LOVE schwans! they have a lot of products with mushrooms now and I am quite allergic. I also cant do shrimp which seems to be popular right now. I have to really research their stuff. Like the stuff pot pie (i really wanted that!) had a mushroom gravy. I did serve their huge pot roast to our friends yesterday for a luncheon. YUM! so tender it was falling apart.

The lights in grocery stores top the list of nerve-janglers. I wear dark glasses to go to the grocery store. Years ago when I was sicker, I wore both dark glasses and a hat with a large brim. if the lights are flourescent, they are of course worse than incandescent.
I had the problems you describe, Dejibo and all, long before MS diagnosis. I can get by better now in a store. Taking that deep breath like Barb 02 suggested makes it better; it's called regaining focus. The music they play gives you the willies. I love it that my coop (natural foods coop) does not play ANY music.
This is an important thread in showing the hidden disabilities we have.
It's common to people with porphyria (which I also have). One of the things which makes porphs lose focus is environmental toxins, one of the worst being either a new rug or a rug cleaned with toxic chemicals. I had to quit my teaching career because of a new rug, and I am not exaggerating. Yes, other things had made teaching more and more difficult, including the lights, but the rug was "the end."

high heels
 

Mrs.D, I think those new 6 inch high heels are bummers. The Duchess of Cambridge wears them. They have platforms as well as high heels, and that's how they achieve the height. They must be very well engineered, and expensive, to allow the human being wearing them to walk and not be in pain, but I guess money buys everything. I am fascinated with women like Duchess Kate, who are beautiful but also very high maintainance. Kate would never need to shop at Walmart. It must cost hundreds of thousands a year just to maintain her in her glamorous state. We enjoy the view but actually it is sick. Look the other way, kiddies!

I never shop at any of those low end stores because of all the misery they cause (lights, etc.). I did try to go to Costco once, but the store had an actual fire just as I was about to go in, and my visit was superceded by the fire department. Walmart's reputation makes me sick; since I don't actually need to go there, I don't. I've been to Home Depot, where all of the wood and furniture products are made with formaldehyde ersatz wood from China,
(as attested by the manager) and I can't be in there without a carbon-filter mask. Some times I wish I was made of rubber like the other shoppers, but then again I'm grateful to God for the sensitivities I do have.

I can't use Schwann's, Sally
 

Sally, Schwann's delivery service patrols my neighborhood every couple of weeks, because I live in an isolated place which has only one food market. Schwanns came to my door and I looked at their catalog. There is nothing in their catalog I can eat. Either it's high saturated fat (not on the Swank MS diet) or it's high salt--very high salt. I bought one thing, but I threw it away after really studying the label. I know others may not need to be on a lower salt diet as I do. When I was very young I needed a high salt diet. But with MS we never need high sat fat.

Hi mariel
 

You are so right about the cost to maintain royality. It is that way with all those in power, even in our own country.
I don't like walmart now that I know there is corruption there too. I did shop there for food because of SSD etc. and medicaid prices matter. People of wealth have no comprehension on the average joes problems for the most part. There are exceptions however, where the wealthy do share.
As far as heels go I never really could walk with grace wearing them anyway. I looked like a turkey trying to be graceful.
Home depot I am sensitive too also, too many chemicals, and it does smell of that too. ginnie

Sally, you are funny. Love you!

I have to say that I am doing BETTER rather than worse at shopping now than in the past decades when I could hardly do it. What happened? I can't say for sure. Probably some healing. Probably some willingness to go slow in what I do, to plan ahead, to always wear dark glasses, to not be afraid to ask for help in getting products from the bottom shelf, or in finding products on the shelves. Also, my local Smith's grocery people are very nice and helpful. Probably we don't have an overwhelming crowd, even though Smith's is the only store in our little town. The Smith's in the "other" part of Los Alamos is much more crowded and smelly and I hate going there, and begin to feel overwhelmed, but usually if I go to that store it's only because I am up there for the afternoon and need something right away, like water--one or two items. My coop natural foods in Santa Fe is also quiet, not crowded (although it has plenty enough business to thrive and expand) and I take my time. I never go in "on the fly." Or if I go in "on the fly" it's because I'm on the way to the doctor in Santa Fe, or the dentist, and need to stop for one item, such as lunch.

When I was younger I was trying to "multi-task" (Sally, I love your example of multitasking). And I couldn't do it well, even became sort of catatonic, staring off into space until my mind kicked in again. I had no idea why I could not multitask in a store...I did not have a diagnosis.
I was given the impression that I was depressed and that made it difficult to think. No, I was depressed because it was difficult to think, so difficult that I had to quit my job teaching when they put a brain-frying new rug in the building. I had a Mensa IQ and a graduate degree--I wasn't dumb, so supposedly I could rev the brain up. I tried all sorts of alternate therapies (meditating, body work) and supplements, and it's possible they helped, but not enough to make going to the store easy, or working easier.

On another thread I have told what supplements I take, and I do believe I would not be doing as well as I am--now or during those years when it was difficult to shop--without my supplements. They help even if they don't fix everything. Don't shun them on the basis that someone told you they couldn't do any good. Just beware of excesses in some of them, as for instance, B6 should not be taken by many people above about 20 units a day, so don't buy a B complex with a very high B6 in it. Be careful of some minerals which might have an upper limit, such as Selenium (do some research on this). Don't take supplements which give you indigestion. Try something else. Think about an enzyme to help digest them.

Went yesterday. O M G! #1 I didnt go at an early hour. it was 3 in the afternoon. MISTAKE! :eek: Moms with kids (all in their pjs) dominating most isles by parking their carts in the middle of the isle and having their sick children touch all the pretty colors! Old ladies who kept bumping me with their carts, and thought because they were old they deserved to cut in front of me. At the pharmacy, the deli and the checkout! The cashier who was closing in the isle next to mine saw I was near tears, and said, "come on hon, one more fore I go home" I was sooo thankful!

The lights, the colors, the crowd, the noise, the perfumes, the unwashed masses, the shiny floor, the constant folks wanting to crowd up against me. I was ready to pass out by the time we hit the car.

UGH!

Hi Dejibo
 

You had quite an outing didn't you? I so understand about the crowds the masses of people. Where I lived use to be a sleeply little place, but then our very knowledgeable city fathers, agreed to advertise this place. Well the word is out to the world and the world has come here. I can't wait till I can move. Tourists all over the place, with germs from around the world are here too. I don't do all that well in any store these days. That parking the cart with four kids hanging over the cart drives me bonkers!
Rest today, sorry you had to venture out into a place of torture. Take care of yourself. ginnie

Dej, you know better n that!!:mad: Don't ever do that again, are you a glutton for punishment?:eek:

Rest yourself and never forget!!!:D

:hug::hug::hug:

I ordered some things from walmart on-line. I didn't make a list so I forgot some things. I got free shipping with spending almost $50.00. I bought some snacks and toiletries. I need a local grocer or someone trustworthy needing a little extra cash to deliver groceries or even send in order and pick-up. I don't know how my mother manages at her age.