The Thyroid Chronicles

About a month ago, I paid three hundy to roll out to Covina to see a doc and get me some Armour. As with every other step in this hellacious process, I thought this was the one that was going to make me look good again. When doc handed me the meds, he said to change my dosage according to my symptoms because it’s natural and can’t hurt.

Fast forward a couple of weeks: I’m still fat, tired, plagued by allergies, and generally miserable. Thus, I increased my medication. No change. So I increased more. Still no change. So I increased again; over two times my regular dosage, to be exact. After a couple of weeks of this, finally, a change: racing heartbeat, fever, nausea, soul-crushing headaches, and body aches, YET STILL FAT. Not really the kind of changes I was looking for.

I laid off the Armour entirely for four days until my heartbeat slowed down to something approaching normal, because I clearly had too much medication built up in my body. If I exercised during that time, my heart coulda blown and I would’ve died of heart failure like Billy Mays and Peter Steele and everyone would’ve thought I was a chronic cokewhore, and I would’ve been too dead to refute it.

Before the internet, peeps such as myself would’ve been left to wonder what the heck was wrong with them, but thankfully, through groups such as the Coalition for Natural Desiccated Thyroid, I know that other peeps have been having similar problems as well. A likely culprit is that the cellulose filler is blocking absorption of the medication.

Coincidentally, the day after I got the medication from the doc in Covina, I got an unexpected delivery from Advanced Compounding Pharmacy. Two months ago, I’d asked for natural desiccated thyroid compounded with acidophilos instead of crappy cellulose, but ACP said they needed the old hag from the clinic I’d been seeing to sign off on it. Since I had more chance of regrowing my dang thyroid then getting that old bat to agree, I found the Covina doc. Then, the morning after the Covina appt, it showed up at my door unannounced, along with a receipt stating they charged $40 to my credit card on file. ANNOYING. Though I could return it, I came to see this new arrival as fortuitous. Thus, a new cycle of experimentation has begun. Will this new compounded be better than the new Armour? Will I ever fit into my size 2 jeans again? Please, Baby Jesus, please make it so!

Will Baby Jesus make me hawt again?

.

Have you ever seen the Mexican dudes standing on street corners around LA holding a coconut with a straw sticking out of it in each hand?  A sighting is my cue to pull the eff over.  You can get two of them for a fiver, ready to drink.  Coconut water is practically a miracle beverage and contains more electrolytes than any sports drink.  I hereby make a motion to rename it Jesus Juice.

Jesus Juice contained within

It seems a shame to throw away the lovely coco after slaking my thirst with the drink within, so I always keep the empty coconut in the fridge and say I’m gonna do something with it.  Then it sits there for a month til it is well and truly rotten, after which time I finally throw it away.  But not this time, Buster!

I recalled that one of my fave health blogs, Renegade Health, posted a recipe a while back for egg salad without the eggs, so I got out my tomato butt remover
and scraped out all the meat (AKA white stuff that is not shell) and popped it into the recipe below.  Pulse it all up in your food processor and serve over a bed of greens or roll some up in a romaine leaf.  Redonk.

Raw Food Not Egg Salad

Meat from 2 Fresh Coconuts
2 stalks of celery, chopped
3 stalks of scallions/green onions, chopped
3 TBSP Raw Vegan Mayonnaise, or Olive Oil and a pinch of mustard powder
1 tsp turmeric
Pinch of sea salt or to taste
Pinch of pepper or to taste

I always think this same phrase the day before I change doctors and/or change medications.  As a habit, I keep this thought to myself because I’m almost always let down. The way I came into knowing about my newest doc was a bit out of the ordinary; before the Scientologist closed the book on me (literally), she mentioned that she also had a thyroid problem and her doctor was a fantastic MD/naturopath and she’d been seeing him for 20 years.

As I was taking my baby gurl for her final walkiez last night, the eve of my appointment, it occurred to me that I’d not yet thought to check him out online. This, from a woman whose top three phrases includes “Google that shit”. As soon as I returned, I found his website: http://www.privitera.com/, which was not nearly as interesting as his Wikipedia site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Privitera.  It seems it takes a renegade to have common sense these days, so I was still game.

