Did you know that February is National Fresh Breath Month?
During February’s National Fresh Breath Month, Sunstar GUM is equipping you with quality oral care tools to super-power your oral hygiene routine for that #FreshBreathCheck. Oral hygiene is extremely important as an unhealthy mouth may increase your risk of serious health problems, such as heart attack, stroke and poorly controlled diabetes.
I love being part of a campaign that not only educates myself and others, but pays it forward to those in need. By taking a simple test you will be helping someone in need!
Simply take the #FreshBreathCheck test here and see how your breath scores. You could win a year of oral hygiene treatments and a Sunstar GUM oral care hamper valued at over R2, 500! When you enter, Sunstar GUM will donate a toothbrush on your behalf to the Dental Wellness Trust, , a charity organisation that reaches around 15, 000 children in low-income areas of South Africa with vital oral care skills. You can learn more about this awesome organisatioin here.
Dr Linda Greenwall- Dentals Wellness Trust Founder
I was gifted this amazing pack to get my oral hygiene on track! Im super excited to try the Sunstar range and nifty gadgets like the Tongue Cleaner and Red-Cote Disclosing Tablets!
Super-Power Oral Hygiene Tools
Sunstar GUM ActiVital Sonic Toothbrush (R259)
GUM Original White toothpaste (R65)
Expanding Floss (R54)
GUM Soft-Picks Advanced (R99)
Easy-Flossers (R59)
Sunstar GUM Dual Action Tongue Cleaner (R60)
GUM Original White mouth rinse (R99)
GUM Red-Cote Disclosing Tablets (R50)
Thank you @IvoHealth for equipping me with the tools that I need for better oral hygiene. For the month of February, I will be sharing my oral health journey with Sunstar GUM! Check out our Instagram to follow our journey!
Sunstar GUM is recommended by dental professionals around the world and available from selected Checkers, Clicks, Dis-Chem, Pick n Pay, SPAR as well as dentists and pharmacies.
To my delight I had received a pretty invitation in my inbox to attend an event at the Skin Renewal Institute Bedfordview . I love attending events that can influence our daily life in a big way and the team at the Renewal Institute did just that.
It was Detox Day at the Renewal Institute and we were welcomed with pure delight. The clinic itself is gorgeous. It’s crisp white interior and delicate chandeliers adds a touch of elegance to the room and make you feel a bit like royalty before heading in for your treatment. The clinic is managed by doctors who are experienced in Anti-Ageing, Aesthetic and Integrative Medicine. They are supported by a staff of qualified and experienced technicians, nurses and therapists who provide a wide range of treatments to clients.
The space was filled with all things healthy! From fruit diffused water jugs to fresh fruit kebabs, freshly baked muffins and yummy nutritiously packed breakfast bowls!
This Bowl was insanely good and healthy!
We were introduced to Dr Pierce Van Tonder, Resident Doctor at the Institute, who gave us a tour and introduced us to the start of what would be our Detox Journey. We headed over to the Kombucha Table and handed a glass to taste. Kombucha is, in short, fermented tea that is bursting with pure natural antioxidants to help detoxify the body.
Kombucha is made from a live culture, “Symbiotic”. During the fermentation process, it produces substances to help the body maintain good health and fight various ailments. Products of the fermentation are Glucuronic Acid, Lactic Acid, Usimic Acid, all the B vitamins, vitamin C, Digestive enzymes, Amino-acids and Antioxidants.
Glucuronic Acid contained in the tea binds the toxins in such a way that they cannot be re-absorbed into the body. Glucuronic acid acts against harmful substances deposited in the body, rendering them water soluble where they are passed through the kidneys and eliminated through the urine.
Usimic acid is a substance with strong anti-bacterial properties and has partial anti-viral effects.Lactic acid found in Komucha in it’s most potent form – L-lactic(+). Lactic acid is essential for the digestive system.
