The reason my chest looks like b

Just because I'm a doctor does not mean I don't have those mornings where I wake up thinking "I wonder if I have a brain tumor..."

I said to SR before he left for his 24 shift,"My left foot, left calf, left shoulder and left eye all hurt. And now my left breast has stopped producing milk. Do you think they are related?"

"No" he said, quickly gathering his stuff.

So I let go of the brain tumor idea when I could not localize a tumor that would explain all of this. And then I thought, if I forget about the eye, perhaps my back being out of alignment could explain the rest.

Not an hour later a woman walked up to me and exclaimed my first name in the woman's locker room at the Y. Oh my gosh, Kelly, my old chiropractor from when I was pregnant with The Lorax. I hadn't seen her in ages!

I told her my story,:the shoulder, leg, foot and boob on the left. And she said "Oh, yeah, totally! It must be the nerve". Despite me having no idea what nerve she was talking about, I got so swept up in the idea that I also said "oh, yeah!" I called and made an appointment to see her tomorrow. But by the time El Guapo woke up from his nap, there was milk dripping from my left boob.

??????

I just have to add two interesting tidbits:

1. during the about 4 days where my left boob was not producing, the right one doubled in production. Just like that. Take a person who is already extremely self-conscious about how she looks and then add that and you have got a woman in very baggy clothing!

2. The left side is the side that El Guapo sleeps on so it is odd that the left was the side that gave out - but it has always produced less ("the slacker" a la Piccola Pinecone)

I looked up the connection between a nerve and breast milk production, ready to be amazed by yet another fact I didn't learn in med school, only to find no nerve involved in lactation. There was, however a case report from a chiropractor of his amazing restoration of lactation. (My chiropractor could also have written one had my milk come back tomorrow after the appointment, of course).

Cow's milk and babies

As long as we're discussing milk & babies, I had to bring this up. Have you ever been on a transatlantic flight with a 4 month old baby and run out of breast milk and thought about giving the baby the little milk that was included with the dinner? No? Well, then you are smarter than I am. I did this and then could not get rid of this nagging feeling that I had read an article about cow's milk being associated with the development of Type 1 diabetes. I let it go, though, since I figured it was more lack of breastfeeding that predisposed to Type 1 diabetes. Well, that may not be the case, there is some mixed evidence, but one study from Finland (where the incidence of type 1 diabetes is the highest in the world - likely due to lack of vitamin D and NOT sauna sitting during pregnancy!) showed that any exposure of babies less than 2 months to cow's milk increased their risk of type 1 diabetes. And a study in JAMA showed introducing babies to gluten before 6 months also increases their risk of type 1 diabetes. These studies were done in populations with familial type 1 diabetes to show something significant. And there have been studies that have suggested cow's milk is actually ok (as long as it doesn't substitute breast milk), but the verdict is still out. I just thought young mothers should know it's probably best to avoid gluten and milk products until the baby is 6 months.

Oh- and why don't Americans supplement babies with Vitamin D drops?? Or do they (they should, especially dark skinnned babies or babies breast fed by dark skinned moms!)? Not just to help prevent diabetes, but also rickets and hypocalcemia.

Sorry this is a rambling, unorganized post, but time is limited around here!