Broken

I went to see an Gastroenterologist yesterday. I went back and forth about keeping that appointment for a month, but decided to go ahead and go through with it to see if maybe I could learn something from an "expert." I tried to keep my expectations were pretty low, but alas, Dr. Alsolomain managed to not even meet the lowest of low expectations. He is just the same as the doctors at Premier Family Medical, ask a few questions, interrupt and talk over you, start with the least invasive/complicated name for the symptoms given, give no explanation as to what is causing the problem, give a few pointers to control symptoms, take your blood work to make sure they aren't missing something, and send you home as quick as they can. No questions about diet or nutrition, no questions about supplements, a blanket statement "don't eat fat" and "how about a follow up in 4 weeks?" For what? You haven't helped me figure out the problem, and as far as I know you don't really care either. He didn't listen, he didn't explain, he didn't help. I wasn't all that surprised after, but a little discouraged.

His brilliant diagnosis? I don't get food out of my stomach fast enough so everything is backed up. "Don't eat fat and take Miralax, its a very safe and gentle medicine." Yes I've been told about the Miralax. What do you mean don't eat fat? Transfat? Monounsaturated fat? Polyunsaturated fat? Unsaturated fat? Animal fat? Saturated fat? "Just don't eat animal skins or bacon and ham, boil things instead of fry them." Sounds well thought through. More like religion speaking, pigs are unclean don't eat them. Fine. I won't eat pork or fried food any more. That isn't going to do anything. I keep thinking something I do will actually help, if I cut out all fat out of my diet my brain will suffer, but my tummy will feel good? If my brain suffers my gut suffers! If I don't eat fat because my gut can't handle it I'll cause a myriad of other problems. Besides, the other day I got bloated after eating celery and almond butter, what has that got to do with pork fat? "Oh and take some probiotics" he tacks on. Well, since you didn't ask me about what I eat I guess you don't know I already have been taking probiotics. "You should feel better in a few weeks" he says. I've been suffering from these problems most of my life and you think in a few weeks not eating fat is going to make me all better? OK. Thanks old man integrated in the medical model, I learned something from you, doctors won't and can't help me unless I'm even more broken than I currently am. Good thing I intervened in 2011 when I was falling fast and prevented myself from becoming diabetic, MS, parkinsons, or worse.

I am broken and that's why I keep seeking help. This doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to, but Sunday I lost control of my behavior because of strong negative emotions again. It was the end of a difficult premenstrual week, for some reason my brain wasn't communicating with my reproductive organs to just start the period, it wasn't communicating with my bowels to have regular BMs, I was bloated nauseous hungry but didn't want to eat, had hot flashes all night, and spikes and crashes in my blood sugar. I was angry and tired and confused, I couldn't problem solve effectively and caused a division in my marriage, and again question my ability to be mentally stable enough to even be married. It went beyond not feeling well, I felt like a devil had taken over my mind and body and I was helpless to fight against it. After everything I do to keep myself mentally and physically clean and stable I still break down. What imbalance in my gut nervous system, hormone regulation, and neurotransmitters is causing this misery? My body is functioning, but it hates me. It's like a little torture chamber I'm stuck in, and the doctors just see an IBS sort of thing going on, don't have an answer as to why, and don't see the connections between that and my physical and emotional pain. It's frustrating, I feel like a lot of the things I have done have helped me heal in some ways, but not others, and for that I have to admit I just don't know what to do.

I coped with this information by accepting God's will for my life and this body. It was something I was born with and something I will die with, and being willing to feel it and experience it helped me accept it. I am grateful for the functioning I do have, even if part of me always has been and always will be broken.

LDS Hymn #120

1. Lean on my ample arm,
   O thou depressed!
   And I will bid the storm
   Cease in thy breast.
   Whate'er thy lot may be
   On life's complaining sea,
   If thou wilt come to me,
   Thou shalt have rest.
   If thou wilt come to me,
   Thou shalt have rest.
2. Lift up thy tearful eyes,
   Sad heart, to me;
   I am the sacrifice
   Offered for thee.
   In me thy pain shall cease,
   In me is thy release,
   In me thou shalt have peace
   Eternally.
   In me thou shalt have peace
   Eternally.

