Where I've Been

Starting a blog is a funny thing, well, for me anyway. I sit down to gather my thoughts, topics, recipe ideas and you know that in the beginning, you're really probably the only person reading the posts. But thats ok, everybody starts somewhere - a blog doesn't just appear out of thin air over night, it takes time to gather content, a niche, and for me, motivation.

 I had many plans this past summer, upon first discovering SCD to create a blog catered to really helping gather recipes, whether I am finding them elsewhere, tweaking them, or completely creating my own. As I've said in a previous post, I've had trouble really finding a blog that had it all-  the basics, great recipes, info, but a blog that was also aesthetically pleasing. For that reason, it has been my goal to create just that. However, life got in the way. I had an incredibly hard summer; being sick with my first big flare - it was months of testing, being wrongly diagnosed, put on wait lists, trying new meds, etc. While IBD was on the radar, it couldn't be confirmed without a scope, so SCD really helped me in that time, and thankfully by the end of the summer I was somewhat feeling better and ready to conquer my first year back in university.

September went really well, I stuck with SCD and things were great, I had a real rhythm going for a bit, until I got sick again. In the months of November and December I dropped down to 106 lbs, for my height that still isn't underweight , but for a girl who was wavering over the 130 line just in June, it was huge. I looked sick, I was sick, I had an incredibly hard time getting focused for exams - but I did it. I went back to intro for about a week after exams, and finished up just in time to have a beautifully made SCD dinner thanks to my loving "mother in law" (my boyfriends sister is the one who put me on to SCD, and the family is such a huge support team for us) . On boxing day I went back to a more basic/early stage form of SCD until New Years, which we spent in the city with good friends and dined at an amazing restaurant- The Wooden Monkey that had specifically crafted me a beautiful SCD legal meal of sesame crusted haddock, local veg and even topped it off with a chocolate avocado pudding made with all legal ingredients (minus the cocoa, but I wanted to splurge a little). I honestly can't find the words to thank them enough, I contacted them prior and they helped me create a menu, aware that I'd be coming. I was able to feel a little more normal, not having to stick out like a sore thumb in the group listing off the specifics of my medical diet, and therefore enjoy my evening with friends to the fullest. After the restaurant we went back to a beautiful new hotel in downtown halifax where we laughed and drank the night away, and watched the fireworks over the harbour.

The rest of the winter was OK, I started feeling pretty good by early January, and that lasted about a month until another flare started, it seemed to come on slow, but by March/April it hit an all time high I was in and out of doctor appointments the entire last month of school, and nearly had to cancel my trip to the Dominican. I was wrongly diagnosed with a tapeworm and subsequent infectious colitis (I won't go into details about how or why, you really don't want to know) and took the treatment for it just 3 days before I left for my trip.

The Dominican was beautiful, our resort was amazing and I had a jacuzzi suite all to myself, right next door to my family. Everything was great and my symptoms were at a minimum until the 3rd day- a Monday, we had an all day excursion booked.

On the 2 hour bus ride into the jungle I started feeling really sick, my stomach felt like it was ripping apart and I was getting really overheated and nauseous, I told my sister in law that I was feeling motion sick and that I couldn't friggin wait to get off the bus (I wasn't really sure what what was up).. by the end of the bus ride, I had my backpack open in my laps ready to vomit into it, but luckily we made it to our destination in time. I immediately ran to the bathroom, after that I thought I might be fine, I still felt shitty and my stomach was incredibly bloated, tender to touch and the nausea was still present but I went to the first area where we were supposed to do ziplining. About 20 minutes later, I announced that I couldn't do the ziplining so I took the lift back to the main area, closer to the bathroom and got myself a bottle of water.  My family came back, my niece came into the bathroom to find me and asked me to try to do the buggies, so I followed along - I didn't want to miss the buggies, and I wasn't really able to throw up anyway, despite the constant feeling that I had to. That's when it all went down hill, about 5 minutes into the buggie ride the whole group stopped at a river to go swimming, I was beginning to feel very sick at this point and I stayed back while everybody went swimming and spent the time throwing up in the bushes, by the time we got back to the main area it was probably around 12, I ran to the bathroom where I was intermittently either filling the toilet with blood, or throwing up- my sister in law came in to find me, followed by an employee who was cleaning the rest rooms.. when the employee heard me she began talking to my sister in law and then ran to grab a  medic. The rest of the day was a mess, they didn't have much for me there, but they were loading me with gatorade to avoid dehydration and gave me anti nauseant, my family enjoyed the rest of the excursion and I went in and out of falling asleep in the bathroom stall until we were ready to leave at 5pm. Needless to say, it is marked up there of one of the worst days for me. The following 2 days I was feeling a little better, I was no longer throwing up and immodium kept the rest of my symptoms to a minimum but I was still in incredible pain, making trips to the bathroom every 10 minutes, and unable to eat. The last 2 days at the resort I was able to have a little more fun. When I got home I had a doctors appointment the following Monday where I was immediately put in for an emergency scope and started on 4000mg Sulfasalazine. Leading to the ultimate diagnosis of UC- proctosigmoditis (finally I know what's going on).

