EFFING GLUTEN CAN SUCK IT.
Since going on this diet, and since being told that I definitely have Hashimoto's, I've been trying to cut gluten out knowing that this will be a highly likely outcome of the elimination diet for me. It's not that hard, in all reality. I eat a lot of salads anyway (it's my go-to meal at this point - if I don't know what to eat and I'm hungry, I throw together a salad and pretend it's candy or a grilled cheese sandwich), so going gluten-free was pretty easy overall.
Until we went to Panera yesterday.
Panera is not very gluten-free friendly, as it turns out. Though, I'm surprised, because one morning while I was doing the C. Diff treatment, I was able to go there and get a GREAT breakfast that fit the mandated dietary restrictions (which meant no distilled foods, like vinegar. Try cutting vinegar out of your diet - I dare you. I also couldn't eat dairy in any form.), so this was confusing to me when we went there yesterday. It was probably because I was hungry and not as into problem-solving in that moment as I was with the idea of shoving a bunch of food into my mouth.
We went there for a salad before going out to buy groceries, and I got a chicken caesar salad. I forgot to ask them to not put croutons in it and had a mini "oh shit" moment, but figured that it'd be fine and that I could pick them out.
I couldn't. Or in the interest of accountability and being honest with myself, I also didn't really want to. I was craving something bread-y, and I figured, "hey, what could it hurt?" The way that I further justified it to myself in that moment was that the dressing slathered all over the salad was probably not gluten free either, so whatever. I ate the entire damn thing, croutons, excessive salad dressing, all of it.
About three hours later, I got my Regular Saturday Headache that had been happening for about a year and I had not experienced in three weeks. I slept just ok last night. I'm also not feeling so hot this morning and I woke up congested because of allergies for the first time since starting this new diet plan.
Coincidence? I think not.
On the bright side, I'm finding out earlier than expected what foods I need to avoid. So that's something, I guess?
In other news, I started the Couch to 5k again this week. Week 1 is fully in the books. At no point did I actually want to go running, but always felt better after I did. Also, my sister was all "let's sign up for a 10k in the Fall!" and I agreed. In my head I know it's a good idea, but everywhere else, I'm like "WHY DO YOU MAKE DECISIONS AGAINST YOUR OWN BEST INTEREST?" It will get me motivated to get out there, and my sister and I will do something fun together, which is the important part.
I have some other non-dietary self-care related things coming down the pike this month, so I'm sure this blog will get lots more varied in the coming weeks. Also, I have a feeling that I'm going to be a pretty insufferable person to be around starting May 8 when I start the elimination diet (which lasts for three weeks), so don't be surprised if I go dark for a bit. Either that or there'll be a whoooooole lotta bitching, which I try to avoid...publicly, anyway. :)
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Do I Still Have Allergies?
Hold on to your hats, kids. This is going to be a long one.
I think the short answer is yes I do still have some allergies, but it's more complicated than that.
Back in 2010, I was experiencing pretty consistent trouble breathing, chest tightness, and the continued sinus infections that I had been experiencing literally forever. Finally, my doctor pointed out a seasonal pattern that I somehow managed to miss for 10 years. I asked if it could be allergies and he said maybe, and when I asked what the next step was (I thought it would be verification of said allergies), he threw me some prescription-strength claritin and said, "if this works and your symptoms go away, it's allergies."
Two weeks later after my symptoms were alleviated through this method, I went back to him for a follow-up and said "I need a referral for an allergist."
"Why?"
"BECAUSE I HAVE ALLERGIES AND I WANT TO FIGURE OUT WHAT I AM ALLERGIC TO."
Hard to argue that logic, I guess, when your treatment worked, because I got one.
Yeah, the more I venture into this whole functional medicine world, the more I realize that I was completely and utterly ignored by all but one of my previous doctors (the other being my chiropractor), and I'm pretty mad about it. I would imagine that this will be a running theme for a while until I can reconcile it. Sorry, not sorry.
Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I finally have a diagnosis: Severe allergy to mold and a moderate allergy to hickory tree pollen (which grows walnuts, so those too). Also asthma. Even though my lung function was close to 100%, and also taking into account that I was fluting every day, so my lung capacity was pretty large at that time. I was sent home with an inhaler and Xyzal, which I promptly threw in the garbage after two doses because the side effects were the opposite of what I was told they would be. As advertised, the "do not operate heavy machinery and take these at night like two hours before you go to bed and you'll get a REALLY good night's sleep" were the warnings. I followed them and slept about two hours after each dose and then I was up all night.
No thanks. I'll stick to claritin.
ANYWHO. Fast forward about four years, about two weeks after I get my wisdom teeth taken out, and I start experiencing MAJOR, MAJOR digestive problems. Like, can't leave my house for a few days, missed the one and only class that I missed the entirety of grad school, called in sick the one day that I ever called in sick to my graduate assistantship - that kind of sick. After six hours in an emergency room on a Sunday, I was diagnosed with C. Diff from the antibiotics that I was prescribed for my wisdom teeth surgery.
I was prescribed more antibiotics to get rid of it, which wrecked my body for over a year. I asked my PCP at the time after five days of this hellish treatment, in all seriousness, if I could just live with C. Diff. That's how bad the treatment is. I won't get into too many details, but there was definitely one incident of crying in a grocery store because of the dietary limitations of the antibiotics, and joint trouble. OH THE JOINT TROUBLE. My hips were in so much pain that I could barely walk by the end of the treatment, and it magically disappeared (though it comes back every once in a while) two days after I finished the treatment. There was also an incident of accidentally using alcohol-based hand sanitizer and that was a VERY BAD IDEA.
ANYWHO. Six months after C. Diff treatment, I was still really on shaky ground in my digestive system, and I thought I might have a food allergy that had previously decided not to show itself until my body went haywire and it was all, "OH HAY A PARTY LET'S JOIN." I went back to my allergist and two more allergies cropped up - peanuts and rice. Both were fairly mild, but I was told to cut them out of my diet and incorporate them back in. Rice I could still do (but only white - I was advised to stay away from brown because the actual grain is still in there and that's what the allergy is to), but peanuts were a no-go.
Why am I telling you all of this? It's important, I swear.
Fast forward to my appointment with my fabulous new doctor. I was told that peanuts, particularly if they are GMO, become encased in aspergillus mold (which is the one that so many people are allergic to) as they grow. She told me that it's entirely possible that the peanut sample that was used on me to test for an allergy was GMO, and that this could be why it popped on the allergy test.
In other words, I probably wasn't allergic to peanuts.
She also told me that because my immune system has been in hyperdrive for basically my whole life, my allergies are probably not as severe as they came out on the allergy test. Like, generally. Also my asthma is probably not as bad. That's where this came in.
"Your immune system is seriously pissed off about something right now. We don't know what it is, but in the meantime until we can get it figured out, mix two scoops of this in a smoothie every morning to help bring down the inflammation in your body."
Just as an aside, this is the most disgusting shit I've ever tasted, even mixing it with fruit. Friends, if you ever have to start using this, don't get the orange chocolate. The just plain orange is MUCH better, which is what I use now. It's like a party in my mouth compared to the orange chocolate. A fruity, grainy party.
But if you look closely, you will notice that it's pea and rice protein. I questioned it, and my doctor said, "Yeah. You're probably not allergic to rice. Even if you are, it will do more good than harm. Just try it and see what happens, and if you have a reaction, we'll switch you to something else."
Two days later, I was walking down the hall of one of my work sites with a friend, who was having TERRIBLE allergies that day. We have historically experienced allergies with similar intensity, and she looked at me and was like "HOW ARE YOU NOT DYING RIGHT NOW? YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A SNIFFLE!"
I didn't even notice, but she was right! It's probably fairly obvious at this point as well, but I also didn't have a reaction to the smoothie mix. Like, not even once. I've been sneezy a couple of times before it has rained over the past two and a half weeks, but nothing like what I was experiencing. Not one migraine. Not one day where I couldn't put in my contacts because my allergies were so bad that I couldn't wear them.
In noticing this, I've been a little...adventurous.
