annoying. I am not about to be that kind of person. If I die of natural causes, if I have done things right, no other human will have any idea that I have been sick.

The second part of my secret to health is mild, daily exercise. When I do not exercise every day (with the occasional skipped day because life does that) and go several months without my daily routine, things fall apart, I begin to gain weight, and my chronic health problems such as headaches and constipation begin their flare ups. Every day, I either walk someplace nice like the forest preserve or I ride my foldable stationary bike for about 45 minutes. I do not run, lift weights, or belong to a gym. Gyms base their business model on the fact that most people buy memberships and don't show up. There is no reason to be one of those people. On the opposite end of imbalance, being a gym rat is unsustainable because it turns fitness into a compulsion. Outside of training for athletic competition, daily exercise can easily be done at home or outdoors with minimal equipment.

The third secret to my health is supplements and herbs. I take a B spectrum vitamin every day along with Vitamin D. That's it. I have issues with peeing a lot, especially at night, so for that I drink dandelion tea in the morning first thing. At night, I take uva ursi (bearberry) and cranberry in pill form. For constipation, I take the aforementioned senna.

I don't believe my cats are any different when it comes to benefitting from herbs and supplements. All of my cats except for Ash are prone to sneezing and kitty congestion, so the lot of them get powdered lysine mixed into their food once a day. Ash has issues with his digestive tract and gum inflammation, so he gets lysine as well as calendula oil with a little marshmallow root mixed with some liquid treat. Unfortunately, when Kiki was alive, vets could do precious little for her. Her vet did help by prescribing a fiber supplement along with regular human stool softener that extended her life for those precious last years. I did notice that slippery elm worked as well or better than her prescribed medicine, which of course cost 50x as much.

The Eyes

When I got a new glasses prescription in 2021, it was the first time I had seen an eye doctor in fifteen years. I only got the strong prescription in 2021 because I needed special glasses for driving at night. For ten years, I have been wearing the same old prescription and ordering new glasses from Zenni dot com when necessary. My myopia is considered severe and I have been wearing glasses since age 8.

The facts on the ground are that I cannot afford $400-$600 at the optometrist's every year. It is the optometrist's business model to escalate my eyeglasses prescription every time I see him or her until I am almost completely blind. The problem with glasses is they make you increasingly dependent and the stronger your lens prescription is, the more your eyesight weakens to accommodate it. The remedy here is to use old, weaker prescriptions in small increments instead of stronger ones. When I stopped seeing the optometrist fifteen years ago, I wore my old contacts and glasses for about five years. Then I started getting my old lens prescriptions filled via online services, such as glasses from Zenni and prescription contacts from Korean companies. I only wear my driving glasses at night when I am driving. The second I am done driving, they come off. I have two other pairs of glasses -- one weak pair for close-up work and teaching lessons and one middle of the road pair for general activities.

The Teeth

Despite having had braces for ten years from ages 10-18 as a child (the family orthodontist was a real grifter), my teeth are far from perfect. They are stained and a young student once commented they are several different colors, LOL. My teeth are much healthier than they were when I was young and seeing both dentists and orthodontists regularly. I have not seen a dentist since getting a veneer on one of my front teeth in 2013.

Dental health is again a triad of secrets. The first is I accept my teeth are never going to be perfect, Hollywood chiclet white and straight. Even if I had perfect Hollywood veneers, what would be the point of getting them? I have a single veneer and I constantly eat around it -- it was expensive and if it goes, I'll have a hard time affording a replacement. Having a mouthful of them makes no sense.

The second is that I understand dental health comes from the inside, not the outside. Bad teeth, just like bad bones, are the product of acidosis and inflammation in the rest of the body. Unpopular opinion here, but most people cause their own perpetual acidosis by eating animal flesh and secretions and then add insult to injury by eating processed sugars. I can eat bread, white sugar, and fat because I don't make those things the mainstay of my diet. When I have a couple of cookies, it isn't adding to the acid-promoting meal of barbecue ribs from the night before. Eating animal flesh and secretions rots your teeth from the inside by raising the body's acidity, period. The bulk of my diet tends to be grains, fruits, beans, and vegetables.

