I discovered I had psoriasis a few years ago.  The first sign was an arthritic pain in the foot.  It wasn’t diagnosed as psoriasis until I saw a dermotologist about some dry skin on my neck about a year later.

Both things seemed fairly constant.  No sudden appearance or dissapearance of sympoms, which meant identifying any triggers was really hard.

Later on, I started to get a related eye problem. Thats when I found out I have a gene thing called HLAB27 positive.  Turns out all my ailments could be connected to that one gene.  But it also helped with something else – I now had a very visible, relatively quick indicator of potential triggers.

I might start to think of the eye issue as a blessing.

At first, I thought the eye would flare up randomly.  But why would that make sense?  My body is a ‘closed system’ – one big bag of human chemicals that either:

• does what its supposed to do (and react to changes in the chemical composition to protect me).  In which case, something external (e.g. environment/food/etc) is triggering the psoriasis
• doesn’t do what its supposed to do.  In which case, my body is reacting in the wrong way to things that are not a threat to my health- i.e. my body is broken.

HLAB27 confirms that the second proposition is true (my body isn’t going to react the right way all the time), but both points are not mutually exclusive.  A trigger is still possible.

The hypothesis – reducing salt intake will stop my eye flaring up

I stumbled on the idea that salt intake could be a contributor because of some suspicions:

Suspicion #1:

I wondered whether the cause of the skin flareups was being delivered through the pours of my skin – the sweat in particular.  Turns out that sweat comes from your pee pee – so your Kidney’s are involved.  Kidney’s have something to do with food processing right? (did I mention at the beginning of this that I’m not a doctor?)

Suspicion #2:

I stumbled across an article on PH balance when browsing the net.    Sadly, I can’t find that article.  Anyway, the author spoke about the fact that our bodies are designed to maintain a particular PH balance.  You can eat too much acidic stuff, or alkaline stuff, forcing your body to restore its balance.  Turns out the Kidneys have a big role in maintaining PH balance by getting rid of the nasties. Eating stuff that pushes the body away from its PH balance might strain the body.

There is a twist in this story though that is more shocking than the ending of The Usual Suspects.  Almost everything I thought was acidic was in fact alkaline and vice versa.  Lemon?  Its alkaline.  Orange? Alkaline.  Bread?  Acidic!  Go figure?!  This list is helpful for figuring out what is what.

Suspicion #3:

When my skin was flaring up, I could often smell something very similar to Chlorine.  In fact, I could have been convinced it was Chlorine (even though didn’t swim).  Years later, I learned that Chlorine is made from …drum roll….salt.  This was like a light bulb moment.

Suspicion #4:

My son would get a flare up of something on his skin from tomatoes and kiwi fruit (two alkalines).

The test so far

Despite the gut feeling that a PH diet would be good, I’m not the dieting type (too hard basket).  So I figured that I would try to cut back on the salt intake, stop eating tomatoes like apples and stop the Indian takeaways.  Its been many months (probably coming up to a year) when I started the exercise.  The pain in my foot hasn’t been as bad (I’m careful with footwear which helps the most), no signs of a skin flareup (never used any topical drugs or steriods – ever), and no eye fare ups.  Fingers crossed this works.

Having a very talkative 2 year old can be quite entertaining. Here are some samples of what I get every day:

Pearls of wisdom

• “What is that mummy?” “It’s my pouch” “No mummy you are not a kangaroo – you do not have a pouch”
• “Mummy did you know the cake is hiding” “Is it Matthew?” “Yes mummy” long pause then “I would like some cake mummy”
• Just served dinner and I hear “Mummy this bean is broken I can’t eat this. Take it away!”

Songs he made up

• “All the mummies are flying with the pizzas flying with the pizzas…”
• “Baa baa black sheep have you any hands yes sir yes sir hands hands hands. One for the master one for the dame and one for the little boy who lives in the bag”

[Update: When we took the picture, RSPCA said it would fly away the next day. No chance of that happening though. Turns out is was dead and stuck in the tree.

Lile confirmed it was dead by playing it a song on the tambourine. It was such a jolly tune, no living thing could have resisted bopping along. We sorted it out with a 10 foot pole, two thick bags and a pitch fork.]

Recently, we’ve got into a routine.  Its like this:

Me: Hello, I’m home.

Son: iPad!  Where is the iPad??!!

Here are his two favourite iPad apps.

Interactive Alphabet (itunes)

This app takes you through the alphabet.  Each page is interactive.  On the “Dd is for Dinosaur” page, you can tap on the dinosaur and it will make a sound.  Pull down the zipper on Zz to reveal the robot, or build a sand castle and make the sun go down on Bb is for Beach.

On the home screen, tap three times on the bottom left corner and it will play the ABC song.

Intro to Math by Montessorium (itunes)

This app offers lots of different ways to interact with numbers.  Activities include sorting, counting units and tracing numbers.

The UK Book Depository is one of the most magical websites.  Time after time, they have the cheapest books.  I just did a comparison of Borders Australia (with a 40% discount voucher) and UK Book Depository with its free international shipping still wins hands down.  Here are some latest additions to the Dickson family library:

That’s Not My Dolly and That’s Not My Kitten by Fiona Watt

Our eldest son loves his “That’s Not My…” book collection and our youngest has started showing interests in them now.

Spot Bakes a Cake by Eric Hill

Our eldest spotted this (pardon the pun) advertised on the back of another spot book he loves (Spot Goes to School).  “Buy Spot Bakes a Cake” he said.  How could I refuse?

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff

This appears on best seller and recommended reading lists a lot.

Strega Nona by Tomie de Paola

Lile had memories of this one.

The Snail and the Whale

By the author of the Gruffalo.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina

It just looked funny.

Meg and Mog: Three Favourite Stories

Another of Lile’s favourites.  We borrowed some from the Library and they quickly became a favourite of our eldest.

Head on over to our new videos page for a collection of YouTube play lists chock-full of kids songs.

My personal pick of the bunch is this one from Sesame Street: