Julie Horney'

Lead Toxicity:  A Unique Experience with Menopause?

Menopause symptoms were fairly light around age 53.  Then I was diagnosed with osteopenia and osteoporosis within a year.  Made the best decisions I could at the time to address it and never correlated another, serious condition with menopause until recently.

Daily convulsive episodes began around the same year as onset of the Convulsion Disorder.  (No epilepsy although some menopausal women are diagnosed with same*.)  CD is the diagnosis now but it had over 50 others initially as I went from Doc to Doc and clinic to clinic, including the ones of Mayo 3x, Indiana University x2, & Cleveland.  6 brands of CBD oil, specialized dental appliances (Dystonia presents similarly and can be treated with same), Chronic Lyme/Viral/parasitic testing and treatments, pharm grade supps based upon testing,  traditional and NUCCA chiro, PT, mercury detox, keto and other diets, glyphosate, dental interventions, sleep studies, and more.  My current list of medical diagnoses well exceeds 50!

Earlier this year, the Lord showed me my history of unique exposures to lead.  All Baby Boomers and older have been exposed to lead from paint and unleaded gasoline.  I had 3 additional souces in my childhood home.  Lead and other heavy metals were low on blood, urine, and hair tests from 3 different companies, 3 different Docs.  

Acute lead exposure shows up on blood testing.  Chronic or latent lead testing only shows up in BONE lead testing.  The body displaces calcium to store lead in the bones to deal with its toxicity; lead has no nutritive value in the body, only does damage.  Women can lose bone when estrogen levels go down with menopause, contributing to bone loss.  Lead comes out with the loss of bone, making symptoms worse.  

An Integrative Med clinic in NY does BLT for a hefty fee plus the cost of your travel.  I live in Indiana and found a researcher at Purdue Univ who specializes in BLT.  He offered to test me for free, pro bono, in February and my level was HIGH.  Two types of chelation started shortly thereafter with a plan for retesting  in Feb of 2025.

I have had major breakthroughs in the Convulsion Disorder for the first time at this level in almost 13 years.  Thousands of convulsive episodes later, I have hope to be free of them one day, have less pain, sleep more normal hours, not be reactive to every noxious stimuli, and perhaps more?  There's permanent damage in my body from lead and heavy metal toxicity.  But all it takes is a small bit of improvement and I can work in my garden (new food forest strip!), grow in sustainable practices, and volunteer as a Master Gardener. Lord willing, 2025 will be a wonderful new year!

Godspeed fellow sojourners!

Julie

P.S.  Since menopause and related topics can get very personal and some may not want to discuss it here, I welcome personal emails on this topic.  Just put "permies" somewhere in the subject line so I don't accidentally delete you!  Remove the dots between the @ and y below.    :J

psalm34810@......yahoo.com

Nancy Reading wrote:

Dennis Barrow wrote:So are carrots going to be ok in this forum?  

Carrots, parsnips, beets, sunroots, all the things that Ra mentioned and anything else I missed!

I had a rotten year for root crops too - just about managed a few thin parsnip. My perennial roots did OK though - skirret is really tasty. Silverweed is very nice too, but I find it a bit more effort to harvest.

Hi Nancy,
What does skirret taste like and how do you prepare it?  I planted 2 starts this past year in a new food forest strip and it took off!  Thanks, Julie

Hey, I helped build an African-style keyhole garden years ago at our local Extension Office.  We used pavers for the walls (and these are often available for free on FB Marketplace). I constructed the compost tube from chicken wire and bamboo poles plus fasteners which I think were zip ties (I know!).

Years later and no longer involved with the project, a few thoughts come to mind:

Building a solid base was critical to support the weight of the structure over time.  We used a 6-inch paver base and pavers, which may not be cobb per se, but the structure held up perfectly for many years (until moved and reconstructed).

Make a plan for turning the compost in the center basket before you construct it.  I'm glad I made our first one about 18 inches in diameter.

Use all of the space. I wish I knew then to use trailing plants over the sides and more plants to cover the soil.

The keyhole design is also effective for larger gardens on the ground!  Make a pile for compost in the center. Fun!

Our 2-wheeled wheelbarrow is a beast, purchased from Costco years ago.  2 wheels are a must for balancing heavier loads and stability on even or pitched ground.  Sometime I wish I had a cart with a dumping feature but we only have room for one so glad I have our beastly wheelbarrow!  :J

Any latex free warm socks? Thanks, Julie

Thank you for this chat.  I planted wine cap spore from North Spore late in April and have only seen 1 mushroom pop up!  We're in NE Indiana and the 2, 1 x 6 ft strips are between 2 tall raised beds.  There's a trellis between the beds that had cukes and beans on them, creating a partially shaded area.

I've kept the strips fairly moist.  The base was fresh hardwood chips with a small amount of compost then some straw.  I added less than an inch of undyed bark mulch in the heat of summer.  Do we just need more time?

I carry the Felco Curved Pruning Knife.  The curve has an added benefit of safety when cutting at arm's length.  It has survived a couple of washes when left in a pant's pocket too!

We get sun damage late summer on our basil later in the summer in NE Indiana. Sad.

Thank you everyone for the lively posts!  I discovered the fruit guild concept at the homestead of a fellow Master Gardener this summer.  Now my study has expanded to food forests, permaculture, more paper and pen!  

Right after installing initial guilds under our 3 young fruit trees, our watering issues disappeared.  Yay God!  Now I have my sights on expanding them, connecting them into a food forest.  This will be an interesting process as we live on 1/3 acre WITHOUT a fence (newly Zone 6a) and are grateful to have lots of raised beds and native/ornamental beds already.  Several areas have required protection from rabbits and voles, including parts or all of the new guilds.  Coyote urine is strategy #10 or so in my quest to outsmart the rabbits, besides fencing.

Is there something I can plant to satisfy rabbits?  Or will planting say Good King Henry or more comfrey just invite even more bunnies and damage?  They already picked around the Egyptian walking onions to get to one of the American hazelnut bushes.  Fencing followed the next day!

Btw, these pics were taken before the rabbit fencing in both and haskcap (in the smaller bed) went in.  Third one is a duplicate of the small one so not attached.  These are more lovely to share with you without that green hardware cloth surrounding them!

Godspeed, Julie

Hi. Please sign me up if you are still active.
Thanks,
Julie
psalm34810@yahoo.com