I’m not well and haven’t been well for a little while, in several ways. Then I lost my voice, three days ago, because I have these thick mucus blobs around my larynx that I can’t cough away but are really irritating. (Really exhausting!)
I couldn’t find the liquorice that I was looking for that I had eaten before to help with the stupid coughing (which often bothers me in the Netherlands in winter, btw, unless perhaps if I completely isolate myself because it’s usually a virus that triggers this, in combination with dry air, cold weather and atmospheric pressure fluctuations as well as allergens or irritants).
So I have been munching away on a kind of liquorice that uses steviol glycosides – new to me – as sweeteners along with maltitols, which I don’t recall having consumed before either.
They’re not agreeing with me!
Bloating and massive gas development…
It’s what made me look into what is in this particular liquorice.
I notice that stevia etc may or can even have a negative effect on the liver? But the jury may still be out on this.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5933008/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319016420301997
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9774531/
Having a strong gallbladder response doesn’t have to be negative. The liver makes bile, to aid with digestion, and it releases it into the gallbladder which releases it when you eat something fatty. Olive oil, apple juice and grapefruit juice are three things that can trigger a bile release. (Grapefruit juice can interfere with certain medications. Did you know that?) (Bile is cholesterol, btw.) Having a lot of bile released is not necessarily bad at all. But I have not looked into this for steviol glycosides. By the way, really beneficial for the liver is… coffee! Coffee also helps with memory when you are ageing.
And then I remembered that (vegan too) ice cream can really help with a sore throat and mucus issues. No idea why, but it really soothes, in any case, and it also seems to help loosen/dislodge the mucus (this may be an illusion created by extra mucus, lol).
Besides, the really good news, of course, is that my right lung is pretty clean again. Two weeks or so ago, it was stinging and starting to worry me a little.
It could be just an inflammatory/immune response (as opposed to a virus) to the mucus itself that is causing the current issues, as an aftermath effect. (That’s probably the case. Mucus is loaded with, what is it, histamines? Something like that. I don’t have my hay fever tablets with me; they might actually help.)
It’s not even always easy to ascertain where exactly excess mucus is coming from. Can even be from the esophagus, and can even then get into the lower resp system, and make it look like the resp system is the cause when it’s not.
The coughing and the loss of voice, it’s just annoying and exhausting… and not just for me.
Mucus issues (sinus issues) can also be linked to the gallbladder. You’d never expect that, would you? There’s so much we can control about this.
I used to know one guy who had massive sinus issues and whose gallbladder had already been removed too. He was eating lots of candy and chocolate. I’m sure there’s a connection between cause and effect here.
(Speaking of which, yes, my gallbladder appeared completely congested too some days ago, but I got it going again. I simply need my life back.)
Lightbulb moment a few hours later after eating a sandwich seemed to make things worse: Wait a minute… Because of my circumstances, I am currently eating a lot of wheat… and I am slightly allergic to it. Let’s cut out the wheat. That can have fast and amazing effects, I’ve learned in the past when I had no idea yet where exactly this effect came from. The sulfites in the liquorice aren’t helping either, I know from a previous experience. (Oh! My! That too concerned liquorice!) So, let’s cut out the wheat and the liquorice and see where that takes me. Yes, I now think it may be an allergic response that has become the problem.💡😁👍🏻 = Easy to resolve if accurate
Yes, it’s the liquorice that’s causing this and it may make me more sensitive to wheat too.. Unfortunately, I have no allergy pills at hand so I have no way to stop this response right now.
Haha, pretty hilarious if the liquorice I ate to soothe my achy throat caused a much bigger problem. I’ll stick with ice-cream from now on. Soothes my throat without negative effects. Vegan ice-cream does it too.
28 Dec
No, it’s probably not the sulfite in that liquorice.
Yesterday, I got allergy tablets. Loratidine. It had an effect even though it wasn’t massive but it brought some relief. So I decided to take an allergy pill in the evening too so that I might sleep. The main possible side effect of that appears to be a headache, but my sinuses are already a bit of a mess anyway. I can shrug about the possibility of a headache. (Decades ago, my GP prescribed codeine for me so that I could sleep. My health was the biggest reason that I wanted to return to Florida, but definitely not the only reason.)
(Rooibos tea may help too, apparently. The mucus itself triggers the release of more mucus. I think it’s because there’s a lot of histamine in it, of the top of my head.)
It’s time for me to get really angry again. I won’t survive unless I keep angry.
Yeah, I am a powerless mess of mucus but I think that my lungs are clear. That’s what matters.
The Netherlands and I are so over, for good. If I can get a different nationality, I’ll ditch my Dutch citizenship in a heartbeat. I’m done. It didn’t want me after I graduated cum laude because I was in my thirties, and female, and the past 18 months have shown me a country that I don’t seem to have anything in common with and the climate here’s a disaster for me, too. I’ve never found any reasons to be here, although I did appreciate the cultural offer in Amsterdam (which requires having enough money, however, even though some of it is free). Shall I go on? Better not.😁
But maybe I can do something about poverty and homelessness in the Netherlands. Over and over, I tend to get the same suggestions for options that are not even accessible to me and that do nothing toward resolving my challenges. It’s baffling. Are people really that dense? Or are they simply choosing to engage in wishful thinking?
What it’s like on the receiving end? Say, you are looking for a good daycare facility for your children and I keep telling you about Van Cleef and Arpels, De Bijenkorf and holiday homes in Greece in response. Yes, there are holiday getaways with great childcare facilities.
I may have to hunt for empty real estate in Amsterdam and then approach the owner to see if I can work with the owner. It may have to be in the boondocks – such as in an industrial estate – otherwise the people with money in the vicinity will get all huffy and puffy and hot and bothered. Because people like me are dangerous. We’re all drug addicts, schizophrenic and alcoholics and thieves. Yeah right.
For others: Trusted Housesitters and Pawshake may be available options for you. Wwoof is another option. There are similar sites. These are not opportunities that you will hear about in the regular channels as they don’t involve putting substantial amounts of money into other people’s pockets on a monthly basis. (They won’t tell you to try developing a YouTube channel either.) Opportunities like DoorDashing or Uber Eats freelancing aren’t available in the Netherlands. God forbid that you might find a flexible source of income that suits you really well. 🙄 Much better to have no income at all. Yeah right. Also, many options that are available for people of all ages elsewhere are generally restricted to young(er) people in the Netherlands. This goes for things like DoorDashing but also often for shop floors and tills (checkouts).
