Rising Again

by Katie | Aug 20, 2020

My last post was a while ago; a long while. I honestly am not sure where summer has gone. It’s been great and also hard. I’ve had setbacks and I am now rising again. 

My last post was about making the very difficult decision to go back to my Rheumatologist and to accept that I needed to get back on a biologic for a while. My body has needed to feel better for a while. The AIP diet plan was not for me. Way too much meat was included in this plan and my body did not appreciate that at all. I gained weight, I felt sluggish and my pain was at an all time high.

I met with my doc and we decided that Humira was the route I’d take again. It’s worked before and with consistent use, it should work again. I gave in. I was looking forward to relief. Then, I had to wait. And wait….

Throughout this summer, I’ve been waiting on my medication. I was living on Ibuprofen, angering my gut and liver, but soothing my joints. I’ve been frustrated with my body. I’ve been frustrated with my major setback and I’ve been frustrated by the wait for this medication that I finally decided to take. To be honest, I felt a lot of anger that I “gave in” to the idea and then it literally took 2 and a half months to get to me. 

The wait was due to insurance wanting me to use a specific pharmacy,  my doc sending the order to the wrong one… that one never telling anyone that they weren’t approved to fill it… when it finally got to the right one, they didn’t have my phone number… etc etc. I was super annoyed (REMINDER to always follow up on your stuff, consistently. Be your own advocate!). Also, the pain in my body combined with things I was learning in YTT made me take a step back from Buti Yoga as well. I haven’t been moving. I haven’t been meditating. I haven’t been me. 

Don’t get me wrong, my summer has been filled with lakes and rivers and swimming and sunshine and my YTT studies. It’s been a very blessed summer and we’ve had a ton of fun. Throughout all of the fun and sun, however, I carried a weight with me. 

My eating was super shitty, my body was sore, my mind (thought calm) has been just waiting and dealing….

Right after my last post. I had an attitude of F-IT all. I ate all the things for a while again. Slowly, but surely as I’ve waited for the medication, I’ve improved my eating habits again. I’ve been working on phasing meat out and (again) dropped all gluten and dairy. It’s been a weird few months inside of Katie. Good, but kind of dark. I received the medication finally on the 8^th. I took it that very day. I’ve got good news and I have a plan. Things are looking up. I will always rise again.

The plan: Humira for about a year. In that time, refine my eating. Eat super duper clean; like, I’ve never eaten before. I will get back on my movement medicine game and work back into meditating and visualization daily. After a year or so, working closely with a doc, I plan to wean off the meds.

I feel like after doing a major dietary reset, mind/spirituality resest and getting my pain levels back to tolerable or even with the medication, I should be clear to wean from the meds and really get a feel for my purest body (does that even make sense?).

At that time, if the pain returns in full force, it seems like I need to just bite the bullet and take meds. I need to feel good. I need to live life. I do not want to deny the medication that is there and end up in a wheel chair at 45. That seems like a dumb idea. I need to be thankful for the existence of the medications and continue to treat my body as well as I can in all other ways. So, getting more serious than I’ve ever been about healing, trying again and being ready to adjust. This doesn’t mean I’m planning on being defeated. It means I’ve learned that being stubborn and denying help that is there is not a reasonable plan, 

Also, I AM thankful that these meds exist. Guys, I’ve taken once dose. It was a week and a half ago. 2 days later, I felt ZERO need for Ibuprofen. I was literally taking one 800mg dose of the stuff DAILY. After 2 days with Humira in my system, I didn’t feel the need for Ibuprofen for about 5 days! This was huge for me. Not only did I feel well enough to stop those, I felt well enough to get back into Buti Yoga! I’ve done 3 rounds of it in the past week, and my body is rebuilding. I’m gaining some strength back. I’m already losing some flab that I’d gained and toning myself back up. 

My next dose is in 2 days. After I give myself the injection, we go camping for 4 days. I’m excited to have this next dose (I never thought I’d say this) and to get out into nature for a final Summer hurrah! 

I want to share my story of how I go about giving myself the injections as well. I’ll document this on Saturday and share soon. I’m sending love to each of you and I thank you for coming along on this crazy journey of my life with me. 

My Autoimmune Protocol Experience

by Katie | Apr 9, 2020

Disclaimer: I wrote this in the second week of March, within my 3^rd week of this diet. I am now (upon posting) in the end of my 7^th week of this diet. Next, I’m posting an explanation on why it took me so long to post this one… Then, later I’ll update you on how I feel.

