Secondary Infertility is a Bitch

So  I know what you're thinking- at least you have a child. I'm not saying primary infertility isn't a bitch- but it's still just as hard when you want another baby and it just isn't happening. I love Makayla but I never wanted an only child. I have big plans. Four to be exact. Jeff and I have been trying for Number 2 for over a year now. Granted, Jeff was in Afghanistan for a good chunk of the year, but he was home for leave several times. I guess since was Makayla was a surprise baby, I figured it wouldn't be hard to get pregnant again. My body has other plans though.

My cycles have been irregular my whole life, it's one of the reasons we have Makayla. Over the past year it has gotten worse. I had a total of three periods the whole year. I went to the doctor who gave me 10 progesterone pills to jump start my body and it worked- once. When I went back she seemed totally uninterested in figuring out what is wrong with me so I took to diagnosing myself. I had her test my thyroid levels- they came back normal. I got the normal yearly workup- everything seemed fine. I gave up on even going to see her. I've recently come to the realization that I am an exact fit to the symptoms of PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome). I've made an appointment to see a new doctor to confirm but it doesn't really matter much. The "treatment" for PCOS is very limited. To regulate the cycles they prescribe birth control. Unless you want to get pregnant. Then you're basically shit out of luck. The treatment there is to lose weight (one of the symptoms of PCOS is unexplained weight gain) and hope your cycle returns when you lose it. Also, they will prescribe clomid to increase the possibility of ovulating. Some data indicates that women with PCOS are "insulin resistant" which means that the insulin in my body is less effective at lowing my blood sugar and leads to weight gain and makes it more difficult to lose weight.

Over the past two months I have been trying to lose weight by reducing my food intake and increasing my activity. I walked with Mom and Vanessa for about a month and lost zero pounds. I started biking and I've been busy building a fence in the sweltering heat and I've gained weight. So I got to thinking about back when I was in college and I went on the Atkins diet. Atkins was all about controlling your blood sugar levels throughout the day by not eating carbohydrates that are quickly broken down into simple sugars and cause blood sugar spikes. I lost a lot of weight on Atkins. So I decided this week, I was done with carbs. I've been feeling really great this week, never hungry and I've found loads of low carb recipes that make me feel like I'm not missing a thing. And I've lost 7 pounds. Now that may be water weight, but I didn't lose anything with the last two things I've tried so it's something.

It's time to take charge. I'm tired of feeling jealous of every woman I know who has announced a pregnancy (or birth) in the last year and a half. Yes, if you've been pregnant, I mean you. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for you and your babies are adorable. That doesn't stop me from being jealous that you have what I so badly want.

Busy, busy

It's been a busy last couple of weeks for me and I haven't had time to write anything. I've been saving horrible homemade cosmetic products from pinterest left and right so get ready. Or, if you prefer to waste your time and money making petri dish products and poisoning yourself, don't read this blog.

We had a wood chipping extravaganza a couple weekends ago in which we chipped all of the sticks and logs that would fit in a 6 inch industrial chipper at our house and my parents house. We are attempting to clear the future fence line at our house so we can install the new fence. The previous owners of our home really did not like to do any type of yard work or home repair work. They had a boat. Enough said. The next phase is to rent a log splitter so that we can split the hundred or so massive logs left over from tree removal over the years that are piled directly in the path of the fence. Should be a blasty blast!

The garden is doing very well at my parents house. I more than doubled the size of the garden this year with the help of my trusty Cub Cadet Yanmar and implements.  We are almost finished with the weeding and the summer squashes and peppers are already producing fruit. I realize most people have been getting squash for a while now but I was three weeks late in planting because I was still working on the expansion. The massive heat wave helped everything shoot right up despite the late start. I ordered wood for the fence around the garden. Woodchucks have been nibbling the zucchinis so that project is high priority. We tried out the PHD last night finally- it works pretty well but being that my parents property is nothing but rocks it's not perfect. When it hits a rock that spans the width of the hole it can't get through it so it looks like I'm still going to have to use the damn breaker bar.