A Child

I was waiting in line at the grocery store an noticed an older lady in front of me with a small girl next to her, the lady looked like the girl's grandma perhaps, and the little girl looked about 5 or 6 years old. As grandma was trying to swipe her debit card and pay for her purchase, the little girl kept putting her hand up wanting to push the buttons on the screen. The grandma calmly and rather absent-mindedly pushed the little girl's hand away each time as she tried to get through the check out process, and the first thing that came to my amused mind was impatience. "Children are so dumb, they want to do everything themselves without any sense that they might mess things up." Then I thought, "that was rude, I used to be exactly like that little brown-haird piggy tailed girl, constantly snatching things or insisting on doing things myself, and my mom was so patient that whenever she was in a position to let me she would!" Then I realized how patient the little girl was actually being, she wouldn't ever actually push anything on the screen, she would hold her finger up and hover and wait in case her grandma would allow it, only to be gently pushed away. She didn't cry or pout or yell, she just tried to do it again, hovering over the screen in case it was her turn to try.  My amusement turned to love for this child, and all children, and I realized that was me now. I am a child, holding up my ideas, can I be smart enough now? and gently being pushed away. My answer, like the unspoken answer to the little girl, seems to be "you're not wise enough or old enough yet, but trust me, one day you will be able to do not only this but much, much more."

"Can I push the button? Can I do important work like you Father? Can I do it myself yet? Can I come home yet?"  Not yet. You have some more growing to do, I know you want to be "all grown up" and you're frustrated being limited in so many ways, remember even though you are a child, you are my child, a divine Child of God, and one day you will know all that I know and do all that I do, if you don't give up.

My brethren, I have found
a land that doth abound
with fruit as sweet as honey;
The more I eat, I find,
The more I am inclined
To shout and sing hosanna.

My soul doth long to go where I may fully know
The glory of my Savior;
And as I pass along I’ll sing the Christian song,
I’m going to live forever.
Perhaps you think me wild,
or simple as a child;
I am a child of glory;
I am born from above,
my soul is filled with love;
I love to tell the story.

My soul now sits and sings
and practices its wings,
and contemplates the hour
When the messenger shall say,
‘Come quit this house of clay,
and with bright angels tower.’

And as I pass along
I’ll sing the Christian song,
I’m going to live forever.
Forever.
                               Pilgrim Song by Ryan Murphy

EX Know it All

I'm the oldest of 10 children. My brain came with a built in "know it all" computer chip, and with that some very off-putting social behaviors. I've spent years trying to rewire my brain so I don't come across as having all the answers, and in recent years have been learning that idea of "having all the answers" is an illusion anyway. Yet, I write on a blog (no one reads) with some kind of notion that I know something other people need and someday people are actually going to listen. It is just the creative part of me wanting to put an idea into the world that didn't exist before. I feel I was born to share information with others, what information to what others and when is yet to be discovered. I currently feel like a clam with a pearl inside amidst a billion trillion other clams saying "look at my pearl!" all the while every single clam has their own very nice pearl and they have no need to see another, some clams say "that's nice dear" or "how interesting" and others just look at me with an expression that says "why are you showing me a pearl, I don't need it." Other just completely ignore it. I haven't gotten to the criticism stage yet, which indicates to me that not very many of those billions of clams even know I exist, otherwise they would be telling me to shut up about my pearl.

What does my pearl consist of anyway? What's so important that I know that I feel everyone else should know?  Would it even help anything? When I feel inspired by some knowledge I've gained I just have a strong urge to share that knowledge with others, even when I'm the only person who needed to hear it in the first place. I could tell you the latest and greatest about functional medicine, and the evils of sugar, and how the food industry is wreaking havoc on our microbiomes, and how to parent, and the best way to function in a marriage, and how to manage emotions, I could probably even tell you the best way to read your scriptures! For some it would help, for others it would not help, and all my info could be accessed on the internet probably by other more experienced and qualified professionals in the world who also live in the infinite sea of information. Being a "know it all" in the information age is exceptionally frustrating. I can't possibly know it all, and knowing a lot only helps to a certain extent, to certain people, at a certain time. You also run a risk...if you manage to avoid the temptation of feeling puffed up and intellectual and better than everyone, you still risk feeling trying to help others with the knowledge and actually messing them up instead because it turns out everyone you listened to was wrong.  Knowledge can make you wiser and better at what you do, right? It could also make you hated by others who disagree or are jealous of or competing with you, it could make you appear better than others even if you don't feel so, it could cause you to forever feel frustrated with knowing so much and not being able to do anything with it or worse, doing something with it and creating problems.  When I am dead will people value my ideas? Or will they continue to be too wordy, too irrelevant, too inconvenient, and too buried in a sea of everyone else's ideas?

