Cran, I am sorry to hear you have lupus. I hope yours is in remission. Mine presently is and it makes such a difference! I had a very long remission, 27 years until my stroke. For years I needed only survalance after initially, at 23, needing prednisone for kidney issues. Insoluble fiber acts just like resistance starch. So, I saw Dr. Kreigel' team at Yale but he recently left to work with Roche to develop possible treatment or vaccine for lupus so now I see a colleague of his. It is very hard to alter our flora but studies of high fiber diets and lower sugar were proven to work for matabolic syndrome, i.e. Type 2 diabetes, so it was suggested I beef up my fiber intake to atleast 20 grams a day. I eat two cups of all bran with unsweetened rice milk every day and have a bowl of steel cut oats for an afternoon snack to hit almost 30 grams of fiber. The rest of my diet is normal fruit, fish, veggies, yogurt, some treats, potatoes and pasta so the bran and oats are the change I made. Resistance starch is in pasta and potatoes and many other foods. Pasta and potatoes cooled after cooking are supposedly higher in resistance starch than heated is. Yams are a good source. I like to use food sources more than supplements. High fiber, low fat and sugar diets are proven to help maintain health and diverse gut bacteria. Fiber, (resistance starches) are considered prebiotics which feed the good bacteria while sugar and fat feed the unhealthier ones. Also have your vitamin d regularly checked. Insufficiency is linked to higher lupus and Antiphospholipid antibodies and thus flares. I now supplement for mine was low. xo

Awesome! Definitely rare and Cactus show material, posted a few from shows in CA like here https://www.houzz.com/discussions/pics-from-todays-cands-show-dsvw-vd~4893559 and example below Indeed unlikely to find in the wild, those guys are trying to hide, soccer balls mounts would be too easy to chew on (or kicked to score goals :) Just another 12 or so years for me to go...

Unless your doctor has told you it is carpel tunnel it may be other things. I have a tendon in my wrist that ruptured on my right wrist. It forms a knot ever so often and can cause tingling etc. My left hand has a pinched nerve somewhere in my should that causes the three outside fingers to have the same problems. I do have carpel tunnel problems on the other finger and thumb on that hand. I had to stop gardening because of the pain in both hands. Talk to a hand surgeon to see what they suggest as it is one of those you can do it now while it is not a major problem or wait in pain until you have even worse problems.

I remember last December here where we hit several days of single digit, sometimes teens, days and negative nights. Then Winter held on and Spring was very late. Maybe three years ago we had record snowfall. Usually we get snow and then our normal is for the higher coastal temps to melt most of the snow before the next storm comes. That year temps stayed so low all winter that little of the snow melted. People born and raised here said they had never seen such snow accumulation. Winter feels healthy here, and I love it. (Full disclosure: From the perspective of somebody who grew up in Alabama!) It could be that things are more erratic, but we definitely experience Winter!