Speaking of the heat wave, we bought and installed a pool last weekend. It's pretty sweet. Dad has been drawing up some plans for a nice deck and fence for safety (and code with the city). It's going to be awesome.

Work has been busy too- Bossman is in China for two weeks right now. Which is nice because I don't have to deal with him but bad because I have to do all of his work too. I had a big success with the reformulation of our Seriously Shine Free matting moisturizer. I have never liked the product as it was because it was billed as "matting" but it really did nothing of the sort. I had to do battle with a few people who wanted me to make it a heavier moisturizer (because a heavy lotion for oily skin makes PERFECT sense) but in the end I did what I wanted and everyone loved it. It's now a weightless matting moisturizer and a stable formula. I've been battling NPD on a regular basis too- mostly because they are way too set in their ways and beliefs about what sells. I get tired of making coral shade strawberry lip glosses. "But strawberry sells!" Maybe that's true but if we never try anything new how will we know if kids want something else? We don't do focus groups so I don't feel like we really understand our target consumer. Shots in the dark. We could do so much better. When it comes to evaluating "new" flavors I have to get comments from the NPD lady, her boss, and her bosses boss. Then, when they all like it, it has to go to the owner's wife who has to like it. If at any point someone doesn't like it then it dies. This is such an inefficient system. They have NPD lady there because she is supposedly the "flavor guru" (even though she doesn't realize that creme brulee does not taste like caramel...). The way it works now though is that we never even try anything that the owner's wife doesn't like. So she hates cherry and mint and honey- so I can never use those flavors. Never mind that there are plenty of people who do like those flavors. Whatever. One day, the guard will change, and hopefully before the company is run to the ground.

So anyway, yeah it's been busy. Back to work!

Homeopathy

"There's a sucker born every minute." - David Hannum

I'll admit it- I was one of those suckers.  This past winter, Makayla had a cold and cough. There was no reason to go to the doctor in my opinion, but she said her throat hurt when she coughed so I went to the drug store and looked for some cough medicine. Unfortunately everything there was for children over the age of 4-6 (she's 3). Everything except so called homeopathic remedies. I bought Hyland's Cough Syrup 4 Kids and gave it to her. She said it tasted good but she coughed for the rest of the day. I noticed no improvement in her symptoms until two days later when she gradually started getting better. Makayla does not get sick very often, in fact she's never been to the doctor for a sick visit. She gets two or three colds a year that clear up fairly quickly so I hardly ever have cause to think about medication for her.

Today I was perusing Science Based Medicine because I'm kind of obsessed with it at the moment and I love finding out about things I didn't know. So today I picked homeopathy to look into. I read it and said "Wow, I'm an idiot" because honestly I was completely ignorant of what homeopathy really is.

Homeopathy is the practice of treating "like with like". Basically the "premise" behind it is that you can cure illness by treating it with extremely dilute concentrations of what made you sick. For example, treating lead poisoning with an extremely dilute concentration of lead.  After I read that I knew that this whole thing was nothing but shenanigans. THEN I read HOW dilute. This is the process for creating a 6X HPUS homeopathic dilution:

1. Fill a 100mL container with the mother tincture
2. Dump it out
3. Fill the container with water
4. Shake it
5. Dump it out
6. Repeat 2 more times

