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Immune system help!!!!!!

Hi,

I always love reading these forums so I know I'm in good hands!

Right here goes..... I'm training to for Helvellyn tri in September and then ultimately UKIM in 2010. Training seems to be going well until I pick up some bug or other putting me out of action for a couple of days or so[:@].

In my opinion I eat well, take regular multi vits, Spirulina and glucosamine etc etc. I really don't understand it and could do with everyone's opinions and help. I'm a firefighter with a young family, so do have some sleep disturbed nights when working. Also, the wife and I play the 'passing ships in the night' routine with the kids and work! With that, on occasions I get up at 5am to get my long run or bike in.

I've decided to

a) get to bed 30 mins earlier (where poss)

b) start using SIS Rego after every sesh

What do you reckon??????



Good or bad feedback please let me know what you do, advise etc!! Thanks guys

Comments

  • apana790apana790 Posts: 76
    Do you get ill often? If not that might hav just been a virus and ther's not much you can do about that. A few months ago i also decided to get more sleep and start drinking SIS rego after hard training sesions. Rego is definately a great recovery aid and works a treat for me, i have seen a drastic decrease in recovery times
  • willieverfinishwillieverfinish Posts: 1,381
    2 things



    1) Wait for Conehead to reply - he's a nutritionist so he'll know what you need ( and so may many others on here)



    2) You get a disturbed nights sleep AT WORK!!!! You should come and work for the LAS mate. Out all night and 15 jobs a shift. Count yourself lucky. [;)]



    All the best mate and christ knows I understand about passing ships and all that. It's crap isn't it.





  • apana790, cheers for that. I hardly ever got ill until started Ironfit. I'm defo gonna buy Rego



    willieverfinish, great feedback!![:D] hopefully Conehead can come up with the goods.



    Hey, what's all the hype about Soreen?? is it a new wonder food??

  • Any idea's when Coneheads back from the Hawaii??
  • Whey Protien shakes from grass fed cows (yeah youd think all milk came from grass fed cows....) may help you more than the SIS stuff as i believe they use low quality protiens?



    Also prolactin (early milk) type foods will help you a bit.



    Also are you eating a lot of green leafy and cruciferous veg (cabbage, sprouts, cauliflower etc.)?



    Have a look on http://www.myprotein.co.uk/

  • BlinkybazBlinkybaz Posts: 1,144
    Firefighter Gaz - Sounds to me like you are suffering in both sleep and illness.

    I would defo look into some sort of recovery drink after exercise. I use good old cow power. A nice milk smoothie (banana) Its great. Half a pint and 1 banana is all you need stickem in the blender and off you go. They taste great. Only use semi-skimmed or skimmed milk. This should allow your body to rebuild its self with out straining your imune system. Other things are listen to your body! If it doesnt want to do anything today or as much then take a break. Keep eating well and keep your fluids up.



    You also must never over look SOREEN. A slice aday keeps the doctor away!!!
  • willieverfinishwillieverfinish Posts: 1,381
    Think he's back at end of the week mate.





  • PC_67PC_67 Posts: 196
    hard training & young kids = recipe for immune system disaster!



    You get run down from the training and exposed to more viruses through the kids.



    I take garlic capsules and echinacea daily in the run up to the tri season, and eat plenty of fruit and veg most of the time. The pills may only be a placebo, but last year in the 10 days before Windsor I was at a monster booze up at a conference followed by 2 days travelling with a colleague who sounded like she had TB she had such a heavy cold. I was just waiting to come down with a cold but it never happened.
  • Is this happening on a regular basis? If so, not that I want to frighten you but you might be best to get yourself checked out at the docs, I started like you last year, ended up being off work for 2 months with glandular fever and couldn't do any evercise at all for 5 months - totally ruined any fitness levels I had. As for supplements to help boost your immune system:



    1. Good quality protein

    2. Short course of Echinacea (for no more than three or four weeks) because your body will build up an immunity to it.

    3. A good quality complete a-z vitamin supplement (that includes vitamin E)

    4. Get more sleep. Not getting enough sleep can reduce the effectiveness of your immune system by up to 50 per cent

    5. Take 500 mg of Vitamin C once per day when you feel a cold coming on or when people around you are sick

    6. Floradix also do a good range of supplement that help the immune system, I can personally recommend these, you can get them from Holland Barrett. But they are not cheap (roughy about £8 or £9 per bottle but worth every penny).



    Hope you feel better soon
  • durhamvamdurhamvam Posts: 246
    Hi,



    I'd think twice about the glucosamine - I know it's really good for joints and so on but (and this is probably going to get me a hurricane of outraged comment) it's also a really powerful immune suppressant or has been shown to act like that in rats at any case. It induces insulin immunity (diabetes to you and me) after long term use and apparently is in trials for use in cases of organ transplant. Of course I'm not sure what "long term" for a rat translates to for a human or how much they were giving the poor beasts.



    Anyway, I think I'd weigh up exactly how much benefit I was getting from it before I used it long term.

