Hello Stomach Pain, My Old Friend….

When  I was fighting my candida battle, a big part of the process was eliminating foods and reintroducing them to see if they bothered me. Doctors refused to do skin allergy testing on me, but I did get many different blood allergy tests. All those tests told me that I was allergic to essentially everything I was eating. This could have been a symptom of my leaky gut. While blood tests aren’t always accurate, I eliminated each of those foods over the course of my year-long healing process. I didn’t notice any real changes or any new pains when reintroducing, but I was suspicious of a few of the main staples in my diet; one of them being sweet potatoes. I was eating sweet potatoes so much because I missed carbs so badly and they satisfied my cravings. When I eliminated them and reintroduced them, I noticed some pains, but at the time, they seemed no different than the pain I had been feeling daily.

Now that I am feeling better, I don’t really worry about those reactive foods anymore. Since my leaky gut is on the mend, I think I generally do okay with anything healthy that I choose to eat. Sadly, in the past week, my pain has returned. It hasn’t been anything unbearable, but its definitely there, and it feels like it did this time last year. It was scaring me because I will be DAMNED if I ever go back to that horrible time in my life. I was trying to figure out what could have been bothering me. Could it have been the drinks I had, the fun-size snickers from the Halloween basket at work, the gluten? Then it dawned on me….sweet potatoes. Last weekend, my boyfriend and I bought some delicious organic sweet potato chips from Aldi. They only had three ingredients, so surely they were fine. Well, we crushed the whole bag, and the next day, I felt some stomach pains. Fast forward to last night, I made some incredible sweet potato cookies, and today, I am feeling pain again. I think all this time, I refused to believe it could be my beloved favorite veggie, but I need to be honest with myself. Before the chips and the cookies, it had been a month since the last time I had sweet potatoes, and I was feeling totally fine. After we finish this batch of cookies, I think I am done with sweet potatoes for a while.

Hello stomach pain my old friend…..you can fuck right off again 🙂

Live In The Present

A year ago yesterday, I was sitting in a doctor’s office finally getting a diagnosis for pain I had been feeling every day for 3 months. The doctor explained everything to me, including how much my life was about to change. She wrote a huge list of supplements I had to get, as well as a diet that I was to follow strictly until further notice. I did exactly what she told me to do for almost a year. I also got lost in research, suffered extreme depression, and lost more weight than I ever intended to. But I came out on the other end. I was in pain every single day for a year. Today, I feel pain for a few minutes once a week. The problem I had came as a result of drastically changing my diet to lose weight, which I did, but my body wasn’t happy. If anyone wants to make dietary changes, I encourage you to start slow. If you want to introduce new supplements, whether they are herbal supplements or that green drink that is advertised as healthy, do your research first. Don’t put your body in shock. It might get mad at you. 

Yesterday, I went to the doctor’s again. It had been a nice 3 month break. I saw a specialist for the immunologic deficiencies that my PCP discovered at my annual check up back in June. She explained what these deficiencies could mean, what they may cause, and what we are going to do about them. Overall, she didn’t seem terribly concerned, but she did send me to get more blood work. Based on the results, she says I may have to be sent to another specialist for more testing. She thinks that there is still a possibility of autoimmune disease, but we’ll just have to wait for the results before analyzing the issue further.

A year ago, this news would have destroyed me. At this point, however, I’m done worrying. I can’t spend my life worried about what COULD happen, what diseases COULD be possible, what my test results MIGHT read. OVER IT. I lost a year of my life worrying, crying, being miserable, and feeling so sorry for myself. I don’t want to be that person anymore. If I do end up having a disease, even though every test result I have received thus far suggests I don’t, I will handle it. I treat my body well, I eat healthy, exercise every day, and splurge from time to time. I’m doing what I need to do. I won’t dwell on the possibilities. There are so many things that could happen any moment of any day. I will only live in the present.