Candida Cleanse part two: False starts
[Just joining us? See part one here.]
The quick & dirty of the Candida Cleanse is mostly the diet. No grains of any kind (even whole ones), no legumes or nuts (because high mold content), limited (specific) dairy, nothing made with mold/yeast including anything made with vinegar except apple cider vinegar, no caffeine (though I'm iffy on the science of that one). We decided that we'd go All Meat & Veg for the month of June, then add back in the low-carb items (like nuts & cheese) in July. Two months is totally do-able, right? Last time, I felt better after 5 days going low-carb, so 2 months should clear everything right up.
May 31st came around and well, my period is not a fun time to be me. I'll spare you the details but suffice it to say, I should have gone to the hospital for fluids, I was that dehydrated. Getting fluids in me was more important than starting a new treatment plan that would only increase the stress on my body. Gatorade was my friend, but not on the diet of course. So it was Wednesday the 3rd before we really got started on the diet part, including the supplements that I ordered and had finally come in.
Of course, these supplements aren't pregnancy compatible, and so it meant that I needed to time taking them fairly carefully so as to avoid them during the Two Week Wait (as it's known in Trying To Conceive circles) or what I like to call Schröedinger's Pregnancy, that time between ovulation and home test accuracy. Getting started late meant that days were a little off, but not too terribly.
Then we went on our trip to Portland. We did really well, packing our cooler with lots of snacks, taking food since we had access to a kitchen where we were staying, planning some meals ahead. It fell apart on us anyway. If I thought eating out low-carb was hard, this is even harder. And I was suddenly reminded of part of the reason I quit being so strictly low-carb to begin with: It's mentally exhausting, and actually kind of embarrassing. Especially for someone with a highly developed fear of inconveniencing people. Anyway, we did the best we could, but after 2 nights of broken sleep (did you know labor is exhausting even to the support team?) we kind of threw our hands up and said we'd start over when we got home.
Guess what happened when we got home? I got a cold. A nasty one, too. After a day of sore throat so bad I couldn't swallow more than a sip of liquid at a time, then another full day of snotty face & feeling like my head was five times its size and suspended three feet above my neck on top of a still-sore throat, all I wanted was plain (whole wheat) spaghetti noodles with a little butter and a little parmesan cheese. Nothing else could pass my lips. And so, we broke down & made it, and said we'd start over again tomorrow. But tomorrow came and hello, colds aren't one day long, y'all. I had a bit more appetite back but it's all very touch & go still. We got me some mashed potatoes because it was all I could stomach let alone swallow. We once again threw our hands up and said, this isn't working, we need to take a break & start over.
And this brings me to an important point: When we are acutely sick, our bodies need a lot of fast energy to fight off infection without expending that limited energy on digestion. That means SIMPLE CARBS! That means some sugar and potatoes and white flour. Even if I don't eat those things normally, they'd crept back into my house after years of increasing acute illnesses requiring that BRAT-style diet. NOT giving your body the simple foods it needs to get through an illness can have serious consequences, like pneumonia to which I'm already very prone, so when I say it's kind of dangerous not to retreat to those comfort foods when you're sick I'm not just being melodramatic. And I have the medical history to prove it from NOT giving my body simple carbs when it needs it, leading to --dun dun dun-- that month with three courses of antibiotics.
So the next Start Over is going to be Monday. Give me two more days to get over this cold, start at the beginning of a new week again. Two weeks of false starts is super frustrating. We haven't even stuck with it long enough to know if it's worth it. We had a good 5 day stretch during which I seemed to have less pain & more energy, but nothing is really clear yet. Monday. Looking toward Monday.
The quick & dirty of the Candida Cleanse is mostly the diet. No grains of any kind (even whole ones), no legumes or nuts (because high mold content), limited (specific) dairy, nothing made with mold/yeast including anything made with vinegar except apple cider vinegar, no caffeine (though I'm iffy on the science of that one). We decided that we'd go All Meat & Veg for the month of June, then add back in the low-carb items (like nuts & cheese) in July. Two months is totally do-able, right? Last time, I felt better after 5 days going low-carb, so 2 months should clear everything right up.
May 31st came around and well, my period is not a fun time to be me. I'll spare you the details but suffice it to say, I should have gone to the hospital for fluids, I was that dehydrated. Getting fluids in me was more important than starting a new treatment plan that would only increase the stress on my body. Gatorade was my friend, but not on the diet of course. So it was Wednesday the 3rd before we really got started on the diet part, including the supplements that I ordered and had finally come in.
Of course, these supplements aren't pregnancy compatible, and so it meant that I needed to time taking them fairly carefully so as to avoid them during the Two Week Wait (as it's known in Trying To Conceive circles) or what I like to call Schröedinger's Pregnancy, that time between ovulation and home test accuracy. Getting started late meant that days were a little off, but not too terribly.
Then we went on our trip to Portland. We did really well, packing our cooler with lots of snacks, taking food since we had access to a kitchen where we were staying, planning some meals ahead. It fell apart on us anyway. If I thought eating out low-carb was hard, this is even harder. And I was suddenly reminded of part of the reason I quit being so strictly low-carb to begin with: It's mentally exhausting, and actually kind of embarrassing. Especially for someone with a highly developed fear of inconveniencing people. Anyway, we did the best we could, but after 2 nights of broken sleep (did you know labor is exhausting even to the support team?) we kind of threw our hands up and said we'd start over when we got home.
Guess what happened when we got home? I got a cold. A nasty one, too. After a day of sore throat so bad I couldn't swallow more than a sip of liquid at a time, then another full day of snotty face & feeling like my head was five times its size and suspended three feet above my neck on top of a still-sore throat, all I wanted was plain (whole wheat) spaghetti noodles with a little butter and a little parmesan cheese. Nothing else could pass my lips. And so, we broke down & made it, and said we'd start over again tomorrow. But tomorrow came and hello, colds aren't one day long, y'all. I had a bit more appetite back but it's all very touch & go still. We got me some mashed potatoes because it was all I could stomach let alone swallow. We once again threw our hands up and said, this isn't working, we need to take a break & start over.
And this brings me to an important point: When we are acutely sick, our bodies need a lot of fast energy to fight off infection without expending that limited energy on digestion. That means SIMPLE CARBS! That means some sugar and potatoes and white flour. Even if I don't eat those things normally, they'd crept back into my house after years of increasing acute illnesses requiring that BRAT-style diet. NOT giving your body the simple foods it needs to get through an illness can have serious consequences, like pneumonia to which I'm already very prone, so when I say it's kind of dangerous not to retreat to those comfort foods when you're sick I'm not just being melodramatic. And I have the medical history to prove it from NOT giving my body simple carbs when it needs it, leading to --dun dun dun-- that month with three courses of antibiotics.
So the next Start Over is going to be Monday. Give me two more days to get over this cold, start at the beginning of a new week again. Two weeks of false starts is super frustrating. We haven't even stuck with it long enough to know if it's worth it. We had a good 5 day stretch during which I seemed to have less pain & more energy, but nothing is really clear yet. Monday. Looking toward Monday.
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