The Gut Healing Diet
I wanted to share the diet I was on when I had my most significant remission. This scan from the pamphlet for what I dubbed my gut healing diet is all I have to offer of the literature.
During the ten months I was on this diet I was taking doxycycline 100mg twice per day. Sometime near the end of the ten months I was switched to plaquenil 200mg once per day. The strike-throughs are things that were incompatible with Dr. Fry's recommended diet.
I've been condemned for not eating entirely vegan but I've discovered as much negative about a vegan diet as I have what is positive. I've known many vegans personally and all of them reverted back to omnivorousness eventually. I won't condemn anyone for choosing a vegetarian diet. If we were all the same there would be no discussions about it. What ever works for you. My experience is it was not ideal for those I've known. I don't think it would be ideal for me. I believe the key isn't in vegan but is in low fat. 17 grams is what was recommended to me.
I held to the above diet very strictly. I lost twenty pounds over the period. One morning I woke up and felt pretty good. The next morning I felt great. The next morning I felt 99.44% and I thought I had won the victory. The next morning I felt only good again. The next morning I found the war was still waging and I was losing overnight. Nothing had changed in my diet or medication. I assume the plaquenil became suddenly inefective— p-myxzoa had become resistant to it. I continued to grow worse. I went back to the doxy but had no better response on it. After a couple of months my frustration excelled and I just quit.
I went nearly two weeks throwing caution to the wind. I adhered to my celiac limitations but cared little of anything else. Potato chips and all the GF bread I could eat were extremely comfortable. Hamburgers, french fries, soda...carbs, sugars and fats. P-myxzoa was in its glory. I was miserable. My pain was more intense than it had been in a decade. I could hardly walk to the kitchen for the ataxia. I again began freezing in place and resorted to pulling my old crutches out of the closet just to get around the house. I didn't go out unless I was forced to. I was accomplishing nothing. My memory got worse. I couldn't think. My mood was bad. I was so uncomfortable I couldn't sit through a simple TV show. I was literally ready to die.
I don't recall what changed my attitude. That whole period is a tad fuzzy. Something lead me to something that lead me to the immune system and I reasoned that, at the time of my decline, my immune system was so compromised that when the plaquenil failed there had been little ammunition to wage war against my invaders. As I looked for the most recommended immune boosting foods I began to develop the diet elements I have listed on the prior page. It was only an experiment but one that got me out of my slump, reduced my symptoms to where I was again able to be somewhat productive, pain being the most significant relief. That I accomplished it without meds is encouraging.
I've not gained a pound on my current diet even though I eat a lot, but nor have I lost one...nope, not one. I fluctuate up a pound or three throughout my day but every morning the scale reads exactly the same. My improvements are considerable but stationary. I am beginning to feel that my diet is only a barricade. I'm holding them off but the enemy is still at the gate. My next proaction is to lose another fifteen pounds. That will put me about as low as I care to go before I feel I am teasing anorexia. We'll see. I will then consider a variety of additional treatments. I no longer have suitable insurance to take advantage of professionals and their treatments, so I am entertaining low cost home remedies. Your suggestions are welcomed.
JJ
