Health Benefits - Super Fruits - Part I

One constant problem that I have is hypertension.  Originally I was given 5mg amlodipine (I won't name the brand) and I constantly argued with my sister who is a head nurse and my mother.. and oh plus my wife... that it does nothing to improve my condition. But one time in December last year I got really sick when I recorded an all time score of 199/113.   Yippee!!!!  Well I sometimes get a higher Diastolic such as 130 but that is the first time my Systolic reached 199 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_pressure).  Only one worm less waiting for a pen?

Anyway, that forced me to experiment increasing my intake from that 5mg to the whole 10mg on that day.  And immediately I felt better (plus 1 hour exercise over my stationary bike to sweat out whatever it is that needs to be sweat out).  Although I do not recommend that you guys do an exercise when having an HBP.  Majority cautions against it.

Improper Dosage


From thereon, I realized that the reason I am not feeling any favorable result on my maintenance drug is because of improper dosage.  I should have been on a 10mg instead of 5mg.  With further consultation with my doctor back in the Philippines thru my sister, I was given a go signal to increase my dosage from 5 to 10mg. Then observing as well (can't help it, we analysts/developer lives by observation and testing), I realize the best time for me to take said medication is around 7am, before going to work. Don't wait for your Blood Pressure or BP to be hyper. Drink outright in the morning so it can regulate your BP for the whole day.  From what I thought my normal every day BP of 140/110, it now plays around to a better 128/100 or lesser.

Side Effects

But like all Rx drugs, there are side effects which varies from person to person depending on each others' metabolism.  I realize just last week that mine is on the eyes.  I thought I am really getting older because as time passes by, my visions are getting poorer and poorer.

More than a year ago, I went to an ophthalmologist in our City in our Country who I am sorry to say seems to be a con man, who conned me in the end into buying 2 sets of glasses for very expensive prices.  Here are the scams:

1. You will be asked to read words of varying sizes on a glossy white board that is positioned properly where the light from the ceiling's daylight will be reflected on said white board that no matter how hard your read, you will most of the time fail on a word or two.  If you are not that observant you will think you really have a vision problem while the truth is it is because of that not so obvious glare of ceiling light reflection.
2. You will be asked to sit down and peer through his looking glass toy saying shut the left eye and keep the other eye open looking straight.  He is on the other end peering as well maybe on the dilation of my pupil for he yanks a lever back and forth causing adjustments on the image I see, blurring and clearing up (focus) while talking to you to make you feel at ease or something.  Then he will ask you to do the same on the other eye.  What I have wondered during those times is he never asked me which focus showed me the clearest vision and actually on both counts he stopped on the slighrly blurry ones?
3. He then issued me a very expensive reading glass worth PHP 5,000 when I said in the first place that I need the glass for working.  How can you work on a laptop when you need to tilt your head up just so you can see clearly?  So he issued me one more, a cheaper (yet still expensive compared to the market) worth PHP 2,000 for a proper one.

As I am starting to get pissed over the scams after I went back to get the 2nd glass, I air my dissatisfaction and wonderment to said doctor of the need to wear glass when I said I can read perfectly well even without it.  He argued "according to my tests and readings your vision on both eyes are not equal.  The other one is of poorer vision that is why you need to wear my glasses to balance your visions.".  That is it, that has sealed my belief of him being a con man.

I kept my temper, paid and walked out.  Then in the house I told my sister about my (dis)belief of that Doctor.  To prove to her, I held up a magazine in front of me, wore the glass and started reading.  I removed it and started reading.  I was able to do both.

Then I flipped the glass (it is now facing towards me switching left and right glasses) and told my sister, "see there is no difference in the glass magnification?  Check it out."  And she did and confirmed both are of the same grade.  And my vision according to that scamming doctor is not balance eh?  Then the glasses at least should have different grades.   I am sorry for the poor patients this scamming doctor have.

But like I said, over the course of time (6 months thereafter?) my vision really started to go weaker and so the 2nd glass becomes useful.  The 1st one is left unused as tilting upwards my head just to read causes discomfort on my part.

A Miracle?

Anyway, those stories are related to this topic, believe me.  So I am now taking my regular maintenance drug and my BP is now better.  And then after what we call long weekend (holy week), we resumed work.  So I opened my laptop, donned on the glass (175% of my vision from the original 150% because it is getting harder for me to read as time passes by so I bought a new one I used for 3 weeks already) and everything is blurry.  Whatthehell?  So I fished out the old one which is 150% and it appears I can read better now on that but is still blurry as well.

I alternated testing the two and really 175% is blurry and 150% is a bit blurry.  So I removed those and started straight on my laptop and hey it is a miracle!!! I can see clearer now without the eye glasses!!!

