Sunday, April 19, 2015

Four Weeks In - DHwRF

Well, yesterday marked four weeks on the DHwRF basic elimination diet.  Unfortunately, I'm still not at the point of being able to reintroduce foods.  This past week didn't go exactly as I'd planned.

First, I got a cold, which knocked my whole body off whack.  Then I had a stressful week and we also had a vomiting episode with our youngest son (his health story is a million blog posts on its own), and I found myself overeating as a way to cope.  Anyone else do this kind of stress eating?  I hate that I do it.  I'm actually reading a book right now on how to learn to control it.  It's amazing to me that even on this limited diet, I can still find a way to overeat.  I got sick on spinach chips, ghee bites, and bananas (which I reintroduced last week).  Ridiculous.

Anyway, between the cold and the emotional overeating, my body was not happy.  I had a lot of digestive pains and issues.  It was really disappointing.

Nevertheless, here's the round up of my symptoms this week:

Digestive symptoms:  As I mentioned, it was a bad week.  A lot of bloating, jabbing pains, and nausea.  All my fault for eating to soothe myself rather than fuel myself.  On a positive note, no issues with diarrhea or constipation.

Reflux symptoms: I felt a little bit of reflux at the beginning of the week, but otherwise nothing. Also, a really exciting update on this aspect of my health is that I was able to take a betaine HCl pill and enzyme pills this week without experiencing any resulting burning or nausea.  This is HUGE for me!!  Every time I took either pill in the past, I would experience extreme burning or nausea and would even vomit at times.  Over the last month and a half, I have been taking a lot of supplements to try to heal my stomach lining, and I am SO EXCITED that it seems to be working!! I'll have to write a separate blog post about my regime I'm following and why I decided to follow it.

Autoimmune symptoms: I've been tired this week, but I'm pretty sure it's just due to having a cold. This week I also had dry mouth symptoms and a leg ache so severe that I had to use a heating pad in bed.  On a positive note, my brain fog continues to dissipate and my word recall is improving.  I'm finding that I can actually focus on difficult or annoying tasks, which is a huge improvement compared to a month ago.  I continue to have bouts of anxiety (I think I've forgotten to report this in weeks past, but it's been ongoing), but I'm learning that they usually happen when I'm feeling overstimulated with too many to-dos.  So when anxiety hits, I try to seek some quiet and calm myself down and find a way to reduce the input.

Cravings: As with last week, cravings are totally manageable until I get stressed.  And then I would do about anything for some chocolate or a chewy granola bar.  This ties into that emotional eating mentioned above.  It's a struggle for me.

Alright, I think that's all.  If I have a good week in terms of brain fog, I may try reintroducing (decaf) coffee soon.  I know it doesn't give me digestive symptoms, but I removed it from my diet because I want to be sure it doesn't cause my brain fog.  I don't think it does, but better safe than sorry.  I want to be 100% sure it's not making me sick, because it's a beverage that I'll drink quite often.  And yes, I do decaf.  Caffeine turns me into a crazy, anxious, jittery mess.

If you'd like to catch up on my past weeks, you can find them all below.

Digestive Health with REAL Food - Take 2
One Week In - DHwRF Update
Two Weeks In - DHwRF
Three Weeks In - DHwRF

'Till next week!

2 comments:

  1. What wre you taking to heal your stomach?

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    Replies
    1. It's a long list, but I'm going to write a post on it soon and I'll share!

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