Dear Readers: I said I would not look into the dangers of my politcal hunger strike. But last night I felt loss of breathing and had to sit up while I slept in my bed with my cat on my legs. In the morning my eyes hurt when I look up and down or sideways. I was forced to research hunger strikes. On Dec 3rd, 2011, I will have arrived at the beginning of week 5. If you have followed me you'll know my reasons. If not, it's time to dig your heart into my past blogs.

But I'm happy I looked. I found I was not eating properly - not the right foods - and doing wrong things. It was difficult to Google "Planned Hunger Strike," without hitting a ton of prison strikes. ...and finding out that hunger strikes usually do not work because in a lot of cases there is force-feeding. Keep in mind that Mia Farrow was not in a civilized country. I am. I still don't believe my time will be wasted. I would so happy if the news, the media would pick up my story. Keep in my that babies in wombs suffer permanent brain damage. I'm a bit damaged anyway and I still can't hold one single deep and meaningful relationship. I guess that's why I feel I don't have as much to lose and I know even famous people are not heard when they stink about political things.

Hunger strike exceeding 7 days

Emphasis on SMALLER AMOUNTS amounts of food, introduced more SLOWLY. If this is your first time through something like this, share these guidelines with a friend and have them help you or stick with someone who has experience fasting for longer periods of time. More than a seven day fast is not dangerous for most of us in good health.

Rest is very important! Respect yourself, rejuvenate and stay strong.

Water strike

First, it is important to reintroduce plain, room temperature, pure water slowly. SIP about 2 ounces every ½ hour for the first 3-4 hours. REST! The lack of attnetio will go on without you for a while.

Chrysanthemum tea as above and/or miso broth in 2 ounce increments can be taken after 2 hours.

MELONS can be introduced after 3-4 hours and follow as above.

Health Effects of Hunger Strikes

Depending on the length of a hunger strike a person can do severe, in some cases irreparable, damage to their body. The following is a short list of the serious health risks involved in carrying a hunger strike beyond 2-3 weeks -- this info assumes that you are engaging in a water-only hunger strike and you are basically healthy when you begin your hunger strike, also some of these effects are not permanent:

Damage to muscle tissue (after approximately 4 weeks)

Weakening of bones (after approximately 4 weeks)

Hallucinations / Dementia (after approximately 3 weeks)

Potentially permanent brain damage (after approximately 4 to 5 weeks)

Potentially permanent damage to internal organs (after approximately 4 to 5 weeks)

Potential failure of internal organs (after approximately 4 to 5 weeks)

Death (could happen at any time depending on the state of your health)

Ten days into Mia Farrow's Darfur hunger strike

Today, Hollywood actor Mia Farrow begins the 10th day of her hunger strike for the refugees of Darfur. But will it do any good, wonders Stuart Jeffries

Five days into her hunger strike in solidarity with the people of Darfur, Mia Farrow posted a video on YouTube.com. The 64-year-old actor and Unicef goodwill ambassador, her granddaughter on her knee, said: "I'm fine. I'm feeling not at all hungry." She added: "A doctor is coming to check me out. And I was thinking, gee, the people in Darfur don't have doctors because Doctors Without Borders [aka Médecins Sans Frontières] was expelled. The well pumps are breaking because Oxfam isn't there to do maintenance."

Farrow is striking now to raise awareness of how she believes the Sudanese government has risked the lives of many in Darfur's refugee camps by expelling aid agencies from the region. For her, it is the latest miserable twist in Darfur since violence erupted between the Sudanese government and rebels in 2003, the catalyst for what the UN has described as the "world's greatest humanitarian crisis" in which up to 450,000 people have died and millions have been displaced from their homes.

"I can't imagine, as a mother, what it would be like to watch a child die," says Farrow. "As a Unicef ambassador, I know that it's the children under five who die first."

How is Farrow faring with no food, just water? Three days ago, she posted on her website (miafarrow.org): "At this point I don't think about food. I am weaker and I am mostly in bed. I am clear-minded. I sleep less." As if she wasn't suffering enough, Farrow reported that the previous night she had watched Schindler's List and couldn't stop crying. She has been reading Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi - Thomas Moore's Care of the Soul is next up - and listening to the slow movements of Bach and Mahler. "Alongside my bed is a large window through which I can see the sky, a lake, trees, birds and, at dusk, the deer. I am at peace and busy with my thoughts."

