We’re talking about free radicals IN THE BODY! I picture them kind of like this dude here, whose picture I took in a local parade last year. He was hoofing it around scaring all the little kids and generally creating chaos. Wow! That’s exactly what free radicals do in the body. You don’t want ’em!!
To really understand free radicals you might go take a look HERE, but basically they come about when weak bonds between cell electrons become broken.
Kind of like a divorce. All hell breaks loose, and the parties involved go through a rather radical period in their lives, to say the least. Alas, even murder may ensue!
Same in your body. Eeek! Anti-oxidants to the rescue, please!!!! (You can read about them at the same link above.)
So here’s a story about Charlie. Remember Charlie? He’s my Golden Retriever/Chow mix whom I rescued at about 6 months of age. And he’s now about 6.
When he was about 1, Charlie pulled a ligament in his left shoulder while running and playing wildly. It was so sore he couldn’t walk on it for days. I knew nothing was broken, so rather than make a panicked run to the vet, who no doubt would have put him on steroids for inflammation and swelling, I socked it to him — hard — with anti-oxidants.
When you have an injury, inflammation begins and free radicals are formed in abundance. They’re like a gathering of divorced men dancing around a fire in the woods in order to regain their primal power. They go crazy. And the worst thing is, the more of them there are, the more of them come to join in! And then the forest catches on fire!!! (Arthritis!)
So to put the crunch on this devastating melee, you have to treat it kind of like you would a real forest fire. You can’t put it out with a bucket brigade. You have to douse it with thousands of gallons of water, all at once.
This is what anti-oxidants do, and you have to load the system with them heavily, all at once, for the first several days to couple of weeks after an injury. Then you can taper off and use the bucket brigade (lower doses) to put out the occasional flare-up. In case you’ve missed the anti-oxidant craze lately, they naturally occur in colorful fruits and veggies, so this is why your grandmother was right when she told you to “Eat your vegetables!”
Simplexity Health’s (formerly Cell Tech) product, Sprouts & Algae, was what I chose to treat Charlie’s shoulder — with great results. This product originated after testing on old, arthritic dogs . . . with amazing results. I sure didn’t want Charlie in this category, so I kept him on loaded doses for a couple of weeks, and he’s been on a maintenance dose ever since. And sure nuf, he’s turned out just fine!
About three years after the original injury, I noticed Charlie limping again, just a little, on that same leg. I decided then to go ahead and have it x-rayed, just to be sure I hadn’t missed something or that a little bone shard hadn’t come loose and was floating around in there somewhere wreaking havoc.
The joint was as clean as a whistle, and the vet was amazed that arthritis hadn’t set in since the injury was three years old. I told her what my approach had been, and about all she had to say was: “Well, whatever you’re doing is working, so just keep it up!”
Here’s Charlie now, splayed out like a frog, his favorite position. Since he’s a big dog, and since he’s already had one joint injury, he’ll be on Sprouts & Algae forever. And I’ll have no vet bills for broken down limbs — hurray!!
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