When Life Takes An Unexpected Turn....

Things were looking up and I was starting to feel better.....that is until I had an allergice reaction. When ones' tongue enlarges in the mouth it can become very unpleasent. For me, it was a no brainer anxiety trigger. Food allergies was something new to me and something I didn't want to invite in. After a few visits to urgent care, my positive relationship with food stopped. Afraid to eat anything, I started fearing food and refused to eat alone. The anxiety I was getting better at tackeling, had now returned with a vengence. At first my anxiety took hold and I was unable to gain any perspective on the situation, I didn't know how I was going to recover from this, I was scared. Starting a new job didn't add to the mix either, lets just say I was stressed out. I am sure I will look back and thank that enlarged tongue because it led me to my recent diagnosis of candida and parasites, sounds yucky huh. Luckily I have the cute little miscropic parasites that live in my tummy. Before you start making nasty faces, it has been said that about 80% of all people have them but don't know it, so there. I take my health very serious and to find out I had something that could potentially lead to something more severe like rheumatoid arthirits, multiple schlerosis, lupus, and even cancer, I was determined to do whatever it took to get better. For the past year I have been complaining of always feeling bloated. I often feel like the "healthiest sick person I know". Even though my diet is great I haven't been feeling too good and my food allergies have been frustrating and confusing. Candida is a yeast overgrowth that occurs in the large and small intestines. Candida has many symptoms but the main symptoms I have been experiencing on an uncomfortable level is anxiety, bloating, breathing problems, acne, teeth grinding, food sensitivities, and overall flu like not feeling good symptoms. There are many types of parasites one can get and they are actually very common but most people don't realize they have it. I have a parasite called ameba histolytica which isn't a worm but a small ameba that is living throughout my entire gut. This ameba has caused in ulcer in my intestine. Parasites and candida are often found together and I got really lucky they found the parasites on the first test. They are very tiny and often people have to undergo many tests to find them. The parasites attack your nervous system which can make someone more anxious and depressed. Now I understand why I look like I'm 5 months pregnant all the time :) The reason I have parasites is unclear. You can get them from unclean drinking water, a cook at a restaurant who didn't wash their hands, really you can get them anywhere. The candida is probably from using a frequent dose of antibiotics when I lived in Salt Lake City from some urinary tract infections I had. Birth control pills are another contributor but luckily I am done with those (if you are on birth control pills I am not trying to scare you, most people are just fine on them, I would encourage you to do some independent research on birth control pills because the findings are very interesting) The parasites and yeast explain my sudden occurrence of food sensitivities. Parasites can penetrate the intestinal lining just as candida allowing large undigested food particles into the body creating an immune system response that is often assumed to be an allergy. The good news is that I am most likely not allergic to anything but right now my body is unable to handle many foods because of this leaky gut. I did however officially test positive for gluten so for the rest of my life I should stay away from gluten, eating it will only encourage candida to come back. In the future I can probably handle tiny amounts of it but we will see. Gluten is in everything, especially processed food so its tough to avoid. I didn't want to follow a standard treatment plan with western medicine but wanted to work with my naturopath. The treatment, 3 or more months of an extreme diet void of gluten, dairy, sugar (yes any sugar), processed food, alcohol, and even fruit for a while. Fruit? yes fruit and all the yummy vegetables that would include carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, and yams. Those will be added to my diet soon. That means no chocolate birthday cake, no wine with dinner, and no bread rolls with soup. I was relieved to know what was explaining a lot of my uncomfortable sytmpoms over the last year, especially bloating, but a restrictive diet, you have to be joking. I told my naturopath I would do it and I would stick to it. The first few weeks were hard, really hard. As Candida die and parasites die off they leave you with a nice toxin as their going away present. This makes people feel like crap. Besides cleansing the parasites and candida, my body is going through a major cleanse in general. I have good days, bad days, and some days and I don't want to see a single person. I am now in my month in a half mark and am feeling a little better. I have stayed true to the diet of vegetables, meat, olive oil, quinoa, millet, and sea salt. I have to steam all my vegetables and I eat a whole bunch of salad. I have experienced crazy symptoms from red face, numb fingers, constant swollen throats, colds, exhaustion, irritability, fatigue, acne, etc. The key is being patient and staying on track with the goal. It can take me up to 3 months to start feeling better so I better just be patient and follow the protocol. I am hoping that by January, I will feel a whole lot better. This process is not only making my body stronger but mentally I am getting stronger as well! Take care of yourself and get checked out, you have to be proactice and ask lots of questions because its easy to miss something. I have decided to track my continued progress with healing because not only is it away process a wide array of feelings, I will one day re-read this and think, wow, I can't beleive I did that.