Seeking Chronic Illness/Chronic Pain Friends

canadjineh

Hubby got his text message link for his vaccination appointment today, he's getting the shot on Apr 27th. Looks like it's probably Moderna, as he will be getting it at the big clinic set up in the Recreation Centre, and not at the local pharmacy.
@melmerritt33 have you tried tracking what kind of veggies you are eating and how they make you feel? Any difference if they are the nightshade family, or maybe brassicas? Maybe you are more sensitive to certain types of veg? Also we noticed a big difference between organic produce and regular. Used to get a numb mouth and metallic taste from regular celery but no effects whatsoever with organic celery. Both were washed well. Both DH and I did blind testing with someone else preparing raw celery to try if we see a difference.

melmerritt33

@canadjineh Thats really good news, so glad he’s getting his vaccine!

I’ve started tracking my food again, I’m keen to get to the root of my different issues especially as I had another IBS flare up yesterday. Looking at my diary and comparing it with my symptom diary it’s clear that both too much and too little or irregular fibre intake is causing my IBS flare ups. So on that side I need to be consistent with my diet. I’m trying to focus on a meat heavy keto style diet to give me a small amount of veg and therefore fibre but not too much. Though I did have potato yesterday as that always sorts my IBS-D attacks out! Hopefully if I’m eating small amounts of other veg regularly enough I won’t need to resort to potato to fix myself!

I’m going to start trying different veg and keep track of how I feel afterwards both with my stomach and Fibro. I know people seem to have issues with certain types of veg so this should give me some answers.

Interesting about organic v non organic, I naturally buy organic but am still getting my food delivered rather than shopping for myself so sometimes things will get substituted. Something to bear in mind I guess.

canadjineh

Well, if potato helps, it's not a problem with the nightshade family. If you want to keep your carbs down and still have potato, you might want to investigate 'resistant starch' - short answer, once you cool potato and some other starches down it changes how the starch reacts in your system. https://healthline.com/nutrition/cooling-resistant-starch#TOC_TITLE_HDR_3

melmerritt33

Thanks @canadjineh that’s really helpful, that could come in very useful for me. I’m keen to keep carbs low as diabetes is rampant in my family.

I re-committed to carnivore at the weekend and am regretting it, I’m suffering again. Seems like if I go zero fibre for more than two days it sets me off just as much as eating too much.

I can’t go on like this. I have a two hour meeting tomorrow that I’m hosting and so cannot be having to rush to the toilet in the middle of it! So I’m having a little potato tonight as I know it seems to work to settle me down and then I’ll give the meat heavy keto style a decent try.

Somewhere is my sweet spot, I just need to find it!

canadjineh

Hubby ended up getting Pfizer for his vaccine last Tuesday. No side effects except a bit of fatigue and an achy spot at the injection site on his left shoulder. Latest word on the news (BBC if I remember correctly) is that the first dose of Pfizer does NOT protect one from the variants right now, second shot will give the body enough to work with to get full immunity.

Hopefully you made it through your meeting OK, @melmerritt33. It can definitely take a while to find the right food combo for our own personal circumstances. Keep at 'er, though. Try keeping a food diary and link it with how your body reacts so you can figure out where the problem might be.

melmerritt33

That’s brilliant @canadjineh I am really pleased for you and your hubby.

I made it through my meeting ok thankfully! Since then I’ve been tweaking my diet and over the last week have been almost but not quite carnivore and it seems to finally be working for me. I’ve been keeping my food diary and a separate symptom diary. From that I’ve worked out that dairy seems to be the key to a meat based diet for me. I’ve been eating mostly meat based but having a glass of milk and some cheese almost every day. I’ve not had a single IBS episode all week which is amazing. I’ve also been eating a little honey at the weekends.

The difference has been huge. I’ve felt so much better. No stomach problems until yesterday. I’ve been sleeping better and waking up more easily, I’ve had more energy and even slightly less pain.

Yesterday and today I’ve been a bit constipated and had some stomach pains but because of my strict food diary I’ve identified it as the constipation caused by eating too much cheese and the pain by Camembert and cured meats. I suspected these were a problem for me before but wasn’t sure. Now I know. Hard cheeses seem to be ok so I’ll stick with those from now on.

So my next step is to reduce the cheese a little but not too much. Hopefully right there will be my sweet spot.

canadjineh

So glad to hear you are feeling better. I've finally gotten things under better control here and have dropped a bit more of the extra Covid poundage. Weighing in at 147 right now...so only 12 lbs to go to get back to my original goal weight from 2013.

melmerritt33

That’s brilliant, well done.

I still have 14 pounds to lose to get to my goal weight and I’m not sure it’s ever going to happen, been stuck here with a few up and back down blips for about two years!

Went off plan last Friday and Saturday, had some potatoes. Really interesting, my stomach was fine as usual but my pain levels shot up. They’ve only just gone down again after going back to almost carnivore style since Sunday. I didn’t realise until now just how reduced my pain levels had been over the last couple of weeks. Another incentive to keep going.