Jennifer's Recovery Log

[Jennifer]

Hi Jennifer,
There was a post in the last week or too with a reference to to some relationahip beteen TSH and cholesterol. Sorry I didn't grab it and link you to it when i saw it. But reading about your very low TSH and cholesterol, I wonder if it's connected directly.

This is it, from haidut:
viewtopic.php?f=75&t=6099

Perfect! Thank you, tara! :)

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this and looking over all my Ray notes, old labs and RBTI notes/labs because things aren't going so well and I need to do something to fix this situation. I had another bad headache again yesterday including the vomiting and I'm back to crying a lot. I know the crying is from pure exhaustion, not just physically, but even more so mentally. I'm so exhausted at trying to work out this health puzzle in my head. I'm not giving up, though. I formed a new plan of action. It includes a lot of things I learned during RBTI and a lot of what I learned from Ray. I'm lucky that I got a chance to work with someone like my RBTI practitioner, Su and got to pick her biochemist brain and her 35+ years experience practicing medicine. It's a shame to not utilize her amazing knowledge of food and how it interacts in our bodies and so much of what she taught me aligns with much of, if not most of, Ray's views. The similarities are astounding when I link what I've learned from the both of them.

 

[Blossom]

I just wanted you to know that I'm thinking of you Jennifer and my heart goes out to you during this challenging time. I hope you get through this rough patch quickly and if I run across anything that I think may be of interest to you I will pass it along! Hang in there, I suspect you have quite a few people rooting for you.

 

[SQu]

I second Blossom's sentiments, Jennifer. You'll get there! you've been having some good days and while healing is tough, the good days do get more frequent!

 

[Peata]

Wishing you the best, Jennifer. We're here for you when you need to vent or share.

 

[Jennifer]

Thanks for all the support and I truly appreciate any info sent my way. Love you girls! :)

 

[Jennifer]

I've been going through some of my old RBTI notes and this brought back a lot of memories for me and some of the crazy things I've done in hopes of healing. Just three years back, I was traveling to New York for a faith healing. Yes, that's right! A faith healing. Some people's healing adventures involve drinking their own urine or getting implanted with another person's fecal matter, mine was more of the divine persuasion. The RBTI practitioner I worked with is a Christian woman and she had told me about a ministry in Redding, California where miraculous healings were happening all the time. She said that area was ripe for healing. It was like holy ground, right here in America. I'm not a religious person, but at that time, I was in search of something to believe in. I was still in that phase of trying to believe that I could even fix the damage done to my spine. Without that belief, I knew all was lost because all signs pointed to it being impossible.

I didn't want to leave Cricket for more than a day so Redding was out, but I figured if a merciful God exists, he'd heal in my own back yard just as soon as he'd heal in Redding because as far as I'm concerned, this whole earth buzzes with holiness. I came across a doctor who was well known for his healing touch and would be performing a faith healing in upstate New York. Since I love a good road trip and my dad and mum were willing to entertain my crazy idea and come with me, even better! What was odd was the only stations that were coming in on the radio were Christian rock. Apparently, upstate New York has a direct line to the big guy and he has a wild side.

After many hours of driving, we arrived and gathered with a large group of people in a small function hall. We were all there with a common goal, to be healed of our pain. As we were seated, we were sectioned off into groups and each group took their turn with the doctor, while the others sat and prayed for each other's healing. When my group was called, we formed two separate lines and turned to face each another. Across from me was a man in his late 60s to early 70s riddled with arthritis. Beside him stood his wife. She was holding him so tightly. It was clear she had endured his pain with him. What stood out most to me were his eyes. In that moment, I saw in them that of a boy, not a man. His blue eyes showed defeat. I imagine I've had that same look in my eyes more than a time or two during my healing journey.

When my turn came, the doctor began to make his way down my back twisting and pushing. He kept enquiring if I could feel it. I thought to myself "if by feel it, you mean the pain of a thousand knives, then yes! I feel it." As he continued to adjust me, he started making the strangest grunting sounds. My eyes had been focused on a faux finished wall in front of me about 6 feet away and when the doctor made those funny sounds, I had to work so hard to hold back laughter (horrible, I know) and in that faux finish, I could swear I saw the image of Jesus with his mouth hung wide open in complete horror of my thoughts. I silently said "I'm not getting healed today, Am I?" and I had a good internal chuckle. So I left that day, not healed, but stuck with the cold my father had developed along the way. It was worth it, though. My dad had always been silent while I was growing up, but here he was traveling for me despite being sick. Yep! My dad loves me.

