July 28, 2015 by Elizabeth Milo

Not a cheery post.

I wish I had the ability to write because I have so much I don’t want to forget. I’ve taken quite a nosedive this last month and I’m feeling pretty hopeless and sad. I have many new symptoms and I’m still trying to contend with the old.

Most recently, my jaw has been injured by my apnea oral device. It feels partially dislocated in the mornings and the pain is truly excruciating– from my lower jaw all the way up to my skull above my right temple. Talking is painful, eating is painful. I’m fearful that I will cause permanent damage (or have already). This is in no way trivial. One of the only things I’ve been able to identify that helps my illness is the CPAP and oral device, when I can actually sleep while using them. I’ve tried to go back to the CPAP to give my jaw a break, but it wakes me up incessantly throughout the night and makes me feel worse than if I didn’t sleep at all. Sleep is the key to my healing. There’s nothing that will take me down quicker than lack of sleep or poor sleep and the apnea is no joke. My only option is to wear the CPAP and take a medication to knock me out. This… I don’t know, I can’t even articulate how despairing this makes me feel. I can’t tolerate any drugs. There’s not one I have tried for sleep that doesn’t either cause an allergic reaction or make me feel much worse. Having to deal with the CPAP–the washing every day, the tight strap around my already-injured neck, the rash and acne on my face, the blowing my gut up with air, the endless awakenings–I am so upset about having to go back to this. Plus, trialling sleep meds when my sleep had gotten better! I don’t want to be on more prescriptions and I can’t afford to be. So, because of my jaw, a cascade of pain, energy-depletion and lack of sleep. And I think I might have to see a new doctor about my TMJ, which I need like I need a hole in my head. Or a new jaw injury.

My gut problems have gotten worse, if that was possible. I’m permanently inflamed and don’t digest well, even with HCL and enzymes. I now have to do an enema every other day or so. Another thing for which I have to find time and energy. ~~And the more downhill I go, the more I fear a day in the future when my husband has to help with this.~~ Don’t even read that. It’s too gross and unbearable to think about. The only plus side of this situation is I’m very thankful for the detox help that enemas provide. Much better than being constipated.

Sleep, pain, headaches and exhaustion have been worse this last month. I’ve had no appetite, but have actually gained weight. The muscle pain and stiffness more than anything upsets me. I can’t go back to the pain I had in 2012; it was all-encompassing. It stops me from moving as much, talking as much or being in any way a pleasant person to be around. I can really topple quickly.

I started seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist who helped me more in the first appointment than the fancy GI specialist did with two appointments and two invasive tests. Of course, I’m only allowed twenty-five PT/OT/MT visits per year and I’ve already used twenty-two. And with Medicare, I’ll have zero. The thought of being without my strain-counterstrain PT is very disheartening. I haven’t seen him in a month and I know this is contributing to my worsening pain. He’s $150/hour without insurance.

I kind of scrapped everything I was doing with diet in order to try to fix my gut issues which started on the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) last year, but nothing has helped. Which, of course, makes me want to consider eliminating foods all over again. Gut isn’t better and I’m going downhill, so maybe the new additions caused it? Or maybe the new probiotics. Or the Florinef. Or the emotional time I’ve had recently. Or the ups and downs of the weather. Or or or…

Almost every single day, I have an awful interaction with someone in the healthcare field. It is brutal and demoralizing. I just hung up in tears after talking to a clinic’s billing person who argued every point I made. Anger wrecks me and people just don’t want to help, so I’m reduced to weeping. I said to her, “Am I asking something out of the norm? You seem very annoyed.” They charge $150 for a half hour phone appointment, $300 for 45 minutes, so what choice do I have than to go in to see doctors and have to deal with insurance and billing?

Yesterday, I was almost in tears because my endocrinologist’s nurse was incredibly rude for the umpteenth time and for no good reason. Because I’m trying to figure out if the doctor can give me info over the phone rather than in person, because I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to get from the office to the lab for a blood draw when it is in a different building on the hospital campus, because I need to research growth hormone stimulation tests before I agree to it, because I didn’t want contrast with my MRI and they made a mistake and put the wrong order in…. These people are in charge of my care, I need them, but they battle every question. Endless phone calls about two things: money and protecting myself.

Well, this has been a cheery post. I kind of hope nobody reads this rant, but I’m going to publish it anyway.

March 19, 2015 by Elizabeth Milo

March Update

I haven’t done an update in forever and it’s a shame because I look back on my updates a lot to see how I was in the past and compare it to how I am now. It looks like I’m at about the same level of functioning as I was at this time last year. A little worse, unfortunately. Last year, I was walking more steps, had been out in the garden more, was driving a bit (I drove to an appointment this week for the first time in forever, so there is some progress).

