Counting down to school

School starts here on Sept 2nd.  I am really excited to get back into a regular yoga practice. It benefits my mind and my gut, not to mention my neck.  Summer is hard with the kid and activities and travel.  I'm not great at doing a home practice.  I usually end up tweaking something when I do because I skimp on the warmup.

Hen Pecked

We have a broody hen.  Her name is Mama and she is the best mother hen.  She has hatched several batches of meat chicks for us.  When a hen goes broody they sit on the nest eating and drinking very little if at all (the nest would get quite messy if they did). Mama goes broody 2-3 times a year and it takes a lot out of her.  She is skin, bones and a mass of feathers.  She has only been broody a week (mistake number one) and the chicks I bought yesterday look about a week old (mistake number two).  Under the cover of darkness last night we tried to sneak them into the nest. She was a bit resistant, pecking at us but we thought she would settle.  This morning she continued to peck at the chicks, driving them out of the nest.  Ugh!  So now I have 8 chicks in a brooder and a hen that I need to break of her broodiness (she's sitting in a dog crate in the backyard, cooling off).  It's so much easier to let the mama hen raise the chicks.  I hate to have to hassle with heat lamps.  But that's where we are.

Weight and bloat SLOWLY resolving..

It would be so nice if all the weight and the bloat disappeared as quickly as it comes on.  2 lbs of water weight went away pretty quickly after my half bottle of wine but the big ole belly has been hanging around.  I BINGED on chocolate yesterday, like 5 mini homemade mini Reeses peanut butter cups AND a whole chocolate mint pie from Whole Foods.  This morning my belly is down to normal size and I've even come down another 1/2 lb.  Imagine if chocolate were the cure!  LOL!

So with this bloat my mind has been busy contemplating options.  I have 5 days of Rifaximin in my cabinet and a bunch of Allicin.  I know a few people who are trying the Guar Gum (up to 1 tsp) 20-30 minutes before you take your antimicrobials.  I'm intrigued to say the least. My numbers are low but my symptoms indicate the need for continued treatment.  I'm also contemplating Candibactin AR & BR.  I tested positive for thyme (on the Array 10) but I cut it out for several weeks and recently had it in a batch of soup and did not react so I may be good to go.  We obviously know the fish is still a no go.

In the meantime I am adding the OrthoBiotic back in with breakfast to see how it goes and have ordered Motilpro to add in at bedtime.  Serrapeptase will be added before meals, it may help break down biofilms and even if it doesn't it helps with protein digestion which I still need. I am continuing with the Endozin (Zinc-Carnosine and L-Glutamine) and the PrescriptAssist at lunchtime.  So rebuild, refeed and keep sweepin'.

Idaho camping recap

Let me just start out by saying HOLY SMOKES!  Forest fires everywhere.  I really didn't understand until I drove to the eastern part of our state and there is just a trough of smoke coming out of the Chelan/Methow area.  Wow!  I don't have cable tv and don't watch the news.  I browse the newspaper every day but there really hasn't been much printed.  We only had one day where you could smell the smoke strongly and woke up the next day with ash on the car.  The rest of the time it was sufficiently windy that we could see it but not really smell it.

So this is what I ate for breakfast just about every morning while camping.  Hamburger patty, grilled green beans, 1/2 avocado and hot chocolate. Oh, and a shot of probiotic tonic (sauerkraut juice).

This was my usual lunch (more like a snack) - Pemmican, kale chips and macadamia nuts. We were really bummed that our US Wellness meats order arrived the day we left so we couldn't pack beef sticks (same as pepperoni but without the spice).

I ended up needing to get rid of veggies in the refrigerator before we left so I ended up with a few days of the usual sauteed curry vegetables I eat at home, usually with grilled chicken. 

I ate salmon the first night we were there and broke out in a belly rash.  It was the first time I have tried it since it came up positive on my Array 10.  I pretty much remained rashed and just a bit itchy because I ate eggs too.  

Wine, oh wine.  I really don't miss it but we drank it 3 nights.  One night my husband and I split a whole bottle while sitting around the fire pit at the ranch we stayed at in Cle Elum.  It was so nice to have a fire and we celebrated.  My digestion transitioned to great and stayed there.  I tapered off of all my antimicrobials while camping as I ran out.  I switched from Kal Garlicare with Red Yeast Rice to Jarrow Formulas Red Yeast Rice + Nattokinase.  I should have kept track of the switch but didn't.  It happened sometime during the trip and could be responsible for some of the increase in motility.

And the potatoes....  gained yet another 2 lbs eating potatoes.  I know I shouldn't but I love the skin of baked potatoes and my son and husband do not.  I can't stand to see they get tossed so ended up eating them a couple of different nights.  And the potato chips, I consumed more than my fair share of those!

The last night I tossed thinly sliced carrots in ghee, sprinkled them with salt and roasted them.  I called them carrot fries so the kids would try them and they liked them. Yay!  My husband said they were better than sweet potato fries.  I beg to differ but then again I actually love sweet potatoes and he doesn't even like them :)

The plan for now is to try to add the OrthoBiotic back in and add some Motilpro.  Probiotics and Prokinetics.  I think the bloating I was experiencing before I left was due to the sauteed kale and not the OrthoBiotic.  I'm still not very good at chewing sauteed kale, I do better with dehydrated because it just breaks apart when you chew it.  I continued to bloat off and on during the trip but I also ate kale (and potatoes and wine and waaaaay too much chocolate) throughout the trip.  So we'll see how things settle out over the next week.

