Hey everyone, how was your Thanksgiving? Ours was pretty awesome. My family is full of such fun people and I enjoyed spending the day in the kitchen with the women folk while the guys watched football. We made tons of bad-for-you food and I ate it, of course. However, I was very watchful of my portions and that’s all I could really do on a day like that, ya know? How about black friday? Anyone go out and battle the masses? I chose to keep my happy butt right at home and shopped from the comfort of my couch. I love internet shopping! I got almost everything I need for my daughter’s Christmas presents all on Amazon for a pretty good deal. I’m very excited. There’s something about shopping for kids that is just so thrilling. I wanted to get her everything. I can’t wait to see her face light up… hopefully… when she sees what Santa brought her. Speaking of that fat man, I think he owes me. Seriously, when is that red suited turd going to show up?! The more I buy the more I wonder how this really works, does he reimburse me? Or does he just throw his 5 letter name in the “from” spot and take all the credit from M-O-M. Someone here has the short end of the stick… I’m thinking it’s me.
Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about today is my ailments. It’s about to get real personal up on here. I am perpetually sick and broken. Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration. Compared to others, I’m fairly healthy. However, I’ve got a handful of things that continue to bother me over the years. The first is the reason I missed posting yesterday.
1. Migraines. I have been plagued with chronic complicated migraines since I was 10 years old. The first one I experienced was in the 5th grade at lunch. I thought it was kind of funny when my hand went numb until I ended up in excruciating pain pouding from the left side of my head and I had to call my mom to come pick me up because nothing made sense and I hurt so bad I was in tears. Nearly 16 years later, these buggers are still kickin’ with the same patterns. Numbness, aura, confusion, sensitivity to smell, light, and sound followed by the worst brain pain ever – they’re nasty. I’ve landed in the ER many times needing and IV to kick it. Yesterday it started around 2 in the afternoon. I took a Zomig. 2 hours later when I was still numb and in pain, I took another. A couple hours after that I popped a percocet to combat the pain since the numbness had subsided. A few more hours later promethazine was taken to kill the nausea and the pukies I get with these things. By 11 pm I was finally starting to feel semi-human, 9 hours after the onset of the thing. Today, I feel dopey and not really “here” and I still have a dull aching in my head. I hate having so many pills to take for one problem but when nothing else has worked I’m left to keep trying.
2. TMJ Disorder. Temporamandibular (spelling) jaw disorder. Basically the joint in the left side of my jaw is a mess. Arthritis is already setting in. My jaw pops multiple times a day and I wake up almost every morning with pretty nasty jaw pain. I was given a mouth guard because I’m a night-grinder, but that thing is terrible and I spit it out in my sleep, so really – what good is it really doing? My jaw doctor wants to do surgery. There’s a tiny chance it will actually work because of how long I’ve had the problem. And the side effects include hitting a facial nerve and losing feeling in my face, movement in my left eyebrow, and the inability to close my left eye. AWESOME! That is definitely a last resort and something I really want to avoid if at all possible.
3. Fractured Back. This pesky fractured back is no joke. Luckily, as long as I keep my feet up and don’t do too much, the pain isn’t that bad and it’s healing. I barely take any pain killers for it anymore and I use the TENS unit mostly to help with pain. It’s healing, but I’d love for it to heal faster.
4. The trots. Yup, we’re going there. I get random boughts of diarrhea. By random I mean I never know when they’re going to strike and when they do, they strike. Without warning, my stomach is screaming I HATE YOU and my butthole is screaming I’M GONNA BLOW! It’s terrible.
Ok, so why am I telling you all this gross stuff about myself? Well, from reading the Whole30 site, it seems that this new way of eating might actually help with my ailments! On the site, they have a nice alphabetized list of testimonials from people who’ve tried Whole30 and found it helped and seemed to miraculous rid them of a long line of ailments. At this point in my life, I’m willing to try just about anything, especially with the migraines. They are so debilitating and I’ve been suffering from them far too long and they happen far too often. If changing my eating and my lifestyle can finally get rid of them for good, or at least minimize them. If it can reduce the inflammation in my jaw and help with the healing in my back, that’s even better. So, I document it here, so down the road I can say OH GUYS I’M SO MUCH BETTER or I can say WHAT A CROCK IT HASN’T HELPED AT ALL!
Ha, so there ya have it. The story of an unhealthy gal trying to improve more than just her weight.
Anyone out there found that eating changes have changed ailments you’ve had? Or have any suggestions for helping with the ailments I have? I’d love to hear from all the “been there-done that” folks!!!
Flab to Fit Mom 