I’m still trying to regain some ground after the onslaught of nocturnal mast cell/viral/ME/inflammatory bowel reactions that started in September when I tried Cromolyn. Thanksgiving and Christmas were probably the two sickest nights of my life. As soon as I was resurfacing from Christmas, I got hit by another one on January 12th. As soon as I was feeling recovered from that, I had another one on January 28th and then again on the 31st. I stopped everything, including writing. For three weeks, I laid low and tried to reset my body. My constipation had become severe, so I had been taking massive doses of various different kinds of magnesium and I was afraid this was contributing to the episodes because there always seems to be some sort of bowel inflammation component involved (I get aches and what feels like electric pins and needles in my bowels and my flanks when I’m very constipated). When I quit magnesium, the constipation became critical — and a bit comical with the size of my protruding belly. I’m so uncomfortable, I wake up in the night when I roll over onto the poop baby inside of me. Where do the other organs go? I’m not sure how I continue to eat and I’m not sure why I continue to eat. You’d think at some stage I would just give my gut a break and eat liquid food, but I’m always hungry. I tried Triphala, Gentian, Medibulk, digestive enzymes, massage, enemas, prunes, oatmeal, even my old standby Wormwood stopped working. Which led me to the glycerine suppository on Oscar night which caused the (anaphylactic?) collapse on the bathroom floor. So, tonight I’ll be taking the generic polyethylene glycol (Miralax/Movical) that I have been avoiding because, if it’s too harsh, it’ll trigger a vasovagal reaction and I could pass out or, if it’s mild cramping, it’ll keep me up in the night. Not to mention it’s a nasty drug and probably made in China. But enough about that…

My father was visiting when the suppository episode happened and, a few days after he left, my mother came. That’s it from Christmas until now. That is my 2015. One quarter of a year summed up: reaction-recovery-reaction-recovery-reaction-recovery-reaction-recovery-visitor-visitor. Thank god for the visitors because the rest is really depressing. My friend M recently said that he fears not seeing those he loves ever again and, as we get older, that concern becomes more and more pressing. I think this all the time with my parents living so far away. Their visits allowed me to breathe easier. They filled me up with sustenance and gave me a little more mettle to carry on. I am incredibly lucky to have such a supportive and loving family. Recently, Jen Brea asked the ME community to post the most compassionate word or giving act ever received in relation to our illness (a very moving thread) and all I could think was, my family, my siblings, my parents, my best friends… their messages, words of encouragement, interest in learning about ME, physical help, monetary help, emotional help… Where would I be without them?

Both visits were wonderful and were needed more than I realised. My mother helped me with a hundred tasks I haven’t been able to accomplish and I got to hear all about my brothers and nieces and nephews, whom she had just visited. We managed to drive to the beach dog park twice: first, with my father and sister and, again, with my mother. It has been glorious weather in Seattle and getting out of the house is always the highlight of my months.

Yay! Beach!

Damn, he’s a fine looking dog. ❤

The one downside was, my husband wasn’t with us the first time, so I was without his deafening whistle and another set of eyes on our smaller dog, Riley, the escape artist. He ran around the rocks at the edge of the park and took off, causing me to expend more energy than I have in many months. I stood calling at the top of my lungs, over and over, “RILEY, COME!” and then started to panic when he didn’t reappear. At the top of my lungs and panic are not things that go well with ME. My voice is not strong, but, man, when my child went missing, nothing was going to stop me yelling for him. This is a dog that is only ours because he ran away from some other home and was found in a house barn, emaciated and unable to stand up. He’s an adventurer and curious about everything, while Bowie sticks to me like glue.

When Riley finally came into view, he was up in the car park and I sprinted up the sand embankment to the fence. Sprinted and up don’t happen in my world, either. Riley looked scared. He couldn’t tell where my voice was coming from and I was worried he’d run in front of a car or disappear, never to be found. He was tearing back and forth outside the park and I was calling over and over. He finally found me and I grabbed the scruff of his neck through the fence and sat down in the sand, waiting for rescue. My 72-year old Dad clambered up the rocks (cutting his shins in the process) and got Riley on a leash. I was half catatonic on the way home, like a rag with all the water twisted out of it. I crawled to bed, but, once again, bounced back quicker than I anticipated. And it was worth it. Mount Rainier on the drive home, through my glazed eyeballs, was spectacular. My Dad said it looked like a painting of Mount Fuji.