I've had brown rice noodles! That was by accident (they were in a soup that I bought, but I didn't realize that the noodles were brown rice until I was about to eat it and then was all, "eh, I'll give it a try anyway"), but they were awesome! AND AND AND! A HUGE ONE:
WE WENT TO FIVE GUYS LAST NIGHT.
For those of you familiar with Five Guys, they've got GREAT burgers and fries.
All cooked in peanut oil.
This has probably been the hardest thing for me to give up since finding out I had a possible peanut allergy. There isn't another good burger place in the city that I live in, and I got pretty upset that I couldn't eat there anymore. Anywho, in following my diet (which allows for dairy and red meat still, though not for much longer), I got a burger with no bun and lots of veggies. Like, lots. IT WAS DELICIOUS.
No allergic reaction. Literally none whatsoever. I didn't wake up with a migraine this morning, I didn't feel sick after eating it, I didn't feel funny at all.
WHAT A REVELATION.
I do believe that I still need to be a little careful, and this is obviously short-lived until I go on the elimination diet (May 8...DUN DUN DUN), but holy shit.
So, I think that I still have a long way to go, but I'm finally getting a handle on my allergies.
YESSSSS.
I think the short answer is yes I do still have some allergies, but it's more complicated than that.
Back in 2010, I was experiencing pretty consistent trouble breathing, chest tightness, and the continued sinus infections that I had been experiencing literally forever. Finally, my doctor pointed out a seasonal pattern that I somehow managed to miss for 10 years. I asked if it could be allergies and he said maybe, and when I asked what the next step was (I thought it would be verification of said allergies), he threw me some prescription-strength claritin and said, "if this works and your symptoms go away, it's allergies."
Two weeks later after my symptoms were alleviated through this method, I went back to him for a follow-up and said "I need a referral for an allergist."
"Why?"
"BECAUSE I HAVE ALLERGIES AND I WANT TO FIGURE OUT WHAT I AM ALLERGIC TO."
Hard to argue that logic, I guess, when your treatment worked, because I got one.
Yeah, the more I venture into this whole functional medicine world, the more I realize that I was completely and utterly ignored by all but one of my previous doctors (the other being my chiropractor), and I'm pretty mad about it. I would imagine that this will be a running theme for a while until I can reconcile it. Sorry, not sorry.
Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I finally have a diagnosis: Severe allergy to mold and a moderate allergy to hickory tree pollen (which grows walnuts, so those too). Also asthma. Even though my lung function was close to 100%, and also taking into account that I was fluting every day, so my lung capacity was pretty large at that time. I was sent home with an inhaler and Xyzal, which I promptly threw in the garbage after two doses because the side effects were the opposite of what I was told they would be. As advertised, the "do not operate heavy machinery and take these at night like two hours before you go to bed and you'll get a REALLY good night's sleep" were the warnings. I followed them and slept about two hours after each dose and then I was up all night.
No thanks. I'll stick to claritin.
ANYWHO. Fast forward about four years, about two weeks after I get my wisdom teeth taken out, and I start experiencing MAJOR, MAJOR digestive problems. Like, can't leave my house for a few days, missed the one and only class that I missed the entirety of grad school, called in sick the one day that I ever called in sick to my graduate assistantship - that kind of sick. After six hours in an emergency room on a Sunday, I was diagnosed with C. Diff from the antibiotics that I was prescribed for my wisdom teeth surgery.
I was prescribed more antibiotics to get rid of it, which wrecked my body for over a year. I asked my PCP at the time after five days of this hellish treatment, in all seriousness, if I could just live with C. Diff. That's how bad the treatment is. I won't get into too many details, but there was definitely one incident of crying in a grocery store because of the dietary limitations of the antibiotics, and joint trouble. OH THE JOINT TROUBLE. My hips were in so much pain that I could barely walk by the end of the treatment, and it magically disappeared (though it comes back every once in a while) two days after I finished the treatment. There was also an incident of accidentally using alcohol-based hand sanitizer and that was a VERY BAD IDEA.
ANYWHO. Six months after C. Diff treatment, I was still really on shaky ground in my digestive system, and I thought I might have a food allergy that had previously decided not to show itself until my body went haywire and it was all, "OH HAY A PARTY LET'S JOIN." I went back to my allergist and two more allergies cropped up - peanuts and rice. Both were fairly mild, but I was told to cut them out of my diet and incorporate them back in. Rice I could still do (but only white - I was advised to stay away from brown because the actual grain is still in there and that's what the allergy is to), but peanuts were a no-go.
