What to say? Starting is the hardest part! I have been on a journey to understand my body and my health since summer 2019. I was on the eve of my first (and only) 39th birthday and all my friends that were just a few short years ahead of me said that their 40’s were the best decade so far. I knew I would have to change something if I was going to be able to share in their delight.

To say that my health issues started in 2019 is a bit of a fallacy if I’m completely honest with myself. For years prior I had had issues with digestion, constipation, diarrhea, and general upset stomach. None of these symptoms were consistent and none were experienced with much regularity. These issues I lovingly called “stress belly” to my family and friends and went about my life like they weren’t an issue. My husband will tell you that these occurrences happened before we were dating, which put us back into the 90’s. Eek! How did that happen?

These issues ramped up in the summer of 2019 with an added consistent symptom, I felt like I had something stuck in my throat. You know that feeling when you try to swallow a pill and it gets stuck right at the top of your esophagus? This is what it felt like, it was awful. It was so severe and lasted so long that I was convinced there was something in my throat; I tried soaking small bits of bread and swallowing them to attempt to pass the item. This did not work, in fact, I’m pretty sure it made it worse. Along with this new symptom, the original sporadic symptoms seemed to pop up more and more. As this throat issue was causing me extra life “stress, ” I just chalked all the symptoms up to that.

Here’s where the fun begins… At the time I did not have a family physician so my options were attempt a natural route (naturopath, nutritionist, TCM doctor) or head to the emergency room. As I was still so convinced that there was something actually in my throat, I couldn’t see how the natural route would help. I ran into a friend, who is GP, that I hadn’t seen in some time and as per all greetings he gives me a big hug (when that was allowed) and asked how I was. Generally, I would say “great, how are you?” But at the moment he arrived at my work, I had just sat down to eat my lunch and as soon as I sat and looked at my plate I knew it was going to cause major digestive discomfort and I pushed it away. My friend arrived not 1 minute after this negative exchange with my lunch and when he asked how I was, I unleashed a diatribe of complaints and tears of frustration. We sat for a long time just chatting and he listened to my issues and shared some feedback. I felt rather guilty as he was not at my workplace to see me nor to have a 45-minute private appointment with a patient. He rolled with it like the patient and caring professional he is. After our chat, his thought (without a scope down my throat) was that my stomach acid was creeping its was up my esophagus and causing a burning sensation and severe irritation in my throat. Really? I had bad heartburn? I thought this was crazy but he prescribed a medication to calm the stomach acid production and I began taking it right away.

Obviously, nothing changes overnight, so I gave it a few weeks and sadly, saw no improvement. Although it was fabulous to have a licenced professional to speak to, and that in itself relieved some stress, I was back to the drawing board.

I stopped taking this medication as it did not help and a few more weeks went by. The meal dis-satisfaction continued and I often sat down to a meal, either lunch at work or a meal with my family and the smell of it told me that it was going to cause issues and that I better not eat it. As this food displeasure continued, I began to wonder if a natural remedy with food and nutrition would help, but not overly convinced. I had one more hail-Mary in my pocket, another GP that I knew in the area that was not taking patients but did have a walk-in clinic that actually took appointments. I scheduled an appointment with him and also a naturopath for the following week. I thought I’d listen to both of them and not them know that I was seeing the other and just see what they would say.

September 2019 – Doctors visit: He listened to all my concerns and symptoms and looked down my throat, of course seeing nothing. He recommended a scope to be able to see what was happening as he agreed with my first GP friend that I may be producing too much stomach acid. There was no action to take at this time, just wait for the call from the specialist’s office to book a scope (I did not get this call until August 2020). His thought in the end was that I had IBS, which seems like a catch-all for “lack of digestion”.

September 2019 – Naturopath visit: She also listened to all my concerns and symptoms and looked down my throat, of course seeing nothing. But this time she said the complete opposite of what the Western medicine doctors were saying. She was hearing me complain about all the food that I feel that I couldn’t digest and she was telling me that if I had “too much” stomach acid, the food would have been annihilated. The fact that I would feel like manually palpating my stomach and intestine to move food said that there may not be enough acid. Not enough? Ahhh, what do I do now? Here’s the interesting part, after all the listening and her thoughts, she had serious action and recommendations for me. I thought, what do I have to loose, I still feel terrible and I’m not going to hear from the specialist for weeks.