So, what else can I tell you about the last 3 or 4 months? I haven’t really taken any supplements this whole year so far. A few here and there, but, after every big episode, I would stop everything and go back to baseline. In the last week, I have been taking trace minerals, Vitamin D, K2 and fish oil again. I’m also still on topical DHEA and progesterone and just added topical pregnenolone and I’m about to add oral progesterone. It makes me nervous using bioidentical hormones, but they don’t seem to cause a reaction and both of my NDs recommend them, so I’m going with it. Apparently, there is evidence that DHEA+pregnenolone can reduce reactivity, so the goal is to take those for a while, then try IV fluids, then try sub-cutaneous IG and maybe even make my way to IVIG one day. I’ve been trying to get there since seeing Dr. Chia 7 months ago, so who knows how long it’ll take. I’m also still on the compounded thyroid hormones. All these compounded meds are costing me a fortune, though, and are not covered by insurance. One of these days, I’ll have to call this experiment quits and go back to my generic, dye-filled, filler-filled drugs. That’s it for what I’m taking. The Equilibrant, Nystatin, Hydroxyzine, Tramadol and Singulair are all languishing in the cupboard, unopened.

I had a few blood tests done in January. The big shock is that my cholesterol is sky high. Total cholesterol is 310, LDL is 194, Apo B is 124 (ideally <109) and LDL-P (particles) is 1755 (ideally <1000). There could be many reasons for this: my continuing low thyroid, my chronic and reactivated infections (coxsackie, HHV6, EBV, varicella, candida, mycoplasma pneumoniae), leaky gut and inflammation, genetics (both of my parents have high cholesterol) or something to do with my insulin/hypoglycemia issues. But, I actually think it is mostly to do with my diet. Over a year ago, I started an elimination diet for autoimmune conditions (AIP), plus cut out most high-histamine foods (fish, shellfish and avocado etc.). I cut out oats (I had already eliminated all other grains except rice), legumes, nuts and seeds, but continued to eat white rice (and rice cakes, rice pasta etc.). After about 4 months, I began eating a lot of ghee, butter and bone broth. I had my cholesterol checked in 2013 and it was fine, as it had been my whole life. In mid-2014, it had started to crawl up and, 9 months later, it’s now a pretty big problem. I’m pretty sure it was my inadvertent reduction in soluble and insoluble fiber (especially the former), plus the changes in the type of fat I was eating that caused the lipid problem.

Other January blood tests of note: low DHEA and testosterone (still), low insulin, high homocysteine (still) and my T3 and T4 are low (STILL). Don’t tell Dr. Erin, but I’m going to increase my liothyronine myself because these teeny incremental changes are just taking too long to fix my levels. Nothing seems to get better and more abnormalities keep emerging.

I’m averaging about 1,400 steps a day and 6 hours sleep a night. When I do sleep, my sleep has been better. I just put it together now that this might be because of the progesterone supplementation, which is meant to help restful sleep. Wow, I finally made a correlation. I still can’t wear the CPAP without all hell breaking lose and the oral appliance still wrecks my jaw, but I’m managing to get a solid 5 hours most nights, with another 1-3 tossy turny hours. I have my third sleep study tomorrow to see if the OA is helping the apnea at all. My other sleep issues (pain, night terrors, constant movement and muscle spasms, awakenings post-REM sleep) are still unresolved since I haven’t been able to tolerate the drugs offered.

My headaches have also been a bit better, maybe because I backed off the salt ever so slightly. I get doozies a few times a week, but I noticed that I didn’t really have a headache the whole time my father was here. My salt loading wasn’t helping my blood pressure at all, so I might need to be medicated.

My throat spot hasn’t been itchy in a while and I think the electric shocks in my left leg have been fewer and farther between.

I stopped using the Restasis after 4 months to see if I noticed any difference and I think my eyes have been worse since stopping, but I don’t know if they’re worse enough to justify a Rx.

Sore glands in my neck, crazy tinnitus, swollen sinuses are all continuous low-key issues lately. I started taking 5-6ml of liquid Zyrtec again a few weeks ago on a whim in case anything was seasonal allergy-related. As usual, I can’t really tell anything positive or negative.

My blood sugar seems better. This could be because I’ve diversified my diet (added back many nuts, seeds, oats, goat cheese, milk, potato, corn, chickpeas) and it also helps that my new endocrinologist explained that the danger lies more in how fast my blood sugar is dropping than how low it is. This was great to hear because I have experienced those sugar crashes where it can wind up in the 40s, but I was always nervous, if, when I was going to sleep, it was 73 or something, that it would continue to plummet in the night. She reassured me that, if I don’t feel the tell-tale shakes, it’s probably ok and I don’t need to eat. Having said all that, I got out of bed this morning needing to eat right away because I was shaky and it was 63, so it’s still a delicate dance. [<~ And, after I wrote that, I had a big blood sugar crash on my way out the door to PT because I didn’t eat meat for breakfast. I had to go back inside and cook a mound of lamb and a yuca cake and eat it in the car on the way there. I was 15 minutes late. I guess hypoglycemia isn’t really any better. Gah!]

