So many things to catch up on…where to start?
1. I followed the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, SCD, for six weeks in the fall of 2021. If you’ve ever had to follow an extremely restrictive diet, you know it is, well, miserable. Several of the meals I was eating actually made me feel sick to my stomach (more on this in a bit). My doctor and I were pretty confident that several runs of antibiotics had been the cause of my SIBO, and my long history of IBS was just along for the ride.
2. Early 2022, I went back to my Functional Medicine doctor and said, “what’s gives?!” I was actually feeling quite a bit worse than where I started, and compared to how I’d been feeling (pretty great at first) when I’d been following Noom…I was miserable. My IBS was at an all time high. The SCD had definitely not improved my SIBO. My doctor ordered some more tests and changed up the dietary supplements I was taking.
3. In February, I started a low FODMAP diet, hoping I would have better results than I’d had with the SCD. I saw a small improvement in my IBS symptoms, but not enough to feel like myself. I found out from blood tests that I had extremely low iron, so I began taking an iron supplement…and quickly realized I couldn’t tolerate them without feeling nauseous all day. I also was prescribed the “SIBO super medication” also known as Rifaximin. You take the prescription for two weeks, hope it works, and pray you don’t develop the plethora of possible awful side effects.
4. That spring I felt pretty confident that my SIBO related symptoms were healed, but I continued to have a hodgepodge of symptoms such as feeling fatigued, light headed, and struggling with finding foods that didn’t cause discomfort. My doctor ordered some food sensitivity and allergy testing…and this is where things took a major turn.
5. I discovered I had some pretty significant reactions to several things I was trying to eat regularly while using Noom, the SCD, and low FODMAP diet. Not only was I lactose intolerant, sensitive to most gluten products, and reactive to the protein in egg yokes, but I also was intolerant to many types of fruit and vegetables. The irony of spending almost an entire year eating foods that were directly causing many of the issues I was dealing with…yeah, that was frustrating. It was also pretty confusing to develop all these intolerances at 27, but both my Functional Medicine doctor and my primary care physician explained that hormonal changes (for me, pregnancy and postpartum) can do that to you.
6. Right around my 28th birthday in May, I started an elimination diet to remove the things that were my biggest trigger foods. This transition was, by far, the most difficult and restrictive diet I’ve ever been through. For the first several weeks I was only supposed to eat chicken, butternut squash, and a handful of other things. It was unbelievably hard on me to suddenly have to eat completely different meals than everyone in my family, loose the ability to eat several of my favorite things (cheesecake the most), and try to function out in the real world at restaurants or traveling.
7. After a long summer of figuring out my new lifestyle, receiving two iron infusions, and changing jobs…I will admit that I started to notice an immediate change in how I was feeling. For the first time since I was 17 years old, my IBS was suddenly manageable. I was no longer dealing with feeling fatigued or light headedness regularly either. AND, not really on purpose, but due to all the changes in my diet, I lost the remaining weight that had led me to sign up for Noom. Weird full circle feeling.
I have been eating Gluten and Dairy Free since! I still limit eggs to only baked in, and I have to be careful with certain nightshade vegetables.
Is it easy? Absolutely not.
Do I feel better living this way? Absolutely yes.
Comments
Post a Comment