Chinese Medicine and CSS

Food As Medicine

Having CSS can be a real drag. One day you are your old self and then, after you take your medicines to save your life, you morph into a completely different person. Aside from feeling terrible and having to explain to everyone around you that you have this weird disease that they have never heard of, you also look nothing like your former self. Your face puffs into a moon. Your face breaks out. All of a sudden a hump appears on your back. Your stomach turns into a bowl of jelly. Time after time for years, I have read posts on the Saavy support website from people who cannot get over the physical transformation their bodies have taken from both the disease and the side effects of the drugs. I am writing this article to tell you that you can take control of this seemingly runaway train.

One of the things that have struck my doctors during my CSS odyssey is that my weight did not change during my course of treatment and my recovery from drug induced CSS vasculitis. One month after my diagnosis, I was up at the Cleveland Clinic to see Dr. Leonard Calabrese. During my consultation I was measured and weighed: 5 feet 8 inches, 118lbs. “How much prednisone are you on?” Dr. Calabrese asked. “I think 85 mgs. I just came down from 100mgs.” I replied. I watched Dr. Calabrese’s brow furrow. As I sat there in my Birkenstocks in the middle of January with my foot drop, I knew I was on to something and so did Dr. Calabrese. “How much did you weigh before you were sick?” “The same.” I replied.

For the past 20 years I have weighed between 118-123 lbs. You must be thinking good genes. Wrong. My mother is morbidly obese and my dad is a diabetic, who, as I am writing the article had just completed angioplasty for 4 blocked coronary arteries. So how in the world have I managed to keep my weight stable with all of this medicine coursing through my veins and the horrible side effects they present???? I used food as medicine based on the principles I learned from Dr. Andrew Weil and from Traditional Chinese Medicine.

As a child I used to play in my grandmother’s old wooden icebox. I called it my office. There was not much space in there. Just enough to fit me, a small 5 year old. When I think back to my old “office” and how it was used to hold the contents of my grandmother’s family’s food, it would hardly hold the contents of one brown bag of today’s grocery store and a block of ice. Everything had to be eaten in the same day. People of my grandmother’s generation are healthier than people from my own and from my parents’. Years ago, people had to shop daily for their food and there were no preservatives in anything. All of the food people consumed had to be bought and eaten fresh. It was no surprise that my grandmother was healthier than her own son, 39 years younger than she.

Thanks to technology we can shop for our food without returning to the grocery store for 10 days or more. Our sources of food are loaded with preservatives, hormones, antibiotics and chemicals. None of which existed in the diets of my grandmother’s generation.

So, how is food medicine?? First, I need to begin with some basic principles that are both successful in weight management with both my patients and me. If you are consuming sugar or anything processed stop right now!!! Put down your bagel, doughnuts, muffins, cakes and French fries. You have the power to have a direct impact on your health every time you put something into your mouth. Before there were pills to cure a multitude of diseases, people all over the world were consuming different types of food prepared in various ways to support their health.

For such a rich country, we have the poorest health. I could write all day about how a typical Western diet is just terrible for you and even worse for individuals suffering from any type of disease, but by now hopefully you have some inclination of our current dietary dilemma.

The good news is that it’s possible to take control of your health and minimize the effects of drug therapy by making some simple modifications to the way you eat. In the most basic terms, try consuming more of the following: fresh produce, whole grains with a low glycemic index, good lean sources of protein, good fats such as olive oil and unsalted nuts, and drink a lot of water. A short list of examples include: oatmeal, 100% rye bread, sweet potatoes, Yukon gold potatoes, red and yellow lentils, 100% millet bread if you can find it, and limited amounts of brown rice for carbohydrates. If you can purchase organic protein, I highly suggest it. Whether beef, chicken, fish or milk , you body cannot really afford anymore chemicals. Fruits and vegetables are great and are the best. Try to eat as many of them as you can because all the pigments that make produce so beautiful, also have protective and beneficial actions to them.

Taking medicine for CSS can take its toll on your body as we all know. Why put bad food into your body that is difficult to break down and assimilate? The goal should be to limit the foods that further challenge your body. If you cannot read some of the words on a label or it is not from nature, simply don’t eat it. Your body has no clue whatsoever how to digest diet soda, partially hydrogenated oils or food with chemicals. Think about how many times you eat a day. Every time you open your moth you can do something really great for yourself.