So I got up less than three hours after our 4am earthquake, which is an unheard of time for me, and pulled on the same outfit I’ve been wearing for three days (because it is one of only two outfits that still fits me) and made the trek out to Covina. As soon as I rolled into the office, I heard the receptionist telling a patient over the phone that they only had Nature-throid in stock. I squawked, “WHAT, YOU HAVE NATURE-THROID IN STOCK???” You see, I have been calling around since last fall for Nature-throid, and it was backordered everywhere (at least at the places that had even heard of it). Now I knew this was gonna be good day, and I wouldn’t even have to use my AK!

The nurse had me step on the scale: 136. Oh goodie, I’d gained 10 lbs in two weeks. Some people may think not being able to feel my left arm and leg for that same period of time would be more annoying, but those people would be wrong. I decided not to niggle about this though, because this was the first day of the rest of my life.

First, they did a live blood scan.

Nuva ringz and evil thingz

The Nuva-ring lookin dealies are my red blood cells, and they’re perfect, thank you very much.  Some of the other quasar lookin things are the white blood cells and platelets, which are also perf.  The evil smiley in the lower left is is my folic acid, which was not lookin so good.  There are supposed to be a maximum of two holes, which would account for the eyes, but the four-ish holes comprising the mouth signifies a deficiency.  The gal doing the test said I could remedy this by increasing my intake of leafy greens; problem is, I eat so many greens I have them coming out of my ears – I have a handful of spinach in my daily breakfast shake, then perhaps another pound of greens throughout the day.  She said perhaps I was deficient in hydrochloric acid, which means I am not absorbing my nutrients.  Funny, that – a couple of months back, I posted to my thyroid support group that I felt I was not absorbing my medication, despite an increase in dose, and one of my fellow peeps suggested low HCl may be a problem.  Corroboration, complete!  The great thing is that HCl is cheap and readily obtainable.

Next, she had to collect hair samples to screen for heavy metal toxicity.  She snipped off a wee lock and save only the two inches closest to the root, then repeat til the total saved weighed 1 gram.  Due to my fine, thyroidal hair, this took 13 snips, the most she said she’d ever had to clip by at least double.

Sad little seedlings

Then I met the big man, Dr. P.  He looked at my tests and said, “They’re practically perfect – so what are you here for?”  I said I have Hashimoto’s.  He replied, “Well, that’s easy, just take natural thyroid for the rest of your life!”  “That’s not so easy with the jokers we’ve got in the medical establishment right now”, I said.  From there, we preached to each others’ choirs.  We talked nutrition.  How to relieve allergies by supporting our immune systems with vitamin C, rather than squash our immune response with whatever pill happens to be promoted on the drug-pushers post-its that month.  How to reduce stomach acids and increase digestion by increasing consumption of acids, rather than the common folly of taking antacids to destroy what precious little we have.  We sang kumbaya.

I walked out of there a few minutes later with a couple of months’ worth of the medicine I’d been seeking for months, another appointment in three weeks to go over my hair snippet toxicity tests, and last but not least, a new ally in my quest to be normal again.

Today may finally have been the first day of the rest of my life.

Oprah had journalist Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, on her show yesterday to speak about Oscar-nominated Food, Inc. and what people should and should not put into their bodies.  Quite possibly, I wouldn’t even have this infernal disease if I’d been eating according to his simple principles.  But what caused my cheapster’s ears to perk up was their awesome offer – until March 17th only, you can get your own copy of Food, Inc. for $9.99 at Amazon.com, a bazillion times off the regular price, and then have it for download as well.  Why rent when you can own?  This is a reference tool you can have 4eva. Dooooooo it.

Here are a few of my favorite food rules from Michael Pollan:

Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. “When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can’t pronounce, ask yourself, “What are those things doing there?” Pollan says.

Avoid packaged foods with more than five ingredients, or ingredients a third-grader can’t pronounce.

Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.

Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot. “There are exceptions — honey — but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren’t food,” Pollan says.

Don’t buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

You can get Michael’s “manual on eating” here, for the majorly discounted price of $5:

Jump on that shit, peeps.

I was just about out of my Environne produce wash when an article from Natural News arrived in my inbox about how to make my own fruit wash out of shizz I already have at home. I don’t have any grapefruit seed extract at the mo, so I’m gonna make wash recipe 2 and put it right in my empty Environne bottle.  Dang, that’s smart!