My buzzy brain and neuro symptoms are definitely still here, always incapacitating when they hit, always signalling that I need to go to bed and power down. And I’m still stiff, inflexible, pulling muscles regularly, in some pain and pretty weak. My lower back has been a major issue recently and my husband bought me a back brace that I have to wear when I’m standing in the kitchen or I’m crippled.

My mood is fine unless I’m really sick or in a lot of pain and then I’m a scared, desperate caged animal, feeling like I can’t go on another minute. When I’m really sick in bed, feeling fluish, poisoned, inflamed and broken, the dark mental cloud descends and obliterates all hope and even the very rational thought that this will ease up. I don’t forget that it has eased up in the past – seemingly, it would be easy to reassure myself that it will again, but I can’t. It’s the knowledge that I couldn’t continue living if it didn’t ease up that causes the black blanket of fear.

But enough about that…

10153765_10152436013152811_9205933814512292890_n

The last time I was out on the scooter.

The bad news is, my scooter died at the end of December. It was my one lifeline to freedom and, although I only got out on it for about an hour each month, I lived for that hour. So, I have to figure out a way to get another. The best case scenario would be one that I could lift into my car myself. The cemetery is only a few blocks away and, ideally, I’d like to go for little outings without needing my husband and his truck, since he’s not home very much. I’m also thinking about the future when I have a smaller dog and will, I hope, have the strength to walk him on a leash using the scooter. Not sure there are any scooters that disassemble to light enough parts or that I would have the energy to put in the car, drive, take out and assemble, ride around for a bit, take apart and put back in the car, drive home, take out of the car again… Now that I see that in print, it seems a Herculean and impossible task. Plus, we can’t really afford one, anyway, when we spend more than we bring in every month. When we win the lotto, we can buy a scooter and a transport van that it can drive into. Or maybe I’ll just get better.

The good news is, everything is blooming and the smells in the garden are incredible. 🙂

This took me over a week to write, so apologies if it’s disjointed. Until next time… XO

May 26, 2014 by Elizabeth Milo

What I’m doing now that may or may not be making a difference.

This morning, I had a high resting heart rate of 67 bpm. Yesterday, by comparison, it was 56. Since I’ve been tracking my morning HR, it has been a fairly good predictor of how stable my body will remain throughout the day. I anticipate that today it will be a little more difficult to go up and down stairs, I’ll have to rest a bit more, my blood pressure might be lower and I’ll undoubtedly take fewer steps than my current norm. I can tell by how achy I was this morning. But, last night, while getting ready for bed, I was happy and hopeful. I was feeling like I could really get better enough to live again and I vowed to write a post today about all the things I do that may or may not be helping.

I’m a completely different person than I was over Christmas. I thought I might never talk properly again, walk more than a few shuffling steps again, that I might just die in my room. I’m so happy now, my skin looks good (the dermatologist’s protocol worked!), I haven’t had to check my blood pressure or blood sugar in months because I feel stable. I don’t know what has brought about the difference, but I’ll list everything I do here so that I can reference it in the future and maybe it’ll help someone.

