[twister_mama]

Yeah, you have a valve in your esophagus where it empties into your stomach that's supposed to stay closed except when food gets pushed through; but for some people the valve doesn't close all the way, so the stomach acids "reflux" back up into the esophagus and burn away in there. I also have mitral valve prolapse, which is where a valve in my heart doesn't know how to close all the way either, lol. I've had echocardiograms done, and other than that my heart looks OK. It's probably all due to my arthritic condition that affects the tendons and ligaments by making them too stretchy and loose instead of nice and tight like they're supposed to be. My skin doesn't heal too well either.

I will definitely have to get back on some type of medicine for my reflux. I'm still having chest pains (always feels like a crushing heart attack instead of the typical burning) despite avoiding spicy food and eating before bed.

My headache is STILL as bad as ever! And it's been about 10 days since I stopped all the rest of my supplements; and I've been off my antibiotic for 5 days now, so that should all be out of my system. I'm beginning to think I'm gonna be stuck with it for the rest of my life!

I never heard of slippery elm powder. I'll have to look into that!

My husband had a talk with me about my program and all these supplements I was taking. He wants me to stop everything indefinitely. He sees how sick I've been recently, and he's concerned about the long-term effect all these pills could have, since there's really no one overseeing herbal supplements like how the FDA tracks medications. He said I definitely don't need to change anything about myself for him; that he loves me the way I am. But he can't stand to see how miserable I am, emotionally, and how low my self-esteem is. He just wants me to be happy; and he said if having surgery to get implants would make me happy, he'd much rather have me do that. He thinks the surgery is less risky than the "unknowns" of long-term use of all these pills. My Mom said the exact same thing. I tried to tell them both the possible horrible things that could go wrong with the surgery; but they said no one knows what kinds of things could happen with all my pills either; all they see is how sick I've been. Honestly, it got me thinking. Have the pills been making me sick? My stomach is better, but my headache continues to pound away. Would surgery make me feel better about myself, knowing it's fake and "not really me"? Probably not. I also really hate knowing that when they get removed I'll be smaller than I am now, and have disfiguring scars. So with that in mind, I was able to convince my husband and my Mom that I'll be OK if I use up the remaining 3 months of BB pills, and I'll add the Swanson's raw ovarian glandulars to it to increase my dosage, since I believe the usual dosage of one BB pill twice a day just isn't working for my body anymore. And if this doesn't work, I'll try PM pills and cream for 3 months. And if THAT doesn't work, then I don't know what I'll do. I just can't even entertain the idea of having that surgery without exhausting ALL options with NBE first.

So since I got a *reluctant* green light to continue with my NBE quest, I'll be starting tomorrow. This headache obviously isn't being caused by my pills, since I've been off them for like 10 days now; and I still had the headache every stinking day and night during my entire month-long break from NBE; so it's obvious to me that my headache isn't going to go away anytime soon. I'm not wasting my life away waiting for this headache to go away before starting back on my program! I could be waiting forever, for all I know! Starting tomorrow, I'll be taking one BB and one Swanson generic ovarian glandular in the morning; 3000mg of MSM in the afternoon; a protein drink in the afternoon; my Nature's Code vitamins with supper; 3 Neocell collagen tablets and GABA in the evening; and one BB and one Swanson ovarian glandular at bedtime. I'll hold off on the HGH releaser capsules for a week or two. And I may go ahead and order some Borage oil, since a lot of women use it in their NBE programs, and because it's supposed to be a great anti-inflammatory that may help with allergies and asthma. I'll continue Noogling for an hour to an hour and a half every night; and listen to the Rockmelon ringtone for an hour a day. I'm only continuing to listen to it cuz my nipples have been VERY sore since Sunday, which is totally unusual for me; and I started listening to Rockmelon on Saturday. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not; but my nipples were sore before I even started using NB again Sunday night, so I figure what the hell, lol.

I think NB is working better for me this time than it was last fall. For one thing, I had to use the foam rings all last fall with the medium cups to get suction; now, I can use them without the foam rings just fine. Also, half of the time I used NB last fall, I did pump and release, which did nothing for me at all, with no swelling; this time, I'm just doing pump and hold which is giving me some noticeable swelling (small, but noticeable!). And there's still a little swelling the whole next day too. Also, the first three nights I Noogled, I had to be careful how I moved cuz I'd lose suction (I even had to breathe kinda shallow, cuz if I took a deep breath I'd lose suction); but last night, both cups were on there good and tight. I could reach up and rub my eyes, put in my ear buds, take a deep breath, and even shift my position on the couch a little without losing suction. I was thrilled for that! I try to massage for a few minutes before I Noogle; maybe that's helping. I haven't gotten any more red dots since my first time on Sunday. I'm hopeful that this will work better for me this time!

I'm crossing my fingers that I FINALLY get some measurable growth after nearly 8 months of nothing!!!

[crystalelle]

Dear Twister_Mama,

Sorry to hear that you are still not feeling well. Don't be too hard on yourself cause NBE is always a journey of patience and time. I would seriously suggest that your body could be well in order to start your program again cause the risk of having all the supplements conflict with your body system that might be off balance.

If you really persistent then a detoxification and a hormone balancing period will be advisable before you start given that you just go off the medication and you would want to clean it so your body will be able to work with the supplements instead interfering with the residue of the medication. Btw, medication don't leave our body in one day after we take them. In a research it was say that the paracetamol that we take for fever and pain take up to 6 years to leave our body.

I am only suggesting but I really want you to be well before you start the project again.

[MoK217]

Hey TM,

Have you tried Goody's Headache Powder? It works faster because it's powder form. You can usually find it in gas stations. Get the orange flavor if possible, the regular tastes really bad. Also there is this medicine called Flurbiprofen. It's prescribed by a doctor though. In April when I went to that wedding, and stopped taking my herbs, I had a horrible headache that lasted for a long time. Sat night after the wedding this lady from Canada had that med for migraines. About 20 mins after taking one, my head calmed down and I was able to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, it was gone. That medicine was like a godsend. I was a big baby about a few days. Yours has been here for much longer.

[twister_mama]

Thanks for your suggestions, Crystalelle and MoK217. I've had this headache now for three months. But, I did finally get to see the actual DOCTOR last week instead of the worthless nurse practitioner guy (who knew nothing, and didn't help me at all). The doctor took one look at my CT scan and said that the nasal passages on my right side were nice and wide open from that surgery I had 13 years ago; but the passages on my left side were very constricted. He said that is likely causing pressure, or even a vacuum type of thing in my sinuses; and that's what my headache is from. He doesn't think I have an infection (which makes sense, since my nose itself isn't really stuffy or swollen like it has been in the past). He said there's a new technique, only about two years old, where they put a thin, flexible tube up into your nose and through the passages; and they inflate a balloon on the end of the tube to open up the narrow passages. Very similar to angioplasty, which is the same procedure done in blood vessels. I guess the studies done on this procedure are only a couple years old, but they're showing a 95% success rate. He's done about 4000 of these procedures already. So he got me scheduled for it. The problem is, the soonest they could get me in to do it is July 28th. *crying* So I gotta suffer with this stupid headache for ANOTHER month. This past weekend, the pain escalated to a level it hasn't been to before. I was nauseated from the pain. I had some Vicodin (strong prescription pain killer) left over from a past surgery, so I took two pills (maximum dose). And that BARELY took the pain down a notch. I didn't bother taking it the next day, because Vicodin makes me very nauseous if I take it a couple days in a row; plus, it didn't help that much. Fortunately, the pain was better today. The doctor said the weather can affect the pressure in the sinuses; it was stormy over the weekend. It's gonna be a LONG month.

I did start back up on my pills about 10 days ago. I couldn't stand waiting any more! Now that I know I'm not fighting an infection, I feel better about it. Physically, other than my headache, I feel almost OK. Even my acne is almost gone (yay!). I felt that my body was probably "used" to the regular dose of BB since I've been taking it since last June (OMG, a year already!), so I've been adding one Swanson BO (250mg) with each BB pill, for a total of 500mg extra BO plus the 1050mg of BB (525mg x 2) which is a daily total of 1550mg. That's still pretty low, considering what others are taking in their programs; so last night I added one more Swanson BO to my nighttime dose for a daily total of 1800mg (Swanson BO and BB). I also increased my Neocell collagen to the recommended 6 tablets per day; and I'm taking 5000mg of MSM per day as well. I'm still taking my Nature's Code multi-vitamins, which has 1000mg of Vitamin C; but I add about another 400mg of Vitamin C with my nighttime dose of collagen and MSM. Also, my Borage Oil softgels came in, so I started taking one per day a few days ago (they are 1000mg). I just saw that Wahaika recommends taking Borage Oil at bedtime, so I will be doing that from now on (I had been taking it when I first got up, like an hour after BB and BO). I also saw that Wahaika suggests that 1500mg of GABA is sufficient; I've only been taking 500mg, so I've bumped that up to 1000mg for now. Whew! Oh, and I'm trying to get in two protein drinks per day instead of one. But I'm still struggling to cut down on sugar. I love my chocolate too much. But I was good and didn't have ANY today.

My current shameful measurements are:

Under: 29 1/2"
Across: 32 1/2"
Above: 32 1/2"
Bra size: 34AAA

When I measure, I kinda exhale pretty much all the air out of my lungs, and hold it like that while I take all three measurements. I do it this way, because I found that if I breathed while measuring, I'd constantly get different readings; it would vary by as much as an inch, depending on how much my ribs were expanded from air in my lungs.

