So, I went to Dr. Porter in Provo to have a bunch of blood work done, hoping to find some answers, especially involving my energy levels as of late. I got a lot of information that I'm really hoping will help.
First, I have a low thyroid. He says my pituitary gland is not producing enough thyroid, and also not enough T4 is being converted into T3. That doesn't mean a whole lot to me, but he told me to take porcine thyroid and porcine pituitary gland, which is a supplement of ground up pig thyroid and pituitary gland. Yummo!
Also, I have a "leaky gut." I know, that sounds really gross. Basically, the lining of my intestines and stomach is leaking out bad stuff into my system so I need to take a supplement he calls G.I. Integrity as well as a bottle of cow colostrum. Again, yummo!
I also have a slightly low glucose level and a slightly high insulin level and he says I very clearly have Hypoglycemia. To help with my blood sugar levels stay regular, I need to eat often and eat balanced, which means never eating any carbs with out a protein and healthy fat. He says this should definitely help with energy.
As far as the food sensitivities, my yeast levels were normal, but I have a sensitivity to egg white, cows milk, and gluten. This explains why my brain clouds over and my energy drains out of me after I eat. He says that these sensitivities are affecting me a lot more because of the leaky gut, so if I can avoid these things for 3 months, once my insides are all healed up, I should have no problem eating a little bit of them every 4 or 5 days.
So, I definitely found some answers. I haven't had any gluten, egg, or milk in the past 24 hours and I haven't had the brain fog once. Hoping it lasts. In the meantime, I need to figure out where to buy all these supplements for the best deal. If anyone knows of an inexpensive place to buy that kind of thing, I'm all ears.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Wooooohooo!!!!!!
Big news!!! I asked Jonah this morning if he wanted a piece of candy (I was trying to capture his happy dance on video haha) and he said, "No. Banana." And then I did my own little happy dance!! :)
Also, Thomas has been up for 2 hours now and he's only had 2 pieces. Anna hasn't had any and said she wanted a protein shake and a banana for breakfast. 2 days ago, Thomas and Anna ate too much candy and had no interest in eating breakfast. Hoping it continues to decrease with a little more time! Thanks to everyone for all of your feedback. I love hearing your experiences. Have a great day!
Also, Thomas has been up for 2 hours now and he's only had 2 pieces. Anna hasn't had any and said she wanted a protein shake and a banana for breakfast. 2 days ago, Thomas and Anna ate too much candy and had no interest in eating breakfast. Hoping it continues to decrease with a little more time! Thanks to everyone for all of your feedback. I love hearing your experiences. Have a great day!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Candy and Veins:) Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
As my children make leprechaun traps with trails of candy, I think I'll give everyone an update on my health as well as my experiment.
The candy thing is seriously driving me nuts. They have slowed down a little bit but not much. I finally caved today and put it away while I was making lunch (they were eating piece after piece while I was trying to cook them a decent lunch) and while I was making dinner (same story) because they're miraculously "not hungry" at every meal since this experiment started. But other than those two times, the kids have still had full run of the candy jar. I think if I give it a few more days, it will slow down more and more but I'm not sure if I'll make it to that long. I'll keep you posted.
As far as my health, I reported the other day that I was feeling good, and I was. But overall, I'm still not feeling as good as I think I should. The most black and white difference I've noticed is that before my original surgery in Costa Rica, I felt horrible after jogging...light headed, dizzy, and completely drained. After the angioplasty, I was able to work out longer, and feel SO much better than I ever did before. And now, I'm back to feeling horrible after aerobic exercise. It's frustrating. And it makes sense to me, and Dr. Hatch, and my neuro Dr. Vincent (I saw them both in the past 2 days) that if my veins are closed, and I do exercise that makes my blood pump faster and stronger, it's going to make me feel light headed and dizzy, etc. So, long story short, I've decided to have the surgery AGAIN. Yes, this will be my 4th venogram in less than a year. (1 with Dr. Gibby who claimed to have found nothing, 1 in Costa Rica, 1 with Dr. Hatch, and now another.) UGH, I know. But I want to know if my veins have restenosed, and the only way to really know is to have them go in there and take a look. So I've got the surgery (it's really just a procedure but they call it surgery)scheduled for March 31st at 7AM. I'm really not looking forward to being on yet another 30 days of shots in the stomach, but I feel so truly grateful that I can have this procedure done 30 minutes away from my home! What a blessing.
