If I had known then what I know now, perhaps the next three years of my life would have been a bit easier for me. That little bout with the ringworm was a warning sign of worse things to come. I never made the connection at the time, but I also had a random plantar wart appear on the bottom of my foot around that same time (odd because I don't frequent public pools or locker rooms - I don't go barefoot even in my own home), and all of this was following the development of blepharitis in my eyes (I just assumed it was due to my prolonged abuse of contact lenses).
But in the coming months, my health went from bad to worse, with all symptoms seeming random and me making no connections.
Gallbladder attacks.
Mouth sores.
Flu-like symptoms, and generally not feeling "well". Every three or four weeks, I would swear I was "coming down with something" - sore throat, mild fever, achy and run down - but it never manifested, and in a few days I would feel better.
Numbness in my hands and feet, I later learned is known as "stocking/glove neuropathy".
Pain in my feet became so severe it kept me up at night. When I did sleep, I had nightmares from the pain. Eventually, it started to spread, slowly, to my hands, then to my legs, then to my arms, hips, and shoulders... until my whole body hurt. All the time.
It hurt to sit. It hurt to stand. It hurt to move. It hurt to lie down.
It felt very much like I had been beat with a metal baseball bat - bruised all over and sore. The pain went straight through my muscles and bones. There was no part of me that didn't hurt. And as of yet, there were no visible physical signs.
At some point, I starting seeing doctors... and specialists... and more doctors... and going for tests... and x-rays... and more tests... For every doctor who scratched his head , for every test result that came back perfectly normal, I thought hard about whether it really was "all in my head."
Finally, I started noticing inflammation in my hands - the knuckles of my right hand were visibly enlarged. I don't know if anyone else can understand this, but I was so happy to see that! I went about showing people my hands to compare for themselves! I wasn't making this up! The right hand was much worse than the left, making it very difficult to write, and over time, I could not open that hand all the way. Cold made it much worse, carrying frozen goods through the grocery store in my hands made me cry.
I wish I would have kept a journal, because it's hard for me to remember the order of events, symptoms, doctor visits, etc. By May of 2012, I finally decided to quit my full time job, teaching preschool, and get a part time job that would be less hard on me physically and mentally. During all this time, I was still very interested in the food-health connection. Because of my new "dairy-free" lifestyle, I hadn't suffered from bronchitis in a very long time (except for that one time that I "cheated" a little with that spaghetti cheese, and thought I would die from the congestion!) - I had bronchitis at the very least three times a year since I was in the ninth grade, and this newfound relief was amazing and so exciting! By now, I had heard of the Blood Type Diet, and I was already doing some things with food in dealing with some of my symptoms. But I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.
One night, I got into a private message discussion on facebook with a lady I barely knew. She told me a little about how changing their diet had helped her family with some serious health issues. I realized that I already knew what I had to do, I just hadn't been doing it. Up until this time, I had been so focused on getting a diagnosis - I thought that by giving this a name, I could learn to accept, understand and treat it. But now I realized, I was wasting time. This was my life, and I couldn't leave it in the hands of doctors who didn't know what was wrong or how to help me. If I was going to beat this thing, I was going to do it on my own, and I had to start now...
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