{"id":1197,"date":"2015-07-28T22:04:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T22:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batesonline.org\/triciablog\/?p=1197"},"modified":"2015-07-28T22:04:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T22:04:21","slug":"healing7-28-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triciabatessmith.com:443\/index.php\/2015\/07\/28\/healing7-28-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Healing: Learning from the pain."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the third part of my journey to get to the good health I have been enjoying in 2015. \u00a0 I am excited to get this posted as the back story so I can start blogging about recent discoveries and what natural healing methods may be yet to come.
\nIn 2014 I had a pretty severe flare up of ulcerative colitis again.\u00a0 It messed me up for a few months but I learned a whole lot from it.
\nI continued into spring 2014 with my strong immune systems \u2013 another winter of no colds or flu.\u00a0 Allergy season came and my sinuses were fine, it was my stomach that was the issue.\u00a0 I went through spring and summer with too much stomach acid therefore many things I ate or drank just felt like pure acid in my stomach.\u00a0 Wine was the first thing to get eliminated but by mid-summer, after trying many substitutes, I was down to water or iced tea at the bar on Friday nights.
\nThe last Friday of July I woke up with a tickle in my throat and swelling around \u2018ole faithful\u2019, the back molar on the right side.\u00a0 This tooth had been torture in my twenties to resolve with root canal, surgery, and a crown.\u00a0 For at least 20 years the gum would swell around the tooth every August.\u00a0 I would also experience swelling in other places at the same time.\u00a0 I had a cyst removed a long time ago as it would enlarge every August along with the gum around the tooth. \u00a0It was my annual period of inflammation!
\nThis is one of those things you tell your doctor about and they smile at you but they roll their eyes which tells you that they think you are crazy.\u00a0 I felt for years I had some toxic growth happening under the tooth but no evidence to support my claim.\u00a0 I felt a bit validated by articles that Dr. Mercola has posted about root canals being the cause of disease and complications.
\nSo this Friday in July, when the throat hurt along with the tooth swelling, I was afraid I was in for trouble.\u00a0 I was right as by lunchtime the side of my face had swollen \u2013 I had an abscess.\u00a0 I got into the dentist right away and he confirmed it.\u00a0 He sent me to over to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for antibiotic to try to fight the infection over the weekend and then work on the tooth on Monday.
\nAs I waited for the meds to be ready I walked around the pharmacy looking for a natural pain reliever as my face hurt but I didn\u2019t want to take any pills that would upset my stomach.\u00a0 When I was called to the counter I asked the pharmacist to recommend something safe for pain, I mentioned my concern for my UC.\u00a0 She immediately grew concerned and said that I couldn\u2019t take the antibiotic I was just prescribed.\u00a0 She got on the phone with the dentist and had the prescription changed to an antibiotic that I had taken previously with no ill effects.
\nI took the antibiotic over the weekend and by Monday morning the swelling in my face was reducing.\u00a0 I also had a taste of blood in my throat and mouth so I suspected that the abscess opened.\u00a0 My experience at the dentist was better than I prayed for (check it out here<\/a>).
\nMy tooth was on the mend but by mid-week I knew my gut was in trouble. The diarrhea began along with the bleeding. I had some suppositories in the house that I began using again.\u00a0 I also began taking turmeric in teaspoons of ghee.\u00a0 I called my gastro doctor for an appointment but was told it would take 3 weeks to get in to see him.\u00a0 The middle weekend of the month I was very ill with constant running to the bathroom.\u00a0 I got an appointment with my GP for the Monday but had to find my own way to make it through the weekend.
\nI looked colitis on the webpage for Dr. Weil as I was looking for natural remedies (I know he gets natural healing advice from Dr. Lowdog so this is why I turned to his site).\u00a0 He had four products that he recommended so I wrote them down as my shopping list and went to the health food store.\u00a0 They were: Culturel probiotic, Curcumin (supplement of the turmeric I was taking), L Glutamine, and Slippery Bark Elm power.\u00a0 I found all of these at the health food store and began my treatments.\u00a0 For food I ate cauliflower saut\u00e9ed in ghee with turmeric and ginger.\u00a0 I saw slight improvement each day.\u00a0 I found myself calling the slippery elm bark gruel my \u2018elixir of life\u2019 as it gave me back some energy each time I drank it.
