Here I am

Well, it's been a while. I was very side tracked by current events in my little sweet community that really darkened the landscape for a while.

In the meantime, after my inconclusive ultrasound I decided to go ahead with the hida scan. Today the surgeon called and told me THAT is normal too! Looks like the ol' gall bladder is good to go! So WHAT IS the issue then?? Now I am scheduled to consult with a physician who will do a scope of my intestines. The surgeon suspects there may be an ulcer in there....

5 htp

This was taken from a post on a website about 5 htp, which I have taken on and off since 2005 but very regularly for over a year now. "I took 100 mg of 5-HTP for a month to help me sleep. Then, I had what appeared to be gall bladder attacks. A scan the week I was sickest showed that my gall bladder was functioning at only 4%. I stopped taking the 5-HTP and haven't had an attack for two weeks." Oh my. Have I been poisening myself? I'm starting to wean myself off of it tonight.

The ultrasound.

Well, I would say the ultrasound was pretty uneventful. The best part about it was my 4 year old was with me and was SO mellow!

It's weird seeing one's internal organs on screen, and yet it's not. It's not because it's so hard to tell what the heck you are looking at! I found myself wondering, "why are they pausing there? Are they pausing because they are seeing something concerning? What the heck is THAT white spot? OMG is that a tumor on that unidentifiable blob? Is that unidentifiable blob an organ? Why do they keep telling me to take a deep breath and hold it and then forget to tell me to exhale?"

The x-ray tech said she didn't see anything concerning but the radiologist would know more. Meanwhile just the pressing on my abdomen with the ultrasound wand (for lack of a better term-- in other words I have no clue what they call it) was triggering my pain and tenderness in my liver/gallbladder area. A couple of hours after I left I was feeling a lot of pain and discomfort and this evening I have been quite nauseous with some flu-like symptoms as well.

My doctor's nurse called me this afternoon to tell that everything looked "fairly normal". They took images of almost all my major organs. Well this is promising. Right?? And a major let down. Or is it? I am growing weary of chasing my symptoms down this crazy rabbit hole. Just tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it. I heard how inconclusive ultrasound can be for gallbladder issues. So are my results inconclusive or are they positive? But in this instance "positive" news could be negative. Because if gallbladder is not the issue, what IS the cause of all these symptoms? The nurse asked me if I was experiencing the "gallbladder" pain at the time of the ultrasound. No. I was not. AFTER the ultrasound and all the poking and prodding I was. Well, I see the surgeon tomorrow so hopefully he can shed more light.

Meanwhile someone I know told me today that her daughter had this issue too and ended up with an inconclusive ultrasound so was sent to a gastrologist who discovered she didn't have gallstones, she had "gall sludge". She was quite pregnant at the time but they ended up going in anyway and removing it during her pregnancy.

Hmm. Sludge. A new research trail.

tomorrow

I am scheduled for an 8:30 a.m. ultrasound tomorrow and a consultation with the surgeon on Tuesday. But the cool thing is, yesterday I was having a really bad day with the ol' gb and after doing some reflexology on my feet I felt SO MUCH better! In fact, I felt a huge pick up in my energy while I was still doing the reflexology. I am hopeful. After my ultrasound I am going to start focusing on dietary ways to build my blood. I was contemplating the idea of adding cooked foods into my diet. Thinking about what my acupuncturist said. All day Saturday it was the backdrop for all my thoughts. Then, as I was driving around looking for a parking spot so my youngest and I could go to the toy store, there it was. A little black car with a license plate frame that said: www.highrawfoods.com Really now. You don't see raw foods advertised every day. Not unless you're looking for it. I'm big on synchronicity. I would say this qualifies, in a big way. More on that later : )

Acupuncture and more.

I went to acupuncture today! It has been several months since I last went. My acupuncturist says it is my anemia that is causing all these issues. She asked if I would consider eating beef broth. I think we all know the answer to that one. She told me to look at Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford. Well, it was already on my coffee table at home. So I re-cracked it open this evening and am educating myself on BLOOD DEFICIENCY and ANEMIA and IRON ABSORPTION. What's crazy is, for blood deficiency, they describe my symptoms exactly. Hmmmmm.

finding the connection

It's been a rough day with my ol' gallbladder. Flu-like symptoms hit hard and pain on right side was very uncomfortable today. I made an appointment to see a surgeon my doc referred me to on Tuesday, following my abdominal ultrasound on Monday. Meanwhile, I took Boston's advice and watched "The Beautiful Truth". It is about Max Gerson and his method for curing many maladies but most impressive of all-- cancer. This documentary was following the research by a 15 year old home schooled boy living in Alaska with his father. The father gave his son the home school assignment of researching the Gerson method and what came about was this amazing and VERY inspirational (if not disturbing at times) documentary. I am so saddened by how blind we are in this country! How distracted we are by entertainment, convenience and instant gratification! It's costing us our lives! So yes, I am going to have an ultrasound and consult with the surgeon, but I am NOT signing up for surgery at this point. I need to be clear first. I need the full picture.

