Philips goLITE BLU

Finally recieved the Philips goLITE BLU HF3321 yesterday and tried a 'dose' this morning. 

The instructions recommend 15 minutes at the medium setting initally. 

First Impressions:

Light, flimsy build quality for the price. (I mean c'mon, over $100 for this?) 

The gadget has a hollow plastic box feel in your hands. (Well, essentially it is nothing more than a glorified lamp, LED lights.....and not much else)

It really bugs me that I hear a continuous, high pitched 'tiny' electronic noise when this is turned on, and the sounds becomes higher with each increase in light intensity. 

TLC Update #3

I'm a few days late with the Sunday update because oops, I've done it again. Used up all 10 gb of data a mere two weeks after the turnover date. I'm not even some hotshot blogger. What the heck?


Physical Exercise
I went to the gym 3 times
Yoga + swimming
Cycling
Kinesis class aka legal torture machines


Sunlight Exposure
Still waiting for the damn light box from the ebay store but sat out in the sun at a cafe a few times.


Dietary Omega 3 Fatty Acids
Continued with the CLO/BO doses. Is it too soon to expect it to make a difference?


Social Support
I finally made a counselling appointment for this Friday. Does this count?


Sleep
Engaging Activity
I haven't gotten this far yet. 

TLC Update #2

I'm having a hellish time. 

I don't know if I'm awakening to the truth, -withdrawing the veil of denial from my eyes or whether I'm becoming blinded by what I think and feel and heading into deeper waters.

Whatever it is, it was sudden and I can pinpoint the moment my mood took a sharp downturn. It precipitated by some rather petty and malicious remarks by a group of doctors at a cafe where my friend and I had been having coffee. I hadn't heard anything but my friend did and she told me what they had said after they left. My friend and I are nurses. She told me that one of the doctors had been bitching about the nurses where he had been working and he had said at one point, -The nurse told me the urine was cloudy but I hadn't seen it. Why should I believe anything they say? 

I felt as if I had been punched and knocked down without warning. The lack of respect that is the basis of that mindset is unbelievable. 

Hey dickhead, I don't tell you something because I like to create more work for you. In fact, telling you something about the patient's urine means.....guess what? More work for me! Yay, work!! We tell you stuff about the patient because we care about the patient and because it's our registration on the line if we don't report anything to you, the jackass with the degree, in a timely manner. Why don't you go do our job then if you don't trust what we tell you? 

So encountering that shithead and his cohort (neither of his fellow doctors at the table demurred at his comments and surely, they knew we were nurse down the other end of the table because my friend and I were talking shop -not bitching about doctors as a matter of fact) made me realise, -wow, that's what doctors think about nurse and nursing huh? I always suspected it and now I know it's true. 

Thanks for the reality check. I think I'll look for another job since I'd rather make coffee for appreciative people for the rest of my life rather than be the annoying and stupid nurse who bothers doctors over stupid things. You sure didn't become a doctor because of your innate thoughtfulness and kindness did you? You only have brains going for you really. Good luck with that.

I hate my job. My personality and the job are misaligned. Also, why would I want to keep working in a profession where I keep getting shit from patients and their families and doctors? I need something else from a job. Creativity. You can't be creative as a nurse. You either do something in a very specific way at a very specific time or you don't.  I'm quite inventive in the ways I devised to get patients to take their tablets or food but there is no creativity. There is no happiness and ease in what I do. I am conscientious about the work but I feel so worn down and completely joyless everyday. 

I don't look forward to each day and I can't see anything past this grindingly slow agony of living. 

______________________________________________________________________

TLC #2?

No exercise this week at all. 

BO/CLO all week, 1/2 tsp twice daily except once when I took 1tsp all at once.

Haven't read the book either.

The only new thing I've done is purchase from ebay a Philips goLite Blu Energy Light HF3321/60 to start light therapy.

I think I also need to start counselling or I am going to be up the creek without a paddle very soon. 