Tonight's song is for the man who stood before me. Here's hoping he found healing whether it be from divine power or his own...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UL_EXAyGCkw

 

[Amazoniac]

Hi!

Hope you are doing great..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2trFM4w87sg

 

[Jennifer]

Thank you for the song, Amazoniac! It's just what I needed!

I'm doing surprisingly well! It's taken me about a month to get use to not having fiber in my diet since I'm so use to the bulk it provided, but I'm finally satiated on denser foods and my gut has been very happy with this change. Lately, I've been craving more full-fat dairy and less fruit. I only drink, at most, about 8 ounces of juice per day now. I found a honey I tolerate well and will have a spoon of that or some ice cream whenever I feel like something sweet. I stopped supplementing with Progest-e and haven't had a headache since so I'm thinking it was the culprit. My sleep has been deep and my dreams vivid, my skin and hair continue to soften and my teeth are turning bright white again so I'm hoping these are all good signs my "organism" and I are finally working as one. :)

I hope you're doing great as well!

 

[Amazoniac]

Didn't know you were having issues with your teeth..

Anyway, great that you are dropping the Progest-E.
Apparently most of your calories are coming from milk, do you plan to continue with that in the long-term? Just curious..


Listen to his other songs: preach, late night drive and aerial love..

Bye!

 

[Jennifer]

Didn't know you were having issues with your teeth..

Anyway, great that you are dropping the Progest-E.
Apparently most of your calories are coming from milk, do you plan to continue with that in the long-term? Just curious..


Listen to his other songs: preach, late night drive and aerial love..

Bye!

My teeth had always been bright white and healthy growing up, but became transclucent and grey while on the fruitarian diet. It seems that as I developed the osteoporosis, my teeth took a hit as well. After I fractured my spine, I was consuming a lot of dairy and my teeth went back to bright white, but because of the rash, I dropped the dairy and they lost that whiteness again. I see it as a good sign that they're returning to their normal color.

Yeah, I'm getting most of my calories from dairy, along with eggs and shellfish at the moment. I'm trying my best to just follow my cravings, but I'm thinking dairy is here to stay. It's been my favorite since childhood so I'd be surprised if that changed. I've noticed if I go too long without it, the cravings for it really start to kick in.

Thanks! I'm off to listen to those songs now. :)

 

[tara]

I formed a new plan of action. It includes a lot of things I learned during RBTI and a lot of what I learned from Ray. I'm lucky that I got a chance to work with someone like my RBTI practitioner, Su and got to pick her biochemist brain and her 35+ years experience practicing medicine. It's a shame to not utilize her amazing knowledge of food and how it interacts in our bodies and so much of what she taught me aligns with much of, if not most of, Ray's views. The similarities are astounding when I link what I've learned from the both of them.

With your well-informed and sharp mind, I'd say you're probably going to give yourself a good chance with this.:)

Glad the milk is working and the headaches are gone!

 

[Blossom]

Good to hear from you Jennifer! I'm glad your milk/dairy cravings are serving you well.

 

[Jennifer]

I formed a new plan of action. It includes a lot of things I learned during RBTI and a lot of what I learned from Ray. I'm lucky that I got a chance to work with someone like my RBTI practitioner, Su and got to pick her biochemist brain and her 35+ years experience practicing medicine. It's a shame to not utilize her amazing knowledge of food and how it interacts in our bodies and so much of what she taught me aligns with much of, if not most of, Ray's views. The similarities are astounding when I link what I've learned from the both of them.

With your well-informed and sharp mind, I'd say you're probably going to give yourself a good chance with this.:)

Glad the milk is working and the headaches are gone!

Thank you, tara! That's very kind of you to say. :) I'm hoping I'm finally on the right track. I had one really good sign yesterday. I haven't had any progest-e in over a month and yet I got my period. It was a little late, but at least it came. Normally, I would have to take progest-e everyday in order to have one, but not this time. My body did it on its own. I feel like a big girl now. LOL

And thank you, Blossom! :) I had a bit of a setback over the weekend when I tried adding ricotta back into my diet. A rash started developing and I had to up my dose of Minocycline to combat it. Luckily it worked, but it stinks to be so sensitive to food now. The ricotta is made from only whole milk, vinegar and salt. I suspect it's the vinegar irritating my intestines so I'm going to try making my own ricotta using lemon juice to curdle it and hopefully I don't get a reaction. I'm also going to test some pasteurized goat's milk to see if it digests even better than cow's milk so I can finally get off the Minocycline. I want to be free of all supplements/prescriptions if I can and just let my body sort itself out.

