Health Series-Part 1

I am amazed at how many people have e-mailed me asking to post about how we eat, the supplements we take etc.  I have even had people come up to me around our town and ask me to post about it.  Changing the way we eat and treat ourselves medically has changed our lives so I am happy to share this but first I need to put out some disclaimers:

1. I am not a health professional in any way shape or form. Please seek your own medical advice before doing anything that I write about here (my lawyers made me say that--LOL;)

2. I have been to the following kinds of health professionals-- nutritionist, NAET specialist, allergists, chiropractor, acupuncturist, Chinese herbalist, holistic doctor and every other kind of "regular" physician you can imagine.

3 .Our family does not ALWAYS make the healthiest choices.  We try to eat very healthy but we do "cheat" once in a while and eat junk food.  Life is short and food is yummy.  We like pizza and cupcakes sometimes but we never eat at McDonald's or Burger King or places like that. We also try not to judge others by what they eat.  We simply do what works for us.

4. We live like this because we need to.  Harry, Will and I have all been very sick in the past.  In fact, as I write this I realized we have all been hospitalized or taken to the ER due to reactions to food and allergies and medicines in the past.  Even Kate needs to be careful. She drinks goat milk because cow's milk and ice cream give her horrible eczema!

I realized that there are so many facets to this topic. So, I will post about it in parts and I apologize in advance to those who find it utterly boring (I would have a few years ago).

First, I will give a little background as to why we changed our lifestyle.  Then I will talk about our diet.  After that, I will post about homeopathy and finally, I will post about some of the supplements that have helped us.

Several HUGE events occurred in our lives to make us completely change the way we eat and live.  I want to share some of that so you realize it was a long time getting to where we are.  As I have shared before, on Will's 2nd birthday the neurologist told me that I probably had MS.  I went for second and third and fourth opinions.  I looked into all of the medications the doctor wanted me to take. I felt awful and I had a terrible time walking. I dropped things all the time and I was exhausted. I had horrendous nerve pain in my right leg and in my face (trigeminal neuralgia). The doctors sent me for dozens of MRI's, spinal taps,  and blood tests. I even had a test where they inserted needles into my legs and shocked me (EMG). I never really believed that I had MS but I wasn't sure if I was just in denial or not. One of the treatments they gave me (IVIG) caused Aseptic meningitis  and sent me to the hospital almost every time. It was bad.

Fast forward a few years, Harry is born.  He is sweet and beautiful but he cannot breast feed. He has a short frenulum (tongue tied) and cannot latch on. He eventually needs surgery to correct this condition. So, we give him formula.  I will spare some of the bloody (yes) gory details but NOTHING would stay in either end of that baby. For 4 months, he was starving.  He was failure to thrive.  It was awful! There are so many more stories I could tell here but I'll save them for another time. In short, an endoscopy when he was four months old revealed that he was allergic to both dairy and soy.  There is little to feed a newborn that does not contain dairy or soy.  There was literally one thing Harry could eat (Neocate).  It was available through hospital pharmacies only and it was outrageously expensive.  After a while, we could order by the case.

While all of this is going on, Will has asthma, allergies and eczema.  He is also a little "hyper." His pre-school teacher even wonders if he could have ADD.

We were all going to our separate doctors for our separate issues for years.  We were taking lots of medication.  Harry was on medication for reflux.  Will was on medication for allergies and asthma.  I was on something for nerve pain and inflammation.  I NEVER once thought that we needed to change anything in our lives. We weren't the healthiest eaters but we weren't the worst either. I thought that once Harry was off the bottle, he would outgrow his allergies.  Over the years, out of pain and frustration, I started to seek out other types of doctors.  I went to an acupuncturist in Houston.  I started to see a chiropractor. Eventually, a good friend directed me to a holistic health care specialist who really turned on the light bulb for us.  Harry was 3 and began have serious stomach issues. He had mega colon. So, I got on the waiting list to see this specialist.

To make a VERY long story short, she assessed me and the boys and determined that we were all having major problems processing wheat, gluten dairy and soy. She also discovered some severe vitamin and mineral deficiencies. She discovered that my adrenal glands were not functioning well at all. This basically meant that everything we ate was causing unhealthy reactions in our bodies.   I did not want to listen.  I lived on bread and cheese.  There was NO way I could give them up. She started treating the boys with supplements.  Their systems were so weak from years of exposure to things that were bad for them. We had lived in Houston, Texas.  I LOVE Houston but it is very polluted.  I have no doubt that also affected our already weak immune systems.

So, Dave thought I was CRAZY when I traveled an hour and a half each way with the boys to see this doctor (a few times a month). He thought I was even crazier when he saw the supplements they needed.  But when I told him how we were going to start eating...he really thought I was nuts. We were on so many supplements early on, he made a chart for the boys so I didn't miss any.  After a few weeks, we saw BIG changes and Dave did not think I was crazy anymore.

I want to mention here that this doctor spent so much time with us and she charged very little ($35 a visit--spending an hour or more with each of us). Similarly, she charged less for the supplements than anywhere else I have bought them.  She was not in it for the money.  She really wanted to help people.

Next, I will talk about the diet.