Fibro & Lactose Intolerance: I'm breaking up with cheese. Again.

Breaking up is hard to do.

My adventures with hidden disabilities began during the mid-1980s, a time when complementary/holistic medicine was considered the domain of woo-woo weirdos who carried chakra-color coded healing crystals. Certainly no allopathic medical practitioner linked lactose intolerance with fibromyalgia.

This was also before Internet search engines were invented, so I could not have gotten a second -- or any -- opinion from Dr. Google. Now, of course, searching "lactose intolerance and fibromyalgia" brings up all sorts of information about a possible correlation.

I stopped eating ice cream and cheese because of the lower digestive tract symptoms, the technical term for which is: gross. Lactaid, which hit the retail market during the early 1990s (and then cost a fortune), provided some relief, but cheese was still a digestive challenge. I broke up with cheese.

Fast forward to 2011-ish and I hear -- from who or where I can't remember -- that some cheese can be tolerated by folks with lactose intolerance (see, for example, this great post from Ask The Cheese Snob). I'm beyond thrilled by this news because I need quick, high protein snacks I can scarf down when I have no energy for food prep.

I buy hard, aged cheddar and other goodies from the okay-to-eat list. No problem digesting it! Cheese is available in super-accessible packaging!! I re-dedicate the cheese drawer in my refrigerator to cheese!!!

My fibro flares up more and more often. I ignore the major mucous mess clogging my upper respiratory system. I gain twelve pounds. And while some of that weight is due to popcorn, corn chips, and lack of exercise, I can track most of it back to my epic cheese-a-thon during the past year.

I know what I have to do. I have to break up with cheese. Again.

And I'm planning to do so right after eating the rest of my cheese stash, moaning with fibro pain, and gagging on excess mucus. But at least I won't be farting my brains out.


*I've also had to slash gluten from my diet, but I'll focus on that cooking challenge in another post. 

Review: Rachel Ray Cook's Rocker Knife

In one of earlier posts, I talked about my plan to try out the Rachel Ray Cook's Rocker Knife .

I thought it might work for me since I sometimes am able to use rocker knives with my disability.  Unfortunately, it's not going to cut it for me as it doesn't accommodate my needs, but it really is a great knife at a reasonable price.  My aides love it.  It's sharp, heavy enough to cut through thick items such as heads of cabbage and light enough for chopping and dicing with little effort. 

One of my aides used it to slice a tomato in tiny precise slices that reminded me of those TV knife commercials. It was pretty impressive.

I'll probably wind up getting a specially adapted knife eventually from quadtools.com  . In the meantime, I'll just ask my aides to cut up food or toss items into my Ninja Master Prep , which does a great job of anything from chopping to dicing to pulverizing.  Because of its shape, it's easy even without hand movement to press down on it to use it and the fact that it performs best with short pulses makes it perfect for me since I can rest in between. 

Anyway I'll be back with  more cooking adventures later this week. 

Fibro Fog: Fear of Frying

Rough week on the fibro front, thanks to a potent combination of goofy barometric pressure changes, finishing up (but not really) a book project, and having my house invaded by an energy audit team with a caulking guns.

No shortage of "am I going up the stairs or down the stairs?" moments. Not like that's anything new.

Even without a lot of disruption I can descend into periods of fibro fog. Under the best of circumstances this feels like fuzzy-headed, galaxy-disappearing periods of blur; panic-inducing moments of complete amnesia under the worst. And yes, it's connected with fibro, hence the awesomely alliterative term, "fibro fog."

Like other people with fibro, I have a bunch of amusing stories about putting refrigerator items in cupboards and cupboard items into the laundry and all that. I have significantly less amusing and downright dangerous stories about the stove.

For two years I lived in an apartment with an electric stove. As a cook, I hated it. My joy at once again having a gas stove in my new home quickly faded as I realized that forgetting to turn off gas burners is exponentially more dangerous than leaving on an electric stove top.

This tasteful label may have to
be much larger at some point.

