My naturopath, Dr. Johnson, recommended a diet to help with my urinary symptoms. I also brought up our lack of success with trying to conceive. Turns out fertility is her specialty. After discussing my symptoms, asking some seemingly unrelated questions, inspecting my tongue and feeling my pulse in three spots on my wrist, she recommended a sugar-free diet for 8 weeks to starve candida (yeast). I'm thinking, okay, what does this have to do with my bladder? I don't think I've ever even had a yeast infection. But I chose to trust her and went with it, even though this was a complete 180 for me. This is what she recommended:
Breakfast: I c. blueberries (frozen), 2 T flax, 2 T soy lecithin, scoop of pea protein, milk alternative (I use Dream Almond milk).
Snack (before and after lunch): fruit or veggies with nuts, nut butter, or some type of fat/protein like hummus.
Lunch/dinner: 3 oz meat/fish, 1/2 c. whole grain/beans/sweet potato, veggies
I thought that this was the end of good food as we knew it.
She asked that I go to her weekly class to learn more about recipes, diet and lifestyle, and to make a follow-up in two weeks after I use up all the Snake and the Dragon teapills.
I brought my husband to the class, and we made an appointment for her to see him about fertility right after. The following week he was thoroughly evaluated and we both had our first acupuncture session. I did NOT want those needles in my body! I tried to stay calm, but that whole first session sucked! I just wanted to pull those needles out! Luckily, it was only for about 15 minutes. My husband, however, was as calm as a Hindu cow, though he looked like the dude from Hellraiser.
The first couple weeks I didn't feel so good. My whole body had to adjust/detox from eating dairy, sugar, refined flours, and fake food, to getting its energy from real, whole food. We started out just making huge batches of beans and whole grains and meat and eating it over the next couple days, and just sauté or steam up a bunch of vegetables. After a little while we became more confident with using herbs and spices and got creative and started to make some very delicious dishes.
We both started to work out in the mornings. My husband was a little more disciplined than me in the beginning, and worked out almost every morning. He lifted, ran, did the stairclimber, he worked hard. He lost his excess 30 lbs. over a matter of months and now looks better than ever. I started out little by little with the exercise. I started just walking for about 30 minutes on most mornings, then after about a month of that I eased into running. I could only run about 3/4 mile the first time, and it was torture! My very hilly neighborhood didn't help with that. The hills got me in shape within just a couple runs. I used to run Cross Country in high school, and my muscles got back in the groove very quickly. I got to running a regular fast-paced 3 mile loop around my hilly neighborhood within a matter of weeks. And it felt great! I missed running. Once I started running regularly, I also started going to Bodypump every week at my gym down the street. It's a really great class to get you started on and to keep you going with weight training. I ran into an old friend from high school who also ran regularly and we started running together about once a week. Having a friend to run with you is a great way to get over those mornings when nothing sounds good but the bed. Me and my husband were well on our way to better health, and it just gets better (well for the most part).
Friday, August 6, 2010
The new lifestyle, part 1
I made an appointment to see Dr. Alicia Johnson NMD at the O'Brien Pharmacy and Holistic Center in Mission, KS in June of 2008. We discussed my urinary issue and she recommended a diet for me and The Snake and the Dragon teapills by Plum Flower Brand to reduce inflammation and help me heal from any residual infection I might have. Taking the pills was easy, but the diet, I didn't even know where to begin. I had been looking up body alkalinity and had a general understanding that the more fruits and veggies in the diet, the better. I read that having an acidic diet can make one more susceptible to urinary tract infections. The whole week before my appointment I practically starved eating only fresh veggies and fruits, because I didn't know where to begin. I didn't know how to prepare food. This was my typical diet before:
2 bowls of cheerios with chocolate syrup all over them with skim milk.
Some raisins, baby carrots, or a banana with fruit flavored yogurt and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole grain wheat bread.
Then by the time dinner came around I was ravenous and chowed on Burger King, pizza, or whatever tickled our fancy at the time.
And we topped it off with some kind of dessert almost every night. Cookies, Sheridan's custard, brownies...etc. I would be stuffed and bloated.
The ironic part is that we started to really hate what we ate, but we felt stuck. We liked the convenience and the fun of going and picking up our already prepared food. And well, let's face it, I did have more free time then.
It sounds like I should've been overweight, but oddly enough I was still within a healthy weight, even being accused of being skinny and never eating. (It's funny how we think it's ok to call someone skinny, but not fat.) I did like to be active and me and the husband and the dog would go on walks often, even in the winter. I also clean houses for a living, so that kept me moving. However, I cringe when I think of the chemicals I would expose my bare skin and lungs to on a daily basis. It's funny how invincible we tend to think we are; nevermind the rash I would get on my lower back every time I used bleach. I just thought, it goes with the job.
My persistent urinary symptoms was a huge wake-up call for me. It wasn't until later that I connected my overall health with my reproductive health.
2 bowls of cheerios with chocolate syrup all over them with skim milk.
Some raisins, baby carrots, or a banana with fruit flavored yogurt and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole grain wheat bread.
Then by the time dinner came around I was ravenous and chowed on Burger King, pizza, or whatever tickled our fancy at the time.
And we topped it off with some kind of dessert almost every night. Cookies, Sheridan's custard, brownies...etc. I would be stuffed and bloated.
The ironic part is that we started to really hate what we ate, but we felt stuck. We liked the convenience and the fun of going and picking up our already prepared food. And well, let's face it, I did have more free time then.
