clevermanka | Crisis of confidence

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Crisis of confidence

I'm having a crisis. I don't know if I can/should continue with this SCD experiment. Yeah, it's only been a week, but:

While my morning waist measurement has decreased (by an inch and a half), my end-of-the-day (post eating) measurement is still up by two to two and a half inches every day. I realize that my guts are probably pretty damaged, but for comparison? Last Sunday (the first day of the Intro phase), I was only swelling one inch around the waist. So even though I'm eating less food, I'm swelling more.

Speaking of eating less, I'm barely getting 1,000 calories a day (if that), because it takes a better person than me to choke down more than a cup or two of pureed vegetables in a day (if you're curious, there are about 125 calories per cup of mashed carrots).

My energy levels are so low that today I knew I had a choice of making food for the week for

mckitterick or go for a walk. I made the food because ONE of us needs to be eating well (I might be regretting that choice right now but never mind that). Last week I preemptively canceled today's session with Andrew. The only exercise I've done in the past seven days is one morning walk and then walking home from work. I think I might have walked to work one day? But usually

mckitterick is awake to give me a scooter ride up the hill. Oh, and I managed to practice my pieces for Raqs Boheme for about fifteen minutes one evening.

The energy levels are a huge problem. I could deal with the excruciatingly limited food and food choices if 1. I didn't feel like hammered shit all the time, 2. I wasn't concerned that this could be re-launching my adrenal issues (not to mention my disordered eating issues), and 3. I believed this was helping.

I don't know that I can continue with this, suffering these low energy levels, if I'm not convinced of an eventual positive result. I'm going to have devastating effects on my strength gains, not to mention the crushing fatigue on a daily basis. Looking slightly toward the future, am I going to be able to enjoy my (once-in-a-lifetime) trip to Comic-Con if I'm tired from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep?

Oh, and let's talk about my sleep. It's not good. I'm waking up frequently and have a hard time returning to sleep. Again. A lot of the time I wake up at 2am absolutely starving. Then when I finally get out of bed at 7am I can't face the food available to me.

I know, I know that I could do this if I just had some confidence that this was working. Would work. Would help. Would solve my abdominal swelling issues. I could deal with the thought of re-doing all that hard work to beat my chronic fatigue. I could resign myself to starting from scratch again on my lifts. I could do anything (and I'm serious, I mean I could do fucking anything) if I knew that it would solve the problem. But I don't.

And honestly I don't think I've got it in me to continue to slog along under this current program, not knowing that it will help. Not knowing if I'm hurting myself more than helping myself. And now I gotta wrap this up because I think I'm gonna start crying in about thirty seconds and I fucking hate to cry, so.

Fuck.

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*hugs tight*

This definitely sounds like it's hurting you in a very bad way. Time to stop, babe. Give your body a chance to recover for a while. I understand that switching from one kind of diet to another to another can also do a number on your GI health, so that's another point of concern. Just stop. Take a breather. Love yourself for a while, whatever that means to you. I know that's hard right now, because you just want to stop having these issues, and I want you to stop having these issues too, but damn girl, you need a BREAK from stressing about this because hell knows the stress of this is probably a contributor too.

<3

Thank you. There are really good words and what I need to hear. You're right. The stress of trying experiment after experiment is probably doing me more harm than good. I know what excess cortisol does (kills me slowly), and the swelling? Well, that might be something I have to deal with the rest of my life, but I don't think it's going to (literally) kill me.

<3333

Sometimes you just have to let yourself collapse and have a good cry, too. That's okay and it's cathartic and healthy. You are a lovely person and you deserve to have nice things and I have faith that you will find something that will help.

*hugs* Do you have any resources that you can consult--medical, people who've done it--to get an idea of how long it was before they started to see any results? I mean, I know all the bodies are different, but maybe if it's something with a slow improvement curve, that might give you the boost you need to stick with it a little longer to see if it works for you?

Or if you're miserable and tired all the time, and it's been a week, and you feel like there's no gain in it, then it seems like good self-care to stop and try something new, or maybe come back to it when you have more energy (when things aren't so hot, and you don't have important Comic Con type things to worry about being able to do).

Either way, I hope things get better.

I don't have anyone to consult about this particular diet, no. But I think (after having a very weepy afternoon with

mckitterick that I'm going to stop trying things on my own. I think I'm gonna (deep breath) start the process of seeing if I can get an appointment at the Mayo clinic or something similar.

*whew*

Do you know Lydiastattoos on Tumblr? I am pretty sure she was a patient there back in the spring. I can check with her, if you want.

Oh, yeah, that would be great. If you don't mind? I don't know or follow her, but I always get a grin out of her name.