So there I was, seeing a Western GP and a naturopath within 7 days of each other, pinning their information against each other. Here’s the crazy part….the naturopath made sense! Now, knowing what I know now, I would have never questioned the natural process. But that’s for a future post. The naturopath gave me handouts and recommended websites and books to read and research. She sold me a small cleanse to assist with a potential candida issues, a greens mix to add to smoothies, some probiotics and vitamin C powder. She scared me a little as she had some machine that told her my internal age (which, by the way, was much older that I was then.) She recommended all sorts of things I’d either never heard of or was petrified by; fasting, bone-broth fasts, skipping meals, taking supplements, green smoothies, and only eating a handful of nuts as a meal. I thought she was nuts herself!

She had recommended a daily green smoothie with dark berries, whey protein, turmeric and the greens powder she had sold me. My first appointment with her was September 7th and I was not emotionally ready to try the green smoothie until sometime in November. For years, I would wake up starving, needing to eat within 30 minutes of getting up. Her talk of fasting and eating a handful of nuts as a meal was unfathomable. She had said, make the green smoothie and then have some nuts for lunch and a balanced dinner with little to no carbs. Her overall advise was to eliminate sugar, wheat, refined grains, corn, vegetable and seed oils, margarine, and processed foods. At the time, I couldn’t imagine a world where removing these items would make sense so I didn’t make any changes that fall. I did try the green smoothie and used the yeast killer and probiotic she recommended. I also enjoyed the vitamin C powder nearly daily. The smoothie became breakfast and I got to the point where I made it last till nearly noon each day. At that point the need for a noon lunch was improbable and a damn handful of nuts was all I needed. Crap, she was right!

As I had progressed with my breakfast and lunch timing and food choices, I was still having issues with digestion nearly every night due to the evening choices I was making. Having seen some improvements with her recommendations, I figured this must be good and I should keep changing things. But was removing all carbs, sugar, and more, the way to go?

During the Christmas break that year I spent a lot of time researching my general symptoms. I found all sorts of things that lead me down all sorts of contradicting paths. I looked up the recommendations from the naturopath, I looked up IBS recommendations and everything was so contradictory and conflicting that I was back to square one with next steps.

What do you do when you are done with what the internet has to serve to you? You head to Facebook. Here’s the funny thing about internet searching, you arrive on a social media platform to get advertisements on the same topic that you were just researching (even if you just bought the item you were researching, I wish there was a button for that!) So there I was, wallowing in my discomfort, not ready to jump into the recommendations from Dr. naturopath and I see a video advertisement from Dr. Steven Gundry. Ultimately, he was trying to sell his supplements but in order to sell them, he had written a book on eating plant based and avoiding a plant-based protein called lectin. Lectin? What the hell is that?

Here’s how he hooked me…in this advertisement, he mentions having issues with bell peppers or cucumber skins. WAIT A MINUTE! I have had major issues with peppers and have been peeling my cucumbers for years, otherwise those foods just sit in my stomach for hours and cause serious discomfort and pain. His most recent book was called the Plant Paradox but it was doing so well, he had created a “Quick and Easy” version, “the 30-day plan to lose weight, feel great, and live lectin-free.” I figured for less than $15, I’d buy the Kindle version and see what is was like. Afterall, I’ve only read at night to fall asleep for my entire adult life. At this point, I’d probably only read 4-6 novels my whole life apart from Harry Potter on repeat to fall asleep (I’ve evolved now, but for about 12 years I only read Harry Potter 1-through-7 on repeat to fall asleep.) Me and books were not friends!

So, I’m a couple pages (scrolls on the Kindle) into this book and I have to grab a notebook to start writing. There is so much logic for me and my body in these pages that I soak it all in and even start reading for pleasure during the day, who am I?

Over the course of a couple weeks (reading was still a struggle for me) I read this book, soaking in all the information. There were recommendations to change meals, change pantry items, change food suppliers, and more. It was overwhelming but I made notes like mad. For many reasons this guy was speaking my language. For the first time, I felt like someone was listening to my problems, my symptoms, my concerns and addressing them in an empathetic and reasonable way. I was on the right path! What was next?

Stay tuned for more great information to come!