Free give away - The Hidden Plague by Tara Grant

I've been waiting and waitng for Tara Grant's book to be finished and published for what seems like forever now!

The wait is over for everyone but me though! I put this book on my Christmas list and now I have to wait to see if I get it before I run out (Amazon!) and buy a copy...

Those of you who cannot run out and buy a copy or those of you who would love to own a copy but just don't think it is the best use of your money right now... well, here's a chance to win 1 of 5 free copies that Tara is giving away.

All you have to do is email her with your story of why you want the book... and she will make the choice after the cutoff date of December 21.

Here's the link to her blog:  http://primalgirl.com/2013/12/09/hidden-plague-giveaway/

Go. Do. It!

Yummy, yummy in my tummy!

I thought I'd share one of my easiest breakfast joys! Since I don't have a lot of time on the days I work, this is definitely a weekend treat for me... but YUM!

Ahead of time I bake at least 1 long (if not 3 or 4) Oriental Sweet Potatoes. These are purple-skinned, white flesh tubers that are so much better (in flavor) than regular sweet potatoes. I have not looked up the nutritional information for these babies... but they have won my heart!

After you bake the potatoes you can store them in the refrigerator for a few days... if they last at your house that long!

In a frying pan put in some coconut oil and let that get warm.
Slice off about 4 1/4" to 1/2" thick slices of sweet potato and add those to the frying pan. Heat through and make sure to allow the potatoes to get crispy.
Crack a couple of eggs into the frying pan and cook over-easy.
Slice open an avocado and slice one half of it onto your breakfast plate.
Slide the eggs and the potatoes onto the plate with the avocado. Voila! Breakfast with protein, fat, carbs & YUM!


Add your own zing to this... add onions to the potatoes... after heating up the potatoes pull them out of the pan and make an egg omelet... put bacon and the potatoes into the omelet with onions and cheese and mushrooms!

Enjoy!

Stress ... it does a body harm!

I'm "controlling" my HS with my diet right now. I pay attention to every morsel of food I put in my mouth... yes, sometimes I eat things that will not help my skin, but I make the choice to do so. I weigh the consequences. Sometimes even if I eat something that I think will affect me, it doesn't... and I chock that up to the fact that 99.9% of the time I am eating on the path to recovery... but then...

I've been home, pretty much locked in my house, since Monday. I worked on Sunday and the snow/ice that was on the roads (even the highway) had me in fear/stress mode. I have a dog at home... I'm sure I could have asked my neighbors to let her out and stayed in a hotel... wasn't going to happen. I wanted to be home with my cats and my dog and be safe and warm together. So I did everything that I could to push the stress from my mind (you can only tell yourself not to stress over something so often without the mantra itself becoming a stressor) as much as possible. I knew I would get home and all I had to do was drive at a safe distance from other cars on the road and at a safe speed. I had my Nissan Sentra not my Jeep, so 4-wheel drive was not an option. I had 25 miles of road ahead of me and because it was Sunday the road crews were not out in force as they would have been had it been a weekday. And... this was my first time driving the Nissan in a situation of ice and snow. I'd driven it in winter before but the roads had been cleared already.

I tested the stopping power of the brakes as I was leaving the parking lot and the back end swerved but I got it under control. Turning out of the parking lot was not an issue and I traveled along between 15-25 mph. Making the turn from the road I was on to the on-ramp to one of the highways I had to take was a bit scary... there was a car off to the side with the 4-ways blinking away... this car had not quite made the turn... and my turn was a right turn... I had to yield to oncoming traffic turning onto the ramp ... so I just waited until there was no more traffic and I slowly accelerated to get onto the ramp. The car fishtailed a little, but I was in control.

The story was like that the entire way home. The main road I drive (I-83 in PA) was not cleared yet and there were ruts where the cars had been driving so it was necessary to keep a focus on the road ahead. A couple of hills (going down) were quite scary because of the guardrail being so damn close to the road... and going over a couple of bridges too... yeah, I was not having a good time.

By the time I got off the highway I felt like every muscle in my body was sore (clench much?)... but I relaxed at that time because I knew I was now less than 5 miles away from home and I would drive the car off to the side of the road and walk the balance to home if I had to. That's a freeing feeling, knowing that you are in walking distance, even if it is freezing outside and sleeting/snowing! I made it most of the way home and my last monster road is the road that leads to my driveway. It winds up a hill and it is a back road for sure... the lanes are narrow, sometimes I barely think there is enough room for a car within the one lane... and since it was not plowed I was sure I was going to have to park the car and walk... but she made it! Fortunately there were no oncoming cars and no cars already stuck, mid-rise on the hill, I coached the car... "come on baby girl, you can make it, I know you can"... and I kept chanting that to her all the way up to the base of my driveway!

Harrowing? Yes. Life-threatening? Yes. Stress-inducing... apparently.

The moral of this story is: no matter how much diet you put into it, stress can undo your hard work. Because I worked on Sunday I had Monday off... I cleared off the Jeep on Monday and drove that down to the gas station because I didn't want to get caught without gas in the Jeep if I needed to drive it... but I was already broken out with inconvenient HS lumps... (yeah, they are never convenient... but these were in places that I couldn't get dressed without pain)... I was wearing just sweat pants and a sweatshirt, no undergarments and that was all I could do...

I emailed my boss on Monday afternoon to let her know that I might not be in on Tuesday due to this... woke up Tuesday, still too painful. Woke up today, still too painful. How long does it take to dry these things up when you eat healthy 99.9% of the time? I'm still counting. It's not looking good for me to go to work tomorrow either... but we shall see what the morning brings.

Beautiful... oops, what's that?

Just last night I was laying in bed and I was thinking how wonderful my skin is starting to feel... no open, seeping, smelly wounds. Yes, still some scarring and still some bumps but nothing massive, nothing that could really hurt me...

and then....

Just about an hour ago I got up to put some turkey soup into a bowl for dinner and I decided to take my bra off and I felt an alien that had popped up sometime today. I really think it had popped up in the last 4 hours or so... and what caused it? Hmmm.

Yesterday I went on a hike with a bunch of folks and they wanted to go have a bite to eat afterward. We ended up at Chili's. I ordered their lighter fare chicken with mango salsa dish. This was mango & tomato and onion diced up into tiny pieces and there was a mango spicy sauce on the chicken. The dish came with rice and broccoli. I asked them to drop the rice and double the broccoli. I ate all of it and that was it. We didn't order any chips & salsa so I wasn't even tempted. I had water with lemon for my drink.

Yesterday morning I had gone to a diner for breakfast and I had a couple cups of coffee. I put 2 teaspoons of refined sugar in those. I also used 4 of those half & half creamers that sit on the table. I had an omelet with pork sausage and cheddar cheese and home fries. I tolerate cheese fine so it wasn't the dairy.

Today I made a chocolate cake. This cake had honey and maple syrup in it... and, of course, raw cacao. I haven't had chocolate in about 6 weeks... and I had 2 slices of this cake with a chocolate ganach and 1 without the ganach... about 2-3 hours before the breakout. The cake also contained almond flour, coconut flour, arrowroot powder & tapioca flour... eggs, coconut milk, and coconut oil. The only thing from that list that I haven't had recently is arrowroot powder.