Why am I telling you all of this? It's important, I swear.
Fast forward to my appointment with my fabulous new doctor. I was told that peanuts, particularly if they are GMO, become encased in aspergillus mold (which is the one that so many people are allergic to) as they grow. She told me that it's entirely possible that the peanut sample that was used on me to test for an allergy was GMO, and that this could be why it popped on the allergy test.
In other words, I probably wasn't allergic to peanuts.
She also told me that because my immune system has been in hyperdrive for basically my whole life, my allergies are probably not as severe as they came out on the allergy test. Like, generally. Also my asthma is probably not as bad. That's where this came in.
"Your immune system is seriously pissed off about something right now. We don't know what it is, but in the meantime until we can get it figured out, mix two scoops of this in a smoothie every morning to help bring down the inflammation in your body."
Just as an aside, this is the most disgusting shit I've ever tasted, even mixing it with fruit. Friends, if you ever have to start using this, don't get the orange chocolate. The just plain orange is MUCH better, which is what I use now. It's like a party in my mouth compared to the orange chocolate. A fruity, grainy party.
But if you look closely, you will notice that it's pea and rice protein. I questioned it, and my doctor said, "Yeah. You're probably not allergic to rice. Even if you are, it will do more good than harm. Just try it and see what happens, and if you have a reaction, we'll switch you to something else."
Two days later, I was walking down the hall of one of my work sites with a friend, who was having TERRIBLE allergies that day. We have historically experienced allergies with similar intensity, and she looked at me and was like "HOW ARE YOU NOT DYING RIGHT NOW? YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A SNIFFLE!"
I didn't even notice, but she was right! It's probably fairly obvious at this point as well, but I also didn't have a reaction to the smoothie mix. Like, not even once. I've been sneezy a couple of times before it has rained over the past two and a half weeks, but nothing like what I was experiencing. Not one migraine. Not one day where I couldn't put in my contacts because my allergies were so bad that I couldn't wear them.
In noticing this, I've been a little...adventurous.
I've had brown rice noodles! That was by accident (they were in a soup that I bought, but I didn't realize that the noodles were brown rice until I was about to eat it and then was all, "eh, I'll give it a try anyway"), but they were awesome! AND AND AND! A HUGE ONE:
WE WENT TO FIVE GUYS LAST NIGHT.
For those of you familiar with Five Guys, they've got GREAT burgers and fries.
All cooked in peanut oil.
This has probably been the hardest thing for me to give up since finding out I had a possible peanut allergy. There isn't another good burger place in the city that I live in, and I got pretty upset that I couldn't eat there anymore. Anywho, in following my diet (which allows for dairy and red meat still, though not for much longer), I got a burger with no bun and lots of veggies. Like, lots. IT WAS DELICIOUS.
No allergic reaction. Literally none whatsoever. I didn't wake up with a migraine this morning, I didn't feel sick after eating it, I didn't feel funny at all.
WHAT A REVELATION.
I do believe that I still need to be a little careful, and this is obviously short-lived until I go on the elimination diet (May 8...DUN DUN DUN), but holy shit.
So, I think that I still have a long way to go, but I'm finally getting a handle on my allergies.
YESSSSS.
Friday, April 28, 2017
Oops.
"So...why are you leaving our practice?"
"Because I want something less medication-based."
"Well, we could have taken that into consideration if you had told us."
If I had told them.
In case you're wondering, this, right here, is the problem with western medicine. A doctor assumed, without knowing me, that I want pills for allergies. And anxiety. And other ailments. A doctor assumed that I don't have the I-don't-even-know-what-to-call-it - motivation? Attention span? - to listen to anything other than "here. Take this medication."
(And yes, I said this in not as many words to the nurse on the other end of the phone. No one gets to try to make me feel like I'm being rude to them personally by going to get care that is a better fit for me, even if it means leaving their practice.)