I stopped panicking about my sleep. Of course, if I get fewer than 4 hours, I’m upset and worried, but I seem to be able to sleep pretty well from 12am to 5 or 6am, so, I’m going to trust my body and be okay with that. When I’m crippled and hazy from lack of sleep, I remember the eternity I spent in viral, malarial night sweat hell. There is not much these days that is as bad as my nights were from November 2011 to early 2013. I will never be able to adequately describe how sick I was as my body tried to rid itself of whatever evil has invaded. So, I will take constant awakenings and nightmares in a DRY bed any day.
I track my resting HR every morning before getting up and before taking my thyroid hormones.
I lie in bed for a few hours in the morning, cuddling with my dogs and reading, with the shades open to let light in and set my body clock.
I wear my pedometer every day and have been taking 1300-1500 steps a day for the last two months versus 300-600 in December.
I usually have my light box on for about 45 minutes while I’m on the computer with my morning tea.
I only drink teas that I have researched and I trust the companies (their growing procedures, their tea bag materials– here’s some good help) and, besides my morning decaf black tea, I only drink teas that can supposedly help with one of my symptoms (tulsi, roasted dandelion root, ginger, chamomile, peppermint, licorice, fennel).
I drink a vegetable juice every few days in the morning, on an empty stomach (following these tips).
I do preemptive rests, as well as recovery rests. I lie down a minimum of 3 hours a day (on top of the 12+ hours I’m in bed at night). Ideally, this would be in 3 separate hour-long meditations, but it often winds up being 2 sessions. When I’m not doing very well, I can usually get out of bed for a few hours in the morning and the evening, but I might spend from 12pm to 7pm in bed, on top of 10pm to 10am. My preemptive rests consist of relaxation and meditation. They work by recharging my body and brain in what feels remarkably like what I imagine an old crappy phone gets when plugged in for an hour (my best friend described my body this way when I was still functioning and not housebound and I didn’t quite get how accurate it was until I spent a year “plugging in” to bed throughout the day). Recovery rests are different. My initial warning signs these days are neurological: my voice gets very weak and I slur badly and can’t find words. My head hurts, vision gets blurry, tinnitus cranks up, coordination is off and I get internal tremors. Everything takes immense concentration. The worst symptom, though, is what I call my “buzzy head.” It’s like internal tremors in my brain. My forehead feels numb and my brain physically feels like it is buzzing and vibrating… like every mitochondrion is rocking back and forth, sputtering and smoking, trying its best to spit out a little more energy– billions of microscopic engines, overheating, gauges in the red, pushed to the max. When this hits, it’s a really bad idea to push through and I go straight to bed and usually fall into a brief in-and-out, trance-like sleep as my brain recharges.
I do breathing exercises every day. While resting and during meditation, I do deep breathing techniques that I learned from a video to help with MS pain. They help strengthen my diaphragm and increase oxygen and carbon dioxide. Then, throughout my rests (and any time I think about it throughout the day), I practice abdominal breathing to help settle my nervous system and calm the fight or flight response, which we live with permanently when we have central sensitization issues. Jackie over at lethargicsmiles has a great description of this type of breathing here. I’ve also read that some people benefit from purposely slowing down their breathing to help blood gas absorption.
I change up my meditations depending on how bad my symptoms are. Sometimes I need complete silence and I lie very still with ear plugs in. Sometimes I just need white noise and I listen to Kelly Howell’s CDs that use binaural beats to stimulate alpha, delta and theta brain waves. All other times, I alternate through yoga nidra, Buddhist meditations, guided imagery, affirmations, body scans and simple breath meditations. Find some more links at the bottom of this post.
I loosened my routine and relaxed my demanding brain: if I need to spend all day in bed, that’s okay. I go outside when I can, I eat junk food when I want, I don’t beat myself up if I can’t bathe for a week or don’t go to bed until midnight.
I made peace with my cpap. I try to wear it every night, but, if I take it off after a few hours, it’s okay. And, if I don’t wear it at all, it’s okay. I know I feel worse when I don’t wear it — I keep that in mind and try to be organised about washing it early in the day because, before bed, I often don’t have the energy — but, when I don’t wear it, I don’t panic about the hundred million apnea events that woke up my brain while I “slept”. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.
I try to get to physical therapy every month or so, massage every two months (I would like these to be much more often, but can’t justify the money) and I was going to start regular hydrotherapy, but, unfortunately, after the first session, I realised it’s not worth the expense ($83), so I will try to mimic it at home (basically, hot and cold towels and electrostimulation).
Food: I’m sticking to my low-histamine + autoimmune protocol diet for the most part (that is: NO gluten, grains except rice, dairy except butter, legumes, nightshades, nuts, seeds, eggs, and no high-histamine foods, such as pork, tomatoes, eggplants, spinach, bananas, vinegar, fermented foods, processed meats, tinned fish/meat etc.). I was strictly low-sulfur for a month and that might have contributed to my feeling better, but I have since stopped that. I don’t beat myself up for my Kerrygold addiction and I don’t worry about my constant snacking and the fact that I go through sweet potato chips and plantain crackers by the bag-load and can’t seem to quit Salted Caramel Chocolate coconut ice cream. Life is too short. We buy organic and I eat a huge variety of veg and herbs. We always have fresh parsley, basil, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, ginger… We buy meat from farms we’ve researched and distributors we trust and make a lot of bone broth, which I drink everyday with a gram of salt in each mug. I recently switched from non-stick pans to stainless steel and cast iron. I drink filtered water. And I keep a detailed food and symptom journal (which, really, has told me nothing). That’s more than I ever did in the first 39 years of my life, so I’ve come a long way.
I’ve switched some products: I use Tom’s deodorant and toothpaste. I use supposedly less toxic shampoos, soaps and sunscreens. I use a face wash, moituriser, dish and clothes detergent that don’t make me gag with perfume and are kind to sensitive skin.
I use dry eye drops throughout the day and the Rxs from my dermatologist on my face. At night, I put castor oil over my liver and Badger sleep balm on my throat. When my neck is acting up, I use my TENS unit, cervical traction and Tiger Balm neck and shoulder rub. And then there’s vitamins and supplements…
Here’s what I take currently:
- Morning:
  - thyroid hormones (T3 and T4)
  - Probiotic
  - 2.5mg Prednisone
- Before meals:
  - Thorne Bio-Gest (for gastroparesis)
  - Digestive Enzymes (for gastroparesis)
  - 250mg yucca (for high ammonia/CBS mutation)
- After breakfast/mid-day meal:
  - 500mg Acetyl L carnitine
  - 100mg CoQ10
  - 36.5mg riboflavin 5’ phosphate
  - 15mg zinc + B6
  - 500-1,000mg vitamin C
  - 100mcg molybdenum (for high ammonia/CBS mutation)
  - Thorne trace Minerals
- Sporadically:
  - 1 tsp Calm magnesium + calcium
- After dinner:
  - 2,000mg fish oil (1,000mg EPA, 50mg DHA)
  - 4,000iu Vitamin D3
- Before bed:
  - 400-600mg magnesium glycinate chelate
  - GABA+theonine
  - 1mg Melatonin
I am soon going to add charcoal, Thorne Medibulk, biotin, and a second probiotic with histamine-lowering strains of bacteria.

