...Has almost always, even inevitably been, a great, unmitigated blessing in disguise...

And so what finally 'broke the puzzle' for me, as to the identity of this 'mystery ingredient' (i.e. necessary trace mineral) in my diet?

Eventually, after two decades plus of owning it, getting around to (re-)reading (or possibly even perusing for the very first time) a fantastic-looking and -sounding little booklet, Healing Foods from the Bible, that, oddly enough, I happened to pick up at a local grocer (equivalent of kiwi corner store, dairy or (in olden times) 'milkbar') - the last sort of thing one would stumble across in such a shop in NZ...though it was around 24-25 years ago, admittedly...whilst living in Minnesota's *'Twin Cities'...

And when I came to the eighth of these seventeen odd foodstuffs, 'grapes', within moments I read these amazing words:

Regrettably, and after quoting an entire (largish) paragraph (just now), I decide to check the copyright instructions at the book's front, and read this prohibition:

**Reproduction in whole or part of any Globe Digest TM without written authorization is prohibited.

So, so much for that! Anyhow, in case you're still in suspense, ***boron is the age-old 'mystery' mineral, and is clearly found in 'grape-stuffs', whether they be plain ole grapes, the pure, unfermented biblical 'new wine' of grape juice, raisins or white and red wine. And an appreciable amount evidently too.

At which point a whole lot of things 'clicked' for me, in particular the (seeming) obsession these days with a thing/substance called 'resveratrol', which is derived from grapes and/or their seeds...as well as peanuts...and about which all manner of incredible, even seemingly outrageous claims are regularly made.

And though E G White rightly warns against alcoholic beverages for all their well-known health risks, it's at least true that via boron they thus provide ye average citizen throughout the world with some handy built-in protection against at least one major scourge of the (at least Western) aging process.

Nuff said for now whilst I seek out the necessary copyright approvals, the lack thereof having inadvertently taken the wind clean out of my sails for the foreseeable...

*I.e. Minneapolis-St Paul, the childhood home of my Mum.

**Assuming, naturally enough, that GD aren't averse to my quoting that proviso/stipulation.

*** (Ditto to the immediately prior footnote, plus): Or to my merely giving the guts of the insight.

Part Two (Days and weeks on/August 23rd in fact): [Necessary Disclaimer]

Having - admittedly taken my good time in (the process of) - done my level best in seeking to secure the relevant copyright approvals involved...I'm giving up...-hey, apart from there being no email address full-stop let alone any suitable one; much less - as I discovered this morning - any physical address of either Global Communications Corporation or Global Digest in Boca raton, Florida - or specifically the actual phone number in America I was trying (from online info provided) and/or seeking (when this proved unavailing)...

...and the - exceedingly polite and moreover helpful - relevant '018' call centre lady not even finding any actual physical address much less phone number throughout the USA for either 'outfit'...

...let me simply say I'm gonna plough on ahead and write up what I'd originally, initially intended to ...until stopped in my tracks by an ever over-wrought and super-sensitive conscience/ conscientiousness which has verily afflicted me from the earliest moments of life through to this very day...

...understanding from many copyright conversations with the relevant local folk in times gone by that perfection isn't required so much as real, genuine effort to seek out those responsible for the particular copyright involved...

To Be Continued...hopefully in a few minutes! ...or, perhaps - not! 

...I've inadvertently, serendipitously, 'coincidentally' stumbled across...throughout the last decade especially...

Part Two: The Missing Mineral in my Diet

So how did I realize what was doubtless at very least one major contributor to the intense, bone-wracking episodic pain in my upper shoulders/nape of neck that has periodically afflicted me in most recent, but thankfully not in the most recent, winter/s, here in my hometown of Dunedin?

By (haphazard) 'trial and error', however cliche-ridden that might sound...

Having, post-diagnosis with coeliac disease back in mid-2009, to pretty well immediately focus upon a nutrient-rich, vitamin-and mineral boosting to my ordinary dietary regime - especially by the use of supplementation, which, in this instance, was not, as per usual, frowned upon - there was one especial trace mineral that intrigued me; normally being associated with an acid one would assume was not especially healthful: hold on, all will shortly be revealed...

Realizing that these incidents of periodic neuralgia usually only tended to occur in the depths of bone-chilling midwinter - although one such memorable incident admittedly did occur, early January I believe, during the height of one of our most recent very unseasonably warm summers - I was able to somehow or other place this fact alongside my attention and due diligence to minerals which assisted my bones (and teeth), especially, naturally enough, in the backwash of my diagnosis with osteopenia, a variety of osteomalacia, not long after my diagnosis with coeliac's disease...

Though I cannot at this point in time recall precisely the name of the woman  - a retired New York Professor of some description, I don't believe in the health field itself - who has been running an 'osteopenia' website, and has been sending me (via the web) e-newsletters ever since - who got me really thinking in earnest about this condition, post- my diagnosis with the same in late 2009, or early 2010,

I combined this with the very useful guff Adelle Davis had long provided c/o such classics as Let's Eat Right To Keep Fit, on the well-established importance of and interrelationships between calcium, phosphorous and magnesium especially...alongside those of potassium and sodium...

and then, though I'd intermittently been using (in special supplementation) the particular mysterious mineral I've been alluding to, due to both cost and my lack of 'convincement' of its efficacy - that it was really 'doing the trick' - my interest and use thereof had/has periodically waxed and waned, lapsed and then suddenly been renewed...

