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.
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.
- 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 ๐คญ.
*Amazon affiliate links.
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