Lately I've been confused by some information that conflicts with conventional wisdom, and it puts me in mind that there were, and still are, probably many very good people who believed that conventional wisdom and taught it to many other people in the hopes they were helping those people, only instead of helping they were causing more problems. For example, in December I took my daughter to see a family practitioner who I know personally and trusted to give her the proper care. He is a good person with good intentions, a well known member of his community and a bishop of his church congregation, and a knowledgeable doctor. I told him what my daughters symptoms were and asked for a couple of tests to rule out some possible causes.  Her symptoms are similar to mine, stomach hurts often, bloating, diarrhea or constipation, the usual IBS things, but I wanted to know if she had h-pylori or gluten intolerance.  He did an xray of her abdomen and said there was excess stool in her gut, and she has "chronic constipation." I appeared perplexed because she has loose stools often, so he wrote on a paper what is going on in her rectum and the answer is simple, take suppositories to clean out the rectum and then take miralax to keep things moving through until the large intestines and rectum get back to normal. My mind was spinning on why you would give a laxative to a thin child who already has absorption issues, and maybe that doubting attitude came out when I said, "OK, but what is causing the chronic constipation?" He pointed his pen at me and said, "Heather, think simple! This IS the problem, and she will feel much better if you do what I say, do you want me to write it down for you?" No, I'm here to learn and I remember what you said. "If you want to find some reason for it, I'm not your man, but I bet you that h-pylori breath test will come back negative and I bet if you get her tested for gluten intolerance that will come back negative too."  He flatly refused to test her for gluten, and I nearly started to cry, but kept it together and remembered this wasn't just about him, it was from years of feeling frustrated about doctors who focus on eliminating a symptom, not really healing the body. Doctors want to shut your body up, where are you feeling pain so we can hone in on that one aspect of your body and get rid of it. I've always felt that if you shut up the message your body is giving you that something is wrong, you will just cause more problems, which is why I refused to take Zoloft when Dr. Corry told me all my problems were probably related to anxiety. I'm sure anxiety had a lot to do with it, but shutting down the anxiety that is trying to tell me something is off hormonally and cellularly in your body will only help temporarily at best and cause addictions to the meds at worst. This week I heard a lecture from a functional medical doctor, Dr. Geanopolus, which sums how I feel up better than I can, and he made me feel better about myself for wanting to know the cause.

"When we start giving people labels we tend to forget there are other things going on. Diabetes? You Just happened to cross the threshold of something majorly going wrong with your blood sugar, but there have been multiple other systems functioning poorly for years. Medical professionals try to control a few markers with medicine, and it's no way to restore your health. Medicine is just controlling symptoms, elevated blood sugar is a symptom, not a cause. We want to treat and heal not just control.  The case with chronic disease is symptom management instead of restoring health.

"For example, are we taking into account the nervous system? It ties all these different systems together, the brain is the head and controls all other systems of the body, if you damage the brain that will impact all hormonal systems, sensory systems, everything. We want to address all the issues, and realize it will take quite some time to heal. Brain needs to be in an environment where it can heal, diet affects blood chemistry, so you must understand the role nutrition plays in brain function. Alheimers disease and Parkinson, these are a neurodegeneration classified as a type III diabetes because of the relationship of the management of blood sugar particularly in our brain.  We have the tools to help people with neurodegenerative diseases, but we can't wait until the traditional symptoms appear.  Hemoglobin A1C, triglycerides, if they don't begin to elevate you don't have a discussion with your doctor, but they start to creep up and you start trying to manage with medication, you've already had years of abnormal blood sugar control. Doctors waiting til you are prediabetic to have the conversation with you.  You can know before it gets too far!  Sugar elevates triglycerides, not fat!  

"You're genes will just determine what label you get first. But the dysfunction doesn't have to occur. If you are going to change neuorological pathways it takes frequency, repetition, consistency, dedication. Patients need to work for it, the days of going to the doctor and doing what their told are over. You need to understand your body and get involved in your own treatment. Either you have hope or you don't. I will, I can. Cut out eating all the crappy food, give your brain the nutrition that its craving.

Healing the brain: Rehabilitation exercises, chemical environment healthy, targeted supplements, remove interference. Affirmations, positive reinforcements. Pain is preventing people from enjoying life, pain is a symptom, what is the symptom caused by? Chronic pain tends to have many components. Stress hormone dysregulated, blood sugar dysregulated, changing chemistry with sensitized nerves and pain, depression, inflammation, after a few years of living like this many disorders can occur. Have to be looked at as a whole person, not a label. To be given the label like "chronic back pain" all it does is force doctors to say "aha" I'm going to look at this part of your body and nothing else. Doctors look at this one part of your body and not at anything else and they try to treat it, and you end up very disgruntled.