The third part of my dental health is the habit of squishing out the gooey contents of a regular, garden variety calcium supplement capsule and packing the goo into my gums and behind my front teeth every night after brushing and flossing. This prevents rot in all the places that are prone to it during the most vulnerable time for teeth.

Some additional notes on dental health: I do not buy toothpaste. Instead I mix one part arrowroot powder to one part olive or other cooking oil such as coconut in to a paste. Then I sweeten it with Stevia and put some essential oil in there, usually of mint. I have not been buying toothpaste because it is stupid expensive and contains a bunch of sulfates that seem very iffy to ingest.

Pineapple is an excellent food for promoting bone health of all kinds, including teeth. Pineapple contains bromelain, which is a potent bone-builder. I am not sure when or where I learned this, but I do remember pineapple being very helpful before and after oral surgeries in my teens.

As for whitening teeth, I simply don't care to do it, but in the days when I cared, I would brush with a mashed up strawberry or some activated, finely powdered charcoal.

I hope this helps you!

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Thank you for the toothpaste info I'll be giving that a try. It's criminal how expensive it has gotten. And to think, I and my Dad where in a Crest commercial in the seventies.
Gawain

It's unbelievable how expensive toothpaste has become! I was at CVS and there were no toothpastes under $7 a tube. All of them had fluoride and sulfates galore.

I forgot to mention that I usually add a dash of baking soda to my homemade toothpaste. Not too much though, because it can be a bit strong.

LOL you were in a Crest commercial with your Dad? That's so weird!

Haven't bought toothpaste in years! I have a bag of bentonite powder, a bag of calcium carbonate powder (basically chalk dust), and baking soda-- I mix them in roughly equal portions in a jar, and that's our tooth powder-- dip in a slightly-damp toothbrush and you're good to go. Those bags of powder have been on our shelf for more than two years already, and we've hardly made a dent in them, so I don't expect to be purchasing more for at least five years (for a family of five!).

I had never thought much about toothpaste until I caught one of my kids eating it. That's when we made the switch-- fluoride can poison little kids! I needed something that didn't taste like food, and wasn't dangerous to the kids. Stumbled into saving a ton of money quite by accident.

Seems very wise. Calcium carbonate and bentonite clay remineralize teeth and baking soda is a great all-purpose disinfectant.

I most likely lost a bunch of IQ points because of the fluoride treatments I got every year as a child.

You and me both: I remember those fluoride treatments with mild horror now. My oldest son had them too-- he had terrible enamel on his first several baby teeth. Why we tried to save them... well, live and learn. I've now known several little kids whose front baby teeth just rotted into little brown stumps... and their permanent teeth still came in just fine. But the dentist smells "new parent" and they scare the stew out of you with tales of abscesses and damaging the permanent teeth before they even come in.

I expect with our declining economy, everybody's just going to have uglier teeth in the future. And we'll get used to it, just like Brits.

Where would a person buy those things, and know it's "food grade"? I would really appreciate any tips!

I really enjoy the posts where you share various tips to stay healthy.

I'm just a person who has been avoiding deductibles my whole adult life, but I've picked up a couple tricks along the way. The information that follows is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for general information purposes only.

The best health advice I can add to this is to take a first aid class and build (not buy) your own first aid kit and buy a reference guide; I have a healthwise handbook from the early 2000s. It has proven to be the single best health resource I have. It is especially good for determining when something needs medical attention and when it is safe to treat at home. A good way to vet a health refrence book is to see how long it recommends you suffer with diarrhea (sole symptom) before seeing a doctor. Three days is what a doctor will want to see before giving you an injectable anti-diarrheal. Some books recommend a visit sooner and don't mention that you can get anti-diarrheal pills over the counter, skip those books.

The most common first aid is minor abrasions and burns. Don't use hydrogen peroxide to clean wounds because it will damage living tissue. Instead throughly clean the wound with soap and water and cover with a sterile dressing. Medipore soft surgical tape with gauze can be used to make any size dressing. Read up on how to spot infections and only rely on dressings while the wound is seeping or extra physical protection is needed.

