Autoimmune protocol friends

So I am a little over a month into my AIP diet and am looking for friends who are using the AIP diet. I am wanting to get to know people who are going through the same difficulties and bounce ideas and questions off of since their is so much information out there.

My grandma had mentioned to me the AIP Diet when I was diagnosed with Hasimoto's 4 years ago but I wasn't ready to change my whole lifestyle. A year after my Hashimoto diagnosis I was diagnosed with endometriosis (although I believe I have had this since my teenage years it was only diagnosed when we had problems conceiving). I started birth control to manage my symptoms and for the first year my cramps were almost non existent but the pills caused weight gain and major anxiety and mood fluctuations that I had never had in my life. I tried switching birth controls but they to caused side effects so I stopped the birth control and all the side effects went away but the cramps came back with a vengeance. The last 6 months or so I had been having terrible GI upset and bloating and couldn't figure out why. One night I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep and got hungry so I went to the fridge for a snack. The only thing I could find was cheese so I cut off a hunk and ate it. Within the next 1.5 hours I got wheezy and my stomach started having GI problems. I then suspected I was lactose intolerant. I looked up how to tell and started an elimination diet. My worst fear was true. No more dairy for me! I started looking at food intolerance and it started talking about autoimmune disorders and the correlations. That's when I remembered some crazy diet my grandma mentioned years earlier. That day I just woke up and decided I will try it and see what happens. I spent 1 day looking at all the do' s and do not's and went grocery shopping.

It has been 34 days (not that I'm counting) and I find that I don't miss most foods as much as I thought I would (although if someone put a pizza in front of me right now I might cry a little)

I have had more energy, sleep better (I'm not snoring anymore which makes my husband happy), no sinus pain and pressure, my joint pain is significantly less and my cramps this month while still there didn't require any pain medication to get through! I also lost 13 lbs this month which I attribute to the AIP Diet. I had been on a doctor monitored weight loss program this last year and had been counting calories but in several months only lost 8 lbs while exercising and then reached a plautu. I have not been counting calories on AIP and rarely feel hungry yet without exercise I've dropped 13 pounds.

I think all the plus' make it easier to get through some if the restrictveness of the diet.
I keep calling this a diet but I really think of it as a change in lifestyle. Today I started adding back egg yolks and we will see how reintroductions go but for now I am hopeful.

Thanks for reading about my journey and if you want to add me feel free and we can share our journeys.