Wednesday, June 24, 2015

gelatin-use update

It's been over eight months now, that I've been adding a tablespoon of gelatin (mostly) or hydrolyzed collagen (occasionally) to my first cup of coffee every morning.  There have only been two or three out-of-town times that I've missed it, and I planned ahead for the LCCruise by getting some beef-cartilage in capsule form, which I have appended to the gelatin dose often since we've been back.

It's working.  This extra step in the morning ritual is DEFINITELY worth continuing.  Considering how often I've gotten accidental or intentional cheat-doses of gluten over the last month, my bad knee has given me pain SIGNIFICANTLY less than usual, and the other one has twinged not at all. 

SUCCESS.

The only trouble is how long one has to wait for indisputable results -- a lot of people would probably give up the practice before it has a chance to really work for them.  As reported before, unless I had some extraordinary stress, I AM convinced that I have fewer grey hairs than I "should" (at one point last month, stress really got to me, and I believed I saw a big new crop of silver up there).  But I was only reminded of the knee situation a few days ago....

You see, as I reported right before the Cruise, I had doubled my daily dose of glutathione on the prompting of Dr. Kharrazian in "Why Isn't My Brain Working?"  According to him, it's supposed to be intrinsic to strengthening the gut wall AND the blood-brain barrier.  I had been observing my reactions to the various occasions since then, when I've allowed myself some wheat products.  I noticed that although the knee is significantly better, the trace of psoriasis that appears on my elbows when i'm not careful is definitely THERE.  Huh?

Gelatin.  (And maybe a little collagen and cartilage, but I've definitely used a LOT more of the gelatin.)  It's possible that i'm seeing a little less wrinkling in my face, too, but that could be influenced by lighting;  if it helps, i'll see more improvement with more time.  No matter, though -- these substances are definitely worth continuing.

9 comments:

  1. Thank you for the stressing out the importance of doing things consistently. Somehow I run out of a hobbit to use gelatin in my coffee everyday. I am not a very organised person.

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    1. i think gelatin is one of those things that must be done consistently or no benefits will be seen ... but i find it hard to believe that YOU aren't organized! :-) You impress me as very self-disciplined. I'm lucky that my husband usually brings me my first cup every morning, and HE is very much so.

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    2. I am forced to be very organised in things which affect me quickly - like food not appropriate for my mood/energy/allergies. I am not a very disciplined zealot - but just a not very healthy person who can easily feel the health/food/lifestyle connection. Like I can't take any credit for not drinking recreationally because any alcohol consumption makes me feel worse in my head almost immediately. I never forget to take my thyroid hormone, but sometimes (travel times) I even take a break in a magnesium supplementation which is plain stupid. It doesn't do me any good, but there is a quick fix in the form of a self-administrated injection.

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  2. I've been taking gelatin since 2010, I read Dana Carpender's blog about it, and since I was having so much knee pain, I decided it couldn't hurt to try it. I was actually thinking that, at the rate I was going, I would have to be in a wheel chair before long. It took about 3 days to begin to feel the effects, which made me keep doing it. Over the years, I've had some lapses, and I've found that a day or two is negligible, but more than that begins a downhill slump and recovery takes longer than the amount of time I've missed my gelatin. I think I was taking 3 tablespoons a day at first, in my coffee, which evolved until now I have a tablespoon and a half in a cup of bouillon at dinner usually with a tablespoon of bacon grease added which makes the bouillon taste much better (I use Better Than Bouillon, and while I would much prefer to make bone broth, I had a stroke 2-1/2 years ago and can't manage that yet).

    Ironically, I am now in a wheel chair (although I can walk a bit) because of the stroke, though, not because of my knees. While I was in the hospital after the stroke (3 months) I had no gelatin, and when I came home that was one of the first things I started. I had relapsed quite a bit, but it was hard to tell as I couldn't walk and had no use of my right side at all.

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  3. Continued

    Now I have regained more function on my right side and a bit of movement in my thumb and two fingers. I don't expect gelatin had a lot to do with it, but it certainly hasn't hurt. What gelatin has done, though, is make my knees (and other joints, too) not hurt. When I think back at how much pain I was in, all the time, it really seems miraculous. And the thing is, I had tried the painkillers the doctors prescribed (Vioxx, anyone?) and was just getting worse. I will be forever grateful to Dana for that inspiration.

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    1. WOW, that's really a powerful story! interesting how you felt an effect so soon, but I guess three tablespoons/day is the significant part.

      i'll have to try your "recipe" for broth with gelatin and bacon fat -- sounds delicious, thanks for sharing! and also thanks for the link, below -- I only discovered Dana's work within the past few years, and obviously need to look into her earlier work.

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  4. http://holdthetoast.com/content/gelatin-blowing-my-mind

    This is what got me started.

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  5. How much are you taking?

    I've been using about 1 Tbsp of collagen in my morning coffee to try to help my "leaky arm"--I get pettichiae (little spots of bleeding under the skin) when I eat too much sugar or gluten. This makes me think something similar (or worse) may be happening in my gut, too. I think it's helping as my reaction is less severe, but then I try not to eat any sugar or gluten most of the time. So I don't really know if it's really doing anything. I'm only taking about 1/2 the recommended "dosage" on the label (Great Lakes) because it's pricey. I haven't decided if I'm wasting my money or not.

    It hasn't affected my weight at all (and for all Dana Carpender said it helped her lose weight, she went on to HCG injections from there--so I don't think it really did much for her weight after all).

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    1. most of the time i'm only taking one tablespoon of gelatin per day, but as I said I bought myself some cartilage capsules and for the last month have been using them IN ADDITION, but not very consistently. I looked at them as a fill-in, for when it's inconvenient to use gelatin.

      I bought a canister of the collagen and used it for a few weeks in the fall, but somehow it didn't seem to be as impactful as the gelatin.

      when I've read Dana's article I may get some insights, but from the early days of my experiment it seemed to me that I felt the need of less protein per day than I had before. perhaps fewer grams of protein going to gluconeogenesis is behind the weight loss...?

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