flu symptoms

Today I am experiencing the flu symptoms that have plagued me for the past year and a half or more. My muscles, joints, and skin ache. My head hurts. I feel fatigued. I feel nauseous. Is this from my gallbladder? At one point I though maybe I had fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue. I noticed I was becoming "one of those people", you know, the type that is sensitive to EVERYTHING! If I am around synthetic scents my throat immediately gets scratchy, my head hurts and I start feeling fluish. I found out I was gluten intolerant at age 27 when I had violent bouts of puking, stomach cramping and diarrhea once or twice a month. It wouldn't stop unless I took Dramamine (found that tip out from my godsend midwife a week before I went into labor with my first daughter). And one time, I got so dehydrated, I saw the light. Really. I was on the bathroom floor hugging the toilet bowl and this intense peace came over me and I knew it would all be okay if I just let go. I also am sensitive to dairy, sugar, caffeine and mold. See what I mean?

So my friend Boston has very similar issues, she's the medical intuitive I mentioned in previous posts. She is starting to draw connections between these issues and the gallbladder issue. That's what I like. I want to know the BIG picture. I don't just want to treat one aspect.

OMG!

I was up late reading other folks blogs on gallbladder disease. Ask me how much I slept! This is why I hate the Internet! The fear factor! I read one blog where a reader responded saying they hate the gallbladder because their mother had gone in to have hers removed, found out she had gallbladder cancer and died shortly after. As if that weren't bad enough, then the father committed suicide because he couldn't stand to live without the mother. I was up half the night with crazy images going through my head and hyper focusing on EVERY sensation I felt around my liver and gallbladder and making scary predictions of what every feeling or twinge meant. Oh my. Where are the toothpicks?

The nagging dull pain on my right side

The last few days my nausea has really eased up. It was very bad for a couple of weeks. I have noticed my symptoms worsen with stress (I know, big shocker). Also, I hate to say it but yesterday my symptoms also worsened when I ran. I'm not going to not run folks. It's just not happening. I would go insane if I gave up running. I went on a two hour walk today. Not the same! I do yoga twice a week- love it but- not the same! There is nothing like running!

So the nausea is there but not incapacitating right now. And I feel like there is this big object under my ribs on my right side that expands up to my right shoulder and down to my lower right ribs and mid back. It feels inflamed and kind of mad and achy.

I know, I know, many many people have their gallbladder removed in a "non-invasive" manner every day! And they are "fine"! Well, come on now! What does "fine" mean? Really!! What is going on inside someones body when they have their gallbladder removed? My doctor is so convinced I have this "gallbladder disease" that he doesn't even want to order an ultrasound. Well of course I am not having an organ removed from my body without having some sort of concrete confirmation of what is really going on!

I picked up a book on natural and Chinese medicine today. It talks about liver stagnation (which was my original diagnosis from the acupuncturist) and how it is caused by STRESS, including emotional stress (did I mention I have ocd and ptsd?), or drugs, toxins and overeating. I am thinking the first applies to me. When liver stagnation goes untreated it leads to gallbladder issues. Hello! So I have my gallbladder removed and then what? What comes of these issues? It manifests somewhere else in some other way? Meanwhile I develop what one doctor refers to as a "fatty liver"? No. That's not my style.

Tell me what "gallbladder disease" means!

I have to come up with a plan. I am swimming in information overload right now. It is too easy to let my eyes glaze over and simply nod and smile while the doctor schedules my surgery. Then on with life, right! Right? Or..... do I develop some other shitty disease like.... CANCER 20 years down the road because bile is dripping somewhere it shouldn't??

Answers! I want answers! Don't tell me you know someone that had an organ from their body removed and they are "fine"! We are a system people! If you removed one part of the system-- things are gonna change! And we don't really know how! Obviously if I was told I had a cancerous tumor in my body I would go under the knife! But this is SO much more unclear to me.

I checked with my insurance today. They do cover the group of surgeons I was referred to. I AM going to meet with one of them. I AM going to have an ultrasound and see what they have to say. And then I AM going to start a cleanse and acupuncture and more massage and Reiki and and and....

crawling out of the woodwork!

I can't believe how many people I know who have also experienced gallbladder issues! My Aunt, My cousin, 4 friends on facebook so far (I know there's more!), and one of my office mates! ALL but one of these folks are women, and the man-- is gay! What does this mean? I have read that women are four times as likely to have gallbladder issues, but WHY?? Is this physiological, energetic, psychological?? Chinese medicine associates gallbladder and liver with supressed anger. Hmmm.

more history

I have been eating 100% raw vegan foods for four months now. When I first started I experienced what I have always felt during the first few days of only eating raw: euphoria. After about day 3 other things started settling in. This is usually when I would fall off the wagon. But this time, I trudged on. I found oodles of other raw foodists on line, started a local raw food support group and got down and dirty with some awesome new recipes. The more raw foods I prepared, the less I stuck to the recipes. I have been lucky to have "gone raw" at the same time two yummy raw foods restaurants opened in my town of Bellingham. This has sure made eating out a lot easier! But the biggest thing that has helped me stick to eating raw is, my energy levels came back up. During even the first week of eating this way I noticed I no longer felt that I had a lack of life force energy. It was back. It was easier to move through my day, get out of bed, stay up right, enjoy my exercise routine, and stay present. The discomfort on my right side though, continued, as well as other obscure symptoms.

