Coming Down With A Cold

The past few days I have had a headache for most of the day, but mostly on my left side. My left ear has also been painful to the point that I'm always tugging at it. Finally, the left side of my throat has been pretty sore and I try to avoid swallowing food past that side (pretty much impossible by the way). So I don't know if I'm coming down with something or my body is just being a jerk, but either way, I've taken my usual steps to combat anything that may be going on.

This is my go-to checklist when I feel myself getting non-CF sick:

First thing I do is step it up on my treatments. The last thing I want to happen is for whatever is going on in my head to make it down to my lungs. I make sure come you know what and high water that 3 treatments a day is the minimum but I really shoot for 4. I also try to focus more on my breathing while doing the treatment. You guys know how it is. Sometimes surfing online can make a treatment go by so fast that we barely even noticed it was there...and that's notalways a good thing.

I always try to "drown" my system when I'm feeling a little sick. I drink a lot of water on most days, but I focus on going overboard on the days I feel a little off. Water makes up most of our being and the world, so I figure it must be good for something right? Some say that it helps to

flush out toxins, some say it helps to keep everything moving, some say it acts as fuel for our natural bug fighting machine, and I say that it just makes me feel better so I do it!

Another thing that I always do when I have a sore throat or stuffy head/nose is reach for the salt water. This is a little thing that I picked up from my grandpa while I was young. My gramps was known for sniffing salt water every night and he swore by it's healing effects. I can tell you this - nothing clears out my stuffy nose like sniffing salt water, and if I gargle the stuff, I'm almost guaranteed not to wake up with a sore throat the following morning. It is a home remedy that always seems to do wonders for me.

The last thing that I should do, but is pretty hard for me to get down, is just simply resting. I always feel like I get worse when I slow down. I know that it's not the case all of the time, but it still plays with my mind. The problem is, a good hard workout will sometimes get me right back on the path of feeling great, while other times it can push me down the path of feeling like crud. I never quite know which way it will go until after my workout.

So that's about it. Those are my go-to's when I feel myself starting to come down with something. What about you guys? Any extra steps that you take when you feel yourself "coming down" with something?

Is Loving Salt a CF Thing??

I'm probably the only one, but I found the following article fascinating for two reasons: I'm from Arizona and I love salt.

Now, I do have a little background to give you on my love AND hate relationship with salt however. While growing up I added salt to anything and everything...and I mean everything. I was one of those, salt first, eat second, salt again and then decide if I should put more salt or not. I distinctly remember adding salt to my red jello on Thanksgiving Day 1991 and I LOVED it. I'm telling you guys, I was a walking and talking salt-adding machine.

Like many of you, I also became a salt lick with any sort of physical activity. I used to always make jokes with the guys and lean over there fries and ask them if they needed any more salt with that. My hats were always surrounded with a salt rim and I was constantly becoming blind by the salt crystals that would drip into my eyes.

My relationship with salt took a turn for the worse however in 2003 when my kidneys were having a rough go of it in the hospital. I was actually flushed out with fluids and then asked to leave by my docs cause they couldn't in good faith give me anymore antibiotics. My kidneys were being damaged and they didn't want to harm them any further. I asked them about some simple steps I could take to help my kidney function and they came up with two suggestions: Drink more water and stop adding table salt to my food. To make a long story short, I've added table salt to my food ONE time since 2003. It was to some canned corn last year that I just wanted to see what it tasted like again. I've had a few issues here and there with my kidneys, but they've never been as bad as they were in 2003. Was it the strict "no table salt diet"? Who really knows right?

Ok, so I totally got sidetracked there, but I'm still wondering; Do cysters and fibros have a special affinity for salt? Is it just a coincidence that I've met many who crave salt just as our cells crave the balance of salt and water (super layman's terms there)? I don't know, you tell me.

Here's the article though:

Arizona is taking steps to improve the health of its residents. The state joined a national initiative to cut 20 percent of sodium from diets in the next five years.

"Most people are eating twice as much salt as they should and about 80 percent of it comes from pre-processed foods, like canned soups and frozen dinners," said Will Humble, Interim Director of the Arizona Department of Health Services.

"The fact is the sodium line in the nutrition facts label is just as important as the fat line, but it's often ignored. The overall goal is to get food processors to reduce the amount of salt in their products. Until that happens, everyone has to pay a lot more attention to the sodium information in the nutritional facts."

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that cutting dietary salt by three grams per day could reduce coronary heart disease and stroke.

Humble says if we cut 30 percent of the salt out of our diet, it would have the same benefit as half the smokers in the state quitting.

"If we were able to knock back 30 percent, the amount of salt that folks eat here in Arizona by 30 percent, it would be the public health equivalent of getting half of Arizona smokers to quit cold turkey today," said Humble.

Too much salt causes things like high blood pressure which leads to higher medical costs.

"Every year in Arizona, we spend between 200 and 400 million dollars that we don't need to spend on controlling blood pressure and the consequences that come from eating too much salt," said Humble.

Humble says a lot of salt comes from processed foods which makes cutting back on salt harder than you think.

"Initially, folks think, ‘Well, I don't use much salt from the salt shaker so I'm okay.' Well, you're not okay because 80 percent of the salt that you're getting is coming from processed foods," said Humble.

One way to reduce sodium intake is to watch what you buy at the grocery store and the places you eat. Fresh fruits, vegetables and meats are naturally low in sodium, while the amount in processed foods varies greatly. Nutrition labels help make healthy choices about sodium in bread, sausage, chips, etc.

Full article at http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=1264096