As some of you may have seen from my Facebook status updates, I have been struggling with a major lifestyle change lately. About a month ago, I had lots of bloodwork and saliva test done to see if we could figure out why I'm just not feeling up to par. I finally got in to see the doctor and get my results and while overall I'm pretty healthy, there are some areas that are not so. First and probably most important is that I found out I have a milk allergy. What?!? That was something I wasn't expecting to here. Never dreamed at my age I'd develop that...crazy. Come to find out my paternal grandmother (whom I get a lot of my health history from) has the same thing. Although its not a full blown allergy where I break out, I do have to watch ingred. labels and stay away from milk, butter, cheeses, yogurt, etc... At first I didn't realize how huge of an impact it was going to have until I was told what I can no longer have and how much these ingredients are a part of everyday life for me. I have to say that I LOVE my dairy and everything that is made with it: cheesecake, blue cheese (heck any kind of cheese is yummy!), butter, milk on cereal, anything at Starbucks, granola yogurt parfaits I use to make for breakfast or snack, etc... Its been very difficult to try and come up with things to eat that will taste good and be satisfying..so needless to say-its not fun to eat anymore :( This daily picture I took today shows all the research I've been trying to do and also a picture of my first carton of soy milk I bought tonight. This is the brand we had when I worked at Starbucks, so its been awhile since I've tried it and I hope I can learn to like it. Last time I tried it, it really didn't taste appealing. Not only do I have the milk allergy, my thyroid levels can't seem to stay balanced. That's really frustrating as well and will have an appt. next month to figure out what do to about that or even change doctors. Another concerning test that came back was something called CRP or C-reactive protein. To sum up what CRP does, it measures the amount of inflammation in your body. Any one person's level should not be above 3, mine was almost 8...yeah, scary. Having never heard of this, I asked the dr. a lot of questions. Obviously my body is highly inflammed, which can lead to other serious risks like heart attacks and such, but what bites is that the test can't tell you where the inflammation is coming from. I'm guessing it would be the milk allergy, but who knows. I could have more extensive testing done, but its a ton of money that I don't have right now. So for the time being and in finding an article this weekend in the paper on this specfic thing, I'm going to try a few natural things along with staying on track with the no dairy thing and see if I can get myself healthier and bring that number down. Obviously diet and exercise will do wonders for all of this and I really have to step up to the plate and commit to being healthier. That's a major struggle for me, always has been and probably always will be. I just have to see this as a wake up call and have faith that God is going to be with me through this rough part of my journey.
1 comments:
Sorry to hear about all the "new" things happening... I think stress has a lot to do with what happens to our body. I have had some similar stuff going on... definitely that inflammation stuff. Ugh! Exercise does help... ugh! again!!! tee, hee... i really enjoy working out... but would rather sit on the 'puter and play! Hang in there... I hate to say it, but it's a part of getting old... See? If we were 80, we would say, who cares? And eat powdered donuts ALL day!!! hugs, k....
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