Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Hey heyy

Let me summarize the past 8 months for you in a few sentences:

Teeter-tottering conditions Crohn's wise. Rarely any pain (maybe 3 instances, which I consider a normal amount), but still a lack of consistency in stool. I had some really good weeks, and some that were on the shitty side of the spectrum. I'm a really inconsistent person with most things in my life, and disease is no exception. Somedays my stomach would tell me I needed a break and I wouldn't listen or would try to put it off a little. Eventually that caught up with me, and here I am now. Bed resting all week and on a juice fast.

Sunday (8/23/11) was the worst day I've seen for myself in two years, which was scary. Lots' of nausea and some crampin'. I decided that night I wouldn't let it get any further and I started a juice fast. My sister recently recommended a book by Paul Nison on naturally healing Crohn's. I've slightly followed the book past jams and it has worked well with me. I'm in the process of starting phase II of the healing program in the book, which consists of switching from juice to blended salad. It's got me doing some crazy shit though, for instance:

Say hello to my liittle friend.

(Blastofffff)

Very little indeed. 1 Oz of fluid capacity to be precise. Not nearly the length I need to slam my prostate, but long enough to give me a nice little colon wash! I started doing wheatgrass enemas today in order to help flush out and detox my colon. I figured hitting my G.I track from both ends in a DP effort would help aid the cleansing process. I also mixed in a little bit of the supplement L-Glutamine in powder form into my solution. I've taken glutamine pills before and they've helped me feel better, so in a natural thought process I thought "why not just shoot it up your asshole?" Glutamine is known to have a positive immune balance, and restore the lining of the colon. Wheatgrass is full of chlorophyll and has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. I mixed up half a teaspoon of the powder with a teaspoon of wheat grass in about 5 Oz water (that's right, I penetrated 5 TIMES today).

I'm gonna do these enemas once a day to help aid my GI tract. If you call me in advance I'll even let you come over and squeeze all of the liquid into my bum.

I'm excited since I've only been on juice since Sunday night. Luckily I've been able to low lay this week and rest, so I haven't burned a lot of calories. As of today I only lost 5 pounds, from when I started fasting, so I'm now 142. For a 6 foot 21 year old guy, this is still a shitty weight. But I had fears I was gonna be 139 or lower. My ideal weight is 153-155. I've spent the past month bouncing around 148-151. Starting blended foods tomorrow should help me keep some weight on, I'm also gonna start taking this Whey Protein Nutrition Powder called Absorb Plus. In the past it has helped with putting some pounds on and mmm it's delish.

I have a good (should I say bad?) feeling that my illeum (end of my small intestine), is a little fucked with scar tissue. Hopefully this rest will let it ease up a little bit. I visited the ER at the hospital to get some antibiotics and steroids to help get me out of this jam. 500mg of Cipro, Flagyl, and 40mg of prednisone with a 10mg/3 day taper.

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Fast forward again, to today (8/30). I am actually feeling significantly better. I watched a documentary two nights ago called "Fat Sick, and Nearly Dead" where a man cured his autoimmune disease by drinking only juiced fruits and vegetables for 60 days. He had a disease where his body attacked itself by sprouting painful rashes and blisters on the outside of his body, slightly different than Crohn's, but still a disease that affected his immune system nonetheless. If you have Netflix I would recommend streaming this movie on your comp, it was pretty interesting. It really inspired me to one day not have to take any pills for this stupid fucking disease.

But for now, I need all the help I can get until I maintain some stability. I visited a doctor in Princeton with my sister yesterday, and he seemed alright. Still a doctor, but more tolerable than other GI doctors I have dealt with. He's running some tests on me to see where I'm at now: bloodwork, stool samples, and an MRI. We chose MRI because it exposes me to no radiation, and I've already had 4 or 5 Cat Scans by now which is a fucking stupid amount.

A lot of the reason this flare got so bad was because I stopped taking my meds a few months ago without fully adapting to a completely healthy lifestyle. So for now I'm back on my 6-mp (only 50mg), and taking some Pentasa everyday too. Pentasa is a pretty harmless drug so I was into taking it. I'm already feeling better today after only taking 6-mp for a few days, and that drug takes 6 weeks to kick in. I think the juices I'm making are really helping my symptoms get better. I got a Breville Fruit and Vegetable juicer at bed bath and beyond for only $135 w/a coupon. My main recipe consists of:

Bunch of Kale
4 Celery Stalks
Spinach
1 Cucumber
1 Green Apple
some Ginger Root
1/2 A Lemon

Sometimes I'll do more/less of some ingredients to mix it up but that's usually what I'm making. Juicing this much produce will yield me around 23-30 fl oz of juice. I try to do this 3 times a day and get roughly 75 fl oz of this juice in my body per day. A day's worth of produce for me is roughly around $12. I found local farmer's markets to have really good prices and good quality stuff. Mega markets like A&P have good prices but produce of lower quality that seems to be a little dirtier.

There's also a Co-Op in New Brunswick, but their prices are reallllly shitty. $11 dollars at a farmers market would be around $30 at that Co-Op. They do have a
cool selection of different supplements and foods, but I try not to shop there as much because I'm not trying to become a member and work 10 hours a month for a 7% discount. Plus, who wants to deal with self-righteous New Brunswick vegan snobs? I'd rather shop with the soccer moms.

Juicing is kind of a task in itself, but it gets easier over time, and it's really worth it. I've already noticed after drinking at least 2 a day (50 oz) that I have way more energy. I've been only getting 7 hours of sleep and feeling great and I've been really focused on getting shit done. One day I would really like to go on a 10-day juice fast to detox my body. Usually I give up by the third day because I have a terrible headache and nausea, but that is what is supposed to happen when you detox. I'm going to wait until my health is more stable, as well as my weight.

Right now I'm down to 140 Lbs, which isn't good. On the bright side I do feel healthy and recharged. I'm going to start drinking some plant-based protein powder today to keep some weight on. That was one of the cooler items I found at the New Brunswick Co-Op. My absorb plus shakes contain whey protein and those don't bother me at all so between those two forms of protein I should pack some pounds on. The only solid foods I've been eating are soft ones like avocados and bananas. Avocados have really healthy fats in them that are good for your tummy. Sprinkle a little lemon on them and they're delish.

Here's a nice little etymology mindfuck for ya:

The word 'avocado' comes from the Spanish aguacate which in turn comes from the Nahuatl word ahuácatl (testicle, a reference to the shape of the fruit).

So my food diet right now consists of avacados, nature's testicle; and bananas, the most phallic fruit under the sun. I'm chowin down on cock and balls.




So this is my path back to complete health, I'll try to make it as quick as I can. Lucky for this blog's-sake, I have something to talk about now.

PS-I quit giving myself those enemas about 3 days ago. I got high and tried to fill myself up with 12 oz. It felt like I was being ass raped by Satan himself.

If any of you Crohny's/UC dudes wanna get in touch with me you can email at JoeScalaDrums@yahoo.com. I've gotten in touch with some of you guys in the past, it's always cool to share stories. Don't be afraid to reach out mannn

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