Chronically Special

A mood tracker can give you a lot of insight on any patterns your mood has, which can be key to getting the right help. I personally struggle with a few mood disorders and ADHD. With winter coming seasonal affective disorder is on its way for many of us. I have recently been having more issues with my moods, so I decided to start tracking them again. In the past I've used an app called Daylio . It is a wonderful simple tracker that gives a lot of insight. My only stumbling block with it was the journal tags. Journal tags can be used to find correlations between your mood and whatever tags you use. They say to use them as ways to find what makes you happiest. The problem for me is I know what makes me happy and I know often when I'm depressed those things don't make me happy. What I found I need to ask myself is what makes me sad and what effects my mood? I just started this up again, so my tags are just their suggested plus pain levels and weather conditions. I know weather

 If you've looked in low histamine diets or some other specialty diets, you might have seen a stop light list. There are three columns labeled red, yellow, and green. These stand for do not eat, eat occasionally or possibly dangerous, and safe to eat. When you first start trying to eat on a specialty diet life is made a lot easier by categorizing your foods this way. I recommend you type up the list then hang it on your fridge. As you think of more things that can go on the list add to the printed out list and occasionally go back and fix the original document so you can print it again. This keeps you organized and gives you a clear plan of what you have decided to eat in one central location.  My stop light list looks like this: Red wheat (allergen) milk (allergen) citric acid (naturally occurring in fruits and added to products) lactose (again may be added into products) strawberries bananas avocado peanuts (allergen) Yellow ground meat refrigerated meat chocolate tuna fish soy (

 For helping dogs blow their coats, especially ones that aren't regularly bathed or groomed, washing at the beginning of the season and most of the way through is very important. My dogs have always been farm dogs and have great farm dog coats that self maintain for the most part. They also tend to be double coated, so the undercoat becomes an problem come shedding season. At beginning of the shedding season we bathe the dogs so their coats are freed up from any built up oils and dirt. This allows the hair to shed out well and not become matted. I usually bathe them once more at the end of the season to finish out the shedding, so I can one final good clean to remove the worst of the hair. During the time in between vacuuming regularly, especially places they lay or rub on, and brushing will help keep your house a little more fur free. For the actual bathing I prefer to do a shampoo first. I now use  Isle of Dogs Silky Oatmeal Shampoo . It is a very concentrated formula, so I'm

 Having muscle pain is nothing new to me. I grew up with my mom using Bengay and she now practically bathes in it. "Great for your sinuses!" She often quips if you mention her version of perfume. I personally only use Bengay in the winter if I'm going to be going outside, since any form of icy will make me so cold.  Now a days, I typically use  Salonpas's deep relieving gel . Salonpas, however does best on small areas because its hard to move around on the body without getting too much on.  A friend introduced me to  Amish Origin's Deep Penetrating Pain Relief Greaseless Cream . A little goes a long way and its extra spreadable. No aspirin in this one, but it does a nice job. It feels and smells a lot like Bengay, but is closer to a liquid. It actually reminds me the most of a creamy version of a horse liniment we use at the barn. I use  Voltaren gel  on anything that is swollen or freshly hurt to a decent degree. It is an NSAID, so you are not supposed to use a l

 There are a  few  articles I found that were really great for learning about low histamine diets. Between the articles and some SWAGing (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) I have come up with some pretty decent connections that have helped me greatly in finding triggers. SWAGing is obviously not ideal, but when you are dealing with a rare disease I find you either learn to do it or flounder. *Side Note: I was introduced to the term SWAG by this  Tiktok video . I fell in love with it* My mast cell activation syndrome causes me to be on a low histamine diet. Finding decent information on a low histamine diet is extremely hard because most articles absolutely stink. They rarely have reasons why something is on the list and when they bother breaking down the list into categories they often are conflicting. I love the  Medical News Today article  I found on it because they actually do a nice job covering the scientific reasons for food histamine intolerance issues. It is technically an article on