P.S. Apparently Chandler's music teacher told them today that if they leave their shoes out in the living room tonight, a leprechaun will come and leave chocolate golden coins in them. Chandler is SUPER excited about this and now the other kids are too. Ummmm...is SHE going to come to my house and put them in? No. Thanks a lot Ms. Music Teacher Lady. So...I guess it's off to the store for some chocolate coins. What's a little more candy, right? :)
The candy thing is seriously driving me nuts. They have slowed down a little bit but not much. I finally caved today and put it away while I was making lunch (they were eating piece after piece while I was trying to cook them a decent lunch) and while I was making dinner (same story) because they're miraculously "not hungry" at every meal since this experiment started. But other than those two times, the kids have still had full run of the candy jar. I think if I give it a few more days, it will slow down more and more but I'm not sure if I'll make it to that long. I'll keep you posted.
As far as my health, I reported the other day that I was feeling good, and I was. But overall, I'm still not feeling as good as I think I should. The most black and white difference I've noticed is that before my original surgery in Costa Rica, I felt horrible after jogging...light headed, dizzy, and completely drained. After the angioplasty, I was able to work out longer, and feel SO much better than I ever did before. And now, I'm back to feeling horrible after aerobic exercise. It's frustrating. And it makes sense to me, and Dr. Hatch, and my neuro Dr. Vincent (I saw them both in the past 2 days) that if my veins are closed, and I do exercise that makes my blood pump faster and stronger, it's going to make me feel light headed and dizzy, etc. So, long story short, I've decided to have the surgery AGAIN. Yes, this will be my 4th venogram in less than a year. (1 with Dr. Gibby who claimed to have found nothing, 1 in Costa Rica, 1 with Dr. Hatch, and now another.) UGH, I know. But I want to know if my veins have restenosed, and the only way to really know is to have them go in there and take a look. So I've got the surgery (it's really just a procedure but they call it surgery)scheduled for March 31st at 7AM. I'm really not looking forward to being on yet another 30 days of shots in the stomach, but I feel so truly grateful that I can have this procedure done 30 minutes away from my home! What a blessing.
P.S. Apparently Chandler's music teacher told them today that if they leave their shoes out in the living room tonight, a leprechaun will come and leave chocolate golden coins in them. Chandler is SUPER excited about this and now the other kids are too. Ummmm...is SHE going to come to my house and put them in? No. Thanks a lot Ms. Music Teacher Lady. So...I guess it's off to the store for some chocolate coins. What's a little more candy, right? :)
Monday, March 14, 2011
My Experiment...
This post is completely unrelated to MS, but thankfully, my life is much more than that stupid disease so it's definitely refreshing to write about something else every once in a while:)
Candy is like crack cocaine at our house. Ok, ok. I admit I don't know much about crack. But I do know that my kids are constantly begging me for treats, and when there is candy or other goodies in our home, my children can't stop thinking about it until it's gone. Half the time, I end up chucking it in the trash when they're asleep because they drive me so crazy about it!
I'm pretty health conscious. I grind our wheat and make a lot of our own breads, rolls, pancakes, muffins, etc. with it. We don't eat much meat and we eat a lot of vegetables and whole foods. I'm always sneaking flax into anything I can and I never buy soda or chips or cookies. Granted, I do love baking so we sometimes have cookies and cupcakes around, and my kids end up getting plenty of treats from elsewhere. But they're still crazy for them. Every week, the kids look so forward to Saturday, because each Saturday morning, they get to eat "Saturday Cereal!" That's the only day of the week they get sugar cereal and they can eat as many bowls as they want.
