The other day I went to a Kenwood Cooking Chef launch, and I can say that it got me excited about cooking again.  About a year ago I started to read some really nice review of the Cooking Chef on different Fibromyalgia blogs.

What is so nice about this machine is that it combines about four machines into one.  You can chop your food, mix your bread or cake, it comes with blender, and it cooks your food, yes I did say cook your food, you can do this all in one machine.  I can not wait to get my hands on one to use for a few days, to really test it out, that is if they trust me with it.  The Cooking Chef is going to sell about 7,000AED (about $1905) and that is a lot of money to put down on a machine that you think will make your life a little easier.

For me it is hard to work all day and also to make sure that we have something good and healthy to eat, this I believe will make it a lot easier.  You just have one machine that looks good sitting out on your cabinets and not four different machines.  Also you can set it to cook (you set the timer and temp) and walk away to do other things that need to be done. The Cooking Chef stirs as it cooks, so you do not have to worry about it burning and you can make more delicate dishes, with not much more work.

It comes included in the box, food processor attachments, blender attachment, 6.7L bowl, spatula, small scraper, steam basket, stainless steel K beater, whisk, spiral dough hook, stirring tool, flexi beater, and of course you can get many other attachments. There are about 30 different attachments with this machine, from Kenwood.  If you can not find that something special to cook, the Cooking Chef has it’s own Cooking Chef Club, for great recipes.

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Mark your calenders May the 15th is Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day.  I encourage anyone that is affected by this, to use your voice to tell your story.  By sharing our stories we can help educate and raise the awareness of this very complex disease.  Better yet, we can use our voices to let others know that they are not alone in this battle and that we there for each other.  Please let me know of any actives that you are planning on doing to spread the word about Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

You can find out some other actives that are happening in the the US at About.com.

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Here are some photos from the Walkathon arranged by Emirates Arthritis Foundation on Friday. We’re working on getting some video up as well.

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On March the 12th the Emirates Arthritis Foundation will be hosting the 3rd Annual 5K Walkathon at Dubai Festival City. All the proceeds will go to the Emirates Arthritis Treatment fund.  With your support we can help make a difference in people’s life through education, awareness, and supporting patients in the UAE with their expensive medication (as much as 70,000AED per year/ per patient).

The Foundation needs help in many ways, they need help in getting the word out about the event, they need runners/walkers, they need volunteers to help on the day of the event, and craft people to sell items at the craft fair taking place at Dubai Festival City. If you are a company that can help with t-shirts, water for the runner/walkers, or anything that you can think of that will help make the day special, please do.

Runners/Walkers the foundation needs you to help to get people to sponsor you for the walk. The target for this year is for each runner/walker to collect 5,000AED.  If you can collect donations of 5,000AED or more you will receive a 100AED Mall voucher. Please download the collection sheet and get busy collecting.

Arthritis affects 1 in 5 people worldwide. The average age of Arthritis sufferer is 43 years old.  It is not just about old people but young people including children, suffer can suffer from this debilitating disease.  Not only affecting the joints, but skin, eyes, lungs and hearts.

We lost 2 children to Arthritis last year.  We hope in 2010 we can make a difference through education, awareness and supporting patients in the UAE with their expensive medication (as much as 70,000 AED per year/per patient).

We can only do this though with your support. Therefore we would like to set a target of 5000 AED per participant.  Please ask your friends, families and colleagues to help a fantastic cause.

All sponsorship forms and funds need to be submitted by the 18^th March 2010, for press purposes.

If you would like to know more about the foundation please see our website www.arthritis.ae or call +971 42317470.

Thank you for your support in advance.

Emirates Arthritis Foundation

Please print out the Sponsorship Form and start helping Emirates Arthritis Foundation

GET BEHINDS SPONSOR FORM

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We’ve fixed some of the problems with the site and hopefully I can post more regularly now. We installed Disqus for comments, which is nice because it has Twitter and Facebook integration. Also, we installed a number of plugins that add different features to the site, so hopefully you’ll enjoy that. Finally, if you check out the site with iPhone or many other mobile devices you should see a version of the site especially made for that format.

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You have been told that you have Fibro, but have you checked your Vitamin D3 levels? Well as I have posted before, my levels were so low that my Dr. ran the test three times the first time we found the level to be between 4 and 9, when a low level is 25. So, to say the least we check my levels every six weeks now, and the only that gets my levels up just a little is a vitamin D3 shot. Here is an article that you may like to read, about why vitamin D is so important.

Vitamin D – 12 Benefits for your health and wellbeing

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It seems my doctor, Dr. Badsha, conducted a pilot study on the affects of yoga on rheumatoid arthritis patients. This study found that yoga can have important physical and psychological benefits to rheumatoid arthritis, patients. Read the article at the Eye of Dubai.

A pilot study conducted in the UAE reveals 12 sessions of yoga significantly improved the conditions of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. This study was presented before the 13th Congress of the Asia Pacific League of Associations for Rheumatology in Yokohama, Japan by a team of Specialists in the United Arab Emirates.

“It is possible that yoga may have important physical and psychological benefits for patients with rheumatoid arthritis,” declared Dr. Badsha, specialist rheumatologist, Dubai Bone and Joint Center (DBAJ).