"I'm just an actress," she told reporters before starting her fast. "I'm not presuming anybody will care whether I starve to death or whether I go on a long hunger strike or what. But it's a personal matter. I can't be among those [who] watch - and I honestly couldn't think of anything else to do." It may, sceptics suggest, be one of the world's less effective hunger strikes, since, 10 days in, only now is it becoming widely known about.

What does a relatively pampered Hollywood celebrity best known for her appearances in Rosemary's Baby and Hannah and Her Sisters, not to mention her marriages to Frank Sinatra and André Previn and her relationship with Woody Allen, hope to achieve? The hunger strike is certainly not, despite what Farrow says, just a personal matter. On day eight, she posted another video on YouTube, saying of her fast: "I really hope it results in action.

Farrow hopes her fast can increase pressure on Barack Obama to ensure that the expelled agencies return to Darfur. "No one voted for President Obama with more excitement and passion than I did, but he's really been lagging and the people of Darfur can't wait. So please contact the White House and say you need him to get the 16 aid agencies returned or the gap filled somehow. The word from the camps is that they're already suffering from hunger. There isn't any time to waste."

Farrow's fast is unusual. Many who go on hunger strike for a political cause do so while in custody, facing the risk of force feeding (which suffragettes contended was such a violation of their bodies that it was a form of rape). Farrow's fast isn't like that: it is being conducted from the comfort of her home in rural Connecticut and will end after 21 days, rather than at her death. Many of those blogging and tweeeting their views about Farrow's fast doubt that, historically speaking, hunger strikes have ever achieved their objectives. Farrow might want to take succour from Mahatma Gandhi who, on 8 May 1932, went on a 21-day hunger strike against British rule. As part of his campaign of civil disobedience, it helped undermine colonial rule. But it is difficult to find an example of a hunger striker whose protest has been directly responsible for achieving a humanitarian goal such as the one Farrow is fasting for.

Unlike some hunger strikers, Farrow is not prepared to fast to death. "I'm still a parent," she said before the hunger strike began, "and I don't want to die." Indeed, she has 14 children. But Farrow is consciously playing fast and loose with her future health: "I looked it up online just to see kind of what to expect, and the reason I'm gonna try to go for three weeks is because you do permanent, irreversible damage, possibly to your organs."

In preparation, Farrow took vitamins and ate a diet mostly of fruit and vegetables, gaining 9lb in the process. Her doctor tried to talk her out of her strike. Friends did, too. Gabriel Stauring, co-founder of StopGenocideNow.org, said: "You've seen Mia's size. There's no way she can go that long without doing permanent damage. We want to convince her that if we have somebody else [who] is famous and [who] would draw attention, that she should stop."

Farrow carried on regardless. She has been taking advice from David Blaine, the illusionist who once spent 44 days with no food in a Plexiglas case hanging over the Thames, losing 34lb in the process. "He told me about how to prepare and what to expect," Farrow said. "He said after six days I won't feel hunger." In her latest YouTube video, Farrow certainly looks gaunter than she did at the beginning of her fast. Last night, she was due to appear on The Larry King Show by video link.

Her hunger strike has divided opinion. Typical of hostile blogosphere comments was one on the New York Daily News site yesterday: "She's a crackpot." On YouTube, another wrote: "Beautiful thing to do Mia ... Please ignore the habitually negative people that hide behind internet anonymity and hurl insults."

As for the Sudanese authorities, they are sceptical about the protest. "We appreciate Mia Farrow's intentions and we respect her for her interest in the welfare of the Sudanese people," says Khaled al-Mubarak, media councillor at the Sudanese embassy in London. "She is a good actress and a good human being, but as a politician she is only a beginner. She is like George Clooney, who has also got involved in the Darfur question. He is good looking but ignorant. She is ignorant too."

"I don't know what will happen," Farrow said earlier this week. "But it is a punishment to the body for sure".

Yes, Mia Farrow is "only an actress" but that is surely the point? She is not a politician and she is using the powers that she does have at her disposal (i.e. her celebrity) to draw attention to something she is passionate about. Yes, she is privileged but her intentions are good and she is acting within the parameters open to her, which is actually a lot more than most people will ever do.