Produce Wash 1
– 20 drops grapefruit seed extract, available at health food stores
– 1 Tablespoon baking soda
– 1 cup white vinegar
– 1 cup water
– New spray bottle

NOTE: The baking soda and vinegar will foam when mixed together. Make sure you use a deep pitcher and pour slowly.

Produce Wash 2
– 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
– 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
– 1 cup water
– New spray bottle

Spray produce. Let sit 5-10 minutes and rinse thoroughly to wash away residue.

You don't want ass-hand remnants on your fruit, do you?

At a freelancers Meetup group event about a month ago, I won a free personality test with personal life coach Daphna Hernandez.  It was in the back of my mind (where most ideas live, because I am a master procrastinator) until I got an email saying that she was having a networking and business skills seminar at her office last Thursday.  I can always use more help in this arena, so instead of my usual thyroidal 11am wakeup time, I had my man shake off my covers at 6am along with him so I could get to the meeting by 8.  At a time that I usually reserve for REM, I was fully alert and presentable, which is a major achievement.

Tho I mos def needed to get my nap on later that afternoon, I felt that the session was very worthwhile.  I was able to introduce my “active, behavioral” pet sitting business to a new sector of people and learned some skills about completing “cycles of activity”, as opposed to leaving them incomplete, which is the story of my life.  After the session, those of us who opted to could do the personality test, so anyone could get it for freebiez whether they won it or not, but marketing is giving away something of perceived value in order to attract potential clients, so I didn’t get too cranky about it.  As I love navel-gazing, the test was quite entertaining.  Today, I returned to go over the results.

I did not mention this before, but the pamphlet we received at the event was excerpted from Dianetics and Daphna mentioned “best-selling author L. Ron Hubbard” during her talk.  Clearly, our girl Daphna was a Scientologist, but I didn’t have a problem with that.  Most “religions” have useful kernels of truth within them; it’s the wholesale ascription to an entire compendium of tenets that I cannot get down with.  She had helpful things to say, so I was suiting up to separate the wheat from the chaff.  The only issue that concerned me was the possibility that her whole coaching practice was based on being a shill for Scientology; it’s like going to a “nutritionist” only to discover that said person was actually a rep for Jenny Craig.

During our session today, the personality test was not discussed for at least thirty minutes.  We went over goals for my business, things I want/need to do in order to succeed, qualities that I see as hindering to my business and personal development, etc.  Helpful stuff, things I need to work on.  I am usually incredibly frank in any discussion, so I do wonder where this session would have gone if I had not made certain disclosures for her to seize upon.  However, I am sure aspects of my life would’ve come out within a session or two and I would have just wasted more time, so I supposed I saved valuable time.

The beginning of the end started when she asked what aspects I needed help in.  I said that I am incredibly ADD and need to learn how to set goals, make decisions, and prioritize, in order to stop procrastinating.  She asked if I was medicated for ADD.  I said I had been in the past, but don’t like the idea of daily maintenance drugs.  I turned it back to my thyroid website and bemoaned the state of our lobbyist-centered health care system, where I can get Adderall, Prozac, Ativan, and other controlled substances, but I cannot get freaking natural thyroid medication because there is no lobby for it, and she agreed whole-heartedly.   She asked if I ever did any other drugs and if I drank.  I said, “oh sure, a margarita during mariachi night, a doobie de vez en cuando, a semi-annual ‘shroom fest in J-Tree, no big thing.”  She asked if I started using these substances at a young age and I concurred that I was around 13 when I’d first imbibed.

She then pulled out my personality test, which incidentally was the Oxford Capacity Analysis, and showed me that 4/5 of the personality traits measured showed I need “urgent attention” and the early drinking and such explains these results.   She led me to the television to watch a certain portion of the Dianetics video, after which we would reconvene and discuss.