So, was it the processed pork sausage or processed mango spicy sauce or cacao? Of course I have no idea... and here's another straw on that camel's back... I bought green grapes yesterday because they were on sale... I know that grapes are a problem for some of the folks I have recently been in contact with and so I had decided to stay away from grapes until I could test them... but apparently I forgot that yesterday!... so I've been munching on grapes last night and today too... probably about a half a pound...

This is very hard to do but I refuse to give up! I am so damn proud of myself for coming this far... apparently there are more triggers out there than I am paying attention to and I might just need to back off some things for a few months. It's not forever... I'll live.

I'll keep you posted!

Take Pride

I have to admit that I am very proud of myself right now. I recently vowed to follow my Paleo/Primal diet for at least 6 months before I start adding or removing more foods to see what might truly be my trigger. Who knows, maybe I can have a bean every now and again? Certainly not me since I haven't really had any true sense of what does and doesn't work for me.

This last week we had "food day" at my work. I made a Pumpkin Cheesecake for the group because I was going to participate in the rest of the food (tacos). So I figured even though it had sugar in it that I would still have a piece of the cheesecake, just skip the crust. Instead of the normal graham cracker crust I used store bought gingersnaps and crumbled those... Everyone raved and raved about how good the cheesecake was, especially with that crust. I barely even ate one bite of the cheesecake and while I was preparing the crust, I DID NOT feed myself any of those cookies. I LOVE gingersnaps... but I know me, I have one and I tumble ... and I just don't take a small spill, I fall down the mountain, get up again and throw myself down as soon as I hit the top. Not this time.

I am determined to have no "slip ups", no "oh, well, just one"s, no "it's Christmas, enjoy yourself"s, NO.

This is my skin. My health. My life. I don't care (not true) about my waistline... I care about getting my skin healthy.

I want to feel free to approach a man that I am interested in without feeling like I have to give him a doctor's note to prove that my skin condition is not something he can get. I want to feel like I'm not dragging someone into a situation that they're not prepared for... even if they do end up caring for me enough to stay (for a while). I don't like having to feel like this. I don't want a guy to run away from me when we have sex or he sees me naked with the lights on... I don't like the picture myself, how can I really expect a man to not feel like he was trapped into this?

My weight, on the other hand, is something a man can see upfront and if he doesn't want to date me because I am too "big" for him... then that's that... but I can't go around telling guys I have a skin disease that will freak them out before we even get started... because that will just freak them out and scare them off.

But, I am able to say I'm Proud of Me. That's a step in the right direction and I'll get there eventually.

HS Support on Facebook

Well, I just joined about 4 different HS support groups on Facebook in the past couple of days. I had previously been a member of the HIDE-USA Allentown, PA chapter (although I had never gone to any events) and I had gone looking for them on the internet recently and found that they don't really keep the page up anymore due to the fact that FaceBook has so many different groups.

I never would have thought to make a FaceBook page for support so I thank each and every one of you for having the courage to step up and tell the world that you are not ashamed. I also think it is great that FaceBook allows for these groups to be Closed and moderated rather than just open pages for anyone to see.

I'm still amazed though, since I've been "in the know" about diet being the least horrific way to control this disease, at how many folks out there are still taking antibiotics and putting topicals on their skin that contain chemicals that are very harmful for our bodies. It feels like everyone should be aware that changing your diet will change your life with this nasty disease.. but I guess that's because I live it every day and I kind of have blinders on to the way the rest of the world eats. I don't even go down many of the aisles at the grocery store anymore. I am human, I am drawn in by all that 'glitz' as well and the only way I know how to avoid it is not to even look at it!

Good health to everyone who reaches a point where they decide that something else has to be the cause and the relief of this pain. I spent 30 years not knowing. Now I have made it my destiny to make sure that others don't have to wait that long!

How To Ruin Your Skin with Anger

So it is now August 22 - 17 days past my dermatologist appointment with Dr. Adams at Hershey Medical. In the past 17 days I have been angry. I have laughed out loud at my doctor's stupidity. I have gone back and forth between wondering if he is right and eating differently is no cure and wondering if there is a possibility that I am just in some sort of "remission" time with my skin and that my diet is not effecting a change. In other words, I have been crazy. This leads to crazy decisions and crazy eating that is not based on any logical decision, just impulse. Impulse eating for anyone is not a good idea. Impulse eating for someone who really needs to watch the ingredients of the foods entering her body is not good at all.

First off, impulse eating leads to more impulse eating. It is a domino effect. Once you break down and eat something that you know does not help your health, the easier it is to eat the next thing that you crave... and believe me, you will crave once you eat that first item.

Second off, eating foods that you know are harmful to your body just to prove your doctor wrong is not a healthy thing either. Your doctor doesn't care. He's proven that already by his bedside manner and his ability to just "write off" your health.

Thirdly, it sucks when your skin is no longer clear and comfortable. You have to take extra time when you are getting dressed to cover your breakouts so that your clothes don't get stained by or stuck on the lesions. And it is horrendously painful to try to heal your body again when you could've just skipped all of the irregular foods and just eaten what you know is right.

My lesson here: nothing tastes as good as clean skin feels. I promise. Donuts, pizza and fast food breaded deep-fried chicken fingers and fries... all three of those items have shown up in my diet at least once each week during the past 17 days, sometimes all three on the same day! Not only is this bad for my skin - it's bad for health in general.

My last blog title was that Doctors Just Suck... well, so do patients that try to take their anger out on their own body! How silly is that? Please take the lesson from me... it is not something you want to try yourself!

So, Dr. Adams, I just want to say to you that you are doing all of your patients a big disservice by not even talking to them about the possibility of them changing their diet to help themselves. What harm can it do? You're not pushing a carcinogenic drug or another drug that can cause a multitude of other bodily misfunctions or death. You're pushing health in all directions. Educate yourself and educate your patients and you may see less of them!

Doctors Really Just Suck!

On Monday I went to the dermatologist to get my FMLA documentation updated. It's been a year and that document is only good for 1 year at a time (at least from my employer's point of view).

I was pretty darn excited about going and sharing my "wealth"! My skin is not clear (yet) - but parts of it are well more clear than they've ever been before. So I was very excited to go in and talk to my doctor about how my diet has been changing my skin for the better.

When I told the nurse of the situation she said she had goosebumps and that she was so happy for me. When the doctor came in she asked me about any current lesions - and of course, I do have the one on the right breast. I also have some "pimple-like" breakouts on both breasts and in my cleavage but those are barely of concern to me because they don't hurt or cause me to be off of work due to draining or pain. The current incidence isn't really something they could do anything about because it is an open deal and it is a crater-like site rather than a bumpy area.

The doctor was impressed with my skin being pretty clear and I told her of my diet and what foods I'm not eating ... and she was glad to hear that it was working for me.

