81 North Blog

April 30th Book Notes

81North — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:00:20 +0000

My daughter and I are suckers for a good vampire story (or movie, for that matter). It all began with Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire.” Come to think of it, when I was a kid, I loved watching the Vampire movies on the Saturday Movie Matinee on TV.

We started reading Charlaine Harris’s “Southern Vampire” series a year ago and were hooked right away. These were fun and sassy books with a female heroine who happened to hang around with local Vampires. We loved them and looked forward to buying each new book in the series and sharing with each other.

But unfortunately, we began reading them when they were well under way. And so it was easy to go get a new one from the bookstore or order one from Amazon, when we had completed the next book in the series. Until book number six was read and put away.

To our dismay, it would be May 6, 2008 (we finished our last book in summer, 2007) before book 7 shipped. Horrors!

So today, I did two things. First, I pre-ordered book 7, which will leave Amazon’s warehouse on the 6th - next Tuesday, so I have a place in line.

And second, I committed myself to another writer’s series (also 7 books) who writes along a similar vein. This time, MaryJanice Davidson’s “Undead and Unwed: Queen Betsy, Book 1.” I’ll have that book by Friday. I knew, just absolutely knew, that one Southern Vampire book would start a reaction in us and make us want to read more. So what better time than to have a new series underway, to ease the pain?

Such a cute and sassy storyline to start the spring season off with.

Weight Maintenance and Weight Loss During Thyroid Treatments

81North — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:42:28 +0000

The following rules are based on my own observations over the past year and a half - some of it spent hyperthyroid, some spend hypO thyroid. Almost all of it during beta-blocker usage. It doesn’t matter what your labs are, a great number of you will find yourself battling weight issues at some point during treatment.

And since we are often unable to work much, plus we have a lot of medical expenses, I’ll keep the advice as low-cost as possible.

Step One: Walk 10,000/8,000+ Steps Daily

10,000 total steps daily. 8,000 of those steps done consecutively. Those are considered to be aerobic steps and you have to walk a minimum of 10 minutes before they start adding up.

If you purchase only two things - and who can afford more nowadays? - buy a comfy pair of shoe pads to slip into your walking shoes and buy a good pedometer.

The shoe pads may be some Dr. Scholl’s at $4.00 or they may be the $10 “Orthotic” type inserts that give you more support in the arch section. That’s the kind I bought. That’s how much I paid for the Dr. Scholl’s orthotics at Wal-Mart I think. But you can get 3 pairs for $18.57 at Amazon here.

Shoe pads or orthotics are critical, at least they are for me. Whether I am hypER or hypO, I suffer from plantar fasciitis whenever my FT4 levels are not in range. Cushioning is so important. I have a pair of 1-inch thick flip-flops that I slip on when I get out of bed - they are a good cushion for walking around the house. And my walking shoes must be very cushioned. I’ll confess that I bought a pair of $100 New Balance running shoes and they were not as comfortable as my pair of $11 Wal-Mart black lace-up street shoes with extra-thick non-slip soles, which I then made better by using Dr. Scholl’s orthotics. Crazy isn’t it? But they were better because they gave me more room to insert the orthotics and then lace to my personal preference. I guess I need to be fit by a pro sometime, because I have never, not once, liked wearing sports shoes. I like regular shoes that I can customize. To me, it always felt like the sports shoe was trying too hard.

Next, order your pedometer from Amazon here - or maybe find it at Wal-Mart or K-Mart.

This is the best one I’ve ever used (the Omron HJ-112) and it counts those critical aerobic steps separately from total steps. That’s the most critical part of step one. Counting the aerobic steps - which don’t begin to add up until you’ve been walking for 10 minutes without pause). With shipping, it cost $23.81. So if you can put aside $35, or sell something for $35, do it. Buy these two items.

I have read stuff by many experts who advise you to walk or exercise for so-many minutes a day. And they also say you don’t have to do this all at once - breaking it up into smaller segments of time or exercise units will have the same benefit.

What I found to be true for me is this - I must do 10,000 steps every day, with a day off every couple weeks at best - and 8,000 at the minimum, must be aerobic steps in order for me to NOT GAIN WEIGHT. I am not talking about losing weight. I am talking about stopping the weight gain that seems so stubborn when you’re being treated for thyroid problems. That’s what a minimum of 8,000 aerobic steps will do for you. So you see, it has to be consecutive, it can’t be broken up into smaller segments like they say. Maybe it’s just thyroid people who react this way?

Before you think this is unreasonable, remember just how unreasonable the weight gain is. I can get my 8,000+ aerobic steps in by leaving the house and walking for 35 minutes, then turning around and walking back. I don’t try to walk fast or keep any sort of sports pace. I just walk in whatever way feels okay to my body. The result is no creeping weight gain. Worth it? You bet! It becomes so important to me that I let very little stand in the way of me getting that time in. And that’s because I know just how hard that thyroid-fat gain is to lose once you stop walking (yeah, how do you think I learned my own lesson?) It becomes a rhythm of life for me. It becomes the way I take my break from work (I work at home). I get up between 5:30-6:00, grab some morning coffee and go into my home office and begin dealing with the morning’s emails. I keep my pedometer on my nightstand, next to my eyeglasses. When I get up, I put on my glasses and slip the pedometer into my bathrobe pocket. It’s always with me.

At 8:00 I stop, throw on some sweats and a jacket along with sunglasses, grab the cellphone, iPod, pedometer and dog, and off we go. When I get back, I shower and then return to work.

