Man, do the years fly by! It doesn't feel like I should be 30, but in all honesty, I'd rather be 30 vs 20. I am more confident in my body, my mind, my spirit. I'm happier. I've learned ALOT about... well, ALOT. I'm learning how to manage certain triggers to anxiety, how to manage anxiety itself. Lately I've been learning how to be healthy...this one is huge for me because I thought I always was eating healthy and treating my body with care. Boy, was I wrong. I wasn't exactly not healthy, but I wasn't doing the best for my body and was pretty much ignoring what was actually happening. In 2 years time, I had too many antibiotics for ear infections, sinus infections, and wisdom tooth infections (yes, it came back twice before I could schedule to get those suckers out!) and not having any good bacteria going into my gut (no yogurt, dairy, sauerkraut, no natural probiotics at all...had to cut all dairy out somewhere in between all of this) I had literally killed more good bacteria in my gut than I had realized (actually I didn't know I had killed anything in my gut at all...it never had crossed my mind). My ears would ring, my brain would be so foggy, my body ached all the time...I was basically poisoning my body with the foods that I ate the most of because my gut couldn't break it down and process those foods properly. The foods that I ate the most of were pastas, lots and lots of pasta, and sandwiches. I love my carbs...especially wheat carbs. You know...the Gluten kind. I had no idea that my body was having a hard time processing it. AND, sugar made me REALLY REALLY tired. Like my eyes just wanted to shut like 15 minutes after eating, lets say a banana, or an apple, or even a donut. It was all sugars, not just the refined sugars. My heart was also skipping beats (or double beating...I'm not exactly sure). I'd get dizzy. Sometimes it was so bad I had to bend over to catch my breath. So, I went to doctor appointment after doctor appointment. ENT said that my ears were swollen, but no infection...try a liquid diet and not talking so much (PSH! Yeah right!! And actually, I knew that something else was going on. It wasn't that simple. So, quit chewing gum for about a week and still nothing. So, I continued doing what I did). I went to my doctor and told him about everything and even told him what the ENT said. I told him about my heart and what it was doing. He said I was so young and healthy and had no history but just to be safe, he ordered a 24 hour heart monitor and also drew blood and tested for a number of things. After 24 hours, I handed it in and when I got the results of everything, it was all was normal. The only thing I was low on was vitamin B12. None of this made any sense to me. I think my family and friends started to think that I was going crazy and being a hypochondriac and maybe thought I wasn't getting enough sleep because honestly I really don't get enough sleep. I gave up. I didn't even want to feel like I did anymore. I started to pretend that my ears weren't ringing and that my body was just being super sensitive. I couldn't ignore what was happening to me though. Even though I gave up for a little bit and just toughed it out, I knew deep down it was something more. I eventually started to pay attention to what I ate. I googled some symptoms and intolerances and bacterias and found a lot of things. But the one thing that stuck out was Gluten intolerance. I thought that was stupid. I don't have an intolerance to gluten. I never had before... why start now?! But it popped up a few more times, so I did a little bit more research on that. I also found a few things on leaky gut syndrome and how probiotics helped heal that. I was talking to my mom one day and was telling her how much I hate how I feel. The doctors can't find anything wrong with me and I've cut dairy and sugar out and I still feel like crap. She told me that I should go see a nutritionist. She had said it a few times before that but I wasn't really listening to her I guess. Because when she said it that time, it was like a light switched on and I was like, "OK!" So I made an appointment with the nutritionist. We talked a lot about what has happened with my health in the past two years. He asked me if I had been on any antibiotics and of course I said yes. Quite a bit actually. I explained all of the little infections I had with my ears and my wisdom teeth. We talked a little bit more and after everything was said and done, he said he knew what was going on... he was almost 100 percent that this was it. I had killed almost all the good bacteria in my gut. The gut is the main source of our immune system and in order for it to function properly, there needs to be a good balance of good and bad bacteria.
He put me on Collagen Powder, NeoCell+, a Liquid vitamin, and a really good probiotic (10 strains of 100 billion). He also had me take grapefruit seed extract to kill the overgrowth of bad bacteria in my gut. He also said that the ringing in my ears was probably from the type of antibiotics and could have been increased more so because of some damage the antibiotics might have done with the toxins that my body was putting off from not being able to process what I ate correctly. I also have a ulcer of some sort from the throwing up that I had a few years ago from not being able to eat dairy, and with the way I was eating (New Deli manage=eating more fried foods at that time...not good at all!), it wasn't getting any better.
After being on all the things he put me on, and really changing how I was eating (all whole foods and no sugars...not even natural for a little bit), I noticed a difference in about 2 weeks. It was small, but it was noticeable. I've been "healing my gut" since October. It takes a while to heal this amazing organ in our body. But, I am so happy to say that I can eat (no sugar added) yogurt now! No throwing up or gassiness! So extremely happy!! I still watch my intake on dairy though. No milk, no cheese really expect maybe on an Arby's salad every now and again. I really do just feel better with out eating all that dairy. There's dairy and wheat in almost everything that is even slightly processed!! It's crazy! No Gluten yet, but I can now handle taking the sacrament with out feeling all icky after church ( HA! Sounds like an oxymoron!), I only eat small amounts of natural sugars now too.
There is so much that I have learned going through this experience. Things I never would have thought of otherwise. Things I want to apply to my everyday life and the life of my family.
The Word or Wisdom tell us, "everything in moderation"...EVERYTHING. We've been told this numerous amounts of times through out history. My main focus for my health and the health of my family, is to make sure that we are all eating our foods in moderation. It not good for our bodies to eat so much wheat or so much dairy or salt, or soy... and it's in everything that is processed. I can't even tell you how many labels that I have looked at and said, "Ah man... I can't even eat that!" We even need to be careful with how much antibiotics we take in too. From my nutritionist... who is also an MD said that there are other natural products that kill off bacteria and is so much better for the body than antibiotics. I'm not talking about oils necessarily. Although those can provide some reliefe, that's not the 'natural' I'm talking about. I know how important antibiotics are and I'm not saying that we shouldn't take them. But, if my child has signs of strep, or a really bad ear ache, or a influenza, or a nasty little cough that wont go away, I'm going to try to go the more natural rout before jumping to an antibiotic. I will give them a more natural relief and let their body try to fight off a little bug, help boost their immune system, do everything at home that I can before I go a kill all the bad and the good germs that they have in them.
I have learned that feeding our bodies and the way we do it is so important. I've learned more nutritious facts about so many whole foods in these 3 months than I have my whole life. I am learning about feeding my body to give it nutrients vs just to eat because it's meal time or I'm stressed out (just because I am learning doesn't mean I still don't just eat for fun or stress...I'm learning :)). I'm learning how important it is to take care of my body and my mind. I am learning how important it is to get enough sleep (as I'm typing this up at 11pm! Here's to another 5 hour sleep night...). I'm learning, and that's just it. I'm not pro, in fact, I'm far from it. But I am learning and I am so excited to be learning... trying to treat my body and my mind the way that it should be treated. Here's to loving myself, no matter what the scale says ;). I'm listening to what my body says.
No comments:
Post a Comment