Healthy Teeth and Sun Protection for Your Skin

*I am not a medical professional and supplements can have unintended consequences.  Please do your own research and consult a health professional for advice.

When Selena was five years old I noticed a big black hole in her tooth.  I took her into the dentist and she had 10 cavities.  $2000 dollars later she had had a lot of work done in her poor little mouth.

I stumbled across some people who swore that Vitamin K2 is the go to vitamin for dental health.  It is a vitamin that is not found in many foods.  The foods with the highest amounts are butter made from the milk of grass fed cows, and fermented soy beans.  The claim is that this vitamin is essential to the remineralization of your teeth.  That just like bones are constantly regenerating and growing, your teeth are doing the same, assuming they have the necessary supplies.  I did not know yhis was possible, but a hygenist friend said it was. There is some limited research that K2 helps with bone regrowth, but overall it isn't a well studied vitamin. Most of the evidence for teeth health is anecdotal.

I decided that I might as well try it.  One recommended supplement is a High Vitamin Butter Oil/Fermented Cod Liver Oil mix.  It is pretty expensive but after spending $2000 on dentist bills and Selena had yet another black spot on her tooth--I figured it was worth a $50 shot to see if it worked as it could potentially save us a lot of money (what with us not having dental insurance).

Here is a picture of the black spot on Selena's tooth.  She had gone to a free dental cleaning that was being offered to the community and the dental assistant who cleaned her teeth said it was a cavity.  I gave her a small bit of the "chocolate" vitamin every day for a few weeks after that but before she went in for a scheduled cleaning. The spot was gone and she was deemed cavity free.  She also has a small spot on the front of one of her teeth, that gets noticeably smaller when I am consistent in giving her the supplement, but gets larger if I forget.

I too have had some spots on my teeth that I have been able to get rid of by consistently taking the supplement. One year ago some x-rays showed a cavity between the teeth. In the name of science I have refused to get them fixed because I want to see if they will go away.  If they still show up on my next x-rays, then I will have them taken care of.

The other benefit I have noticed from the Cod Liver Oil/Butter Oil supplement is that my skin doesn't burn as easily.  I have had quite a few days that I have spent 30 - 40 minutes in the midday sun and have not gotten burnt, which historically has not been possible with my fair, freckled skin. I struggle with knowing what is more risky, no sun exposure, or too much, and I have settled on trying to get as much as possible without getting burnt.  Cod liver oil contains vitamin D, which is supposed to help prevent you from getting burnt (the reasoning on why tanning helps to prevent you from getting burnt), and there are some studies that show that vitamin K2 and vitamin D have a synergistic affect that could explain the positive affects in sun protection.

Overall the supplement tastes and smells awful, which is part of the reason I sometimes forget to take it for a while.  I buy the "chocolate" flavored kind so I can tell my kids it is a chocolate vitamin, but I still serve it up in a bite of applesauce.  That way you can slurp it down without having to taste it.

The positive affects I have seen on both mine and Selena's teeth could be coincidence.  There aren't really any scientific studies on its efficacy for cavity healing and/or prevention, and most of the proponents of it are from single group of people*, but I have had enough periods of me or my kids taking it versus not taking it to make me feel like I do see a positive difference that I am willing to spend 50 or so bucks every six months to buy it.

*Weston A Price was a dentist who did some anthropological like research and determined that populations with the healthiest teeth had some sort of "X-Factor" that he seemed to think was found most often in cow's milk during the spring.  The Weston A Price Foundation thinks that Vitamin K2 is the name of the X-Factor Price discovered as it is found primarily in milk/butter of cows that eat fresh grass.  

Hacking My Health

*I am not a medical professional and supplements and exercise programs can have unintended consequences.  Please do your own research and consult a health professional for advice.

I have been writing these posts in my head for years, but the concepts are so interconnected that I find it really hard to succinctly explain all the connections and relationships, but I am going to try.

I am 33 years old, which isn't very old, but ever since having kids I started feeling old.  My joints are stiff, my back aches, and I can't physically do things that I used to be able to do, and it doesn't seem right.  If my life expectancy is 78 (or whatever) then I shouldn't start feeling old till I am 40ish, not 27ish.

When I first started this blog I did not think supplements were useful and that eating whole foods was good enough for overall health. But over the years I have adopted a new theory about the difference between surviving and thriving. You can survive on many nutritiously deficient diets, and even a nutrient dense whole foods diet can lack in some areas and supplementation can allow a person to thrive versus just survive.

