Discovering a Leaky Gut - how my son's stubborn refusal to take a bottle changed my life, for the better.


In 2014 I was 9 years into my journey with joint pain, body aches, chronic fatigue and chronic diarrhea. I had some ups and downs along the way where I felt my best and felt my worst. But it was in 2013 that I had reached an all time low. My joint pain was so bad that I was forced to use crutches and was barely able to sleep from the constant pain in my knees. On top of that my daughter was an energetic 1 year old and I was newly pregnant. I saw doctors and pleaded for tests and any help they could give me but they wouldn't do anything but talk to me while I was pregnant. I was feeling like there was no hope and that I couldn't care for myself or my child and the life growing inside me.

I had such mixed feelings about being pregnant. I had wanted to be pregnant so badly. I had suffered a miscarriage in July 2013 and just weeks after became pregnant again with my now beautiful rainbow baby. The only thing that gave me hope was that I had a strong chance my symptoms would go into remission once the pregnancy was well established. The same had happened with my 1st pregnancy and I was banking on that to get me through the agony.

As expected my symptoms did go into remission within a couple of months and virtually disappeared through out the rest of my pregnancy. However, just a short 4-6 weeks after giving birth the pain started to return. I had an MRI and blood test done through a Rheumatologist (the 8th one I'd seen over the years). Conclusion was that I did have inflammation in my body and had Baker's cysts and a meniscus tear in my knees. It was recommended to me that I start right away taking Methotrexate again or something similar. Medications that you are required to be on birth control while taking and do blood tests every 4 weeks because they are so toxic. I declined.

When I explained to the Doc that I didn't want to effect my fertility or to stop breastfeeding she told me that I should give up on having any more children because, what good would I be to the children I already have if I was sick and not able to care for them. I was choking back tears that day in her office.

My last hope was to try hormonal birth control pills. I had success with them putting my joint pain into remission but they made me an emotional wreck. I met with my OB and he said we can try as many as it takes to find the right one for me. I got the pills but wanted to wait until I weaned my son from breastfeeding at 3 months when I returned to work.

I could make an entire post about how it went trying to get him to take a bottle of formula but long story short, he never took to it. It was an agonizing process that nearly broke me. But I knew that his needs were priority despite the worsening pain. I decided to give up on taking those pills. I decided that he was showing me there must be another way. His stubborn refusal to take a bottle of formula would change my life and the lives of our family.

After a lot of reading, and discussion with a family member who was also dealing with illness, I decided to try something that they had tried. Eliminating foods. I had to decide between gluten, dairy and meat. Those seemed like the best ones to try first. Cutting meat was easy but didn't seem to help any. So I cut out dairy, all of it down to the "may contain milk".

My relationship with cheese was a love hate. I couldn't go a day without cheese, I ate it with everything. But I knew sometimes it would give me the you know whats so I tried to avoid it in certain preparations. I really didn't think it could be the solution to it all but I sure was willing to try anything at this point, because medications were off the table.

To my surprise within days of having not a spec of dairy I started to feel different. My joints started to feel better, my digestion was improving and most notably I was losing weight. Fast. Within a few months of cutting dairy I lost roughly 30 lbs. When I gave birth to my son I was close to 80 lbs heavier than I was when I got pregnant with my daughter. It was life changing and I thought it could be the answer, but I knew it wasn't that easy.

After about 3 months of no dairy and lots of reading, I was onto something. Leaky Gut. Could that be the key to all the pain and the path to healing? A coworker who I spoke to regularly and discussed all of this with recommended I go and see her Chiropractor. I made the appointment and went in there with some ideas. Within minutes of talking to me the Dr threw out the words Leaky Gut. My next step was to see his brother who was also a Chiro and Nutritionist.

And so began the process of elimination. I was prescribed a very strict elimination diet with a supplement called Repairvite. You cut out all inflammatory foods and heal your gut. Then you add back the foods. After 30 days of doing that in 2014 I had lost the rest of the 80lbs and 3 extra. I eliminated my joint pain, fixed my digestion, gained energy and enthusiasm for life. And never had to give up breastfeeding. I was the picture of health and my blood tests proved it.

It's been a journey and I want to share it. But this is just the beginning. Follow me as I discuss where I'm at now. Why I'm doing Repairvite again. How I think it all started (when I was 14) and I'll provide tips on how to do an elimination diet. As well as recipes and suggestions for how to eat when you can't eat certain foods.