Before and after sex?

[Rawhoneybee]

This may be random and maybe not the right forum to post this question on...BUT...

To all you raw women, have your organs during sex become significantly more intense?

I've been 100% raw for a bit now and wondered if it was just me or if this was normal for other raw foodists?

May be personal, but what the hey.

[BeingK8]

Did you mean have our organs become more intense or our orgasms? LOL! ;-)

[Rawhoneybee]

Haha orgasms.

My phone loves to auto-correct.

[Draginvry]

Did you mean have our organs become more intense

Sounds like fun. I want some more intense organs.

[BeingK8]

Sounds like fun. I want some more intense organs.

That's what I was thinking! What would happen if my heart was more intense? my lungs? How long could I hold my breath under water? What about my liver? Detox in half the time! LOL!

[Draginvry]

How long could I hold my breath under water?

Ten minutes, at least

[Arky]

One word, folks:

'Maca'

;)

[BeingK8]

One word, folks:

'Maca'

;)

Reeeally? I have not used it yet. It's all over the forums and in so many recipes and stuff, but I haven't ever purchased it. Now I'm intrigued!

[Arky]

You know, there's way too much hyperbole and hard-sell for a thousand and one different 'superfoods' in the raw community, BUT Maca really does affect the hormones positively. I take it for adrenal support but it certainly affects the sex hormones too, of that you may be certain.

You can get it all over the place but I particularly like Navitas Naturals' Gelatinized version. It's reasonable value, quality is top-notch, and it strikes a nice balance between standard maca and very concentrated extracts. Having said that, you may prefer, from a philosophical standpoint, to go with standard completely-raw maca. Either way, you'll get the effects.

If you take a heaped teaspoon once or twice per day (best with food but do as you please), you'll have a smile on your face within a fortnight. I've found a nice side effect is that it makes my head hair grow thicker. I find that particularly interesting since TCM points to a link between kidney/adrenal health and hair growth. Maybe that's why maca is affecting my hair growth or maybe it's just that it's nutrient-rich (in terms of nutrients relevant to hair growth, it's fairly rich in sulphur, silicon and (I think) zinc). I can't go too heavy on my maca because it's a crucifer and thus rich in thiols (not ideal for someone like me with mercury-intoxication), but in small doses, my body definitely approves of maca. I've been around natural foods/natural health for several years now (as I know you have, too, Kate) and consequently I'm nobody's fool with supplements and superfoods - Maca is one of the very few substances I've been genuinely impressed with, ever since I first started using it. It actually does what it's claimed to do, and is not deleterious to wellbeing like cacao etc. can be.



.

[jacsam]

Arky, I'm intrigued with what you had to say about maca helping with hair growth on your head. You know how sometimes women have thinning of their hair, usually on the top of their head.....do you know if it helps with that or does it just help your hair that you already have get larger meaning thicker. I have been looking for something to help women that have their hair start thinning on top ( I guess you could say they start balding). I know it has to do with hormones. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about this.

[Arky]

alopecia...it's a surprisingly complex topic.

BEFORE I got into natural health, I started going thin on top (I'm male, by the way). At that time, I did what most men do - panicked and started desperately looking around for anything and everything I could find to prevent the inevitable. I quickly realised that more than 99% of stuff on the net and on the market is total rubbish and totally disingenuous.

At this point, I found myself at an important crossroads:

1) Take the path of denial, which means hats, comb-overs, pony tails, wigs, electrostatic spray-thickeners... basically anything but admit to myself or others that I was going bald.

2) Grow the hell up and just shave my head and get on with my life.


I chose the 2nd option and have never looked back. I pity those men who choose the 1st option and live their entire lives looking in the mirror and fearing that their 'secret' will be found out by members of the public.


Now, where women are concerned, I want to make it clear that the above opinions do NOT apply. I have genuine compassion for women who face the difficulty of alopecia. I learned, from my initial research on male baldness that there are many different possible causes, some of which include thyroid insufficiency, DHT, follicular inflammation (may have an auto-immune component), iron deficiency, EFA or saturated fat deficiency, general malnutrition (may have a systemic inflammation and/or intestinal parasitic basis), intestinal dysbiosis, etc.

It's notable that many men use Nizoral ('Ketoconazole') shampoo not for its anti-dandruff properties but rather in an attempt to reduce follicular inflammation and thus improve hair growth.

