Cassandra’s Food Journey

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I wanted to write a post about my food journey, because I wanted you all to be able to understand why I post the sort of recipes I do. And because if anything I’ve learned on my journey can help someone else on theirs, that’s what I want to make possible! I love when painful experiences end up helping someone else on their journey.

The Way It Began

I don’t remember having any digestive issues until college. Maybe it was the highly-processed cafeteria food, maybe it was stress or something entirely different. Suddenly during my Freshman year at college I noticed something was going wrong inside me. I started getting bloated, having horrible gas (sorry, this is what you get for reading a post about digestion!), and occasionally getting such horrible stomach cramps that I’d have to lay down for long periods of time.

For some reason I guess I thought it was normal or not a big deal. So, I didn’t do anything about it until my Junior year in college. At that point I was feeling sick more often than not. I tried identifying what food was the culprit, but I couldn’t peg anything down. My symptoms seemed to hit at random!

Discovering My Food Intolerances (Round 1)

In the past my mom had food intolerances (identifiable foods that her body couldn’t digest well), so finally I decided to go see the chiropractor who had diagnosed her intolerances using naturopathy. Honestly, the test he did really weirded me out and I probably wouldn’t have thought him credible if he had not helped my mom so much!

He tested me by first having me hold small glass jars with different types of food in them up to my stomach. Then I’d put out my arm and he’d test how well I could resist him pushing on it. With some foods I could resist just fine, but with others I couldn’t resist as well. The foods that weakened my resistance were the foods I was apparently intolerant to. Weird right?!

I tested positive for a food intolerance to wheat. Though a bit skeptical, I quickly adapted to a gluten-free diet, and my symptoms totally went away and stayed away for a long time!

(The reason I hadn’t figured out gluten was the culprit earlier was because I didn’t know this: Gluten can give you symptoms 8+ hours after eating it. I’d often feel sick at night for something I ate for lunch. That’s why the best way to test whether you’re gluten intolerant is to stop eating it completely for several days and see if you feel a difference.)

Symptoms Reemerge

About two years later, when I was living in California, my symptoms came back, worse than they’d been before. I was still eating gluten-free, but suddenly that was no longer enough. It seemed no matter what I ate I was bloated. Not just bloated – I mean, I looked like I was pregnant half the time! I’d get horrible stomach cramps and gas to where I was laying down in pain and discomfort almost every night.

As time went on I eliminated more and more foods from my diet until I was only eating the same select few foods every day that I knew didn’t make me sick – oatmeal, nut butter, eggs, meat, and sweet potatoes were my staples. I knew this wasn’t sustainable and I knew I needed healing but I had no idea how to get there.

Finding Help

For Ryan’s birthday I took him on a surprise hike a couple of hours away. On our hike we kept running into an older couple and making small talk. At the peak of our hike, we introduced ourselves, and the man told us he was a chiropractor who also specialized in digestion relief. I told them I had a lot of digestive issues and he gave me his business card.

You’d probably think at this point I’d be ready to call him up the next day, right? Well, no, I didn’t call. In fact, I lost his business card and forgot his name. Weeks, maybe even a couple of months went by.

Why didn’t I call him? I didn’t see my issues as worth the investment. I knew treatments could be expensive and who knew if they’d actually work? Plus, his practice was an hour and a half away from where I lived. It was nice to know someone doing what he did was out there, but I thought I just had to manage my issues myself.

Finally, though, I reached a point where I knew something had to be done. I think honestly it was being engaged that made me desperate to be better. I realized I didn’t want to bring my health issues and all my resulting unhappiness into marriage!

Ryan and I remembered meeting this chiropractor but realized we misplaced the business card and after a long time of internet searching for some reason we could not find him on Google either! Just as we were about to give up searching, we found him.

Digestion Relief Center

Dr. Patrick was the chiropractor’s name. He originally started studying digestion issues because of his wife’s digestive suffering. He became a specialist and takes a holistic approach, using chiropractic techniques coupled with naturopathic healing practices. I read countless testimonies on his website of people he helped get better, but I admit I was still extremely skeptical and nervous.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was, when I found out Ryan and my parents were 100% supportive of me seeing this doctor. My health was worth investing in.

My treatments with Dr. Patrick began in November of 2016. I was symptom-free by the end of February of 2017.

Through extensive testing, Dr. Patrick discovered my body was truly intolerant to a long list of foods. I had food intolerances to gluten, corn, broccoli, onions, garlic, peanut butter and more. I had to do a 24 hour urine collection and send it in the mail (funny story, I had to keep my pee jug in the fridge and managed to keep it a secret from all 3 of my roommates). The test results revealed yeast and bacterial overgrowths and told us my body wasn’t able to process and use many vital vitamins and nutrients.

Dr. Patrick put me on 3 different digestive enzymes to take with every meal as well as a powerful probiotic. He then gave me a list of foods I couldn’t eat, including the ones I was intolerant to, and every week or two I came in for “treatments” which were chiropractic adjustments that supposedly desensitized my body to the foods I was intolerant to. (It was weird you guys. I held a vial of food particles to my stomach as he pressed on certain areas of my body. When he finished I could supposedly eat that food again… and then I did, and I had no reactions anymore! Weird or not, the process worked.)

The biggest thing though was killing off the excess yeast and bacteria. To do this I went on a super strict no-carbohydrate, no-sugar, no-dairy, no-most-things diet for about a month (because carbs and sugars feed the yeast). I also had to drink a pretty distasteful powder dissolved in water two times a day which was killing the overgrowth.

By the end of treatments, I was healed. Truly healed. No more symptoms.

What I Eat Today

I still can’t totally eat whatever I want. Because my body is predisposed to having this yeast overgrowth issue and these food intolerances, Dr. Patrick has instructed me to continue maintaining a low carb and minimal sugar diet. The only thing I really still don’t eat at all though is gluten. But honestly, I don’t miss it. Fact is, I’m not sure gluten is really great for anyone, and it sure has caused a lot of problems for me.

I also still take an enzyme with every meal, and a probiotic every night, and I probably always will. Again, I want to stay well and do everything I can to help my body out.

I am so incredibly grateful to be well again. Even while writing this, it’s really good for me to remember how far I’ve come.

And so, this is why I focus on paleo, low-carb, and grain-free eating. Maybe it’s the most healthy way to eat, or maybe it’s not (I’m seeing a lot of debate about this lately). But it’s what works best for me and my body! And you have to figure out what works best for yours.

I hope we can help each other out along the way 🙂 I’d love to hear your thoughts and about your journeys, and if any of you have any more questions about my journey I would absolutely love to answer and help as much as I can!