Day eight continued

Considering how little sleep I got, I am actually feeling pretty good. I am tired, though.

My inflammation is fairly low. I have good mobility in my hands. I am still itchy. I am still seeing less volume and slower build up on scaling on the lesions. I have a strong body odor which is rare for me.

For breakfast, I had oatmeal with soymilk and no sweetener. I was surprised that I did not miss the sweetener that much. Later I had an apple.

For lunch I found a vegetarian seven bean soup in our company cafeteria. Sodium was the only thing about this soup that made it edgy. Almost ETL compliant and very nutritious. I also had a large green salad with romaine, spinach, cucumbers, red bell peppers, shredded raw carrots, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, and tomato. Probably a little oil in the sunflower seeds, but I only added a few to add some crunch. Otherwise, completely ETL compliant. I added a little balsamic vinegar, but no oil. Once again, I thought I would miss the oil, but I did not. I really enjoyed this salad.

I have been drinking a lot of purified water, with lemon whenever possible. Because I am tired and am in meetings, I also had two glasses of iced tea today. Dr. F. does not seem to prohibit this, although I am trying to keep caffeine to a bare minimum. Certainly, I will not drink coffee which has been a major irritating factor in my experience. (Much as I love the taste.)

My weight this morning was 246.6 pounds, up 1.2 pounds from yesterday. But when I weighed I had not had my morning BM. For some reason, my schedule is off. I usually go fairly quickly upon rising, but today I did not. I went about 10:30, by which time I had already been to work a couple of hours. So the weight is undoubtedly off. I will ignore this blip and keep going.

Overall, I am doing OK. My discomfort is manageable. I will not work out today. I need to rest. I have a business dinner tonight (at Nana's in Durham, a restaurant that I know can serve me ETL food), and after that I intend to crash.

Dr. F. gave me permission to use Triamcinolone 1% at night to sleep. I have not heard from him on Advil. I doubt he will let me take it. He is also recommending a cream called Dovonex. I have never heard of this cream, but will try to pick some up. If I can get some symptomatic relief that allows me to sleep and rest, I will be able to do this program no problem. The diet is not causing me any serious difficulty.

Exercise wise, I will do Bikram again on Thursday. I may due a cardio workout tomorrow as well. We'll see. Or I might go to the gym with Jon, if he is off. Bikram certainly does help with psoriasis, at least in the short term. It probably has an affect on my stress as well, which has always been a triggering mechanism for psoriasis in my experience.

More later.