 

[sunmountain]

Hi Jennifer, So good to hear how well you are doing! I recently learned to make cheesecake with cottage cheese, and I can't tell the difference! I eat it everyday. I am going to experiment making quiche with cottage cheese, next. I'm also able to drink a cup of cafe con leche every morning with goat milk. Like you, I love dairy, it's a total comfort food.

My stomach is still inflated, and I have an odd, deep ache and fatigue, but my temps/pulse are higher, so it must be the body rebuilding. So we both seem to be in some sort of recovery!

 

[Jennifer]

Thanks, sunmountain. :) Do you make your own cottage cheese? I've actually been searching through cheesecake recipes this past week and found a coconut cream goat cheese cheesecake that sounds heavenly. Instead of canned coconut milk the recipe calls for, I'll make some fresh and omit the gramah cracker crust. The finished dessert look so pretty and mighty tasty:

http://www.yummly.com/recipe/external/N ... ake-333379

I completely understand the bloat. It's awful to deal with. That's why I ended up taking the extreme route of going starch and fiber free. It's worked a charm. My stomach stays as flat by the end of the day as it is first thing in the morning. I lost inches in my waist simply from deflating. LOL The only downside is my diet lacks variety because the inflammation has left me overly sensitive to practically everything that isn't plain. And by omitting starch and fiber, I'm even more limited. However, it's forced me to get creative in the kitchen which I enjoy. I have this obsession with mixing things.

And yeah, like I mentioned in your log, you've got to love those "rebuilding pains." Almost three years into recovery and I have those weeks were I'm bed bound due to pain and fatigue and then I get a resurgence of energy and I'm out for a walk in the woods or dancing around like a maniac. One should never underestimate the power of bed rest. For those who are use to pushing themselves to the max, the slowdown is a tough pill to swallow, but it really does do a body good. I was getting my hormone levels tested every 6 weeks and within a 6 week period, all I did was sleep and listen to music in bed and my TSH dropped from 3.6 to 1.2 and that was before thyroid and progest-e supplementation. My biggest hurdle was giving myself permission to rest. I had this inherited belief that I didn't deserve it. You know, the belief that I only deserve something if I struggle to earn it.

 

[sunmountain]

Thanks, Jennifer, for the VERY IMPORTANT reminder that it's good to rest. I too have trouble with it sometimes. A big part of it is also that I crave the outdoors and the love the rhythm of walking. But I also must consciously give myself permission to rest; it doesn't come naturally! Your reminder is very timely because last weekend I forced myself to go on two short walks with friends because the weather was heavenly, and felt more tired afterward. I'll try not to do that this weekend.

I tried going starch free before Mexico and didn't eat enough. For me, I need to eat my way out of this, bloat and all. That said, I usually go starch free until dinner without too much difficulty, and then have some starch in the context of a full mean with protein, carbs, and a little fat. I have these general "guidelines" of low fat and low starch, but allow myself to deviate, like two days ago eating half a quart tub of locally made ice cream! And chipotle for dinner today.

BigP's wake up call is still resonating with me. I was restricting before Mexico, and I won't do that again. Maybe later when I'm past refeeding, if I'm still bloated, I'll try tweaking the diet. BTW, regular acupuncture is really helping too, especially with fatigue.

Did you say somewhere you've dropped progest-e? Apologies, if it was someone else. I've reduced my intake to a couple drops at bedtime as I've read that large doses (which I initially needed) for a long time can contribute to muscle and libido loss. I'd like to do something about libido now, so will search the forum about that.

I love reading about how well you are doing!

 

[Jennifer]

Thanks, Jennifer, for the VERY IMPORTANT reminder that it's good to rest. I too have trouble with it sometimes. A big part of it is also that I crave the outdoors and the love the rhythm of walking. But I also must consciously give myself permission to rest; it doesn't come naturally! Your reminder is very timely because last weekend I forced myself to go on two short walks with friends because the weather was heavenly, and felt more tired afterward. I'll try not to do that this weekend.

Oh, I know! It's hard to not get out there especially when the weather is nice. When I was really ill and had no business being out and about but still wanted to enjoy the weather, I would take the doggy approach. I would go out for car rides with my mum and my dogs and roll down the windows and enjoy the fresh air, good music and their company. We'd drive to the beach and ride along the coast or down some old back roads in the country. I don't know what it is, but I love a good car ride.

I tried going starch free before Mexico and didn't eat enough. For me, I need to eat my way out of this, bloat and all. That said, I usually go starch free until dinner without too much difficulty, and then have some starch in the context of a full mean with protein, carbs, and a little fat. I have these general "guidelines" of low fat and low starch, but allow myself to deviate, like two days ago eating half a quart tub of locally made ice cream! And chipotle for dinner today.