I’m sure you, who were not there, can predict where this is going.  I was there, however, and I can tell you that I was not freaked out.  I can appreciate nuggets of wisdom from wherever they come, and I’m sure my teenage drinking history has oodles to do with my shortcomings of today and would appreciate some tips to rewire these problems. I make it a point to view, listen to, and read all manner of material and incorporate what I think is useful into my own personal worldview and discard the refuse; thus, I watched the video from a scholarly perspective and took notes upon which tidbits I could use, which to call out as bullshit, and which to discuss and ask questions about.  I found of particular interest the portions about one’s mind storing information about traumatic events subconsciously and needing to bring them to the conscious mind to deal with them so they are not triggered to activate unwelcome habits.  Obviously, all my blocks are all in my mind, as I wasn’t born with them, so I would welcome the chance to deactivate them.

I finished the video, excited to talk about fixing what was holding me back.  She showed me the low points on my personality test and said I needed to completely quit using any substances in order to raise those levels.  I said that was just ridiculous – all or nothing approaches to anything give too much power to the thing being avoided.  I am moderate and mindful of everything I put in my body, be it caffeine or potatoes or cornsilk.  However, I was ready to work on the next step in remedying my issues.

She said Step 1 is completely abstaining from drugs or alcohol, which are poisons to the body.  The other steps are not available to me until I undertake that first step.  She said I could put $5000 on the table at that very moment to work on the other aspects, but she would refuse it until I do STEP 1.  This conversational river has clearly forked off into two branches; I think am on a felucca floating down a well-balanced, natural health rivulet, and she is positive that I am aboard the S.S. Substance Abuse and careening toward the falls of doom.

Here is where I reach the anger zone, cuz I can sense we have reached the end of the rational road.  I have run into a one-size-fits-all, black-and-white-with-no-shades-of-grey, wall of rigid rules.  I tried to counter this with much rhetoric: there are people who are eating antibiotic-laced burgers and sodas with high-fructose corn syrup and yet I’m being ruled out for having a casual drink.  I am not smoking crack, I am smoking occasional doobage, from the earth.  That’s as redonk as saying I can’t eat peppers cuz they’re from the nightshade family.  I equated social drinx, etc.,  with driving a car: driving is not optimal in many ways – it pollutes the environment,which in turn pollutes our health, and also increases the chance of being mangled in a car accident.  Therefore, though I take alternate modes of transport when feasible, but it would be stupid to not go places because I don’t want to drive a car, and it is equally stupid to miss out on a yearly pilgrimage with my broheims in the desert because the mushroom, which the earth gave us, is, in her words, “poison”.  I even said, “You cannot tell me that Tom and Katie go to premiere parties and can’t even have a glass of champers!!!”

Defending having two glasses of wine at book club like I’m shooting up behind a dumpster is outrageous.  It felt like the awful conversations I’ve had countless times with health care practitioners about their inability to accept that their ways of treating thyroid disease are misguided and outdated.

Despite my best efforts, each argument with Daphna rebounded upon a rubber net.  The case was closed.  I suppose a my-way-or-the-highway approach works for the weak-willed, but I am not a mental midget.  I gave a Scientologist the chance to present to me ways in which the methodology they ascribe to can help me, and she smothered me with dogma instead.

You may be surprised to learn that I still intend to patronize her networking seminars.  Though she lost me with her polemic and reinforced my distrust of groups with cult status, I take pride in not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I prefer to keep the clean baby and discard the dirty water, metaphorically speaking.

I shall return, during valuable REM time, to meet other entrepreneurs and get tips to build my business.  However, Scientology has an open invitation to suck my anti-establishment ballz.

I’ve just had the most disturbing phone call – a cliche, really.  The epitome of the life with someone with Hashimoto’s.

After my beloved Armour was reformulated, then backordered, myself and thousands of other patients were left scrambling.  I tried to go raw and take various tinctures to get well, which was a dismal, and nearly mortal, failure.

I waddled into the Westside Family Health Center in Santa Monica and got a renewed prescription for Armour that I was able to have compounded at Advanced Compounding Pharmacy in North Hollywood.  I was certain I would finally come out of the tunnel, but after a month, I still felt and looked awful.  I had to fight the Clinic to get the proper blood tests, and, of course, the bloodwork proved me right and my dosage was increased.

Still, I felt awful.

I contacted my pharmacy to see if I could get the medicine in a different medium; it is possible that the gelatin capsule was hindering my absorption, but the same medication in liquid or lozenge form may do the trick.