When she came back into the room with the attending physician (resident? I don't know which is which, but the "big guy") she took a step back and allowed him to take the lead. Then, after examining me he stated that I was lucky because he's seen folks with this disease way worse off than I am. Yes, that's true. Even at my worst there are people out there that have this way worse than I did... but I told him that my skin was clearing up because of my diet. When I told him what I wasn't eating - processed foods, legumes, tomatoes (questionable), grains, and gluten - he looked at the other doctor and said "yes, the anti-inflammatory diet ... it has been researched and tried, not in derm, but for other applications and it sometimes helps. It doesn't cure but for some folks it does relieve the symptoms. It doesn't work for everyone."

Now, he didn't say this to me, he said it over me and was speaking directly to the other doctor as if I was a test subject that couldn't hear him or something like that. I nodded my head and though "duh, exactly what the prescribed drugs you have do for this disease... !"

He uninflated my sails that simply.  I was so angry for him not even recognizing that this can and does work for anyone who really puts their minds and diet to it. I want it to work. I need it to work. There are no quick easy fix pills out there to make this just go away. I do not want to have surgery on top of surgery to get rid of this. I do not want to spend all my money on hibiclens and dressings to cover up the breakouts. I would like to be able to wear sleeveless shirts and bathing suits at some point in my life. I want to be able to lose weight and feel desirable... if those of us with HS lose weight we still don't feel desirable because of our skin. It is ugly and scary for most people out there who don't have it. I don't really blame those folks though... it is not pretty.

So, in all regards folks, don't listen to the stupid doctors in your life. If you're doing something that works for you, stick with it. Do it with all the power of your mind and know that it will work. Doctors and lab rats have to stick with what they know... and what they know is that the drug companies pay them a lot of money and give them lots of perks to push their drugs and to have folks dive in to their drug trials. DON'T RELY ON DRUGS TO SAVE YOU. Your doctor doesn't care if you get symptoms from something far worse than HS (and yes, there are things far worse than HS)... because if your doctor cared they wouldn't even suggest you subject yourself to the drug they're pushing.

Yes, they are drug pushers and that is all they are. Stop fighting your body. Start listening to your body and feed it the food that works for it. Feed it the nutrients that help it serve every inch of you and keep you healthy. Get away from the crap you've been eating and eat nutritious food. Just do it for 3 months and see how much of a difference it makes in your life.

Make a promise to yourself to do it. Don't try to do it. Don't look down the road and say "ah, my sister's boyfriend's kid is having a party on the 17th of next month so I'd better just wait"... do it now. Do it for you. No one else cares about you but you. You have to be the adult and do this for yourself or else you won't know the glory of limited breakout areas and healthy skin.

I promise. This will work for you.

I'm the schizophrenic psycho

Yep... great song... and so very true for me with finding my trigger foods and keeping myself healthy.

I realized today that I just keep sabotaging myself - well, I didn't just realize that today... but I think I have figured out why today.

I want to be normal.

I know that certain foods, as yet to be fully determined, cause my skin to erupt in abnormal ways. I know that the longer I stay on my normal course of eating, which excludes gluten, grains, legumes, and tomatoes, not to mention processed foods, I will heal my skin and have fewer extreme eruptions. And this is NOT hard to do. After just a few weeks of eating a paleo (which is what I'm on) diet, excluding processed foods with more than about 3 ingredients (except for those I process myself!) and staying away from the sugary treats, the crazy needs and food cravings just whisked right away. I truly don't feel those needs anymore.

Then why you ask, did you eat ice cream today? And, pizza last week, as well as ice cream and Auntie Anne's pretzels...

I refer you back to the title of this posting... I'm the schizophrenic psycho.

I don't get the cravings in that same sense as I used to. I do want to be able to just chuck all the special diets - be able to know that if I'm invited to someone's house for dinner that I can eat anything that is placed in front of me without having to ask how it was prepared. I crave to be normal. I crave the ability to just pull something off the shelf and eat it without wondering what the consequences to my skin will be. But... in truth, it is not just about my skin anymore. The more I learn about the food industry and the way our food is "created", the more I am scared to eat anything that I don't know exactly where it came from and what it ate (or whether it had chemicals sprayed on it)!

But, back to the schizo part of this all. I believe that a large part of my sabotage has to do with the "what does it matter" attitude. This frame of mind is brought on in a couple of ways - the major way being after I have stepped outside of my "normal" diet and eaten something that I am avoiding due to the health of my skin. When I start to feel the breakout coming on (and, if you have this disease, you know exactly what I'm talking about! The itching or the actual pressure-point pain that some of these can elicit with the wrong move of your skin/body) my head starts to figure -- why shouldn't I take advantage of the fact that I've already got the eruptions boiling (pun intended) away and have something else I haven't had in a while. What could it hurt at this point? Yes, I think about the fact that I will have to go a few weeks more before I break away from the addiction that these foods elicit the moment you ingest them... and I think... "ah, what the hell. I might as well do it now rather than go another month on my regular diet and then 'allow' myself something because I didn't now and then it will be like wasted time." That's my reasoning. And it's pretty sound reasoning, if I do say so myself.

The second way the "what does it matter" attitude is brought on is through depression. The thought that no matter how long I continue on trying to locate the specific foods that trigger my Hidradenitis that I won't be fully healed... that I won't find someone out there who loves me for who I am (scars and all), that I won't lose the weight that I need to lose to feel comfortable in my body, that money issues will always be hovering over my head, that... anything that can bring on self-pity.....

I'm fighting the self-pity, depression "what does it matter" attitude as much as possible but the monster does get out sometimes... and that's why I had Auntie Anne's pretzels last week, which spurred the "what does it matter - I've already stepped outside my normal food regime" so I had pizza and ice cream! And again ice cream this week... because the breakout under my right breast is going to be an ugly, ugly thing (it already is) and the one brewing on the back of my left thigh is painful yet unseen at the moment.

I know that I have less trouble with this when eating Paleo. I know that gluten laden products and processed foods cause issues for my skin. And now I know that dairy (at least ice cream) gives me some unbelievable intestinal gas that just farts up a storm INSIDE MY BELLY! I hear it and feel it and then about 3 hours later it gets far enough through my system to expel the gas outside! Oh my! I do like ice cream... but not enough for the pain that comes with that gas that is stuck inside my system!

So what am I going to do now that I've realized why I do some of the things that I do? I'm going to try harder to whack that voice down when it pipes up asking for something that I know doesn't work for me. How am I going to deal with being invited to someone's house for dinner? Well, when I'm invited I will go and I will be a great guest and I will do what it takes to be satisified... which may mean eating dinner before I go so that I don't have to worry about being hungry with nothing that I can eat in front of me. But, for the most part, all of my friends know what I'm doing and they understand... so most likely I will be able to discuss the menu with them before I attend!

It is work, but I tell you, it is worth it... the pain that I am experiencing right now from the open wound under my right breast is less than I've had before... but it is more than I want to experience ever again.

Today I have an appointment with my dermatologist at Hershey Medical. I didn't make the appointment because I was breaking out (dermatologists are booked about 5 months in advance!) but because my FMLA documents needs to be updated. Every year I have to get these filled out for my work or else ... and I can't lose my job ... so it's off to Hershey I go to get checked out... have the doctor say, "yep, you have Hidradenitis Suppurativa. There's no cure. Get some hibiclens. Good luck." Yeah, just what I want to hear! Fortunately for me, it is just for the paperwork and then I'm back to eating for healthy skin!

