Haven't posted in a while out of a combo of 1) nothing very interesting happening and 2) hate typing entries on the phone, which of course I am still doing after many months because I do not have my desk set up in the office yet. Spouse has a desk and plays computer games. I am either too busy with cooking/cleaning or other house projects or being sick. Too many stupid germs since spouse got back. Pretty tired of it. I've started wearing my mask in all indoor heavily trafficked areas again, because it's worth it just to avoid a cold.

Went to costco yesterday and they had a $200 laptop (not a chromebook). The old cheap laptop we got for spouse's travels is like 5 years old at this point and sounds like a sopwith camel trying to take off, so I pitched getting this new cheap laptop, which means I will def have a laptop at home even if he's traveling (he was supposed to go to NY this week but it got rescheduled to next - surprising amount of travel they send him on). Anyway I don't have to type entries on my phone anymore, thank fucking god, awful experience.

The most exciting thing that has happened is that I am trying yet another supplement to help with my headaches and I think it's really doing some good. I gave up for a while there, and my eating habits went to hell because the kitchen was not set up, and I ran out of various vitamins and wasn't taking the ones I had on a regular schedule, so I got headaches and it was just whatever. Get headache, don't get headache. Noodles, don't noodles. But I started caring again, especially having so much of my time stolen by germs - I reordered the vitamins we ran out of and am trying to get back to normal good food habits. Spouse has an invite to try out for this special team at work, but they ask for a high level of fitness so he needs to really focus on diet and exercise in the coming months. Means we better knock it off with the naughty foods and eating whatever we want. I'm not opposed - wouldn't mind losing weight myself and what's good for the gander is good for the goose.

So I got back to taking my vitamins on a schedule and noticed I felt a lot better. A good multivitamin, magnesium, potassium and the allithiamine do really help, even if it's not a silver bullet. I sleep a little better, wake up a little easier, get a little mood and energy boost, don't crave sugar. It's good stuff for sure. Anyway I was poking around the internet, as one does, and ran into "histamine intolerance". Supposedly, some people get a histamine overload from food and it builds up over time and causes a general allergic reaction that is tough to diagnose because the symptoms are so generic and common (like headaches). Estrogen is involved in histamine production so it can be linked to a woman's cycle. I've always wondered about the weird sinus component with my headaches - I get the ear pressure and the sinus pressure and drainage. I know inflammation exacerbates my headaches because going low carb helps. I know there are specific things that my body does not like - for instance I can have one glass of coke zero and it's fine, but if I have multiple I will give myself a headache. Those hard seltzers have something that clobbers me. Maybe it's a specific food additive my body hates? So the new theory is: maybe I have this "histamine intolerance" that causes problems at key points of my cycle and my body is having a cumulative low grade allergic response.

There's a whole special diet to avoid these foods high in histamine and of course they are all the foods I love. Fermented stuff like kombucha, etc. Anything aged like cheese and preserved meat. Citrus. Whole bunch of spices. I dunno if I am up to going full elimination diet, especially with the holidays coming up. Frankly I do not want to give up cheese. BUT now that I know the list I can tune into my body and see how I'm feeling when I have these foods. Maybe I can pinpoint what my body hates the most and avoid that. Also, some people have good results if they supplement DAO (diamine oxidase), which is an enzyme that breaks down histamine from food. The supplement that supposedly is the most effective is like $1 a pill and they want you to take one with every meal, naturally. That'll get expensive. I ain't doing that.

Or, alternatively, beef kidney is a good source of DAO. So I ordered these beef kidney capsules (I dunno about frying up some fresh beef kidneys - I mean, kidneys make pee, not sure I can be all, yum yum kidney dinner - but maybe it's like cricket flour, it's a magic feather that helps you get over the initial mental squeamishness of eating organ meat). Beef kidney capsules are much cheaper than the proprietary DAO supplement, plus they have other good vitamins and such. Lots of B12. I got the capsules right at the beginning of lunar danger week and I have eaten all kinds of naughty food (halloween candy, etc), so I should be signed up for a whopper of a headache. Well, I've been taking the kidney capsules whenever I sense one is coming on ... no headache so far, and better than that, I'm feeling pretty darn good. Crazy, right?!