It’s the same medication in the same dosage, so that shouldn’t be a problem, right? But nothing in this saga can ever be easy.  TJ, the pharmacist, told me that any change has to be approved by the doctor, even one as innocuous as simply changing the vehicle to get the prescribed medicine into my body.  TJ said he would call my doctor.  It seemed to me like a simple request and I hoped for the best, but I’ve learned not to expect anything good from WFHC – the aforementioned acquiring of prescription and drug tests took three visits and at least twenty phone calls over the course of three to four months. Not surprisingly, I heard nothing after several days.  I followed up with TJ, who said he’d left two messages already and was soon to leave another.  In addition, I had left two messages myself.

Still, silence. I called again and left a message for the doctor, stating that I was out of medication and needed a simple change that would not effect the dosage or type of medicine, just the method of absorption, and it would only take a minute. I finally got a phone call in return, and it was exactly what I expected from this draconian institution. Dr. Archana Kulkarni, who would do well with a second career in voiceovers as a shriveled black widow spider queen,

Dr. Archana Kulkarni

said I could not just call every few days for a prescription change.  I said she didn’t return any of my or my pharmacist’s calls, so really, it was just one call gone unreturned, repeatedly.  She said I needed to come in and have more blood tests, after which time she’d increase the medication, if need be, but would not change the vehicle of absorption.  I told her I needed a benchmark for the tests and wondered if they were just trying to suck more money out of me by having me repeat tests that would still show I was low – after $200 in useless tests, I was not in a hurry to repeat them and get the same result.  She said the cost was my fault, with the ordering of the newfangled T3 and T4 tests I demanded, rather than just TSH.  I said TSH is a pituitary hormone and only tangentally related to thyroid, while T3 and T4 are the very least that need to be done.  Anyway, the whole point was moot if they would not change the vehicle of absorption.  Then she espoused the typical uneducated line: that Armour is an “old” drug, not standardized in dosage, and they only prescribe synthetics, because they are “more reliable”.  My explanation that this is a common misperception  and she only believes that because the synthetics have better lobbyists fell on deaf ears.

The dictators of medical policy

She said my needs go beyond what the clinic provides and she would have to refer me to UCLA Harbor.  I said fine, who do I talk to, I’ve got the pen ready.  She said it wasn’t that easy, that she’d request the change but they might not contact me for months  Then she changed her tune and said she wouldn’t put in for a transfer for me unless I made an appointment, came in, waited three hours, paid the fee to see her and asked her nicely then.

You can imagine that the conversation devolved quickly from there.

So here I am again, chubby, tired, and dejected.  I reflected upon the good old days – those two years when I was able to get Armour and it worked and I was in love with life.  How could I get back to that place?  I’d never been able to get through before, but I decided to give Forest Laboratories, the makers of Armour, another call.  At long last, I spoke with a human in customer service, who transferred me to another human in quality control, who took all my information and my comments on the reduced efficacy of the Armour reformulation.

Anywho, why don’t you guys in the same boat give Forest Labs a call?  The number is 866-927-3260.  I spoke with Alisha.  She was quite pleasant.  I told her I knew of many patients for whom the reformulation was not working as well and she said to give them the number and have them call.  So there you have it.  Tell them. Until then, I don’t see much reason to pay $40 for compounded medicine that’s not working, so I’m gonna try this:

Wish me luck!

I devote considerable time not only to trying to make myself well again, but also to figuring out why I became ill in the first place. I enter a wonderland of rage whenever I think of the things in our society that are perfectly legal in the name of commerce, but are thoroughly harmful to our bodies.  Of course, there is nothing new about this phenomenon.

Grossness then, grossness now

I usually get on one of my rants when I find myself doing something in the name of health that most people consider odd.  At this moment, I am eating leftovers that I relocated to a pie pan and baked in the oven.  Why did I not just microwave my meal?  Because microwaves were sent by Beelzebub so we could scramble our innards and get to Hades quicker.

