The month of September was just so sunny and beautiful in my area. I was basking in the sun and enjoying every minute of it knowing that it was short lived. Last week the weather changed and the clouds rolled in and stole the wonderful sun away and brought with it the rain. That is when I found out that I could hardly get up from bed. I also could not stop crying and for no reason at all. It was extremely hard just to get my kids of too school and getting through the days was all I could do. It was getting worse and worse every day. This definitely was not normal!

I don’t know how it can happen so quickly – that one day I just can’t get out of bed anymore. I was feeling emotionally beaten up and had no fight left in me.

Four days of this was enough for me to go out and splurge on some vitamins. Usually I make a great effort to get sun on my skin everyday and take Cod Liver Oil all for the Vitamin D. However I picked up some Vit. D pills just to get me through the winter. I also picked up a Multi B vitamin as it is generally known to fight depression and good for adrenals and stress management.

I took my supplements that night which consists of:

• Vitamin C 1000mg
• Multi Vitamin B 100s
• Vitamin D up to 4000iu depending on sun exposure
• Vitamin E mixed Tocopherol 400 IU
• Cod Liver Oil
• Handful of Dulse for iodine
• Magnesium Powder

After adding the Vitamin D and B vitamins I feel like a whole NEW person. The sun did not shine for days but it did not matter anymore. The tears went away and the energy came back.

One thing that I was also looking to buy was full spectrum lighting to put in my kitchen as this is the place in my house that I spend a lot of time. I don’t need that right now but as the fall and winter season arrives I will probably have my husband install the new lights.

Absorbing Nutrients

I am eating a healthy and nutritious diet and getting lots of Vitamin B through my food as well as getting Sunshine. Why is it that adding these two “pills” would make such a difference. Why can’t I get the same effect from eating liver which is rich in those vitamins?

I am assuming that the food has to get digested and broken down by the digestive bacteria and fed to the cells and a vitamin pill is a lot easier to absorb.

A healthy gut is the KEY to optimal health.

Food digestion is critical to health and that is why I blog so much about my Candida Yeast issues. I am also an advocate for fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut, beet kvass, kefir which replenishes the gut with healthy bacteria and fight yeast and pathogens. Fermented foods also aid with digestion problems like diarrhea, constipation, acid reflux, gas, bloating and food allergies.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety

My OCD normally gets worse when we start burning the wood stove for heat. So far it has not been so bad. I check the stove before leaving the house or going to bed like I always do but the anxiety around it is not there. My anxiety in general has gone down. Not totally gone away but I am able to fall asleep without worrying about the house burning down, my kids dying or someone breaking in.

This is a breakthrough! It is absolutely horrible to feel afraid to sleep.

As I wear my heart on my sleeve I hope that someone may be helped with my battles and breakthroughs. Instead of reaching for medication I try to find out what nutritional needs might not be getting met and then try to remedy it. This is the long way to healing but at the moment it is the only one I got. Hiring a holistic doctor is not affordable at this time.

My History Note: When I was battling suicidal depression as a teenager my father sent me to an Iridologist. This Iridologist put me on vitamins and I pulled out of the depression rather quickly. Vitamin D and Multi Bs were part of my vitamin cocktail. I thought that I was just growing out of the teenage hormones change and did not give much credit to those vitamins. Eventually I stopped taking them.
Right now I feel a lot better than when I was taking St. Johns Wort and Sam-E. Those are natural anti-depressants and supposedly work as well as medications prescribed by doctors for mild depression.

At this point I give the credit for my well being to the vitamins.

An exciting update: after I wrote this post I talked to my father and spoke of my health issues. He was witness to what I went through as a teenage kid so he understands greatly what it is to be “unbalanced”. So he has offered to pay for me to go to an alternative doctor! I am absolutely ecstatic!!!

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays hosted by Food Renegade

Tweet This Post

Did you know that your gut is your body’s primary defense against pathogenic bacteria and viruses that create illnesses?

I have been reading Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr.  Natasha Cambell-McBride and found the chapter on our Immune Systems so incredibly fascinating.