Auntie Anne's, Pizza & Chocolate!

Based on the title of this post you may think that this weekend was a bust for my Paleo diet and for my Whole30... and - you'd be right!

Friday night when I got home from work I was, for some reason, food-needy. I wasn't particularly hungry but I was picking. I really didn't have anything in the house... I ended up eating half a box of raisins and half a bag of Enjoy Life Mini Chocolate chips. That was the sugar I was craving... but then I still had a "need" for something else. I really wanted pizza... but my experience with pizza in South Central PA has not be great. Really, when Pizza Hut is better pizza than most of the pizzerias in the area, you know you have a problem!

So I decided I'd head to the health food store instead of trying to sate my need. I somehow ended up talking myself out of the drive at rush hour (5pm) and went instead to WalMart! I got some sweet potatoes and cage free eggs and bananas. Big trip for WalMart, I know! But it also served as a car trip for my sweet doggie, Sadie. She loves to go in the car and since she was waiting in the car I didn't want to spend an hour in WalMart trying to see if they actually had anything healthy for me!

But... right at the end of the cash register was my next fail! Auntie Anne's Pretzels... I walked out of there with a cup of cinnamon sugar sticks and ate every one of them!

You'd think that I'd then be done with sabotaging myself... and you'd be wrong! On Saturday when I got up I intended things to be different for the day... but I still had that hankering for pizza. I hate having that need because of the aforementioned icky pizza in PA. If I'm going to go outside of my normal foods - the foods that are helping me to heal my body - then I want it to be damn good... not just good, but DAMN! good!

I was picking in the house all day - besides 4 eggs and pork sausage for breakfast, I had a whole avocado, I had a mango, I ate all 4 of the bananas I had bought between Friday night and Saturday afternoon (this is why I stopped buying bananas!), I had a turkey burger and I was even tempted to make a boxed mix of something that I happened to find in my cupboard just because it was sweet and I knew it would be satisfying... well, I believed it would be satisfying. Fortunately I was able to talk myself out of that nastiness! I should throw it away, but I hold on to it just in case I need to make something to take somewhere that non-Paleo folks will be eating. I did manage to make a cocoa pudding with coconut milk and raw cacao and a little honey... yup, fail on the sugar again!

I decided to take a drive - again to get away from the temptation of bad stuff and to take the dog for a drive! I went to a farm stand that I visit often... and I told the woman who runs it about my "need"... she suggested I just get a couple of slices - you see, I had shared my reasoning that if I order a pizza, I will eat the whole thing - if not for dinner the one night, but I would save it for the next day and a trespass on my diet is one thing for one day, but to carry it through to another day is just not acceptable! I contemplated a couple of slices... and I really didn't want Domino's or Pizza Hut! Ick! I contemplated Taco Bell as well! Boy do I love Taco Bell! But beans are so very very destructive to my skin. I just couldn't do that to myself. Tomatoes and dairy? Well, tomatoes I believe are a factor, not fully vetted. Dairy, I'm still checking this month... wheat... yeah, I believe so but not even proved like beans have been!

I did remember a pizzeria that I had seen tucked in and sort of hiding out of site in the next town over, Emigsville. Mamma's Pizza. Thank you Mamma's! I got 2 slices of pepperoni pizza and it was wonderful! They were HUGE slices and I probably could've gotten away with just one, but they were both excellent!

Now, you're probably thinking that I was so full after my pizza and satisified as well, that I couldn't want for more? Wrong. Later in the night, about 8:00pm or so, I got a hankering again... for something that I just couldn't pin my tastebuds on... so, the only thing I had that was healthy to make was coconut oil chocolate. So that's what I did... but I added brown rice syrup to it and so I failed on sugar again! I only had a taste of it before going to bed on Saturday night because I wanted it to harden a bit. I put it in the freezer so that I could just take a little every now and again - which is what I normally do with this treat... this morning, as soon as I got up I broke off a piece of that baby... and it was SO good! I ended up breaking it in half and eating a whole half of this chocolate! This was round the size of a salad plate! Now I feel sick. That was too much sweet and cacao and coconut oil!

Why is it that it takes me until I'm sick or stuffed or disgusted to break free of a frenzy? I don't know but I'm working on this. I am only human. I will not feel guilty nor hate myself for this failure. That only brings more stress which causes outbreak just as easily as if I had eaten a couple of bowls of bean soup!

What have I learned from this? The bottom line is that I am human. Food is tempting and there are times that I will be tempted and follow through. I cannot berate myself, or others, for liking the taste of certain foods. Our tastebuds and our upbringing have forged our wants and needs. It may take forever to change my eating 100% - and it still may not be perfect.

Now - let's see if a breakout is coming! I was already seeing a recurring lump in a highly private spot... and one under my left breast and at my underwear line - which, I have to say, was a determining factor with following through on my "needs"... if I had be free and clear, I would have had more determination to stay free of the foods that exacerbate this condition... knowing I had at least one BIG baby coming out and a couple of others as well... well, that sort of gave me license to break out of "good" eating habits... but, I'm my own boss... I can do what I want... I'm the one to pay the consequences and I'm the one to reap the benefits... I'm happy I had the pizza - it broke me out of the need to have pizza for a long time to come now!

Following the Whole30

Today starts day 7 of my Whole30. I believe you can get all the information you need from the website, but I love their book It Starts With Food. I've mentioned it before and I think it is worth a read even if, at the end, you don't think you can do it for 30 days (although, anyone can do anything for a set period of time).  Just think about it - if you set your mind to something for 30 days, how hard can it really be? If you say, "ugh, I have to do this forever", well, that's a whole other story. Forever is a long time and there's no end in sight... but when you say "this period of time" (whatever that is), you will know that there is an end in sight and the finish line is what you strive for... to make yourself a better, stronger person. That's how I do it. I take my 30 days as a challenge to make myself stronger. I know that I can give up certain things for a "short period" of time. Thirty days in the grand scheme of things... n o t h i n g! I've had this disease for 30 YEARS! I got this!

But, what I want to say here is I'm doing a happy dance! Truly. This morning I was shaving my legs... and girls, I know you know, shaving just past the knee, to about halfway up the thigh, is about all we can do. First of all, shaving over open sores is not a smart thing to do, but also, shaving over the scars and the pock marks and the "funny" skin isn't an easy task either...

I shaved all the way up to my underwear line!!

I won't say that just following the Whole30 did this for me, because I don't know. I've also been taking the CoQ10 every day as noted in a previous post and I've been massaging Alba Botanica Hawaiian Cocoa Butter Hand & Body Lotion onto the affected areas every night before bed. I've also been using African Black soap for 6 months, but that wouldn't have anything to do with this "success" right now... unless, of course, it is all related. One other thing that is different for these 7 days - although I've stated before that the nightshades test from last year didn't prove them to be complicit, I haven't had any nightshades. That's not by design - it has been completely by accident. My favorite spices are Mexican chili spices and I cook ahead. I have chicken thighs and legs that are already covered in Chili and Hot Mexican Chili and Frank's Hot Sauce and any other chili pepper spice that I might have in the house. My luck this week is that as I grab a frozen thigh or legs package from the freezer that the mix is upset and I've only been grabbing turmeric coated lunch"ables". The upcoming week probably won't be the same because I think I have more chili spiced chicken than turmeric spiced left in the freezer!