Microwave your food, microwave your SOUL

Everytime someone sees me pour my cold coffee into a pot, reheat it on the stove, then pour it back into the cup (dribbling most of it, cuz I am Pigpen in human form),

See the resemblance?

people ask why I don’t just use the microwave.  Thus, I feel compelled to spread the knowledge that microwaves change food into something that is not nourishing to our bodies; however, I usually only succeed in appearing Looney Tunes.  I hate seeing that “please help me, I am conversing with a crazy person” look upon someone’s face.  I myself told people to shut their zealot faces when they told me about this years ago.  Howevz, I can’t stop myself from telling people things I think they should know, even if they don’t want to hear it and they won’t believe me anyway.

If you Google the subject of microwaved food being unhealthful, you will find a lot of pages that look like they were written by conspiracy theorists.  The following, however, are footnoted articles from sources that I trust.  Take it with a grain of salt, pin it to your dartboard, feed it to your dog.  Just don’t say I didn’t tell you.

http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/Ch3.html

http://www.mercola.com/article/microwave/hazards2.htm

http://www.mercola.com/article/microwave/hazards.htm

http://www.naturalnews.com/023011_microwave_food_microwave_oven.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/021966_food_microwave_nutrition.html

I woke up to a FB message notifying me that I had been tagged in a photo:

Cake of my dreams

My attention was drawn to the beautiful dessert at the center. The raw raspberry black forest cake. The memory was vivid. I could taste it. I wanted it in my mouth, and NOW. I bolted from the bed and googled that shit.

I found the following recipe, from the credited blog. Mind you, the photo is not of my cake. If it were, you would not want to eat it. I am a messy cook, and I make ugly food. Presentation is not my forte. My kitchen is destroyed. Full disclosure: I am eating it out of a tin pan with a tablespoon as we speak.

Go on. Make it. Curl up by the fire and watch the rain with your lovah and eat the whole dang thing for dinner. It’s good 4u!

You know you want it

*Raw ingreds can be acquired thru Amazon linx at the bottom.

First Layer:

* 1.5 – 2 cups almonds
* 1/4 – 1/2 cup cacao powder
* 1/4 cup shredded coconut
* Agave nectar (to sweeten a little)

Second Layer:

* 1 – 2 medium avocados
* 4-6 dates, pitted and soaked
* 1/2 cup cacao powder
* 1/2 cup almond milk
* 1/4 cup almond butter
* Agave nectar to sweeten
* 1 tspn Vanilla

Third Layer:

* 1 cup strawberries

Fourth layer:

* 2 cups cashews, soaked
* 2 dates, pitted and soaked
* 1-2 cups water

Method for putting it all together:

First Layer:

1. Combine the first layer ingredients in a food processer and combine together until crushed and smooth like, if it’s too dry add a tiny bit of water or almond milk until you get the desired consistancy.
2. Next remove from processor and mold it into a cake tin (I use a cheescake tin so I can easily remove the cake once it is fully set but I have also turned this recipe into a pie on occassions too – it will work both ways brilliantly).

Second Layer:

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.
2. Spread this mixture on top of the first layer.

Third layer:

1. Slice the strawberries and layer them over the second layer – or if desired you can crush them up instead of slicing them.

Fourth layer:

1. This is were you will make the cashew cream frosting. Place half the water into a blender and slowly add the cashews in batches. Add water as needed, until all of the cashews are gone.
2. Add the dates and blend until smooth (remember to soak dates you can put them in warm water for a few minutes to soak them or soak them for a few hours if you have time).
3. Spread the mixture over the top of the third layer.
4. Put in the fridge to set.

Then once set add more strawberries or other fruits and mint leaves to garnish.

From http://www.vegansecrets.com/blog/?p=406

Shopping List:

Raw cacao powder: http://www.amazon.com/Navitas-Naturals-Certified-Organic-Chocolate/dp/B0015Z20RU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=grocery&qid=1264200290&sr=8-2

Unsweetened coconut: http://www.amazon.com/Coconut-Flakes-Large-Dehydrated-Unsweetened/dp/B000KNE954/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=grocery&qid=1264201124&sr=1-6

Raw agave: http://www.amazon.com/Wholesome-Sweeteners-Organic-Agave-Bottle/dp/B001P74NXM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=grocery&qid=1264201250&sr=1-3

Baldness approacheth

This is how much hair I lose every time I wash it. If I skip a day, twice as much falls out the next. If I skip two, I can’t see the drain at all. How is it that I’m not bald yet?