This stops the weight gain, without altering anything else in my life. And it even stops the weight gain if I am eating crazy again, like hypER people often do even after they are on treatment - we learn really bad food habits. For me, once I began beta-blockers, all weight-loss from hyperthyroidism stopped in it’s tracks. And that’s even before I began taking anti-thyroid drugs. The beta-blocker alone can halt, even reverse weight loss for me.

So getting in 10,000 steps a day and making at least 8,000 of them aerobic steps, is critical for us. For everyone, really. It just helps the thyroid patient so much more than you’ll realize until you stop doing it. Then you get to see for yourself just how much it protected you from fat.

More?
There were definitely days when I walked more than that - I might have errands to run and groceries to buy - and so I would rack up maybe 16,000 steps during one day - though maybe only 10,000 were aerobic steps. That’s when you will find a drop in weight - again, without dieting or consciously monitoring food-intake. I could drop a pound by the next morning after that much activity. Your mileage-may-vary. And it was weight that did not come back, so I know part if it was fat-loss.

Eliminate Something from your daily Eating

Weight gain, even when we’re not dealing with thyroid issues, usually comes when we add small amounts of extra food, every day, to our normal eating. It could be that extra serving at dinner time - or maybe, like me, you got an electric bread-maker and started eating an extra slice of bread every day. Or you added a 100 calorie snack or drink, plus moved your office downstairs like I did. So you burned off fewer calories because you’re not going up and down stairs.

Weight gain comes slowly with as little as 100 calories a day. Our normal eating seems to be a series of checks and balances. We may overeat at a meal, but compensate at the next meal, or the next day, by not eating as much. But when you consistently overeat, even by 100 calories, with no natural checks and balances happening, you could potentially gain 10 pounds in a year. Baby steps to fatness. And so it’s baby steps to leanness.

Think back to a time when you were leaner. Compare it to how you eat now. Is there something different? Something extra?

For me, it was the bread-maker. I always ate bread, mind you - I am not into any kind of fad carb-restrictions, especially since my poor, frazzled, thyroid-fogged brain needs it’s primary source of fuel more now than at anytime in my life.

But I ate bread as part of meals. It held my sandwich fillings at lunch, or was the thing I toasted in the morning, with butter. I didn’t seek it out just for the sake of eating more of it, you know what I mean?

Enter the bread-maker. Now, I had ultra delicious bread. And so I would add an additional bread and butter snack at some point during the day, just because it tasted so good. I made the 2-pound loaf size, so it was a tall - massive! - slice of bread and required a lot of butter.

Holy bread-machine, Batman! I was consuming an extra 400-500 calories every single day, by eating my scrumptious snack! That has the potential for adding almost 42 pounds a year, if I don’t change anything else.

I put the bread machine away. As much as I would like to avoid stuff in regular bread, I find it easier to retrain myself by avoiding homemade bread altogether.

So find your demon food. The extra thing you consume. Stop eating it right away. If you can’t stop eating it, find a way to consistently cut out the caloric equivalent another way. You’ve got to put those checks and balances back into your life. It’s got to be something you consume every single day. That way when you stop eating it, the caloric deficit will add up and allow you to start losing weight.

It is easier than you think, and you will be highly motivated to do it if you run the numbers through your calculator and see what the fat-loss equivalent would be.

Do you eat second helpings, every day? There’s a fantastic place to start. Without increasing the size of your first serving (to subconsciously compensate for missing the second one) just eat that one serving. Don’t have another one. DOn’t change the food you eat or anything else - just start by eliminating second helpings and see how it works for you.

Do you set your table family style or restaurant style? Try dishing up controlled portions at the stove and bring them to the table, like a waitress would. Don’t have extra bowls of food sitting within easy reach.

You’ll start with just one thing. For me, it was the homemade bread with butter. That’s all I was willing to do at the time I realized what the calculations were. I began by losing 1 pound a week. I figured it should be more than that, but the rate of weight loss may have changed and adjusted itself as the months passed, if I’d waited long enough. But I didn’t wait too long. I wanted to lose 2 pounds a week for at least several months, to get a handle on things.

So I looked for something else I could change that would not affect me too badly. And the answer was to find other areas of butter use that were extreme. So I stopped using it almost entirely on my rice or cooked veggies (replacing it with some broth or just mixing the veggies with the rice) and switched to a little peanut butter with jam on my morning toast, instead of butter.

That was enough to put me on a 2-pound loss each week. I probably didn’t even have to give up the homemade bread - it was mostly the fault of overusing the butter on the bread and other foods.

What’s your food? Find out and then kick your weight loss into gear by modifying or eliminating something. Make it something that seasons or accompanies your regular food, and I bet you will not even miss it in a few days.

Eat an Apple Every Day

Just like the age-old adage “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” the eating of an apple for one of your snacks can help you in ways that may seem surprising. It doesn’t work for me when I eat bananas or berries. It may work if I ate pineapple every day, but I wouldn’t eat pineapple every day unless someone held me down and force-fed me. Apples are so easy and portable. Find a kind that you like and buy them, organic if you can. Then keep them with you. Put one in your purse or carry some in a small bag in the car. I like crisp, juicy and sweet Red Delicious.

Apples have fiber and this is going to help clean you out. Even if that’s your only concession to getting some fiber, I bet it will help you. It kept me regular and my weight loss was steadier when I ate an apple every day. You could walk down any street in the USA and think to yourself “there’s a mega-colon waiting to happen.” People are looking more and more like their transverse colons are clogging and ballooning out.

You don’t need to spend all that money on detox and flushes. Just buy some apples the next time you shop. I like to eat mine when I’m riding in the car. Prevent mega-colon using the cheapest, most natural way possible - fiber!

