Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

Nutrition really is the key to healing.

My family

I'm lazy, it has to be said, very lazy. So when my sister told me she had found an excellent book, quite scientific but definitely an essential read I asked her to summarise the key points rather than having to read it myself. Fortunately she persuaded me otherwise.

When I was doing my degree in the late '80s I was also an Officer Cadet with King's Regiment in Liverpool.  Early morning PT with a log across our shoulders running through fields, over assault courses was a great way to wake up. Except, for me, one in 4 of these PT sessions would end up with me curled up in agony in a sleeping bag on the changing room floor for an hour or two.

Roll on a decade and I was a PE teacher in a secondary school, still active, eating quite healthily. I thought that what I was feeling was normal. Every time I had a number 2 I had to grab onto the walls in pain, when being driven in a car if we went over potholes my abdomen would feel bounced around like the bladder in a caser football. The waves of incredible fatigue were also part of the monthly experience. I found out this was not normal for everyone.

Some mornings I would get into school and have to teach from sitting on the gym floor as I was so totally wiped out I could barely walk, then I'd be back up and raring to go again shortly after. Strange! Then my older sister told me she had endometriosis and was having an operation. And she started researching. And she found an excellent book Endometriosis, A key to healing through nutrition by Dian Shepperson Mills and Michael Vernon. I know that changed her and her diet and empowered her to be proactive about her health and healing. 

Initially I was told that my pain was most likely early menopause....yes, in my early 30s, then I put up with it for a few years. Because Netty got diagnosed,  I gently suggested to my GP that it might be that too. So an appointment was made with a consultant they suggested laparoscopy. I booked a few days off school. I had the laparoscopy as a day patient and was back in work shortly after. "Oh, by the way, that hasn't resolved it, we just had a look around and yes, you have endometriosis. Come in for a laparoscopy in July! You might need a couple of weeks off work"  So in July I went into hospital and I had various sites lasered, I didn't lose my ovary as they thought I might, as I was coming round from the general anaesthetic I said "Pain! ovary? Dave!" I had all three there still.

The follow up was interesting. "Yes just so that you know the operation itself may have spread the endometrioma sites, it may come back again. You may need further surgery and we may have to look at a hysterectomy. We will put you on something that will put you in a temporary menopause for 6 months, oh and obviously you'll need therefore to go on HRT. You're not getting any younger, you're sub fertile, if you're thinking of having a family it's now or never but it's quite unlikely." A shocked me asked timidly if there was anything I could do to help, along the lines of nutrition. Unfortunately I may as well have said - but what if I bath my womb in ants urine under a crescent moon? Apparently that and nutrition wouldn't have any favourable results. I knew I needed the 'key to healing' but literally just wanted the key...not the 350 page read!

A couple of years after the op in early 2003 I felt some odd twinges and thought - right, I'm really getting on it with that book of Netty's. I read it cover to cover, I added loads of berries, grains, sprouted legumes, alfalfa, mung beans, I stopped eating wheat, took out dairy, I was already off red meat so stopped eating poultry. Well what a year that was! Dave proposed to me in the May...maybe I was just full of energy and glowing because of the nutrition and he just couldn't resist me. We got married at the start of August. Oh and all of a sudden after being on this altered nutrition and no need for further surgery....in September I discovered I was pregnant. A couple of years after being told it was very unlikely and about 7 months after changing my diet. Quelle coincidence!

Gotta love a pineapple hat

And because I was carrying a little being I was delighted to be as healthy as possible in everything I was putting into and onto my body, moisturisers, deodorants, toothpastes, shampoos all as natural as possible....because the skin absorbs stuff right? So that's going to get into the blood stream of me and the little bean I'm carrying. George was born in June 2004.

Then in 2015 I started to struggle in work, home, the things I took for granted that had been easy became so so hard. Like reaching up to brush my hair, or getting dressed, or forming comprehensive sentences or staying upright and conscious in lessons. We had a hard couple of years up to that point with work stress, doing way too much, spinning multiple plates in the air and my wonderful Dad going into a coma for 14 months. And those plates came crashing down to earth and my body shut down. Fibromyalgia was diagnosed. A local support group was suggested by my GP for which I am extremely grateful and the road to nutrition was revisited and tinkered with again.

Anyone for 'coffee'?

Anyone for tea?

Foods that are energy rich and minimal in preparation were the key. The nutritionists at Salus Fatigue Foundation really understood and made really sensible suggestions. Batch cook so you've got food in for when you're wiped out. Don't have heavy meals that will use up all of your energy to digest.  Try to eat as close to the original product as possible. Boost your gut health, reduce your inflammation, improve your sleep...all by eating the right things, garlic, turmeric, ginger, artichoke, coriander, flax seeds, walnuts, berries. 

Tree hugger

Attempt at making oat milk

All the colours of the rainbow for your fruit and veg. Eat seasonally if you can.  Try and avoid caffeine or you'll use up the last bit of energy you needed to help you get to bed. Be kind to yourself. You can't change the world overnight. And bit by bit with nutrition, mindfulness and gentle positive moving I got pieces of me, pieces of my life back again.

Thanks George for my tea

 
I suppose if we are labelling I am plant based or vegan. A mixture of raw food and cooked. I love my smoothie maker and juicer. I think I'm getting the hang of it. I'm walking loads, cycling, doing yoga twice a week and feeling really good, the best I have in a long time. I'd say nutrition has rebuilt me and I'm happy with that.

Preparing salad for tea