One major complaint against supplements is that many do not "work" and any results are only a placebo effect.  I do not have an issue with this.  If a supplement can provide someone with a way to use the placebo effect to their own benefit then I think that is a good thing.  Most of the supplements I will use, I have had noticeable positive affects, they have a compelling scientific basis for how and why they work though may not have a double-blind placebo study to back it up, thus I do admit there is a possibility that I am simply experiencing a placebo effect.

Nutrition isn't the only health hack available.  Movement and nutrition go hand-in-hand.  The general consensus is that exercise is good for cardiovascular health, but I go a step further and think there is strong evidence that movement is integral to mental and brain health.  Recently I have been convinced even further, that the simple mechanics of how we position ourselves throughout our day has a real affect on a multitude of common ailments and degenerative diseases.

I plan on doing a series of posts sharing some of the "health hacks" I have discovered, and I am going to start with that last idea first, because it is the one that I have just discovered and the results are mindbogglingly impressive.

Hacking Your Period - Alleviating menstrual cramps, reducing the length of your period, and how heavy it is.
Healthy Teeth and Sun Protection for Your Skin
Sensitive Sense of Smell Could be a Zinc Deficiency

Alleviate Menstrual Pain, Eliminate Heavy Periods and Reduce the Length of Your Period

*I am not a medical professional, supplements and exercise programs can have unintended consequences.  Please do your own research and consult a health professional for advice.

It is so hard to not sound like an infomercial when I talk about this because it is so crazy.  The bottom line is I alleviated my menstrual pain, eliminated my heavy periods and reduced the length of my period from 7 days to 3/4 days by doing calf and hamstring stretches.

I consume a lot of information and I love it, because I find all these weird connections and develop these philosophies, but when I try to explain them it sounds weird. There is so much back story, that it is hard to be coherent.  A small example would be my post about languages, tribalism and the Seahawks.  I also have a theory about high stakes testing, and the observer effect that I have yet to put into words.  So I come across this lady, Katy Bowman, and she has this blog, and at first what I read seemed a bit odd and random, but the more I read, the more excited I get because everything is connected and she explains how.

Katy is a biomechanist whose has dedicated herself to educating the masses on the importance of alignment. Alignment is not posture. Posture is in aesthetic way to hold your body. Alignment is a correct way to hold your body.  She takes principles of biomechanics, kinesiology, physical therapy, exercise, ergonomics, biology, chemistry, physics, anthropology among other things and finds the connections between the fields, and then uses that information in a practical way.  She tells you how to stand or walk, and then explains why you should, and why you don't, and why it is hard, and what will happen if you do, and what will happen if you don't.  It is a lot of information, and sometimes it is technical, but Katy is funny and explains it entertainingly.

Just a warning this will be way TMI about myself in case the title of the post wasn't enough of a hint.  I have always had heavy periods, except when I was on birth control.  My period has never been shorter than 5 days, even when on birth control, and it usually lasts 7 days. I have incontinence problems when I run.  After having kids it became much worse.  I have diastasis recti. After Allie was born my abs split apart which has the unfortunate effect of making me look 4 - 5 months pregnant despite being 5 years postpartum.

Katy Bowman had been floating around my internet for a while. The first time when I heard of her was this interview about how kegels can make incontinence worse and thus I tried to do more squats.  Then I came across a reference to her from the Mutu program which is for diastasis recti.  I read a few of Katy's articles and got her foot book from the library, but had to return it before I had read it all. I had been contemplating buying her Down There for Woman DVD when she wrote a post about how your period works.  The gist being, that painful and long periods are caused because the uterus is never getting enough blood which makes it take longer for your body to repair the lining that was shed.  I had read enough of what she had written to realize that poor alignment can restrict blood from getting where it needs to be. It was an aha moment and I immediately decided to get the DVD. When I went to her site I saw that she had duplicated the DVD in an iPhone app, which I immediately bought. It is $10 (which people inexplicably find too expensive for an app -- that type of attitude needs to be changed. ;) ) and has five stretches and a short informative lecture.

The main goal of the program is to get your pelvis into neutral.  A neutral pelvis allows maximum blood flow to the uterus.  Many women have their pelvis's perpetually tucked.  There are a few main causes of a tucked pelvis.  The first is shoes with heels.  Pretty much every shoe, except the new "minimal" shoes, has a heel.  To adapt to the heel, and not tip over, your body adjusts its angles, and this typically results in shortened calf and hamstring muscles, that then pull on the pelvis and cause it to tuck.  Sitting and running are also activities that can cause shortened calf and hamstring muscles.  Finally many women are told to tuck their pelvis to avoid a sway back.  Unfortunately this is usually a band-aid fix that can end up making things worse.  More often the correct correct adjustment is to drop your ribs.