The take away from this is that how hard is it to change your eating habits for 30 days? This is not a blatant advertisement for the Whole30 folks - they will not make a penny if you are able to gather all the necessary information from their website. They will make some money if you buy the book, either in Kindle format or in hardcover, becaue they wrote it. If you can borrow it from your library, great for you! I bought it in Kindle format and I love it. I'm reading it for the second time right now. I just say this because I think it is a fantastic way to eliminate those things that could be causing issues for you and then learning how to slowly add those back into your diet so that you can be the judge as to how it affects your body.

If there is anyone that needs anything clarified about the Whole30, definitely ask, I'll do my best to help you. If you are working from the website only and you want to know the why behind some of it, again, I'll find it in the book for you if I can!

I hope week 2 of the Whole30 proves to be as wonderful for my skin as week 1 was!

Grass-fed Beef

I just got home from my first visit to my local beef farm.

I got to pet a 2 week old calf!

I also got to walk in the grassed pasture... and boy can cows poop! Land mines all over the place.

I was also followed by an emu and a dog and some cats and some chickens and a rooster! The emu was following me around in the pasture... stuck to me like glue! The cats and chickens were not in the pasture but they sure were hanging around outside! One of the two dogs did go in the pasture with us but he was just checking out the bulls and cows.

It was a nice place. The folks that live there were straight forward. Told me that they hadn't worked up a price for this year yet but because they give first preference to their customers from previous years I might be on a wait list. Understood.

It is nice to get to know the people who are raising your food. I wanted to make sure that the cows were happy, well-cared for, and had plenty of room to roam. All of this was a check in my book!

I now have to find someone local who wants to split a quarter with me. I really don't think, as a single person, that I can take a full quarter myself. Too much meat. I have some friends... even if I have to get 3 more of them involved because no one wants to split it halfsies... I'll get it done!

I'm so tired of paying $11.00 a pound for grass-fed steak from another country. Buy local, pay less. Do your homework and you'll get yourself involved with the right farm.

Now I just hope that beef is not a flare producer for me. Like I said in my last post, I've never considered meat as a probable cause so I've never paid attention to what meat I may have eaten when I do flare up. I eat mostly chicken... so you'd think that I could tell... but you'd be wrong. It could be anything... could be the spices I use on my chicken or on the steak... you never know... and that's what this whole journey is about.

Tomorrow I start a Whole30. I'm going the full Whole30 this time... no dairy! For me that means cutting out Greek yogurt and cream in coffee. That's okay. I cut out coffee a while ago and only recently started drinking it again (last week)... I'm fine with tea. Tea I can drink black... no sugar no cream. But the yogurt... well, that's where I get most of my fruit and flax. I normally get Fage 2% plain Greek yogurt, put honey and ground flax seed on it and then add fruit too. Yum! That's such a nice snack or breakfast on the go. I will not lament dairy. I will be strong and know that I am doing what I must do to rule dairy out so that I can continue to enjoy my Greek yogurt a few times a week!

I'm a week or so into the CoQ10 supplementation. No change in the HS at this point. A cluster on my left jawline did "deflate" a bit, but I've grown a new single, larger, breakout on my right jawline... so that's a draw. Most of my other areas are stage 1 to stage 2 right now... nothing huge... but that's not "better"... that's just everyday life with HS for me. Of course, I do have two that are new as of this weekend. They prevented me from going to a birthday party yesterday... I couldn't sit down... and they are still affecting me. I sometimes don't understand how the pain can be so excruciating!

What COULD be the culprit?

I found out this week that I still do not have an open mind when it comes to what could be the culprit for breakouts with HS. The answer, of course, is ANY thing.

Yep. Anything.

I was reading a blog post from someone I follow on Facebook and she mentioned that beef seems to lead to breakouts for her and she wanted to test with grass-fed to see if there was a difference.

BEEF? Really? I was dumbfounded. Seems I just have not put enough concentration into truly eliminating certain foods... getting myself to a control point and then adding them back in. But I don't think I would ever have eliminated a meat. My reasoning is that meats are not known Leaky Gut causative reactants. But the honest truth of the matter is that ANY food can be a disruption in your system... but more likely a food that is not a Leaky Gut reactant may just exacerbate an already poor digestive system and cause a breakout or the food you are eating could be marinated in something or dredged in something that IS known as a reactant.

Clean eating. Using a proven method to eliminate the most likely foods and then reintroduce those foods to your body while charting the results is the only way to know.

This method works for many illnesses and body conditions, not just Hidradenitis. If you're suffering from any ailment and you think (I know) that food could be the culprit and the cure, find the elimination program that you feel most comfortable with (I used Whole30) and ...

Let's get eating!

Striving for Health

So last week I mentioned that I was going to run right out and get another bottle of CoQ10 so that I could determine if that helps to keep the aliens at bay... I'd like to be supplement free, but this is a long process of elimination to find what does and doesn't affect my body and if I can get some added benefit from the CoQ10 (check out the benefits here) I will swallow the pill.

Well, I did go out the next day to Rite Aid (which is where I swore I bought it last time)... but when I got there I was shocked (and appalled) by the prices! WOW! Then I remembered that I must have ordered it from Vitacost because that is where I buy all of my vitamins and supplements. I checked that evening and I had ordered it. Just in case anyone else is interested, I ordered Vitacost brand, 100 mg. Their 240 capsule bottle is $21.99. When you order $25.00 worth of Vitacost products your shipping is free - if you order $49.00 of ANY products, your shipping is free. In every instance that I've had to pay shipping, it has been $4.99. The pricing for CoQ10 at Rite Aid and CVS was something like (don't quote me because I'm not looking at the prices right now) $16.00 for 40-50 capsules... and that was for the lowest dose available... and that was the store brand!

So, we all know where my allegiance lies when it comes to vitamins and supplements... and oh so many other products! I open two tabs in my browser and I check the prices between Vitacost and Amazon (I am a Prime member so I get free 2 day shipping) and I usually end up buying from Vitacost unless I absolutely need it fast or Vitacost doesn't sell the item!

Onward to this week's update. I just got the CoQ10 in the mail yesterday so supplementation has not been a factor. I ate pretty much the same food as I regularly do this week. Eggs and avocado and a frozen veggie (usually broccoli or Cali mix) for breakfast, baked chicken thigh or leg with a frozen veggie and cauliflower mashed and then an orange for lunch, and baked chicken thigh or leg or a hamburger with veggies and salad greens for dinner. Of course I've varied it a little... like this week since I bought the fabulous Paderno Spiral Slicer from Amazon I've done a couple of experiments with zucchini and sweet potatoes! With the zucchini I spiraled the whole thing (huge veggie!) and then put it in a drop or two of coconut oil in the frying pan and sautéed it. I then added full fat coconut milk (I use this brand because it has no other ingredients like guar gum or other gums for thickeners, the can lining is BPA-free and the product is Kosher, even though it is not organic. If you'd like to make your own coconut milk, here is an article that will give you some insight on making your own coconut milk), a couple of teaspoons of nutritional yeast, a ton (not really, but quite a lot) of powdered garlic and a pinch of sea salt and a pinch of fresh grated parmesan... tasted so much like alfredo sauce! Yum!

