Monday, August 8, 2016

Turning a corner

A little over a week on my new regimen and I have to say that I'm turning a corner in the right direction.  Brain fog is slowly lifting, no hives, less itching,  almost 100% clear skin, and energy to exercise. And I'm eating dairy and gluten. But instead of my skin getting irritated in the typical areas of eczema, all I get is some minor itching.   I've gone to the gym twice in the last few days and am slowly going to get back into shape.  I still get tired easily and seem to need more rest lately but I attribute that to healing given our bodies heal best when at rest.

So the bottom line is for now I'm doing very very good.  Everything is looking up and life is moving along well.  I'm no longer feeling blah or whiny.  I'm working full time and putting in overtime without any consequences to my skin.  And my asthma is fizzling out....no longer carry my rescue inhaler with me everywhere. I might use a puff or 2 a day but that's it.  I've only used my nebulizer once in the last 3 days.  I can't wait to go back to my family doctor for an update and let her know how good I'm doing!  My only physical thing I now need to work on is getting back into shape.  70 lbs to lose or thereabouts.  I won't be weighing myself though except maybe once a month or every other month.  Going to focus on more important numbers like my resting heart rate and BP.  Currently my BP is 127/74 and my resting heart rate is 76.  My goal is to get my HR down to 55 and my BP to 105/65.  I'm turning 44 in a week so I need to keep my heart in good shape.  Many people start blood pressure medicine in their 40s. That's not going to be me if I have anything to say about it!  :)

Praying for all of you still suffering. Keep fighting and keep looking for answers.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Day 5 of Supplement Protocol

Hmmmm....not sure I wanted to blog since 5 days is not sufficient time to report back on any effectiveness.  But I'm currently in a different "state" and thought I'd just write down some observations and thoughts.

Physically....let's just say I'm not myself.  Within an hour of taking my first dose of the new supplements on Saturday, I felt like my body was purging.  I swear I peed out at least 2 liters in about 2 hours time.  Yet I'm pretty sure I only drank about 300 ml to take all the supplements to begin with and had nothing else to drink that morning.  And let's just say my intestines were well empty within a few hours as well.  No cramps or pain nor any nausea.  So I attributed all the purging to the supplements and not a GI bug.  Every day since I have gone through the same thing after taking the supplements.  Now another thing I noticed is I have been getting car sick going to work and on my way home.  I have developed car sickness with long drives (over 4 hours) in the last 5 years or so. My ride to work is only 45 minutes so not sure why this is happening this week, but it seems related to my supplements. Also I'm feeling more and more fatigued each day.  I know we can go through healing crises as our bodies receive nutrients they are sorely lacking.  Not sure if this is a healing crisis or a bad reaction to the supplements.  I will review in another week.  Writing this down like this not only keeps all my readers up to date on how things are progressing, but it allows me to keep tabs on any and all changes.

Mentally....I thought I was doing OK - but then received a late notice on the electric bill I apparently forgot to have paid by Monday.  Me forget paying a bill???  Never!!  Even during the worst of my TSW, I made sure all bills were paid on time.  It's weird because earlier this week I was filling out the refinancing paperwork for our rental house and thought I was on top of everything because I got all the proper forms in within 2 days.  And then I get the late notice today in the mail and I was truly shocked because it's not like me to miss paying a bill.  Turns out I missed one other bill (the water bill).  So that will be a few days late as well.  I do feel like my brain fog is back but in a different way.  Can't explain it.  I just feel off and sort of mentally tired.

Skin....I know this should be up in the physical department, but with us TSWers, I feel it deserves its own category.  While my skin has been TSW free for about a year, it has still been dry with eczema patches on my arms.  This past week, people at work have commented on how clear my skin is.  And today I woke up feeling like my skin was baby smooth - no dryness!  In fact my eczema spots on my arms are just tiny scabs with no surrounding dryness.  AND I've not followed my diet.  In fact I'm pretty sure I've had dairy almost daily for over a week. (I attribute that to the brain fog and the mental anguish it was causing me to try to stay on a strict diet).  I'm still drinking bone broth daily and eating pretty well - my dairy consists of raw milk from grass fed cows free from antibiotics and hormones. So I am not eating horribly, just not staying away from the foods that normally aggravate my eczema.

Asthma....2 puffs on the inhaler yesterday - 1 puff today.  I am way past due to being able to order more nebs and another inhaler but haven't needed to get those refilled yet.  Still have 1/2 my inhaler left and 1/2 the nebs.  So I would say my asthma is just continuing to get better and better!

Well that's it for now.  It was exhausting writing this....and if I sound whiny, that's because I am.  I feel VERY whiny and that is not like me at all.  So something is going on in my body - going to take a few more weeks I think to get a good idea of whether what is going on is bad or good.  I truly believe it will turn out all good, but feeling this blah feeling is just annoying.  And I just realize I should just stop and apologize - I'm sure many of you suffering horrible TSW right now are like "I wish all I had to worry about is brain fog and fatigue"....and you would be right to feel that way and I apologize!  I like to keep things real here on my blog and me whining over petty symptoms is both insensitive yet real.  There WILL come a point when the same thing happens to you!  And THAT will be a GOOD thing!