This is the same doctor that when I told her that my sister was recently diagnosed with Hashimoto's and our symptoms sounded a lot alike at my physical a year and a half ago, said, "well, your thyroid counts are normal. We won't worry about it."
Granted, this isn't the first doctor that has told me something similar, but she SURE AS SHIT is going to be the last.
MAN am I salty lately. But also, I don't really give a shit. The great thing about thinking more clearly is that you really start to see the places in your life that need some tough love/attention. I set my sail and go in that direction and meet my needs instead of waiting for others to meet them or meet me where I am because those times are few and far between. I've gotta put on my big girl pants and do it myself, and that's totally ok. I do it in every other facet of my life - why not this one?
Sunday, April 23, 2017
That Daily Feeling
I get it at least once a day.
The "THIS DIET IS BULLSHIT" feeling.
Do I feel amazing? Yes.
Has the inflammation gone down in my gut so much that I'm already down two belt notches while only losing three pounds?
Also yes.
But you know what? SOMETIMES I JUST WANT A BROWNIE. OR SOME TOOTSIE ROLLS.
Last night one of my favorite professors had his retirement party, and I went because he's amazing and I also got to spend some time with my colleagues and it was great fun!
The food was also fantastic! I could eat almost everything that was there and because I went for a run yesterday and had not eaten all that much yesterday in general, I felt free to eat as much as I pleased.
...until dessert came out.
Cheesecake. Brownies. Cupcakes. Some kind of dessert bar.
Translation: Ryan had to ask for fruit.
I could also be considered a picky eater in general. I've gotten much better over the years, and most of it was fueled by not wanting to be one of Those People who constantly ask for modifications to things that are on the menu. Not that they don't have a right to, it's just a pain sometimes to go out to eat with someone who has to always ask questions before ordering or ask for modifications.
Also, I'm not sure if it's the gluten or the sugar, but one of these things drastically interferes with my sleep, and I have a hunch that it's gluten. The reason for this is because I had a teeny sliver of cake at Easter last weekend and all of the sleep problems I'd been having came back FULL FORCE and I felt like complete shit on Monday morning because of it.
I also discovered that there is a good thing about not taking full responsibility for this shift in my diet yet: it makes it easier to ask for things without any shame whatsoever. It's not me who is the pain in the ass, it's my doctor! So I marched right up to a server and asked for some fruit and felt ok about that choice after awhile.
But you can bet your ass I watched the person next to me eat every bite of a brownie that he got and had to be mindful that I wasn't actually drooling.
But the tough thing is that now I get mad or feel a little resentful of my doctor (only temporarily) instead of just acknowledging that it's frustrating for me to eat this way because I'm not used to it yet and to give myself a little patience and compassion. Right? Super weird concept.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
A New Self-Care Journey
Hi, Friends!
As lots of you know, I blog infrequently about things like knitting and my dog. I have found as of late that I'm definitely not doing enough in the self-care arena, and as such, have made some drastic shifts in my life. It's been hard, but this is just the start. I'm convinced it will get easier. What spurred this change, you might ask?
I got a new doctor. One who, like, actually listens. I'm actually going the functional medicine route to get to the bottom of issues I've been dealing with now for two full decades. You see, I've had this thyroid issue (and it's a family thang - there was no way, genetically, that I was going to avoid it) since I was 16. First, I was diagnosed with an enlarged thyroid. My energy levels were normal, but my thyroid was big. Ten years later, I was diagnosed with a nontoxic multinodular goiter. There was now stuff growing on and attacking my thyroid. My blood counts were normal, I was having some symptoms (I had gained A LOT of weight in the previous decade, but I had not yet tried to lose it, so I didn't know if I was having trouble also losing weight or not), but it was nothing to be concerned about after a biopsy was negative for thyroid cancer. Then about a year or two ago, my energy levels were decreasing and my anxiety levels were markedly increasing. This could have been the stress attributed to grad school and adjusting to a new job, but that didn't feel accurate to me. This was over and above what adjustment to a new job feels like (and granted, I had never been in a new job like this, but it still didn't feel right). I also had some gut issues that could have been tied to having C.Diff a while back, because it felt like my gut never really recovered from it. Also, I allegedly developed an allergy to rice and an allergy to peanuts, on top of two other allergies, one of which was (and continues to be) pretty severe.
