My digestion struggles

It has been about three years that I have been having digestive issues. I was on a typical junk food diet in my 20's and it wasn't until I started P90X that I really made it a point to make health a lifestyle and not a weight loss thing.

I remember my birthday in Alaska my husband and I went to Taco Bell for my birthday and for a few days after that I got really bad stomach cramps and then I felt nauseous for months but the kind of nauseous that you knew you weren't going to get sick with. I went to the doctor and I was given medicine to lower my stomach acid and was treated for h. Pylori which is a bacterial infection from food.

Ever since that incident my digestion has taken a serious turn for the worst. It started with lactose. I can no longer eat that but it is a blessing because dairy is terrible for you. I am almost done mourning cheese ha ha. After the lactose it was onion. Now I cannot eat peppers, kale unless it is cooked, spinach, anything processed or spices because they all have onion in them. I am pretty much doomed to cook everything myself. On the regular I don't mind but here's the thing.......a girl likes to have a break to and because of my IBS type symptoms that are associated with eating things that I can't it makes it really hard and time consuming. I have had excessive gas, constipation, diarrhea, sometimes stomach cramps.

I started research on my issues and I have narrowed it down to leaky gut, SIBO, Candida, or just plain ol IBS. The problem with this is that my insurance does not cover a functional medicine specialist so I am going to try and see if I can get a referral to a belly doc. I want a solution to my problem because it is going way to far. I have a vacation planned to go to Florida next week so I am waiting for that to get this referral in and to start the Paleo autoimmune protocol. It seems to be the only thing that clears up my symptoms. I did it for a week and it worked great but it started to get expensive because I was cooking out of recipes all the time and buying these foreign ingredients so I stopped and lets be real. I really wanted to eat some pizza. Any how. When I went to my Bible Study group and ate all the "bad" foods there and having to deal with my stomach being upset the entire day after I ate I realized it wasn't worth it anymore I needed an intervention. The only thing that I have found that has been somewhat helpful is eating gluten which makes me think it is bacterial because the cravings that I have for sugar and the gluten eating that is helping makes me think that I am feeding it and it is making me feel normal which is scary and it sucks.

To alleviate my digestive problems, I have been taking a digestive enzyme and drinking lemon water and that has helped 100%. Now all I have to do is get my L-Glutamine in the mail and start eating on the autoimmune protocol along with being low FODMAP. You are probably wondering why I am not just going ahead and starting the diet ASAP, well it's because of my vacation. It's already hard to eat the way that I do and adding a super strict diet I feel would stress me out too much and probably do more harm than good because there are times when I am all about diving right in but not for this.

With that said I am going to try my best to start eliminating things from my diet to ease myself into it because as soon as I get back it is on for 60 days. I can't believe that I am saying that LOL but I am going to be super strict. At this point after three years of smell gas and #3 in the bathroom I am more than ready to get this done and healed.

I am hoping to be able to see the doctor and at least get tested in regards to SIBO but we shall see what happens. I really hope that my medical office will give me more than just...."Well stop eating that food." It's not really that simple because I am becoming intolerant to the most popular foods and my food list is slowly shrinking. I hope to find a resolution to all of this and come back with good news. I will keep you updated on the progress here and let you know exactly what I am doing and how so that way, if you have something like this going on with you it may help you too.