Mini-flare sticking around and Starting the GAPS diet

My mini-flare I have had since my PMS started is sticking around even though PMS time is over.  Not oozing like I did for a day, but my legs are pretty bad right now.  The skin is pretty sensitive and tears easily so I am trying to be extra careful.  Good news is my neck remains clear and my face is only slightly dry.  It's nice to have the redness and swelling down in those areas.  My arms are so-so.  Not flaring, but not great either - dry and itchy and red still.  But no swelling or oozing.  My back is just scaly, patchy, and itchy.  Overall still good!  I no longer have that intense nerve pain even when I do scratch the skin open so that is wonderful!! 

Today is our semi-official start of the GAPS diet.  I have a lot of broth and soup made and frozen.  I say semi because we had a small amount of fruit left over and I hate throwing away perfectly good food.  So I had some cantaloupe this morning while the kids shared a bit of that and had some blueberries, apples, and pears.  But now that breakfast is over, it is on to stage 1 - meats, soups, and veggies only with probiotics added to each meal.  I plan to work through the stages quickly this time around.  Once I am free and clear of TSW I plan to return to the intro stages of the diet and go through each stage much slower.  I do not want to be burdened down with too many reactions and nit picking over whether I am ready for a specific food or not while dealing with my skin.  I am doing the diet for over all health reasons - not just for my skin.  I have wanted to do this for years now but working full time always hindered me.  But now with not working and feeling better, I am embarking on this in order to bring some healing to my family as a whole.  We have followed a very clean diet for 3-4 years now with about 20% not so good foods.  We now have to be 100% all natural because hubby has had increasing IBS and one of the kids has had worsening GI problems.  Every time we "cheat" causes problems for us. And some of the organic things we buy like organic salad dressing just are not acceptable to the all natural eating concept.  They still contain preservatives. 

I may or not be able to blog this week depending on how we are all dealing with the diet changes.  I have been forewarned that the first 2 weeks can be very difficult on everyone, so no telling what we will experience.  But I am determined and will be putting things off if necessary in order to stay rigid to clean eating.  If I have to stop exercising for a week or two, fine.  Blogging and writing can wait.  But who knows, maybe we will all do well considering how long we have been eating well.  Hope everyone is having a good skin day!