One Month In

It’s been about a month since I started my diet, and I am still for the most part feeling good and full of energy.  I’m able to do my housework again, which is great as when I was really ill it made me feel worse to stare at all the chores that kept taunting me.  There’s still a huge to-do list, but at least I’m keeping on top of it these days!  I have lost a lot of weight though.  The homeopath did warn me I could lose weight as the candida were adding about 4lbs to my weight (WOW), but I’ve lost more than this, and it’s getting a bit disconcerting.  I don’t want to look stick thin, nor do I really want to have to replace every item of clothing as my current clothes are falling off.  I have been sticking to my diet very well, except for at the wedding reception………..there was a reason for this though.  I could’ve just had a plain burger without the bun and eaten the salad.  But instead I chose to have a burger in a bun with some ketchup and mayo, a sausage(another thing on the no no list), a piece of the wedding cake and a little mini brownie.  Why?  Well, this week my family’s received some pretty scary news.  It has brought home to me the brevity of life.  And I thought to myself, well, I may die tomorrow, and whether I eat the bread etc or not can’t and won’t change that if it is to be so.  No one knows how long a life they have to live.  And yes, for 99% of the time I stick to my diet, but life is so short, that I am not going to deprive myself of a little treat at such a special event.  I woke up feeling no worse for the wear.  I did expect to feel really sick and have an awful tummy ache as that did happen once before when I ate something I didn’t realise I shouldn’t eat, but nothing!  My energy levels have still be good as well.  Obviously, I am back on to my strict eating regime now as I don’t want to return to how ill I was only 4 weeks ago, but there are some scenarios where I think it’s only fair to break the diet rules just a little and enjoy the scrumptious culinary delights in this world…………in moderation, of course! 🙂

New Eating Regime Update

I’ve been on my yeast and sugar free diet for a few weeks now.  I’m now also taking all 10 pills a day.  This is such a triumph for me.  I know it probably isn’t great for killing off all that nasty candida bacteria quickly, but I started off by taking 4 a day and gradually adding the rest in to get my mind over the fact I had to swallow so many.  I still sometimes struggle, and I have to walk away and finish off taking them at a later point in the day, BUT they are going down and staying down and that’s the main thing!!!  So, how’s it been going?  Well, there have been definite improvements already.  I wake up in a morning with a clear head and feel like I’ve actually rested during the night.  This still amazes me as I really can’t remember the last time in my life when I woke up feeling really with it and ready for the day.  My tummy is less bloated as well.  I don’t have a painful tummy anymore either.  I’ve had more energy, but I have to learn to curb my desire to burn myself out when I get a little store of energy as I still tire easily.  I also manage to eat my 3 main meals in a day and no longer feel starved about an hour later…..that’s HUGE.  While at uni all my friends used to laugh at the fact that I constantly had to eat(but if I didn’t I had the shakes as the candida needed its little yeast or sugar fix).  Never before in my life have I gone without snacking between meals.   So, all in all, a very good start even though I started the medication side of things gradually!  I do miss eating fruit as I LOVE fruit, and I look forward to being able to reintroduce it to my diet.  As far as everything else goes, I don’t really miss chocolate, cookies, cakes etc as much as I feared I would do.  I did have a stressful incident last week which made me crave even a square of chocolate(I used to comfort eat a LOT), but apart from that, it doesn’t bother me.  I’ve made cupcakes for birthdays, desserts for company, and bought cake for people while out for coffee, and I rarely feel upset that they’re eating what I can’t eat.  Sometimes it’s irritating that I can’t eat all the meals I used to eat as they contain ingredients I’m currently not longer allowed, but it’s definitely worth it to feel well again!  The progress I have seen already gives me the encouragement I need to stick at it for the next 15ish months.