I’ve done a few diets and given myself a lot of food restrictions over the course of my autoimmune journey. I’ve done the Paddison Program, I’ve cut out dairy and gluten. I’ve gone vegan, I’ve cut out grains… I’ve done a lot of things, but definitely not all. I am currently in my 3^rd week of the Autoimmune Protocol and I have to say that I think it is going really well.

Going on a diet of any kind is a challenge; especially for those of us that love food and for those of us that enjoy eating and drinking as a social activity. It is also a challenge for those of us that have eaten a SAD (Standard American Diet) for years. That is where I was several years ago before I started implementing diet changes. The SAD way of eating is really just anything that is put in front of us. This can include all the pasta and cheese (which I miss greatly), burgers, drive-through food, beer, processed foods, refined grains, etc. It’s a plethora of food that does not do our gut any good.

I grew up in the 80’s. My mom was mostly a single mom that lived paycheck to paycheck. This was the time, in our culture, where easy food was the thing to help our busy working parents. Households with both parents at home required this as well. Women had pushed to be part of the workforce in the generation before and they now were. The stay at home moms that spent the afternoon prepping a home-cooked meal were few and far between. This meant Kraft Mac N Cheese, Hamburger Helper, and TV dinners… cooked in the microwave… ugh.

When I moved out on my own for the first time (yes, there were two times of moving out…) I cooked processed chicken nuggets in the oven and Stove Top Stuffing. I actually sort of lived on the Stove Top stuffing in those days. I ate pasta like it was going out of style and I would bake my potatoes in the microwave. I didn’t know what the word organic meant.

Years later, as my body began speaking to me, I slowly and surely started thinking that food must have something to do with my diet. Without any experience, education or examples of good nutrition, I was lost on where to start. Then, my mom got sick. In her last months, she studied food and she made me promise that I’d learn from the education she was finally giving herself. She told me that meat and sugar feed cancer. She told me how important organic foods are. She made me promise to not use the microwave anymore.

I took all of this to heart. I began buying organic more often. Cutting meat out of my life wasn’t too hard. I never actually loved the stuff. It took me a while, but my family no longer uses the microwave at all. I have a hard time even standing near one if it’s running. It’s been almost seven and a half years since I lost her and I’ve been buying 90% organic food for the last at least two years (as you know, it’s not cheap). For us, however, it’s important, so we make that part of our budget. It’s IMPORTANT. I went back and forth with meat over those years and never cut out sugar completely. I never ate tons, but definitely have a sweet tooth and I love me some late night chocolate nibbles.

Through these years, as mentioned above, I’ve cut out different things. I’ve gone on one elimination diet. I’ve done a lot of diet work. This said, I knew that I had the will power to do this, but I wasn’t sure I had the will power to do it for a long time. I knew it would take some preparation.

As for meat, I’d just prefer to not eat it. There were times, however that my body craved it, especially during my pregnancies. I listened to my body and ate it lightly when I felt the need. In my experience and from what I’d heard, meat is an inflammatory food and so I was okay with skipping it in my diet anyway. I figured I was doing my body a favor.

Then, the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) was recommended to me. This was at a time that my husband even jumped on the vegetarian train with me (which I thought would absolutely never happen). I was told that without meat, I’d never get my body better. I did some research of my own and found that this may be true. The vitamins and proteins that are offered in meat products are just never going to be the same quality as the vitamins and proteins you get from a plant-based diet. And with the conditions that I’ve been suffering from, I need to make sure that I’m getting all the good stuff.

There is a lot more science and mumbo jumbo behind all of this, but I’m not here to explain science. I wanted to talk about my experience with food and with meat to explain my conundrum with the AIP. When I read about this protocol and how much meat is included, I kind of wanted to be sick. I had to do some real thinking about it. I had to meditate on it. More than one person told me that they were positive I’d feel better on this diet. Feeling desperate, I finally started preparing myself.

Step 1: Find a diet plan and plan it:

I want to thank Michelle Hoover from Unbound Wellness for her book 30 Day Autoimmune Protocol Makeover Meal Plan & Guide. This website was shared with me and I came across her book there. I was stoked. Michelle has done the work for me and I couldn’t be more grateful. This was $29 well spent. I bought the online version of this book and I went to work. There are 4 weeks worth of recipes and meal plans and even tips on how to ease yourself into this new lifestyle leading up to your start date. Being that I already ate fairly healthy and have cut a lot of these things out previously (dairy and grains) I wasn’t nervous about the lifestyle change. For me, the recipes and the meal plan were exactly what I needed.