Something is making a difference. Or maybe it’s just time. Who knows? But I will continue to persevere.

March 16, 2014 by Elizabeth Milo

Diets Part IV: Low-Histamine, Mold Diet, Migraine Diet, AIP, Low-Sulfur and SIBO.

Well, the uptick in stability I mentioned in my last diet post has gone away. My daily headache is back, my heart rate is back up (not too high, but not the super-low it was), my muscles are worse, my blood pressure is all over the place, and I’m far more exhausted and dizzy than I was in January and February. So, back to normal!

When we last spoke, I was on a low-histamine, pretty much paleo diet (allowing rice), plus no eggs, citrus, nightshades or soy. I had a mycotoxin panel done and, in rare abnormal test results, found I had some very high levels in my urine. While researching mold toxicity, I found the “mold-free diet“. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was pretty much the same as the low-histamine diet and I was already following it. I was also dejected to learn there was another reason for me to continue avoiding all of these wonderful foods and bending over backwards to not consume leftovers.

Grass-fed, pastured beef sirloin and braised red cabbage from Nom Nom Paleo (click image for recipe).

Looking for help for my constant daily headaches, I came upon this article in the NY Times, called, “The Migraine Diet” (list is here). Judith Warner says, “I stopped drinking caffeine and alcohol and stopped eating chocolate, cheese, M.S.G., nuts, vinegar, citrus fruits, bananas, raspberries, avocados, onions, fresh bagels and donuts, pizza, yogurt, sour cream, ice cream, aspartame and all aged, cured, fermented, marinated, smoked, tenderized or nitrate-preserved meats.”

Hmm… Well, yet another reason not to eat dairy, gluten and aged, cured and fermented foods. But I really didn’t want to entertain the idea of life permanently without onions, raspberries, bananas and citrus fruits. Plus, I was still drinking my cup of black tea every morning and eating nuts and some sugar. My three loves. Maybe I would ignore the migraine diet recommendations and just take some Tylenol. Maybe I will revisit this down the road.

I decided, since I was almost there anyway, I wanted to give the Autoimmune Paleo diet (AIP) a chance for a month or two and see if it made any difference to anything. My vitilgo is not a big deal, my autoimmune urticaria and angioedema has not been an issue in a few years (knock on wood), but my thyroid is an ever-present problem and ME could have autoimmune roots, so I wanted to give it a try. AIP basically involves no grains, dairy, legumes, nuts, seeds, nightshades, eggs, caffeine, sugar or processed foods. It was designed to be a temporary elimination with reintroductions after the initial strict period, although some people seem to stick with it forever. I mope-ily removed nuts and seeds from my diet last month and was gearing up to kick rice, tea and coconut sugar to the curb when my research into the methylation cycle led me down a side road to a low-sulfur diet. Hold everything.

No nuts or oats? My new snacks:
plantain, parsnip, sweet potato and beet chips.

My 23andMe results (I’ll go into this in more detail later) showed I have a CBS mutation. Some doctors (most notably Dr. Amy Yasko) maintain that one must deal with this “first priority mutation” before embarking on a protocol to unblock the methylation cycle. The CBS, plus two BHMT mutations, means I may have excess sulfur groups, which deplete molybdenum and BH4 and cause high taurine and high ammonia levels. I know from test results that my ammonia levels are high, so this is something I wanted to address. Working on methylation is a very long process- probably a year or two- so, if dealing with the CBS mutation is the first step, I wanted to get the show on the road. Suggestions are to eat a low-sulfur diet (my research indicated that animal protein was not as much of an issue as high-sulfur/thiol veg), so I omitted garlic, onions, most cruciferous vegetables and leafy greens and I stopped my epsom salt baths. This was hard, but I thought, It’s only for a month or so. While continuing to keep out nightshades and high-histamine foods, my allowed vegetable list was: artichokes, beetroot, carrots, celery, cucumber, lettuce, parsley, parsnips, squashes, and sweet potato.

Juice with allowed low-sulfur veg:
beet, carrot, celery, cucumber, apple, ginger.

