My Food Story --Part One

I wanted to share with you how the diet we currently eat came about. I will be sharing more in depth in a later post what we eat.


In the first year of my marriage, I became ill. At first, I had a queezy feeling in my abdomen after eating. After a few bites of food, I would feel this way and not want to eat anymore. I thought it might have been the flu, but the "flu" symptoms were getting worse and my abdominal pains started becoming more intense. This persisted over about 2 months until I finally went to the Doctor.
At this time, I was having quite a bit of pain and my BM's were not what they should have been. Sorry if that is too much information for y'all. I was feeling horrible....all the while being in my first year of marriage and finishing up credentialing school.
My diet at the time and previous to the illness consisted mainly of processed foods, refined grains and sugars, and meat. Lots and lots of meat. We were doing the Atkins diet to lose weight.
Once meeting with the Doctor, we took blood test, stool samples and the Doctor told me to take some laxative. This was not working. I ended up going back several times to the Doctor...many times it was several different Doctors in the same medical office. This became frustrating because I would have to explain my symptoms over and over again to the Dr.s! Pretty soon, I thought maybe it is all in my mind. I became depressed, frustrated, and still in a lot of pain.
After the blood tests, they saw that my white blood count was highly elevated, but still had no prognosis for me. The final time, I went to my Doctor again this time with my Mom and Husband. The Doctor wanted to have me take some more tests....the same tests! I was angry. Why are we doing the same things over and over when the results are the same---no progress?
My Doctor suggested we go to the hospital to have a C-SCAN preformed. Finally! Something different! I went that day to have the test performed. And, sure enough later that evening the Doctor called reporting that I had possible CROHN'S disease. He wanted to schedule me to see a Gastronologist to confirm.
So, I am not relieved of my pain yet, but at least we had a possible answer for my problems. Thank the Lord I am not crazy....however, I am a little scared and unsure what "Crohn's Disease" is about. The Doctor wanted to have me meet with a Gastronologist ---the earliest I could get in was 3 weeks away. Which meant I had to continue to endure the pain until then. Um, great?
Sure enough, that night Ric found me doubled over on the bathroom floor in extreme pain. It was like being in severe labor. We went to the ER and ended up with loads of pain medication, a visit with the on-call Gastronologist, and a comfirmation that I did indeed have Crohn's Disease.
After several days in the hospital, they sent me home with some medications that I would have take for the rest of my life, a drug called Asacol (something like that) and I was placed on Prednisone (that I would taper off eventually).
On these drugs, I had gained weight and also became very depressed. My pain was not severe anymore, but I was tired, weak and really still not feeling well.
I was in need of a change.