“I’d like to think these hard times are just instilling us with the lessons we will need to be successful later”
Are you taking notes? I sure have been. Many years ago a young lady told me about her issues with Candida, which is when there is an unbalance of yeast overgrowth in the body. What she spoke of was fascinating, but I was skeptical. It sounded “new-agey” and like a lot of hokey-pokey snake oil, but I did some research and the more I learn about the human body and my own system, the more I believe from understanding my friend’s own journey and lessons from ten years ago (Thanks Leigh).
Taking care of oneself is a full time job. I wish someone had explained this when I was younger in school. What DID they teach us anyway? They told us a lot about the “drugs” we were not supposed to take, the scares, the horrors of using “bad drugs” and how it would fuck up your life, but I don’t exactly remember them saying “why”. And then we were taught some about the “good” drugs (aka antibiotics and other man-made chemical formulas) that we were supposed to take to make us well, but they didn’t warn us about the dangers of taking them. You see, when you take an antibiotic, you have to be incredibly careful to make sure to take probiotics with and immediately after. For some this is common knowledge, but I cannot tell you how many times doctors have prescribed me an antibiotic and never said a word about the health of my gut. When you don’t follow the correct protocol, you risk your small intestine over-growing with bad bacteria. These bad gut bacterium in turn eat your nutrients, so that your body doesn’t get them, even when you’re eating a super clean diet.
When I tell you I’ve been sick for over a month, realistically it’s probably been more like a year or two, or 10, that I’ve been dealing with this type of mysterious illness that manifests as chronicle fatigue, not to mention bloating and gas (YAY for my boyfriend, right?) and other GI issues. Yes, I messed up my gut years ago unknowingly, and now I am paying the price. Doctor after doctor has run tests and tell me that “everything looks good”, so I had to start taking matters into my own hands.
What does that look like? Overall I feel okay, I feel “fine”, but I don’t feel GOOD. I’ve been one one of those scary medical googling binges and asking my doctor constantly about this or that; I’m sure he thinks I’m paranoid and crazy, but I stopped caring about that, I just want to feel BETTER.
So I’ve been taking all of the research and knowledge that I have learned on the sidelines over the years about staying healthy, and pulling it together in a full embodied plan for living life, and yes indeed it is a full time job. Many of you have heard me talk about the Whole30, which I am still a huge proponent of, and that sugar/carbs/dairy elimination diet has been the foundation for cleaning out my gut. Healing truly can and has to be done with food… it’s not just a recipe, it’s a lifestyle. It takes time and money… all the money I’m saving by NOT doing drugs, I’m spending on food and supplements, but hey, at least I’m taking care of myself.
Healing is truly a feel time job. Today I took off work because I woke up feeling absolutely exhausted and knowing what I needed to do today would involve not being at work, so I sucked it up and set about continuing on my health cleanse.
This morning, I woke up, took my morning meds which included two tinctures, several multi vitamins, ashwaganda, lysine, and reshi (all spread out by about 20 minutes to give each molecule some alone time to process. I also take aloe with probiotics along with my meal, a mud shot (yes, real MUD to clean the pipes), along with several other oils balms and remedies to try and keep myself on track. This morning, I ran myself an apple cider vinegar bath, while freezing some coconut oil and tea tree suppositories, I also used the mud on my face for a mask, made a hot tea with 40+ medicinal herbs, did some stretches, and this is all on top of the colonic hydro-thearpthy session I had yesterday (now you can understand why I needed to stay home from work!)…. The list goes on. In fact, I CREATED my own “self-care” daily reminder list that goes a little something like this:
NO SUGAR FOR ME THANK YOU!!
Food Prep Weekly
Supplement twice a day
Tinctures twice a week
Probiotics every day – Take aloe with probiotic
Coconut oil pulling
Mud Mask once a week – or mud drink!
Frankincense and tea tree for anti fungal on floor of shower
Coconut Oil Moisturize!
Bath: Epsom salt, sea salt, ginger, baking soda and activated charcoal
Sleep with lavender on my pillow at night
Take magnesium before bed
Ravansara under my toes
Bergamot in the morning on my temples
Iron Ferrus Sulfate 1 pill three times a week
And on occasional colonic 😉
Why do I need a list? Because forming habits is hard, and I need constant reminders of staying on track.
It’s almost 2:00 p.m. and I still have major food prep to do. I’m day 18 on this Candida food cleanse, and I honestly don’t even know what I would do if I didn’t have sick-days to take off work to focus on my health right now. Being and staying healthy is truly the most important and more difficult part of our lives….one bite at a time.
It’s also much easier when it’s a GROUP EFFORT. As always, feel free to post your recipes and ideas for staying healthy or treating Candida in the comments section below. I learn from you, and we learn from each other, that’s how this works.
MissNutrician,
Miss Conception 