Stress is such a bugger!

We all like to pretend that stress doesn't matter.  We like to think we are handling it or that we are not stressed.  My husband purchased me the Inner Balance gadget for Christmas with a lovely meditation pillow. Inner Balance is a cord (with an app, of course!) that you plug it into your "i" device, in my case my iPad, and clip it onto your ear.  The sensor on your ear measures your heart rate variability as a way to determine your level of stress and help you learn how to train your mind to bring your heart rate variability to a less stressful pace. There is a lot of science around it, books, etc. none of which I was interested in enough to read.

The first few uses over Christmas break I was easily able to keep it in the green (meaning good heart rate variability, low stress and their term "coherence").  Fast forward a couple of months and I have increase to level 2 and am trying to do around 10 minutes of my HeartMath every day.  Some days, more often than not, it's HARD to get into and stay in coherence.  Dang!  I thought with all my yoga and everything that I was so chill. Apparently not :(  It's amazing how I can be sitting there doing great, in the green, and my mind just wanders to something I have to do or don't want to do and boom! I immediately go into the red.  Then you have to focus again on breath, gratitude, heart thoughts, working your way through blue back to green only to wander and go back to red.  Wow!  It's so much more relaxing to be unplugged and not know :)

I've found when I eat in a rush or under any stress my food just sits in a giant lump in my stomach and doesn't want to go anyway.  I get a little reflux even sometimes.  If it happens to be dinner when this goes down then the next morning can be rough.  So, even though Dr. Pimental has done research that shows that stress alone does not cause SIBO, it can definitely contribute to your symptoms and inhibit your ability to digest.  And remember that the stress hormone cortisol is catabolic, meaning it breaks things down, definitely not helpful for healing!

I eat dead food...

according to Ayurveda, the sister science to yoga.  Ayruveda says food should be prepared fresh and eaten right away. Leftovers, items that have been frozen or canned are apparently dead and do not feed the body.  I can only seem to chew veggies if I cook the bejeezus out of them so I'm sure there is not much nutrition left to them at all.  Is it worth eating them at all??  A friend posted this on her fb group a while back but I promptly ignored it.  There's   I'm eating too much, not taking my time and chewing enough (hard with all the orthodontia) and just feeling overly full most of the day.  I am off all ox bile and HCL while I treat the H. Pylori and that's not helping at all.  I read today that the itch can come from H. Pylori (my friend always suggests histamines, which I DO NOT want to hear!).  I'm banking on the pylori (and lactase) for now since it's primarily after meals and all freaking night after my Resolor. Need to do something about that.

And I was reminded of this today which has a lot of similarities but with actual science behind it.

As I mentioned before if I eat the same thing every day my digestion stays spot on but I am really feeling the need to shake up my diet.  I feel swollen and kind of gross.  I'm eating waaaaaay too much chocolate.  I keep threatening elemental (which would not be good for my adrenals or thyroid) or just scrapping the whole lot which wouldn't been good for my SIBO.  I need to come up with a reasonable middle ground.  I just can't imagine not reaching for my frozen jars of (dead) soup.  I did drag out the dehydrator today and dehydrated some kale.  I pulled out a raw bread recipe book in hopes of making some raw wraps out of greens and herbs.  We'll see how well I tolerate them.  I really don't want to pull out my juicer, it's just a beast and I hate cleaning it.

I do know I need to make the time to do my daily yoga practice, meditate 12 minutes a day (that's the minimum necessary for positive brain benefits) and take time to read.

Alright, enough bitching and moaning for now :)  Everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Links I found interesting

Some articles I have found interesting:
Is stress damaging your gut?

And videos:
SIBO patient follow up with Dr. Ruscio - it's all well and good IF and only IF you are symptom free (for the most part anyway).  There are those of us (me) whose numbers are really low but still have symptoms.  Frustrating to say the least, especially when those last few numbers don't want to budge.

Recipes I'm contemplating:
keto peanut butter fudge bars by RuledMe - I have a hard time getting enough fat without consuming dairy or intact nuts (can't chew them well enough), coconut or chocolate.  So many fat bombs are chocolate and I already eat too much of it!  In this recipe I will sub ghee for butter and coconut milk fat for heavy cream.

This podcast was quite interesting:
High Intensity Health with Dr. Russell Jaffe - they touch on SIBO at around 48ish minutes and what he has to say pretty interesting.  Not sure he understands how recalcitrant SIBO can be for some of us!

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.

The Depression Sessions

I know, I know, you're not depressed.  I purchased the Depression Sessions and have seen clips from this upcoming event and I can tell you it is not to be missed.  It's all about the gut, healing, detoxification, supporting the body, etc.  I've added broccoli sprouts to my repretoire after watching Tom Malterre.  Little powerhouses for sure.  Ben Lynch is coming on to talk about methylation.  It's gonna be awesome!  And seriously, it's free!  How much better can it get??