Besides apple’s fiber, maybe there’s other stuff going on with them that make them such a great addition to a fat-loss plan. I don’t know. I just know it works. Applesauce doesn’t. Other fruits don’t (for me, anyway). Berries don’t. Metamucil doesn’t. Rather than try to fight it, I just grab one as I’m heading out the door or entering the kitchen looking for something to graze on. Eat one and then forget about them until the next day.

Drink V-8 Low Sodium Drinks

I always feel better when my electrolytes are in balance. And V-8 low-sodium has as much potassium in it as 2 bananas, and is more readily available for me when I ingest it. I know bananas are a great food, but I digest them slowly and can’t get the same potassium boost with them then an 8-ounce glass of V8 LS. The regular V-8 is the opposite - high sodium - so make sure you get the V8 that has the bright green cap.

When I start getting heart palpitations, I drink some V8 before I reach for an extra beta-blocker. It sure helps. Many times, the V8 was all I needed, and if you drink it on an empty stomach, you’ll see results really quickly - sometimes in 15 minutes.

This potassium boost helps my energy levels and my endurance levels throughout the day. I always have V8 stocked. Years ago, I used Pedialyte when I felt like something was off - but V8 works much better for me. Sports drinks don’t work for me at all, by the way.

And That’s It…

That’s what worked for me. And when I stopped doing those things I listed, the weight crept back and then some, regardless of my thyroid labs. So now I am back on the weight loss bandwagon by following those things that worked so well. It really doesn’t take a lot if you do some detective work and get some of the empty calories out of your life, and start moving again.

The only other thing you might want to do, should you have the money and the means, is buy a treadmill for days when the weather is bad or when you just can’t face going out in public for the walk.

Galloo Island Wind Farm Update

81North — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:42:34 +0000

I support renewable sources of energy - wind and solar. We pay 2.5 cents per kilowatt extra, to support wind-generated energy. We recycle and re-use and wear-out our posessions. We worry about our carbon footprint.

So yesterday, FedEx came to the house and picked up the Priority Overnight package that was going back to the lawyers in Rochester. The signatures and seals finally committed to paper. We just gave permission for a right-of-way and erection of utility poles at the back north corner of the property for the Galloo Island Wind Farm Project.

Now, I wanted to say a word here about this agreement, so some of the local rumors and speculation might stop.

Rumor #1- The transmission lines will be strung from huge, 4-sided metal towers that will sit on 25-square foot cements pads.

Nope, not even close. The poles are single wood or metal round structures with about the same circumference as a standard utility pole. They are sunk into the ground in the same manner as a utility pole, with no visible foundation. In other words, they are not extraordinary in their size and placement and they don’t look any different than anything else you see while driving down the average road, with the exception of an extra metal "L" bracket to hold more line. I think the picture I looked at had three "L" supports.

Rumor #2- The landowners are signing the papers because they make a lot of money - getting cash up front and a yearly lease amount.

I wish! But the reality of it is - they just give you a one-time payment (25% within 2 weeks of signing, and the remaining 75% by February 2010) that is based on assessed value of the land (low), divided by the number of acres, times 4 (to sweeten the pot) to arrive at a dollar amount that they will pay per acre. They decide how many acres will be touched by poles (in our case 2.8 acres) and they use that to multiply by the per-acre amount. Believe me, it’s a tiny amount of money, especially when considering that the 35-acre parcel it belongs to is now worth less on the realty market. We have approximately 78 acres here - and that acreage is the 35 that are in Jefferson county. It would have been a nice, pristine parcel to sell to someone wanting to get away from it all. Unfortunately, the best building site, which is hidden away from the road, is in right next to where those poles go. So the land isn’t as desirable.

Also, it’s a one-time sum. There is no yearly lease payment made to the landowners. The only aspect that might be considered profitable is this - the 25% sent to the landowner at the time of signing is nonrefundable. So if the project doesn’t go through, the landowner gets to keep that amount.

And third, if the landowners didn’t sign, they stand to be forced aside if Eminent Domain must be used.

Rumor# 3 - It will ruin the look of the land.

Looking at the specs in our package, I think it looks pretty insignificant. The poles aren’t following roads - and they aren’t huge. I don’t think you’ll even notice them on our road. You’d have to walk back in the woods a bit in order to see them on our land. I can’t say what the rest of them will look like - the poles that will be erected on some neighbor’s property - but none of the landowners around me seem too concerned. I’m going to scan some of the pages in our proposal package, to illustrate what I’m talking about. Check back in a day or two.

It’s a good thing, this wind power project. No one will ever convince me that a nuclear plant is safe and affordable energy; the true cost may be hidden, in missed work, medical fees and prescriptions when we get sick for unknown reasons. No one will ever convince me that burying radioactive waste under a mountain is "okay" for the environment, just like no one will convince me that it’s okay to swallow radioactive waste to treat a thyroid condition.

I haven’t felt safe living in the 3rd ring out from the nuclear plant since Chernobyl and the later 9/11attacks happened. I don’t care how many inspections are done. To me, a nuclear plant is an abomination. And each time the national alert systems upgrades to orange, I don’t rest well at night, knowing that abomination sits on the nearby shore of Lake Ontario.

The following is a compilation of some known events involving nuclear devices and facilities under U.S. jurisdiction. The production and use of nuclear materials has created a lasting legacy; for example, In the words of the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2000 Federal budget:

The nuclear weapons complex generated waste, pollution, and contamination that pose unique problems, including unprecedented volumes of contaminated soil and water, radiological hazards from special nuclear material, and a vast number of contaminated structures. Factories, laboratories, and thousands of square miles of land were devoted to producing tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Much of this is largely maintained, decommissioned, managed, and remediated by the EM [Environmental Management] program, which is sometimes referred to as the “cleanup program.” EM’s responsibilities include facilities and sites in 30 states and one territory, and occupy an area equal to that of Rhode Island and Delaware combined - or about 2.1 million acres.