Here is a very brief summary of how our immune system is related to our gut flora:

• Bad intestinal flora weakens the immune system
• Antibodies (immunoglobulins) start to attack our own body tissues such as brain and nervous system
• The bifidobacteria (good gut bacteria) cell wall creates Muramil Dipeptide. These muramil dipeptide initiates the production of lymphocytes.
• Lymphocytes are what protect us from viruses and tumours.  They are able to recognize and kill or neutralize any foreign invader virus/cells. Source
• People with damaged gut flora have a lesser amount of lymphocytes
• Lymphocytes create immunoglobulins including Secretory Immunoglobulin A (IgA).
• IgA is one of the most important as it is secreted in our bodily fluids and mucus membranes (eyes, nose, mouth, genitals).
• Bad bacteria, viruses and parasites enter our bodies through our mucus membranes.
• IgA is critical for good mucosal immunity.
• IgA breaks down quickly but the good bacteria in the gut are able to slow down this process.

There is a lot more wonderful information in this book. As well as methods and supplements on how to heal your gut flora. You can also find out more information at the GAPS diet website.

Lacto-fermented foods have traditionally been used for keeping our gut flora healthy. These foods include milk kefir,  water kefir, kombucha, clobbered milk, yogurt, lacto-fermented fruits and vegetables. I have created videos on how you can make lacto-fermented sauerkraut and how to lacto-ferment fruit. All of these foods are loaded with beneficial flora for gut health.

Tweet This Post

Lately I have had this fascination about microbes, lacto-fermentation, and healthy gut flora. The other day I was contemplating how people ever survived before the invention of soap and antibacterial products. As I read through the Bible there is no mention of soap. All the washing is done with water (Note: The Bible is a spiritual book with mysteries in it. There are very spiritual meanings to water. Check out Eph. 5:26). Since the creation of man it was water that has kept us clean.

I have to admit that I am a bit of a germ phobic. I sanitize my counters after preparing my meats. I make sure to wash my hands very well and get uncomfortable at public venues.

But really I should not. Here are my thoughts why…

• Earlier this year, we had a deer that got struck by a car across the road from our house. We live in the country and have a neighbour’s dog that runs at large. He discovered this deer a few days after it was struck. This dog had large chunks of fur sticking out of his mouth and running happily home. He came to visit this deer for a few days until it got taken away. This deer was old meat and infested with all kinds of lovely bacteria and as far as I could tell my neighbour’s dog is still quite healthy with no ill side effects.
• My dog decided that he enjoyed living at my mother in law’s farm and she was happy to have him. One thing that he loved doing is eating cow poop. Yum. That is extremely gross but yet again; he had no known unhealthy side effects from it.
• I have known 2 dogs that eat their own poop (both are Labradors… I don’t know if this trait is common among those breeds). Totally gross but they don’t get the runs after doing so.
• This amazing intestinal quality is not just limited to dogs. In my college years I lived with a cat that had a litter of kittens and she would eat her kittens poop too.

In my studies in Environmental Sciences it has been taught to the students that our tolerance for poop bacteria (coliforms and e-coli) is not that high. In fact we get very sick from even the smallest amount. We have to kill these bacteria with chlorine in our water systems. Not only in the water itself but also in the pipes so that bacteria does not grow during distribution.

I know that people are a very different species from cats and dogs, but how can these animals have so much intestinal tolerance from eating solid poop and rotten meat and not die? If a person was to do the same we would get deathly sick, have organ failure and probably die.

How can animals eat decomposing flesh and we have to sterilize our kitchens after handling meat?

Could it be that the good bacteria that lives on us and in us get destroyed by antibacterial products (chlorine, medications and antibiotic use) allowing the pathogenic bacteria to take over and decreasing our own natural immunity.

A good related post to this is What Really Causes Disease by Kelly The Kitchen Kop. This post debates the “germs cause disease” or “immune failure cause disease”.

What about just washing with water? I don’t think I could do it, but it sure gives me lots to think about.

Edit Note: I actually did an electronic search of the word “soap” in the Bible after writing this post to confirm that soap was not used in the scriptures. I found 2 verses containing that word (Jer 2:22 and Mal 3:2). My mistake, Soap IS mentioned in the Bible.

Tweet This Post