Author Archives: tim

Frost Eagle 5 Mile

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Soaring Eagle

The Winter Trail run series came to an end on a not so wintery day at Soaring Eagle.  The race was dubbed Frost Eagle but should have been called Soggy Eagle or Muddy Eagle given the torrential downpours the day before and the amount of mud and muck on the course.   I did the short distance which was 5 miles but this is the longest distance I’ve tried to run since slowly trying to get back into shape the last few months during this series.  I opted for my new Altra Olympus shoes just because I wasn’t sure how the distance would be, I figured the extra height could keep some surface water off my feet (Ha, the water was almost a foot deep in places!)  and my feet had been bothering me a bit after running where I was getting some neuropathic pain and sensitivity again on top of the constant numbness, hoping that the extra cushion would keep that from happening.

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Test #7 – Better but not quite clear

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Test_2_15On Wednesday Catherine and I made the drive to Portland so that I could do a SIBO test at the NCNM Clinic on Thursday and not have to wait 2-4 weeks to get the results back.  I went into it feeling that my numbers were going to be down but not quite all the way down since I was still having symptoms off and on over the last month.   Not many though, I only reported symptoms on 8 days in 30 which is a record for me over the past year.

The test was later than I usually do it so I packed along a lunch knowing I’d be about 18 hours w/o food by the time I finished.  I sat in the lab area for the test along with one other woman and got to chat with the lab techs and Dr. Keller who I got to meet in person for the first time.   After my 3 hour test I chowed down lunch while the results were getting finalized and put into the report.   Well, turns out I was right, numbers down significantly but I still have SIBO.  The test was another technically “negative” test according to the machine output but Drs. Siebecker and Pimentel have changed the positive criteria to be any methane >=3ppm so I’m well above that.  Still, I dropped from a high of 33 methane, 9 hydrogen and combined high of 42 to a high of 13 methane, 14 hydrogen with a combined high of 24.  That is a good reduction in methane of 30 ppm and the increase in hydrogen is expected as the levels of methane go down.   This is really the best result I’ve had in that there is only one real spike in the graph, it is lower down, and the hydrogen is starting to show up finally since I was usually a high of 2-3 on hydrogen.

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Yet another round of treatment done

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Today I am finishing up my 5th major round of herbal antibiotics since starting them in June of last year.  I did start out slow by ramping up in June so really didn’t hit full strength until July so that means I’ve been taking pretty heavy doses of herbals for seven months with maybe a 4-6 weeks off of them at times while testing and waiting for results.  It has been a very up and down and back up seven months.  My numbers were high in May, high in June, weird in July, very low in September after Round 3, up again in November after my 4th and what I hoped was my knock-out round and since then I’ve been very strict with diet and we’ll see what it gets me.   I head to Portland this week to do the test in person at the SIBO Center so I don’t have to wait 2-4 weeks for the results to come back.

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Interlaken Icicle Dash

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interlakenToday was the sixth event in the Northwest Trail Runs Winter Trail Series, the Interlaken Icicle Dash held at the very small Interlaken Park in Seattle.   I’d only run through the road portion of this park in the Seattle Marathon before, I had no idea there were trails there.   As usual I got there early to do registration which got a little crazy for a time, there were about 300 runners total today which was more than I had expected.

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Sleep Hacking

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sleepMy sleep has never been good for as long as I can remember.  Three years ago I was prescribed Ativan to deal with my bouts of insomnia, that was a disaster.  Yes, it put me to sleep but I very quickly became addicted to it over the course of a few weeks of travel and had to go through a period of weird symptoms that turned out to be withdrawal.  Luckily an urgent care doctor figured it out, my MD was prescribing more Ativan thinking that I was just dealing with anxiety.   I had to go through a gradual two month withdrawal process to safely get off the stuff.  After that I actually slept pretty well for the first time in years.

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B.hominis – to treat or not?

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Four_common_forms_of_Blastocystis_hominis_ValznI really tried to use the Purge the Whorl to help clear my b.hominis parasite while doing my current SIBO herbals but it just was not meant to be.  The first time I tried I got sick off 1t. and the nausea lasted about 2 days.  I waited a week and tried again but decided to slowly ramp up from 1/2t. 1x a day up to 1t./3x day over the course of about a week.  I lasted 3 days on the full dose and then got really sick from it.  The stuff is vile to say the least, it deserves the Mr. Yuck sticker on the bottle.  It was never easy to choke down and then just made my stomach very upset.

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Absolution Run

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stedwardsThe Winter Trail Run Series continued yesterday at St. Edwards State Park with the Absolution Run, a 4 or 8 mile romp through the park.  This was the first time I’ve even thought about running at St. Edwards since ripping my hamstring two years ago going up that evil hill on a cold morning and I was only going to do one loop of 4 miles.  That injury had me out for most of a season and I wasn’t about to let that happen again.   Like most Northwest Trail Runs events I got there early to help with finishing up setup and doing registration which got completely insane today.  We were a bit short on volunteers ( get out there and volunteer for events!!!! )  and we had a LOT of day-of registration even given the cold and rain.  I was so distracted that when Chris showed up I didn’t even recognize him at first. Somehow we wrapped up just as they were about to do the pre-run meeting and I had just enough time to go change to get ready to run.

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Diets, diets, diets…

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dietOver the last year I have been experimenting with several diets to help deal with SIBO – the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), the Low FODMAP diet, the Paleo diet and the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol (AIP).   I have also recently been working on the SIBO Food Guide app and I got to do a lot of research into all of these crazy diets. The app gives the legal/illegal status for each of these diets along with FODMAP ranking of foods with serving sizes where appropriate.  The app should be available by the end of the month.

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2014 sort of sucked, on to 2015

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Really sick at the start of the year.

Really sick at the start of the year.

I had a lot of plans for 2014 when I did my review at the end of last year.  Unfortunately within a few days of that post my gut revolted in a big way and I started on a downward spiral that led to the toughest year I’ve dealt with.  Just after Christmas when we finished with a 30-day cleanse diet I started having a lot of pain and churning in my gut every day after I’d eat.  I was dropping weight fast and was going to the doctor every few days as we tried to figure out what was going on.   Finally after an ultrasound, CT-scan, colonoscopy and at least a quart of blood work I found that I had Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth or SIBO in February.

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New protocol for next few months

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Would you want to take this for three months?

Would you want to take this for three months?

After that last somewhat disappointing test I did some research of what to do next and consulted with both Dr. Bowen and Dr. Keller about the plan moving forward.  First off, no more weed.  Probably a good thing in the short and long term and while my sleep isn’t perfect I am getting about 8 hours a night now at least even if it takes me 9-9.5 hours in bed to get that.  I’m definitely having very wild LDN induced dreams and I’m still waking up and often having to read a bit or listen to an audio book in order to get back to sleep but I do go back to sleep and sleep in a bit more every day.

 

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