\nI saw my GP and I discussed the cause of the flare up.\u00a0 She seemed unconvinced that it was the antibiotic I took as it was a mild one.\u00a0 I made the suggestion that it could have been my ingesting the infection that drained from the abscess.\u00a0 She seemed agree with me that it was a possibility. (It\u2019s nice to have one doctor who at least tries to consider that I might know something about my own body.)
\nWhen I finally saw the gastro doctor it just made things worse.\u00a0 He put me on a stronger antibiotic that set my progress back weeks and it made me feel absolutely ill for a couple of hours after taking each pill (3 times a day too!). I had to cut back my work hours just to take the meds.\u00a0 I had also asked him for a recommendation of probiotics because I wasn\u2019t convinced that the single bacteria type that Culturel was was the right thing.\u00a0 He said he didn\u2019t prescribe to probiotics helping and would only recommend \u201cDanactive\u201d yogurt.\u00a0 I bought some of this product.\u00a0 After several days of being on the antibiotic and drinking the Danactive I realized it was contributing to my nausea with the pill.\u00a0 I stopped it.
\nI suffered on the meds until mid-September when finally I finished it \u2013 it was torture.\u00a0 I stopped the Culturel shortly after this and found some improvement.\u00a0 Next I stopped the suppository as I felt it was contributing to the bleeding.\u00a0 I found more improvement each day.
\nI saw the gastro again at the beginning of October. I learned that my stool test came back negative for the condition he had put me on the strong anti-biotic for.\u00a0 I realized that I suffered through taking the meds and worsened my condition and he didn\u2019t have the courtesy to call me to tell me I could stop the meds.
\nPossibly the biggest part of my self-treatment through all of this was my decision to remain positive about my ability to heal.\u00a0 I knew me and my body could figure this out together and that we would come out better on the other side if we didn\u2019t drop down into feeling like a victim.
\nMy gastro doctor didn\u2019t appreciate my optimism about my improvement, he pointed out to me that I said I was still being woken early in the morning to run to the bathroom so I was still sick.\u00a0 I heard what he said and took action; I followed my gut and sought out a probiotic that I felt would be right.
\nI headed from my appointment to the pharmacy and found a probiotic with 30 billion units and over a dozen different bacteria types.\u00a0 It cost more than I had allowed myself to spend before but this also told me that I was probably on the right path.\u00a0 I took the probiotic that night and the next morning I was not woken up by the need to run to the bathroom.\u00a0 Within a couple of days the bleeding stopped.
\nI stayed aware of my symptoms and the next focused on why was my stool was foamy.\u00a0 I actually googled this and found that this was a sign of candida.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have any of the other symptoms but decided to see if I could treat this myself.\u00a0 I read that cloves were anti-fungal so I began drinking tea with ground cloves in it.\u00a0 I did this for a whole weekend and I spent Saturday afternoon running to the bathroom with liquid just pouring out.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t fun but it worked \u2013 within days I had normal stool again.
\nThe natural remedies I learned were:
\nA good probiotic \u2013 high unit count and diversity
\nCurcumin\/Tumeric for inflammation
\nSlippery elm bark \u2013 for the nutrition, energy, and I think it helps sooth and coats your insides
\nCloves for yeast overgrowth
\nL Glutamine \u2013 heals the lining of the gut
\nOptimism, prayer, meditation, self-love and caring.
\nI saw the gastro doctor in mid-October for a colonoscopy.\u00a0 Things were back to normal for me. He couldn\u2019t hear it.\u00a0 I was worried that all the prep for the test would set me back but I did fine with it.\u00a0 He told me I had more inflammation then the test four years before had shown.\u00a0 I was not surprised after what I had just been through.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t change my moving forward on my path of healing and well-being.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the third part of my journey to get to the good health I have been enjoying in 2015. \u00a0 I am excited to get this posted as the back story so I can start blogging about recent discoveries … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[40,68,85],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nHealing: Learning from the pain.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The many natural solutions I learned from my last flare up of ulcerative colitis, UC.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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