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lil chick's log
Hey I've got some head-cold symptoms and I wonder... can this be from increasing soluble fiber? I know some here said that they got some detox symptoms.
Yup yup. I'm long past my superman period and since knocking off the booze I have had intermittent dry eyes, consistently terrible night vision and just today after my leisurely bath I noticed that my arms and palms were dry, to the point where I could see the dead white skin sloughing off. Granted we are into the cool and very dry weather here in NC but this is still a new experience for me. Also an intermittent hollow sounding pressure in the ears once a week or so, which I had x100 when I first began this journey (then it lasted only a night, but it scared me pretty bad).
I'm pretty miserable this week, and you know what? I think it was the travel, not the fiber. Ears ringing, dry cough, sore mouth (unable to talk or eat), running nose, cramping feet, cold extremities, peeling lips, low energy, grumpy...
I actually think the fiber might have helped in some ways (at least I didn't come down with 2 weeks of the runs, like last time I traveled)
I've always thought that my mysterious symptoms fit into the moniker Lupus.
I suppose that in normie language... The stresses of travel makes my "lupus" flare. This is the 4th time in a row I've tried to get back to travel and come home "sick".
At my advanced age, (62) I don't think setbacks are a great idea. I think after a certain age you should avoid things that set you back because it becomes harder and harder to recover things like muscle mass after a week or so on the couch. And so I've set a goal of NOT traveling for a while.
Deciding not to do things that put me on the couch (at my age) is working for me! I didn't garden this year. My back thanks me everyday. It says: "Hey, you stopped being a hero! Good for you. Now that you have stopped hurting me, I can knit back together."
I hate traveling, so it isn't a big loss.
It's interesting that even though I now don't get motion sick (which is GREAT)... travel still sucks for me. It's not just the motion that makes travel bad. As we spoke about on another thread, there are the chemicals (such as bed bug sprays?). There is the poor sleep. There is the restaurant food. Skipping meals.
I saw the idea of a "reverse bucket list" and it was described as being things that... even if you DON'T get them... you will be ok/happy. I think of it as the joy of letting go. I'm spared thinking of it. Yay.
It occurs to me that the (perfectly nice in any other way) hotel that we have stayed at a half a dozen times has made me ill most of those times. Over 6 visits I've spent one night there and woke up in the morning with nausea and chills and couldn't arise. Spent five days there thinking I had caught the runs and waiting to get better (and afraid to go out and enjoy my trip, afraid to make others sick)... I've also spent several nights of insomnia there, despite it being "clean", "quiet", "comfortable" and pretty darn expensive. I have felt over-emotional at breakfast, like I was going to burst into tears. And now the current "flare up".
The first night there (last week) I definitely smelled what I now consider to be a "bed bug spray" smell. A chemical scent with slight undertones of rotting grapefruit. I have also smelled it in airbnb's. I've have a super-nose, it seems to run in the women in my family. We detect smells others don't.
People who don't have problems already with overloaded/damaged liver/kidney probably manage pesticide exposures better. (Ken, I'll take "What is chemical sensitivity?" for 100$ please).
None of these modern hotels have windows that open. A brand new hotel we also stayed at didn't seem to bother me, but the older one mentioned above (twenty years or so) probably has been sprayed and resprayed and resprayed. ( The layers of pesticides build, the air recirculates and recirculates). Shaking my head. We have become our own worst enemies. This particular hotel room also allows pets, which perhaps makes them even more spray-happy.
I'm just now remembering the story of a friend of a friend... who worked cleaning hotel rooms. She worked through worsening health and excruciating pain, and eventually died young from cancer.
My husband accrued his liver-area fat... the year that he lived out of a hotel room... to work to support us... far from home.
"The most frequently reported health outcomes were neurologic symptoms (40%), including headache and dizziness; respiratory symptoms (40%), including upper respiratory tract pain and irritation and dyspnea; and gastrointestinal symptoms (33%), including nausea and vomiting.
Among cases, 13 (12%) were work-related. Of these, three illnesses involved workers who applied pesticides, including two pest control operators, of whom one was a certified applicator. Four cases involved workers who were unaware of pesticide applications (e.g., two carpet cleaners who cleaned an apartment recently treated with pesticides). Two cases involved hotel workers (a maintenance worker and a manager) who were exposed when they entered a recently treated hotel room,"
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6037a1.htm
I actually think my stomach was good this time, perhaps the soluble fiber I've been increasing...really helped move the bad stuff through the lower GI.
I think it is super interesting that someone on the canker thread suggested salicylate intolerance, because salicylates are *plant* bug-poisons.
We once bought a wasp spray that was "no chemical" LOL ... it was 100% mint.
Maybe it's not so much the travel that's problematic, but that you guys don't have good places to stay at. I'd try an Airbnb in a remote area to avoid being bombarded by EMF, and also before booking, I'd ask if the place has been sprayed with pesticides. I'm sure there are places out there that would be safe and not set you back on your health journey. It may take some work and planning, but this is certainly doable. If travel means visiting kids or extended family, that requires you to fly.