There was one night when living in Mt Vernon I was putting my daughters to bed and reading a book with a book light as they fell asleep. I noticed I was having difficulty seeing the words. It got progressivly worse until I simply couldn't read. I got up to tell Megan and when I stood in front of her I couldn't see all of her face. Parts of it were blotted out by large spots in my field of vision. Needless to say this really freaked me out! I spoke with two intuitive and psychic friends that night, desperate for support and advice. This is when Boston told me to lay off the coconut milk and reminded me about the cystytis diet. I promptly obeyed. But about 4 months later- well into my raw foods journey- it happened again. This time I also noticed not only could I not see all the letters in the words, I also wasn't comprehending the words I was able to see.

As glad as I was that some of my symptoms were aleviated, I was still experiencing a number of other odd and concerning symptoms, the worst being the discomfort and pain on my right side that would refer to my right shoulder at times. This was making me question my health and my physical strength for the first time ever. Although I thought the allopathic physician I saw was full of it when she suggested I see a PT, I did finally make an appointment with a chiropractor wondering if some of my discomfort on my right side wasn't in fact muscular. Could this have lead to impaired organ function?? Can that happen? Or is my impaired organ function causing this much referral pain?

Healing from the Inside Out.

Two days ago may have been the culmination of close to a year and a half of trying to wade through a host of odd, perplexing, and at times debilitating health symptoms. Looking back, some of my symptoms such as, nausea and fatigue, may have started up to a few years ago but it has only been the past year and a half that they have become such a nuisance as to catch my complete attention.

This time last year I was experiencing severe discomfort and tenderness on my right side just below my rib cage. I became aware of this during a massage workshop in Seattle. I had just started to pull out of about a month of being very sick with a cold/flu and still had a nagging lingering cough. During one of the exercises I was paired with an acupuncturist who keyed right into my liver when I described what my symptoms with the flu had been. It was him palpating that area on my right that first drew my attention to how tender it was. Later that afternoon we were asked to do a walking meditation in which we were to bring focused awareness to our bodily sensations. This was when I became aware of feeling chilled or creepy crawly sensations just on my left side and that all of my other cold/flu symptoms were on my right side.

I took the advice of the acupuncturist in the workshop and started on a Chinese herb for liver stagnation. I also started seeing an acupuncturist in Bellingham who was treating me for the same. Meanwhile I noticed more and more the tenderness on my right side. But now I also was aware of the emotions that would come up if I palpated that area. At first I would be washed over by a wave of deep palpable grief. But then I would notice feeling grumpy or angry for the rest of the day.

I also began to have such fatigue at times I literally felt like I had no life force in me. I felt depressed, unmotivated, perplexed and constantly fluish.

I started reading more about liver stagnation and what to eat, what to stay away from. I had my blood drawn to check the function of my liver. That came out fine. I went to a highly intuitive naturopath who gave me specific remedies and talked about my soul. I consulted with a medical intuitive friend who advised me to get off coconut milk and follow a diet for cystitis. I finally broke down and went to an allopathic physician and was so disheartened when I sat in her office and didn't feel listened to at all. She palpated my liver area- told me she thought it was my diaphragm that was bothering me and that it was stemming from a muscular issue. She wrote me a prescription for PT and sent me on my way. I felt like a deer caught in headlights. I was too stunned to move. I had been a massage therapist for nearly 5 years. I knew muscular issues. I knew and felt deeply that that was not what was going on with me. I never called the physical therapist. I did start seeing a chiropractor though, but only after I started a 100% raw foods diet on May 5, 2010.

Right before going raw my partner Megan convinced me once and for all to stop eating soy. Reluctantly I did. Whining all the way. I loved soy! Tofu was like dessert for me! I used soy in my coffee, ate soy ice cream, used braggs amino acids (derived from soy) on most of my food. Ugh. What was I going to do now? But what I noticed after just a few days of being off soy was-- those constant chills on my left side were gone! Woo Hoo! What a relief! I experimented and would allow myself to have a little soy on some days to observe the effects. One night I remember standing in the kitchen with Megan and eating some popcorn with braggs on it. Within 20 minutes I was on the floor feeling extreme fatigue and all my usual flu symptoms. That was the end of my love affair with soy.

I had experimented with the raw foods diet a couple of times for very short periods. I would say not more than a week at a time. Having been vegetarian since age 10 and vegan since age 14, I definitely had the advantage when considering going raw. Letting go of soy alleviated some of my more annoying symptoms but, the pain and tenderness on my right side and some of the fatigue were still with me. I had been reading some post about raw foods, I believe it was by Philip McClusky, and I remember clearly reading that raw foods was a complete life change for him. But it was the way he worded it that struck me. I don't know if it was the actual true wording or just everything lining up for me in that moment but it was like the heavens parted, golden- white light shown on me from above and I was struck deeply by the most profound understanding in that moment. "Yeah, I could use a life change", is what I thought inside. Major life shift is what I needed.