Also note that on 23 October 1999 directors of the Radiation and Public Health Project released a report which found that the cancer-causing radioisotope Strontium-90 had been found in the teeth of children born in the 1980’s at levels equal to those of the middle 1950’s, when the U.S. and the former Soviet Union were conducting routine above-ground bomb tests. The elevated levels were attributed to accidents such as those at Three Mile Island (in 1979) and Chernobyl (in 1986), with contributions from ongoing releases at other nuclear reactors. Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Professor Emeritus of Radiological Physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, noted, “Strontium-90 is a known carcinogen and a marker for other shorter-lived fission products and simply should not be present at all in our children’s teeth.”

Power Plants

The nuclear power plant is a particularly nefarious use of nuclear energy. Unlike conventional power plants, nuclear plants have a relatively short life-span — 30 years — before critical reactor components become irreparably radioactive. At that point the plant must be decommissioned (`mothballed’), or its entire reactor core replaced at great expense. To date, there is no solution regarding where to store spent power plant reactor cores. Compounding the storage problem is an accumulation of spent radioactive fuel rods, which have a life-span of only three years.

3 January 1961

A reactor explosion (attributed by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission source to sabotage) at the National Reactor Testing Station in Arco, Idaho, killed one navy technician and two army technicians, and released radioactivity "largely confined" (words of John A. McCone, Director of the Atomic Energy Commission) to the reactor building. The three men were killed as they moved fuel rods in a "routine" preparation for the reactor start-up. One technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. His body remained there until it was taken down six days later. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were interred in lead coffins.

24 July 1964

Robert Peabody, 37, died at the United Nuclear Corp. fuel facility in Charlestown, Rhode Island, when liquid uranium he was pouring went critical, starting a reaction that exposed him to a lethal dose of radiation.

19 November 1971

The water storage space at the Northern States Power Company’s reactor in Monticello, Minnesota filled to capacity and spilled over, dumping about 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water into the Mississippi River. Some was taken into the St. Paul water system.

March 1972

Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska submitted to the Congressional Record facts surrounding a routine check in a nuclear power plant which indicated abnormal radioactivity in the building’s water system. Radioactivity was confirmed in the plant drinking fountain. Apparently there was an inappropriate cross-connection between a 3,000 gallon radioactive tank and the water system.

27 July 1972

Two workers at the Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia were fatally scalded after a routine valve adjustment led to a steam release in a gap in a vent line. [See also 9 December 1986]

28 May 1974

The Atomic Energy Commission reported that 861 "abnormal events" had occurred in 1973 in the nation’s 42 operative nuclear power plants. Twelve involved the release of radioactivity "above permissible levels."

22 March 1975

A technician checking for air leaks with a lighted candle caused $100 million in damage when insulation caught fire at the Browns Ferry reactor in Decatur, Alabama. The fire burned out electrical controls, lowering the cooling water to dangerous levels, before the plant could be shut down.

28 March 1979

A major accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. At 4:00 a.m. a series of human and mechanical failures nearly triggered a nuclear disaster. By 8:00 a.m., after cooling water was lost and temperatures soared above 5,000 degrees, the top portion of the reactor’s 150-ton core collapsed and melted. Contaminated coolant water escaped into a nearby building, releasing radioactive gasses, leading as many as 200,000 people to flee the region. Despite claims by the nuclear industry that "no one died at Three Mile Island," a study by Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, professor of radiation physics at the University of Pittsburgh, showed that the accident led to a minimum of 430 infant deaths.

1981

The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that there were 4,060 mishaps and 140 serious events at nuclear power plants in 1981, up from 3,804 mishaps and 104 serious events the previous year.

11 February 1981

An Auxiliary Unit Operator, working his first day on the new job without proper training, inadvertently opened a valve which led to the contamination of eight men by 110,000 gallons of radioactive coolant sprayed into the containment building of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah I plant in Tennessee.

July 1981

A flood of low-level radioactive wastewater in the sub-basement at Nine Mile Point’s Unit 1 (in New York state) caused approximately 150 55-gallon drums of high-level waste to overturn, some of which released their highly radioactive contents. Some 50,000 gallons of low-level radioactive water were subsequently dumped into Lake Ontario to make room for the cleanup. The discharge was reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the sub-basement contamination was not. A report leaked to the press 8 years later resulted in a study which found that high levels of radiation persisted in the still flooded facility.

1982

The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that 84,322 power plant workers were exposed to radiation in 1982, up from 82,183 the previous year.

25 January 1982

A steam generator pipe broke at the Rochester Gas & Electric Company’s Ginna plant near Rochester, New York. Fifteen thousand gallons of radioactive coolant spilled onto the plant floor, and small amounts of radioactive steam escaped into the air.

15-16 January 1983

Nearly 208,000 gallons of water with low-level radioactive contamination was accidentally dumped into the Tennesee River at the Browns Ferry power plant.

25 February 1983

A catastrophe at the Salem 1 reactor in New Jersey was averted by just 90 seconds when the plant was shut down manually, following the failure of automatic shutdown systems to act properly. The same automatic systems had failed to respond in an incident three days before, and other problems plagued this plant as well, such as a 3,000 gallon leak of radioactive water in June 1981 at the Salem 2 reactor, a 23,000 gallon leak of "mildly" radioactive water (which splashed onto 16 workers) in February 1982, and radioactive gas leaks in March 1981 and September 1982 from Salem 1.