Instead of checking my thyroid levels more thoroughly, my doctor threw Lexapro at me. This was a bad idea in that the meds didn't work, and I gained a lot of weight and other pretty terrible side effects. I'm no longer on any anxiety medications, but still having symptoms. I talked to my endocrinologist about it last year and asked for more thorough blood testing, to which he said, "sure. We'll check your free T4. This isn't commonly done, but I'm not worried about your thyroid function. We'll just leave it alone until your thyroid counts get below normal."
But I was still experiencing symptoms. That didn't seem to matter.
Fast forward to March. I was tired of my PCP, because a while back she was like "let's try Effexor" in order to try to get my anxiety under control. It was a disaster. I lost some weight on it, but it's because I was sick all the time from it. It worked marginally, but it was a WAY bigger cost than a benefit. Plus, I was also experiencing a whole host of side effects related to my dosage being too high, which tells me that I was having a problem metabolizing it.
Metabolic problems? Check.
Being overweight? Check.
Weird food allergies? Check.
Lack of energy? Check.
Mental health symptoms? Check.
Digestive problems? Check.
If you look down the list of symptoms for Hashimoto's, I had nearly every single one. Yet when I brought this up to my doctor and my endocrinologist, they did nothing. They had no suggestions other than to eat better and lower my stress levels. Yes, because I can just divine less stress just from being told to be less stressed, especially with my job, which is pretty much 100% chaos all of the time.
Anywho, I looked up functional medicine doctors that might be covered by my insurance after a great conversation with my sister, who did the same thing with staggeringly positive results. She cautioned that it would mean some drastic changes and I had to be ready for that. Come March, I was, so I made an appointment for mid-April.
Guys, she talked to me for an hour. AN HOUR. That has never happened with any doctor I've ever had, ever. We talked about my thyroid. We talked about candy. We talked about sugar and cheese and gut health and candida and estrogen dominance and anxiety. She ordered 13 different blood tests. Then I sat down with a nutritionist, like that very day, for another hour. We talked about the elimination diet, but that first I was going to step down using the cardiometabolic diet because of my sugar intake and not wanting to put my body into shock. They asked if I was ok with all of this, and it was a resounding yes. They felt bad about being so candid, but it was what I needed to hear in that moment and I told them so. I had never left a doctor's appointment feeling so validated and relieved.
It should also be noted that I don't generally make changes unless a doctor tells me to, and they have to be specific because if I'm given wiggle room, I'll take it. I'm historically not so great about taking responsibility for my health. Even now, when I talk about these changes, it's "Doctor's orders" and not "because I want to be healthy." I'm sure I'll get there, but it's hard. This is an area of adulting in which I do not excel.
My new doctor also said that we were going to start working on my gut health, like, that day. She told me to go and get some of this (side note: This is the most disgusting shit I've ever taken ever, even with adding fruit and spinach, so I would not recommend unless you have to):
To start taking some of these:
And to change my diet. Drastically. And then we'll meet again in May to discuss my blood tests and put me on the elimination diet to see what I'm intolerant to food-wise.
Of course, they said that we would talk about the blood tests at my next appointment and then called me this past Tuesday because my vitamin D levels are dangerously low. Or were, I suppose, before I had to take 50,000 units in one shot, and am to do so once a week until my appointment, and then start on 2,000 units a day on top of my multivitamin, which is another 1,000 units. During this phone call, they also told me that I definitely have Hashimoto's. While some might see this as a negative thing, I felt nothing but relief. I was finally validated, and better yet, something was going to be done about how I was feeling.
I have been working on this for one week and three days. I have made these changes, and it hasn't been without frustration, major cravings, and the occasional cheat.
But I'm getting there, and that's the important part. And you know what?
I feel amazing.
