A year ago, I don't think I would have gone to a naturopath and written a post about food sensitivities. Am I one of those people so desperate for an answer that I'll grasp at anything? Maybe. But anyway, this is what I've been up to, and I think it's interesting, and maybe promising.
Basically, I've had some kind of undiagnosed inflammation for as long as I can remember. My skin is always red and I break into a rash at ANY stimulus - dust, my purse strap, etc. Doctors in the past have tried to identify the stimuli (too many to pinpoint) or just treat the problem topically, and I've always wanted to get to the root of why my body does this. And lately, of course, I've become convinced that the same inflammation would probably be a problem in getting pregnant. So I made an appointment with a naturopath.
She did a food sensitivities test which came back to show sensitivities to basically everything I eat, which indicated not that I should stop eating, but that my body is in a reactive state - leaky gut syndrome (which coincidentally I just saw on Dr. Oz). It stems from some kind of intestinal imbalance, maybe from a parasite (we're testing), or maybe just because.
To treat it, I've been taking a probiotic for a few weeks and I already see a difference in my skin. There are a few other things I'm going to take to help heal the leaky gut thing, too, and she's confident that once we fix that, I'll see improvements in my skin, energy, aches and pains, and perhaps it'll also let me get pregnant. She said what I'd suspected, which is that if my body is constantly in this reactive state where it'll attack whatever I eat or touch, then it would attack an embryo as well. My immune system needs to be in balance before it would be able to support a pregnancy.
So, in the quest to control the uncontrollable, I feel like I'm doing something positive for my body. It'll be great to get my skin under control, even if it doesn't help me get pregnant, but I feel hopeful that it will.
Has anyone else explored this?
Basically, I've had some kind of undiagnosed inflammation for as long as I can remember. My skin is always red and I break into a rash at ANY stimulus - dust, my purse strap, etc. Doctors in the past have tried to identify the stimuli (too many to pinpoint) or just treat the problem topically, and I've always wanted to get to the root of why my body does this. And lately, of course, I've become convinced that the same inflammation would probably be a problem in getting pregnant. So I made an appointment with a naturopath.
She did a food sensitivities test which came back to show sensitivities to basically everything I eat, which indicated not that I should stop eating, but that my body is in a reactive state - leaky gut syndrome (which coincidentally I just saw on Dr. Oz). It stems from some kind of intestinal imbalance, maybe from a parasite (we're testing), or maybe just because.
To treat it, I've been taking a probiotic for a few weeks and I already see a difference in my skin. There are a few other things I'm going to take to help heal the leaky gut thing, too, and she's confident that once we fix that, I'll see improvements in my skin, energy, aches and pains, and perhaps it'll also let me get pregnant. She said what I'd suspected, which is that if my body is constantly in this reactive state where it'll attack whatever I eat or touch, then it would attack an embryo as well. My immune system needs to be in balance before it would be able to support a pregnancy.
So, in the quest to control the uncontrollable, I feel like I'm doing something positive for my body. It'll be great to get my skin under control, even if it doesn't help me get pregnant, but I feel hopeful that it will.
Has anyone else explored this?
