Follow Up: The Time I Decided to Quit Back Pain

So I forgot one key detail in the previous post on back pain.  I guess that's the problem with writing the entire post at once, but there's no reason I cant add things later, especially when its such a simple thing they had such a big impact on me.  And what is that thing?  Flax seed oil.

Normally when I tell people that, I immediately follow it up by mentioning that its a supplement you take, usually in pill form.  For some reason the first impression everyone gets is something else, I don't know why.  You can get it in a liquid, and I have tried it before, but it doesn't taste good and the consistency is really gross.  Its possible the liquid I had was rancid, its a common problem with oils.  You cant taste when capsules are rancid, but you still don't want to be eating rancid oil so maybe liquid is better in that sense, but then again I have no idea.

How does it work?  Well from what I've read its all about your ratio of Omega-3s to Omega-6s.  They're both essential fatty acids, which means your body cant produce them on their own, so you need to consume them somehow.  Now deficiencies in either of these oils can cause negative health effects, and there's a lot more complexity to just the broad number of fatty acids encompassed by these umbrella terms which Im not going to cover right now, maybe a bit later.  For now Im going to focus on the effects of the ratio these oils have.  Lets start by talking about vegetable oil, there's a pretty good break down of the fat content of oils on wikipedia, here it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Types_of_cooking_oils_and_fats

As we can see nearly every oil we consume has a much higher omega 6 content then omega 3s, which a few exceptions, notably flax seed oil.  If you're not aware, and I wasn't until I had read about it, these oils are in the majority of processed foods.  They're usually listed in the ingredients as vegetable oil, sometimes with what particular types of oil.  In general the most common are canola, soy, sunflower and safflower.  They're used in deep friars, they're used as a substitute for butter in margarine and baked goods, they've even replaced peanut oil as the primary oil in peanut butter.

Ill let you in on a little secret, I started writing this two weeks ago, then I stopped to watch the new season of black mirror.  So why did it take me two weeks to continue, well I suffer from insomnia.  I just didn't have the mental energy to put in the solid thought required to write something Id actually consider worth writing.  Ive actually become pretty good at managing my insomnia, but clearly I havent fully over come it.  It was really an eye opener to how even what I would consider a small event really effected me, I just wasn't operating at 100% even a full week after I was back to normal sleep.  Its something I plan to write a full post on sometime, hopefully once Ive really got it under control, but maybe not, its still something I dont have a clear solution to yet.

Clearly I was working on this and just never came back to it, I honestly dont know why, but better late then never I guess.