River Street to the Humber river.
Yesterday the temperature was hovering around 0 celsius, the sun was out so I decided to go and check out the terrain of a cyclocross race being held next Sunday at Humber Bay park.
Total ride time was just under 2 hours and it was really great to be on the bike for so long; haven't ridden this duration since maybe the end of September.
Was warm everywhere except the feet, even with 2 pairs of socks on those biking shoes do nothing to keep out the cold wind and feet were freezing on the return ride.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Trip Report: Red Paw Electro-Dermal Testing
Trip report of an appointment at Red Paw Computerized Electro-Dermal Testing. http://www.redpaw.net
Disclaimer: Food sensitivity or tolerance is not the same as allergies (neither is lactose intolerance) so this testing is not a substitute for the allergic 'scratch test', and you don’t have to jump in to tell me that electro-dermal testing is not a test or diagnosis for allergies.
I have allergies, lactose intolerance, and sensitivities; and I can assure you that while there is some overlapping they each have very different causes, symptoms, and effects.
The office space is not sterile and clinical as I was expecting, it is warm and folksy with Etsy - type crafts (stuffed animals to go with the ‘red paw’ theme I guess) strewn about on the reception desk and on the walls. I liked that the office was not trying to pretend to be a medical clinic, nor a new-age spirtual centre. There are no lab coats, no hard sell, and they don’t appear to sell anything except the service. And while it uses electrical equipment (a machine that goes, ‘Bing!’)and a computer to analyze the results it is homeopathy, not a validated medical diagnostic tool nor scientifically approved and verified procedure.
They are also careful to make sure clients (not “patients”) know that this is not a medical diagnosis.
Here’s a printout of some of the food-testing results.
What I do know is that the testing correctly showed hypersensitiy to everything I already knew about, eg lactose intolerance, some nut allergies, allergy to cats, and other foods/products I know give me varying degrees of adverse reactions. The testing also showed hypersensitivity to some things that I eat a lot.
There is not an exact relation between the number and the sensitivity and allergies; eg since almonds make me break out in hives, I've avoided them for decades, and so they show up lower on the sensitivity scale than peanuts, which I eat almost every day and don't cause an allergic reaction.
A big surprise was that I showed hypersensitivity to tropical fruits like oranges, bananas, and pineapple. I knew about strawberries (bad reaction, sometimes causes rash), but learning that I should not eat oranges and bananas was a bit of a shock to say the least. I probably averaged 2 oranges and 3-4 bananas per day for the past few months.
Knew that my body doesn’t like gluten, didn’t know that I should also avoid wheat, barley, hops, oats (no oatmeal?!), kamut, yeast, sugar (ie, NO BREAD!?). And corn. I’d already been trying to eliminate corn and its byproducts from diet, so finding out that (according to this test and analysis) I should avoid corn starch, maltose, corn syrup, etc was not unexpected.
Another big surprise was the [i]number[/i] of things that I showed hypersensitivity to. The toughest item to try and eliminate is going to be caffeine. It’s both an addiction and such a habit, even if I think about not having coffee, when I wake up I’ll be in autopilot mode and have a pot brewing before even realizing I had decided to try and not have any!I’ve tried a few caffeine-free teas that are supposed to provide an energy boost but none of them are even close.
Summary: for the past 8 months I’ve gone without cow, pig, chicken, fish.
And it’s been good for weight loss (then mainenance) and overall health, but because the list of proscribed foods is so big, in order to cut out so much (bread, peanut butter, several fruits etc) I’m going to have to re-introduce fish and maybe some seafood to my diet.
The good news is that I'm okay to eat all the dark leafy vegetables. Lettuce, spinach, kale, broccoli, cabbage, rhubarb, cilantro, swiss chard, collard greens, kelp...all that yummy stuff, heh.
The idea is to cut out all the hypersensitive items for 4-6 months and then get re-tested. Don’t know if I’ll get another test but am going to try cutting out a lot of the bad stuff and see if there’s a noticeable change in overall health.
Disclaimer: Food sensitivity or tolerance is not the same as allergies (neither is lactose intolerance) so this testing is not a substitute for the allergic 'scratch test', and you don’t have to jump in to tell me that electro-dermal testing is not a test or diagnosis for allergies.
I have allergies, lactose intolerance, and sensitivities; and I can assure you that while there is some overlapping they each have very different causes, symptoms, and effects.
The office space is not sterile and clinical as I was expecting, it is warm and folksy with Etsy - type crafts (stuffed animals to go with the ‘red paw’ theme I guess) strewn about on the reception desk and on the walls. I liked that the office was not trying to pretend to be a medical clinic, nor a new-age spirtual centre. There are no lab coats, no hard sell, and they don’t appear to sell anything except the service. And while it uses electrical equipment (a machine that goes, ‘Bing!’)and a computer to analyze the results it is homeopathy, not a validated medical diagnostic tool nor scientifically approved and verified procedure.
They are also careful to make sure clients (not “patients”) know that this is not a medical diagnosis.
Here’s a printout of some of the food-testing results.
What I do know is that the testing correctly showed hypersensitiy to everything I already knew about, eg lactose intolerance, some nut allergies, allergy to cats, and other foods/products I know give me varying degrees of adverse reactions. The testing also showed hypersensitivity to some things that I eat a lot.
There is not an exact relation between the number and the sensitivity and allergies; eg since almonds make me break out in hives, I've avoided them for decades, and so they show up lower on the sensitivity scale than peanuts, which I eat almost every day and don't cause an allergic reaction.
A big surprise was that I showed hypersensitivity to tropical fruits like oranges, bananas, and pineapple. I knew about strawberries (bad reaction, sometimes causes rash), but learning that I should not eat oranges and bananas was a bit of a shock to say the least. I probably averaged 2 oranges and 3-4 bananas per day for the past few months.
Knew that my body doesn’t like gluten, didn’t know that I should also avoid wheat, barley, hops, oats (no oatmeal?!), kamut, yeast, sugar (ie, NO BREAD!?). And corn. I’d already been trying to eliminate corn and its byproducts from diet, so finding out that (according to this test and analysis) I should avoid corn starch, maltose, corn syrup, etc was not unexpected.
Another big surprise was the [i]number[/i] of things that I showed hypersensitivity to. The toughest item to try and eliminate is going to be caffeine. It’s both an addiction and such a habit, even if I think about not having coffee, when I wake up I’ll be in autopilot mode and have a pot brewing before even realizing I had decided to try and not have any!I’ve tried a few caffeine-free teas that are supposed to provide an energy boost but none of them are even close.
Summary: for the past 8 months I’ve gone without cow, pig, chicken, fish.
And it’s been good for weight loss (then mainenance) and overall health, but because the list of proscribed foods is so big, in order to cut out so much (bread, peanut butter, several fruits etc) I’m going to have to re-introduce fish and maybe some seafood to my diet.
The good news is that I'm okay to eat all the dark leafy vegetables. Lettuce, spinach, kale, broccoli, cabbage, rhubarb, cilantro, swiss chard, collard greens, kelp...all that yummy stuff, heh.
The idea is to cut out all the hypersensitive items for 4-6 months and then get re-tested. Don’t know if I’ll get another test but am going to try cutting out a lot of the bad stuff and see if there’s a noticeable change in overall health.
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