Drugs have a tremendous effect on your body, taxing many organ systems. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) the digestive system is referred to as the spleen. Medicines and disease diminish the ability for the spleen to transform food and transport the nutrients derived from food. Drugs like prednisone and other chemotherapeutic agents can make the energy of the spleen (your digestive system) weak. If you think of your spleen like a fire that burns fuel, drugs are like a cold wet towel that diminished the ability of the spleen to do its job. Processed foods that are composed of refined sugar, salt and flour resemble a ball of cold glue. It takes so much energy to break down and convert that food to energy that will burn for hardly any period of time. Your blood sugar skyrockets up for a fleeting moment and then you crash. This experience leaves you feeling lethargic and “stuck”, like you have glue inside of you, which you do.

Soup made from scratch is one of the best things you can give your body. Not only do you have a meal at a moment’s notice, but it is extremely easy to assimilate, especially for a digestive system weakened by medicine. Use bones with marrow in them for your stock. Most of the drugs we take for CSS diminish blood cells in the body. Marrow, both in TCM and in Western medicine is the basis for all blood cells in the body. It seems simplistic, but remember that we always seem to drink chicken soup when we have a cold. In China, soups, stews and congees (porridges) with different ingredients are given on a routine basis for all types of ailments. They are warm, easy to digest, have a small amount of protein, carbohydrates, water and vegetables in them.

Another prescription for a weakened digestive system is eating cooked foods vs. raw foods. Since our bodies are already weakened, it takes so much more digestive energy to break down and burn raw food. This does not mean that we all have to consume overcooked grey broccoli. By gently steaming vegetables allows the cellulose and fibrous bands to be partially broken down prior to eating the food. Therefore you are able to assimilate that particular food better. So many of my patients are surprised when I suggest they consider cooked food and warm food for weight loss. If you think about the reference that your digestive system is like a fire, it makes little sense to eat either food that is cold or cold in nature like a salad. Think about baby food; it is cooked and mashed before it goes into that little jar. And then you warm it up before serving it. It is easy for babies to assimilate food that is pure, warm in nature and temperature and has no sugar, fillers or preservatives in it.

Let’s return to the digestive system as a fire analogy for a moment. How do you keep a fire hot? By routinely adding logs to it. Eating a meal, then waiting 5 hours for your next meal certainly is not going to keep your metabolism going, let alone keep your blood sugar regulated, especially if you are taking prednisone. You need to eat every 2-3 hours to keep that fire going inside of your belly. This does not mean having a jelly doughnut to tie you over until lunch. Nuts, fruit, vegetables, instant oatmeal are all excellent options. When I was on prednisone, I did not feel like I needed to eat half of my refrigerator because I was constantly keeping my blood sugar at an elevated level. I never felt like I was going to pass out or eat the door off my pantry.

If you have not read Coping with Prednisone by Eugenia Zuckerman, I highly suggest you read it right away. If you have read it, re-read it and think of the suggestions and ideas I have presented in this article.

People tend to completely disregard the fact that every time you sit down for a meal you are NOURISHING your body. You are giving your body the sustenance to help heal, give energy and create vibrant health. Too often people will watch television while eating their meal and generally wolf down their food like they are off to a race. Some don’t even make it to a chair. Just the act of sitting quietly, chewing food and deriving enjoyment from a meal can do wonders for you. Add high quality food that needs to be prepared like our grandparents and you are beginning to create a ritual of taking part in healing yourself. The act of preparing your meals can be a very Zen and meditative experience. You are taking the time to prepare something good for you and your family. Even taking the time to sit with loved ones during mealtime has become a lost art today. Being able to connect with loved ones during mealtime nourishes more than just the body. It nourishes your soul as well.

Using food as medicine will not make your CSS go away. It will however make you feel better and make you feel that you are taking an active role in your healing process. If you are interested in other books that deal with food as medicine, here are some suggestions:

All books by Dr. Andrew Weil.

Food and Healing by AnneMarie Colbin

Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford

The Tao of Healthy Eating by Bob Flaws