About Me
I’m a female in my thirties. I live in the UK, in a pretty, leafy Edwardian garden district. I have a very supportive partner, without whom I would not have time to write this blog.
I have a postgrad degree in writing (fiction and journalism), and an undergrad degree in the social sciences. I didn’t catch on until my early twenties that I have a brain for actual science. After I finished my postgraduate degree, I taught myself to program computers and design websites, and when I do paid work, that is what I do.
I have an IQ of about 150, give or take a few points. I also score highly on tests designed to detect asperger’s syndrome. On left brain/right brain tests, I come out almost perfectly centered. I have comorbid ADD traits and possibly cyclothymia, which I am careful to control. I have no intention of getting an official diagnosis.
I have been writing this blog for many years. For twenty years I was diagnosed with ME/fibromyalgia. It turns out that this was a misdiagnosis and I have been suffering unnecessarily for a long time. I actually have autoimmune thyroid disease. At the very least I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis – however, I also have Thyroid Eye Disease, which suggests that I have Graves Disease antibodies too. Sometimes it can be hard to control my thyroid hormone levels as a result, as they fluctuate and throw up confusing symptoms.
My ambition is actually to be a fantasy/science-fiction writer. I struggle with writer’s block on a daily basis, which is where this blog comes from. Sometimes when you can’t write about what you really want to write, it’s really easy to write about everything else.
I’m also a sudoku and logic puzzle-solving freak.
My other strong interests are in science, atheism, genetics, medicine and nutrition, the main topics of this blog.
I support conventional/allopathic medicine 99% of the time, though I am resistant to the use of some drugs since I am someone who is prone to massive side effects. Through accident rather than design I am relatively familiar with the curious world of alternative medicine and I spend a significant amount of my time debunking alternative ‘treatments’ and mind-traps, though when allopathic medicine is lacking in scientific rigour, I will challenge established dogma too. I am happy to support complementary medicine treatments that have evidence to support them – for example, the use of vitamins and diets to gently hinder the progression of disease.
One major bone of contention I have with conventional medicine relates to the cholesterol hypothesis and the usefulness of low carbohydrate diets in treating various diseases – a disagreement based on personal experience of a low carbohydrate diet. Low carbohydrate diets are now starting to be exonerated by science, whilst many regular ‘old school’ GPs in the UK question the use of statins for the lowering of cholesterol. I believe that low carbohydrate diets are extremely important in the correct treatment of diabetes.
The second bone of contention I have with conventional medicine is in the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid diseases. The blood tests that doctors use simply aren’t sensitive enough to detect thyroid disease in all people. Often doctors do not even test the levels of the active thyroid hormone, T3, or provide thorough enough or sensitive enough antibody tests to detect autoimmune disease. In addition, not everyone with a thyroid problem gets better when they take levothyroxine. Some people require Natural Dessicated Thyroid tablets in order to see an improvement. Doctors rely far too heavily on questionable blood tests, instead of treating the patient. My own experience of standard medical treatment has thus far been frustrating, and I often find myself doing what I know feels best for my body, rather than sticking to what doctors believe are the rules.
As well as frequent bouts of low-carbing, I loosely follow a diet called the failsafe diet. The failsafe diet is not alternative medicine, it is a medical diet developed by the allergy department at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and prescribed widely in Australia for salicylate (aspirin) intolerance and intolerance to related food chemicals. This diet has helped me with a variety of symptoms, including my concentration problems, which I now know are thyroid/autoimmune related.
Few people have heard of the failsafe diet outside of Australia, though it could help many people with symptoms similar to mine. It is very good for children with attention deficit disorder. The autistic UK writer and artist Donna Williams follows a diet similar to mine.
This blog centres around my health journey and on the discoveries I make and the connections I see between various health problems.
