JoAnn Rovig's Blog

Have there ever been people in your life who changed the way you think about things?

As a lymphedema therapist and patient educator for over 20 years, I feel compelled to tell you the following story.

It all started last summer when I was attending the Jazz Festival inNewport,Oregon.

You can have lymphedema and still be beautiful.

I couldn’t leave Newport without stopping by to see Manoosh, the owner of my favorite boutique.  When I entered her store she was packing up $7,000 worth of leather jackets for a customer in Cle Elum, Washington.  I ask her if she had ever been to CleElum because I couldn’t understand why anyone from that little wide spot in the road would need all those jackets.  Manoosh fired back at me and said, “You just don’t get it, JoAnn. It doesn’t matter where you live or where you are going, it’s all about how you feel about yourself and you only feel as good as you look!”  I pondered that for a moment and replied,  “As a nutritionist, that’s not how I learned it, but I like where you are coming from.”  At that point, she invited me to come to her style show and offered to put me at the same table as the lady from Cle Elum!

Curiosity got the best of me, and in November I drove the 300 miles back toNewport, sat with the lady from CleElum and had a marvelous time. I even ended up being in the style show myself.  I stayed over that night and helped Manoosh the following day transport all of the beautiful clothes from the show back to her shop.  I told her I had been thinking a lot about what she had said, because I had treated lymphedema patients for twenty years and I knew that one of the greatest challenges for a lymphedema patient was feeling beautiful again. I also know how important that is for their recovery, particularly if they are cancer survivors. Manoosh looked at me and smiled.  She said, “I know exactly what you are saying. Something you probably don’t know about me is that I was a surgical nurse for 40 years!”  She said she would tell the family members of her female hospital patients to bring in their make-up and tell them,  “ I don’t ever want to come into this room and see her without her lipstick on!” Manoosh would wrap a pretty, bright-colored scarf around her  patient’s neck and watch the change in countenance, attitude and recovery time – - – even heart rate!  Manoosh clearly understands the psychological devastation caused from lymphedema and offered to do anything she could to help our lymphedema patients, i.e. design special clothing, sponsor a style show, or whatever.

As I was leaving, she said,  “Now don’t forget . . . . You only feel as good as you look, and YOU ONLY HAVE TODAY!.”

Did Manoosh’s comments change my life?  You bet.  In fact, for me,  getting ready each morning is now an event!  And, by the way, Manoosh is having another style show next Fall.

Suzette (Pictured Above) was my patient in 1994 and is now wearing the new JoViPak Combi and Box Glove to manage her lymphedema during the day.

Please note that I waited until AFTER the holiday feasting to talk about Gluten!  If you have weight or health concerns, it’s not too late to make another New Year’s Resolution.  My recommendation, and that of more and more doctors and other health professionals worldwide, would be to eliminate wheat from your diet.  If you are really serious about getting healthy, add sugar to the list.

Have you noticed how many gluten-free products are showing up in your bakeries and grocery stores?  Add that to your realization that with each generation Americans are getting heavier, less healthy and more prone to diabetes.

Since learning that I am gluten intolerant, I have beome increaingly interested in finding the cause.  I was led to Dr. William Davis’s new best-selling book “Wheat Belly” and  took it with me to the International Lymphology Congress in Sweden last September.  I shared a room with Carol Johnson, OTR/L, the technical advisor and design consultant for JoViPak..  Neither Carol nor i could adjust to the time change so instead of sleeping, she sat up in bed and knitted a baby sweater while I read “Wheat Belly” out loud.

No one explains the gluten phenomenon better than Dr. Davis.  He is a preventive cardioloigist who sees obesity daily in his practice and was determined to better understand weight gain, including the midline fat buildup, and its connection to heart disease, diabetes and the immunological and neurological disorders, i.e. celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis and dementia.  As medical director of an online heart disease prevention program, “Track Your Plaque,” he makes a very convincing argument for eliminating wheat products from our diet.  He points out that bread is no longer the sturdy staple of our ancestors: today’s wheat has been genetically altered to provide processed-food manufacturers the greatest yield at the lowest cost . . . at the expense of our health.  The back cover of his book is a real attention getter.  It shows two pieces of whole wheat bread (which we have all been taught is healthy food) with the caption “eating two slices of whole wheat bread can increase blood sugar more than 2 tablespoons of pure sugar.”  If you are one who follows the Glycemic Index (the comparative blood sugar effects of carbohydrates)  you will find it interesting to note that white bread is 69, whole grain bread 71, yet a Snickers candy bar is only 41!

Everyone I know who has read the book and has chosen to eliminate wheat from their diet, including Carol and myself, are amazed at the changes they are experiencing;  rapid weight loss, recovery from intestinal woes, reduction in overall cholesterol and LDL counts, cessation of skin conditions, i.e. psoriasis, oral ulcers and hair loss; even a reduction of inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis pain.  I lost 8 pounds in the first three weeks and my muffin top disappeared!  Needless to say, this is a New Year’s resolution I intend to stick with.  Both Carol and I feel so much better and are grateful for Dr. Davis’s commitment to find the source of so many of our present-day health issues.

If you would like to listen to a Dr. William Davis pod cast, you can go to www.bengreenfieldfitness.com,  Click on pod costs and search for Episode #176, The Shocking Truth About Wheat.  (Note:  You will have to wade through a lot of fitness information before you hear Dr. Davis, but it is worth the wait.) As a lymphedema therapist, I was particularly interested to hear that Dr. Davis noticed his patients had a significant reduction in lower extremity edema once they eliminated wheat from their diet.  Do I need to say more?

To Your Good Health,

JoAnn

The days seem to fly by and the amount of information I want to share with you just keeps piling up.
There are two subjects weighing heavily on my psyche.  One is osteoporosis and the other is gluten
sensitivity.

My concern about bone integrity came about when one of our JoViPak seamstresses came to work with a broken rib.
“Did you fall?” I asked her. “No,” she replied.  ”I had a chiropractic adjustment and I left his office with a broken rib.”
“Did he tell you to get a bone density test?” I asked.  ““No,”  she answered, “he just told me to take more vitamins.”
Before I let you know how angry I was, I want to make sure you understand that I have a high regard for chiropractors; however,
as with any profession, there are always a few who give the profession a bad name and this guy is certainly one of them.
I insisted she go to her GP and ask for a bone density test and sure enough, her test indicates she has osteoporosis.

In my attempt to guide her and give her sound nutritional advice, I read a marvelous  new book entitled, “Your Bones – How You can prevent Osteoporosis & Have Strong Bones for Life – Naturally”  written by Lara Pizzorno, MA, LMT with Jonathan Wright, M.D.
 
This book uncovers the real culprits responsible for this growing epidemic and identifies those factors in our lives that are putting our bones at risk. I found Chapter 7 extremely helpful.  It is a comprehensive overview of ALL the nutrients needed to build and maintain strong bones.    We all know about calcium, but did we understand the co-factors that are necessary to get it into our bones?   It was only recently that we learned about the role of Vitamin D, and how about vitamins K, B6, B12, and folate plus the minerals: boron, magnesium, phosphorous, zinc, manganese, copper, silicon, molybdenum, selenium and strontium?  I think it is important, too, that we get some straight talk on the dangers of taking some of the well-advertised bisphosphonate patent medicines.   It is just too easy to sit in front of the TV and fall prey  to the high-powered ads that often have side-effects much worse than the problem they claim to treat.

If you are over 30 years old, I urge you to add “Your Bones” to your “must read” list.  So, with that I will  leave  you for now . . . . but I will soon be sending you information on Gluten Sensitivity which, I think, will be very helpful, particularly for lymphedema patients.