Guo Lin QiGong Lessons and Traveling with Food Allergies and Asthma

So we are preparing to travel to see the Master and learn the Guo Lin QiGong.  While the fundamentals of each of our exercises will be the same (myself, my son, and my mother), the Master has prescribed some different exercises for each of our ailments.

Our goals for learning are:

My Mother
Normalize her high blood pressure
Get rid of chronic cough that plagues her
Stop and possibly reverse the progression of rheumatoid arthritis
Address her hypothyroidism

Mine
prevent cancer
heal the painful ovarian cysts that I have been having in the last several months
improve my digestion and reflux
gain more energy
and also - I'd like to strengthen my kidneys

My Son's
Heal the food allergies and asthma
Address the issue that makes him sweat most nights (it is not uncommon for me to change his shirt in the middle of the night because he's wet with sweat - not soaking, but wet).  His father had a sweat during sleep issue, but according to Chinese Medicine, this causes him to lose much energy - so we will be addressing.
Heal the food allergies and asthma

Of course in total pre-trip chaos, my son woke, after nighttime coughing,  this morning with a red pussy eye, cough, and now he's got a little fever.  Lovely.  Trying to break through this before we set out on our journey.  Giving 3-4 grams vit C every 24 hours, along with quercenase (quercetin and bromelain), an additional supp with zinc, magnesium, cod liver oil - sheesh.

Another issue - or stress rather - is food.  Of course, we are driving about 12 hours - so I will be feeding my son on the road because we cannot eat any of the food on route.  But then we will need to either consume or dump and fruits and vegetables before we hit the border, since they will not be allowed to cross with us.  So our target, before even the hotel, will be the nearest organic stocked market so that we can stock up on what we could not bring.  We will, as I've been instructed by Canadian Border Department, be able to cross with our dried packaged goods, possibly some of our meat, and hopefully some bottled things like tomato sauce... little things that I am not sure I'd be able to get at another store.

We have a suite with kitchen - thankfully - this trip will not entail cooking on my electric double burner.  I sprang for the extra money because I felt like there's already so much to deal with - having to worry about getting kicked out of the hotel because of our vagabond cooking - would put me over the edge.  Especially since I'll be baking bread in the slow cooker (which I'm bringing).

One of our trips to New York city  was somewhat awful because we got trapped in a fancy hotel in Manhattan,  that basically said I could not cook in the room because they not only had smoke detectors but heat sensors directly wired to the fire department.  So we were stuck with only a microwave - needless to say my son lived practically on our only safe bagels for about 24 hours - until we could high tail it out of town.

Here is our usual food allergy travel set-up - usually the less expensive motels are best for this set-up - but those hotels can also suck for asthma issues.  So now we're kind of middle-brow - hoping that the room is not too dustmite infested.  At any rate, some images from one of our trips - our cooking for food allergy set up.

Traveling with Food Allergy pots, pans, dishes

Traveling with Food Allergy - cooking on the double electric burners.

Traveling with Food Allergy - nothing worse than washing your veggies in tiny motel sink.

Traveling with Food Allergy - open the windows so we don't set off alarm

Traveling with Food Allergy - cramming tiny fridge with food.

Traveling with Food Allergy - I once roasted a lamb shank in a motel bathroom just like this.

Painful ovarian cyst, Chinese herbs, and proteolytic enzymes

So the pain continued despite the ACV.  I went last week to see my TCM herbalist.  She switched recipes.  This new recipe has helped to diminish the pain greatly.  I am on a schedule of 3 days per package of herbs and 2 days off.  She advised me to drink everyday once my period arrived.

My period arrived yesterday - painfully.  And the pain in my side has been pretty much there the entire day.  But I am hoping that this is the final clingings of this cyst and that the herbs wash it out, or make it pop, or encourage my body to absorb it.
 
I'm an animal.  I'd like to gnaw my own ovary off and be done.  It's not excruciating pain - which it's been in the past - it's just there most of the time.  Reminding me of its presence.  Freaking me out with worry.  Whispering to me of the craptastically long wait at the county hospital with the robotic doctors who by the time they get to you - you are so worn down with waiting you are eagerly submitting to whatever treatments they are rotely prescribing.  UGH.  Tiny teeth chomping on the cyst tasking it away.

I'm also taking between 9-12 Wobenzym N tablets - hoping that the enzymes will assist in my body's reabsorbing this thing.

I'm fantasizing about poking this cyst - kind of the way you pop a blister on your foot.  And then it hurts for a day or so, but it's gone.  I actually punched myself in the gut hoping to pop it.  Not hard really but with enough force that I felt it.  I opted not to punch myself a second time.

Two interesting things have come up in my  research regarding the cysts.  One brings me back to ACV - potassium and the second one is iodine.  I read that ACV has potassium - and that low levels of potassium are associated with ovarian cysts.  In fact, low levels of potassium can be linked to many things - kidney stones, hypertension, osteoporosis, stroke...  If you read Linus Pauling Institutes assessment of potassium here you will see the great deal of significance it has - even on a cellular level.   What's so interesting is that Gerson also discusses the potassium thing.  And both Gerson and Linus Pauling admit that the Western diet is several times higher in sodium than potassium, while native diets are the opposite. 
 
What does this mean for us - well I've now started to make an effort to reduce sodium - even though before we were eating sea salt.  We're cutting down significantly.  We've also begun to look out for sodium in any processed foods we eat.  Conversely I've tried to pay more attention to getting potassium into our diet - baked potatoes, fresh squeezed orange juice...

Iodine - something that I am not going to go into to detail today - but needless to say - it too is something that has come up in the ovarian cyst realm.  And interestingly enough - something Gerson too writes about.  For those of you who don't know - Max Gerson is founder of the Gerson protocol - a rigorous vegan diet, supplement, and coffee enema approach to healing cancer and other chronic diseases.  I am contemplating ordering some Lugol's iodine and adding it my diet. 

So far - now 4 days into my period the pain has gone down enough that I can, for the first time in over a month, lie on my right side without intense pain.  We'll see - I am feeling good about this batch of herbs - last one did not help so the TCM doc created a new one.  I've included a picture of the current mixture.  I rinse, add 5 cups of H2O, and boil down to about 8 ounces (about 2-3 hours of cooking).  Then I drink.  The taste is really awful - like sour, muddy, dirty - herby - but like a taste that reminds me of the drinks we would make as kids when we we're bored at weddings or parties my parents too us to.  It was the throw everything into the glass until it was brown and chunky - then each kid would take turns sipping to see who could drink the most.  Yuk - I keep muttering to myself - the ovarian cysts is diminishing, disappearing, gone - as I drink it.  Then I gag, make faces, a swig some water as a chaser.  My herbalist said, to drink this for 2 months and go back for another ultrasound and the cyst will be gone.  Here's to it being so.

Traditional Chinese Herbs for Ovarian Cyst