I looked through the weekly meal plans and I went to work on creating my own. Knowing that I wouldn’t eat/cook certain things and I would others, I created 2 weeks worth of meal plans and shopping lists. I created a list of things I could pre-make and freeze. I talked with my husband about the dinners I’d be preparing and he said they sounded fantastic. I went on Michelle’s website and found a plethora of additional recipes and started printing more AIP friendly meals that I knew would fit with my life and my family. I set a realistic start date and I went to work.

Step 2: Prep your food and your mind:

Michelle offers a bunch of yummy popper recipes as well as some sausage and fritters recipes that I decided to make ahead of time to freeze. Knowing how I live my days, I knew that it’d be tough for me to make a whole fresh salad or a breakfast hash for myself. But, to pop a frozen sausage and fritter on a pan or in the oven and top it with some sauerkraut or avocado is totally doable.

So, I set out to my local indoor farmers market to find some grass-fed and local meats. If I’m going to eat meat, I decided that this was the way to go. I bought pork and turkey and beef and chicken. Yikes! Who am I?

I made about 80 each of some Mexican Chicken Poppers, Spinach Artichoke Chicken Poppers (subbed turkey in both because that’s what I could find ground), some pork sausage and some blueberry turkey sausage. I also made about 45 of what’s turned out to be my favorite snack throughout the day; Carrot Bacon Breakfast Fritters. Later in the week, I went on a produce shopping spree. I found that Costco actually has a fantastic selection of organic fruits and veggies in large portions (duh, it’s Costco).

I bought some Chicory root to replace my coffee and I grabbed Spindrift and GT’s Kombucha for my drinks throughout the day. Bubly and La Croix both have “natural flavors” whereas Spindrift has real fruit juice. On this diet, you don’t want to have any unknown ingredients or processed crud. For the Kombucha, I found two flavors of the GT’s brand that do not have added Cane Sugar in the ingredients list. This is important as well because you cut out sugar with the AIP.

I felt ready to go and guess what, I was! So, I may have drunk too much wine on Saturday before my diet began and then too much coffee on Sunday before, but once I hit Monday, I was ready.

That was 2 weeks and 5 days ago as I type this and I have stuck with this guys. What’s more, is that I’m learning new ways to cook. I’ve flowed away from having to strictly plan my menu, because, in this short time, I’ve learned how to shop this way and cook this way. I still have over a hundred or a hundred and fifty sausage and poppers in my freezer because I actually am roasting veggies and cooking up steak strips and making myself meals throughout the day. I actually am chopping up stuff for a salad or blending up a smoothie during the day. I’m learning how to feed my body real and whole food.

My symptoms:

For the month or so before starting the AIP, I ate all the things. I ate cheese and I ate pasta. I ate bread and I ate rice. I ate it all. I loved it. I did this on purpose, knowing I was going to do this protocol. Just before starting this, I went and had my labs done. They were bad. They were very bad. I wanted to do this to have a view of how my labs looked eating a SAD diet (Is it redundant to say SAD diet?). Anyway, I figure when I’m about 6 weeks or so into this, I’ll get my labs done again and we’ll see what happens. I’ll share those details in another post.

Needless to say, my symptoms were bad as well. I could hardly bend my right index finger. I limped every morning and my feet made me wonder how long I could keep walking. My ankles hurt terribly and I knew I couldn’t keep eating this way for much longer.

Then I started the Autoimmune Protocol. Guys, literally 3 days into this protocol, I was able to get up in the morning and walk. A week in, I didn’t’ even think about how much pain I’d be in upon waking. I trusted that I was getting better and I’d stand up and I’d still just walk. I was able to bend my index finger, almost fully. Things were changing and I was (and am) ecstatic.

A day or three after I hit the two-week mark of this diet, I began having a bit of joint pain again. Not as serious, but I could feel it creeping back. I’ll explain more about that below. But not before being honest about my cheat…

Coffee:

Okay, so I’ve failed at the coffee portion. Day 1 and 2 I had zero coffee. I was unexpectedly a grump ball. I’d cut out coffee in the past and had done it well. For some reason, this time, I was hit hard with this part. And, the chicory root that I’d planned on drinking just wasn’t doing the trick for me. So, to avoid being the worst mom of the year and continue to huff and puff at my kiddos throughout the day, I decided to allow myself about 4 ounces of coffee on day 3. I did that for about 6 days, slowly going down to about 2 ounces.