TLC Update Sunday #1

I've decided to start a weekly Sunday update/audit/review of how well I followed the Therapeutic Lifestyle Change (TLC) program from The Depression Cure book by Dr. Illardi

This is only a partial update as I only started reading the book last week. 

Omega 3 Fatty Acids

Last Thursday (April 26th), I recieved the Green Pastures Blue Ice Royal Butter Oil and Fermented Cod Liver Oil (BO/CLO for short) blend; 3 of the Cinnamon Tingle and 1 of the Chocolate Cream. 

I recieved the Ohhira Professional Probiotic capsules (OPP) I ordered about a day before. I know this isn't an omega 3 fatty acid but my mother was told by a doctor when I was a baby that I did not have enough healthy gut flora and so I needed to take probiotics.

As an aside and for semi-scientific purposes, I am currently only taking the BO/CLO and OPP and Zyflammend. No extra Vit-D, no green-lipped mussel extract, no EPO, CoQ10....well you get the picture. 

So far I've taken 8 doses of Green Pastures BO/CLO, 1/2 tsp morning and night and I've taken 10 capsules of the OPP. 

I found the BO/CLO in Cinnamon Tingle surprisingly easy to take. I put the bottle in the fridge where it solidified into a warm brown colored paste. I scoop it up with a 1/2 tsp measuring spoon and scrape it against the side to level it and because it is so small and soft, it goes down whole easily especially when I follow it with a swig of milk which I swish around my mouth to remove any lingering oils on my tongue.

Occasionally, I have had a rather rank whiff or taste around my lips if I haven't been careful not to touch it with my lips but more often than not, I find it faintly and pleasantly cinnamony.

Mmmmmm....yummy

I hope the Chocolate Cream proves as nice. 

How did I choose Green Pastures? 

I read a blog article http://beautyeditor.ca/2010/09/02/the-single-best-product-evah-for-your-skin-is-not-in-fact-an-actual-skincare-product/ where the author wrote about the positive effect this product had on her skin. As I had been experiencing a very similar crisis to hers (I had also tried the Oil Cleansing Method and my chin and cheeks had exploded into a disfiguring cystic pimply rash and I was desperate to try anything that would heal my skin fast). 


It's too early to comment on any mental aspects but I will continue taking 1 tsp daily for 1 month and then try increasing it to 1 1/2 tsp daily.

To me, some downsides: 

Green Pastures touts the fact that they are only naturally fermented cod liver oil product on the market and being naturally fermented, they can only give approximate figures on how much DHA and EPA are contained in each serving. So I am not sure if I am getting enough DHA/EPA in the right rations as per Dr. Illardi's book. 

Some of the blurb on the bottle and website just sounds downright hokey and full of New Age earnestness. 

I mean listen to this:

HISTORICALLY SACRED FOOD

During his travels around the world, Dr. Weston A. Price came across cultures that were strong of mind, body, and spirit; he noticed the relationship between their extraordinary well-being and the sacred and natural foods they consumed. 

Uh-huh, yeah, sure. Do you mean the native people of this world who in almost every single country have the highest levels of infant mortality and highest rates of diabetes, heart disease and renal failure and overwhelming social issues with drug and alcohol abuse? Maybe Dr. Weston encountered cultures that hadn't been touched by western culture, way back when....

Lastly, the expense but I would rather keep buying this if it works rather than an antidepressant.

So it's been about four days and I haven't noticed anything great happening with my skin. In fact, it's kind of getting worse. Still breaking out with fresh pimples, still that awful blotchy red-purple post-acne scarring everywhere....

The OPP is harder to take despite being conveniently encapsuled and not needing to be refrigerated because the capsules are meant to be taken an hour before food or an hour and a half after food. 

As I believe Jeffrey Steingarten, bon vivant, and writer of The Man Who Ate Everything noted when he had to take some medication with similar rules, that he found it terribly difficult to take because his stomach was rarely empty. I am much the same. 

