First off: Congrats to Roger De Rok! He has broken the 100# weigh loss mark in just over 10 months!
Apologies to everyone for the lack of posts. I have been fighting a nasty nasty flu (and not the variety that oinks).
This is the first time that I have really been sick since I have gone Primal and it has been a bit humbling.
A lot of Primal sites talk about the fact that eating Primally can boost your immune system. I do believe this is completely true and I have largely been extremely healthy and have avoided most of “whatever is going around” for the past year. This boosted primal immunity armor is not impermeable as I have recently learned,
You CAN still get sick. There are a couple things that could have been affecting my immunity slightly. For example, money has been very tight lately. This has led to me not taking my fish oil and multi-vitamin as regularly as I normally do. I also have not been eating grass-fed and have been reduced to eating standard beef for a while. All these things may have been impacting my immune system negatively but you know what… I think I would have still gotten sick anyways.
Grok may not have been as flu and cold stricken and bed ridden as we are nowadays but he DID still get sick. So while your primal immunity armor may be strong, remember it is not unstoppable and you should still be careful when something is “going around”.
October 8th, 2009 - 5:07 pm
Hey SoG, I hope you feel better soon! I got sick over Summer despite staying healthy throughout the entire cold and flu season. It is humbling and uncomfortable…
October 8th, 2009 - 5:27 pm
Thanks for the congrats on this post!
I haven’t gotten sick since going primal and hopefully I can last a 2nd winter without even getting a cold.
I’m in the same boat with fish oil and multi-vitamins too. Now you’ve got me worried.
October 8th, 2009 - 8:47 pm
Feel better! I agree that primal is a big immune booster, but there are some powerful bugs out there. Thanks for checking in!
October 9th, 2009 - 12:01 am
I’m one of those people that used to catch every bug that went around. Since going primal I’ve only had one slight cold in the last year, although I know that at any time something could sneak up on me. Hope you feel better soon and a big congrats to Roger De Rok!
October 9th, 2009 - 9:03 am
Sorry to hear you are under the weather. I’m confined to home because my son is home sick the past two days with headache, fever, sore throat, malaise). Not sure what bug he has, but he definitely catches more things than my husband and I do (luckily we no longer seem to catch everything he brings home). My husband and I have doubled our already high Vit D doses in the interim, as that strategy has seemed to help head off or at least blunt the force of any illnesses to which we are exposed. If I could only take one supplement, it would be Vit D3. Ok, it would be a toss-up between D3 and magnesium. Even living in San Diego, I can’t seem to get and keep my 25 (OH)D level over 40 ng/mL with sunlight exposure alone (and that was deliberate summer sun – in winter it would be much lower). Adequate supplementation is my best bet for a 60-80 ng/mL Vit D level.
October 9th, 2009 - 12:06 pm
Congrats RDR! That’s awesome!
Sorry you are sick SOG!
I also have noticed better immunity since improving my diet. I used to catch colds a lot more easily. But yep, improved immunity does not mean perfect and impermeable!
Feel better soon!
October 10th, 2009 - 7:17 pm
Ugh, don’t get me started on H1N1! It’s the FLU people, not the bubonic plague!
But I’ve gotten sick recently, too. I love primal and all, but sometimes stress just catches up to you. At least, that’s how it happened for me. Hope you feel better!
October 11th, 2009 - 4:08 pm
I think there are a lot of factors when It comes to immunity. I think a healthy diet plays a major role, but also your stresslevels and how much EMF radiation your are exposed to…
October 12th, 2009 - 7:25 am
I’ve been fighting a cold that I picked up while traveling for a few days now, too. I hear ya bud.
Your diet and exercise habits will definitely play a big role in boosting your general immunity, but so will good sleeping habits (like sleeping in a very dark room), adequate exposure to the outdoors (especially sunlight), along with other things like socializing with others – laughter is the best medicine!
Get better soon, SoG!
October 14th, 2009 - 12:20 pm
Hope you are over the worst of it and feel 200% soon! I am fighting it myself and not well as its exacerbating my asthma….
October 15th, 2009 - 5:02 pm
Deanna, the flu kills many, many people each year. Are you aware of that? Are you aware of the former pandemics and how many folks they have killed. If so, your statement makes no sense, but seems quite ignorant.
October 18th, 2009 - 10:56 am
Sorry SoG for putting this on the site. If Jimbo would had an email, I’d have replied directly.
Jim, I think Deanna’s point is that there are many dangerous things in the world but that doesn’t mean that every time one arises, we should go SO crazy and instill fear in the general population. What makes H1N1 particularly frustrating is that the death rates are (relatively) on par with the regular flu that people are vaccinated for every year. Why make such a big deal of this one? Because it’s got a catchy name that resonates with bird flu (the really bad one) and it sells newspapers. As a viral immunologist, I find all this really frustrating.
Side Note: Anna, the reason your kid is getting sick way more than you is that he hasn’t been exposed to as many different types of bugs. Whenever you get sick, you generate immunological memory against the bug and generally won’t feel symptoms even if you’re infected again.
October 19th, 2009 - 12:54 am
Hope you are better my friend.
I remember I stopped getting so sick after decades of winter long flu’s when I started eating more whole food and took up weight training. So it must account for something.
Bless you! (here in Bulgaria we say the same word for ‘cheers’ and for ‘bless you.’ So we same the same thing when we drink with our buddies as when somebdy has the flu lol)
Yavor
December 22nd, 2009 - 5:51 pm
just happened upon your site today…hope you are feeling better!
yes! it does happen, the ookies find us in our moments of weakness and being opportunistic, attack! but the cool thing is that what might have kept you down for a week or more will likely only take a few days to shake when you are on a primal pathway for health.
it is both humbling and enlightening and we could all use a lesson or two in stress reduction of every kind as that is actually our biggest predator.
look forward to coming back. let that immune system do it’s job and kick some butt! ~j
January 4th, 2010 - 2:31 am
Good title, and completely true. Though if your immunity is good, you should bounce back quick times. And fish oils can get expensive… there is no doubt, but that’s when you can reduce your doseage and get the gel caps instead.
February 18th, 2010 - 11:58 am
I hate to put my two cents in on an old discussion but I think the real reason H1N1 scares more people than regular flu does is that it kills people in the young adult age group. Although we give lip service to caring when little kids die, let’s face it, the young adult demographic is pretty self-centered (especially these days, and this isn’t my mid-thirties talking–people from all walks of life are noticing it), and we are a young-adult-worshiping culture. End of story. If this flu killed only old people and little kids like every flu does, no one would care overmuch about it. Old people and little kids are largely invisible in this culture, or the young adults wish they were.
It really made me mad that so many people were Oh So Concerned about pig flu but nobody was getting tested to see if they’d actually had it. The officials were telling us not to panic, which is Officialese for “It’s time to panic,” but they weren’t actually tracking the disease. I’m glad it wasn’t ebola–if this is how the powers that be respond to a so-called crisis, we’d all be dead now.
Then on top of that, those of us who didn’t get the vaccine are criticized, even though I have good reason to believe my entire household has had H1N1 now and we have no reason to get the shot. A simple test would tell us one way or the other, but no. They’re not testing. ARGH.
I’d be curious to see how often you get sick when you’re full-on with your diet. You said you’d been sort of backsliding into CAFO meat and such. Then again, American Indians living in a way we’d call “primal” still fell prey to smallpox. I guess a strong immune system isn’t everything–our immune systems have to have experience dealing with these bugs too.