On the sixth day of coffee, I got serious and came up with a concoction that I LOVE. I do a pour-over of the ground chicory root and add a few tablespoons of coconut cream. Important note: this is not coconut creamer with all the added preservatives and flavors. This is straight-up coconut cream that gets all hard and weird chunky in the fridge. I love it. I also add one stick of Nutrihoney from Natural Shilajit. Shilajit has a nice earthy and toasty flavor. With the bit of honey that the Nutrihoney sticks include there is just enough sweetness for me to really enjoy this mixture.

So, the next day, I went back to no coffee and was successful for a full week until I hit the Die-off.

The Die-off:

What the heck does this mean? The person (which I will talk about in another post) that recommended the AIP to me mentioned that around two weeks into this, I’d perhaps get some flu-like symptoms. And, it’s pretty much true. I’ll explain (in a very condensed way) what the Die-off is and then my experience.

So, as we eat the SAD diet we consume quite a bit of sugar and carbs and most of us enjoy alcohol. These all equate to sugar in our bodies and sugar feeds the bacteria and yeast in our gut. With the SAD way of eating, most of us have more bacteria and yeast than our bodies need. When a person reduces (or pretty much stops in my case) eating sugar and carbs, this unnecessary bacteria and yeast are starved and begin to “Die-off”. As this happens, they release acetaldehyde. This is a neurotoxin and can irritate your brain and possibly cause neurologic symptoms. There are more symptoms that I’ll list below.

I knew that I’d experience some sort of symptoms going into this. I didn’t know why, but had a rough idea of when. So, I waited for symptoms around the two week time and just 2 days past that two-week mark I got one of the worst headaches I’ve experienced in a long time. It lasted all day long. On AIP you’re also not to take any NSAIDs because they mess with your gut and the purpose of this is to heal your gut. I went through the day with this headache and it just wouldn’t go away. I had it all through the night and I swear that it gave me the weirdest dreams. I woke up with this headache and I just couldn’t go through it again. Also, that morning my kids chose to wake up at 5:30 (a bit too early for me). So, I poured myself my 4 ounces of coffee and savored those moments with that little warm cup in my hands. Low and behold, my headache went away shortly after.

That night, it was back. I slept with the pain again and again woke up with it. I chose to have some coffee again to help the headache, at least for the bulk of the day. It worked! But again, that night the headache returned worse than the two days prior. So this morning I had coffee again. Coffee is apparently my one weakness in this process. The cool thing is that it’s now 11 pm and I’m awake and I have no headache and I feel no sign of it coming. I have hopes that tomorrow I’ll be able to get back to my yummy concoction and kick the coffee again!

Last night, as I laid on the couch with an excruciating headache and a little joint pain, I wondered if I did something wrong and why this seemed to be going backward. I remembered the warning of flu-like symptoms and I started Googling. That’s when I found Amy Myers MD website https://www.amymyersmd.com/2019/01/die-off-and-how-to-avoid-it/ and learned this information about the Die-off. Other symptoms I read about are: possibly feeling drunk, brain fog, headaches, fatigue, moodiness, bloating, diarrhea or constipation, joint pain, nausea, skin issues, and flu-like symptoms. I was SO happy to read this information. I was actually excited about my headache and joint pain. I felt like it meant I was in fact doing something right!

So, here I am feeling a little achy and less headachy. I am eager to experience the next few weeks. I’m confident that this joint pain will subside again. It did before and I believe that once this Die-off phase of the process is over, it will again.

I will write more about my AIP experience in a week or two and until then, I’m sure I’ll think of some more fun things to tell you about.

Where My Life Shifted

by Katie | Mar 5, 2020

This post may feel a little different than my first. I will not be talking as much about my illness, but instead about something that shifted in me a few years ago. This day, this story is when I realized that there is more. This is where I started standing in my true self and trusting my intuition. This is where I shifted into the knowing that this life is more than we think it is daily. From this day on, I’ve learned more and more each day that has confirmed this; We are the creators of our lives. Our thoughts create our experiences. Where focus goes, energy flows.

