Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Barlean's Olive Leaf Complex

Ugh, again. I've been having some neuropathies lately in my left foot especially but also left hand again, and they are directly related to food. I just couldn't figure out why until I also started to have pain, like before, in the knotty groin veins that are rubbery hard and arteriosclerotic. When the pain went into the second day, I jumped onto the internet to look up the symptoms of arterioslerosis and how diet can be used to control it. While I do have the symptoms, the causes on several pages are unanimously from a high-fat diet, resulting in sticky blood cells. Well, my diet is very low fat so as not to feed the candida ... but then it occured to me that maybe I just wasn't getting enough fat, and that would also be why my vitamin A is low because to utilize vitamin A, fat is essential.

So, I jumped up and looked through my cupboards for something that would help the low fat problem but wouldn't compromise my strict candida diet. I found a bottle of Barlean's Olive Leaf Complex, which I'd been meaning to try for some time. One tablespoon is the recommended daily allowance so I drank one tablespoon. Almost instantly I felt better and the neuropathies died down a bit while the pain in the veins eased! The next day I took it again with the same results! I was so impressed that I wanted to share my good fortune with my cat, Aulait, who's had nutritional problems since I got her at 4 months of age.

I mixed up her barley green solution that I've been giving her quite regularly since she got sick shortly after I got sick; she was diagnosed with thrombocytopenia, and I had to take her into the vet every 4 months (3 times) because she would relapse. However, once I started the barley green solution, I've never had to take her back to the vet even though he said the problem would be for life! That said, the last couple of months, the muscles on her back have been getting more and more crawly (obviously a nutritional problem b/c it is certainly not thrombocytopenia) and it's pained me to see that and not know what to do. BTW, I've had to hide all plastic bags and vinyl in my house since I got her because she tries to eat them ... so maybe she's missing some natural oils too! So, I loaded up her barley green syringe with some Barlean's Olive Leaf Complex and slowly shot it into her mouth. She was not too impressed and clamped her mouth down at one point, but I got it in and then finished up with the better tasting plain barley green water. Amazingly, she seemed more relaxed afterwards! The next night I gave her another tiny bit (maybe 1/8 teaspoon) with barley green and she has been definitely better since! If only I would have known earlier!


2 1/2 years ago, both my cats and I got sick at about the same time. Whenever I drank the water in my apartment, my cheeks would tingle, among other strange things. I had been starting to get my energy and weight back from Grave's Disease (hyperthyroidism) and at first thought I was in the 40% who would relapse within two years of getting off the meds, but those symptoms were just plain WEIRD and didn't match my previous symptoms! Aulait developed very red eyes and seemed to get stiff - not good, since she was just a young 3-year-old at that time. Since I got her at 4 months, she has been a picky eater and has just refused to eat many cat foods even though she is hungry. While I've never figured out what dry ingredient(s) she's refusing, with wet cat food, she detests foods that have filler meats (her most hated is Fancy Feast, which looks like nothing but filler, so smart cat!) Cafe, on the other hand, had the cat-killer disease panleukopenia as a tiny kitty and I knew her system was compromised because she always had bad breath and extremely waxy ears growing up (I read later that both were signs of candida in cats and dogs ... if only I would have known to give Cafe barley green on her road to recovery to help heal her tortured GI track). Anyway, at just 2 years of age (the same time I was having problems with my apt water) Cafe started to have renal failure. I limped her along for 6 months even though I was getting sicker and sicker myself, but when she relapsed I had to be merciful and put her to sleep. Ah, if only I would have known about diet control for disease soooo many months ago ... as well as moved ... we would all have been better.

Anyway, I'm going to study more up on this Barlean's Olive Leaf Complex. So far my system is loving it and Aulait acts less anxious. It seems to be a nice treatment for both of our various symptoms, but I don't want just a quick-fix cure-all symptom-masker, I want to treat the underlying problem - broadly speaking, it's nutritional, specifically, candida and vitamin A deficiency for me, and for Aulait ... I'm not completely sure except that I do know her problem is dietary too. So, she sometimes gets mini-doses of what helps me.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Written several weeks later:


The olive leaf extract was helping Aulait and I so much that I decided to buy a bottle for my parents to try, specifically for my dad who has Parkinson's. Mom gives the extract to dad in a tiny med cup while she's fixing the afternoon meal and which gives time for the extract to interact in a relatively clean esophagus and empty stomach. Wow! As a Parkinson's victim, Dad frequently has bouts of choking and difficulty swallowing - not as bad as some people because Mom and Dad share some of their meals with my younger brother who has a multitude of food allergies so needs a very specific wheat-free and other allergen-free diet. Anyway, Dad doesn't analyze food as being a problem, but he's been commenting from Day #1 that the olive leaf extract has been soothing to his throat and calming down tightness, numbness, and other strange feelings he has. It's also eliminated a lot of the coughing he's had to do during a meal when food seems to stick in his throat. So, wow! Bet you can't guess what's gonna be in Dad's stocking this Christmas?

1 comment:

  1. How is your cat doing? Good, I hope.

    I found your page looking up about Barleans Olive Leaf Complex. I take it myself for candida/yeast problems. It helps a lot, even when I don’t eat strict (very hard for me to do). I also, after researching it, have just started giving it to my cats (day 2 of). I just wanted to let you know that from what I have read, The OL is better for cats if it doesnt have the peppermint in it, so I use the natural flavor. From what I have found out, peppermint can possibly cause problems in cats.

    There are conflicting reports, but I would rather ere on the side of caution and use the natural for the cats. I use the peppermint for me. I just wanted to let you know of this, in case you didn’t know about it - and if you wanted, to check it out yourself.

    Also, to let you know that Amazon has a good price for the peppermint. And the natural I just got (the best price on the net) at “Lucky Vitamins”. (That was my first time ordering from them, but they had the best price on the natural OL -$25.80 -and the best price on some other vitamins I needed, so then I got free shipping and everything came fine.)

    I see this was wrote in 2011, and I don’t know if you still give it to your cat, but I just wanted to let you know about it. And if you DO still give it ... how has it benefitted your cat? I am hoping to see a lot of improvements in my older cats! -Cathy (Oct. 21st, 2012)
    email: num1abbafan@aol.com

    P.S. By the way, your blog is really great. Very thorough and informative. I am looking over some of the recipes and maybe they can help me to stay on the “strict’ diet that is SOOOO hard to do! Very nice pictures, too!

    P.P.S. One more thing, you have a wide variety of different suggestions you have used or tried, but I didn’t see any on there about “oil pulling”. It is something to look into. When I was desperate, I tried it. And not knowing the actual “how’s” (there are many theories) of why it works, all I can say is it has helped me in MANY different ways. Something to look into and try and maybe write on your blog about!

    “Earth Clinic” is a site that has a lot of helpful stuff on it, and other, things that people have tried for all different kinds of problems. Of course, it is peoples own experiences, so you take what you want, and can ignore the rest if not relevant or fits you.

    (I don’t know much about how blogs work, and I don’t even know if you will even see this as its an older page, and I don’t know how else to contact you, but I hope you see it and I left my email if you wanted to reply.)

    ReplyDelete