Too early to say for sure, will have to go through another full month to decide if it's for reals. But it's giving me a lot of hope. If I can pinpoint what specifically gives my body this "allergic" response, and I can take these beef kidney capsules to help sop up the extra histamine during the danger weeks ... maybe I could completely avoid or greatly reduce my headaches. That would be such a game changer for me. I dunno how much of my life I have wasted due to these stupid fucking headaches. I am so tired of trying my best and getting the hammer once, twice, three times a month. Every time I get some good momentum built up I get clobbered and I have to start back from the beginning. If I didn't have that fucking up my life? Oh good golly.

I've thought I had it figured out before and didn't, so time will tell. I know the multivitamin and the magnesium, potassium, and allithiamine help. That's not nothing. I'd just love to have something that will shut it down before it starts.

Oh, spouse's mom had her surgery postponed until after christmas. Her A1C is at an 8.1 (controlled diabetes) and the surgeon wants it at a 7 to make sure she heals well, so they put her on metformin to get her A1C down. The end result is that she and I have been texting back and forth in a friendly fashion since I was supposed to be her ride home for the original surgery date (been in a relationship with spouse for 10 years, first time she and I have texted). It's way better communicating with her via text because she can't bulldoze the conversation. I get my own chance to respond. So far we have avoided all politics and religion. We were talking about health stuff and she suggested I look into "vaccine injury" for my headaches and "Robert Kennedy Jr has interesting things to say". UH HUH. I shut that down hard. Told her I have zero interest in "vaccine injury". (The funny thing is I know real and serious vaccine complications exist - it's the weird bullshit conspiracy ties that I can't/won't accept. Plus I've been getting these headaches for over twenty years - if I did get it from a vaccine, what the fuck do I do, sit around for the rest of my life and cry about a shot i got as a kid? No thanks.)

But to soften the blow of my complete rejection I pitched allithiamine back at her - told her the doctor thinks we're all suffering from low grade malnourishment due to industrial farming techniques and how he believes it is the root of all these mystery illnesses (like fibro, which she has) and how it can help with neuropathy, which her oldest daughter suffers from so badly that she barely leaves the bus that serves as her home on their property (also, found out they are pooping in buckets, covering the waste with sawdust and "composting" it, which I am pretty sure is super unsanitary but that's a fight for another day). Like, the last time I ordered allithiamine I got an extra bottle for MIL and I've been trying to figure out how to pitch it in conversation and get her to try it. So I'm countering her pet red-hat-conspiracy alternative medical woo-woo with my own pet nutty alternative medical woo-woo, like a pokemon battle. FIGHT! Well, she agreed with the idea of food being ruined by industrial farming and she took the bait and wanted to try. So I sent her that big bottle of allithiamine last week. It's fucking vitamin B1, it can't hurt her. I truly do hope it helps, mostly because lack of thiamine will screw with your brain (seriously, supposedly there's an Alzheimer's link). Maybe she'll step back from the conspiracy theories and chill out if her brain is happier? Let's feed all the red hats thiamine and see if they get some sanity back. I know, I know, too easy to actually work ...

She said she got the package but I haven't heard anything after that. I also sent her some cricket pumpkin bread treats & regular pumpkin bread treats (made them for halloween - I asked if she wanted to try beforehand and she did). I seriously can't tell if she simply doesn't like me or if she's suffering from social atrophy. Both? Figure I'll give it a week or two and prod her.

As far as I know there are no family thanksgiving plans. They don't have room to host and they also don't like to travel. Right now I am planning on making a big pot of tomato bisque, cooking a small turkey in the instant pot and getting a panini maker so we can do DIY grilled cheese & turkey sandwiches. Remember how thanksgiving last year was a disaster and I put all that work in and ended up crying? Yeah ... never again. Grilled cheese & tomato soup is the new thanksgiving dinner. Make your own sandwich, buddy.

I got to go do stuff so here's the wrap up:

- have a laptop to type on again, woooo!

- trying beef kidney for possible mild histamine intolerance, results good so far

- tricked MIL into trying allithiamine

- turned in our ballots last week, hope we get to keep Mary Peltola

- halloween was good, didn't get tons of trick or treaters but did get some, carved a pumpkin, had a good evening

- need to get panini maker, and also figure out which store sells the little turkeys