The DVD/app has five exercises, but the two main stretches of the program are calf and hamstring stretches. There is also a pelvic list stretch that I found very difficult the first few times.  The crazy thing about these stretches was that I had never seen anything like them.  I did gymnastics for years when I was younger. I did soccer, basketball, track in high school and track and cross-country in college.  My sister is big into yoga and barre and we discuss fitness stuff frequently.  I used to work at a company that made software that contained drawings and instructions for thousands of stretches and exercises.  Overall I have a lot of experience with various exercise paradigms, and this one is subtly, but importantly different.

The stretch that seemed to make the biggest difference was the double calf stretch, which involves bending over keeping your hips over your knees, your knees straight, and sticking your tailbone into the air, and relaxing your back into a concave curve. Initially I could not relax my back into the concave position because it was too tight.  Fortunately I am a generally flexible person and wasn't too far off. After just a few days of doing the stretches 3 - 5 times a day my back released and went concave.  It is hard to describe how incredibly good it felt. My hips, butt, and especially my piriformis had been perpetually tight for years. I would get massages or do hot yoga, but never felt like they were relaxed. Essentially it was 10 - 15 years of tension released, and it felt awesome.

I started the exercises right after my period had ended, and did them for 3 weeks before I got my next period. Typically the first day of my period I feel tired, nauseous, and have very painful cramps that cause me to cry. In general I dislike using medicine (I frequently have negative side affects) and do have a high pain tolerance, but after being miserable for months I eventually succumbed and had been taking over-the-counter pain killers for the first two days of my period every month.  This time it was different. While I still felt tired and not well, I was not in pain and did not need any medication.  The amount of flow was significantly lighter. Normally I soak through pads/tampons/cups, etc within a couple hours, this time I was not at risk of soaking through anything. And my period ended after only 3.5 days, instead of 7.  It is a miracle!

From that moment I was on Katy's bandwagon, and spent over a month consuming every book, blog post, article, interview, and free video she offered.  I also ordered a few of her online classes. The cool thing is she has all these little tests you can do to test your range of motion and diagnose the spots you are tight, or areas that could use attention.  Since then I have been able to release my psoas so I can lie flat on the ground comfortably.  I can stand with my knees straight and my quadriceps relaxed.  I have reduced lymph accumulation in my armpits.  I have increased my lung capacity and am able to breath deeper and I have increased the range of motion of my toes. I have changed the way I walk, and stand, and sit.

The nice thing about her paradigm, is that it doesn't involve a lot of time or work.  If I happen to be standing around I just stand differently.  When I am walking the kids to school I pay attention to what muscles I am using.  I do add some stretches to my day, but they feel so good, they don't seem like a chore.

If you have any ailment at all, I highly recommend looking into what Katy Bowman has to say.  Foot, knee, back, hip, and neck pain, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, varicose veins, bunions, menstruation and fertility issues--all of these things have mechanical components to them, and the kinks in the mechanics of how your body works affect your body on cellular and hormonal levels (download for free the first two hours of her Whole Body Alignment course if you want to learn how).

*The links to the app and the books are affiliate links and I will get a small percentage of the sale if you buy  from the link.

Child With a Sensitive Sense of Smell

Extreme sensitivity to smells may be caused by a zinc deficiency.

I cursorily Googled child with a sensitive smell a while ago and did not come up with anything meaningful.  Selena's sense of smell was highly sensitive.  Almost all food smelled bad to her.  Bananas were the worst.  Every time Allie wanted to eat a banana she would freak out and run away (which of course Allie thought was hilarious and would proceed to chase her), but lots of other food caused problems as well.  She would frequently eat a different dinner at a different table than us.  Sometimes I would think she was overreacting and making it up, but she would smell stuff from another room, while not being able to see the food, that led me to believe she was not, so I tried to accommodate her.  Sometimes I wondered if something was wrong with her, but doctor Google didn't come up with anything, and I had forgot to mention it at her last doctor appointment.

Then I happened to come across a book called What's Eating Your Child?: The Hidden Connection Between Food and Childhood Ailments recommended via a blog I read.  (There is a new edition of the book coming out on April 23, 2013 renamed  Cure Your Child With Food.)  I had been looking for a book that might explain the prevalence of food intolerance's that seems to be going on. The title mentions picky eating as well, and I thought that might have some useful ideas, but honestly I didn't think it would say more than, "Make your child eat more variety."  Boy was I wrong!  This book goes into picky eating and identifies CAUSES for the picky eating.  If you fix the cause then the pickiness is easier to abate.

She tells you to not skip ahead to the chapters relevant to your child, and I tried not to, but she kept referring to chapter seven and I couldn't help myself (though I did go back and read the book in it's entirety).  Chapter seven is called "The Case of the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow" and is about ZINC DEFICIENCY.

