#@#% Sugar & How Pericarditis “Treatment” Almost Killed Me

Off-topic Sunday.

Have I ever mentioned how much I’m not a fan of the fruit hippie superfood-yoga-mediation movement? 

Which makes this little story (of how I may well almost have died) all the more ironic.

Many years ago, I had a thing called acute pericarditis.  Lining of the heart, diagnosed as having to be surgically removed.  They told me that the outcome could be “complicated”.  And as it turns out, they were really badly wrong.  

Good thing I didn’t listen to them.  

This story, might well be worth taking to the proverbial heart.  

“We don’t know what’s wrong with it.  So let’s just cut it out!”

Here’s how it went down.

Back in time a number of years.  I was just heading out for a morning run, late summer in Chicago.  Suddenly and out of the blue, I have this massive stabbing pain in my chest.  Every breath I’d try to take, it feels like being stabbed with a large needle.  And back then I’m still in my 20’s, healthy, not fat, no drinking, no smoking.  No drugs, even.

I take the next cab to the hospital.  

They spend half the day running tests, and come up with nothing.  At that point it is getting so bad that I hold my breath until getting air would eventually be worth the stabbing pain that would go with it.  The doctors, in usual fashion, display a whole lot of could-care-less, and all I get out of the experience was  large bill that I’d spend the next few months arguing with the insurance company about.

The attitude of the hospital staff was really frustrating, considering the state I was in.  Take anything between don’t-belive, and don’t-care.  I harbor some strong resentments if I think about it, to this day.

But the pericarditis, as it was eventually diagnosed, was no joke at all.  I couldn’t lay down, so I ended up sleeping sitting on couch.  For months this continued, I couldn’t go to work, I basically didn’t leave the house anymore.  My girlfriend left me, and things were looking bleak all around.

Doctors eventually recommended that the pericardium be removed.  That’s the lining around the heart.  They wanted to cut open my chest, and take out the lining around my heart as a way of treating my perdicarditis.  Imagine that happening to you!

Seriously.  That was their best answer.  

Now my rule on surgery is simple.  It’s … no.

Unless it’s something that is well explained and rational, like removing a tumor, or fixing up a paragliding accident, I’m pretty tenuous when it comes to doctors and their surgery-is-the-answer-for-everything approach.

They didn’t know how it happened nor why it persisted, so their answer was to just cut it out. That’s not a confidence inspiring diagnosis.  Would you trust somebody whose answer is “we don’t know” to the entire condition, with a … “treatment”?   

I stayed on the couch.

Some months later, and at this point I was pretty seriously contemplating pulling the plug on life in general, a friend introduced me to “the bud”.  The green weed, much vilified at that time in the U.S.  That stuff may well have saved my life.  At least in the short term it made a huge, serious difference.

I owe you, weed-plant.

Later on I discovered the full story on sugar, inflammation, and various blood tests that can tell us all sorts of fascinating things about what’s going in our bodies.  Science knows, even if the surgeon doesn’t.

Had I only known back then …

It’s a guess piecing it together in hindsight, but based on my diet at the time (which I thought was healthy), and my blood sugar, triglycerides, and various inflammation markers, industrial food very possibly did its part to take me really close to the brink of some one-way bridge diving.

The weed smoking hippies pulled me back from the brink.  And then the food shanti-shanti’s taught me lots of things about food and biochemistry.

Yes, ironic.

I guess I’m still not so much a fan of the general hippie anti-corporate style and zeal.  I still don’t smoke any weed-like substances recreationally (or at all really, since the pericarditis went away).  But when the only options are a huge and totally out of control profit mill (with complicit government and “healthcare” racket) or the weird hippies … well, then I guess I’ll take the hippies.

And it did, go away, the pericarditis.  I still have the lining around my heart, and it’s perfectly fine.  I could be a mess right now, big scar on my chest, “future complications” with my heart, if I had listened to those complete and utter hacks, calling themselves doctors.  (sorry, but come on)

And then a while later I got into the whole thing about eyesight and optometry.  You already know about all that.  Maybe I was primed to mistrust the establishment, from on the whole pericarditis fiasco.  

If you read this giant rambling digression this far, here’s the payoff:

Sugar truly is way bigger of a problem than you may realize.  And even if you don’t eat sugar, you might still be getting a colossal, serious, toxic amount of that stuff as part of your diet anyway.  

Because it turns out, sugar is hidden in lots of packaged food.  Here’s some possible symptoms:

If your triglycerides are a bit high, if you have some belly fat you just can’t get rid of, dig into the sugar topic.

Those are some strong clues.

Bags under your eyes, mood swings, the belly-fat tell, it might all point to a much bigger picture.  I’m not a nutritionist, and this blog isn’t the place for getting into that huge subject.  It’s just off-topic Sunday.  

I went 100% off sugar for a long time after the whole pericardi-oops story.  No simple carbs, no “white” foods.  With barely any exercise I looked ripped and felt great.  I’d eat twice a day and never be hungry.

But I fell back into the sugar hole a bit more recent, mostly because Thailand.

And the excuse is, “eh, it’s just a little bit”.  You don’t notice the subtle changes as they happen.  Now Jakey is moody again, the belly fat symptom is back a little bit, and my blood tests confirm that what seems like “a little bit” actually amounts to more than just that.

If you’re anything like me, you’re not inclined to take action based on vagueities and general “wah this is bad” talk.  

So watch “That Sugar Film“, instead.