The unexplained illness….

It’s been kind of a stressful few days here in the trees.  For a few weeks I’ve been feeling run down and tired.  It hasn’t been enough for me to feel like a trip to do the Doctor was in order but mostly felt like my body was asking for more rest.  I was sleeping as much as I could and taking things easy.  Then I got a sore throat.  I used Lympha Rub on it a couple times and it cleared but I still felt totally exhausted.

Wednesday night things got really exciting when I started having sharp abdominal pain and the sore throat returned with a vengeance.  It felt like someone was stabbing through me. Immediately thinking appendicitis I pressed on it firmly and remembered that my Mother-in-Law had appendicitis and said the appendix hurts more on the rebound than on the push.  Mine hurt MUCH worse on the push.  I got out my hot water bottle and the pain subsided quite a bit.  Fortunately, I slept like a rock but when I got up the next morning there was more intense pain.  I took an epsom salt bath and decided it was time to call the doc.  I rarely call the doc so this was a big deal for me.  We go to the chiropractor regularly but have an awesome super holistic Family Practice doc just in case.  It’s been 3 years since I saw her.

When the doc pushed on the area that hurt I winced and secretly wanted to hit her because it hurt SO badly.  She ordered an ultrasound thinking cysts or very early appendicitis.  Now I tend to have strange medical things happen to me so I was fully anticipating something odd or nothing at all.  She also ran a full panel of lab tests. In the car on the way to the ultrasound I started getting chills.  I was so cold I was shivering in spite of the fact that I was dressed super warm and the thermostat in the car was set to 80. 

Wouldn’t you know it the ultrasound that lasted over an hour showed NOTHING abnormal other than a bit of extra fluid by my right ovary. 

The labs came in the next day and everything was normal too.  However, I still had chills and lymph nodes so swollen you could see them… but no signs of infection or anything “off” in my labs.  I slept all weekend and the doc wanted to see me again yesterday so I dutifully went back in expecting her to say “I have no idea what’s wrong with you.”

When I got back in she said that surprisingly there was one thing that showed up on my 72 hour labs- Group Beta Strep (GBS).  Now anyone who has been pregnant knows what this is.  It’s a common bacteria that lives inside of almost everyone.  However, sometimes it gets overgrown in pregnancy and can cause complications.  Typically in non-pregnant people it doesn’t really do much.

For the last few weeks I’ve been CRAVING sugar and totally indulging it.  I’ve also really fallen off the fermented-foods bandwagon so I’m not terribly surprised.  Just bummed…

However, I am the medical anomaly in so many cases- so of course I had an overgrowth and a pretty significant one at that.  My doc tries to avoid antibiotics as much as necessary and there’s actually very little information about a proper protocol for treating GBS in a non-pregnant person (yes, they ran tests to make sure).  So I’m eating loads of fermented foods, raw garlic 3 times a day, doubled my daily dose of Fermented Cod Liver oil, drinking kombucha and apple cider vinegar, using diluted Oregano oil topically, and tomorrow I’m going to try Uva Ursi tea which is pretty much the only herbal remedy I could find. (why do so many of these treatments have to taste so icky?)  And resting as much as I possibly can.  I slept almost 13 hours last night and took a nap today.  

I also started a batch of beet kvass and a batch of Master Tonic last night.  These are both powerful fermented tonics.

The doctor also thinks I had an ovarian cyst rupture on Wednesday night explaining the awful pain and extra fluid.  Apparently pretty much every woman will have an ovarian cyst at one time or another but usually doesn’t know about it.  Sometimes they grow quite large and are extremely painful.  I’ve actually gained weight the last couple months, which is a big deal for me- I’ve weighed the same weight for 15 years other than while I was pregnant.  And I’ve been feeling really bloaty.  I had lost almost all the weight at my appointment yesterday and the bloating was gone.  Hubby even says my stomach looks smaller.  So we’re thinking the two issues kind of fed off each other resulting in one sick Mama.

Phew!  What a whirlwind the last few days have been.  Thanks for supporting me in prayer and for encouraging me to rest!  (On that note, I’m going to go crawl back into bed)