I have energy, I'm sleeping WAY better, and I don't have urges to nap at 10am. It's no longer a fight to get out of bed in the morning. Also, I discovered that my natural wake up time is around 6am. WEIRD. I'm more able to leave work at work. I also still have energy after I get out of work and before I go to work, so I'm doing things like loading the dishwasher before I leave in the morning and cleaning the living room at night when I get home. I also feel like I can handle things better, and my general worry level is already less. I have taken myself off of the treadmill that is traditional western medicine, and it's the best choice I've ever made for my health. AND THIS IS BEFORE EVEN ADDING ANY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY INTO MY DAILY ROUTINE. Which is starting next week. One step at a time.
What I have also discovered about myself is that I kind of went into the whole self-care thing ass first. I started with the hard stuff (like a mindfulness practice) and now am going back to basics. Basic care of my body is where I'm starting at this phase, and I think that I just sort of held this assumption and trust in my body that I could beat it up with stress and candy and lack of exercise and that I could handle it. The roughest part of self-care is that you have to grapple with the idea that you can't just push through things. You have to be proactive and take responsibility for it. It's a conscious choice to be healthier. While owning the responsibility of not taking care of yourself can sometimes entail a fair bit of shame, it doesn't have to! It's only forward from here.
There will be lots of shenanigans to be sure. And probably pizza sometimes. Maybe. I'm probably going to have to cut out gluten because of the Hashimoto's, so maybe not because gluten free pizza is shit. (I need to find a better recipe. Luckily I have friends that send me pins with recipes that look amazing!)
Anyway, welcome! I'm excited to start this blog, and hopefully can impart some wisdom in the follies that are about to come my way.
As lots of you know, I blog infrequently about things like knitting and my dog. I have found as of late that I'm definitely not doing enough in the self-care arena, and as such, have made some drastic shifts in my life. It's been hard, but this is just the start. I'm convinced it will get easier. What spurred this change, you might ask?
I got a new doctor. One who, like, actually listens. I'm actually going the functional medicine route to get to the bottom of issues I've been dealing with now for two full decades. You see, I've had this thyroid issue (and it's a family thang - there was no way, genetically, that I was going to avoid it) since I was 16. First, I was diagnosed with an enlarged thyroid. My energy levels were normal, but my thyroid was big. Ten years later, I was diagnosed with a nontoxic multinodular goiter. There was now stuff growing on and attacking my thyroid. My blood counts were normal, I was having some symptoms (I had gained A LOT of weight in the previous decade, but I had not yet tried to lose it, so I didn't know if I was having trouble also losing weight or not), but it was nothing to be concerned about after a biopsy was negative for thyroid cancer. Then about a year or two ago, my energy levels were decreasing and my anxiety levels were markedly increasing. This could have been the stress attributed to grad school and adjusting to a new job, but that didn't feel accurate to me. This was over and above what adjustment to a new job feels like (and granted, I had never been in a new job like this, but it still didn't feel right). I also had some gut issues that could have been tied to having C.Diff a while back, because it felt like my gut never really recovered from it. Also, I allegedly developed an allergy to rice and an allergy to peanuts, on top of two other allergies, one of which was (and continues to be) pretty severe.
Instead of checking my thyroid levels more thoroughly, my doctor threw Lexapro at me. This was a bad idea in that the meds didn't work, and I gained a lot of weight and other pretty terrible side effects. I'm no longer on any anxiety medications, but still having symptoms. I talked to my endocrinologist about it last year and asked for more thorough blood testing, to which he said, "sure. We'll check your free T4. This isn't commonly done, but I'm not worried about your thyroid function. We'll just leave it alone until your thyroid counts get below normal."
But I was still experiencing symptoms. That didn't seem to matter.
Fast forward to March. I was tired of my PCP, because a while back she was like "let's try Effexor" in order to try to get my anxiety under control. It was a disaster. I lost some weight on it, but it's because I was sick all the time from it. It worked marginally, but it was a WAY bigger cost than a benefit. Plus, I was also experiencing a whole host of side effects related to my dosage being too high, which tells me that I was having a problem metabolizing it.
Metabolic problems? Check.
Being overweight? Check.
Weird food allergies? Check.
Lack of energy? Check.
Mental health symptoms? Check.
Digestive problems? Check.
If you look down the list of symptoms for Hashimoto's, I had nearly every single one. Yet when I brought this up to my doctor and my endocrinologist, they did nothing. They had no suggestions other than to eat better and lower my stress levels. Yes, because I can just divine less stress just from being told to be less stressed, especially with my job, which is pretty much 100% chaos all of the time.