Yes, I've forgotten to turn off gas burners. I've continued cooking on a second burner while forgetting to turn off the first. I've left the kitchen completely...for hours...returning to discover burners still burning and not even with anything like a pot or pan on them.

After ones of these incidents I managed to snap out of fibro fog long enough to haul out the label maker -- possibly because of the adrenalin rush accompanying that WTF moment. I now have reminders posted on the stove by the burners, as well as at eye level above the stove.

Right now, the label looks like an attractive design feature but I know that at some point I'll need to change the color and size so the label pops up in my consciousness.

The Crown painting by Aron Wiesenfeld

I might also need to post in my kitchen as a cautionary image, a picture of someone wearing a St. Lucia crown. I already keep a fire extinguisher right next to the stove.

Chicken a la Quad in the Crock pot

The other night I was looking for a hearty mid-winter meal in anticipation of the blizzard of 2013.  I always have to plan cooking in stages, since I need physical assistance to prepare parts of the meal.  Depending on who's working, I have to figure out who will cut up food, who will help me clean up, etc. etc. so as you can imagine it takes some creativity and resourcefulness!  But with the right spirit, it can be a challenge that sparks my innermost creative juices (not to be mixed with other kinds of juices).

Fortunately, someone who stopped by was willing to cut up onions and potatoes, so I had them do that and leave those items on a plate in the frig.  Once I had that done, I was halfway home so I yanked out the frozen boneless chicken breasts to defrost.

 My next challenge was to get the can of cream of mushroom soup and peas open. I was able to manage that with the help of a delivery man who happened to stop by.   Trust me, this not only is a useful way to get items open if you're a quadriplegic but can lead to meeting some cute guys.

Once the frozen chicken breasts were defrosted, I tossed them in the bottom of a crock pot, covered them with the onions and potatoes, then added the can of soup and peas along with a bit of pepper. This requires a willingness to worth with gravity because my arms won't reach up very high. I find that putting the crock pot on as low a surface as possible and dumping everything in works best.  

 I turned the crock pot on HIGH for four hours...and voila!

 It was a delicious meal - the chicken was juicy and pulled apart, requiring no cutting.  The potatoes and peas went well together too. 

Just remember when you're cooking with a disability, the following tips can make the difference between being able to do it - or not:

1)  Delegate what you can't physically do - and plan your starting cook time accordingly;

2) Keep it simple!  Use canned ingredients and recipes with as few ingredients as possible; and

3) Keep it safe - do not handle sharp or hot objects in ways where you might be injured - only you know your physical limits so go ahead and experiment to find safe ways to do what you can.

   

Fibromyalgia Work-Around: Chopping With Scissors

Fibromyalgia flare-ups take many forms, which is why I keep my kitchen stocked with a variety of food prep tools. Truth to tell, I collected kitchen gadgets long before getting flattened by fibro. I enter into a blissful altered state in the presence of this stuff. Yes, I'm that person blocking your way at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Over the years with fibro, I've discovered that I need tools for when I have strength, tools for when I don't. These days I rely on kitchen scissors/shears because they seem to work well under both circumstances.

I actually started using kitchen scissors during my time as Ruth's aide. She needed food cut up into bite-sized pieces that she could easily grab with her knuckles. I soon discovered that cutting up food before and after cooking was also a lot easier on me.

Please do take a moment to contemplate the kitchen scene when one person has quadriplegia and the other has fibromyalgia. Lots of dropping, spilling, and laughing, that's for sure. Moving right along . . .

If you cannot grip anything or doing so hurts, feel free to stop reading. If you can manage a light grip, consider using kitchen scissors along with or even instead of knives.

Good kitchen shears will last for years and, depending on what you cut up, will not need sharpening for quite a while. I use mine to cut raw and cooked meat and poultry, as well as salad greens, making sure to wash the shears in hot soapy water in between food types. God knows I do not need to add puking from food contamination to my list of Things To Do.

What about using regular office scissors? I tried and quickly rejected that option because they weren't sharp enough and, more importantly, the smaller finger holes made my hand cramp.

Large finger openings
reduce the need to grip 

Not too clenched, right?