I started this at the beginning of March … aaaaannndd then I got my appointment with the medical nutrition therapist who was not only recommended by my doctor, but also by someone on one of my Facebook histamine/mast cell groups. Another side road.

The appointment was an hour and a half and she went over my symptoms and my food diary (note to self: edit your personal, private food diary before giving it to your doctor so it doesn’t say things like “want to vom”, “fight with D” and “bad poop” 😉 ). She said coconut was very high histamine which threw me for a loop since half my calories come from coconut in one form or another. I debated this fact with her for a while and eventually she said, “You’ll just have to trust me on that.” She also thought I might have a problem with salicylates, which I guess I eat in copious amounts. Joy. And she was concerned about SIBO: small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. As you can imagine, at this stage I really want to dump my diet decisions into someone else’s lap, so, while I still have health insurance that covers her service (for another few months), I am going to trust her and give her plan a fighting chance.

I am currently on day two of the SIBO test prep diet. I am only allowed to eat meat and rice for two days (if I’d already eliminated rice, I would only be eating meat, so thank god I procrastinated). Yesterday, I ate turkey, lamb, clear beef broth and rice with butter. Real delicious fatty decadent Kerrygold butter, for the first time in a year and a half. Butter is heaven. But no sweet treat after a meal is hell. I only eat a bit of chocolate or fruit or homemade coconut ice cream, but, judging from my extreme irritability, it is a very real addiction. I’m even salivating at the thought of a lozenge. Having an ever-present sore throat really makes lozenges a necessity!

SIBO prep meal

I was secretly hoping that I would feel great these days on such a limited diet and it would spur me on to continue my food elimination experiments. Unfortunately, I am headachy, weak, sore and have zero appetite. Could it be the butter? Maybe, I guess, but I don’t think so. It might be because I washed my hair yesterday. It might just be ME.

In the next installment, I will tell you about my ketoacidosis scare and the strict low-histamine + low-salicylate diet that begins next week. I know you are all on the edges of your seats!

A tip from my Facebook friend, N., to excite my SIBO prep diet: Crispy waffle iron rice!
(click image for recipe)

February 21, 2014 by Elizabeth Milo

DIETS Part III: finding a balance in low-histamine and figuring out how to eat more meat.

Some of you have commented on how exhausting/frustrating/crazy this elimination diet process is and I agree! It is incredibly time-consuming considering the research into studies, the searching for recipes, the phone calls to grocery stores, the time my husband spends shopping, menu discussion, and cooking time…! Since none of my diet changes has made me feel any different, it seems like a futile process, but here is what I always keep in mind:

Some people, such as my brother, eat a paleo diet even though they are completely healthy ~ they just want to continue to feel great. Or feel even greater. Some people are diagnosed with a thyroid condition or an autoimmune illness and immediately change the way they eat, trying to ease symptoms or stop the progression of disease. I never even considered doing these things! I had one odd health issue after another and never changed a smidge about the way I eat. The doctors didn’t mention diet, so I didn’t think about it. I didn’t even research the things I was experiencing. This blows my mind more than anything. My time was fully committed to my job, there was no room for anything else. Plus, they were intermittent episodes (I thought) and I was still feeling fine (I thought), so everything was easy to ignore. I had given up alcohol, which, to me, was the ultimate sacrifice ~ do you think I would give up anything else? No way!

One of the best gifts I was given was my OBGYN off-handedly saying, “You should eat some salt if you feel like you are going to collapse.” Uuuuhhh…? Why didn’t I know that? I’d been limiting my salt for years because I thought it contributed to the swelling. Couldn’t just one of the many nurses that have taken my blood pressure over the years mentioned salt to me? They always comment on how low it is and I always let them know I get dizzy. “Try increasing salt.” Just that simple.

The other thing I always keep in mind is my dog, Bowie. When he was young, he developed bumps on his skin. The vet thought it might be a food allergy, so we changed him to a limited-ingredient diet. Over the next year -maybe two- his skin got worse and worse. We changed his shampoo, we washed him more, we washed him less, we gave him supplements, he was put on Benadryl. His coat is a beautiful, deep, glossy brown; he looks like a stallion. But the bumps got bigger, his skin was like braille, and his skin started to have a distinctive infected smell.

Then, one day in the dog park, there was a hand-written sign tacked to a post: “Natural Balance food is killing dogs!” It had some other info on the sign that I can’t remember, but there was nothing online that we could find. Regardless, we paid attention because that’s the brand our dogs ate. And then a miracle: Literally, a few days after we switched their food, we had two puppies back in our house. We didn’t even realise that their happiness and activity level wasn’t normal for them because that’s all we knew for so long. They were DANCING. They were LAUGHING. They were running around like we had just removed their shackles. And then Bowie’s skin made a total turnaround: The bumps and smell disappeared incredibly quickly. We were very grateful, but my heart was broken over the poison we had been feeding them. If anyone had witnessed the change, they would know the radical difference food can make to health.

