A Second Series: Restoring My Gut Health

Since my kitchen redo is on hold until the yard sale is over, I decided to start a second series.

I was doing pretty well over the winter, but once the Covid lockdown hit, the combination of stress and lack of access to foods started making me invisibly ill.  Over time, my symptoms started:

Increased Food Intolerances
Constipation

Bloating and Gas

Fatigue and Brain Fog

Lower Tolerance to Stimuli

Those were ignorable, but then other things started happening:

Itchy Flakey, Painful Scalp with Build-Up

Increased Acne The Won't Heal, Won't Respond to Treatment, and it Painful

Wounds Slower to Heal and More Likely to get Infected
Red Nose But Sallow Cheeks

Those are obvious signs of gut disorder and lower immune system.  Soon enough, even healthy foods were churning my stomach after I ate.  I would start having these large, painful, (embarrassingly loud) burps and my family would say to me, "Mom!  What did you eat?!"  At first it was my trigger foods: grapes, almonds, peanuts.  Now, it was almost everything!

Other symptoms I noticed were:

Body Aches
Muscle Stiffness
Always Feeling the Need to Stretch
Failing Posture and Gait
Blurred Vision
Loss of Strength, Stamina, and Balance

Those I took record of, but largely ignored.  Why?  Because of these symptoms:

Craving Carbs
Craving Sugars
Needing to Snack
Always Feeling Hungry

But the three symptoms that started to scare me were:

Fainting
Weight Gain Despite Increased Activity and Decreased Food Consumption
Sunken Look to My Eye Sockets

I am sick.

And it is largely invisible and easily dismissed.  My labs come back within normal ranges.  Story of my life.   But, they all point to gut health!!

A couple years ago I did well restoring my gut by utilizing a raw milk diet for a few weeks, so I am starting that, again.  I'm also going to put in the effort to MAINTAIN gut restoration this time by switching to gut-friendly foods like lacto-fermented vegetables.

Unfortunately, I face a lot of opposition when I do these things.  Without an explicit doctor's orders on the matter, people feel free to question, mock, argue, or even get personally offended over me having to say no to foods.  I'm just going to keep it simple this time.  It's too much stress to explain over and over again to judgmental ears the extent of my symptoms and what I'm doing about it.  When I am pressed as to why I'm declining foods, or bringing my own, I will say, "my stomach is really upset, today."   It isn't a lie.

I can't give up on my own health and well-being because it makes other people's lives happier or easier.  If it is going to be that bad, I will quit attending those functions and use the time to prep foods that I can eat.

I'll be 40 this December, and my 40s are going to prove to be perhaps my busiest decade.  I NEED to be well.  I can't live life in bed and in the bathroom.