Many people who regularly drink Kombucha tea have found tremendous relief from a wide range of diseases and ailments. Kombucha’s ability to work ‘with’ your body which boosts your own natural defense system. Being a Pro-biotic, Kombucha will help strengthen your immune system and ability to fight sickness.
With modern living comes poor diet and an increase in harmful substances in our bodies. I think we are all guilty of it and Kombucha has made it so easy for us to get our bodies back to their full potential. Starting with half a glass in the morning, it boosts the bodies immune for the day ahead.
The actual taste of the tea tastes almost like a draught beer or an Iron Brew, so it actually does not taste that bad and really do-able to your morning routine. It’s totally safe to have even if you are on chronic medication so I’ll definitely be getting me some Kombucha! For now they are exclusively sold at the Renewal Institute in Bedfordview or contact them for an order here.
After we had settled in and finished our Kombucha shots, Dr Pierce Van Tonder started the morning with a little Meditation with us all. It was so beautiful as it filled the room with so much positive energy, everyone was super Zen after that!
We were then introduced to Tanya from Metagenics and she guided us with the importance of Metabolic Detoxification. She went on to explain that over a course of a lifetime, we will be exposed to thousands of foreign compounds that can enter our bodies through food we eat, the air we breathe and directly through our skin. To make matters worse, many of us have substituted healthy meals with a poor diet that significantly lacks nutritional value to fuel the body’s detoxifying capacity which in turn, contribute to our bodies accumulation of toxins or toxicity! Makes sense right?
Metagenics UltraClear Plus Supplement and AdvaClear Supplement is the way to go for Metabolic Detoxification. A combination of supplements that work in conjunction to detox your liver in the most natural way possible. The UltraClear Plus is designed to provide advanced , low-allergy potential nutritional support for metabolic detoxification capacity and the AdvaClear will provide a full spectrum of micro nutrients and phytonutrients that target the various aspects of detoxification and ensure a balanced, safe and effective process.
So the team from Metagenics have created a powerhouse formula to help our body fight against toxins and get rid of it from our bodies. Tanya was kind enough to make us a sample of the UltraClear Plus support for Metabolic Detoxification to try , not the tastiest, definitely mix it with your smoothie. This detox is so different from all those generic ones that we find online, in health books, etc because here they putting nutrients back into your body- the right ones.
This day and age, it’s all about convenient foods because who has time to cook a healthy meal these days. I think we all need a detox once in a while to reboot our system to get back on track and restore the energy levels.
Being a chronic patient it did make me a bit nervous as to weather me doing a detox would be a good idea. I chatted to Tanya after the presentation and she advised that it is such a versatile program that any chronic patient/person can do the detox at their own pace. It definitely gave me a sense of relief because It’s something that I can do without having any risk involved with regards to my meds- Winning!
All in all, It was a day of learning about what’s good for your body and what is needed to keep it in good condition. I urge you to contact and research about Metagenics as I know it can help so many people. I still haven’t done the detox myself as yet, but trust that you will hear about it when I do.
If you have questions about it, contact Renewal Institute for more info, they are such a great bunch and I’m sure will be happy to help! Contact them here
Once Pulmonary Hypertension was brought to my attention, it’s been nothing but a life altering path I did not choose, but was forced to take. A difficult journey my soul has chosen to take.
Every disease has it’s own personal baggage, some worse then others, but they somehow can all relate to each other. The load itself of any disease is burdensome, but we never really think about the most important, if not the heaviest burden of them all? The mental struggles.
Iv been living with PH for, what seems like forever, but diagnosed 10 years. The past couple of months has been exceptionally difficult for me, with my body, in my opinion, feeling like it’s rejecting my medication which I have been taking up until this point and with me dealing with the side effects of such. Having fainting ‘episodes’ at random times and while driving- trust me that wasn’t pleasant, shortness of breath, numbing sensations all over my body and striking pains in my chest, it has been quite a roller coaster. My days consisted of calling my husband in a frantic state feeling in that moment that I was dying, to us driving to the emergencies rooms to make sure that I wasn’t dying.
