16 Things People with Chronic Pain/Illness Want You to Know

I was just looking through Facebook a few minutes ago when I came across a link that my friend liked that said, "16 things people in chronic pain want you to know," so I clicked on the link, read through it, and I just had to share it on my blog because this is SPOT ON people. Enjoy.

-- I originally copied and pasted the article, but I just noticed that the pictures weren't showing anymore so I'll just share the link. You can find the article here

This whole thing explains exactly how I feel! I especiall

loved the part that said: "people tend to underestimate
 other people’s pain. This may be because chronic 
pain/illness itself is difficult to imagine, 
especially if you have never experienced it firsthand."

Sometimes when I'm feeling sick, I'll just look at my family 
and say, "I just really wish you guys could feel how I'm 
feeling RIGHT NOW. like you have NO IDEA how sick I 
feel and even when I tell you, you probably are picturing it
being not as bad as it really is." 

Chronic Illness sucks! I wonder how many people in the 
world have chronic pain or illness.. I hope not a lot because 
it's such a hard thing to go through!! 

Because of Him

I love this video SO much. It's so beautifully made and makes me feel so inspired and feel so much love and gratitude towards my savior. Because of Him, I am not alone and my weaknesses can become strengths.

Happy (late) Easter!!

Health Update

Hi!

Sorry it's been a while.

I thought I would just write a quick health update since I just saw my naturopath last week and I haven't really talked about my health since my first post.

So I went for a follow-up appointment with Dr. J on Wednesday last week and we went over my blood test results. He said I was low in pretty much everything.. thyroid, adrenals, vitamin D, iron, etc. so he gave me some new supplements to take.

The week leading up to my appointment, I hadn't been feeling great.. I felt tired and had stomach issues like bloating and hot stomach in the evening every day (nothing super bad, but definitely not feeling good enough) and on the day of my appointment, I felt really crappy and sick all over. He seemed surprised and said I should be improving a lot more than I am since I've been on such a restrictive diet for a few weeks now..

(I'm on the gut re-set diet right now which is a low fermentable diet and I eat the same things every single day: eggs, certain fruits- usually bananas, pineapple, oranges, white grapefruit (fruit only 1/2 serving every 2 hours) and certain veggies (carrots, turnips, cucumbers), cheese, oatmeal with stevia,  salads, chicken, crock pot turkey, and... I think that's it. Oh and I use stevia to sweeten my water and drink that all day long. It's yummy. :)

My diet seems SO awful to everyone but I'm actually not sick of this diet at all.. I really don't think it's that bad. and I think that's because I went off ALL grains, sugars, starches, etc. back in JANUARY when I tried the SCD diet so I experienced the terrible, miserable die-off of sugar reaction then, but by the time I started this new diet that my doctor has me on that's a little more restrictive, I'm like "I got this." :)

so anyways, once Dr. J looked over my test results he was like "ahh yes, that's why you're still feeling crappy!"and he gave me 5 new supplements to take.

- Armour thyroid

- MonoDEA

- Cytozyme-AD (2 in morning, 2 in afternoon)

- Vitamin D (twice a week)

- Naltrexone  (I'm actually not taking this one yet and I don't know if I ever will because it's super expensive... Biorestoration (the clinic I go see Dr. J at in Draper) doesn't take our new insurance that we just switched to a few weeks ago so my $40 office visit on Wednesday, ended up being a $155 office visit PLUS $89 worth of supplements. and THEN, he sent 2 prescriptions to South Jordan Compounding facility for me to pick up- one was the thyroid that cost $25 and the other was naltrexone and they said it would be $90 and that our insurance wouldn't cover that one. So I told them to hold it for me, asked Dr. J if I could wait on that one to see how I'm doing on these 4 first and he said that's fine, it's just something to help with aches and pains, not like a supplement I absolutely NEED to get better yet)

Anyways, so I started taking these new supplements a few days ago (oh and I'm still taking peppermint and oregano and swedish bitters with meals, and aloe vera juice in between meals) and the first 2 days, I felt so weird and extremely exhausted.. it was a completely new feeling so it was definitely from the new supplements and I don't know if that's what happens when you start taking a new supplement or not, I'm not sure, I was going to ask Dr. J, but after a few days, now I'm feeling GREAT. So I'll just ask him about it if it happens again. (might have been side affects from vitamin D supplement)

So yeah, Sunday (yesterday), I felt really great. Like totally 100% normal!! It was the weirdest thing. I haven't felt like that in over a year. So that's good. Crossing my fingers that I just keep improving!!!

So I don't know if this great feeling will last.. the last 65 times I've felt better, I thought I was finally good, but I always kept feeling sick over and over again so I have no idea if I'm finally done being sick or if this is just a good couple of days.. and that scares me, but I can't live in fear my whole life so I'm just going to live in this moment, seize the day, and be hopeful and optimistic that I'm going to get better!!

Happy Monday!