Yesterday I was at a party with some friends and the basic meal was London Broil and crab legs but some other folks brought a sweet Hawaiian bread, a taco salad dip with Tostitos brand tortilla chips (love love love tortilla chips), and beer (three different kinds)! Fortunately I had brought some fresh strawberries and I had put a can of coconut milk in the refrigerator to whip the cream! I had also made this fabulous "cheesecake" for dessert!

I've decided that gluten really is the enemy here after the past two weeks of having an alien take up residence on my groin (right where my undergarments normally lay of course!) and not going away no matter what I applied to it (heat, aloe, cocoa butter). On Friday morning I had decided (since I seem to be mostly a masochist when it comes to my own body) that if it was still in residence after work that I was going to have pizza for dinner. Yup... there are some things that I just still want, even though I can't really call it a craving (not dying for it), just remember the taste and when it's good, it's great! Fortunately I did not do that as I would have just prolonged the stay of execution on this bastard and possibly created a new monster somewhere else! Because I stayed strong (it really wasn't hard) on Friday night I was less tempted yesterday to have the taco salad dip (black beans and cheese and gooey-ness on top of wonderful salted-tortilla chips!) and the Hawaiian bread with my dinner. I'm not much of a beer drinker so that wasn't a temptation anyway.

I find that it is much easier to stay away from foods that are temptations the longer I stay away from them. I've read quite a few testaments to the fact that you just stop craving foods once you stay away from them... this is probably true... but another factor that you also have to weigh is your determination. The longer you stay free of something that you are determined to be free of, the stronger your resolve becomes because you don't want to break your streak of "freedom". You know how hard those first few days or weeks can be and to put yourself back to being a "slave" to that item... nope, it is just not worth it! I am determined that I will be strong with gluten (ah, pizza!). I used to smoke (for 28 years) and now I don't (for 4 years)... this is doable!

This week I was also determined to keep my calorie intake lower than it has been in quite some time. I'm not counting calories, per se, but I do know that cashews and almonds and bananas and nut butters are quite dense calorie-wise and I was over-consuming those items. I was snacking on handsful of almonds... throwing a couple handsful of cashews into the Nutribullet and blending them with raw cacao and honey and shoveling that into my mouth as a snack when I got home from work. I was also buying bananas and eating 4 or 5 of them in one day... too much sugar and calories! I've made a conscious effort to be mindful of my eating. I know that I have an eating disorder (I just eat - usually tied to emotions - and then I get fatter and feel guilty and start getting aggravated at myself and then I lose control of what I'm eating and stop caring about any restrictions, whether tied to weight or skin or health and I go too far and it becomes a monster in and of itself) and the only true way to keep it under control is to not start in on foods that I lose myself into - and sweets are definitely in that category - especially "healthy" sweets!

The alien on my groin area is much smaller than it has been all week (although still there) - it has not drained but it is receding and that is a positive measurement!

This week will be more of the same as this past week, strong step forward, exercise when I can because I never know when an alien will step in the way of "comfortable". The high school just down the street from my house has a fitness center that is available for use to township residents 4 nights a week from 5pm to 8pm. This is free usage! I just realized this and I'm ashamed to say that I could have been taking advantage of this for years now... better late than never! Get out there and see what you might be able to take advantage of to save you money yet get you moving into a healthier you!

 

CoQ10

I've been lamenting about the fact that even though I have been damn good on my paleo diet - with a couple of slips here and there, my skin has not been as clear and clean as it was during that first month or two (January and February of this year) of paleo... and I've been trying to figure out what might be different.

Yesterday it hit me like a ton of bricks while I was taking my supplements - some I take because I don't eat enough fish (Krill Red) and some I take because I'm perimenopausal (Red Clover, Black Cohosh, Wild Yam, Evening Primrose Oil) and some I take because back in December I moved to day-shift from second shift and I need the eye-openers in the morning (B1, B3, B6, B12).

Back in November my dentist's assistant - sorry, I don't know her exact title... was telling me about how CoQ10 sometimes works to help your gums. She and I were talking about this because she used to work for a holistic dentist in NJ before she moved out here to PA and because she knew that I was trying to be as natural and health conscious as possible in the choices I made for my body. I went to the drug store next door and about fell over with the prices... and of course the higher the dose the higher the price... I bought the lowest dose and took 1 pill a day for 4 months. That was November through February!

Off to the store I will be tomorrow to pick up more CoQ10. I'm already spending a fortune on supplements for perimenopausal symptoms (hot flashes and night sweats!)... if I shift that money (so it's summer, who doesn't sweat?) to the CoQ10 and my skin clears up nicely? Oh yeah!

If, after 4 months of taking the CoQ10 my skin is still reacting to something, I'll look to maybe taking eggs or my beloved hot pepper, chili pepper, chipotle pepper (and on and on) out of my diet. Yes... I said that cutting out the nightshades didn't work for me last year... but in conjunction with all else that I'm doing now I might have to look at it again. It's not cut and dried for everyone (or anyone). This is a "what works best" scenario. I'm looking for overall health and to finally be free of this horrible disease. I hope you all can maybe relate some of the things I am doing to how you might help yourself.

Duh... beer!

Duh. Duh. Duh.

So of course I know that beer is made from wheat and has gluten. Of course, for the most part of my gluten-free life (all of 6 months) I have been thoroughly excluding beer from my diet... but a few times over the past month I have had a few... and because I have had breakouts very closely tied to those times ... well, you all know where I'm going with this.

It's not that I didn't think that gluten was a bad thing... it's just that I didn't really tie it into the whole auto-immune thing too much... but my head must be up somewhere... because gluten proteins (oh, and grains!) are one of the biggest contenders for leaky gut out there. They are high up there on the "avoid at all costs" list.

What was I thinking?

Well, I'll tell you what I was thinking... I was being social. I was thinking that it would be nice to sit back and relax and have a beer with my friends (round one of beer since going gluten free, 3 or 4 12-oz. May 27th - breakout May 28th) and also to sit in my backyard after a day of running around and doing errands and share some talk and a beer with my neighbor (round two of beer since going gluten free, two 16-oz. June 15th - breakout June 16th) and then the final one, again having a beer with my neighbor after some pretty heafty yardwork (round three of beer since going gluten free, 1 16-oz. June 22). Today is June 23rd... we'll see how much more I break out... I'm still trying to heal from last week's breakout... multiple locations and multiple intensity of pain/soreness/discoloration.

And, I gotta say... when I go all "glutenized", I don't just stop at beer. Back in May, not only did I have that beer, but I had crab cakes which had some sort of bread in them... then the next day I had pasta! PASTA! Like I said in my previous post - classic Peg. Last week when I had the beer it was because I had already had a breakout going on (not a horrific one, but nontheless) and I thought ... oh yeah, you saw that coming didn't you... classic Peg.