"Pain killers may work, and that may be the worst possible thing that can happen.  Telling your body to shut up now there is no reason to pursue the cause.  If the medication relieves the symptom, now there's no reason to pursue the cause.  We have been mismanaged. Starts with xrays mri's catscans ultra sounds looking to see if there are abnormalities, if your old enough and had enough stress yes you will have abnormalities, but to hang your hat on that is a crime. Pictures told the doctors this is where the pain is coming from, people obsess over structural problems, take prescription painkillers, tell the body to shut up. Trying to hit different parts of the nervous system impacted by pain, never a good thing, leads to other problems. Disability, lack of function, lack of productivity, depression, etc.

When we help people in a comprehensive way that gives them back their life and families and enjoyment of life, and stop spending money on doctors, its joyful. Our health insurance system is not going to pay for someone to restore their health, just to manage your disease, got to get out of the health care system. Its your responsibility to get healthy. Functional medicine a partnership between you and the doctor, something the general public just starting to embrace.  New paradigm in the wellness world. Get to the cause: gmo's and diet, environmental insults, chemical interference, nonsense about eating low fat. Medical doctors have a hard time communicating with themselves and others about the next step in this paradigm of addressing things wholistically."

Dr. Geanopulos   Your Diagnosis: why labels can be dangerous and prevent you from seeing what else is happening

After hearing this, what do you think you should do with the information you've been given your whole life by the people who are helping people in the medical world? Am I going to be that next person? Someone who wants to help by sharing information but who had it wrong despite all my schooling and research and I end up hurting instead of helping? I relinquish my status as a "know it all." I now realize I and everyone here is really quite stupid compared to our all knowing omniscient omnipowerful Heavenly Father, we are doing our best, and must never give up, but be careful because we know practically nothing...yet.

Stressed

Fight and Flight or Rest and Digest? What if how we eat has more to do with digestion issues than what we eat? If you are eating on the run, gulping things down, thinking about the million things you need to do while eating, eating while working, not eating then stuffing yourself, scared to eat, hate to eat, etc etc, your millions of motor complexes and hormones, gut neurotransmitters, enzymes and everything that goes with digestion are not going to be able to work efficiently.  We live in an information age, we work very hard but not in the ways our ancestors worked--with their hands and their backs--we work with our minds. The stress we encounter every day puts strain on our system, instead of being threatened once in a while by enemies, predators, or accidents that put a body's sympathetic nervous system on alert and creates a "fight or flight" response that produces cortizone, cortisol, and adrenaline not conducive to digestion, we experience stress multiple times a day in smaller amounts but which creates the same kind of response, which creates havoc on the digestion system. It's like death by a million cuts.

How can we get back to rest and digest in a modern world?  A home cooked meal where we sit down and savor the food is a luxury. It's no wonder everyone is addicted to sugar, it produces the quickest pleasurable response, its our modern way of enjoying eating. When do you eat? Do you sit down? Do you chew your food so your stomach can get ready to produce the proper amounts of acid and bicarbonate, so it can get food to the right pH to trigger the appropriate enzymes? Do you think about what you are eating or what you need to do in the next 5 minutes?  Is the body in a state where it can move things through in order or is it worked up and sporadically firing here and there throughout the digestive track?

I have a hard time with this, as you know I'm by nature impatient and claim to be smart and anxious, so getting myself int he proper Zen mode to eat is tricky.  After a long week of stimulating my mind for work 20 hours, keeping track of kids' schedules and responsibilities, meeting my own schedule demands and responsibilities, trying to find the right balance between stress and rest is tricky. By Friday my mind is pretty worked up and sleep is difficult to maintain and my stomach churns all night long. So I take a day to rest and reset my adrenals, which helps and my stomach feels much better and I sleep like a baby. Oh how I wish we could have rest days every day!  Would I even have digestion issues at all if I could stay calm at all times?  Even the act of writing this post I feel my stomach clenching as I work my mind to create the words to articulate my thoughts. I am going back and forth between this and uploading a video on youtube of my son's gym meet, so I'm double tasking besides. My stomach is growling because I need to eat breakfast, yet I have set my mind to working before I have eaten which will make it harder to rest and digest.

But if I don't stay vigilant, am I being slothful? We need to work to survive, and I live in a world where stress and work are usually yoked together, in my experience they certainly are.  Can I break that yoke and work hard but not stress? Or what if stress isn't necessarily a bad thing?  Is there a way to be stressed and be ok at the same time?  Dr. Kent seems to think so, he said the following:

"Stress is not always negative. It is part of our general adaptation syndrome: the classic stress response, when we feel a threat our body goes into defensive mode.

Every living being has a certain amount of adaptation vitality, energy and designed to respond to stress, non-living things are non-living because they don't have a nervous system with the ability to adapt, living beings can adapt. Complete absence of stress is not compatible with life, saying “I want to eliminate stress in my life” is really a shame because the only time you are going to eliminate stress in your life is the day you die. If you are alive you are adapting to stress and that’s the essence of life and the human experience.