The symptoms she notes are:

• Fifth percentile or lower for weight or height?  Selena is currently in the third.
• Growth trend going down?  For Selena she went from about 10th percentile to roughly 5th, gradually from age zero to two, so it wasn't a dramatic drop, but she was also born 3 weeks early and started off fairly short.
• Does your child rarely seem to be hungry?  Selena is hungry often, but hardly eats much.  A couple bites often fill her up.
• Is your child a picky eater? Yes!!
• Does your child complain frequently that foods smell or taste funny?  Yes, yes, yes!!
• Does your underweight child get full after a few bites (not counting dessert)?  How did you know?
• Has a bone-age test found that your small child's bone age is close to her chronological age?  Have not had this test done.

At this point I felt like I was really onto something.  Selena is very short (or little as she prefers to be called), and sometimes I worried about it, but at the same time I was always THE smallest kid compared to my peers, and Floyd was the same way.  Someone has to be at the bottom of the charts, and I figured that me and my progeny were destined to be the ones  (excepting Allie who is about 50th percentile for height.). Yet sometimes I would wonder if she was still even smaller than either my husband or I at that age.

The book mentions a solution you can take to test for zinc deficiency.  Apparently there are solutions you can get that taste like water if you are deficient and taste awful if you are not.  I was on vacation and couldn't order it, but I was pretty sure this is what was going on anyway, so I immediately went to the store and got a supplement.  She recommends 20mg for younger children 30mg for older ones.  (Note:  The multi-vitamin I have tried giving her, but which she wouldn't eat because it smelled and tasted funny, only had 2mg).  I could only find 15mg or 30mg so I went with 15mg.  Unfortunately it came in a capsule and has to swallow it, but so far she's managed.  *Update: Here is a 23mg chewable zinc lozenge that is similar to the one we use now. 

I told Selena that the vitamin should help her sense of smell so that food wouldn't smell bad, and that she wouldn't have to run away from Allie's bananas.  I also told her it would help her taste buds and make other food taste better.  She was as excited as I was. In four days we started noticing a difference.  Allie was eating a banana and Selena had preemptively plugged her nose.  I asked her to unplug it and just see if the vitamin was working yet.  She was so surprised, she couldn't smell the banana!  A few seconds later she is asking if she could try eating the banana.  I handed the rest of Allie's uneaten banana to her nonchalantly, internally my jaw hitting the floor, and she scarfs down the whole thing, AND asks for more!  Amazing.

Since then life has been so much easier.  When we go out, she doesn't refuse every available food item, which usually left us with nothing at least somewhat nutritious to feed her.  We have seen the following positive changes:

• She now eats and requests meat.  Before I could cajole her to eat a bit of chicken or a bite of homemade teriyaki beef maybe once every two months.  Now she requests it.  She chose to eat chicken strips over macaroni and cheese when were out for dinner!  I jokingly asked her if we should have chicken or steak for dinner and she said, "Both, that would be so yummy."  My eyes almost popped out of my head, and of course we did have both.  When we were eating the chicken, she complained about it being messy.  Normally this would have ended the meal right then.  This time, however, I wiped off the messiness and she ate it.
• She now will eat the multi-vitamins I had tried giving her before and is also taking spoonfuls of fish oil mixed with smoothie.  She says that it tastes bad, but she just grimaces and deals with it, instead of freaking out.
• I haven't heard one peep out of her about our food smelling bad.  She can sit near us while we are eating something she doesn't like and it doesn't bother her.
• She doesn't seem to have as much of an issue with different foods touching each other.
• Usually if a food didn't look "perfect" she wouldn't eat it. Any variance in color, texture, or seasoning would cause her to refuse the meal.  Now she will comment on it, perhaps out of habit, but she still eats it.
• I'm not positive, but it seems that her appetite is a bit larger and she is eating a bit more at each sitting.  Hopefully this continues.

I honestly did not expect to see such a vast improvement so quickly.  I love stories about how a change in diet can prove dramatic results, and this is an excellent example.  (When I stopped eating cereal was another.)   I am optimistic, and so is she, that she will continue to try and find new foods that she likes.  It will be interesting to see if her growth accelerates and she climbs the percentiles as far as height.

I highly, highly recommend this book (I have not been sponsored in this recommendation in any way though the links are Amazon affiliate links and I will get a small portion of the sale).  There is a wealth of information I have never heard of including how how to combat ear infections, ADHD, stomach aches, delays in speech, among other things.  If your child is a picky eater, this book may help point to a cause of the picky eating, because she notes other causes besides zinc deficiency.   I just wish she had an adult version of this book that had solutions to acne, headaches/migranes, etc.