So, I will need to heed to my body's wellness first and foremost. Have a glass of wine - not great but better for me than the gluten and grains. I can still be social, I just have to learn that I can say "no thank you" and still participate in the conversation... have a glass of wine, a glass of water, a coconut water... anything but the damn beer!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My journey to skin health through nutrition - Part 2

Thank you everyone for your comments last week, I appreciate every one of you. Hopefully along the way I will be able to help others in their search for a cure for this nasty disease.

Last post I left off in March of 2013 when I realized that beans (oh, that sucks!) were a culprit in this disease that has done its very best to take over my life.

Since that get together I have stayed away from beans altogether. In that bean soup there were kidney beans, navy beans, black beans, small red beans, and cannelini beans. I have had none of those. I know, it could be just one of them causing the issue... I might be able to eat black beans again some day (ah, what a nice thought)... and I might be able to dip a carrot or celery stick into some wonderful garlic hummus (garbanzo beans)... but right now I'm in the infancy of trying to figure out just what causes these breakouts.

Since the revelation of BEANS being the cause, I pretty much put every other option out of my head. Why could there be MORE THAN ONE cause? I mean, other than things like ibuprofen and other drugs that might cause your gut to leak... right?

So in April I went happily along my way eating anything and everything... and experimenting with so many "paleo-ized" foods for sweets/desserts. I started to notice that my previously starting to feel smooth breasts and thighs were a little bumpy... no, nothing huge, but definitely moving in the wrong direction. Then I woke up one day with three huge "aliens" under my left armpit and a few other of those nasty embedded blackhead things... this on the arm that hardly had any scars... I was shocked!

I realized that I had been eating a few slices of tomato on my salad every day. Now, I know I wrote last week that when I excluded the nightshades from my diet for 28 days I had seen no discernible difference in my breakouts. I was even concerned because it got worse during that time.... but since the nightshades were what Tara Grant PrimalGirl had found to be her trigger and because in all the Paleo-related books I had been reading the nightshades were listed as bad-guys when it comes to autoimmune, I figured that I must be triggered by tomatoes. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say "all nightshades". Not yet. I still haven't proven yes or no on these guys but it doesn't hurt me to exclude them for right now.

Then came May. I now have given up beans forever and cut all tomato products out of my diet. Still eating willy nilly as long as it is Paleo. Of course, during this time (Jan-June) I have gained weight, not lost, because I've been stuffing my mouth full of dates and figs and nuts... and coconut milk and creamed coconut goodness. (Yes, I apparently have an eating addiction - as if I didn't already know that!)

During May I realized that I still have some breakouts going on... a couple of occasions they have been more than "small" but nothing so debilitating that I couldn't move... So I took stock again of what I've been eating. In many places I have read that although mostly healthy, an overdose of nuts is not healthy for your gut and can cause leaky gut. Damn! So there go those cashew nuts!

The end of May marked my birthday and I was on vacation for a few days. At first I was as Paleo as a road trip (16 hours each way!) could allow for... which meant that when we stopped at Wendy's I got a double burger with cheese and bacon and removed the bread.... Even eating at my Aunt & Uncle's house was easy enough to stay Paleo and away from those things that harm me... until about the fourth day. We went out to eat at a restaurant and beer was ordered... well, I drank that.... then I ordered crab cake sliders. No, I didn't eat the bread... but there's breading in it... and after that I pretty much gave up for the next two days while we were travelling back home. I ate almost anything but candy and cakes. I put a dressing from Ruby Tuesday's on my salad - which one? It wasn't oil & vinegar, I can say that! I ate the bread when I ordered a mushroom & swiss from Hardees at one stop. I had a Wendy's frosty in a waffle cone. Yes, I felt the breakout coming on... did I change my eating? NOPE! In the classic, "it's already started, why bother to change now?" thought mode, I had half a ciabatta sandwich and another ice cream cone before the 2nd day of traveling was over! Classic Peg.

Now it is the middle of June and I've been off of cashews since the week before Memorial Day. Paleo - no tomatoes, no cashews.

I had a hankering the other day when I was shopping. I ended up with 2 store-baked giganto muffins. One lemon and one double chocolate chip. I ate them both. Then a few days later I had another hankering (it's emotional, not hunger, and not even craving) and this time I pushed it and pushed it... but I eventually fell victim to it because I was hungry and I ended up eating a full cup of Auntie Anne's cinnamon pretzel bites. Now I've got a breakout. It is relative... it is in a few different places but it is not as deep as they've been in the past... but still... I've stepped outside of my struggle? My battle? My healthy steps toward a healthier me? Yes... that's what I did and I caused this. What was the particular cause? Who know? Gluten? Maybe. Processed garbage? More than likely. But - I also have another factor - stress. Not that we all don't have every day stress in our lives, we do... but I just got a new adopted dog from the SPCA and she was incredibly ill the first 3 days of living with me and she ended up at the vet... and $1027 later she is now home and well. Yes, money causes me stress because I don't have any. I am living as most of us are, paycheck-to-paycheck and anything like this that causes me to have another monthly payment stresses me out incredibly because I am already stretched to my every last dollar of each paycheck. So I have to cut back somewhere and trying to find that area may have just caused this breakout as well. Or, a mix of both. I do not know. That's what this is all about. Helping myself (and you hopefully) figure out what causes this!

Oh, just so you know, I'm also going through Menopause during all of this. Last year, two days before my birthday and during my nightshades test, I got hit with incredible hot flashes... not just flashes... but sweat-dripping events... while I was on vacation!!!!!!!! So I have my hormones to deal with here too. I am not only trying to heal my skin, I am trying to heal my body so that I can get past these hot flashes and night sweats once and for all!

On top of that, I need to lose another 60 pounds (or more). I say another because two years ago I concentrated on me, joined MyFitnessPal, found a great group of friends and I lost 77 pounds. That did not change my outbreaks. I don't care what doctors say... this IS NOT caused by being overweight. It might be exacerbated by being overweight because of skin that rubs together... but it is not caused by it. Do not add another reason to be depressed over your weight. Right now I have pushed my weight to the back burner until I can make my body healthy. Yes, the right body mass is part of health... but as you all know, our skin condition makes all other health moot because we can't do much many times and we don't feel attractive and we don't want to get out there and try to do anything because we may not be able to join in when we want to... yep, I've been there. I refuse to be that person anymore so I want to heal my body... fat I can deal with... there are a lot of people who are overweight out there and they have boyfriends... I want to get my skin healthy, my insides healthy, and then I'll concentrate on losing the fat!

The rest of this blog will be listing the foods I am eating, the exercise I am doing and the books and other articles I am reading. I will point you to wonderful recipes I've found and any skin lotions that I find that help to relieve the issue. I'm also going to share healthy food tips for other people who may not have this disease but have other health issues. Eating real food and learning what foods don't work for you have restorative health features that not everyone seems to understand!

My journey to skin health through Nutrition - Part 1

Welcome to my life. It's a bumpy ride but well worth it for the destination.

Health.