Fungal nail infections are terrible and the medication commonly prescribed to treat them can cause liver damage. Soaking in white vinegar for 15 minutes twice a day can clear up many stubborn infections in a matter of weeks. You can cut down on how much vinegar you need by using rubber rain boots and dish gloves as the soaking vessel. Some places online suggest using tea tree oil, but personal experience tells me that it prevents the nail bed fusing to the nail and leaves the nail vulnerable to continuous reinfection even when used with a suitable carrier oil.

A lot of medical knowledge is purposefully gate kept, but when a nurse or doctor is asked directly about a specific issue you can usually get a good explanation why a treatment is recommended. Nurse help hotlines or a telemedicine services when freely available are worth using before going in for an office visit.

Urgent care clinics are far more affordable than the ER and can handle most ailments that require immediate attention. For ailments where a brace or crutches are likely to be prescribed it is cheaper to hit up the convalescence store on the way to the clinic. The markup is much higher when at the doctor's office.

If you are unable to drive, but your emergency can wait until you reach a care center, consider getting a friend, neighbor, or taxi service to drive you instead of calling an ambulance. Ambulance services are expensive because they offer immediate onsite care. Please leave them available for people who need care before they are transported.

In the US hospitals must treat life threatening emergencies regardless of ability to pay. The billing on that isn't pleasant for the people wealthy enough to have assets, but not wealthy enough to have health insurance. But it is important to know you will not be denied care.

I look forward to see the other advice people have.

-MF

Thank you for this MF.

On not using ambulances: I don't recommend it necessarily, but that is how my parents roll. My dad infamously cussed out an EMT crew, with his metal kneecap showing through his skin and blood everywhere, because he didn't want to pay for an ambulance ride or abandon his undamaged vehicle to be stolen or impounded-- he had already called family members and was waiting for them to arrive-- one driver to take his scooter home, and another to take him to the hospital. He won that argument. And that is *not* the only time they've done something like that. I have this crazy childhood memory of mom bringing over a couple of neighbor guys, rolling my dad into a blanket, and loading him into our station wagon so mom could drive him to the ER.

The distrust of medical services runs deep with my folks. Mom always has to stay at the hospital with him, because he's the sort who wakes up from anesthesia (or just wakes up in a fog), rips out IVs, and tries to leave... while recovering from surgery, in an open-backed hospital gown.

I wonder if you could do that vinegar-soak thing with, say, ziploc bags... I need to get my husband to try that.

Medical bills when you don't have insurance: don't take it for gospel, but my mother's advice (and she's been there more than most) is: if you end up with big medical bills you can't pay, when you get the bill, just pay $20 on it. Every month. This keeps them from turning you over to a collections agency, and as long as you're dealing with the original biller, you can often negotiate a lower price. And as long as you're not completely broke, you can keep paying that 20/mo basically forever, and as often as you can stand it, you get on the phone with the biller, you tell them about your financial situation, and that you need to work out a discount-- it often works, possibly because you've taken up so much of their office staff's time that they are desperate to get rid of you! If you own your home, and you live in it (i.e. it's not an investment, vacation house, or rental property), they can't take your house for non-payment of medical bills, and you can't lose the house you live in due to bankruptcy either (double-check the rules where you live, don't believe everything you read on the internet!), so you're generally safe on that score *if* you own your house.

I've got a glitchy immune system or something - lots of cold/flu problems since childhood. I've had good luck treating them myself with raw garlic. I chop up a large clove of fresh raw garlic (usually mixed into cream cheese and smeared onto homemade no-knead bread or a bagel) as soon as I recognize what's happening, then repeat for a few days. In my experience this makes my body a much less pleasant place for bad microbes and the result is milder symptoms and being sick only a few days instead of a couple of weeks. Cooked onion and garlic are helpful but I think raw garlic works better. Garlic from the farmers market is usually much higher quality than supermarket garlic if you can get it.

Interesting! I love eating garlic but garlic hates me -- I have a hot and dry temperament to begin with and garlic's heat tends to wreak havoc on my digestive system about 4-24 hours after eating it. My husband is more cold and dry and my mom runs towards the cold and wet, so they would do well to eat fresh garlic. Strangely, cayenne pepper doesn't have the same digestion-wrecking effects.

One trick I discovered for chopping fresh garlic (before I discovered I would have hell to pay by eating it) is putting some water on the cutting board while you are chopping it. Garlic otherwise is sticky and clings to the knife. A tablespoon of water works miracles and keeps everything loose and off the blade.