  • I'd recommend going to see a nutritionist - I was getting cold after cold just before Xmas (and spent most of Xmas day in pyjama's with full blown flu, girl flu, not man flu so was really ill). I had my GP do a set of blood tests which I took to the nutritionist and I haven't been ill since Jan. Def worth it in my opinion and think I had probably just been wasting money on general multi vits which weren't enough for the training we do. Having a personnalised prog has made a difference and seeing as I have a coach to write my training plans, thought I might as well go the whole hog! Sure Conehead can give you more advice when he is back from travels - hope you get better soon.
  • jonEjonE Posts: 1,113
    Total sympathy with you on this,2004 I slightly did the overtraining for an IM race,got sick,followed by a PVI,constantly tired and feeling washed out.I work shifts and have the passing ships scenario with my tri suffering wife.Blood tests pointed to a couple of possible reasons but Doc said to just rest,which I did.I did a bit of research and found that Glutamine helped,also try Colostrum,both abit pricey but they may help.Occassionally the tiredness rears its ugly head and I have to take an enforced rest for a couple of weeks.My diet is 80% healthy.Due to the peaks and unexpected troughs with health a regular training plan is useless,so I train how I feel,it gets the results that suit me,they may not be the best,but it lets me participate regularly.
  • Jack HughesJack Hughes Posts: 1,262
    What sort of "bug"?



    Cold/sore throat type things?



    Stomach Upsets?



    Alergy type things? Rashes, lumps, bumps? Cold sores?



    Headaches?





    Cold/sore throat type things: Well, you might be run down, you might also have some underlying issues, say with glands/tonsils or whatever.. Eat lots of fresh fruit and veg, see a doctor for a checkup.



    Stomach Upsets. Could be problems with nutritution, the wrong sorts of bacteria.



    Alergy type things - you might have an alergy!



    Headaches...



    1) Working nights is no good for you... sleep, and sleep at the right time, is really important. But that is probably hard to do anything about - unless you can take a sabattical for a few months.

    2) Stress. How stressed are you.. this could be as simple as crying children, feeling out of control, rather than anything big and major.

    3) Drinking - always worth cutting down on that!

    4) Smoking. Stop it if you do!



    5) You will probably want to just work through it - which, if you ailments are "low grade" - i.e. not enough to stop you going in to work, might be OK. All you will need to do is to take things a little bit easier than you might want to - i.e. a few more rest days, easier sessions every now and again. But diet and rest should really focus high on your "training" priorities.



    Good luck!



    Obviously, don't take my advice, might be worth seeing a professional.
  • Jack HughesJack Hughes Posts: 1,262
    What sort of "bug"?



    Cold/sore throat type things?



    Stomach Upsets?



    Alergy type things? Rashes, lumps, bumps? Cold sores?



    Headaches?





    Cold/sore throat type things: Well, you might be run down, you might also have some underlying issues, say with glands/tonsils or whatever.. Eat lots of fresh fruit and veg, see a doctor for a checkup.



    Stomach Upsets. Could be problems with nutritution, the wrong sorts of bacteria.



    Alergy type things - you might have an alergy!



    Headaches...



    1) Working nights is no good for you... sleep, and sleep at the right time, is really important. But that is probably hard to do anything about - unless you can take a sabattical for a few months.

    2) Stress. How stressed are you.. this could be as simple as crying children, feeling out of control, rather than anything big and major.

    3) Drinking - always worth cutting down on that!

    4) Smoking. Stop it if you do!



    5) You will probably want to just work through it - which, if you ailments are "low grade" - i.e. not enough to stop you going in to work, might be OK. All you will need to do is to take things a little bit easier than you might want to - i.e. a few more rest days, easier sessions every now and again. But diet and rest should really focus high on your "training" priorities.



    Good luck!



    Obviously, don't take my advice, might be worth seeing a professional.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 335
    'colostrum' ???? and the evidence is? Used to importance in my other life (midwife) but thought gut flora once past initial breastfeeding made its benefits negligible - happy to be told otherwise - dreaming up a money spinner for work now[:D]
  • PC_67PC_67 Posts: 196
    This might sound daft but I always can feel if I'm run down / immune system overstretched if simple things like cut skin around my fingernails becomes common or slight cuts take longer to heal than usual.



    Other things like skin complection* / hair quality (I've a similar crown to Conehead but still like to think I can feel if my hair is healthy or not) and general sense of well being: trust your own judgment about how you feel, take rests and don't beat yourself up over missing targets if you're tired.



    * I get boils sometimes in April /May as I step up intensity. I asked my GP if it's dehydration related, she says it's actually common with sweating more. Makes sense as season changes and gets warmer. Anyone know anything about this?
  • BobalovskiBobalovski Posts: 15
    Hi Firefightergaz...



    I too work a highly irregular shift patterns including nights for an airline. About ten years ago when I started fliying I was getting ill regularly. I was constantly run down and suffered from mouth ulcers and swollen glands on a weekly basis. I put it down to breathing all the general publics germs through the lovely recycled air on the plane. I began to think I had glandular fever or similar. Blood test showed nothing and the Doc had no answers. Eventually, at a friends recommendation I very sceptically saw a cranial osteopath. After half an hour of him cradling my neck and feeling some very weird sensations he told me my immune system was knackered because my digestive sytem was knackered due to irregular sleep/eating patterns.



    To cut along story short he recommended a strong probiotic in the form of capsules of Bio-acidophulus (available from health food stores). After a couple of weeks on these I felt much better. And now, a decade later I still use probiotics and (touch wood) cannot rememder the last time I was ill. I probably on average lose two full nights sleep a week and have an irregular though fairly healthy diet and swear by these tablets to help me cope....I hope this hepls



    I guess its worth a try.....good luck
  • steved25steved25 Posts: 37
    Hi





    I have been wondering about colostrum for a while.



    Is there one product you would recommend ?





    cheers



    steve
  • this website is the one i recommend:



    http://www.myprotein.co.uk/bulk-powders/health-and-wellness/colostrum-(nz)/



    I believe prolactin/colostrum are a similar/the same thing

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