A total of 47 patients were enrolled, of which 26 undertook yoga sessions, while 21 were on regular arthritis treatment. The baseline demographics were similar in both groups. The Raj yoga sessions were conducted by a licensed practitioner with a Master’s qualification in Yoga. Raj yoga is defined as “concerned principally with the cultivation of the mind using meditation to further one’’s acquaintance with reality and finally achieve liberation.”. The yoga was specially modified to suit Arthritis patients by Dr. Vishwas Chhabra and Dr. Badsha, and this new program is being called Vishwas Yoga for Arthritis.

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The most important thing we can give to these patients is understanding and support. Suffering from a chronic disease is hard enough without struggling with misconceptions and misunderstanding as well.

LD News

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About.com:

Lupus and fibromyalgia are two common rheumatic conditions. Do you know the differences between lupus and fibromyalgia? There are specific symptoms, distinguishing characteristics, as well as overlapping symptoms associated with lupus and fibromyalgia which determine the diagnosis and course of treatment.

Systemic lupus erythematosus, also commonly referred to as lupus or SLE, is a chronic, inflammatory, autoimmune disease. Lupus can affect the joints, skin, kidneys, lungs, heart, nervous system and other organs of the body. Lupus symptoms often resemble symptoms associated with other types of arthritis, making lupus difficult to diagnose. Lupus affects 10 times more women than men. Though lupus can develop at any age, disease onset usually occurs between the ages of 18 and 45 years old.

Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition characterized by body aches, widespread pain, sleep problems, extreme fatigue, depression, anxiety, and other symptoms, in combination with tenderness of specific areas (muscles and tender points) on the body. Fibromyalgia is a type of soft tissue or muscular rheumatism and does not cause inflammation, joint damage or deformities.

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Medical News Today:

Fibromyalgia, a chronic, widespread pain in muscles and soft tissues accompanied by fatigue, is a fairly common condition that does not manifest any structural damage in an organ. Twenty-five years ago, Muhammad B. Yunus, MD, and colleagues published the first controlled study of the clinical characteristics of fibromyalgia syndrome. That seminal article, published in Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, led directly to formal recognition of this disease by the medical community. In the June 2007 issue of Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, Dr. Yunus once again makes an enormous contribution to the field of chronic pain and fatigue by meticulously synthesizing and interpreting the extensive body of scientific literature on fibromyalgia and his own insights into the concept of central sensitivity syndromes (CSS).

Fibromyalgia, affecting approximately 2% of the US population, is an example of a class of maladies called CSS. These diseases are based on neurochemical abnormalities and include irritable bowel syndrome, migraine and restless legs syndrome.

Incorporating a critical review of over 225 publications and the author’s broad experience in fibromyalgia and related diseases, Dr. Yunus describes 13 separate conditions that are related to central sensitization (CS), where the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain) becomes extremely sensitized on certain parts of the body, so that even mild pressure or touch would cause much pain. Such hypersensitivity may also be associated with other symptoms such as poor sleep and fatigue.

According to Dr. Yunus, “CSS are the most common diseases that are based on real neurochemical pathology and cause real pain and suffering. In some patients stress and depression may contribute to the symptoms but they are all based on objective changes in the central nervous system.” Dr. Norman L. Gottlieb, Editor of Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, believes that this article “advances our understanding of fibromyalgia, unifies and advances concepts, and suggests that this and several other common disorders have much in common in terms of their biopsychosocial development. This, hopefully, will expand both clinical and research interest in this group of diseases and lead to advances in therapy for many of them.”

In an accompanying editorial John B. Winfield, MD, comments, “Without question, Muhammad Yunus is the father of our modern view of fibromyalgia”. Yunus, who took a rather more biological approach to fibromyalgia in the past, now emphasizes a biopsychosocial perspective. “In my view, this is tremendously important because it is the only way to synthesize the disparate contributions of such variables as genes and adverse childhood experiences, life stress and distress, posttraumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, self-efficacy for pain control, catastrophizing, coping style, and social support into the evolving picture of central nervous system dysfunction vis-a-vis chronic pain and fatigue “.Science and medicine now have a rational scaffolding for understanding and treating chronic pain syndromes previously considered to be ‘functional’ or ‘unexplained.’ Neuroscience research will continue to reveal the mechanisms of CS, but only if informed through a biopsychosocial perspective and with the interdisciplinary collaboration of basic scientists, psychologists, sociologists, epidemiologists, and clinicians.”

Dr. Yunus concludes that CSS is an important new concept that embraces the biopsychosocial model of disease. He advocates further critical studies to fully test this concept which seems to have important significance for new directions for research and patient care involving physician and patient education. “Each patient, irrespective of diagnosis,” says Dr. Yunus, “should be treated as an individual, considering both the biological and psychosocial contributions to his or her symptoms and suffering.”

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The article is “Fibromyalgia and Overlapping Disorders: The Unifying Concept of Central Sensitivity Syndromes” by Muhammad B. Yunus, MD, Professor of Medicine, Section of Rheumatology, The University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, Peoria, Illinois. The accompanying editorial is “Fibromyalgia and Related Central Sensitivity Syndromes: Twenty-Five Years of Progress” by John B. Winfield, MD, University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Both appear in the June issue of Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism, Vol. 36:6, published by Elsevier.

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