I gave up on NB. I just can't commit an hour every night when I'm so tired, for temporary results. NB seems to work best for women who are already a decent size, or who used to be larger at some point (like from breastfeeding). Those of us who have never been larger than we are now, and are like less than an AA cup struggle. I also quit listening to the Rockmelon ring tone. I just couldn't stand that annoying sound anymore, lol.

I don't know if the new doses of pills will work; but I do know that since I added that one extra Swanson BO last night, my breasts (the smaller right one, especially) have been pretty achy today. Mostly the upper half. Sometimes the right one ached a little underneath. I REALLY hope this works; because honestly, I'm getting really discouraged, and my self-esteem is plummeting again. I spent some time researching local plastic surgery places, and dreaming about what it would be like to wake up with breasts and look like a woman instead of a little boy. I really don't want to go there; but I'm so frustrated, and it's making me depressed. Trying to stay positive is sooo hard when all you see is cleavage everywhere you go, and here you are as flat as a board. I wish so much I could go back in time to when I was a teenager and fix everything that went wrong so I'd have a better chance of growing normally! It's so unfair to have both of your younger sisters be full B cups while you struggle to maintain a AAA. My husband really wishes I'd stop all this NBE stuff and not even consider surgery; but as long as there's a teeny little glimmer of hope that SOMETHING might work for me, there's no way I'm gonna stop. One little thing that brightened my day a little was when I was looking at "before" and "after" photos from a reputable plastic surgery place located very close to my home (only about 6 minutes away, actually), I saw that like 6 women out of the 100 or so that they had on their site looked EXACTLY like me in their "before" picture; I mean, like a AAA size. I was SHOCKED that there were *that* many local women like me! It brought me a little comfort knowing I'm not "the only one" around here who's this flat. Except now, those women have implants and are like a B or C cup, so hmmm, maybe I AM the only one this flat around here now. OK, comfort is gone!

Sorry for the vent. This past weekend was really bad for me, headache-wise and emotionally, because I was feeling so bad about myself. My rational self would never consider implants; but my desperate self would give anything to look like a woman instead of a young child. Sigh.

[lled34aa]

hi twister mama, we've all had those moments when things are just not progressing as much as we want, or progressing at all. i've also spent so much time looking at plastic surgery photos. i really don't like the idea of having a foreign object inside my body and knowing that my body might reject causing health complications.

i totally agree with you on noogleling. i'm an AA and 10 months of NG resulted in no growth, but worse, i have indentations that i'm trying to get rid off. i think it works best for women who has breast fed.

[twister_mama]

Wow, lled34aa; 10 months of putting up with NB for nothing? That totally sucks. I'm definitely not going to waste my time with it anymore. How has PM been working for you? I'm considering switching to PM when my BB runs out in a few months. Most of the PM successes I've read about recently were the larger women and bio men; I'm very curious about PM's effect on us smaller gals! I like how there are PM creams and serums that can be used to directly target the breasts; that might be helpful to even out your breasts if you have one that is quite a bit smaller than the other (at least, I hope?).

[crystalelle]

Hi Twister_Mama,

Sorry to hear that your headache is still around. I have a splitting headache during my ovulation day. Was really bad I mix 1 bottle of isotonic drink with 2 bottles of water. Within 1/2 hour of drinking the few gulps my headache is completely gone. Not sure whether this will work for you but you can try it.

Recently I found a product that I decided to put into my routine. Is called Lumina health, Cellfood. Is a type of oxygen drops where you mix it in the water and drink it. It is available at swanson and iherb too. But the iherb review is plenty. I have bad respiratory system too sinus-like. I was thinking probably I am not getting enough oxygen because of my constant block nose adding this in might do some good .

[twister_mama]

Cool! I'll look into that. I've always thought that one of the reasons I was tired all the time was probably from not enough oxygen, between my swollen sinuses and my asthma. Whenever I'm at my allergy doctor and have a breathing test (an electronic one that prints out a chart at the end), my first test comes back at like 87% lung capacity; then do have me do a nebulizer treatment and repeat the test, and it comes back at like 108%. So I'm probably not getting enough oxygen throughout the day. Hopefully the Borage Oil I started taking a few days ago will help with all that too! I'm wondering though, since Borage Oil is an anti-inflammatory, is it also a blood thinner? Because I have to stop all meds like ibuprofen that are blood thinners for two weeks before my sinus procedure; and I'm wondering if I should stop the Borage Oil then too? I hope not ...

[lled34aa]

i can't say for sure if PM is working for me. my breasts are meatier and they stick out slightly more but i'm not sure if this is because i've been doing push-ups and massages. the difference is so slight that it can just be slight swelling.

[Wahaika]

Yep, stop the borage oil.

The GLA keeps platelets from clumping together - this would slow healing. Same with EPO. Fish oils and flaxseed oil are blood thinners due to the Omega-3 fatty acid.