weekend library raid again

[anotheranon]

Hit the library to put in an ILL for "Uniforms of the British Army, Navy" etc. but despite my existing stack I couldn't stay away from the shelves :P Managed to get a lot of the political books that are always checked out/have a long waiting list:

• Crimes Against Nature by RFK Jr., about the destruction the Bush Administration and others are doing to the environment
  
• Body of Secrets, a history of the NSA
  
• The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, which I've been trying to get hold of for months, but was always checked out
  
• The Life of Thomas More - ok, it's not modern politics, but it sure mattered in the 1520s :P Besides, my dad liked to refer to this guy as "the last honest lawyer" and enjoyed this book, so I figure I'll read it as a tribute to him :/

Still not feeling great. Headache and sore throat seem to have settled in. I'm trying nminusone's recommendation of medicinal use of xylitol, and while it coats the throat nicely I'm not noticing any real improvement.

I'm hoping I don't suffer a mood drop by evening, as has happened for the past couple of Sundays. Honestly, I don't dread Monday mornings that much, I just wish the weekends were longer and that I'd get well to enjoy them (not hitting Air and Space - neither of us really feel like it).

Comments

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I AM eating - D. made divine banana bread so I've been munching that a lot. I wouldn't say I'm eating more than usual though - just not that hungry! You do remind me though - I always thought it was feed a cold, starve a fever, now I know it's the other way around!

Thanks for your suggestions above though - I'll let you know.

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

Ok, just keep up the eating! Knowing when to eat is tricky when you're not well; the usual rules go out the window. My comments below aren't directed at you, rather, I just wanted to expand on and clarify some points about eating when you're sick. It really is kinda tricky, and it often does feel like forcing oneself to eat, which makes it very hard to know when and how much to eat. It's also amazing how quickly eating becomes a chore, if you have to do it when you're not hungry!

> I always thought it was feed a cold, starve a fever, now I know
> it's the other way around!

Personally I don't agree with that axiom, in forward or in reverse. Nobody's immune system ever runs on air, and when it's really working hard it can consume calories at a rate in the ballpark of your normal resting metabolic rate (RMR). Usually it's less than this amount, but the basic idea is that the immune system can burn a lot of calories. This means you might need to do as much as double your calorie intake in some cases.

If you're not taking in enough calories, you get one of 2 things happening. Either your body tears itself apart, literally, to get fuel, or it throttles back the immune response. In most cases, there will be some of each happening. A lot of the muscle pain from illness is due to your body breaking down muscle and using it as food (catabolism). What's worse, the body can't run on protein alone, so it has to use some of the broken-down protein to make sugar. This process is very inefficient (uses a lot of muscle to make a little sugar) and hard on the body because it throws off a lot of ammonia. Being in a catabolic state when you're sick is very bad. (It also makes you feel like crap; even without being ill, low blood sugar + high ammonia is a great recipe for a bad mood. You'll also be at least somewhat ketotic. This state is somewhat comparable to the Atkins "induction" phase.)

At these times you literally have to force yourself to eat, because the exact same condition that leads to catabolism (high cortisol) also suppresses your appetite. You won't feel hungry, instead you might feel jittery, stressed or anxious. As secondary effects you might feel sore, tired or weak. You might also find your heart rate and possibly breathing to be faster than you'd expect, espcially when at rest, and you might notice that even a very slight exercise, like a flight of stairs, seems way more exerting than it should. You might even be highly productive, in a "gotta hurry, can't stop to eat" sort of way. Those things should all be treated as signs of hunger when you're sick.

Vitamin C throws another confusing factor into the equation. Let's keep it short and say that all of what I'm describing here applies to people who are getting enough vitamin c, in the context of whatever their immune system is fighting. If you're not getting enough then things are a little different, since the weak link in the chain is no longer food, but vitamin c. I'm not going to talk about that case because what's the use in coaching someone to run a marathon with leg irons on?

If you're not sore, weak or tired, jittery, nervous or agitated, and your temperature is normal, then you're probably eating enough. I realize that it's normally a very bad idea to use food to relax yourself, but in the case of illness, it's often essential.