the gut story- part one

A few weeks ago when I presented you with the whole story, I kind of glazed over the health piece. I got sick. I got better. But it wasn’t exactly that easy. I’ve made some significant changes over the past few years to stay functioning and healthy.

And because this is a long story, I’ve divided it into two parts. The second will be posted on Friday instead of the weekly What Kaly Found. If you’re a subscriber it will come in your email on Saturday.

Before I get into all the gory details, this isn’t meant to be a treatise on healthy living or a guide to gut health. I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist or an expert in any way shape or form. This is simply my story of being sick and trying to get better.

It all started with my gut. After my youngest son was born in 2007, I never really went back to a normal gut function. Although at the time, I wouldn’t have even called it that – I simply would have said my stomach. Because your gut is really the whole operation, and I guess I was too embarrassed and maybe still am today to admit that everything especially on the elimination end was just off. Don’t freak out – that’s about as specific as things get on that front.

I was always the person to try anything when it came to food. My friend in college that grew up in Chinatown loved taking me to dim sum and ordering for me. I never questioned what it was – chicken feet, cow intestine – I just dove in. When I was in the corporate world, I had the privilege of dining in some really good restaurants. Later I took my toddlers to Chez Panisse.  I was learning to be a pretty good cook. I would read cookbooks for fun. And somewhere along the way, I became somewhat of a foodie.

Always a fairly healthy eater, it was around the same time that my kids were born that Michael Pollan was coming on to the scene talking about food and where it actually comes from and why it matters. I read Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. We joined a CSA. We tried to eat fresh and locally and seasonally and organically as much as possible. I was conscious of food in a new way.

That’s not to say that I didn’t indulge in wine, cheese, sweets, white bread, pizza, potato chips, drive in’s, and more or less eat whatever I wanted.

I did. I ate whatever the hell I wanted.

Overall, I was a fairly healthy eater. But my gut just wasn’t right, so after about a year of suffering in silence and learning to manage, I went to see my doctor. And I will be perfectly honest, I did not do a good job of researching my primary care physician. In fact, I pretty much picked a random one off of our insurance’s web site.

He was very upfront with me from my first appointment that the average age of his patients was upward of 65. I was 30. But because I rarely go to the doctor even if I’m sick, I felt like I just needed someone to do a physical every few years. How hard could that be? He seemed like a nice enough, capable guy. So I stuck with him.

But here I was with a problem. My gut, my digestive system was seriously out of whack. And I had symptoms that were making me really uncomfortable. It was starting to impact me on a daily basis. I tried to explain all of this to my doctor, and he scheduled me for some pretty invasive testing and told me to eat more fiber.

I can’t even remember now what the specific test was, but it involved a scope and drinking something to empty out my bowels, and a few days before it was scheduled I cancelled the procedure. I can’t tell you exactly why. Yes, it was horribly inconvenient. But that wasn’t it.

There was just something about it that seemed so unnecessary. My doctor was so quick to order the test without hearing the whole story, and I just had this feeling that it was a check box, a very uncomfortable check box, and not an actual path to a solution.

Another year or so went by and my symptoms didn’t get better. It’s amazing what you learn to live with. It wasn’t getting worse so I just sucked it up. The next time I was at my doctor, I mentioned my gut troubles again. He recommended more fiber again. I took home the fiber chart he offered, because now I was doubting myself. Maybe I wasn’t as healthy as I thought. I tracked my fiber intake for a few days, and I was five to ten grams over what the USDA recommended for healthy fiber intake.

That was also when he mentioned, Well, I guess if you wanted you could see a surgeon. Did I need to see a surgeon? I was extremely hesitant, but also felt like there weren’t any other options so I made the appointment. I didn’t think I would seriously consider surgery but if the doctor examined me and recommended it, well, then at least I would know that I had a decision to make. I just has this sense that there was something else going on.

The appointment was horrible. The surgeon was condescending and rude. He basically dismissed me as a waste of his time.

So now what?

In February of 2011, I came across a book about a raw food diet that claimed to do wonders for your digestive system. At that point I was willing to try anything. My doctors certainly weren’t helping me figure out what was causing my bowel distress. And if they wanted me to eat more fiber, well, you can’t get much more fiber than a raw food diet.

I was discouraged by my doctors and too frustrated with the system to look for new ones. I was working at the time and facing a tremendous amount of stress. I felt like if I could just get my gut under control, then maybe things would even out a bit. I took things into my own hands.

At first, the raw diet was hard. And then I felt better for awhile. But it became difficult to maintain and when I tried to ease myself off of it, things didn’t go so well. I thought maybe gluten was my issue (my brother is extremely sensitive to gluten) so I tried cutting that out too. Desperate for a solution, I was all over the place, trying things on my own without any guidance or direction.

I entered a period at my job that was incredibly physically and mentally demanding. But even with my gut issues, I was able to hold it together.

And then, everything became unmanageable. My body decided to quit on me. I was the kind of sick where you can’t get out of bed. And I was in pain. I could barely make it to work. I could barely function. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just go to the doctor? And that is a very good question. At this point, I had convinced myself that my current doctor was not going to be able to help me. It had been three years of me trying to get help, and I shut the door on that as an option.

The only place I felt relief from my symptoms was in the bathtub. In the tub with my laptop, I would spend half my time trying to manage my job and half my time trying to find some other solution for my problems. It was through those bath tub searching sessions that I started to learn more about holistic medicine and other options for care.

I found a doctor near me that practiced holistic medicine. The only red flag was he didn’t have the best reputation for bedside manner, but he was upfront enough to put it on his own web site and I liked that sort of no BS attitude. I called and made an appointment anyway. I filled out a very comprehensive medical history. I’m not talking about a series of check boxes. It was pages and pages of detailed information that I dropped off prior to my appointment because the doctor wanted to read and study it in advance.

My first appointment was almost a disaster. I thought I had followed every direction down to the last detail, but when the doctor entered the examination room, which was more like an interrogation room than a traditional doctor’s office, he looked at me and said –

You are wearing a scent that I am allergic to. I will try to make it through this.

He slammed down his clipboard and reached for the tissues.

It was a scent-free environment, and I had contaminated.

I had made every effort to be scent free.

I burst into tears.

After that, the appointment did get better. I gurgled out an apology and composed myself. He spent over an hour talking to me, listening to me and doing the most thorough medical examination I had ever had. He ordered a slew of noninvasive tests.

And he told me –

I am not your primary care doctor. I can help you figure out what your problem is and how to fix it, but chances are only you can fix it. If you are still my patient in a year, it means you are not committed to your own health. And I will not hesitate to cut you off.

It was the most empowering thing a doctor had ever said to me. He wasn’t shaming me or making me feel like I was imagining symptoms. He wasn’t telling me to eat more fiber. He acknowledged me and then he made me responsible for my own health.

My experience with traditional medicine had been that it was more about fixing. The doctors that I encountered had not been about getting to the root of what was causing my problems. It was more about the prescription. Doesn’t matter what’s causing the issue, treat the symptoms. This doctor was all about the cause. He couldn’t fix me, only I could do that, but he would tell me what was actually wrong with me.

Blood, urine and stool samples were taken and sent away to labs. I underwent incredibly thorough testing for food and environmental sensitivities.  Antibodies were injected individually into my arm during six different testing sessions and monitored daily between sessions.

And finally, the day came to meet with the doctor and review my results…

How’s that for a cliff hanger?

Honestly, it was just about the halfway point. On Friday I’ll post the rest – my diagnosis, recovery, relapse and what I’ve learned from this whole ordeal.