It was June 6, 2018. My husband offered to watch the boys for the afternoon and told me to go do whatever my heart desired. I chose to go to be alone. I wanted to just focus my brain and be still. It was the first time I’d left to take time for myself in years. I decided to follow my heart and not make a plan. I grabbed a bottle of water, some of my favorite crystals and I drove. I trusted my intuition. I just drove and ended up at the coolest spot by the river that we leave near.

I found a perfect sitting rock; flat and almost hovering over the water. Nature was surrounding me. Peace and quiet were all around me. I had no choice but to sit on this rock and just be. I decided to try to meditate. Meditation is something I’d tried off and on throughout the years and I never felt quite “successful” at the practice. I closed my eyes and I sat with no expectations. I listened to the water flow. I listened to my own breathing. I fell into the most serene state of mind.

From here, I was shown things. The universe, God, Source…. whatever you are comfortable calling the divine power that guides all of us (I’ll refer to it as God) took me on a journey. I was shown a spiderweb, a leaf, roots of a tree, a placenta, a system of veins, the universe, an eyeball and so much more. One word came to me very clearly: CONNECTED.

I instinctively knew the message; we are all one system. Every human is connected as the silk strings of the web are connected to make a home for a spider. As the veins of our body are connected to keep us thriving and alive. As the tree of life within a placenta is the beginning of life itself. Every single human is an important string that is connecting what I now call the collective. If one string of a web is broken, the strength of the remaining web is lessened.

I got goosebumps. I sat for a while with my eyes closed. I pondered this idea and then related it to myself. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own illness and my own to do’s and I’ve been so eager to not face the reality of life, I haven’t really been living. I’d hardly been breathing due to stress and anxiety for a few years. I’d literally been making myself sicker. I realized that the more out of touch with myself that I got and the more stressed I remained, the more I was harming the collective. I was not doing my part and being a strong strand of the web. I was one of the weaker links contributing to the brokenness of the collective. I realized that the only one that can control this is me.

Below is a piece of what I wrote in my journal that day:

           “In this society and world, we so often not only allow ourselves to get weak, leading to our fellow branches getting weaker, but we also are good at purposely tearing each other down.
            To not only succeed in this world but to survive, we MUST keep ourselves strong and healthy first. Love yourself enough to take care of yourself. Follow your heart and truly make
            yourself feel good. God loves you so so much that you can shine His light outside of yourself. See yourself as He sees you. Love yourself as He loves you. Once you can truly do that,
           your light will automatically shine. You will want to love everyone as you feel loved. You won’t ever feel the need to hurt others or judge others or break them down. We wonder how
           we can heal the world, right? This is IT: Love yourself, Feel God’s love, FEEL it, See yourself through His eyes, Let that spill out, Let it OVERFLOW. Don’t worry, it can’t stop. It’s infinite.”

Words kept coming to me that day. Images. I was being reminded of how divine I am. I’d lost love for myself. I was struggling with life. I didn’t know how to find my spark again. These words and this meditation reminded me of my true power. I was reminded of how much I’m loved and why I’m here. God put me here for a reason and I’m exactly how and where he wants me to be. I’m perfect as I am. With this, I will improve my love for myself and in return improve the collective.

It’s hard to think that one human can affect the rest, so let’s think about it on a smaller scale. Have you ever been in a room where everyone is having fun and the mood is light when suddenly a new person enters and there is a heaviness? A tension perhaps? This new person is either angry or self-conscious bringing that weighted energy in the room with him. The mood of the other ten or so people in the room has now shifted to a heavier feeling. Everyone is feeling it and not sure why. This is the realization that I had by the river on this day. I realized that my own mood; my own health; my own happiness has an effect on not only those around me but on those beyond me. The way in which I live my life affects others. That’s a BIG deal. Why would I ever choose to wallow in my own problems, or my own bad mood when I have the power to control that. And, even more, when I do control it and bring myself up, I positively affect the world. What could be better?

My meditation that day told me all of this by showing me the most beautiful pictures. I had the most profound realizations. On that day, I decided that my health is in my hands. My happiness is in my hands. My life is in my control and there is not a single soul outside of me that is in control of it. All that I seek is within me. All that I desire is within me. The best thing about all of this is that when I live my best life, I am shining a light in the world and showing others that it’s possible for them to live their best life too. 

This is where it began. This is where my life shifted.