They all go through phases of stealing sweets whenever they're around the house. In fact, I had some cupcakes the other day and after we were done eating them (for our dog Eddie's bday haha), I threw the last 5 in the trash. Thomas got up in the middle of the night and ate them OUT OF THE TRASH. UGH!!! My dad now lovingly refers to him as "Johnny Cupcake." :)
Anyway, so all this got me thinking...In Holland, drugs are not illegal. And as a result, they have very few drug problems. Drugs there are common-place, and they're not forbidden, and so people don't go so crazy for them. I'm not advocating legalizing drugs, but the fact stands that things aren't quite so inviting and tempting when they're not so forbidden.
So...here is my experiment. I went to the store and bought a lot of candy. I decided to stick with hard candies since they take longer to consume:) I bought a candy jar, and filled it to the brim. I told the kids they could have as much as they want. The only rule is that they can only take one at a time. I'm trying to stay calm as a write, because my children are going nuts for the candy. The jar is already a third of the way gone. Anna keeps looking at me every time she goes back to the jar, expecting to get scolded for getting yet ANOTHER piece of candy. My hope is that after a few days, the candy craze will subside, and they'll just take a piece every once in a while. My hypothesis is that it will greatly reduce the stealing, begging, whining, and overall obsession with sweets. I have no idea if this work. I'm not sure if I'll be able to survive the torture of watching my children binge on candy for the next few days. It's seriously driving me crazy and it's only been a few hours. What are your thoughts? I'd love to know. Is this irresponsible parenting? Or am I doing them a favor? I guess time will tell.
Candy is like crack cocaine at our house. Ok, ok. I admit I don't know much about crack. But I do know that my kids are constantly begging me for treats, and when there is candy or other goodies in our home, my children can't stop thinking about it until it's gone. Half the time, I end up chucking it in the trash when they're asleep because they drive me so crazy about it!
I'm pretty health conscious. I grind our wheat and make a lot of our own breads, rolls, pancakes, muffins, etc. with it. We don't eat much meat and we eat a lot of vegetables and whole foods. I'm always sneaking flax into anything I can and I never buy soda or chips or cookies. Granted, I do love baking so we sometimes have cookies and cupcakes around, and my kids end up getting plenty of treats from elsewhere. But they're still crazy for them. Every week, the kids look so forward to Saturday, because each Saturday morning, they get to eat "Saturday Cereal!" That's the only day of the week they get sugar cereal and they can eat as many bowls as they want.
They all go through phases of stealing sweets whenever they're around the house. In fact, I had some cupcakes the other day and after we were done eating them (for our dog Eddie's bday haha), I threw the last 5 in the trash. Thomas got up in the middle of the night and ate them OUT OF THE TRASH. UGH!!! My dad now lovingly refers to him as "Johnny Cupcake." :)
Anyway, so all this got me thinking...In Holland, drugs are not illegal. And as a result, they have very few drug problems. Drugs there are common-place, and they're not forbidden, and so people don't go so crazy for them. I'm not advocating legalizing drugs, but the fact stands that things aren't quite so inviting and tempting when they're not so forbidden.
So...here is my experiment. I went to the store and bought a lot of candy. I decided to stick with hard candies since they take longer to consume:) I bought a candy jar, and filled it to the brim. I told the kids they could have as much as they want. The only rule is that they can only take one at a time. I'm trying to stay calm as a write, because my children are going nuts for the candy. The jar is already a third of the way gone. Anna keeps looking at me every time she goes back to the jar, expecting to get scolded for getting yet ANOTHER piece of candy. My hope is that after a few days, the candy craze will subside, and they'll just take a piece every once in a while. My hypothesis is that it will greatly reduce the stealing, begging, whining, and overall obsession with sweets. I have no idea if this work. I'm not sure if I'll be able to survive the torture of watching my children binge on candy for the next few days. It's seriously driving me crazy and it's only been a few hours. What are your thoughts? I'd love to know. Is this irresponsible parenting? Or am I doing them a favor? I guess time will tell.
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