9 December 1986

A feedwater pipe ruptured at the Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia, causing 8 workers to be scalded by a release of hot water and steam. Four of the workers later died from their injuries. In addition, water from the sprinkler systems caused a malfunction of the security system, preventing personnel from entering the facility. This was the second time that an incident at the Surry 2 unit resulted in fatal injuries due to scalding [see also 27 July 1972].

1988

It was reported that there were 2,810 accidents in U.S. commercial nuclear power plants in 1987, down slightly from the 2,836 accidents reported in 1986, according to a report issued by the Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc.

28 May 1993

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a warning to the operators of 34 nuclear reactors around the country that the instruments used to measure levels of water in the reactor could give false readings during routine shutdowns and fail to detect important leaks. The problem was first bought to light by an engineer at Northeast Utilities in Connecticut who had been harassed for raising safety questions. The flawed instruments at boiling-water reactors designed by General Electric utilize pipes which were prone to being blocked by gas bubbles; a failure to detect falling water levels could have resulted, potentially leading to a meltdown.

15 February 2000

New York’s Indian Point II power plant vented a small amount of radioactive steam when a an aging steam generator ruptured. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission initially reported that no radioactive material was released, but later changed their report to say that there was a leak, but not of a sufficient amount to threaten public safety.

6 March 2002

Workers discovered a foot-long cavity eaten into the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio. Borated water had corroded the metal to a 3/16 inch stainless steel liner which held back over 80,000 gallons of highly pressurized radioactive water. In April 2005 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed fining plant owner First Energy 5.4 million dollars for their failure to uncover the problem sooner (similar problems plaguing other plants were already known within the industry), and also proposed banning System Engineer Andrew Siemaszko from working in the industry for five years due to his falsifying reactor vessel logs. As of this writing the fine and suspension were under appeal.

I yearn for advances in solar materials, so that we may all begin to wire and paint our rooftops with energy-gathering systems. If we had the means, we would build an earth-bermed home that could co-exist with our land and help keep us cooled in summer, warm in winter. We would have our own windmill, too, whose energy would help offset the cost of grid-power. But for now, the costs are prohibitive.

For now, we take baby-steps into a cleaner, safer future by signing documents that allow wind-generated energy to weave it’s way into our power grid.

My Thyroid and I Finally Meet My Endocrinologist

81North — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 13:09:48 +0000

I finally went to see my new and very expensive Endocrinologist. For the past 13 months, I’ve been treated for my hyperthyroid condition by the local health clinic. I live in the country and this was my best option when roads were bad. It was also cheaper (by a LOT!) since we pay cash. But despite my begging them to test for antibodies (Thyroid Stimulating Immunoglobulin) they would not. My left eye pushed outward and stared at me whenever I looked in the mirror. I could not stay at the computer very long (still can’t on some days) because of the double vision and burning sensation…

So they referred me to the only endocrinologist for my area.

Now here’s a bit of information - There are a different types of hyperthyroidism. One is caused by the body producing antibodies which then attack receptor cells on the thyroid, back of the eye socket or maybe the front of the legs. Those areas contain the type of receptor cells that respond to these antibodies. This type of hyperthyroidism is named “Graves Disease” after the Irish doctor who discovered it.

When the eyes are involved - pushing outward and getting painful - it’s because these receptor sites have been affected by the antibodies and are producing fibroblast cells that build up inside the eye socket and push the eyeball forward when the space gets cramped. This can happen even independently of hyperthyroidism - and in that case, it’s called “Graves Ophthalmopathy”. It’s more prevalent in smokers or former smokers.

The treatment recognized worldwide for this is to take anti-thyroid drugs and keep the levels of thyroid hormone at an even, consistent level. By doing this, the body can calm down and perhaps even stop producing antibodies. The disease is one of the immune system. The body manufactures antibodies when it shouldn’t. The thyroid is often perfectly healthy - it’s not a disease of the thyroid or of the eyes. And the eyes are healthy - it’s not a disease of them either. It’s simply another autoimmune disease caused by assaulting our poor bodies by chemicals and pesticides and other nasty things. There are also studies suggesting that URI’s are often experienced before the onset of Graves (upper respiratory infection).

Here are the 3 treatment options for Hyperthyroidism

1. Take anti-thyroid pills and hope for remission in 1- 1/2 years or more. Stop taking pills when remission is achieved.

2. Have the thyroid removed and take thyroid hormone replacement pills for the rest of your life. Since this does nothing for antibody production, you will need to still treat the eyes. Graves Ophthalmapathy can exist before, concurrently or after hyperthyroidism. If the parathyroid glands (which sit on the back of the thyroid lobes) are damaged or removed, you will no longer be able to regulate calcium in your body and will have to supplement that too.

3. Swallow radioactive iodine waste, called “RAI Ablation” which uses I131 which is drawn into your thyroid and burns it out and kills it. This is not an option if you have the Graves form of hyperthyroidism since it causes an increased immune response by the body and will make your eyes bulge even worse when the antibody production is stepped up. No one in Europe seems to use this method. It’s nasty and sometimes has to be repeated multiple times. Within 6 hours of treatment, People are then set lose on the public, still carrying radioactive material in their bodies - they’ll set off alarms at airports even! It takes up to 6 weeks to clear from your body. You flush it into the septic system every time you use the toilet. And recent studies are showing that close family members are at a greater risk for cancer caused by exposure to it. Frightening, isn’t it? Oh, and you take thyroid hormone replacement pills for the rest of your life.