Right now, I'm feeling a lot better but I'm determined now to really get back to this blog, I feel it will keep me more motivated to stay on track with SCD , when I was following it fanatically, I was doing really well. I want to get back to that point. I know this has been an incredibly long post, but like I said - I'm likely the only person reading it at this point, its a way to get things off my chest and if/when someday my blog becomes well known myself and my readers will be able to look back and see where I started any why.

SCD journey : the beginning

This past month has been a complete roller coaster , and honestly at times I didn't think I'd get through it. But I want to share my experience, my journey as I search for answers regarding my health and the reasons I have decided to use SCD as a tool to regain my health, and my life.

When I was first introduced to SCD, I kind of just dove right in. I wasn’t particularly in the worst flare, I was just tired of being generally unwell, and looking for answers. I didn't completely understand the science of the diet, and I didn't understand how detrimental it can be to the healing process to include illegal foods here and there. I was basically just dipping my toes in the water here and there, until this past month. June and early July were absolute hell for me and that’s when I decided that I was not going to frig around with it anymore. Essentially I looked at my diet as if I was choosing to be sick, by eating things that sent me into “flare” or whatever it is that is happening with my body.

I still have no real diagnosis aside from IBS-DC , but on June 10th, immediately following a new NSAID my orthopaedic Doctor put me on for arthritic type knee pain, I spiralled into the worst “flare” of my life. I essentially lost all bowel control, first starting with D and then eventually turning into a week long stint of mild to severe C. When I did have a BM , I was passing huge globs of white mucus, and stool with what looked like blood streaked through it, but most of all, I was in incredible pain. I felt like my insides were burning on the inside (you know the feeling when you burn your finger. Yeah, that) the pain was going right up from my rectum, into the lower/mid left quadrant, then eventually all the way to the top left where my ribs are, at the splenic flexure. This pain started as intermittent, but eventually became constant and chronic. I have had a constant pressure/pain in my lower left quadrant since sometime around last summes, as well as intermittent stabbing/jolt pains in my rectal area, but this was beyond me and completely new. I was unable to keep awake, like literally nearly falling asleep at my nephews birthday dinner. I had no appetite, I was going to bed at 7pm, sometimes waking up all hours of the night from pain and nausea. I had chills at times, and extreme dizziness when standing up. It was a total fucking nightmare of a month, it caused me to miss over 2 weeks of work, and to top it all off, I was home alone because Tom was doing a 5 week job at sea.

So far I’ve had total blood work, abdominal X-ray and a cat scan. All showed fairly normal results. ESR was not tested, which is a concern to my naturopath. The CT scan showed minor inflammation which the emergency doctors attributed to fecal impaction (due to chronic C) this could be the case, but I am inclined to feel that the C, impaction could have been caused by something else, other than IBS. I can't help but feel this way, given the symptoms and patterns. Anyway, I am finally doing a lot better, although it took over a month of tests and hospital visits, a month on SCD. Days of D, days of C, days with mucus and blood, but finally I am having mostly normal days.

SCD intro isn’t easy, when I first started exploring SCD and avoiding illegals (for the most part) I was doing it all wrong, I had entirely skipped the intro, and I was eating advanced foods right from the get go. But given the new situation I was in, to say the least, living off of chicken soup, homemade jello, beef patties and eggs was the least of my worries for 3 days early last month. I am not entirely sure if I just got better on my own, but I believe SCD has gotten my there, which is why I am fully dedicated to SCD and grain free living, now and hopefully for the rest of my life.

