I started a blog about my strict diet. Then, I stopped it—quite suddenly. Not deliberately, though. I just got much sicker and had no energy to think about what to write. I’m marginally better. That is to say, I can at least drive to work now. For several weeks, I couldn’t manage more than a couple of days a week in the office. One week, I was home most of the week. Thankfully, I can do my job on a mountaintop if I need to. It’s portable. I’m grateful I can still think clearly to do my job.
Back to the blog.
I’m here. I’m not sure what I want to say, so I’m just going to ramble and see what comes out. It’s hard for me to type. I have very little energy in my limbs. That is disconcerting, to say the least. I have to rest at the top of stairs I’ve walked a million times. I can barely function in the morning. I have to sit down a lot and rest. The whys of all of this are still a mystery. Docs don’t know. I’ve talked to enough of them. One recently took me off my thyroid meds. She said even with my family history of hypothyroid, I didn’t have it. She’d never met me before. She had no clue. We argued. I only went to see her to try to get a doc within my insurance plan. Bad idea #1. She had no interest in reading what I wrote of my symptoms or my past labs. She just declared my thyroid well. Wow. She’s good. Just by looking at me, she knew this. She never even touched me, even though I said I had tons of digestive issues. So, I took her advice. I went off my thyroid meds just to see if she might know something I didn’t. Two weeks later, my thyroid was way out of whack, numbers too high, crashing me severely, lots more symptoms. Bad idea #2. She’s getting a letter. A long letter. Then, she’s getting turned into the state for bad doctoring. It’s a much longer story than that. Suffice it to say, she deserves it. So, I went back to my other doc who is amazing, but expensive, and doesn’t take insurance. He doesn’t take insurance because he hates insurance companies. He thinks they are why everyone is so sick. Doctors can’t treat patients anymore. They treat by 15-minute increments and lots of pills. He doesn’t operate that way. He said in all the years of practice and hundreds of patients, he’d never felt a belly as hard as mine or as painful to the touch from inflammation. He’s the one who put me on this diet. Without him, I’d probably be dead. I’m grateful beyond belief.
I bit the bullet and paid Good Doc to help me again. He did. He put me back on my meds. I still crashed. Luckily, he had one more thought. I might be allergic to my meds. Sure enough, I was—to both generic brands. Now, I’m on the name brand. It seems to be working, but it’s hard to balance. I won’t go into why it’s hard. It’s just hard and complicated and not the normal hypothyroid problem. That would be way too easy, and that’s not been my luck so far.
I also started one more thing: acupuncture for my allergies. I went back to an acupuncturist who had helped me years ago. I had forgotten about her. She says she can fix me in six months. She’s excited to see how I improve. I’m glad she’s excited. We had to start with some basics: clearing heavy metals, balancing many hormones (thyroid is a hormone), and a host of other things. We’ll get to the allergies soon. I’m intrigued to see if she and my oh-so-amazing endocrinologist can fix me. Oh, and let’s not forget Robb. He wrote The Paleo Solution. The strict diet my doc put me on. I’ll tell you about him next. I wanted to add one more piece about the acupuncture. It’s called NAET. It’s an amazing technique that clears the body of allergic responses. I won’t explain it. You can google it. It worked before. I’m hoping it’ll work again.
Okay, now to the diet. Robb Wolf is like wow, like totally awesome. He’s like totally cool. Seriously, though…I wrote him when I had been on the diet for two weeks and asked him if he thought it would work for someone as ill as I am. He wrote back the same day—a guy touring the country about his book—and said that, yes, it would if I would follow it strictly. Again with the strictly? Grrr. He took even more foods away! And here I thought it couldn’t get any stricter. He said I needed to take out the autoimmune triggers because I was obviously dealing with autoimmune issues. He’s right about that. So, out went all potatoes, all tomatoes—the nightshade plants—all nuts, seeds, legumes. Wow. What was I left with? Meat, vegetables (minus legumes) and a couple of fruits. But, guess what? It’s WORKING. And it’s working well. As long as I follow it to a tee, strictly, I’m fine. I’m not healed, but at least my stomach doesn’t hurt constantly, my intestines don’t feel like they are being ripped out by sharp knives and the level of joint pain went down. I can eat without fearing my food. I’ve lost ten pounds. The weight was the most exciting part because I could actually see the results of my strict diet. I’ve been gaining for four years without explanation. It’s thyroid. It’s autoimmune. It’s too much exercise. It’s lack of exercise. It’s all those things. But, it still wouldn’t budge, no matter what. Now, it’s going steadily down. It’s not fast, but I don’t care about fast. I just want the 20 pounds I’ve gained gone. Robb was so excited when I emailed him and told him about my progress. He wants me to write up my story and send it to him with a picture of myself.
I can’t say enough about how helpful Robb has been, how grateful I am that Good Doc knew enough to put me on this diet (he said he didn’t know what else to do but to take me off of most foods and see what happens), and how excited I am to see if the acupuncture will work. All combined, I think I’m on the right road. I hope. I pray. I try to keep my spirits up. When I get down (which has been often, lately), I look for the little things to make me smile—my dogs excited about their daily walk, the cat stretching out his paw to make me pet him, the rain pattering on the roof, my friends, my family, spring, renewal. Those things keep me going.
In the end, no matter how frustrated I’ve been, I can’t say I’d change what I’ve been through. I’ve learned so many lessons: what I’m capable of, where I want to be, how much more I value life and the little things, who I am, why I’m here. It’s been painful and rewarding. Annoying and uplifting. Hard. Really, really hard. It’s made me who I am now. I’m convinced there is a reason I’m going through this. I believe I’m supposed to help others; I’m just not sure how, yet.
