Why changing my diet has never been a sacrifice

It really gets to me when I read about other people with bladder issues saying that they are not prepared to give up certain foods to see if it makes them healthier and in less pain. They say it would remove one of their last pleasures in life...what I cannot understand is why you wouldn't try that if you thought there was some hope that it could give you your life back.

For a long time I didn't consider that food would make a difference, unless maybe it was bland or something. I used to eat baxters cock-a-leekie soup and toasted soya and linseed bread with soya spread on when I was flaring as I thought it would be nice and bland. What I didn't realise was that I was actually making the whole situation worse...having a wheat and soya intolerance at the time.

When it came to light that food may actually play a part in what I was experiencing (at that point I never thought it was IC) I willingly gave up wheat, for me this was fairly easy as my sister is a coeliac and has been for a long time...I knew about many of the alternatives. Not long after I gave up soy...this proved harder and I had to stop eathing chocolate among many other things (soya is added to SO many things, and often sneaks thorugh the net disguised as an E number). Later I even went on the anti candida diet because I had so many problems with candida. I made the changes to my life and I found it hard sometimes, like when eating out or trying to buy a quick lunch from somewhere, but I adjusted and gradually became used to reading the labels on everything. I knew it was making a difference so I stuck with it!

Despite these changes I was still having problems every few weeks (as apposed to every day before I gave up any of the culprit foods!), so eventually after several months of on off symptoms I consaulted a herbalist in london, she put me on the strictest diet I have ever been on! And boy was that hard, giving up fruit and cheese were the two worst parts of it, but I knew that if I was really seirous about getting my health back then I had to be willing to try it, so I rolled up my sleves and made it my mission to make my diet as interesting as possible despite how limited it was. I managed to succeed and gradually introduced foods back. I found SO many alterntives to things and adapted so many recipes to suit my needs (this would not have been possible without the help of my loving boyfriend - sadly no longer my bf but my friend now - who is a wonderful cook and was always up for eating the things I had to have). I learned that body products also caused me harm and set about using only natural body products and avoiding chemicals as far as possible.

There are so many things I have learned about my relationship with food during this last year and a half. I am not scared of food (although you'd think I probably would be considering how much agony it causes me if I were to eat potato/gluten/soya on even a minimal scale), I like to be creative with my food, my tastes have expanded and I have a much biggere interest in where my food has come from etc etc. This evening I made an Isabel-friendly curry :D and for my lunch I had a small portion of Isabel-friedly cottage pie. I will happily tweek and tweek a recipe to make it fit what I need, I have found almond flour to be the best replacement in cakes, I have bought so many new things I would never have considered once up on a time (like sweet potato, corn cakes, arrow root powder). I used never step out of my comfort zone in a restaurant, always ordering the same type of thing again and again, but now I try so many more new things even though about 70% of the menu is usually out of bounds.  I have learned that the simplest things that come into contact with our systems can cause a multitude of problems, from skin irriations on my hands and feet and weak flaking nails to excruciating horrific pain in my bladder and dodgy digestive upset.

So all in all quite a few really good things have come out of this horrible experience. I just wish there was some way I could show others how much of a difference it can make!!

Watch this space for a copy of the curry recipe, as this shall be my next post.

Hello,

Here I am after many months of not bothering to post! It's very bad of me but it just turned into a cycle of doom really as I didn't have the time or the energy to post due to studies and illness of a close family relative. Then I felt it had been such a long time that I wasn't sure where to begin....So I am back and I am going to continue writing as I always wanted to put my story out there to try and help others.

The reason I am on here now is because I recieved an email from another girl of a similar age and her email inspired me to get back on here and write! (If you are reading this then please email me to isabel.dolman@yahoo.com and I will get back to you personally, currently it says you have emailed from an anoymous email address so I can't reply).


So anyway the other day was my 23rd birthday and I had a wonderful time, I even ate cake and drank acohol! These things dont sound like something that someone on a restricted diet should be doing! But I am very careful, all of my cake recipes are from this website http://www.elanaspantry.com/ and I only drink rum and orange juice/soda water (rum is made from sugar cane and does not have any weird additives or a grain base like most other spirits). Having said that I rarely eat a diet high in sweet things and I only drink very occasionally. I did spend a good 9months being very very careful! I am still mainlining the probiotics (natren megadophilus dairy powder 1 tsp in water before bed). Despite the above I am still very careful with my diet and lifestyle and I do take these things very seriously.

There are lots of things I still do...

• I have bowen therapy when I feel I need it
• I see a pelvic floor physiotherapist
• I do not use any chemicals on my skin, all of my body products are 100% natural and I make sure they don't contain soy or gluten (I highly recomend green people, faith in nature and natura care, then just plain coconut oil is amazing as a moisturiser)
• I drink plenty of water, coconut water, peppermint tea, nettle tea and lemon in warm water.
• I make sure that my diet consists of plenty of variety but do not eat any potato, wheat, barley, oats, rye or soy, all of the above give me terrible bladder symptoms (a book by Wendy Cohan called 'The Better Bladder Book' outlines the link between gluten intolerance and bladder problems)
• I avoid as many additives as possible and had a completely additive free diet for at least 6months. When being totally gluten and soya free it is really important to check and double check packages for things, dextrose is a major culprit and used to cause me alot of problems before I realised it was a sugar derived from wheat (often on the outside of cured meats like ham and salami). E numbers are often derived from soy, so are lecithines (found in chocolate and chewing gum among other things). 
• I avoid coffee and tea (unless its herbal tea), I only eat goat and sheeps cheese/milk. I get plenty of rice, green veggies, carrots, sweet potato, fruit and lots of meat. Without many carbs or much sugar in my diet I started eating alot of meat, not something I'd ever really done as I was pretty much nearly a veggi. I had also been advised that plenty of meat with my condition was actually a very good idea because the animals fats can heal the gut lining.

All of these things have made the world of difference to my quality of life. I can go out now without needing to pee every 5mins, I'm not in agonising pain, I can jog, I can eat out in a restaurant so long as I make it really clear what I can and can't eat. I can have sex with my boyfriend without feeling like my bladder is being pummled. I can sleep in a normal position. I can go on a bus without my whole lower belly feeling like its about to burst. I work part time, I cycle, I enjoy a fairly relaxed pace of life and I try to keep stress levels low. I do find the stress thing hard though, I think I am a fairly anxious type (especially since I got ill), although I don't think that defines who I am. Sleep is a majorly important part of healing and I think sometimes I don't give my body the rest it really needs. I still have plenty to work on and I still don't count myself and fully healed, but I don't think that place is too far off! And if I could live the rest of my life at the stage of health I am at right now I would be happy.

I really want other people to benefit from my experiences. I really want to answer a wealth of questions, to give a positive example of how much you can change your own life when you've been told you have no other choice but to take pain killers, antibiotics and antidepressants to try and cope. I always felt there must be something else I could do and I managed to find that path, mostly alone, but also with help from friends, family, other IC patients and various holistic healers. No one out there could give me an answer and no one could tell me exactly what I needed to do, it was by sheer perseverance that I managed to get to where I am now, I wouldn't give up and neither should you.