 

• The primary purpose of this site is to chart my findings while looking for the "cure" for my hidradenitis suppurativa.
• The secondary purpose is to help other folks with this disease find the way to their own healing.
• The tertiary purpose is to help even more people understand that true health can be found in food, not in drugs offered by companies looking at their bottom line rather than our health.

As of this writing I do not have any formal training nor certifications in the health field. I am learning by reading mass quantities of information from other folks who either are certified or are also learning about their own food/health issues through their own trials. That is why I named this blog trial-by-fire - my own trials.

Since 1982 I have had a nasty skin condition called Hidradenitis Suppurativa. If you've never heard of this disease before it is because we hide it. We (those of us who have it) are ashamed of it, we do not talk about it to anyone, sometimes not even our family. It makes us feel dirty (brought on by the fact that doctors thrust soap at us like we don't bathe!). It hurts. It goes deeper than skin. It goes to our psyche because we can't always participate like we want to and we can't give the "real" reason (we have a bad breakout and just the mere touch of something against that lesionous skin patch is enough pain to send us through the roof... or worse, it breaks open while we're out doing something and the disgusting smell associated with an open "alien" as I've heard them called, is wafted into the olfactory path of someone who might make fun.) These are the things that make us stay at home and be less a part of society than the next person.

Although I was not diagnosed until well into my 30s, this disease has progressed from stage 1 through stage 3 in the 3 main areas of the body that any dermatologist worth their salt will list off immediately - pubic area, under the breasts, under the arms. A few years ago I started truly trying to find a cure for this nastiness. I had lived with it and worked around it for most of my life and I was tired of being depressed because I felt dirty and ugly. I was tired of missing out on life because of this disease. I decided that living was what I wanted rather than subsisting as I had been for the 28 years prior.

I visited my dermatologist again and pushed him toward a lifetime prescription of antibiotics because I remembered that during a period when I was on tetracycline when I was younger, my skin stayed pretty clear. I filled that prescription and happily started taking the pills daily - and I did this for about 12-15 months - with no discernible change in my skin. When I went to the drug store to get the prescription refilled (I could only get 3 months' supply at one time) I was told that tetracycline was no longer manufactured. At this point you'd think that I would've seen the great big arrow pointing the way to another path rather than go back to my dermatologist to find yet another DRUG to try to cure something that they didn't even have an understanding about. Well, you'd be wrong – almost. I did go to my family doctor and asked for a new prescription – whatever he knew of that would be similar to tetracycline. He thought it best that I see the dermatologist again since he had prescribed that in the first place.

After being checked out by “today's dermatologist on call” and an intern or student (not sure), I was told there was a drug trial which I could become a part of if I was so-inclined. I was told that the drug they were testing was already on the market and that it had helped some folks see a reduced number of breakouts. I thought about it for a few days and then they called me to set up the trials... NOPE, I could not go through with it. The side effects of this drug were too many to list and the thought of “reduced number of breakouts” being the best consolation prize they could offer I balked and refused to join the test group.

That's when my search for something different started. I started by trying to reach out to the HS community - I hadn't been there in quite some time but I couldn't remember the specific website that I had been a member of so I tried another avenue - I searched within MyFitnessPal for a group related to HS... and I found one. In one of this group's sessions there was a link to PrimalGirl's  blog (a 2 part series on HS) and my life was forever changed.

I read Tara's blog with fascination - the thought that food could be the culprit - and the solution - to this horrific disease had never before crossed my mind. That's how "dumb" I was. That's how I feel now... because the answer is staring us in our face and we just don't pay attention. How funny (not really) that we've always had control over our health but we've just never picked up the pieces to make it work for us.

Tara's causative foods are the Nightshade group of vegetables. She swears that this is what causes her to breakout... so of course I eliminated those foods for a month (because she suggested that) to see if they were my cause too. Logic told me that a cure is a cure is a cure... but the human body is so individual that something that causes an interruption in the normal process for one person won't even bother the next. I was truly looking at HS as a disease, not as the way my body tries to tell me that I'm eating the wrong foods! So, during my trial I was somehow (slightly, OK, greatly) hoping they were NOT the cause of the issue because I love peppers and eggplant and pepper spices and paprika and I like to eat french fries every now and again too... but after 28 days of no tomatoes, no potatoes, no peppers, (I cleaned my refrigerator and spice closet out and gave everything away, including my Chipotle Tabasco!!!!), I didn't see a change in my "aliens". At this point I was a bit depressed because I really had my hopes set for this to be over and done with for good.

Of course, my brain kicked in and I realized that maybe the nightshades were not my causative factor and I decided I'd try dairy as the possible culprit... and that lasted about 2 days. I was not ready to give up cream in my coffee and Greek yogurt!

The nightshades test was during the month of May 2012. Dairy was going to be July... in October or November I bought a book called Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo BS NC, and started reading about how food really can be the cause and cure to so many different "diseases" of our modern world.

On January 2, 2013 I started eating following the Paleo diet. I didn't cut out the nightshades (as those of us with autoimmune diseases should) because I had already performed my trial on that particular group of vegetables and all was well there! In about 3 weeks time, maybe 4, I was flying high! My biggest open lesion had closed up, the smaller ones were fewer than ever from recent times and my thighs even seemed like the scars were healing!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was dancing a jig - literally, I was dancing in my bathroom! And I was so very excited that I couldn't contain myself... and my entire attitude toward life started to change. Those of you with this nasty disease probably know how depressing it is and how life feels like a trial you are forced to go through, not something you want to do.

Then I started reading It Starts With Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig. This book was mind-blowing. It really put everything I'd read about from Diane's book into an even sharper perspective for me. I started this mid February... about 34 - 40 days into my Paleo journey.

Again, I didn't cut out dairy, even during my Whole30 because I'd been eating dairy for the previous month and my cure was happening! I was sure that Dairy could not be the culprit. The same goes for the nightshades. I didn't overdo the nightshades... I stayed away from tomato sauces and eggplant was not in season ... I cut down my bell pepper intake to about 1 pepper per week. I still used Cayenne pepper seasoning and other chili pepper seasonings to make all my foods taste yummy!

In March I made my own world famous Turkey and Bean soup to take to a get together. As usual it was fantastic and I decided to have a small bowl - which turned into 3 small bowls over the course of a few hours. And 5 to 6 hours later I started getting that "itchy" feeling on the inside of my thighs. Both of them. This only means one thing... breakout on the way. The culprit: beans. Beans are not included on the Paleo diet... but I figured that a few bowls-ful of turkey soup was not going to hurt me... well, it did. Fortunately because I'd been following a very healthy eating regime for the past 2+ months it didn't affect me very badly and healed within a week.

Now, whether beans will make every person who has HS break out within 5 or 6 hours? Who knows? Certainly not me. But the reason I am putting this out there is so you can find out what DOES work for you!

OK - I think that's enough for now. I'll pick up here again next week. I promise to give you the absolute truth about my journey. What I find that works for me, how I manage to eat paleo and pay my bills, and other amazing things that happen (and some not so amazing things - like what happens when you don't have a gallbladder and you start upping the intake of fat in your diet!) when you start becoming healthy and eating the right foods!