Positive stress is what we seek as human beings--competing at an athletic event, falling in love, excelling in your life’s purpose--those are all stressful, all require adaptation to change, but they bring exhilaration and growth. Why do people jump out of airplanes for a rush? Gong to movies that make them cry? Stand up and sing in front of people? We want to expand the scope of the human experience.

Problems occur when your body and mind misinterpret and opportunity for growth as a threat. The reason we have stress response that causes the heart to beat faster and muscles to tighten, flight or fight, is because of prehistoric days, but today that fearful response (what is seen to the mind and body as a threat) is often inappropriate. You don’t need this response when someone criticizes you, or your overwhelmed with the amount of work you are facing. These situations will not kill you! These aren’t threats, they are opportunities for growth. If your body perceives them as such they will do the appropriate thing to adapt and experience growth.  In order to do that you need a nervous system that is free from interference.

What interference? The nervous system the master system of the body causes you to adapt to all of these challenges, allows you to thrive survive and to grow.  A cell cannot be in growth and defense at the same time. Can’t happen. If that’s true, then a human being can’t be in growth and defense at the same time, a family can’t, a society can’t, and therefore what we seek to do is to get people out of defense and into growth by allowing their bodies to get an accurate perception of what is going on in the world and allow them to adapt. Our bodies haven’t had enough time to catch up with technology. Still have flight fight response, but the body have a lot of things going for it to allow us to adapt i.e. spirituality, therapy, health care, etc. Today we are subjected to forms of physical stress (cars, airplanes, deadlines) potential to overload the system, when that happens its possible that a vertebral subluxation occurs. A blown fuse. One of the bones in the spine can misalign can interfere with function of the nerves, pain in neck and back. More than a spinal problem, a health problem, communication system in body—nervous system—being interfered with.  Pain that triggers hormones design to adapt and you fire them over and over bad things happen, you need to interrupt that pattern. State of mind plays a role in the process."

                      
Christopher Kent, DC, JD STRESS: GOOD AND BAD

There are a myriad of problems that can occur when the system is overloaded, if your genetic weak link is vertebral subluxation then you will have back problems. If you have problems with thyroid, blood sugar regulation, headaches, depression, whatever your weak link is will be negatively affected if you are in defense mode or having negative stress.  Interfere, get out of that pattern, challenge your assumptions, change your state of mind, and above all FEAR NOT!

Fear not, though the enemy deride;

Courage, for the Lord is on our side.

We will heed not what the wicked may say,

But the Lord alone we will obey.

                     Let us All Press On

Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,

For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.

I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by my righteous, upheld by my righteous,

Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

                     How Firm a Foundation

I will not doubt, I will not fear;

God's love and strength are always near.

His promised gift helps me to find

An inner strength and peace of mind.

I give the Father willingly

My trust, my prayers, humility.

His Spirit guides; his love assures

That fear departs when faith endures.

                   When Faith Endures

Writer

In the realms of mental health, nutrition, and medicine the research world is currently littered with the term "gut to brain axis," and much needed attention is being given to the interplay between the nervous system of the gut and the nervous system of the brain. Neurotransmitters that regulate brain function are first produced in the gut, so it stands to reason that imbalances in either realm will affect the other.

How deep does the connection run? Is depression merely a manifestation of malabsoption of nutrients due to a variety of causes such as bacteria, inflammation, infection, or parasites? Could the food we eat have severe affects on mood and cause long term neurological degeneration?  Researchers are noticing a relationship between functional bowel disorders and brain disorders, i.e. a high percentage of children with Autism also have improper gut motility (constipation, diarrhea) or food intolerances/allergies, but which comes first, the gut disorder or the brain disorder? Could regaining function in your bowels not only improve your mood, motivation, hope, but also eliminate pathological anxiety and depression?

In my experience, the answer is mostly yes. However, even in something as seemingly simple as nutrition, we have to be careful to avoid all or nothing thinking errors. For example, gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye that tends to cause negative gut and brain issues in many people, has gotten a very bad rap because of the disease sprue (celiac) where the immune system destroys the small intestine in attempt to kill gluten. Celiac is potentially deadly and should be taken very seriously, but the idea of "gluten intolerance or sensitivity", what is that? One thing that may cause it is if you have some kind of infection or low stomach acid, a relatively minor problem and easily treatable, yet your ability to absorb food properly may be compromised and you may have imbalanced strains of bacteria in your SI tract, causing "leaky gut." When large molecules of food penetrate this gut, and cross the blood brain barrier, it causes negative affects on the brain such as brain fog, inability to focus, fatigue, and head aches. Since gluten is one of the foods that easily penetrates this leaky gut, and its effect on the brain can be disastrous, consuming it can be problematic for many people even if they don't have celiac disease. But for some, with no dysfunction in bowel movement or absorption, gluten may pass through without causing harm to the individual. Hence the need to be careful not to assume that gluten is always the bad guy.