On an unwisely-structured raw vegan diet, it is not uncommon for iron deficiency to occur, and for intake of saturated fats to be below par. Both of these may affect hair growth.

I didn't do research on female alopecia.


Speaking personally, I strongly suspect that my own alopecia has at least some (significant) basis in my lead and mercury intoxication, which I now realise goes back several decades (although it peaked about 10 years ago, with an extended round of vaccinations). Mercury is able to induce systemic inflammation, auto-immunity, malabsorption, intestinal dysbiosis, derangement of mineral transport, thyroid suppression...the list goes on and on and is shockingly long and wide-ranging. Actually, severe mercury poisoning can lead to clumps of hair falling out by the handful.

The fact that I've recently noticed maca improving the thickness of my hair is by virtue of the fact that although I've used maca sporadically for a number of years, I've only lately been disciplined in consuming 2 - 3 heaped teaspoons per day every day because I've been chelating the metals from my body and this places great stress on the adrenals, something maca is known to assist in supporting the health of.

I am not implying that maca is leading to re-growth of receded hair, just that what hair I still have is growing thicker. I particularly notice this change because I shave my head and thus changes in 'stiffness' of the stubble are very easy to detect. I've noticed this happen before when I was consuming lots of seaweed plus BioSil (orthosilicic acid). The Biosil, in particular, stiffens hair and makes it glossier. The seaweed is, of course, rich in minerals and I'm sure my thyroid wasn't complaining about the iodine content, either.

As I said, I don't know if the maca is affecting my hair from a hormonal-balancing standpoint or from a general nutritive standpoint, or something else. I guess it's probably a combination of a number of factors.

If one is suffering from alopecia, and it is bothersome, then the first thing I'd say is to get your psychological health in order - learn from the outset to accept that the chances of regrowth are slim - psychologically resisting this will only lead to mental health issues if taken too far. This takes psychological maturity and is a great life lesson if one is open to learning it, in spite of the pain at the time of learning.

Psychological considerations aside, question whether you have any symptoms of hormonal imbalance or systemic inflammation, or intestinal malabsorption etc. There may be clues there. In my case, mercury is capable of inducing all three of these things, though I admit I haven't noticed any obvious hormonal issues other than adrenal imbalance.

That's about as much as I can think of on the topic at this moment. Sorry I'm not more of an expert on the topic of alopecia, be it male or female.

Maca is relatively cheap to try, generally well-tolerated, nutrient-dense, and basically worth a shot if you have alopecia or general nutritional deficiencies or hormonal imbalances.




Lastly, it's worth bearing in mind that head hair is actually primarily a 'waste product', rather than a specifically-important 'structure' of the body, as most people assume. Since it is a waste product, the body excretes all manner of junk through the hair. Just ask the lab technician who ran analysis on my hair sample for heavy metals! Aside from seeking answers to heavy metal issues, this process of analysing hair samples should be a clue in itself - what scenario might one reasonably expect if the body is full of toxic residues and byproducts? Some of these will likely end up making their way through the hair follicles. Hair follicles need to be healthy in order to function properly and one can't reasonably expect hair follicles to perform optimally if they're being forced to convey all manner of nasty, noxious substances that potentially damage their cellular integrity, or lead to the immune system perceiving their presence in the cell as necessitating immune response (which, over the longterm may take the form of chronic inflammation). Some people find they experience improved hair growth after using clay 'mud-packs' in their scalp, since these draw toxins out of the follicles.

[Arky]

I forgot to mention that I'll never use propecia or rogaine as these mess with the prostate amongst other things. Not sure about female equivalent but some research does note a relationship between health of the prostate and male hair loss. Pumpkin seeds would appear to fit the bill, along with nettle root, but I'm sensitive to pumpkin seeds due to mercury impeding my livers ability to handle tryptophan (bananas are also out of the question for me now, for the same reason)

[BeingK8]

I'm toally sold now! Thanks, Arky! I always love your posts because you're a treasure trove of not just info, but empirical info. I always want to know what people's experiences are.

[Arky]

Thanks Kate; speaking of empirical experience, I'd be interested to hear back from you about how you respond to maca (you can spare me the bedtime details, just the daytime stuff is fine! ;) )

[Mary Jane]

Thank you for all of the great information. BTW.... I off to get some macca too!