Coffee

Recently when I discovered that porphiria was a reality and that wishful thinking was not changing anything(denial does not work either, go figure), I became aware of my dietary habits. When it comes to coffee I consume 8-15 mugs of coffee per day.

My favorite drink is coffee. It used to be coke, but my teeth were suffering too much so somehow I switched to coffee without thinking about it much. Now that I am taking notes, I find that I am dependent on coffee. Also I suspected that the sharp pain that I have had for the last 3 years in my lower back may be caused by coffee.

This week I decided to cut the coffee, wow, what an eye opener. I became depressed and was unable to stay awake ater 8pm a night. By day 2 i was back on the coffee, only 2 mugs a day now. One at 10am and one at 2pm.

I replaced the coffee with rooibos, can you believe some greedy person tried to patent this age old South African drink? Rant: I am all for patents, but if God made it, He made it for everybody so stop trying to oppress and enslave us by stealing what is free for everybody. End rant.

Anyway rooibos tea, no milk and not sugar. 3 x 750ml botles of water per day. By day 3 the pain had begun to dull and it did not feel like somebody was sticking needles into me every time I stood up, sat down or bent over. My cyro is not going to be happy :)

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or medically trained at all. Everything you read on this blog is based on my and other people's personal observation and is in no way to be deemed as medical advice. I say this because I am not responsible for your health not even the medical companies are, you are. So if something I say offends you, tell me. If you try what I suggest and it does not work, try something else, but for heaven sake don't waste your time trying to blame me.

Final observation: I have reduced my coffee intake for one week to almost no coffee and I feel much better. I have also cut other things from my diet so it could be that coffee has no affect on my health, but I personally think it should be avoided if you have porphyria.

Grant

Survival

Hi,

My name is Grant McDonogh. I am 37 years old and I have porphyria. I am at the point in my life that I am tired of living with constant pain.

Last week I was so sick that I almost ended up in hospital. I have never experienced so much pain in my life. This was breaking point for me and the beginning of my journey to find a remedy. For years my mother has been on my case about my diet and how incompatible it is with my porphyria, you see I have the hereditary kind. So now I figure she has a point.

Being in IT, I went to google for the solution. Well for the first time I find that google truly does not know everything. After going through many, many, many websites of boring medical information which means nothing to me and does not help me with my goal of changing my lifestyle in order to survive porphyria, I decided to look elsewhere.

Fortunately my mother has years of practical experience so I have to go old school for this. That got me thinking, there must be others looking for the same answers, but people like my mom don't know how to blog of even what a blog is. So it is up to me and you to document this information so that millions of people around the world can live pain free without popping pills for the st of their lives.

My aim is to start up a community of people who are willing to provide information for free so that we can help each other to overcome.

Enough for now.
Grant