Functionality can be influenced both ways. For example, someone who experiences a severe trauma may develop PTSD symptoms irregardless of their diet, however the resulting anxiety, panic, depression, sleep dysregulation problems triggered by the trauma will most likely negatively affect digestion, which could perpetuate the symptoms and create a downward cycle. Researchers show that alcoholics in recovery start craving sugary foods, and those who turn to carbs and sweets are the ones mostly likely to relapse to their drug of choice and end up back in rehabilitation. However, those who change their diet to include nutrient dense, protein rich, non sweet whole foods are able to stay sober and regain functionality in mood regulation. The simple reason is they were able to regulate the gut to brain axis and thus maximize emotional regulation.

No client I have ever met likes to be told what to eat, even though the 64 oz soda they ingest every day may be negatively affecting their blood sugar regulation, bacterial and yeast balance, and a myriad of digestive and mood difficulties that result. Even soda has its positive effects, if what you are going for is a temporary mood lift and quick rise in blood sugar, then you've got the right fuel. But we know that what is good for us in the short run is not always the best in the long run. Being mindful of what you really want and need may include being aware of the connection between food and brain function.

Just as people have both strengths and weaknesses, different foods have both benefits and drawbacks. It may be wise to be wary of any experts telling you to completely ban a certain food or over promoting a certain supplement. There are benefits and risks to nearly every food, and eliminating foods can cause problems just as eating harmful foods (when your gut is compromised) can also cause problems.  The important thing is not whether you eat blueberries or take fish oil every day, its about the motivation and mindfulness of eating. Are you eating because you are craving something and feeding an organism bigger than yourself like Candida overgrowth?  Are you not eating because you have anxiety that this food will hurt your body or make you fat?  Are you paying attention to what your mood and digestive response is to certain foods, or are you pushing through the negative symptoms and eating what you want?  If you are craving it, if you have negative digestive responses eating it, the brain to gut axis is telling you something is off--be mindful of the connection gut to brain and brain to gut!

Rather than demonizing a food, balance your intake. If you chose to start avoiding simple carbs and refined foods you will have to replace it with something, and your body will have more opportunity to eat more whole foods, and foods rich in healthy fats and protein to boost your amino acid production and vitamin and mineral content, which boosts tryptophan and serotonin production in your brain. But don't completely get rid of vegetables and fruits and even carbohydrates that have many healthy benefits as well!  Even a starchy potato can be good, with the skin on and cooked and chilled a potato has many resistant fiber and carbohydrate benefits that we would be remiss to eliminate from our diet. It will take some time to build healthy bacterial strains and eliminate the harmful strains creating the cravings, and some elimination of foods may be necessary for a temporary period in order to heal your gut from damage, but keep in mind that reintroducing those foods in moderate and wise amounts will be necessary so you can get the benefits from that food. Educate yourself on the benefits of food and how it affects your brain, but be wise to not believe everything you read on the internet, choose reputable sources and find the truth in what the nutritionists have discovered. Every body is different, you can find out what works for you, but be aware of the connection between the gut and the brain when you eat.

Tired

One of the biggest symptoms since 2011 I've struggle with is just being tired. I was tired a lot when I was pregnant with my four children, but it was expected then, I was making a baby and it was tricky to sleep through the night so of course I was exhausted all the time. When I started having chronic fatigue without being pregnant, I was very impatient about it. Walking around like a zombie isn't my ideal way of living a life. I absolutely had to get a good nights rest in order to function normally the next day, and I had to have a 30 minute nap every day, and even then by 8:00 pm I was feeling so tired I could barely stay awake until 9:00. I've gotten a lot of guff from people making fun of me for my early bedtime, but with the exception of new years eve, I'd rather have my gums scraped than stay up later than 9!  There is something about my health problems that makes a restorative period absolutely necessary, I somehow destroy my body by fueling my body all day and at night during sleep is my chance to try and reset. The thought of not getting enough sleep at night is nothing short of torturous. I shove the earplugs in my ears, sleep in a separate room from everyone in the house, hope and pray no one has any emergencies for the next 8 hours, and pass out. I used to have middle insomnia where I would wake up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep for 2 hours, but lately even that has been rare in my desperate need for sleep.  I can sleep easily for 9 hours most nights.

