ME better when abroad

[erin]

Maybe it is the Italian food and its ingredients helped you. Italian agriculture in touristic parts of Italy can be pure and organic.

 

[Basilico]

Maybe it is the Italian food and its ingredients helped you. Italian agriculture in touristic parts of Italy can be pure and organic.

Even though in Italy the quality of average food is much better than the quality of average food in the US, it's possible to get food in the US that is far superior to what we can get in Italy. This sounds confusing, but in Italy, there is no pasture-raised meat - the cows are all crammed into barns or bought abroad from other countries. Fields here are all vineyards or corn, not animals (at least in the north, where I'm living). So while what you buy in the supermarket is probably better than the factory raised stuff in US supermarkets, it's nowhere near the level of what you can find in a Whole Foods or even in the organic section of a supermarket chain.

In fact, my in-laws eat very little meat, because the quality of what they can find in stores is pretty bad. My FIL almost never eats meat, and we all thought it was because he didn't like it. But when they came to visit us in the US he gladly ate meat every day and was shocked at how much better it was.

So in the US, I consume grass-fed local dairy and pasture-raised local meats but while in Italy, everything is corn-fed or factory farmed. It's only when we go to the mountains (the Alps) that we can find good quality eggs and dairy straight from the farmers, but that's not any better than what I get in the U.S.

 

[Basilico]

Is there a reason why my ME symptoms are far less when abroad rather than at home?
I went to Spain a few months ago and was expecting to spend most of the time in bed or lying in the sun. But I was able to go out and walk 2-3 km each day with hardly any fatigue the following day. This was for four days. I recently went to Holland and the same happened.
At home in the UK i am in bad pain a lot of the time and have to take a lot painkillers. And walking 2-3 km would affect me for several days afterwards and in bed sleeping and fatigued.

A similar thing happened to me 2 years ago. I went to Budapest in the summer during a heat wave (it was between 96-100 degrees) and I walked 10-15 miles every day for 3 days. I felt great. Normally, I would never even consider doing something like that, especially in the heat since I have low blood pressure. When I returned from the trip, I was a little tired, but nothing terrible, and no crash.

One idea I came up with was that since traveling is the one thing that I love to do more than anything else, perhaps for brief periods of time, when I'm doing the thing I love, my brain secretes some chemicals that are temporarily capable of overriding whatever nonsense my immune system is normally doing (or temporarily stops cell danger response or whatever) but it's only powerful enough to last for a brief period of time. I seem to be only capable of maintaining this for a few days at a time.

 

[Invisible Woman]

I don't think that this is in your head. I use a Kestrel Weather Station (see attached images) to track several aspects of Weather. The worst to induce Symptoms appear to be Humidity changes followed by Temperature changes.

I definitely feel worse in high humidity and at high temperatures. It wouldn't surprise me if air pressure made a difference to some of us too.

 

[godlovesatrier]

I certainly haven't noticed this. It is recommended that you do change your environment but I've never noticed any improvement. Other than to be happy I was on holiday! However mould is a real problem at home - sometimes it just hides there in plain site in the walls and you may not even know it's there. This happened to me and it wasn't until I moved that I realised what the issue was. However it didn't make my ME symptoms any better, even if my vertigo like symptoms disappeared and I no longer had a sore throat (the inclusion of dog dander at that time may have actually helped my immune system to "change tac" but who knows it's all arbitrary...), my flu like symptoms however simply got worse.

Now I'm in a relapse stage after doing too much. Fun times!

 

[erin]

Even though in Italy the quality of average food is much better than the quality of average food in the US, it's possible to get food in the US that is far superior to what we can get in Italy. This sounds confusing, but in Italy, there is no pasture-raised meat - the cows are all crammed into barns or bought abroad from other countries. Fields here are all vineyards or corn, not animals (at least in the north, where I'm living). So while what you buy in the supermarket is probably better than the factory raised stuff in US supermarkets, it's nowhere near the level of what you can find in a Whole Foods or even in the organic section of a supermarket chain.

In fact, my in-laws eat very little meat, because the quality of what they can find in stores is pretty bad. My FIL almost never eats meat, and we all thought it was because he didn't like it. But when they came to visit us in the US he gladly ate meat every day and was shocked at how much better it was.

So in the US, I consume grass-fed local dairy and pasture-raised local meats but while in Italy, everything is corn-fed or factory farmed. It's only when we go to the mountains (the Alps) that we can find good quality eggs and dairy straight from the farmers, but that's not any better than what I get in the U.S.

I am surprised that the food in the US better quality than Italian food in general. It is an interesting information that you gave here. I was not talking about the supermarket stuff. I went to a rural area in Italy some 4 years ago, meat was really good. Actually it was a pig farm. But, the olive oil, wine, etc all produced in the premises. I was imagining that you went to a similar touristy place somehow.

 

[Basilico]

I am surprised that the food in the US better quality than Italian food in general. It is an interesting information that you gave here. I was not talking about the supermarket stuff. I went to a rural area in Italy some 4 years ago, meat was really good. Actually it was a pig farm. But, the olive oil, wine, etc all produced in the premises. I was imagining that you went to a similar touristy place somehow.

If you go to agriturismo type places (farms/vineyards that have a Bed & Breakfast onsite) you definitely can get some good quality stuff that they've made/raised themselves, but these places tend to be expensive and/or are geared toward short visits by tourists. I am living with family for an extended amount of time (1-2 months typically) so my experience here is more similar to a typical Italian rather than a tourist.

My in-laws did stay at an agriturismo-type place a few months ago (similar to what you probably experienced) and they brought home some wonderful homemade olive oil and wine and cheese. But this kind of thing is like a special treat, it's not really what's available (or affordable) for daily use.

We are able to seek out some good stuff (mostly from the malga in the mountains, which are the dairy farmers who raise sheep, goats and cows on the pastures in the mountains and do sell their products directly to people) but that requires actually driving into the mountains to go to the farms directly since they don't distribute outside of their local area. And certain things (like good quality meat) are particularly elusive. And unfortunately things like corn syrup, which just a few years ago was nonexistent, has started to replace sugar in more and more products here.