Fixing CTS - Peasant Maintenance #1

Disclaimer: OK, I'm not a doctor.  I must not know what I'm talking about.  This is mere anecdotal evidence, and I am not responsible for what happens to you if you follow my ignorant godsdamned advice.  Heaven knows how dangerous it is to eat food without important artificial ingredients in it, as I'm suggesting here.  You should consult your regular physician about this.


What, you don't HAVE a regular physician?  Join the club, peasant.  It always bothers me when important information gets pushed to the side, though.  So here I go again, arguing with the currently accepted wisdom.


Today's rant is about carpal tunnel syndrome.  I lived with the pain of carpal tunnel, both sides, for YEARS.  I've known people that have had the surgery for it.  Some got relief, and others got NO RELIEF from the surgery.  I was to the point where I'd wake up with both arms numb, and have to roll out of bed, and kneel on my forearms to get the feeling back in.  I'd spend hours a day massaging my wrists to keep them functional so I could work.  What I'm about to impart may be anecdotal, but it WORKED for me.  Plus, putting this on the net beats giving total strangers the lecture, one at a time, whenever I see someone wearing one of those wrist braces.  A friend sent me an article about this, years ago, when I was having one of those numb and painful days (AND NO, I DON'T REMEMBER WHERE IT WAS FROM; I didn't document sources, or even know how to use a computer, back then).


So, Carpal Tunnel.  It's vitamin B-6 deficiency, caused by yellow food dye #5.  No shit.  It's really that simple.  Yellow #5 breaks down in your bloodstream, 50% by weight, into hexanes, which are usually a byproduct of refining gasoline.  Hexanes are pyridoxine inhibitors.  -Like pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6).  The hexane load in your body keeps you from absorbing enough B6.  I suppose you might have the problem without consuming any Y5, like if you bathe in gasoline every day, but I'm not an expert on these things.  For most people, Yellow #5 in your diet is the way to bet.


USA consumption of Yellow #5 has risen in fairly direct correlation with the number of diagnosed cases of carpal tunnel.  Back in the early 90s, when I was shown that article , the USA used about half a million TONS of the stuff per year, and rising.  That's the weight of one of the ex-WTC towers, in yellow food dye #5.



So, why is yellow dye #5 in all kinds of food? -Because it helps sell it.  Commercial baked goods, for that golden look.  Brightly-colored treats, cereals, cookies, ice cream even.  Soda pop; Mountain Dew has GOBS of it, for instance.  But then, so do many "health", "sports", and "energy" drinks.  Even pickles.  Look at pickles they keep in refrigeration near the cold cuts.  A greyer shade of cucumber-coloured.  Then look at their non-refrigerated cousins.  Real cucumbers do not glow yellow like that.  Basically, you have to read labels, and watch out for food that is yellow-er than it should naturally be.


That's it.  Really.  I basically NEVER have problems with carpal tunnel any more.  You can take extra B6 to overcome the Y5 load you consume; I took 100mg/ day while I started cutting yellow#5 out of my diet.  But when you finally cut all the Y5 out, you'll get all the B6 you need from eating your green vegetables.  Or you can keep eating yellow #5, and pound enough B6 to risk long-term heart damage, but that's not the choice I made...  -And you can still have your occasional bright-yellow food if you really can't live without it, just so long as you give your body a break between times so it can absorb some B6.


So anyway, spread the word.  The doctor that invented carpal-tunnel surgery was supportive of "vitamin therapy", but why not attack the root cause?  There's no conspiracy here, but like so many things, if somebody is making money on it, they have no vested interest in telling you the truth.  If this gets out, less yellow dye #5 will be sold.  Big deal.  They'll just start making everything BLUE.