I'm tired right now! And it's only 7:45 pm. I'm tired when I wake up in the morning. I'm tired after the kids get off to school, I'm tired after lunch, I'm tired after my nap, sometimes I'm even tired during my client sessions!  There doesn't seem to be enough time to rest ever, but I'm trying to not care and just keep living my life as if I were alert and I am grateful for moments when I have that feeling of awakeness. The hard part is not being irritable with others when I have these tired feelings. My husband Jared is reading "How to Win Friend and Influence People for Teenage Girls" with my daughters and when he was teaching them the importance of being kind and considerate to others, I had to ask "How do you be nice to others when you aren't feeling well yourself?"  That is hard. Love is an antidote for many vices, if you are intentionally trying to love others you won't judge, won't assume a higher moral ground, won't criticize, will be less self conscious, have less anxiety, worry less about their perception of you, be able to observe and need and serve better, be less negative with yourself, and have more trust and confidence in others and yourself. Its so hard for me to show love to others when I'm tired and don't feel well, I very much admire those who can.  It's a goal for me this year to try and be kind to others no matter how I feel.

The other morning I literally had to "pump myself up" just to make breakfast in the morning. "You can do this Heather! Just keep moving, don't stop, you can do it!" When I have a busy day I find meaning and purpose in life and it makes me happy, but it wipes me out and the next day I have to recover. Stress is toxic to my body and I try very hard to keep it at bay and relax as much as I can, but I find myself wound up without even realizing it. How can I rest and digest if I'm in a constant state of worry? No wonder I have so many digestive issues.

But my digestive issues run deeper than that. If my problem truly is that I have been unable to properly digest foods that are nutrient rich, protein rich, mineral rich, vitamin rich, fiber resistant, and rich in healthy fats, then it explains why my bones have been underdeveloped, my iron low, my b vitamins low, my muscle tone poor, my hormones off, and my mental health at risk and unstable throughout my life.  I could digest simple carbs ok and store them, but I always felt like I was starving after a few hours and never understood why. I was depleting myself and didn't even know it.  After I stressed myself near to death in graduate school, my body had had it, and that's when I got dizzy spells, chronic head aches, blurred vision, foggy brain, and of course fatigue in addition to my "hypoglycemic complex" when I was eating sugar and simple carbs on a regular basis.  Since I've removed the simple carbs and eat much more of the proteins and nutrient dense foods, I have more opportunity to absorb them and my hair grows thicker, my muscles feel stronger, my depression is minimal to none, no more headaches or brain fog, but I still don't absorb them well!  Its a lot of work for my body so I'm still tired!  And I still have an excess of food in my gut and strange reactions to certain foods like gluten, dairy, peanuts, and soy. I can't gain weight, my stomach hurts often, and I'm bloated on a daily basis. If the answer is simply to have more hydrochloric acid in my stomach to help me digest large food molecules, I'll gladly take it. But I'm not going to just start taking that without doctor consultation, so I need to keep my appointment with the gastrointernalologist. I know I'm getting old and may be tired for a lot of the time the rest of my life, but I'm hopeful that not being so tired is something that will happen if I can figure out what is wrong with me and treat it.

But I'm tired. I have learned so much this past year about health and nutrition and myself, but I'm tired of trying and getting no where closer to the answer. If you've read my words you know I've had several different theories along the way. The Lord directed me to read the Anti Sugar book and I was convinced if I eliminated sugar I would get better. Then I read the anti gluten books and was certain if I got rid of gluten that would cure me. Dr. Curtis put my on the pancreatits track and I was 100% convinced that was it, and then to admit I didn't have enough of those symptoms and say "no that's not it" was humbling and conflicting. I had the ovarian cysts, maybe its all hormonal imbalance and I need hormone treatment or a hysterectomy? No that would cause more problems. Maybe if I get off dairy? Off meat? On supplements? Herbal antibiotics? I found out I had ulcers, so then I got on the "I have h-pylori" track. But the h-pylori tests all came back negative. I had a doctor tell me not to seek doctors and be grateful for the functionality I have. I've had friends tell me to go to the doctor until I figure it out. Maybe its just anxiety and if I stop stressing I will start digesting? I know that's only part of it.  I know I can't digest meat but I can't live without meat either. I've had a hard time, and I'm tired.

Family is life's greatest blessing. I'm grateful for my family no matter how tired I get. My Savior and the gospel have gotten me through all the confusing, tiring, difficult times in my life and I will be eternally grateful for that. Life is so precious and so fast, I'll keep going tired or not, until God sees fit to bring me home.  "Jesus Lover of my Soul Let me to thy bosom fly. While the nearer waters roll while the tempest still is high. Hide me O my Savior hid, Till the storm of life is past. Safe into the haven guide. Oh, receive my soul at last."