The clincher for me came when I mentally combined the periodic bouts of neuralgia with my realization that during those 'seasons' (of my life) - usually wintry outbreaks - I seldom used grape juice; concentrating instead during the colder months - in Dunedin usually the last week-and-a-half in May through September - upon various (true fruit, not merely fruit-flavoured sugar water) juices: such as orange, tomato, pineapple...

Recalling the words of another great nutritionist, like Ms Davis streets and streaks and light years, even aeons, ahead of so many others - the redoubtable Ellen Gould White who left this earthly sojourn a good 103-104 years ago - vis-a-vis the 'efficacy' of both eggs and grape juice...their each containing certain substances (naturally enough significantly different in each instance) which were highly beneficial to human life and limb...

One day, finally stumbling upon a long-neglected but ever-tantalizing tome amidst my vast horde of books, which was about 'Foods Found in the Bible', I read about the long-known benefits of grape juice, considered to have this particular highly useful trace mineral...

...which I'll inform you about in my final Part Three to shortly follow...

...has come (about) through some hard (personal) slog, no thanks to ye orthodox medical fraternity...

...such as my *'awesome' discovery of the importance of a certain trace mineral (long promoted by all good health stores everywhere) in my diet...

...I'll inform you about, if you can stand the suspense, in a day or two...

The following day:

So where do, where can, where should I start...?

Let's just say, having experienced intermittent but fairly longish (as in of a couple weeks' duration)  bouts of ***what's apparently known as neuralgia...the name/term discovered or rather re-discovered this very morning... -N.B. over most if not all preceding years over the past decade anyhow - it's now well and truly vanished...and no, I won't touch wood and all the rest, but need to beware of speaking too soon...

...but not in the way specified in my footnotes below, i.e. c/o osteopathy, but through a trace mineral.

Understandably...to be continued (again) in the not too distant...

*Much as I hate, no, detest, no, absolutely loathe the way in which this once **perfectly respectable, even positively useful and meaningful term has of recent times come into endless misuse and abuse - especially, sad to say, from otherwise **perfectly well-meaning church folk...

**Employed twice within this selfsame sentence as I simply cannot think of a more perfectly fitting word.

***Which term I've encountered off and on over the years, though never once suggested even as a possible explanation for my on-again, off-again severe neck/upper shoulder pain experienced especially throughout the  seemingly long and never-ending days and especially nights of a ****normal Dunedin winter... And rediscovered at long last - this very day in fact - c/o my ongoing 'ocd', on the shelves of the outside 'giveaway' book collection next to the library of a local seminary.

On page(s) 182(-183) of Jill Morgan's A Man of the Word: Life of G. Campbell Morgan, she relates how Morgan 's 'brain fatigue resulted in neuralgic pain, sometimes becoming unbearably intense', leading eventually to his pursuit of osteopathic treatment - 'new in those days, and almost unknown in England'. The skillful services of an expert in the 'science' 'completed Dr Morgan's conversion to the efficacy of osteopathy', which he thereafter 'introduced to many people by his enthusiastic endorsement of Dr [FJ] Horn.'

'Among [these were] members of the peerage (read: British Upper House, or House of Lords) whose influence (at least then!) was widespread. It is safe to affirm that Dr. Morgan helped to a considerable degree to strengthen osteopathy's early foothold in England', using it 'all his life...and recommend[ing] it to others'.

****Admittedly less and less common over recent years and decades, though usually we still do get a 'good' week or two of basic, cold, if thankfully generally calm, dry, sunny, fine & frosty weather...

...and have otherwise been given a bit of a bad rap over, Making me MAD as a hatter (like Alfred E Newman, whose permanent demise, as of today evidently, is pretty much 'well-nigh')? No, not at all...and neither a hyperventilatin' hypochondriac!

Indeed, after much (emotional and verbal) 'pressure' - juxtaposed over against my own simple refusal and utter unwillingness to just 'shut up and be silent', and 'accept' I'm some sort of '*raving nutter'...

...my insistence finally, ultimately 'paid off'...in a flurry of diagnostic (I believe's the word) tests and exams (over a period of weeks and months back in 2009)...

...and 'hey, presto', guess what, folks?

Yep, I did indeed have coeliac's disease...and 'osteomalacia' [osteopenia], a species of osteoporosis as a matter of fact...something only supposed to afflict 'lil ole ladies' and the like...

Yet over the interval - and all these years (a full decade even) since - has that changed in any appreciable way, shape or form, the attitude of ye ole medical establishment towards Yours Truly?

*No - again, you guessed correctly - not on yer nelly!

*As gleaned from a perusal of extensive notetaking by one particular health centre I frequented over recent years...who evidently regarded me as about as ravin' a nutter as they'd ever encountered.
*I was once even dubbed "Rave-id" by a sometime friend...