Off The Grid

Off the grid is both where I’ve been and where I’m going. What’s changing, however, is precisely which grids I’m talking about.

I’ve not posted here in quite a while. That’s no secret. The holidays are a crazy time for folks even in perfect circumstances, and as it turns out, my circumstances haven’t been perfect.

It all started the day after Thanksgiving. I got sick. Really sick. I was in bed for a week with a nasty flu. We all know the routine. What really struck me about this particular bug, however, was how long it was taking me to recover. After the first week, I was breathing relatively normally again and the fever was gone, but I was SO INCREDIBLY TIRED! “That makes sense.”, I thought… my body had just fought off a virulent infection and it was going to take some time to fully regain my strength. One week turned into two. Two weeks turned in to four. By the time Christmas rolled around, I was worried. Not only was I overwhelmingly fatigued, but my gut had been way more inconsistent than I’m used to. It began to creep into the edges of my consciousness that I might be experiencing a Crohn’s flare. I couldn’t be certain, since I hadn’t flared since my surgery and before my surgery I didn’t know I had Crohn’s. So, because I couldn’t be certain, and because I didn’t want it to be so, I decided it wasn’t and ignored it.

But then came Christmas. We had packed up the car for the 13 hour drive down to my in-laws’ house. Along the way, Diana started feeling ill. By the time we arrived, she had a full-blown head cold. I looked on in sympathy and provided what help I could. Alas, 2 days later, I also woke up with a sore throat. Damn! I got sick again. Fortunately, this cold didn’t seem to as bad as the last one…. or so I thought. I started to recover, but then stopped. And for the next couple of weeks (well, until yesterday, actually), I blew gallons of snot out of my nose. How is it possible for one nose to produce so much mucous?!? This was uncomfortable and inconvenient, but it wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that I was now experiencing full blown diarrhea up to 7 times a day, my fingers ached, and I was overwhelmingly fatigued. Classic Crohn’s! I could no longer deny it. I was flaring.

• Step 1: schedule an appt. with my GP. Done, but sadly, it was a couple weeks out.
• Step 2: Go back to the SCD Intro Diet. Done.
• Step 3: Get plenty of rest and hope for the best. Done.

It was only just today that I was finally able to get in to see my GP. More on that later.

As it happens, Diana has been talking with her ND about starting a new diet plan, as documented in the book, The Body Ecology Diet. Her progress in dealing with her Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis has really plateaued recently, and her ND is beginning to suspect problems of yeast and systemic alkalinity. The more that Diana talked about it, the more it sounded like something that could potentially be at the root of my own autoimmune issues. So I’ve decided now to go off the SCD grid. Mind you, the diets are similar, and both share the goal of reducing inflammation. But the BED addresses the issue not by focusing on healing the gut… that happens incidentally. The focus of BED is on the eradication of yeast colonies through control of the body’s pH levels. As it turns out, SCD, especially the way I follow it, is quite conducive to raising systemic acidity, which then makes it a more hospitable place for yeast to thrive (and for good bugs to languish).

As I mentioned, I finally got in to see my GP today. She was appropriately concerned about my symptoms, and when I mentioned that I was investigating the possibility of yeast and systemic alkalinity, she got VERY excited! It seems that she’s been seeing increasing amounts of research into this very topic, and resolved to administer a battery of tests on my blood and stool to check for it. In light of the fact that I’m missing the part of my colon responsible for processing vitamin B, I also asked her about B12 injections. She agreed this was a reasonable course of action, and pumped me full of ‘the juice’.

We talked about several other things related less to my case in particular and more to Crohn’s and IBD treatment in general. I’ll go into these in another post.

Maybe it was the B12 injection, maybe it was being heard and responded to, being assured that I wasn’t crazy. All I know is that I left her office feeling better than when I had arrived.

I’ll be meeting with her again in a week to so to talk about my lab results. We’re checking various inflammation markers, looking for yeast, and probably running some allergy tests as well.

I’m flaring right now, and that sucks. But I feel positive that improvement is on the horizon.