My Food, Exercise and Symptom diary starts in January of 2017. I followed a personalized version of the Whole 30 diet and an Autoimmune diet. I completed two elimination protocols in 2017 and 2018. I followed a Psoriatic Arthritis Diet after those elimination protocols. In late 2019, after 9 months with Disseminated Zoster, I tried a 5-day fast and elimination diet under the care of a functional medicine doctor. I had disease flares in early 2020 and fasted briefly in January and February of 2020. I repeated the 5-day fast and elimination diet in June of 2022. I am not yet disease free but I am not on a biologic nor do I take a regular NSAID. I am motivated to continue working at this with the long-term goal of reversing my disease. I also keep a detailed medication diary of the many medications and supplements I have tried.
December 2022
The Pagano Protocol has been a huge success. Slippery Elm Bark Tea in the morning, American Yellow Saffron Tea at night, and L-Glutamine morning and evening. My gut has been so much happier with almost no diarrhea episodes even though I have been eating out a lot and drinking way too much alcohol. I stopped all vitamins and supplements around December 15th to prepare for food sensitivity testing. I went 3 full weeks without supplements AND I decided to challenge my system with gluten so the food sensitivity testing would show up issues I might have with gluten. My joints got so stiff by the end of the month that I felt like there were massive bands around them restricting their movements. I stopped gluten and alcohol for January and restarted my vitamins after getting the blood drawn on January 4th. In less than a week I could move freely. The improvement is astonishing.
November 2022
I recently stumbled across the “Pagano Method” from Healing Psoriasis by John O. A. Pagano. As I understand it, he developed this method to heal psoriasis when biologics were not as common. He has photo evidence of his patients healing! Psoriatic Arthritis is harder to prove because no one can see it, but I decided to try his method. He recommends using L-Glutamine powder regularly, which is something I’ve done for a while but only when I’ve had a case of diarrhea. This month I started taking about 3mg of L-Glutamine powder every morning and every evening, paired with brushing my teeth so I don’t forget. He also recommends slippery elm bark tea, which I started, but I was drinking it in the evening. He recommends drinking it in the morning and spaced apart from vitamins and food because it lines the intestines and can block nutrient absorption. So now my first tea of the day is slippery elm bark, about an hour or so after the vitamins. His book also recommends American Yellow Saffron tea, which I started a few weeks after the other steps but will drink in the evening. Early indicators are that this approach may be helpful. I have been drinking alcohol heavily this month and while there have been consequences, they are not as extreme as they were previously. I have not been careful with my eating and alcohol has not slowed down yet.
October 2022
I seem to have completely fallen off the wagon with alcohol. I’m drinking almost daily now. So I will need to do a reset and correct my direction before this goes back to being a habit. The world has re-opened since COVID and we are eating out multiple times a week. It is so much fun reconnecting with friends. I don’t know how to do this sort of thing without alcohol but I know in my heart that to get to my next level of health, I will need to remove alcohol from my life. I am continuing the weight based exercises with the physical therapist and as I go through my day-to-day life I am experimenting with how I squat, lift and bend. My low back pain has been pretty constant this month.
September 2022
I started seeing my functional medicine doctor and started taking some “natural” hormones to try to get my estrogen level up. Details are in my medication diary. I also started seeing his physical therapist and doing some weight based exercises with the goal of strengthening the muscles that might help alleviate my low back pain. I have avoided this type of exercise my whole life but I am trying to embrace the concept that it might help me.
August 2022
We were in Portugal for 16 days in the middle of August. I was amazed that I was able to maintain a fairly healthy diet. We did drink alcohol at lunch and dinner with every meal, but maybe because of the walking, or because it was always with food, I didn’t feel bad. I wasn’t able to record all my food details while in Portugal, but I can summarize some broad details. Some places provided breakfast (usually breads), but I was able to generally have fruit, yogurt and gluten-free granola. For the first part of the trip I had salads for lunch because they were novel. They usually came with octopus, shrimp or some type of fish and a simple oil and vinegar dressing. Later in the trip I was getting tired of that and had more substantial lunches. But we were walking a lot and it was uphill and downhill all the time. My legs felt really strong after this trip!
July 2022
July is normally a month of swimming and strengthening but this year I got COVID and it consumed the last 3 weeks of the month. COVID made me miss a trip to Nova Scotia with friends. But I am proud of myself for getting in the pool and swimming even with COVID. I listened to my body and it needed movement. Swimming made my head feel clearer and improved the fatigue symptoms that lasted at least 3 weeks, maybe longer.
June 2022
I decided to do my 5-day fast and 21-day elimination diet this month. I was starting to feel pretty bad and was considering getting on a biologic for my arthritis pain. But before going down that path I met with my functional medicine doctor and he suggested we do the diet again and this time we try to get my natural estrogen levels up using herbal supplements. I’m not being as strict as I was the first time. For example, I have loads of fresh veggies from my garden that I want to eat so I’m eating nightshades, but I’m trying to limit my quantities. I am not eating alcohol, sugar, caffeine, dairy, beans, lentils, soy, and meat other than fish or chicken. Next month I will be gradually adding back some of the things I avoided this month and I will be trying the herbal supplements he recommends.
May 2022
I decided to try a new magnesium supplement. I read The Magnesium Miracle by Dr. Carolyn Dean a long time ago. ReMag is one of her supplements and she advertises that it is in a form that is easier for the body to absorb. I started with 1/8 tsp in water as directed but got impatient and increased it too quickly, causing diarrhea. The good news is that this supplement is easy to regulate. Your body tells you very quickly when you’ve had too much. Shortly after starting it I thought I noticed an improvement in my muscle tone and perception of my own strength. No idea if that was placebo but I’m going to keep using it for a while.
April 2022
April was a tough month. On top of digestive issues, I started experiencing muscle twitches again. This was one of the earliest symptoms that started around 2004. Back then I tried magnesium but I could never take enough to help the muscle twitches without causing diarrhea. I tried taking L-glutamine under my tongue more often but found the sublingual B-12 to be the most effective at calming the twitches.
March 2022
Whatever cold or flu virus I had finally broke about 2 weeks into the month.
February 2022
This has been a tough month. Missed a long weekend because of weather-related flight cancellations. So I drank way too much while doing a “staycation” with my friends and I ate a massive steak that probably contributed to my digestive challenges. After the staycation I started a 3-day intermittent fasting regimen and restricted my eating to mostly vegetables but did not feel better during that time. I actually got diarrhea! I might have added too many greens too quickly. Then, ate lots of junk and another block of beef on Super Bowl Sunday. I flagged two foods this month to watch in the future: turnips and spirulina. I ended the month with either a standard cold virus or a lesser version of the flu (I did get a flu shot). It lasted a full 2-3 weeks. My resting heart rate was about 10 bpm higher than normal the whole time.
January 2022
My habits are beginning to slip. I had fewer days drinking but I tend to binge when I drink. It is like once I give myself permission to drink I think it doesn’t matter how much I drink. Tracking the number of glasses over the long-term should help me reset this belief. My fingernails are thinning again, which is the canary in the coal mine for me. It could be because I missed my vitamins for several days in a row. I added a few supplements because I was very closely exposed for an extended amount of time to someone who was in denial, but had to have COVID.