If your temperament is already hot and dry, I can see why garlic wouldn't be the best solution for you.

I didn't know about the water trick for chopping garlic. I'm going to fry up home grown zucchini this afternoon, with garlic, and look forward to trying this!

Hooray! I wish I could eat garlic. It is one of my all time favorite flavors.

My experience with running a factory for three decades has taught me that the most frequent kinds of equipment failures come from the simplest kinds of causes: loose screws, worn cutters, dead batteries, dirt, etc. So too with the human body: many ailments that end up in high-cost professional medical care arise from the simplest kinds of causes - dehydration, poor hygiene, poor dietary choices, etc.

For example, my go-to for heartburn is a large glass of water with a tablespoon of vinegar in it. Chug it down quick, fight the resulting nausea for about 13 seconds, and then the discomfort is gone. That just about always fixes the immediate problem, but I then understand the problem was an indication that I ate something I shouldn't have - and re-think my dietary choices accordingly so as to prevent a repeat occurrence. It's fast, easy, cheap, and above all, effective. No pharma required!

Fascinating! Thank you for this. I totally agree. Just as I don't expect my car to run on no gas with bald tires and oil that has dwindled to sludge, I don't expect my body to do well on a diet of Burger King, Diet Coke, and pharmaceutical drugs.

I will try that for heartburn! I usually take some homemade lemonade (lemon juice, simple syrup or sugar, water) and then put in a few teaspoons of baking soda and drink that. It's very pleasant and fizzy, actually, yet it seems to work on the exact opposite principles as your vinegar trick because of the basic nature of baking soda and the acidic nature of vinegar.

Heh, that's a good one, I'll have to remember it! Sometimes I am stupid and eat tomatoes too close to bedtime, and this seems like it might help! (generally, tomatoes at bedtime keeps me up with reflux)

We keep baking soda and antacid tablets around for when folks are puking-sick. The baking soda is for the grownups-- if you've got to the point of nausea where you're pretty sure you're going to puke, we mix up a half-teaspoon or so of baking soda in a small glass of water and drink it down quick. It won't keep you from puking, but it'll neutralize the acid a bit, so you don't burn your nose and throat. After, you can mix up the same drink and use it to swish and gargle with, and drink for the good of your esophagus. Helps avoid damage to your tooth enamel too. For the kids, who have a harder time drinking baking soda, antacid tablets will serve the same purpose.

Antacids are a big chunk of calcium, and aren't good to use regularly-- will screw with your digestion. But we find them extremely handy for this one purpose, and they've prevented a lot of unnecessary misery very cheaply.

That makes perfect sense. I hate barfing but if I ever have to barf, I will use that trick. Italians have known about the baking soda remedy for a very long time -- they even have a brand name antacid that's been around since forever called Brioschi that is nothing more than flavored baking soda pellets:

https://supermarketitaly.com/products/brioschi-lemon-flavored-effervescent-glass-jar-8-5-oz

Aye, I hate barfing, but I've had regular-ish migraines for the last thirty years and it's a fact of life (used to happen with my period, too, ugh)-- I had to figure out something for it. May as well avoid damaging tooth enamel and my esophagus. I'd like to keep those for a long time yet ;)

I'd never heard of that strawberry trick for whiter teeth. Do you know if it's due to chemicals in the strawberry, or the physical action of brushing with it?

Or in other words, would eating a lot of them provide some of the same benefit, or not so much?

I think it's because strawberries are a tiny bit abrasive. The citric acid in them might have a role as well. You should definitely eat lots of strawberries because they are one of the only natural sources of plentiful zinc in food. Zinc is absolutely essential to boost the immune system and to get it running smoothly so that everything else works. Pumpkin seeds/squash seeds also have lots of zinc and omega 3 fatty acids to boot.

Over-the-counter whitening products are nothing more than edible bleach, a.k.a. hydrogen peroxide. For gentle, gradual whitening, you might try one part hydrogen peroxide to seven parts water in a spray bottle. Spray on teeth after brushing 1x-2x a day.

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Living With Less, Part One: Health

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healthcare on the cheap

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Raw garlic for colds

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Strawberry

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