An Elimination Diet, An Adventure and a PLAN

here goes... if you don't want to spend the next 30 days reading about food, struggles, RA, and diet changes... come back after Dawson's b-day :) (May 12th is the last day of this....)

The goal is to figure out "trigger foods" for my pain. Is gluten, dairy? Sugar (which is in EVERYTHING). Will this even work? Who knows... I'm going to blog about it all... the good, the bad and the ugly.

The next 30 days will be no dairy, no gluten, no nuts, no potatoes, no sugar, no eggs, no tomatoes, limited beans and corn. I have come up with a menu for three meals a day, a few snacks to have on hand and some things on the calendar to keep me distracted.

Would appreciate the prayers (for HEALING) and of course to be able to stick with. SIL Liane is doing it as well (though she may do potatoes and eggs) and I couldn't be MORE overwhelmed AND thankful for the support.

Here is how I hope the format is going to look:

Weather: (this seems to play a big part in my body pain, though not always... sunny today and I'm sore)

Food: A list of EVERY.THING. that I ate, including any times when I *may* cheat. This will/could/might also include recipe links.

Supplements: I'm going to start with a bunch of vitamins and a probiotic to help "heal my gut" as well as continue to use some essential oils that Mama H gave me to roll-on my knuckle.

Drs: This could totally be denial... but there is just something that doesn't feel right about the RA diagnosis. I am going to call my PCP, see if she has transferred me to someone closer (she was going to try and get me in with a Dr. who was not taking any new patients but is closer to my town). I am going to touch base with them and see if there is more blood work or antibiotics that I can go on "nice in case" this really is Lyme presenting as RA. I started doing more reading about it and it feels a little bit like that.

Overall pain level and locations: For the most part I think I'm walking around with a pain level around 6-7. Most often my knuckle hurts and my feet are sore but the most noticeable pain to me is the pain I feel in the bones of my chest. (which is something that the docs thought was "different" as well as the RA not being symmetrical in my body i.e. only one knuckle on one hand ~ except with my feet of course)

I'm also hoping to get SIL L to do daily/weekly? updates as well which I will include here.

Ready?? Set....