The dilution of the "potentized" liquid will be 10^(-6) or  0.000001:1. Seriously, that is absurdly small. The irony of that is that this is a relatively strong dilution in the world of homeopathy. One of the most common nostrums is that of oscillococcinum. First off- oscillococcus don't exist. In the 1919 flu epidemic a physician who did not understand that artifacts on the slide, probably bubbles, move randomly due to Brownian motion.  Looking at the tissues of flu patients with a microscope, he  found what he thought was not only the cause of influenza, small cocci (round balls) that oscillated under the microscope.  He found these wiggling bubbles in all the tissues of all the ill people he examined and thought he discovered the true cause of all disease. He is the only person, before or since, to see these oscillating cocci. So to make oscillococcinum take the heart and liver of a duck and stick it in a bottle with pancreas goo and sugar. Wait for 40 days until it autolyzes into a goo. Then dump it out. Refill with water. Shake it. Repeat 200 times. 200 TIMES! The final dilution of this solution would be 10^(-400). That is a decimal point, 399 zeros and a 1. To put that in perspective there are about 10^80 molecules in the entire universe. So to find one molecule of duck goo in this solution you need to have 4 more universes to look in. This will cure the flu.

So let's look at a popular homeopathic remedy that I see advertised in my parenting magazines frequently. Hyland's Teething Tablets

The ingredients used in this product are:

• Calcarea Phosphorica 6X HPUS: teething, dentition
• Chamomilla 6X HPUS: irritability
• Coffea Cruda 6X HPUS: sleeplessness
• Belladonna 12X HPUS: redness and inflammation

in a base of Lactose (or sugar)

Calcarea Phosphorica is calcium phosphate
Chamomilla is chamomile
Coffea Cruda is unroasted coffee beans
Belladonna is Death Cherries or Deadly Nightshade

I'm going to go ahead and point out that obviously there are none of these in the actual product. But Belladonna is Deadly Nightshade- a POISONOUS plant. Eat it and you die. In a product for babies. Makes perfect sense. So basically these are sugar pills or placebos. So the only effect you could possibly get from them would be a placebo effect in which you have convinced yourself that it is working so it is.

What really pisses me off about these products is that they are sold as medicine, right next to the real medicine when they are anything but.

So to sum up- homeopathy is complete bullshit. The more you know...

Vaccinations Should Not Be A Choice

Let me start off by saying that I know it is unlikely that anyone will change their minds after reading this but this is an issue that I feel extremely strongly about so I'm going to say what I have to say.

If you do not vaccinate your children you could be responsible for the death of your child or another persons child. Vaccinations are primarily about the individual being vaccinated but there is another very important aspect. "Herd immunity" protects those who cannot get vaccinations. There are valid reasons for not getting vaccinations:

• Weakened immune system (i.e. fighting cancer)
• If you are moderately to severely ill at the time a vaccine is to be given you should wait until you recover
• Allergic to component of vaccine 
• Eggs- the influenza and yellow fever vaccines contain egg protein
• Antibiotics- polio contains streptomycin, neomycin, and polymyxin B and MMR and varicella have trace amounts of neomycin. No vaccine contains penicillin or related antibiotics.
• Gelatin- an ingredient in MMR, yellow fever and varicella
• Too young to receive the vaccine
• Some vaccines should not be given during pregnancy

That's it- everyone else should be vaccinated. So when people choose not to vaccinate their children and "let nature take it's course" they are risking the lives of those who don't have a choice. When an unvaccinated child contracts -for example- pertussis there is an incubation time where they are walking around spreading the virus to those who are the least able to handle it. Please read the story of Dana McAffery, a 4 week old infant who died from pertussis in Australia.

I'd like to make an analogy here to the pro-life/ pro-choice debate. Pro-lifers say that abortion should not be allowed because you are taking the life of child who does not have a say. Anti-vaxxers are taking the lives of children who cannot receive vaccines due to the reasons above.

I could debunk every reason why anti-vaxxers don't vaccinate their children but many have done that already. Here is an extremely thorough debunking. Stop killing babies. Vaccinate your children.

If you have to explain it, it wasn't funny.

