What I Had For Dinner :-(

I was a really, really bad girl today. I binged on the worst sorts of food that you could ever eat for endometriosis and fertility-- wheat, dairy, caffeine, hormones and cold drinks!

A new mall had opened up in our neighborhood and we succumbed to the lure of TGIF, which seemed to be so happening tonight. It was packed and every table seemed to be celebrating someone's birthday.

So here's my menu of poison for the night:

APPETIZER

Fried Mac & Cheese:

Wheat and dairy galore! Great for enhancing inflammation already caused by endometriosis!

MAIN

Chicken & Shrimp Pasta in Creamy Cajun Sauce:

More wheat and dairy galore! My Endo-induced inflammation is gonna have a party!

Non-organic chicken! A shot of yummy hormones to tip my already crazy hormones off the charts

DRINKS

3 cups of cold Pepsi:

Liquid Caffeine! Wonderful for killing fertility! It's thirst-quenching coolness is wonderful for creating blood stasis, period pain and endo. Just what I need!

Now my stomach feels like there's a tornado blowing in there! I am not looking forward to what my TCM doc has to say about me tomorrow... This is pure self-sabotage. And I am sure I will pay for it dearly! But I feel so happyyyyyyyy!

Do you ever give yourself a break and succumb to the dark side occasionally...especially when it comes to food?

(Pic compliments of Zoey when he was a kitten)

Aunt Flo's Horrible Visit

Another awful visit from Aunt Flo this time. This would be my third period after my miscarriage. The last cycle leading up to this period was terribly  disappointing because my body was so out of whack. I was looking forward to some serious baby dancing this cycle, but my body did not ovulate. It usually happens around Day 20 but the ovulation stick basically said No Way Hosea! I peed on so many ovulation sticks, day after day, that I finally gave up because the ovulation sticks always came back a resounding NO! However I suspect that -based on my body temperature and the discharge- that if I did ovulate it might have been at Day 28. That's 4 weeks into my cycle, which is too late in my opinion to have a hormonally healthy environment for a viable pregnancy. My period was also a week later than usual. And all this culminating into another excruciatingly painful period. 

I was so upset not only by the pain but the fact that my body had shown no signs of improvement despite having religiously taken the herbal medicine everyday, sitting through acupuncture twice weekly, sleeping with a hot water bottle on my uterus and abstaining from cold, icy drinks throughout the month. Oh well, except for maybe twice when I gave into ice cold coke and some ice-cream! But that was only two days out of the entire cycle! 

In TCM, painful periods are the result of a condition called blood stasis, which is evident as passing  dark coloured blood and clots during periods. I had plenty of clots this time, and I can't believe that it was all due to those two sinful days! So I asked Master L, my TCM doc why this was happening despite following his treatment-which had been very effective for me when I first started. Within a month of his treatment I had pain-free periods and within 4 months I had conceived. But after my miscarriage, the treatments were getting no where. It had been 3 cycles since the miscarriage - and despite all the treatment, my cycles were longer and the periods were horrifically painful and heavy. The only improvement I had this last period was that I felt 30% less pain and that the flow was not very heavy. It was too little of an improvement for me because I was still bed-ridden for days, breaking out into cold sweat and keeled over in pain and not being able to sleep or eat because of the pain. This did not feel like progress to me.

Master L's explanation was that my body had not forgiven me for the abuse that it suffered after the miscarriage due to the lack of care I had given it. I did not rest and heal and nourish my body the way I should have. As a result my body is still reeling in from the consequences of my neglect and there are still some unresolved problems in my system. Suffering from conditions such as endo and hormonal imbalance meant that I was suffering from a bigger set back than normal healthy women who had miscarriages.  His conclusion was that what he did for me was not good enough - that his treatment was right, but it had to be "more right" (his words!) As for me, that meant 100% diligence in abstaining from cold and raw food. Ai-yai-yai!  So with my silly logic I asked him- if ingesting cold stuff was a problem, wouldn't it be ok to drink something very hot following a cold drink to counteract the coldness? His reply was that it would be like putting on a band-aid after first stabbing your body with a knife.  Sigh! I guess there's just no cheating!