Day 4 – Early morning

I woke up mid-last night and laid awake, thinking about food, planning what I was going to add next.  This is fine but I realized there is a whole umbrella of background thoughts about ‘how this is going to work’ fantasies, especially about the success of the diet.

I’m thinking this is not helpful.  I mean ultimately I’ve created this diet plan from actual (albeit internet) research, yes, but also out of thin air to a certain extent because I can only find a couple anecdotal entries online where people used SCD to relieve GERD, so my diet could easily fail, work to a certain extent, work beautifully or anywhere in between.  Yet in my mind, staying the course means telling myself over and over how I am ‘on the path’ and ‘this is working, dammit’ even when it is sorta and is not sorta as well.

I’ve learned from meditation that often the path you are on is not what your mind thinks it is on.  I noticed last night when evaluating symptoms I was going to dumb down my eval numbers because the honest numbers were not showing an optimistic improvement.  While trying to fix this digestion issue has gained me a lot of info over the years, being attached to a certain result and not being honest about the results has left me with less information than I need to fashion a workable life eating plan.  Objectivity is the only way to learn, even if the info is disappointing.   I keep forgetting that – like every second.

There is definitely some improvement but at day 3 I had envisioned feeling very quiet.  This was not the case.  Day 1 I had a heartburn/indigestion range of 3-8 out of 10; Day 2, 2-7 out of 10; and Day 3, 1-6 out of 10.  Improvement but hardly ‘quiet’.

I’m disappointed.  But still, there is improvement.  In reflection, there were days on Fast Tract when I felt better than this overall but I did find on FT and the FODMAP diets that I would often have a great day followed by a horrible day.  It’s one of the things that has made this so difficult.  Symptoms seemingly related not to what I was eating – just out of left field with no real rhyme or reason – make it continually difficult to pin down problem foods and/or habits.

Yesterday was actually a pretty good day until the evening.  I felt about 1-3 until well after dinner.  I was feeling some mild indigestion and just to protect my throat, took a Tums.  That almost seemed to make things worse.  I ended up feeling pretty crappy until bed and had to forbid Iowa from draping his arm across my stomach because the pressure was giving me reflux symptoms.  Overnight I woke up to a very gurgling stomach and a sore throat, even on my wedge pillow.

I suspect I am due for some colon ‘action’ – there has been none since I began this cleanse but since I’m eating almost nothing and said food is mostly liquid, I figure this is normal.  I often find when there is retarded movement in my colon, that I get increased indigestion and reflux symptoms.  I’m up and awake now and at about a 1 in terms of symptoms so I’m starting where I was yesterday.  We’ll see what today holds.

I’ve been lazy with meditation this week (and I am a die-hard meditator of several years so this is weird for me) but I’m recommitting to it as of this moment.  Meditation keeps my mind clearer to make accurate observations and to notice when I’m not doing that.  I do want to get better without medication and hope I can.  I also really REALLY want to clear up my skin which is itching and rashy like MAD this week – so disruptive (this is what wakes me up at night).  The doctors think it is medication allergy (or rather the cancer specialist thinks it is, the reg derma thinks it is still this rare form of lymphoma – which doesn’t kill you, just gives you rashes!) but this no-medication period is to rule out or discover if it’s a medication allergy.  I still feel that given the progression of symptoms:  reflux that got progressively worse despite more and more medication, then developing IBS, then asthma (on top of allergies I had for years but no asthma until I got pneumonia 2 years ago), then rashes that seem to only get worse,  that this IS an allergy and something from my digestive system.  But again, this could be false correlation/causation. Only way to find out is to keep going.

I was reading the SCDlifestyle Four Horsemen of SCD and eggs is one of them which makes me wary to add them back first thing.  That said, I need some new things here, stat.  So, burgers will be Monday – I have some in the freezer at work making that an easy lunch.  I want to roast a chicken this week.  I’m assuming I don’t need to test chicken since I’ve been eating it in the soup all week.  And then I will add either zucchini or spinach.  I’m not sure these are the next SCD foods you are supposed to add (that said, SCD involves a lot more sugar than I can handle and the first two fruits are so FODMAPy I’m feeling like adding those back now, much less EVER, is ridiculous) but zuch and spinach have consistently been safe foods for me, especially spinach that is well cooked so we’ll see how I do this week.

I think I will feel like I am not too restricted when I can eat the following:

• Yogurt
• Cheese sticks
• Feta
• Olive Oil
• Butter
• Jasmine Rice (within FT protocol amounts)
• Potato (within FT protocol amounts)
• Spinach
• Zucchini
• Shellfish
• Fish
• Other meats
• Eggs
• Bacon!

That would be a fairly broad palette.  Hopefully I can get nuts back as well.   That said, diary, eggs and nuts are 3 of the 4 Horsemen so I’m going to have to do full, longer tests on each of those and also be OFF those a bit longer.  I’ll figure it out.  For now, all I need to worry about is if I can digest burgers well enough to eat those without waking the Peanut Gallery in my gut biota.

So, disappointments:

• That I am still having symptoms, rather significantly.
• That my skin seems almost worse since I started this cleanse.

I think that is it.  One more day of only soup.  Making more tonight, though, since I’ll still be on ‘mostly soup’ this week. Think good thoughts for me if you are reading this.  Whew.