Thank you!

Sometimes, an experiment is successful if it tells us that something doesn't work. Sending all the good thoughts your way, honey.

Yep. There's no such thing as a failed experiment. Thank you for the good thoughts.

I'm so sorry. Your food issues are a goddamn tragedy. I've spent my life blithely uncaring, and here you care so much. I don't know how you cope, with no such thing as just having a bowl of cereal or eating some spinach dip.

Wish you could just let yourself have a rest from issues, you know?

Well, in a way, I am going to take a rest. Not from the issues, but a rest from trying to fix them, anyway. With

mckitterick's strong encouragement, I'm going to see how to go about getting an appointment at the Mayo clinic, or another similarly inter-disciplinary medical facility.

Also, thank you for saying such kind things. I needed to hear them today.

Edited 2014-06-08 23:17 (UTC)

Holy crap, that's rough. I have no frame of reference for this at all.

You tried a new tactic, it doesn't appear to be positive, and in fact seems to be negative... sounds like a good decision to regroup.

Regrouping AS I TYPE THIS. I warmed up a bowl of my allowed food (low-fat meatballs with pureed acorn squash) except I added a big dollop of chicken fat to it, along with some salt and pepper. I ate it, it was delicious and I actually feel a hell of a lot better already.

Uber low fat is double plus ungood.

Oh honey.

I'm glad that a bit more fat, calories and some seasoning helped you to feel better. We just got done with our running around finding a fridge (can you appreciate the irony that we, who've given away more freezers and fridges over the past six years have to go BUY them when ours go kaput?! ha!). If I'd known you needed a bit more than a soak, I'd called you right up.

I think backing away from all of this momentarily will be good. I'm concerned about all this measuring and comparing more measurements every day, more than once a day and then not eating well on top of it.. that's got to be hard on you not only intestinally, but emotionally as well. I agree that a multi-specialty place may be in order, although I'm not sure that you're going to get more than the usual allopathic medical textbook help at the Mayo, and getting a referral may be challenging.

EDIT: Eeeeek. Never mind about that clinic I mentioned. I just read the neurologists' bios and um backawaynothankyounogospelwithmydiagnosisthankyouverymuch.

I think those rounds of antibiotics they shoved at you with the SIBO diagnosis previously may have done more harm in the long run. *sigh* *pat, pat* I feel for you.. I really, really do. I want you to be able to eat/drink things like the yummy no lactose kefir I found and have cheat days with me. :(

Edited 2014-06-08 23:50 (UTC)

mckitterick came home and soothed me, so I had some good support. I might still hit you up for a soak sometime soon, though. Especially if these cooler days keep up.

The thing that I think that could help at a clinic that has different specialists working together is I don't think my illness is caused by any one thing. Finding a holistic solution (whether it's allopathic or naturopathic) is crucial. And TBH, I think I've exhausted Dr. Khosh's solutions. He helped get my energy levels back up, but the GI stuff isn't responding to anything and it's been two years.

Edit: Looking through those doctors, I only see the one Bozo Xtian Dude, and I wouldn't go to him anyway because Old White Man. I don't see any endocrinologists or GI specialists in the bunch, though, so... =(

Edited 2014-06-09 00:48 (UTC)

Several of them have the "quotes".. so I suspect it's a whole practice full. You're right, no GIs. hmph. (Besides that, I won't rule out some OWM at face value, tho'.. Ron Burt is pretty cool.)

Yes, I'd say you've given Khosh a fair enough trial to get your health in order. Time to move on.

GO, YOU!

RAWR

Sounds like you've got some good advice from everyone, as well as some good plans in place.

I was going to suggest not so much giving up completely but jumping down the line a bit, to a modified maintenance diet or something like that (though it seems thats a lot of what you have been doing, what with the more paleo eating or eliminating some items). I was thinking how some people do the full GAPS eating for a bit to get a handle on it and see if they have results, then start from the very beginning.

And good gods, you know we need you in top fighting form for Comic Con!

There are definitely some things I won't be reintroducing to my diet that I know are problematic--nuts and dried fruit top that list--and I'm going to try sticking to only the allowable foods on the SCD list that are also paleo appropriate. See if that helps. If I can keep the swelling down to only two or so inches, that's a heck of a lot better than four or five inches.

I have issues with eczema and there are some reports of a low nickel diet helping out, and when I read that list of foods I thought, "Well, we'll see how much of the issue I can live with and when it becomes a bigger problem". I have a nickel allergy, probably acquired when I put cheap earrings in not-yet-healed ear piercings. Bodies. WTF.

Low nickel. Huh! Never even heard of that. I'll google it this morning. Thanks!

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