Off to buy school supplies.  Where did the summer go???

Bloat much!

I am soooo bloated lately.  What the heck!  I haven't changed anything about my diet so I am suspecting the Ortho Biotic Probiotic supplement I have added in.  I am taking it out for the next trip so we'll see if things settle down.  I'm sporting an extra inch around my belly and would really it rather not be there while lounging on the lake or hitting the water park.  Ugh!

And I've found it really hard to manage getting 3 meals in that are properly spaced during the day so I switched back to 2.  I find it so much easier to eat a huge breakfast and then a big early dinner.  

For camping I'm taking mostly meat with veggies to grill - green beans, carrots, zucchini and a couple of potatoes.  Mabe a week off my usual veg heavy diet will help things settle as well.  We'll see!

And with that, I'm off.  Back in a week!

Almost there

Back to my diet, back to my walks, back to yoga, back to probiotics.  I'm almost back to normal. I keep forgetting to drink my probiotic tonic shots with breakfast and lunch but I put my pill form probiotics in with my meal supplements so I know I am getting those in.  I am taking Ortho Biotic with breakfast and PrescriptAssist with lunch.  I'll definitely be packing them on our trip next week (more camping, more mountain biking, a water park and a dude ranch).  When I get back I'll rotate them out and add Primal Defense back in.  I think it's good to switch things up.  I need to place another order for MegaSpore Biotic since that one seems to take the longest to get.  I'm also slowing tapering off my current kill protocol as I run out of supplements.  I'll keep just keep on with the biofilm and cell wall disrupters.

Oh, and I'm tapering off my thyroid medication and then I'll test my thyroid to see how it's holding up.  Hopefully my conversion from T4 to T3 has improved with the addition of Thyrosol (a Metagenics product specifically designed for supporting conversion).

Vacation recovery time

The bugs in me still love the carbs.  I have been trying to get my digestion back on track the last couple of days since returning from vacation and it's just a struggle.  I'm bloated, constipated and annoyed.  I have a love/hate relationship with vacations.  I find them fun but incredibly stressful (to be honest this was probably the most stress filled vacation I have ever been on).  

We were in Whistler and stayed in a condo with a full refrigerator and kitchen.  I packed a ton of food - ground meat, offal muffins, chicken thighs, veggie soup, stir fry veggies, coconut milk, etc.  I ate my usual breakfast of an offal muffin, veggie soup and hot chocolate.  I was doing several hours of yoga workshops/classes for 5 days (Wanderlust) so I would eat nut butter and drink tea at lunchtime, do more yoga and then come home for a dinner of curried veggies and chicken.  My digestion was holding it's own.  Same rigid diet on the same schedule I had been eating at home.

Wanderlust went away and I went back to eating 3 meals a day.  We were doing a lot of biking, hanging out at the lake, having more relaxing days.  I started nibbling on potato chips here and there with meals and ate french fries one day when we went out to dinner with friends.  I drank a glass of wine one night too close to bedtime and ended up a bloated, nauseuos, painful mess in the middle of the night. We packed up and moved into a yurt and everything just trickled to a halt. Bristol scale - 1. I'm not complaining, I thank my lucky stars that things are moving.  I have to admit I am a little envious of the people who easily clear this or move on with life, asymptomatic even though they still have some infection.  For some of us, it's just not that easy, we blink and things just fall apart.  

Came home Monday night and I treated myself to a hot chocolate after nearly 8 hours on the road home.  Again, too close to bedtime and I ended up awake half the night, bloated and nauseous.  Arg!  Oh, and I'm still actively treating (red yeast rice with garlic, oreganol, Biocidin, Olivirex, etc, etc) so what the heck!  Shouldn't all these antimicrobials be taking care of business!  

I started in with this.  Aromatic spice formula, ha!  It feels like squirting fire up your nose.  I have always had sinus issues so I wonder about an overgrowth of commensal bacteria.  I'm too lazy to schedule an appt to get my sinuses cultured (I have an appt in late September) so I thought I'd see if the SinuOrega would make a difference with my symptoms. 

Things I would have changed:

• Taken my probiotics with me and LOADED up.  I took my probiotic tonic but that was not enough.
• Stayed away from the carbs! Knowing that my system was already taxed from stress I should have stayed away from the carbs!  I tolerate them okay when life is easy and good but clearly not otherwise.
• Been a little better prepared before leaving and not overpacked on everything.  This creates more stress because things start thawing and produce starts spoiling.
• Communicate better with my family so we all are on the same page before splitting up or making plans.  To be honest, much of the time it felt like we were on someone else's vacation.  We didn't do enough of the things that we love doing.
• Sometimes you just have to embrace "the hippy shit" as my husband's friend Amy calls it.  My family was doing yoga together and it turned into a big circle lovefest and we ran.  We should have just gone with it, but in all honesty I kinda wanted to go meditate.

I have a week to get my shit together before we pack up and head to Idaho.  Will definitely be better prepared and do things differently.