And I mean really, can anyone deal with SIBO without being at least a little bit discouraged and down on occasion?!?!  I've had my fair share of wallowing moments for sure :)

http://thedepressionsessions.com/

There's more to methylation than MTHFR??

Methylation is definitely the word of the day/week/month.  I tested for MTHFR back in April, the link is here, found out I was heterzygous for MTHFR A1298C which can have an impact on methylation but that doesn't mean for sure there is an impact.  I didn't understand the rest of the numbers (and my ND wasn't any help) so I put the results in the lab file.  A few days ago I listened to Chris Kresser's most recent podcast, Methylation 101. He also did a podcast a while back that's a great primer.  So I pulled back out the file and started doing a little digging.  Given all my various homo and heterozygous snps I am at risk for not clearing ammonia readily, various mood issues, low B12, low Vit D and an excess of cortisol because for some reason I can turn it off but then can't metabolize it to clear it out.  Of course Chris and Dr. Nett did say that just because you have the snps doesn't mean you express them, you have to do further testing to see how your methylation is actually working. Another test?

A friend (who also did the 23andMe and GeneticGenie) then forwarded a post from this blog.  There are so many posts on this Dr's site about methylation and the impact on the gut (and SIBO) but no real information about what to do about it (you have to become a patient to find that out).  Although I did read in one of the many posts that phenols like resveratrol and green tea extract will compete for the same metabolic pathway as estrogen and adrenalin.  I already know I am estrogen dominant so I'm going to pull that out of my current supplement regimen since I also do turmeric and fish oil for inflammation.  There is so much information here but since I don't know who he is I'm taking it all with a grain of salt.  It's just hard because it seems so few providers out there seem to fully understand this stuff so I don't feel like I can go to any of my current ND's for clarification.

Just mind boggling.  Makes me want to take a nap.

Had blood drawn this morning for Cyrex 3, 4 and 10 this morning.  Results should take about 2 weeks.  And since I've been eating wheat for the last 3 weeks I might take a look at my thyroid antibodies.  It's heart month and all those tests are on sale so I'm tempted to see where my cholesterol is. I've decided I'm going to do a breath test to see where I'm at May 26th (unless I run out of antimicrobials sooner or change my mind!).

Up, Up, Up...

For the past 10 days I have been packing on the pounds, like 8lbs!  I haven't changed my diet except for eating jasmine rice 3 or 4 times, maybe a little more honey than I should (still well under 2 tsp a day), certainly not an extra 28,000 calories :)  I've been walking less than usual too, now that I think about it.  I usually walk 2 miles every day.  I've been taking days off here and there.  I'm sitting more with school - watching videos, taking notes, studying. So overall less active.  Still attending 5 or 6 yoga classes a week.  Still not sure that should add up to that much extra weight and when I measured last night I was a full 2" bigger around my belly. Yowza!  No wonder I feel like crud.

The other thing I have done is discontinued the T3 and added in the Adrenomend, Thyrocare and Adrenal PX.  Seems like hormones more likely are having a bigger impact than the above.  I added back in the T3 two days ago as my temps have been too low again (although my temporal thermometer just told me I'm at 100.00 degrees!).  Wonder how long it will get everything to normalize??

And the 3rd thing is the festering infection in my face that I mostly ignored until it started traveling down my neck and up my face. This last screw is a bugger. It just won't heal and I'm sure I'm getting food trapped in the wound so I've become diligent the last several days about using my Hydrofloss after every meal and then oil pulling with MCT and a few drops of OnGuard, Melaleuca and Clove.  I made a topical formula that I am rubbing on the outside of my cheek and on the bottom of my feet every couple of hours.  Thankfully it is resolving because my husband was about to drag my butt to the doctor.  That kind of physical stress can provoke a cortisol response which further messes with hormones.  I have one week to get it completely healed and then they place one on the other side. Hopefully I've learned my lesson with this one and will do better next time.

I think I've got things back under control again and was down 1/2 lb this morning, the first drop I've seen in weeks.  Phew!

The sucky part is with all the new herbals for adrenal and thyroid (6), and the anti-inflammatory supps (3) I've added I am up to more than 20 pills with breakfast.  There is only ONE capsule that is a SIBO killer.  ONE!

Just Breathe

Stick with me here, I am going somewhere.

Exerpts from "Mind, Body, and Sport" by John Douillard
"Humans come into this world as nose breathers.  We are "obligate nose breathers," to be scientific, which means we do not possess the voluntary ability to breath through our mouths.  Mouth breathing is a learned response triggered by emergency stress."

He goes on to talk about how babies breathe through their nose until they get a cold and can no longer breathe through their nose, they panic, then what do they do??  They cry, "which forces air through the mouth and into the lungs".