The intro seems hard, complicated and intimidation, but my best recommendation would to just make it as simple as possible. BTVC has recipes for cheesecake, and other weird “imitation” foods to get you through the intro, but my advice would honestly be to just make a but load of soup, following the recipe in BTVC, a big thing of grape jello (homemade with unsweetened juice and grass fed gelatin) and a huge batch of SCD meatballs (which are essentially just ground meat, and a small amount of S&P , rolled into balls and broiled in the oven). People who can tolerate eggs are able to have them during the intro, I did a couple of times it makes for a nice, normal feeling breakfast. It's boring food but it keeps you full as long as you eat a lot of it.
It’s recommended to stay on the intro for 1-3 days, and then slowly introduce easy to digest foods. Here is where it gets better, SCD legal yogurt with honey is amazing, mash up some banana and you’ll literally feel like you’re in heaven after 3 days of eating soup and jello, trust me. Banana pancakes , though, have become a saviour. They are pretty incredible, a banana , an egg and some cinnamon fried up to make the most delicious pancakes you'd ever have. They're so good in fact, I almost wanted to change the name of my blog to "bananapancakes" , but as it turns out, a lot of people like banana pancakes, because the name was taken. The main thing to remember is that if you’re going to introduce fruits, they either need to be really spotted bananas or COOKED. Cooked apples and pears can be introduced on the first day off of the intro. Cooked squash, like zucchini, acorn and butternut can also be introduced early on. Butter nut squash is an incredible replacement for anything sweet potato based. And zucchini is delicious on the grill if the rest of your friends are having a BBQ. In the early stages of SCD, I did manage to try going to work for one day. I have a pretty strenuous job, and I was very sick and fatigue as it was, but the food I packed got me through the day, and I was barely hungry at all.

I packed ;

Chicken soup

Meatballs

SCD yogurt

Jello

Pear sauce

The key is planning! Im feeling much better, and I'm back to work full time now. It's been about a month since that first day I went into work, and my lunches are pretty much the same. I just pack a lot of very simple things, and I always try to have chicken soup or bone broth on me. Yogurt is also a daily staple.

As time goes on I’ll be posting different recipes I make, whether I created them myself or found them online, and tips of how to survive SCD while still working full time, going to school (I start university in September), having a social life (or trying to , anyway)

If you’re feeling sick, and you can barely make it through the day anymore, I beg you to give SCD a chance. Pick up a copy of breaking the vicious cycle , see how it works for you. I do not have a diagnosis yet, and my colonoscopy is a while away, but right now I am feeling ok, and as long as I can manage my symptoms through SCD, I am totally ok with that.

So it begins

This blog is not my first, and heck, it may not be my last. In successful blogs that I've had in the past, and by successful I mean I was dedicated to posting, I've kind of just always wrote about what was on my mind, whenever I have a subject matter or idea of what I want the blog to be I always tend to come across writers block and lose motivation, so my intention for this blog is to literally just write about the times and trails of myself navigating my way through a new found food intolerance. I don't really feel like sharing my entire back story just yet, although I am sure that will come with time.

I can't promise that this blog will be a success, but I can say that as of right now I am very passionate about the subject matter. This blog is going to explore my adventure of learning to listen to my body, my mind and my soul. After some testing, I've recently discovered that the route cause to my what seems like, life long illness of IBS is likely triggered by an intolerance to sucrose and dairy. It is not easy cutting either one, sugar is just straight up in everything and dairy is just straight up delicious. In any case, this new discovery has lead me to learn how to search for all of these amazing sugar free counterparts of every day food items, like condiments, etc and I've been astounded to find that these naturally sweetened finds are actually even more delicious than their sugar loaded counterparts. All of this cooking at home has lead to another new found passion, frugality. I've been purging our apartment of almost everything I can that seems to be unnecessary or taking up too much space, and in turn I've also been buying less. It's actually been quite rewarding.

What an exciting blog, the adventures of a girl who is saving money and doesn't eat sweets. BOOOORING. But I promise, as lame as it sounds, I'm sure this could stem into something good. And hell, if it doesn't atleast I'll have found a new (free) pass time and creative outlet to share my delicious sugar free recipes.

The blog title goes way back to a beautiful muse, one of my best friend's, Becky. Our other friend, Steph and I always made fun of Becky because she was such an 'old lady', mocking her incredibly geeky one-time request for "No sugar in my tea, sugar gives me a headache". You really need to be careful what you say around us, because you'll never live it down. She is mocked to this day, nearly 8 years later.

This ones for you, Becky.

Until then.