As soon as I am awake, I like to eat otherwise I get strong stomach pains that persist much like colic if I don't head it off in time and I am too distracted an hour and a half to remember to take it. I suppose I should try.

I have been trying to take the capsule as soon as I wake up and then have a lie down in bed for another half an hour and distract myself with ablutions for the next fifteen minutes so that the capsule has had at least forty-five minutes to make its way down. 

Exercise

Today I walked home from work. That took about 30 minutes and that is pretty much the only exercise I did all week.

As for:

sunlight exposure

engaging activity

social support

sleep

I still need to read those chapters.

Here's hoping...The Depression Cure by Dr Steve Ilardi

This is going to be an ongoing post where I read and follow the book and blog about my experiences. 

So...honesty time. 

I do have depression. I've had it for more than half my life and so I don't know where I begin and depression ends. Who could I have been without this depression? I wonder all the time. I am reminded of a tree that used to grow near my home when I was a child. It grew so closely next to a chain link fence that after about a foot of growing alone, the trunk pressed against and eventually enveloped a part of the chain links. I would stare at this section, wondering if it hurt the tree very much. The tree grew away from the fence eventually when the fence ended and likewise, I hope also to grow away from this depression. 

To give an idea of how I am affected...

I wish almost every day that I wasn't alive. 

But I do live, everyday, only myself knowing. Is this courage? Is this stupidity? Just plain dumb animal living? Eating, drinking, excreting. It's all I can do sometimes. 

I know that the pain of living never ends. I brace myself, knowing that the death of my mother, father, brother will come, three devastating blows yet to come, and one day myself. I know we all die alone. I know it everyday. 

I know the pain of being old and alone already because I am young and alone now. 

Sometimes, I just want life to be over and done with and yet sometimes, I am angry that this is all I want and I want to believe that I can have a good life, a fulfilling life despite the sorrows yet to come. 

So onto the book. 

The author of this book pretty much promises that his Therapeutic Lifestyle Change (TLC) program will if not cure, at least alleviate depression. 

There are six components:

omega-3 fatty acids

engaging activity

physical exercise

sunlight exposure

social connections

enhanced sleep

I am open to trying this program because as Dr. Ilardi points out in his book and as I well know, antidepressant medications aren't all that effective. 

The downside to this program is that one must be at a certain level of depression i.e. not the paralysed with depression stage in order to be able to start and keep going with this program.

I think that the only thing that can brick this for me is that I know I tend to give up just like that, out of the blue. Self-sabotage issues, I know. I do plan on working on this with a therapist but for now, I want to focus on moving out of my crappy flat where there are pigeons living in the bathroom. 

Library Haul #2

Or maybe my little toenails have stayed the same size while my feet have grown. 
No, that doesn't make sense. 


Another trip to the library. Melbourne City Library.

DVD: 

The Hedghog

CD:

Highlander's Farewell (Alasdair Fraser, Natalie Haas)

Flight of the Concords

Books:

Talk Dirty French by Alexis Munier

The Depression Cure by Dr Steve Ilardi


No cookbooks I hope you realise. It was hard but I managed it!


I'm listening to Highlander's Farewell as I type. 
I love Celtic music. The strongly rhythmic music soothes me and I find anything with cello in it deeply satisfying.


Some offhand reviews:
The Hedghog
I read the book and couldn't get into it because of the grating hint of self-conscious pretentiousness and I also hated the ending.  So I already knew the ending of the movie which I still hated but on the whole I found the movie absorbing due to the beautifully innocent and melancholy performance of Garance Le Guillermic who played Paloma. 


Wait...do I hear echos of The Piano theme on track 8 Gloomy Winter's Noo Awa' ?


I really thought they could have filled out Renee's background a little more as wonderful as Paloma was. 


Here's a 'dirty' french word picked at random for your pleasure. 


ne plus se sentir pisser
to be walking on air, lit. to not feel oneself pee


Now I'll be on the lookout in the french films I've borrowed. 


P.S The really really dirty words are all at the back. Whoo boy.