"The survival response triggers certain emergency fight-or-flight receptors in the upper lobes of the lungs, which help the infant deal with extreme stress.  Also , the lower lobes of the lungs are an abundance of parasympathetic nervous system receptors.  When activated with nasal breathing, they calm the mind and rejuvenate the body."

"Thus it is from an early age we are conditioned so that under the first sign of stress, including exercise stress later in life, we shift into our emergency mode of breathing - through the mouth."

He goes on to state that most people breathe through the mouth and in doing so limit their breathing mainly to the chest.  "Chest breathing fills the middle and upper portions of the lungs but doesn't efficiently engage the blood-rich lower lobes...... For chest breathing to supply enough oxygen, both breathing and heart rate must be faster."  You may think, so what, I can't breathe well through my nose so I have to breathe through my mouth.  This is what he has to say: "This shallow breathing soon becomes a way of life, causing the following:

• Activates upper-chest stress receptors (that can actually stimulate a fight or flight form of arousal)
• Activation of stress receptors triggers the burning of sugar and storing of fat
• Denies access to the lower calming, oxygen rich lower lobes
• Compromises waste removal through lower lung breathing
• The ribs and chest become inflexible
• Compromise lymphatic drainage and circulation to the rib cage, breast, heart and lungs
• The thoracic spine, where the ribs attach, become stiff and rigid, which affects spinal biomechanics
• The diaphragm affects digestive function, contributing to indigestion, heartburn and hiatal hernias.
• Neck and shoulders become tight due to excessive upper-chest shallow breathing
• Sinuses become congested from discontinued use
• The sense of smell and taste is affected
• The cranial bones stay supple from nasal breathing and become stiff and rigid without it."

Wow and Yikes!  I can tell you from having sinus issues of my own years ago that I breathed mostly through my mouth for years.  I have a lot of the issues listed above.  I've worked hard the last year to get flexibility back into my neck, shoulders and ribs through my thoracic.  It's not easy.  My nasal passages still feel a bit restricted but I can breathe through my nose now without feelings like I am going to suffocate.  He recommends using Breathe Right strips in the beginning as they can "decrease nasal resistance by 30 percent".  That's a pretty big number.  

It's also fascinating that he states that most mammals that have the ability to cool themselves through sweating breathe through their mouths only in times of stress.  When's the last time you saw a horse or a cow breathing through it's mouth?  They're too busy using it to eat.

Diaphragmatic breathing on the other hand draws air down into the blood rich lower lobes. "There is a remarkable parallel in the calming and relaxing influence of deep, nasal, diaphragmatic breathing on a nursing infant, and on an athlete experiencing the runner's high during exercise."

Even if you are not an athlete, try to be conscious of how you breathe and what it is telling your body.  Take some time out every day to take breaths deep into your belly and push it all the way out, especially right before you eat.  We spend far too much time walking around holding our stomachs in and all this does is force the contents of your intestinal tract up which contributes to crappy motility and constipation.  

Really, there's no reason not to work on this.  Who doesn't have time to breathe?  It's free.

Sometimes you just have to fake it 'til you make it....

I am reminded of this whenever I listen to a podcast with Chris Kresser and he tells the story of his own recovery from parasites and intestinal woes.  He immersed himself in getting physically better, was uber strict diet and followed his protocol to the letter but still wasn't getting better.  Eventually he got tired of the isolation and decided this wasn't a life.  He started hanging out with friends again, loosened up on his diet a bit and he got better, stronger.  Social isolation isn't healthy.  Focusing on your illness doesn't help your stress level.  Sometimes you have to take a step back, breathe and just live.

It reminds me of my grandmother.  She was a hypochondriac, at least that's what you called it back in the day.  We couldn't wear ANY fragrance around her whatsoever.  No scented lotions on days we were going to see her, nothing.  Her big thing was asthma and the slightest thing would send her into a spell which would result in her being rushed to the hospital by ambulance and an overnight stay.  Funny thing is, she got Alzheimers/Dementia and the worse her mind got the better her health was.  No issues with asthma, not a complaint in the world.  She looked healthy, her hair shiny and her skin just glowed.  Not saying that losing your mind will cure all your woes, but finding ways to reduce your stress and forget your problems just might.

Yoga does this for me.  No one at any of the studios know that I have digestive woes, or autoimmune issues.  I walk in the door and I am just another yogi.  I pretend to be strong and healthy.  Even on days when I struggle both physically and mentally, I still feel better than when I am at home wallowing in misery.  Not that I'm miserable, that would be a total exaggeration, but it can be a real drag, you know.  And it's easy to get caught up in researching this protocol and that, talking to people on various online support groups, second guessing your every move.  I'm not saying you should all run out and join a yoga studio but maybe you should find an escape of some sort.  Something that you can enjoy without thinking "can I eat this" or "should I be taking that".  Start living a little.  Get some fresh air.  Be happy.  Or just be.