![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kimberlysteele) wrote2022-07-13 10:34 am
Living With Less, Part One: Health
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!
Raw garlic for colds
(Anonymous) 2022-07-14 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Raw garlic for colds
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.
Re: Raw garlic for colds
(Anonymous) 2022-07-15 11:12 am (UTC)(link)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!
Re: Raw garlic for colds