Focusing on my Health

Three weeks ago, on my 30th birthday to be exact, I had this strange very unsettling pain in my abdomen. It came on suddenly and felt like a gas pain. It didn't just pass but instead made it hard for me to breathe and I almost passed out. Once I got myself laying flat and cooled down I was fine for 15 minutes until the pain attack happened again. It was so scary I almost had my mom take me to the ER. I felt like my diaphragm was tightening up causing me to loose my breath. I have to say that it was probably technically painful enough to warrant a trip at least to urgent care but I'm stubborn and it was my birthday. 

After spending the next week and a half going from appointment to appointment to have multiple test run I got no answers. I had a full blood panel run. I also had an ultrasound of my abdomen done. Everything came back normal and apparently I have a really good looking pancreas! I don't feel like all the appointments were wasted or that something was over looked but I am happy to not spend every other day at the doctors office. I am very happy that there was nothing serious wrong because some of the possible diagnosis required surgery. I do however take it as a wake up call. I not only need to get my diet back in check but I need to listen to my body. My doctor also very firmly instructed me to come back or go to urgent care immediately if I had any problems again.

Made good use of my waiting time.

Once I was sure that all my test results came back normal I decided to take inventory of what else had changed that could possibly be causing the problem. I decided that diet was the biggest factor. I was so committed to staying vegan just a few short months ago but I had fallen off terribly. It wasn't even that I was cooking meat at home it was more that we were constantly eating out. I knew that a major change was needed and my body was telling me in the most powerful way possible. I let myself have last weekend as my "last" weekend to be indulgent. I mean I just couldn't let me possibly being sick ruin my kid free weekend. (Currently rolling my eyes, what was I thinking waiting.)

My fancy jewelry from radiology. 

I started back 100% vegan on Monday which I do realize makes today only day 3 but I can already tell a difference. I know that I can't eat chocolate of any kind since it made me incredibly sick this morning. I guess that means no more of my favorite chocolate covered strawberry smoothie. I am going to continue on my complete vegan track for the next 20 days. I am also cutting out all alcohol because it often wrecks some serious havoc on your body. 

My focus now is to keep track of how I feel each day over the next three weeks. I am taking careful note of everything I eat as well as how I feel before and after I eat it. I am also carefully tracking my workouts and making sure to slowly ease back into them. I am completely eliminating all dairy, meat, soy and alcohol from my diet while increasing the amount of water I drink. After three weeks I will slowly reintroduce things just like in an elimination diet. If my body doesn't respond well then I will do a complete elimination diet. Ugh.

Okay not really ugh since I decided to do this for myself but its hard to stay strong when all I really want to do is eat ice cream! I use to say oh it's going to make me sick but its okay. I'm over that now. I am to a point that I need to take care of myself and realize that a food making me feel bad isn't actually taking care of myself. So here's to my journey of figuring out if that strange pain in my middle upper abdomen just below my sternum is something I can prevent from ever happening again!

Lunch for B and I today while our friends ate corn-dogs.

Are you willing to completely change your diet in order to make you feel better? Have you ever had to do an elimination diet? Have you ever decided to just completely change your diet in hope s that you will feel better?