Most of my life I’ve had food issues. First came dairy. As a kid I could only drink two measuring cups of milk a day. Any more than that and I’d vomit. Then I started having problems with corn in my twenties. I can still do a little without major problems but eating an ear of corn and I’m sick in bed the next day. I was in my early thirties when I started having vertigo problems. Four months later I cut out the 2 cups of milk a day and suddenly I wasn’t dizzy all the time. A few years later I started drinking Earl Grey Tea. I started having panic attacks. Tomatoes were also a big problem for a while. My kids gave me a pretzel, one pretzel and I started blowing out the worst smelling farts. You didn’t want to be in the same room with me.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I started having gallbladder attacks. My kids were about two. I would wake up in the middle of the night, shivering and nauseated. I had no idea what the hell was going on. This went on for six months until one day at work I was in so much pain I left to go to urgent care. I walked into the exam room and a few minutes later the doctor was palpating (feeling around) my belly for the source of the pain. The whole time I was thinking not the gallbladder, please not the gallbladder. It was my gallbladder. Damn. I was scheduled to go in for an ultrasound. No, they wouldn’t let me watch. I was informed a week later that I had lots of little stones which tend to get stuck in the bile duct. I have passed a couple of stones and I can tell you it’s worse than an infected tooth but not as bad as a migraine. I can’t compare it to labor because unfortunately I had a cesarean with my twins.
My dad had a gangrenous gallbladder removed several years before. They recommended surgery but since I didn’t have a blocked bile duct then I could wait.
Gallbladder
I did research for about a month on gallbladder problems. Why do people have gallbladder problems? The big reason? Low Fat Diets. Think about it. What does the gallbladder do? I stores and concentrates bile produced by the liver to help digest the fats that you eat. When you eat fat your body tells the muscles in the gallbladder wall to squeeze and send the concentrated bile into the small intestine where the fat gets broken down. What happens when you don’t eat much fat? The bile doesn’t go anywhere and the gallbladder keeps concentrating the bile, turning bile into bile stones which actually aren’t stones but are more like gummy bears.
Paleo
I have a friend who has a child with celiac that was eating paleo or the caveman diet. One day I searched gallbladder and gluten sensitivity. Yes there is a correlation. I gave up grains and started looking into the Paleo diet. The first thing I did was listening to podcasts. Everyday Paleo (which later became The Jassa Podcast- now only in the archives) with Jason Seib and Sarah Fragoso became my lifeline. They promoted low carb as part of their paleo lifestyle. Yes I started with their back list and listened to every episode. It’s because of them that I started listening to Robb Wolf, Sean Croxton (Underground Wellness Radio), Angelo Coppola (Latest in Paleo) and only Robb is still going.
Symptoms
Some of my symptoms included daily diarrhea, colon spasm, bloating, dry cracked feet, foggy brain, sleepy, nausea, migraines, etc.
Outcome
I lost twenty five pounds going paleo in 2 months. It was awesome. I did really well avoiding sweets at Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I caved at Easter when the Marshmallow Peeps came out and had sugar craving for six months and luckily only gained five pounds back.
Keto
Approximately two years later I started hearing about Keto or the Ketogenic Diet helping people lose weight. I was still at 210 pounds and really wanted to have the energy to keep up with my kids. It’s been a year since I started Keto. Actually my anniversary is in 7 days. I’m not perfect keto, most days I’m low carb. And I’ve lost 10-15 pounds depending on the time of the month.
I have energy, I still haven’t had gallbladder surgery nor do I ever want to have it removed. I’ve never been tested for celiac. I suspect I have IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), maybe a leaky gut, maybe SIBO (Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth), a MTHFR mutation. Will I ever test for these? I don’t know. I know how much better I’m feeling. My stools are normal (solid and 2x daily), no more gallbladder attacks. Maybe I’ll test if things get worse again. I am hypothyroid as is my mom and her mom.
Okay, I think I’m done. Time to get back to the family. Have a wonderful weekend!
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