Lastly, I never want to look back and regret not trying diet changes. One would think that time ticks by slowly when you are sick and housebound, but, it turns out, the years speed by quicker than ever. I don’t want to be 50 or 60 and wish I had tried this in the beginning of my illness.

So, after 3 weeks of eating sort of low-histamine and a month of eating strictly low-histamine, I was not feeling any better. In fact, November and December were probably the worst months I’ve ever had, but I blamed that mostly on repercussions from the tilt table test and IV fluids reaction. I’m sure the stress around a new way of eating and hypoglycemia didn’t help matters, though, so I allowed in some histamine foods (bananas, berries, lemon, some vinegar, all greens, all meat), but I have continued to avoid the biggies (fish, spinach, tomatoes, eggplant, pickled/fermented foods, dried fruit, leftover animal protein). I needed to increase my protein intake to stabilise my blood sugar and started force-feeding myself meat. It was joyless, like taking medication. I am eating this chicken so my blood sugar does not tank in the night… (picture me sitting in bed, eyes closed, slack-jawed chewing a piece of cold, dry meat, grimacing as I swallow).

Around the same time, I eliminated oats ~ the only grain I had never lived without and had, in fact, been eating every day in the form of granola/porridge and oat crackers ~ and that left me desperate for breakfast options that included protein. Beef breakfast patties became a staple. We started investigating all the butchers in our area and my husband talked to all the grocery stores. We figured out when deliveries come in, whether they are fresh or frozen, how long since the date of slaughter, and we buy grass-fed, pastured beef and lamb, organic chicken and turkey, trying to source the healthiest and freshest meat to continue keeping histamine in check. My husband cooks the day we buy meat and then we freeze portions so I have meals at the ready. He still makes beef bone broth and chicken stock, but we cook it in a shorter amount of time and freeze it in silicone ice cube trays and jars. Beef patties for breakfast. Lamb shepard’s pie, portions wrapped in wax paper. Chicken and turkey breasts that can be thrown in soup or chopped on a salad or served with rice pasta and topped with veg and sauce (see FOOD! page for some recipes). Blood sugar crashes became much rarer.

Frozen broth

My weird breakfast:
Grass-fed beef patty with parsley (antihistamine) and thyme (anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, antihistamine);
artichokes (contain quercetin, luteolin and rutin);
sweet potato (anti-inflammatory, contains rutin and quercetin) and butternut squash latke (antihistamine, anti-ulcer, anti-inflammatory and antidepressant action);
pomegranate (mast cell stabiliser, anti-inflammatory).
**Info from thelowhistaminechef.com**

Another weird breakfast:
Grass-fed beef patty with parsley (antihistamine) and thyme (anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, antihistamine);
sauteed with spiralized zucchini (has anti-inflammatory, anti-ulcerogenic and potentially antihistaminic properties);
cauliflower (contains anti-inflammatory vitamin K) and sweet potato cake (anti-inflammatory, contains rutin and quercetin);
apple sauce.
**Info from thelowhistaminechef.com**

I started to feel a bit better overall in late January, right after my bad pre-syncope episode during my period and right after I quit oats. By “better”, I mean back to where I was around September/October of last year. Able to walk 800-1000 steps a day instead of 500, my daily headache got better. But still not going into the garden, not stretching, not able to talk very much. One amazing change is my heart rate has gotten much lower overall ~ almost too low. In the 70s and 80s when I am standing up, not moving. Mid-50s sitting, watching tv. Low-50s and high-40s sometimes, while lying down in bed.

I refuse to believe that eliminating oats made the change.
A) Because I love oats too much and can’t wait to eat them again. I HATE savoury breakfasts. Hate them. Make me sick and nauseous. I was the one going to the Irish pub for a Sunday fry with my family and ordering porridge or fruit, yogurt and toast. Every morning is a struggle. It has gotten easier, but it’s not enjoyable. I don’t want acorn squash and beef and kale for breakfast and I never, ever will. It’s one of the reasons I have continued to search for “baked goods” recipes and kept rice in my diet (so I can have rice cereal or rice toast, if I like).
B) Because nothing can ever be definitive in such a changeable, cyclical disease. I also stopped taking my B-complex around the same time. That could have been causing my headache everyday!

Banana-Zucchini muffins: click image for recipe

In the final diet post, I will discuss AIP (autoimmune paleo diet) and all the other complications and sensitivities one comes across when researching online. It’s enough to send anyone straight to the nearest fully gluten-ized and dairy-fied bakery.

Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart

E.M. AND M.E. AND M.C.A.S.

Tag Archives: autoimmune diet