When it first started it was scary, now it’s just frustrating because I want to get over this phase, fast. I’m so over feeling like this that I would literally do anything to feel ‘normal’ again. Normality comes with a price tag and it’s unfortunately called PTSD..
“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock, typically involving disturbance of sleep and constant vivid recall of the experience, with dulled responses to others and to the outside world.”
In my mind, PTSD is something that someone suffers after surviving an attack. Which, now brought to light by my therapist, I did. It’s arrival was not welcomed, nor wanted but I’m starting to accept it. At least I’m trying to… I had not even given consideration to the fact that PTSD lingered let alone the depression and anxiety that comes long with it. The problem with this is that most of the world have not yet put together that a majority of chronically ill patients are also suffering from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder because being told “you have an incurable and terminal disease” is trauma in itself.
Suffering from a chronic illness on it’s own is hard. Suffering from PTSD and a chronic illness is just excruciating! Slowly getting familiar with this mental illness means I can identify my triggers and try cope. With PH it’s difficult because if I feel out of breath, is it a sign that I’m having a panic attack or is it my PH giving me a warning sign telling me that my PH is deteriorating? Which lands up giving me more anxiety!
I have grown up with people who suffer from severe depression/anxiety and I could never really understand how they could be so angry and so sad all the time. I understand now. Completely and utterly. It’s really a dark place that your mind travels to and can be really difficult to get out of it and no matter how hard someone try’s to get your frame of mind into a more positive space, it just makes you sink deeper into the black hole.
Mental health is an invisible disease just like PH. Your brain is an organ, and it deserves it’s own upkeep. It’s taken alot for me to talk about this issue, let alone write about it. I’ve found that talking about what I’m feeling and going through really does take the pressure off. Iv learned that I’m not alone is this and that there is a silver lining. It just takes a little time and patience.
1. Maggi 2 Minute Noodles do NOT cook in 2 minutes…
I actually tried it the other day and it’s kak. It’s a lie!
2. Cooking for 2 isn’t that bad…
Ive come to the realization that this is probably the easiest cooking will ever get. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate it but sometimes I look at my fridge like this:
Close it, Just close it!
3. It’s okay to be Selfish…
I’m that type of person that just cant say no and I must admit it does get tiring after a while. All the effort and no appreciation… So be a little selfish and put you first once in a while.
4. Never go to bed with make-up on…
Do NOT do it! Your skin will thank you later in life.
5. Family Matters
Family is everything- FULL STOP!
Yes, I agree that sometimes everyone gets up in each others faces but we wouldn’t be who we are today without them. So send a message or call them from time to time- I’m sure they miss you too.
6. Read, Read, Read…
It can be anything really. Knowledge is power!
7. Life is too short for bad coffee…
Frisco
8. Spoil Yourself from time to time…
We work too damn hard these days and often forget about ourselves. Book a mani and pamper yourself, you deserve it.
9. Health Matters
I have met so many people in my lifetime that are for worse off then I am. We often take for granted our health and don’t necessarily look after ourselves the way we should.
Treat your body with care and eat more of the good stuff then the bad stuff
10. Spread the love
Tell someone you love them
Just do it.
A mix of emotions arise thinking back. A year that I’m quite happy to say goodbye to and welcome 2016 with open arms, but the year wasn’t all that bad, quite eventful rather..
The Lows..
This year was definitely a year of emotions. I think my emotional nerve is lodged between some muscles because I literally cried over anything and everything but non the less, we all have our ups and downs.
Job Hunting
Family drama- who doesn’t have it?
Health Issues, or me being slightly neurotic thinking I was suffering a heart attack or that I have a terminal illness- I got over it don’t worry
Depression
The Highs..
Celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary
Rediscovering South Africa through social networking