It sounds like I should've been overweight, but oddly enough I was still within a healthy weight, even being accused of being skinny and never eating. (It's funny how we think it's ok to call someone skinny, but not fat.) I did like to be active and me and the husband and the dog would go on walks often, even in the winter. I also clean houses for a living, so that kept me moving. However, I cringe when I think of the chemicals I would expose my bare skin and lungs to on a daily basis. It's funny how invincible we tend to think we are; nevermind the rash I would get on my lower back every time I used bleach. I just thought, it goes with the job.
My persistent urinary symptoms was a huge wake-up call for me. It wasn't until later that I connected my overall health with my reproductive health.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
I've got so much to tell! But first, here's my story.
My husband and I have been ttc for about 4 years now beginning around mid- 2006. I was 24, he was 25. (I don't know all the ttc acronyms, so bear with me while I use just plain old English) We're young, and were led to believe it would happen if we would be patient and just keep on trying. We discovered my husband's poor sperm count and quality after two years, in the summer of 2008. The urologist said his count was around 7 million and motility and morphology weren't even mentioned. And on top of that he was diagnosed with varicoceles in both testicles. The theory is that this stagnant blood can overheat the testicles. After a few months taking Fertility Blend, he did another analysis at the Reproductive Resource Center of Kansas City revealing 13 million sperm M/ml (normal is greater than 20 million), 7 % Total progressive motility (normal >50%), and 1% normal forms (normal >14%)(Kruger strict morphology). So it improved, but was still pretty bad. I think our chances of conceiving was about 1-3% each cycle, and that's assuming I'm not a factor. At the Reproductive Resource Center where my husband had his analysis, they told us that we would not be good candidates for IUI (artificial insemination), but that our only choice was IVF (In vitro fertilization). IVF costs tens of thousands of dollars, and even more with each failed attempt. We simply didn't have the money so we did not pursue that route. Knowing what I know now, I'm so glad we didn't attempt IVF or a varicocele repair.
At this point I was charting my cycles based on the results of my LH tests. According to the results, I ovulated between day 15 -18 of my cycle and had a very predictable luteal phase of 14 days every month. I never missed a period. My periods were always 7-8 days, heavy to light brown bleeding.I did have a history of painful periods to the point where if I didn't take preventative Ibuprofen every four hours, I could end up thrashing around in so much pain I'd say that childbirth had to feel like this. And even the preventative measure didn't always ensure a thrash-free period and only made the pain bearable. Also, I would have pre-period spotting from time to time, and had a constant profuse vaginal discharge due to an inflamed cervix all throughout my cycle. I had many infections and STD's ruled out, and even some allergens. Still just a chronically inflamed cervix. This was obviously not normal and I found out later that, spotting and brown-bleeding was also not normal. At the Reproductive Resource Center, they did do an ultrasound on me and found a small complex cyst on my right ovary, and two more on my left. I chose not to continue with the Center since I would have to redo all the tests and laparoscopy right before IVF, and that was just too far from our reach financially, and me and my cysts walked out never to return.
In the early spring of '09, I came down with a seemingly persistent urinary tract infection. The symptoms were very mild, like it was the very beginning stages, but never progressed to that awful burning sensation, it was just a dull feeling that something wasn't quite right. Around this time, my luteal phase (the phase of the cycle after ovulation and before your period starts) had shortened by a day or two and the pre-period spotting could last for three days.
After a couple months, five rounds of antibiotics, and still feeling that mild burning sensation down there, I decided to visit a naturopath. I grew to distrust the conventional way of dealing with my health issue. I never visited a naturopath before and don't even recall what exactly led me to that idea, but am so glad I made that decision. My life has changed forever.
At this point I was charting my cycles based on the results of my LH tests. According to the results, I ovulated between day 15 -18 of my cycle and had a very predictable luteal phase of 14 days every month. I never missed a period. My periods were always 7-8 days, heavy to light brown bleeding.I did have a history of painful periods to the point where if I didn't take preventative Ibuprofen every four hours, I could end up thrashing around in so much pain I'd say that childbirth had to feel like this. And even the preventative measure didn't always ensure a thrash-free period and only made the pain bearable. Also, I would have pre-period spotting from time to time, and had a constant profuse vaginal discharge due to an inflamed cervix all throughout my cycle. I had many infections and STD's ruled out, and even some allergens. Still just a chronically inflamed cervix. This was obviously not normal and I found out later that, spotting and brown-bleeding was also not normal. At the Reproductive Resource Center, they did do an ultrasound on me and found a small complex cyst on my right ovary, and two more on my left. I chose not to continue with the Center since I would have to redo all the tests and laparoscopy right before IVF, and that was just too far from our reach financially, and me and my cysts walked out never to return.
In the early spring of '09, I came down with a seemingly persistent urinary tract infection. The symptoms were very mild, like it was the very beginning stages, but never progressed to that awful burning sensation, it was just a dull feeling that something wasn't quite right. Around this time, my luteal phase (the phase of the cycle after ovulation and before your period starts) had shortened by a day or two and the pre-period spotting could last for three days.
After a couple months, five rounds of antibiotics, and still feeling that mild burning sensation down there, I decided to visit a naturopath. I grew to distrust the conventional way of dealing with my health issue. I never visited a naturopath before and don't even recall what exactly led me to that idea, but am so glad I made that decision. My life has changed forever.
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