BigP's wake up call is still resonating with me. I was restricting before Mexico, and I won't do that again. Maybe later when I'm past refeeding, if I'm still bloated, I'll try tweaking the diet. BTW, regular acupuncture is really helping too, especially with fatigue.

Oh, no! I'm sorry! I wasn't suggesting you go starch free too. I use to participate in the youreatopia forum back when I was refeeding and noticed a trend. Normally, refeeding will eventually get a person out of that bloated stage, but every now and then there would be one of us who continued to stay bloated years into the process. I was one of them and as I now know, I was dealing with a bacterial infection.

I had known about Ray and had read some of his articles at least a couples years before refeeding so I kept my diet low in PUFAs and consumed plenty of dairy and fruit, but I still had the occasional French bread or that weekly piece of cake. So for you, I think the combination of getting plenty of calories in to feed your hunger and having that Peaty knowledge should serve you well in overcoming this without having to go to drastic measures.

Did you say somewhere you've dropped progest-e? Apologies, if it was someone else. I've reduced my intake to a couple drops at bedtime as I've read that large doses (which I initially needed) for a long time can contribute to muscle and libido loss. I'd like to do something about libido now, so will search the forum about that.

Yep, I've dropped the progest-e because it was causing me to bleed almost 3 weeks out of each month and I think it was contributing to my headaches. I'd rather give my body a chance to straighten itself out now that I've been tackling this infection and letting go of my fruitarian delusions and finally giving my body proper nourishment. In regards to the loss in muscle with progesterone use, from what I've read, progesterone is an anabolic steroid just like testosterone is. Ray even mentions in his articles that progesterone, as well as thyroid, are anabolic. Adrenaline and cortisol are catabolic and can cause tissue breakdown.

As for libido, I apologize in advance if I come off as lewd, but I figure we're all adults here and there isn't a lot of talk among the women on the forum in regards to sexual health because it doesn't seem to me that we're as comfortable talking about it as the guys are. Since I no longer have a filter, here goes nothing...

Progesterone can free estrogen from stored tissues and perhaps this is why women feel estrogen symptoms when first taking high doses of progest-e, but I never had a loss in my libido with its use. In fact, it was quite the opposite for me. I actually felt over stimulated with progest-e and it was quite distracting. I don't know if it was due to stored up estrogen since Ray says estrogen can cause an excessive sexual appetite or if it's because I'm in that age group were supposedly women are at their sexual peak and to add more progesterone to my system may have been too much, but I didn't like being excessively horny all the time and no matter how much I reduced my dose, I couldn't seem to quell my excessive libido. I'm assuming it wasn't estrogen related because it was never an aggressive sexual desire I had. Anyhow, all I know is, after being off progest-e for over a month now, I'm back to what I feel is a healthy libido and can actually concentrate. LOL

I love reading about how well you are doing!

Thank you, sunmountain. It makes me so happy to read of your progress too. You and I have come a long way and I can't wait till the day that you and I are able to post about getting back out there to climb. :)

 

[Amazoniac]

Jennifer, any teeth appearance news?

 

[narouz]

Jennifer-
Chatting with you and bigpeatowkski and Peata
over the last months
gave me some hare-brained ideas that may interest you.
I called the threads
"Peat uBiome Club?"
and
"We the Appendixless."
(bigp and I have none...but I think you still have yours?...so maybe not too interesting there :) ...)

 

[Jennifer]

Jennifer, any teeth appearance news?

They appear to look about the same since we last talked. I'm very curious to see if my wisdom teeth finish coming in. Back when I started consuming all that dairy, my wisdom teeth really started coming in. They began peaking through my gums right before doing 80/10/10 when I was around 26/27, but stopped coming in that whole time I was on the diet. And even though I sunbathed during those years, my vitamin D level was 6. During the time of my high dairy consumption, I sunbathed and ended up with a D level of 110 within two months.

I'm thinking it really comes down to that protein deficiency I developed and subsequent poor liver function. It's pretty evident given how orange I became while on the diet to point that when I had my upper endoscopy done, nurses were concerned and examined me for jaundice. It wasn't until they saw that the whites of my eyes weren't yellow that they finally believed me when I told them it was due to an excess of beta carotene. When proponents of 80/10/10 talk about the fruity glow, I didn't think they were being literal. LOL They really should rename it the Oompa Loompa diet. I managed to shrink to 5 feet and turn pumpkin colored while on it. If I had I had blond hair and spent enough time in chlorinated water, I could of completed the transformation. Hehe!