So my Endocrinologist walks in and announces that I have Graves Diseases and makes a separate diagnosis of Graves Ophthalmapathy. Yep, this girl is producing antibodies.

The Endo then announces that she wants to schedule an RAI uptake scan (using the more benign!!? form of nuclear waste known as I123) so she can calculate how much of the I131 to use during the using RAI Ablation treatment.

What The Mother-loving HECK!???## I’m paying this Endo $350 today and she is telling me, within minutes of meeting me, that she wants to use the treatment protocol that is shunned by the rest of the world? The treatment protocol that is contra-indicated in those who are producing antibodies? Incredulous, I manage to stutter that I don’t wish to use Nuclear Medicine for treatment, that I would like to continue with option #1 - taking the anti-thyroid pills and beta-blocker heart pills like I have been doing and hope for remission.

She accuses me of reading too much and warns me not to believe the “propaganda” out there. She states that for people like me, “remission could take 5 years or more.” Propaganda? The excellent books I have read all caution against hasty, irreversible, damaging treatment methods. “Do No Harm” they all seem to say. It is an autoimmune condition and with time and the proper monitoring of anti-thyroid drugs, you could achieve remission. Even without remission, you keep your body intact so that if science finds a better treatment method or even a cure, then you can use it. Remove a healthy gland or fry it with radioactive waste and you never get those options. So the most important thing is this - Keep your body parts intact. Don’t remove body parts that are healthy or that can be treated with gentler, non-destructive methods. This is propaganda?

Portion of the Original Hippocratic Oath…

“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.”

Modern Version Taken By Many Physicians Upon Graduation

“I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.”

The Cliche We Most Seem to Use,When Referring to the Hippocratic Oath, Which is Made-Up But Conveys the Message Best”

“First, do no harm”

Again, I say no to the RAI because it will cause my eye bulging and pain to worsen. “RAI Ablation is not done on antibody-producting patients, is it?”, I ask.

She smiles a brittle smile and says - “Oh we can “Protect” your eyes now, by using high does of steroids. The steroids will prevent the increase in antibody production from harming them”

GADS! High doses of steroids!!!! “Won’t that damage my liver?” I question, sounding all the more frightened!

The endo’s eyes are wide and intense and her body practically vibrates. She is showing all the signs of being really, really angry with me. She speaks quickly and tells me that we will “get back to this” later, because for now, our priority is to get me into an eye specialist, so that treatment can begin immediately on that.

I take the lab forms she hands to me - you have to have this done on a monthly basis until your thyroid tests show you’re at your “set point” - that smaller area within the “normal range” where you feel optimized. I am very new to this all - it’s only been a year. And I don’t really know where my optimal set-point is, though I suspect at the lower areas of normal for Free T4 and maybe Free T3. As of my last lab work, my TSH was listed as “<0.005″ (range of 0.27-4.20), lower than when I was first diagnosed. My Last Free T4 was 2.12 (with a normal range of 0.93-1.70), Thyroglobulin AB at 93 (range 0.5-55.0).

I look at the lab requisition slips she hands me. I am grateful that she has requested TSI testing. These are the antibodies I really want to know about. Blocking, stimulating or binding. These are the “Graves” antibodies. It was the test that the former clinic always said “no” to. It prevented a true diagnosis for all these long months, despite my pleading with them. Okay, so maybe I did have to spend $350 for this visit just to get this piece of paper - but it will be worth it to see these results.

And after I get these lab results for my files, I will take my paperwork and high-tail it outta this Endocrinologist’s office, never to return. Time to look further down-state for treatment.

Soapmaking Experiment

81North — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:18:09 +0000

After making soap, I thought I would put together a list of supplies I needed to order for next week’s batches. I thought about making something with Babassu oil in it - but couldn’t for the life of me, remember what the main component i this oil was. Was it lauric or oleic? Or Myristic? Darn, who knew?

I ended up searching via Google and came across Anne Watson’s site. I had read through some of her soapmaking journal entries when I purchased her book "Smart Soapmaking." I stopped searching and decided to read through some of the newer stuff and came across a little gem of an idea.

In her entry, Anne taked about the now popular milk-soapmaking method of freezing the milk in the freezer and pouring lye flakes onto the frozen disc. We used to wait until winter to make all the milksoap, because I would take my pot of goat’s milk outside and push it into a snowbank while adding the lye. Lye heats up a liquid, so we didn’t want to scorch the delicate milk. It has to be kept chilled or you end up with s stinking orange mess. I don’t know who came up with the idea about pouring lye onto a slushy-mostly-frozen disc of milk, but it’s brilliant.

Here’s Anne’s observation - she noted that the typical lye fumes were not evident when pouring lye onto a frozen milk disc. And she wondered if the same would be true for any liquid, water, herbal tea, etc.

Lye fumes are a real concern when soaping in the colder months. You have to wear a mask and open a window near you. And still I wonder if I am too exposed to fumes afterward.

So before I batch my next soap, I am going to work up a recipe, decide on the water amount, and freeze that water. It will be my experiement to see if the fumes are present only when the temperature is uncontrolled. Cool!

Thyroid Report

81North — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:37:30 +0000

Although I’ve had a few bell peppers and even some tomato’s (in salsa), I’ve cut out the one nightshade plant that seems to give people the most trouble - the potato.

In the time since cutting out MSG by all it’s names, and not eating potatoes, I can say that my thyroid seems much more stable, as does my heart rate. While I haven’t had the biopsy or Fine Needle Aspiration of the thyroid yet, I feel like I am more well than before.