I used to follow a blog called people I want to punch in the throat. The first post I read was funny but then as she "went viral" she got meaner with every post. If anyone dared to disagree with the post or comment with a valid point that person was immediately attacked by her vicious followers for "not getting the joke". They would instantly scream "BUT IT'S SATIRE!!!" "IT'S JUST A JOKE!" and be chastised for their lack of a sense of humor. To me, she just turned into a bully. She picked on people for posting pictures of their dinners on FB, a list of things they accomplished for the day as their status, or a whole litany of things that annoyed her. She relentlessly picks on what she calls "OAMs" (over achieving moms) just for trying to be good parents. Because they are trying too hard. BUT IT'S SATIRE! I'm sorry but if you have to continually defend your writing as satire, maybe you just aren't that funny.

Top Ten Most Misleading Cosmetics Claims: 5th Installment

Understanding "Helps" Claims

There are two categories recognized for cosmetics; cosmetics and drugs.

• Cosmetics- products intended to be applied to the human body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness or altering the appearance.   
• Drugs- products intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease in man. 

 A drug product is subject to registration, testing, labeling and packaging requirements that a cosmetic product is not. Since by definition a drug product is intended to treat something the claims that can be made on a drug product are substantially different than a cosmetic product. A drug product has an active ingredient that is recognized as a treatment for a disease or condition by FDA. For example, acne treatments. Here are the claims for Neutrogena Rapid Clear Acne Defense Face Lotion:

Contains maximum-strength acne-fighting medicine with botanical extracts to fight existing acne, help prevent future breakouts and leave skin feeling soft. This lightweight, daily lotion fights the multiple symptoms of acne. A powerful formula contains soothing natural botanicals to help prevent irritation, peeling or dryness. Powerful Salicylic Acid fights acne fast, penetrating deep into pores to unblock dirt and oil while sweeping away dead surface cells that can cause future breakouts.

The monograph for the active ingredient- salicylic acid- defines what you can say about the product. Salicylic acid is recognized as a treatment for acne and it functions by exfoliating the skin of dead skin cells which can block pores and cause acne. Botanical ingredients are not recognized as a treatment so any claim related to them must include the word helps.

Of course cosmetics companies want you to believe that a cosmetic (not drug) product is going to do something for you otherwise why would you buy it? So they couch their claims with words like "helps" and "reduces the appearance" and this is where it gets misleading. Here are the claims for Estee Lauder Time Zone Line and Wrinkle Reducing Creme:

Now you can take more than 10 years off the look of your skin in just 4 weeks and dramatically reduce the look of wrinkles. We can prove it. In fact, this anti-wrinkle moisturizer is so powerful, every single woman tested showed a reduction in the look of wrinkles.

That sounds great, right? If you read carefully, they only claim a reduction in the "look" of wrinkles not and actual measurable reduction in the number or depth/ length of wrinkles.

In 2005, Strivectin introduced their "better than BOTOX" stretch mark and wrinkle creams. These were cosmetic products but they were literally COVERED in claims. They claimed things like:

•  Decreased the actual length of striae (stretch marks)
•  Decreased the depth of indented surfaces
•  Actually reduce the size of saddle bag thighs
•  One problem area at a time, until you've literally melted the fat and molded your body into a more pleasing shape

And so on. It was ridiculous. No drug does the things that they claimed let alone a cosmetic. But it sold their product. Then the customers did not get the results that they claimed and they were understandable mad because these were not cheap lotions. FDA sent them a warning letter http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/2005/ucm075254.htm and forced them to withdraw all of the false claims from the market. StriVectin reformulated (or repackaged I don't know for sure) but their claims are much more subdued now because they are just selling lotion and no mater what the package says- there are no miracle lotions.

Read the packaging carefully and critically. Don't be a sucker for a pretty package that says great things.  

An objective dissertation on glitter in cosmetics

Glitter is the worst invention ever. Exhibit A

I'm never going to get deglittered. I've had to take extreme measures in the lab to prevent such horrible glitterings from ever happening again.

Ok I'm actually just cleaning out twenty years worth of old glitter from the lab but I hate glitter. I hate it a lot.