One Wednesday night in 2018, I was invited out to have a few drinks with some friends from work. This was a big deal for us, we had all spoken about going for a drink but due to usually working at the same time we had never been able to have a relaxing beer. It was such a great night which reinforced something that I already knew, I worked with some truly great blokes.
After staying longer than I should of (one guy in group had an amazing night, winning on everything from the greyhounds to Keno to the pokies) It was around 2 in the morning I started to get a sharp pain in abdomen and had to leave abruptly. By the time I got home the pain wasn’t too bad and I thought that it would be gone when I got up later in the morning (or afternoon as I’m a bit of a night owl), this was not the case. After an hour of sleep, I woke in excruciating pain and had to run to the bathroom sink to be sick as I wouldn’t have made it to the toilet in time.
When I woke up later in the day I didn’t think much about it, I put the pains down to mixing drinks and possibly from having a couple of smokes as well. Over the next couple of weeks I started to notice a few things with my body that hadn’t happened before, things like breaking out in a rash on forearms, unusual bowl movements, dry mouth and lips, also the pain that had started that Wednesday night would come and go and would be just as excruciating. For at least three months I assumed that it all would just stop but after struggling for 3 months I thought it was time to go to the doctors.
I have always tried putting off going to the doctors, there have been a few times when after an initial visit with a doctor I’ve had to get a second opinion, this time around the same thing happened. The doctor told me that it was just down to my schedule as a shift worker but that he would send me off to get some blood tests done to see if I was coeliac. When I went back to get the results, they were unfortunately negative, so the doctor repeated what he said about being a shift worker and to fix my dry mouth and lips with plenty of water and Vaseline. While it wasn’t the diagnosis that I wanted, I thought to myself ‘he’s the doctor, he knows best’ and ‘It’s all probably all in my head’.
After about six months my symptoms didn’t go away, even when eliminating certain things from my diet. I had also picked up another symptom, brain fog to go along with all the rest of the fun stuff I had. I had decided that it was time to get back to get a second opinion and this doctor was a big help! He told me that a blood test isn’t always accurate and the best way to find out the problem is with an endoscopy/colonoscopy. I left feeling very relieved that I could soon be finding out what the problem was however, nine months later I’m still stuck on a waiting list for my procedures.
I will admit I’ve never been one to stick to a proper diet, as kid I always tried to con mum into getting some form of takeaway and as soon as I was earning money with my first job I was always buying McDonalds or KFC but I thought for my health I would give a diet a try. After searching for suitable diets I decided keto would be the way to go so I brought a cook book and thought it would be easy to do especially if it was for my health, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be and I had a hard time of trying to make some of the dishes with my work and uni schedule. The keto experiment was over before it even really begun and now some of my symptoms have gotten worse, especially the brain fog.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve been living under a rock for a few years as the first time that I had heard about the carnivore diet was last month when Fox Sports ran an article on rugby star Quade Cooper. Since reading that article I’ve done some research into the diet and I know that not many people think that it is a good idea, but at the moment I feel that it may be my best chance to possibly going back to normal.
Thanks for reading blog number four peeps and until next time, take care!
Merce.