All this past fall and winter, I’d bring home potatoes that had hints of green under their skin. The bags of potatoes, hidden from the light by the brown lined paper bag even seemed to be the worst. And yet the green means exposure to light, and increased solanine levels. Those are spuds that will make you feel worse.

I served the better-half some breaded onion rings the other night, and he was happy about that. We both prefer onion rings to french fries. On other nights, we have sweet potato, pasta or basmati rice. There are so many things you can eat that don’t have to be from the nightshade family.

Spring Soapmaking

81North — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:58:54 +0000

This week is "soapmaking" week. We were completely out of my soap and had to order 4 bars online last week, to get through. The bars I received were small! Very thin, and they are going to be used up quickly.

My favorite soap, and I share this opinion with my better half, my MIL and assorted relatives, is French Clay with Lavender, Rosemary, Thyme and Clary. So I made a 20 pound batch of that (using 105 temps for fats and lye water) and let it go through gel and cool down. Then I sliced it into manageable pieces then shredded it all. Once shredded, I re-batched it in the oven, adding just a tiny amount of milk to help it melt down more quickly. It stayed in there for about 4 hours, after which I added the essentials oils and globbed it back into a slab mold. Although a bit softer than it will be in a few weeks, it’s ready for us to use right away. Big relief. And by re-batching like this, I don’t loose the low flashpoint EO’s.

Today, I created a new recipe, because I still had 8 ounces of Majestic Mountain Sage’s coffee butter. That’s coffee bean oil blended with soybean oil. Smells delicious so I wanted to use it. I decided to create a recipe using some leftovers, so I weighed everything out, wrote down what I had, then went to the computer and calculated the lye and water. I also calculated the INS value and to my surprise, it was 151.4. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

I batched this one at higher temperatures, because I had decided to make this an unscented bar, just so I could see what the coffee bean oil did in CP soap. The oils were 140 and the lye water was 110. It went together well and at just the first hint of trace approaching, I stopped and poured it into a waiting wooden box mold - the same 20lb mold I used for the French Clay soap, but far less soap this time. I used just over 5 pounds of fats. Since none of these soaps will be sold, I can cut them any way I like. If I were making soap to sell, I would recalculate the recipe to accommodate the log molds or the slab molds at capacity.

Also, because this was a new recipe, I went with the full amount of water, rather than my normal discounting. If you want to give it a try, here’s the recipe, which turns out to be a light creamy-gold color.

Coffee Left-Over Bar
5% Superfat - INS 151.48

Water: 33 Fluid Ounces

NaOH: 12.36 ounces or 350.4 grams

Oil Temps: 140 F

Lye Water: 110 F

Avocado Oil: 3.2 ounces
Castor Oil: 4 ounces
Coffee Butter (MMS): 8 ounces
Palm Kernel Oil: 31.5 Ounces
Palm Oil: 38.9 Ounces
Shea Butter (unrefined): 1.1 Ounce

Total Fats: 86.7 ounces

I have extra soap to sell from this batch. Each bar is hand cut just as it looks in the photo. I cut them big so you can expect a full 4 1/2 ouces after 30 days cure, perhaps more.

Make sure you always add lye crystals to water that is in a heat-proof container. Sprinkle the crystals slowly into the water. Then stir with a heatproof utensil until the lye solution looses the cloudiness and becomes clear. I happen to have a gas mask that has filters on both sides - I have allergies so this is what I wear when I go into the attic. It is also worn during lye mixing. The fumes are rough on your lungs and if you make soap a lot, you’ll do damage to them. Buy this at your hardward chain store, like Home Depot or Lowes.

Keep your hands covered with heavy rubber gloves and wear long sleeves. Wear goggles or a full face shield during the soapmaking process

Choose a time when you will be alone - or at least lock everyone out of your soapmaking area - kids, significant other and pets while you’re working. With this recipe, the oil temps are high, so you won’t have to wait around for things to cool.

On my slab molds, I cut out freezer paper and use some crisco to glue it down and seal the corner seams of the mold. If I were using one of my 4-pound log molds, I just break it apart and quickly seal some food-grade shrink wrap film over each mold piece. Then I assemble the mold and gently, but quickly, shink-wrap it down. It’s the perfect mold cover, as long as your roll of shrink wrap will accommodate the individual mold pieces. I’ve tried may things and this shrink-wrapping method was always my mainstay. In fact, I pretty much have stopped using the bigger box molds (they let me cut three towers, which I then slice to individual soaps) just so I can use this liner method on the log molds. No crisco glue - your wooden molds stay very clean. I buy rolls of shrink film, which sits on the back of my shrink-wrap system. I can use any size log mold this way.

Books This Week

81North — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:22:09 +0000

Last Saturday I was browsing through the local Borders Bookstore and came across at title I had been considering during a recent Amazon.com visit. I didn’t purchase it from Amazon because I really wanted to look at this book in person before committing to the purchase. I was pleased to see it on the shelf.

Paperback: 688 pages
Publisher: New Trends Publishing, Inc.; Revised and Updated 2nd edition (October 1, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0967089735
ISBN-13: 978-0967089737

I’ll review it when I have finished (or nearly finished) reading it.

Also this week, I have dug out all my soapmaking notebooks and old/new books as well. I feel that I should re-read everything. I know that my original recipes are keepers - they stood the test of time. But I also know that there are new formulations to be created, because there are some wonderful oils and butters available now that weren’t when I began my soapmaking.

This also means I need to go through my library and get familiar with everything all over again. The list below are the books I considered to be my mainstays. At one time, I had everything I could purchase, but would re-sell on Amazon.com the books I felt weren’t relevant to what I was doing.