Learning

I am in the middle of watching "The Digestion Sessions" series by Underground Wellness with Sean Croxton.  I don't feel "Aha!" when I learn something anymore, instead I see each of the "experts" Sean interviews as another player pushing against the darkness that keeps us in ignorance of how our bodies work, and it is interesting.  I respect them for sharing information with others, for learning and working the best they know how to help others and uncover truth, and I would love to join them. Maybe someday I can but right now I have three children and a husband to take care of, and my body is still recuperating from some major imbalances. So for now I keep learning and share what I learn on this lovely blog. Here's what I've learned this month:
The digestion sessions have led me to another theory about my current state of health. Dr. Kalish talked about H-pylori and how when you have that it causes ulcers and not enough acidity in your stomach.  If you don't have enough acid, you can't digest your food fast enough or efficiently, and it leaves the stomach at the wrong acidity level, doesn't trigger the proper enzymes, doesn't get absorbed by the intestines correctly, putrifies and causes diarrhea or bacterial overgrowth, which can lead to bloating, leaky gut, food allergies and chronic fatigue, etc etc.  I watched that lecture the same day doctor Smith called me back to talk about my MRI scan.  He said that all my valves, organs, and blood vessels between organs look good, but I do have excess food in my colon, and am I still having pain and do I want any further tests. So I asked him for one more test, an H-pylori antigen stool test.  He agreed and called that in, and referred me to a gastrointernologist for further testing.  I haven't heard back from the doctors office (two weeks later) about the antigen test, so I assume its negative, but Dr Kalish said it is rather difficult to detect h-pylori and sometimes takes 3 or more stool samples, and breath tests and stomach scopes don't always catch it.  So I decided to take some herbal antibiotics in oil form and Mastic Gum for 30 days and see if it helps.  I have the ulcers for a reason, yes stress exacerbates the bacteria that causes them, but it doesn't cause them, and if my stomach acid is low that explains why only eating small amounts of food at a time is the way to avoid adverse side effects, why my pancreatic enzyme levels are off, why I have so much excess food in my colon/intestines, why I don't absorb food well, and why I am so tired all the time.  I've been on various antibiotic oils like oregano for 10 days now and I'm feeling somewhat better lately, it makes me hopeful that I'm achieving some balance.  However, I need healthy bacteria to stay healthy, and who knows what I'm doing to that. 
Have you ever heard the story of the man and his son and the horse? It sums up how I feel about treatments, seeing another doctor, even learning new things that may or may not be accurate.

Once upon a time there was a man with one acre of land, one son, and one horse. One day his horse got loose and ran away, and all his family and friends said, "Oh! How unfortunate for you! That's your only horse, what are you going to do?" But the man just said "I don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing."
The horse joined a bunch of wild horses and became very thirsty. So the horse found his way back to the farm and brought 10 wild horses with him. All the farmers family and friends said, "Oh how fortunate for you. You now have 10 more horses! " and the man said, "I don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing."
One day while the man's son was out training one of the wild horses, the horse reared up and landed on the boy, and broke both his legs. The farmer's family and friends said to him, "Oh! How unfortunate for you. That's your only son. What are you going to do?" but the man just said, "I don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing."
The next week war broke out and all the able-bodied young men in the village were called to serve in the war.  The farmer's son could not go due to his broken legs, and all the sons of the village were killed on the front. All the famer's friends bitterly chided, "How fortunate for you, your son did not have to go to war." The man only replied, "I don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing."
After some time the farmer's son became very depressed because his friends had all died in the war and he had not been able to fight with them, so he left the farm and his father to find a better life. As neighbors wondered how he would be able to go on, he said "I don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing."
Five years later the son returned with a small fortune and a wife, and the old man was able to retire and sold his farm to his son who became quite wealthy. Though others looked on in envy, the wise man only smiled.
"I don't know if its a good thing, or a bad thing."

I have an appointment with the gastrointernologist January 28th.  My mom thinks I should keep it and continue seeking medical answers. My husband has declined to offer his opinion about whether I should keep it.  I am considering cancelling it and just continue learning about health and nutrition and being grateful I have the functionality I have. The doctors at the general practitioner "Premier Family Medical" have done a good job of convincing me there is nothing really wrong, or give me labels that aren't even true, and spending more money on doctors and tests just to show that I'm physically "normal" from every angle would be a bad thing.  But if I could find out more about my health or wellness by going, if I could learn what really is causing my digestive issues, it could help me to be able to better help others and share correct information, so it could be a good thing.