Anywho, I looked up functional medicine doctors that might be covered by my insurance after a great conversation with my sister, who did the same thing with staggeringly positive results. She cautioned that it would mean some drastic changes and I had to be ready for that. Come March, I was, so I made an appointment for mid-April.
Guys, she talked to me for an hour. AN HOUR. That has never happened with any doctor I've ever had, ever. We talked about my thyroid. We talked about candy. We talked about sugar and cheese and gut health and candida and estrogen dominance and anxiety. She ordered 13 different blood tests. Then I sat down with a nutritionist, like that very day, for another hour. We talked about the elimination diet, but that first I was going to step down using the cardiometabolic diet because of my sugar intake and not wanting to put my body into shock. They asked if I was ok with all of this, and it was a resounding yes. They felt bad about being so candid, but it was what I needed to hear in that moment and I told them so. I had never left a doctor's appointment feeling so validated and relieved.
It should also be noted that I don't generally make changes unless a doctor tells me to, and they have to be specific because if I'm given wiggle room, I'll take it. I'm historically not so great about taking responsibility for my health. Even now, when I talk about these changes, it's "Doctor's orders" and not "because I want to be healthy." I'm sure I'll get there, but it's hard. This is an area of adulting in which I do not excel.
My new doctor also said that we were going to start working on my gut health, like, that day. She told me to go and get some of this (side note: This is the most disgusting shit I've ever taken ever, even with adding fruit and spinach, so I would not recommend unless you have to):
To start taking some of these:
And to change my diet. Drastically. And then we'll meet again in May to discuss my blood tests and put me on the elimination diet to see what I'm intolerant to food-wise.
Of course, they said that we would talk about the blood tests at my next appointment and then called me this past Tuesday because my vitamin D levels are dangerously low. Or were, I suppose, before I had to take 50,000 units in one shot, and am to do so once a week until my appointment, and then start on 2,000 units a day on top of my multivitamin, which is another 1,000 units. During this phone call, they also told me that I definitely have Hashimoto's. While some might see this as a negative thing, I felt nothing but relief. I was finally validated, and better yet, something was going to be done about how I was feeling.
I have been working on this for one week and three days. I have made these changes, and it hasn't been without frustration, major cravings, and the occasional cheat.
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| (Ahem.) |
But I'm getting there, and that's the important part. And you know what?
I feel amazing.
I have energy, I'm sleeping WAY better, and I don't have urges to nap at 10am. It's no longer a fight to get out of bed in the morning. Also, I discovered that my natural wake up time is around 6am. WEIRD. I'm more able to leave work at work. I also still have energy after I get out of work and before I go to work, so I'm doing things like loading the dishwasher before I leave in the morning and cleaning the living room at night when I get home. I also feel like I can handle things better, and my general worry level is already less. I have taken myself off of the treadmill that is traditional western medicine, and it's the best choice I've ever made for my health. AND THIS IS BEFORE EVEN ADDING ANY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY INTO MY DAILY ROUTINE. Which is starting next week. One step at a time.
What I have also discovered about myself is that I kind of went into the whole self-care thing ass first. I started with the hard stuff (like a mindfulness practice) and now am going back to basics. Basic care of my body is where I'm starting at this phase, and I think that I just sort of held this assumption and trust in my body that I could beat it up with stress and candy and lack of exercise and that I could handle it. The roughest part of self-care is that you have to grapple with the idea that you can't just push through things. You have to be proactive and take responsibility for it. It's a conscious choice to be healthier. While owning the responsibility of not taking care of yourself can sometimes entail a fair bit of shame, it doesn't have to! It's only forward from here.
There will be lots of shenanigans to be sure. And probably pizza sometimes. Maybe. I'm probably going to have to cut out gluten because of the Hashimoto's, so maybe not because gluten free pizza is shit. (I need to find a better recipe. Luckily I have friends that send me pins with recipes that look amazing!)
Anyway, welcome! I'm excited to start this blog, and hopefully can impart some wisdom in the follies that are about to come my way.
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