The Natural Soap Book: Making Herbal and Vegetable-Based Soaps
by Susan Miller Cavitch

Soapmaker’s Companion: A Comprehensive Guide with Recipes, Techniques & Know-How
By Susan Miller Cavitch

Essentially Soap: The Elegant Art of Handmade Soap Making, Scenting, Coloring & Shaping
by Robert S. McDaniel

Soap: Making It, Enjoying It
by Ann Bramson

Milk-Based Soaps: Making Natural, Skin-Nourishing Soap
by Casey Makela

The Everything Soapmaking Book: Recipes and Techniques for Creating Colorful and Fragrant Soaps (Everything: Sports and Hobbies)
by Alicia Grosso

Making Natural Liquid Soaps: Herbal Shower Gels / Conditioning Shampoos / Moisturizing Hand Soaps
by Catherine Failor

Cream Soaps
by Catherine Failor

The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy: Over 600 Natural, Non-Toxic and Fragrant Recipes to Create Health - Beauty - a Safe Home Environment
by Valerie Ann Worwood

Making Aromatherapy Creams and Lotions: 101 Natural Formulas to Revitalize & Nourish Your Skin
by Donna Maria

I’m Bringing Out the Big Soap Guns

81North — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:43:09 +0000

I’ve been making homemade soap, shampoo, creams, salves & balms and powder for more than a decade - is it 12 years now? It’s really quite impossible to use anything from a store shelf, once you’ve experienced the real thing. Around the time I started selling my soap on the internet, in 1999, it was suggested by many that I expand my line by adding perfumed soaps that could compete with Bath and Body, etc. I hated that stuff. I did offer some, just to satisfy some local customers, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. My goal was always to come up with formulations that helped a specific skin type. I didn’t want anything else in my soap - only ingredients that I thought would help it to do it’s job.

That was not a popular choice at the time. Everyone wanted "fun" homemade soap. They were tossing all kinds of stuff in those bars. Even pureed FOOD! Gads! Food sitting in a bar of soap does the same thing that food sitting on your counter will do - it rots. And consumers wanted them in fancy, sometimes ridiculously intricate shapes. I lamented to any who would listen that in order to successfully mold a bar that intricately, one must formulate for the mold - not for the face. In other words, you have to have a hard bar of soap, with low superfatting and very little glycerine, and that’s it. Nothing gentle about it - its basically laundry soap by that time. But it looks good in gift baskets, I suppose.

So I took my soaps, my natural ingredients, my old-fashioned-looking square and rectangular wooden slab & loaf molds and went home. And continued to make my soap for me and the family. All around me, fancy, sparkling/gilt bars in fantastical shapes and the most exotic of scents sold like hotcakes. Color swirled, with bits of food peeking out from the edges, decaled and painted with gold or silver, one whiff of these beauities would bring on a migraine. And this was in the personal care aisle of the health food store. It was gross. No, make that obscene.

But then I find this press release from the Organic Consumers Association - Carcinogenic 1,4-Dioxane Found in Leading "Organic" Brand Personal Care Products. In it, some of the giants of organic skin care are found to have products tainted with this compound. JASON Pure Natural & Organic, Giovanni Organic Cosmetics, Kiss My Face, Nature’s Gate Organics.

A newly released study commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), a watchdog group with over 500,000 members, and overseen by environmental health consumer advocate David Steinman (author of The Safe Shopper’s Bible), analyzes leading "natural" and "organic" brand shampoos, body washes, lotions and other personal care products for the presence of the undisclosed carcinogenic contaminant 1,4-Dioxane. A reputable third-party laboratory known for rigorous testing and chain-of-custody protocols, performed all testing.

I called my daughter and had a long talk with her, I reminded her that when I made and sold my soaps and balms, I never had a problem building customer loyalty. My customers were the very epitome of loyal. My problem, it seemed, was being so far out in the country that I couldn’t build my customer base. And I couln’t very well be here on the farm and in a shop in the city at the same time. I had great customers who bought a lot of soap. But I just didn’t have enough customers. I needed a shop in a nearby city.But like many others in this business, I felt that I wanted to keep it in the family. My husband is a commercial plumber and welder who can build anything I can dream up and looks forward to starting up the soap biz again. My daughter is 3 months away from moving back to northern New York. She’s coming here for good and is ready to get her hands sudsy in the cottage soapmaking industry.

I believe that every town with a population of 2,500 or more can support a local soapmaker’s shop…and should have one as soon as possible. Real soap that cleanses and does no harm is always best made in micro batches. It is one of those products that should never be manufactured by the giant corporation - along with home-baked bread.

I think our little corner of the world is weary of the glitz and fake scents and cheap, skin-drying melt n pour and is ready for the good stuff again. The kind that an old-fashioned soapmaker can provide.

Browser Statistics For My Main Web Site

81North — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:34:47 +0000

46% - Internet Explorer

43% - Firefox

7% - Safari

3% - Opera

1% - Apple Web Kit - iPhone and iPod Touch?

<1% - OmniWeb

<1% - Mozilla

<1% - Epiphany

<1% - Konqueror

<1% - Camino

That adds up to 54% + browsers that are not Internet Explorer. I wonder how that number will change now that IE 8 Beta has been released? I’ll post weekly stats to see how the numbers change.

April 8, 2008 Browser Stats

51% - Internet Explorer UP 5%

40% - Firefox DOWN 3%

7% - Safari

1% - Opera DOWN 2%

<1% - OmniWeb

<1% - AppleWebKit (Generic)

<1% - Mozilla

<1% - Camino

<1% - Crawler/Search Engine

<1% - Epiphany

<1% - Konqueror

<1% - Netscape

As you can see, IE gained some ground this time.