I've stayed at lovely places when I was in France and Italy for some vacations. I look for old buildings, which I've had great experiences with. Usually, the modern houses look fancy in pictures, but they lack the charm, and some come with too much tech (floor heating, AC, and whatnot). When you stay at Airbnbs, you can also cook your own food and must not eat whatever the hotel kitchen prepares for you.
Since this whole thing happened, I’ve found that I’ve become sensitive to cleaning products too and can tell straight away when they’ve been used - the smell seems overpowering now and it makes it hard for me to breathe. I open all the windows until it dissipates.
I want to give a little early update on what I am experiencing with the soluble fiber, but first...
Thanks, Hermes! I am pondering how travel should look for husband-and-I now that we are nearing retirement, and I think we do want to have some adventures. I was thinking about what Joseph said about keeping things simple on his log, and I think we need to solve husband's snoring issue and then possibly we could start camping? I can totally see how old European hotels might be very nice, airy places to stay (unlike American boxed-in chemical nightmares).
Yah, Tanveen, I stopped buying cleaning "products" long ago. I use white vinegar on things like toilets, and often just clean with hot water for most other things. The white vinegar has actually etched one of our plastic toilet seats after 25 years. But they are not that expensive to replace.
One thing I liked about this hotel was that it wasn't full of strange scents. The scent I did smell in the night was elusive, subtle.
I'm sad the hotel didn't work out because I was hoping if we went back there often enough I'd start feeling "homey" there (since people say my travel symptoms are just stress, and at this point I do suppose that some of my travel woes might appear to be irrational fears ie phobias). (but aren't they *rational fears* if I always get mysterious symptoms traveling? How is that irrational, I ask you, LOL?) But oh well! (and it WAS starting to feel homey!). (as an aside, there is a special place in hell for people who write off mysterious symptoms as psycho-somatic, and I hope I've never done it to others)
Anyways, it is early but I thank everyone here for staying on me to increase my SOLUBLE fiber. It really might be a missing piece for me, a blockage, really. (LOL?)
I've been increasing it for about 2 weeks now and I do think it is having good effects and I'm feeling like I have finally the real answer to: Is fiber a friend or a foe to humans? A long time back (pre Grant, during my wapf days) I read "Fiber Menace" and another book "The Blood Type Diet" (which was about lectins) and I got it into my skull that I probably was a person who didn't need fiber. I've always been a good pooper, so why would I want to fix something that wasn't broken? Perhaps my low-fiber lifestyle was part of the reason I ended up more VA toxic than, perhaps, other WAPF'ers?
This realization almost makes me want to ping on Wavy Gravy, but I will wait because it is early yet. (Wavy was definitely anti fiber!)
Nana's diet right yet again... (it definitely contained soluble fiber).
Last night I slept for 6 hours straight without waking or tossing and I was amazed. In the olden days, pre-Grant I would never have been able to stay in one position for that long, awake or asleep. Soreness would happen. The soluble fiber ? has pushed me farther into comfort within my body... if I'm not mistaken.
Don't read past here if you don't want to hear about poop.
I think I now have much LESS GAS!!!! (not more!) and my poops (which were always regular) are now better formed and MUCH easier to clean up afterward. There was a joke on the show "Community", it was about how the guy compared wiping his butt to wiping a marker. LOL. I would call it the "million wiper". If that is normal, how did people live in the olden days without toilet paper etc? I think the answer is, they ate soluble fiber!
Ands If you think about it, that sticky mess is probably all the way up the wazzoo, not just at the exit point. (sorry).
The only "down side" or "challenging issue" is the need for a toilet in the morning can be a bit more urgent. Which can also be hard for traveling. But in a way, when traveling, a strong BM is much better than no BM!
Quote from lil chick on October 13, 2025, 6:49 amI'm sad the hotel didn't work out because I was hoping if we went back there often enough I'd start feeling "homey" there (since people say my travel symptoms are just stress, and at this point I do suppose that some of my travel woes might appear to be irrational fears ie phobias). (but aren't they *rational fears* if I always get mysterious symptoms traveling? How is that irrational, I ask you, LOL?) But oh well! (and it WAS starting to feel homey!). (as an aside, there is a special place in hell for people who write off mysterious symptoms as psycho-somatic, and I hope I've never done it to others)
Take your reactions to pesticide-bombed places seriously. You know exactly what's holding you back from having a good time travelling. People have all sorts of rationalizations for their own malaise, one being the uniform "it's stress", which is so non descriptive you can't actually find a solution to that problem. You're pretty damn self-aware about your issues, it's just time to take those seriously enough that you don't talk yourself out of them just because people are saying this or that. I'm not here to say "don't listen to other people", because that's as foolish as taking other people's voices more seriously than your own. As usual, it's about holding different views in tension, that's called wisdom.