Skip to main content

Quarantined Again

 March found me back in quarantine, as it did last year. This time, it wasn't a bad cold, but a three-week case of diarrhea. Pepto Bismol, Candibactin BR, black seeds (nigella), NAC, thyroid medication and probiotics did nothing; a jar of kimchi made it a lot worse. So I went to urgent care, where the doctor prescribed a stool test for C. difficile and other nasties that will make you extremely ill. C. diff is so toxic that my employer advised me to stay home until results were in. Of course, I didn't want to infect others, so I quarantined myself...again. I'm even working on my computer in the sunshine as I did last year. I forgot that it's hard to see the screen.  

Photo from pixabay.com

All the test results were negative, so I'm still trying to figure out why I have diarrhea. Hypotheses include too much B vitamins and too much gut bacteria. It all started shortly after beginning a new probiotic and re-starting thyroid medication (25 mg). As I mentioned, I took a bunch of herbal antibacterials and a biofilm buster (NAC) to see if I could expel whatever bug was making me sick. After a week, and seeing stuff in the toilet I'd never seen before, I gave it up. That was on a Friday. I spent the weekend playing video games (what I do when I'm out of energy) and didn't feel up to working from home Monday or Tuesday. I assume something died off. My sinus passages are clearer, but that's all I have to show for it. 

While I sort it out, I've had to keep my electrolytes up since diarrhea flushes them out. Keto K1000 electrolyte mix has been great, and to make sure I don't overload on potassium, I bought a potassium meter. It's not made to measure potassium in humans, but no meter is. That's been one benefit of this whole thing: I can now tell if palpitations are from low potassium and not thyroid or adrenal problems. The meter was expensive ($360), but I'm glad I have it. I also bought a jewelry scale for my thyroid medication. I need such a small amount that I finally decided to buy one. I'm down three pounds since re-starting the medication and my face isn't puffy anymore. 

Also on the positive side, it's a gorgeous day and we're free to go out and enjoy it here in Indiana. The wildflowers have sprouted in the seed trays, daffodils are coming up, and I had the energy to weed the raised beds and clean up after a pressure cooker accident that sprayed chicken broth from floor to ceiling and set off the alarm. Luckily, I wasn't in the kitchen. I'd ordered a new fuse and should have waited on it. I wanted to replace the stopper, too, since the gasket is stiff, but everyone is out of stock.  At least toilet paper is in stock. 


Labels:

Comments

Lowcarb team member said…
Oh dear, so sorry to read this Lori.
I wish I could suggest something, but I can't!

However, on a positive note it is good to read that it is "a gorgeous day and you're free to go out and enjoy it there in Indiana".

Sending healing wishes

All the best Jan
March 21, 2021
Lori Miller said…
Thanks, Jan. I'm cautiously optimistic that I'm getting back to normal.
March 21, 2021
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too.  Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...
24 comments
Read more

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm...
24 comments
Read more

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder . ...
18 comments
Read more

Getting Over Palpitations

Note to new readers: please note I'm not a health care provider and have no medical training. If you have heart palpitations, I have no idea whether the following will work for you. Over the past several days, I've had a rough time with heart palpitations and feeling physically jittery. I was wondering if I was going to turn into one of those people who can't sit still. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would be a major lifestyle change. Kidding aside, something wasn't right and I really needed to get back to normal. I tried popping potassium pills like candy. I ate more. I doubled up on my iron dose. I went to yoga and even got on the treadmill at 6 AM yesterday. I tried the nuclear option of eating more carbs to stop peeing away minerals. Most of these things helped, but the problem kept coming back. A comment from Galina made me look up epinephrine, one of the drugs my surgeon used to anesthetize me Friday. First, the assistant at the surge...
16 comments
Read more

My Long-Term Experience Eating Safe (and Other) Starches

Years ago, before the Perfect Health Diet came out, I followed a program that involved eating quite a bit "safe starch." It was called Body for Life. It involved eating six small servings of carbohydrate along with six small servings of protein, plus two servings of fibrous vegetables per day. (A serving was the size of your fist or the palm of your hand.) There were six workouts a week (three weightlifting, three cardio) and one free day every week where you ate whatever you wanted and didn't exercise. In all fairness, these two programs are different: BFL allows certain grains, legumes and low-fat dairy and discourages fat. It doesn't call for a wheelbarrow full of vegetation. Nevertheless, my experience eating lots of fruit and lots of starch is relevant to the PHD because the amount and type of digestible carbohydrates are similar, and for the first few years, I didn't eat wheat except on free days. At first on BFL, I felt great. Before, I was continually...
17 comments
Read more