The analyst kicked in, it is impossible that my vision will suddenly get better with no apparent reason!  So I thought back on the long weekend, what have I done to receive this sudden miracle of a vision improvement?  And finally I realized one.  It is not what I do but what I forgot to do!

I forgot to drink my hypertension maintenance drug for 2 or 3 days!  Drat!  So it means the vision loss is maybe caused by that?  Googling, I saw hits pertaining to said drug and its side effects.  What worried me is it says "in some cases it may end up to permanent vision loss".

Switching again to the analyst within, I decided to lower the dosage back to 5mg, put it back on 10mg, did not drink for days inbetween.... and my BP and well being has suffered.......terribly...... but my vision improved.   I guess because my body is able to recover back on those days I don't drink it.  Heck, my medication is okay with only that problem on vision impairment.

So my maintenance drug is what is causing my vision impairment in the first place which prompted me to go to that scamming ophthalmologist.  Problem with most doctors is they don't explain the side effects to patients so when some peculiar things happen to us, we are left wondering and unable to take proper counter measures.

Dillema

Shall I take amlodipine which will regulate my BP resulting to a better well being but degraded vision as time passes by (my eyes started to swell and at times vision is hazy or there appears to be smoke in front of me) or shall I look for an alternative drug?  Well my surfing resulted to several alternatives but every one of those has a side effect.

Finding a Solution

Seeking solution in the net and asking around does not give me much idea how to combat this.  My wife says to me "Mama is on the same medicine as you, why is she not experiencing the same problem as you then?"  where I said, "Oh yeah now that you've mentioned, I remember she is taking the same so please call her and inquire. I am sure she suffers the same!"

She called back from her work later saying our mama confirmed she has the same problem but found a cure which is a food supplement containing mostly "Mangosteen" extracts.  Googling, I was amazed with what the nutritionists said about this Super Fruit:  http://bit.ly/PVyYbD

a Super Fruit

Grabbing a write up from this link:  http://mangosteen-juice-online.com/mangosteen-benefits.html

To sum it all up, here's a partial list of the 200-plus, mind-boggling Mangosteen medicinal benefits and properties from the catalog of prominent ethnobotanist, Dr. James Duke.

• Anti-aging - helps prevent aging
• Anti-allergenic - helps prevent allergic reactions
• Anti-arthritic – helps prevent arthritis
• Anti-atherosclerotic - helps prevent the hardening of the arteries
• Antibiotic - prevents or modulates bacterial infections
• Anti-calculitic - helps prevent kidney stones
• Anti-cataract - helps prevent cataracts
• Antidepressant – helps with depression
• Anti-diarrheal – helps with diarrhea
• Anti-fatigue - helps relieve fatigue
• Antifungal - prevents or modulates fungal infections
• Anti-glaucomic - helps prevent glaucoma
• Anti-Inflammatory – helps with inflammation
• Anti-lipidemic - helps lower blood fat
• Anti-neuralgic - helps in nerve pain
• Anti-obesity - helps in weight loss
• Anti-osteoporosis - helps prevent the loss of bone mass
• Antioxidant-rich – rich in antioxidants
• Anti-oxolytic - anti-anxiety
• Anti-Parkinson – helps with Parkinson's disease
• Anti-periodontic - helps prevent gum disease
• Antipyretic - helps lower fever
• Anti-tumor and cancer-preventive
• Anti-vertigo - helps prevent dizziness
• Antiviral - prevents or modulates viral infections
• Cardio-protective - helps in the protection of the heart
• Hypoglycemic - helps stabilize blood sugar
• Hypotensive - helps lower blood pressure
• Immunostimulant – helps the immune system fight infection

I am on the 2nd day of taking a pill (food supplement) from a mangosteen fruit and I am glad to say the swelling on my eyes started to subside and I am not wearing any glasses anymore writing this long story, LOL!  Although my eyes are still in the process of correcting itself as a result of my wearing those glasses before.  I take said food supplement together with my maintenance drug amlodipine both at 7am before going to work.

Epilogue

Well, my story may have been long but sometimes we have to narrate for readers to relate better to the situations, plus maybe somewhere along the way, similar things may have happened to you that you will be able to hopefully find a way to counter or understand better those things.

This Super Fruit and post is not only about curing eye problems caused by drinking medicines for hypertension. This fruit or food supplement made out of it is known to really improve the eyesight and as you can see there are some more benefits.

I plan to, in the future, create some more posts on health topics that I was able to research during the times I need those. And I promise on those write ups, it won't be this long as I will dwell straight to the benefits.  For now though, IMHO, this is necessary as my readers are mostly developers/it people so it is not a topic they would have expected here.  But if they like this write up, I am sure some of them will be waiting for some things I learn as well regarding to health benefits.

Have a healthy life and God Bless!