Chronic Health and Special Diets🤗

I'm having some kind of dysautonomia as well (my blood pressure drops and my heartrate drops as well when I stand up, or walk uphill/upstairs). Lots of salt helps me, as does lower leg compression. Dark liquorice with actual liquorice extract and not anisseed extract (often used in cheap liquorice) helps as well. Other than that protein rich food is a reflux trigger of mine, unless there's a decent amount of natural fat in it. Thus pouring olive oil over beans doesn't really help. Chicken breast can be very bad. But chicken thigh with more fat works. Full fat milk or proper fatty cheese is also ok, while fat reduced milk, or cottage cheese is quite terrible. I guess knowing what works and doesn't work for you is important.

yirara wrote: »

I'm having some kind of dysautonomia as well (my blood pressure drops and my heartrate drops as well when I stand up, or walk uphill/upstairs). Lots of salt helps me, as does lower leg compression. Dark liquorice with actual liquorice extract and not anisseed extract (often used in cheap liquorice) helps as well. Other than that protein rich food is a reflux trigger of mine, unless there's a decent amount of natural fat in it. Thus pouring olive oil over beans doesn't really help. Chicken breast can be very bad. But chicken thigh with more fat works. Full fat milk or proper fatty cheese is also ok, while fat reduced milk, or cottage cheese is quite terrible. I guess knowing what works and doesn't work for you is important.

The interesting think for my wife is the liquorice gave my wife stomach issues and didn't help.

The L-Citruline was a surprise because i was researching recovery supplements for myself. Turns out that if you take it 3x a day, it has cardiovascular health benefits due to the increase in the urea cycle.

I should note that weight training has been one of the best things for my wife. The increase in blood flow from the large compound lifts has helped a lot. It was even noticed my the infusion center because ahe wasn't a hard stick if sh came after a lifting day.

Th15isM3 wrote: »

Hello Everyone
As a result our everyday lives are affected, especially how much physical activity we can do.
Due to bad digestion many of us are gluten free and dairy free as well, effecting what we can eat in day.
I also choose to be vegetarian, and have to be cautious around food items such as tomatoes and spice.
Those of you who know the stuggle of living with chronic health, special diets, or anything else that pertains, I’d love to hear your health journeys and fitness progress in order to find inspiration to push on.
Thank you for letting me join the community!

Hi!

I have a number of issues that impact my health, but the ones most pertinent to diet and life style are celiac disease and a mast cell activation disorder. Wasn't sure if you've heard of the latter (it's pretty common, I know for folks to have MCAD, EDS, and POTS all at once, so you might've), but it's impacted my life to a shocking degree, you know?

I felt sick and in pain for many years, but about 8ish years ago, I finally started getting my diagnoses and figured out what was going on. I now know I react not just to gluten, but to dairy, soy, eggs, fish and shellfish, many nuts and beans, most vinegars and oils, chicken, cane sugar, lots and lots of preservatives and chemicals used on processed foods, and a big killer: coffee.

I react to not just coffee itself, but the chemical that makes up the scent for coffee is also a mast cell trigger for me, so anywhere there IS coffee, I start reacting (for those not familiar with this disease -yeah, it's really this weird. I have a friend who has a similar reaction to the aroma from carrots). And as you can imagine, with how people drink coffee today, that's, well, most of the world around me. Gas stations, book stores, friend's houses, most public events during the evening or morning, campgrounds, even banks and doctors offices can be problematic.

I also tend to react now to scents from perfume, or shampoo, or clothing detergent...so going where people are always, always makes me react. Without fail, no exceptions. If I leave my house, I will have a reaction. Although if I stay home, I can still react anyway. :-/

As you can imagine...my life is really different right now than it used to be. I CAN still eat some of the foods on the bad list, and I only react 'a little,' and sometimes, I'll be honest, I cheat (and usually regret it). But usually, I have to make food from scratch, but like, really from scratch. I learned how to make my own potato starch from potatoes, for example, because I can't use any of the commercial starches without a reaction. I don't go out much anymore to places with a lot of people; I stay home as much as I can.

But all that said...I still feel pretty content a lot of the time. Having to avoid so many foods has made me REALLY appreciate what food I can have, especially seasonal food that I can get fresh. I started gardening to grow more food I could eat, and I cannot properly express the absolute joy you get from a food that you only get to eat a few weeks out of the year. Just...the appreciation for these is through the roof. They are freaking amazing.

And growing my own food has become a source of deep joy. Not just the fact that I'm growing food, but...my yard is my world right now. I have a house now that has a large yard, but...it's my safe space, where I can be without reacting, and I likely will need to stay here for many years, if not my lifetime, so I am very motivated to make this a place that I love. And I am slowly making my home the same - everything around me is eventually going to give me joy. Looks awesome, feels awesome, smells awesome - if this is my world, I am going to enjoy every tiny detail of it.

And I get to do that with gardening, where seeing the first buds of a plant I put in the ground, the first bees coming out, making my yard a place that lizards are having babies and rabbits come and little voles hide out...every little thing, I have learned to take joy in, like I did when I was a Kid and the entire world was amazing. I feel like I have renewed my amazement in the world, so while I DO miss things I used to have and do (and sometimes mourn it and cry over it), at the same time, I really feel like I have found a way to find enough joy in the world I exist in now to be happy, if that makes sense?

Re: the food and health. Patience, I think is what I have learned. The world of a chronically ill person, I think, often involves a lot of patience because if we try to live life at other people's pace, it often just makes things worse for us. I often have setbacks, when my body is not doing well, and when I start back up again, I just take a deep breath and remember that I have to do things really, really slowly...and that's okay. The world ain't going anywhere, my body isn't going anywhere, I can do this, and there is nothing wrong with doing it slowly. And sometimes I find dorky things to help me. Like that 'walk to Rivendell' thing online, or listening to apps that pretend you are in a zombie apocalypse while you walk, that sort of thing.

I still struggle sometimes finding safe food, or tasty food, but I've learned to embrace some of that, too. Mess around with really different foods from all over the world, grow a ton of herbs and just throw them together to see what I get, and just be willing to try anything that's out there. It feels like another form of joy, I think, when I can find food that tastes good and I can eat it.

I think that the joy thing is what gets me through things. There is so, so much in the world that is amazing, you know? New babies, and pets, and insects and rainbows and the first rain of the summer, and on and on. Lots of it gets lost along the way when we are worried on money and our jobs and getting Kid's to school and all, I think, and I feel like getting ill, while it absolutely sucks a lot, has really helped me slow down and smell ALL the roses, you know?

Hope you and your sister have a good week, and as little pain as possible. :-)