Yum, pureed carrots
What a week I’ve been through and it is only Thursday. My gut has been a wreck for almost the last month since I tried the antibiotic treatment but it hit a new level of crisis over last weekend. I was prepping for a new SIBO test on Sunday morning and had to eat a protein and fat only diet for two days as part of the prep then fast for 12 hours plus the 4 hours for the test. On day 2 of the meat and fat diet I actually felt good, I figured that with no carbs to ferment my gut had settled down. I ate dinner, chicken drumsticks (my mistake) and some halibut, and a few hours later the bloating, churning, waterfalls, and pain were in full force. Sleep was nearly impossible due to all the intestinal distress I was in.
On Sunday morning I got up and did the 3 hour test procedure, tried to eat a few eggs and it started up again. In the afternoon I ended up in the ER where, of course, they could do nothing for the root cause but at least ran some blood work and made sure I wasn’t having any serious organ failure going on. After some fluids and electrolytes I went home basically afraid to eat since it seemed I couldn’t even handle protein now.
On Monday I really didn’t want to eat so I stuck to eggs, some MCT Oil and some pure glucose to get a bit of carb. I was seriously contemplating just going on a Vivonex fast for a few weeks to see if I could starve these bacteria out of my SI. I had to follow up with Puget Sound Gastro on Tuesday and they were perplexed by it all. They ran some more blood tests to rule out liver cancer since the CT Scan back in January showed what could have been cysts or tumors on my liver. That test came back today and was, as I expected, false. The doctor there decided to send me to their last hope – a Naturopath at Bothell Natural Health named Christine M. Bowen. They called the office, made an appointment and sent me directly over to see Dr. Bowen.
Dr. Bowen holds to SCD with almost religious fervor and wanted to get me back on a modified SCD Intro diet sans dairy but with a few Phase 1 foods for a week. OK, I admit it, I cheated when I did the Intro before. I never pureed all my veggies and never got all the fat out of my chicken soup. This time, I was told, that pureeing is important so the gut doesn’t go to work breaking down the veggies and fruits, it can just get absorbed. My diet for the week is limited to ground meats, chicken soup with very shredded chicken and no fat, pureed carrots, zucchini and green beans (veggies I’ve been able to tolerate), pear and apple sauces and a bit of mashed banana and avocado.
She was surprised my SIBO test was such a flat line with just a small bump an hour in, that was the first I’d seen the actual chart and I agreed. She thought this was basically dysbiosis which is a nice medical term that basically means – “Your gut is fucked up and out of balance.”
Talking about the pain, inflammation and it messing up my sleep we were talking about herbal remedies. I told her I was ready for some herb to help out and actually it turns out that high CBD cannabis is very effective at cutting intestinal inflammation. So, on Wednesday I was off to another ND to get a MM authorization. Luckily this was in Fremont so I was able to scoot over to Fremont Gardens and quickly get in. Geez, the marijuana world has changed in the past 30 years. Back in the day you got whatever the dealer at school had and then you did bong hits or smoked a joint. Now it was like visiting a fine wine shop, so many choices. I needed a high CBD/low THC strain, preferably Indica to put me to sleep too. No edibles yet, vaporizing is the only option and I knew nothing of vaporizers. In the dozens of strains they had there was nothing perfect but I got a bit of Sour Tsunami which is 10% CBD and only 0.45% THC though a 60/40 Sativa-Indica hybrid. Then I had to go over to Piece of Mind, the first I’d been in a head shop in decades. I shopped for a vaporizer, a device that didn’t even exist in my college days and asked for some instruction. Pretty cool though with digital readouts though Apple could design a better one I’m sure that would even interface with the iPhone.
Yesterday I managed to get in about 2000 calories on my baby food diet and was doing OK. My gut felt literally on the edge all day long like it was going to erupt at any moment but didn’t quite go. Before bed some churning and waterfall sounds started and I thought, oh crap here we go again. I messed around with the vape machine and must have gotten it to work because I went to bed, relaxed reading. My gut actually settled down and I fell into the best sleep I’ve had in a month.
So far today all is good though I am constipated one more time. I’m not in great shape but I’m not having lots of gas and churn either and actually feel better energy wise and stress wise than I have since we returned from Portland. Maybe in five more days of baby food I’ll be turning the corner on the weight loss and can slowly and carefully add in some new foods. I may have the test results back by then too which will be good to see to know if the SIBO has gotten better or worse.