When Life Throws You a Curve Ball

Do you ever get those times when life seems to be motoring along at a pace of normality, and out of no where something happens that shakes your world around a bit?  That happened to me this week.  Let’s rewind many, many years when I contracted a serious illness.  Since then I have never felt well.  I’ve grown used to my state of health and it has become my new ‘feeling well’, and there are days when I feel more well than others.  Since this illness a whole host of other illnesses have come about, namely endometriosis, bladder infections galore, extreme lethary, zero energy, foggy head, stomach problems, the list is endless.  I have spent countless years back and forth at Doctors surgeries being prescribed things like the birth control pill for endometriosis (which I eventually refused to take), antibiotics for various infections, and endured 4 laparoscapies to burn off any endometriosis and remove ovarian cysts.  But each year my health seems to get even worse.  The emotional side is the worst.  On the outside, I look normal, so people often think I am being a hypochondriac, generally lazy, and attention seeking.  It’s eaten away at my self-confidence.  I entered into a teaching job which is what I trained to do after my degree and was often off sick as my body just couldn’t cope with the pace and when I did go in there was this overwhelming sense that people just saw me as someone who wanted to get paid but couldn’t be bothered to turn up to work and that I was just playing a game of illness, which of course made everything worse, and I finally resigned.  I’ve struggled to understand why this has all happened and why I can’t be healthy.  Any time I’ve been to doctors, they never listen to all the symptoms, and before I’m done they’ve prescribed some pill or another.

In recent years I’ve grown increasingly disillusioned with the conventional medical system and all the medication they seem to prescribe so readily.  I turned to reflexology after my last laparoscapy and noticed a marked improvement in my health.  Since the birth, I just can’t seem to get on my feet again at all.  It’s like my whole system has just collapsed.  Doctors keep putting everything down to my being anaemic, which yes, I’m sure it can’t help, but a lot of these symptoms were there before I became anaemic, so it can’t explain everything.  All the conventional forms of iron played major havoc with my stomach and I was beginning to despair.  I’ve spent years praying for God to give me some answers to my health, but in the past few months I’ve begged like never before.

My husband’s family have been attending a homeopath for many years, so he decided to contact the man and ask him if there was any form of natural iron supplement he knew of that would be kind to my stomach.  He mentioned Spatone.  It’s natural spring water that’s rich in iron.  I started taking it about 2 weeks ago and there has been a marked improvement and thankfully it didn’t affect my stomach.  My husband arranged for me to go and see the homeopath in the hopes he could help get my health back on track.  I assumed I’d get some remedy to take and that’d be it.  We got there and I had a detailed health questionnaire to go through with him.  When I first started getting reflexology treatments, my therapist mentioned an infection caused by Candidiasis Albecans and suggested I cut yeast and sugar out of my diet.  Of course, it sounded great, but the thought of giving up bread or cookies just seemed like too much.  However, after I finished the questionnaire, the homeopath said he didn’t need to do any tests as he knew exactly what the root cause was: Candidiasis Albecans!  He told me how when my immune system was down the bacteria had had a chance to take hold and it had in turn caused all my other issues and the antibiotics and hormonal treatments from the doctors had aggravated the problem further as well as my diet feeding the problem.

After hearing about the severity of the situation and what could happen if left untreated, I was excited to hear that with treatment I could have a drastically different life and feel full of life again.  Wow, I left feeling ecstatic!  I also left with a huge tub of antifungals, probiotics, aloe vera, garlic and other pills to get the infection under control along with a list of foods that I was to avoid for about 18 months.  It was exciting to think that soon my life was going to be better, which will be great for my husband and child as well.

Yesterday, however, the reality of the situation set in.  Firstly, I hate taking pills, and I have about 10 to take a day.  That terrifies me.  Secondly, to get better, I have to give up all yeast products, fruits, products with sugar, pork, mushrooms, cheese….pretty much all the stuff I love.  Secondly, we’d just stocked the freezer with meals that include things I’m no longer allowed to eat and it disappoints me as the food seems wasted along with my energy that went into preparing them.  18 months seems like such a long time.  On top of all that I got a bit of bad news, and last night I admit I had a little cry.  I am thankful God has finally brought someone along who could give me answers and a solution to my ill health, but the battle ahead seems so daunting that I despair and feel so daunted.  Praise God, He has given me a husband who loves me enough to willingly choose to give up all the nice things in life to support me through this time.  I found this quote and it really sums up how I feel right now.

“Enthusiasm is followed by disappointment and even depression, and then by renewed enthusiasm.”

– Murray Gell-Mann

 

I know there will be dark days ahead on this journey as my body fights this infection and clears the toxins from my system, and it’s going to mean major changes to our lives.  However, the hope of feeling genuinely WELL and HEALTHY for the first time in about 10 years, wow, that’s priceless.  So for myself, my husband and my daughter, I’m going to accept the changes that need to happen, and I look forward to seeing an improvement in my health in the next few months and over the 18 months.  I will have to keep a record of how it goes.  Now to find new recipes and foods to replace all the bread etc that I’d normally be eating!!