About Amanda’s Health Journal
(For current articles that I post please see my blog.)
At age 30 some health problems surfaced, and I embarked on the journey to feel better. There were countless moments of misery during this journey, even though on the outside I was a fully functioning person (albeit with a few quirks that my family has come to love <”Sleep in a room with newly installed carpet? No way!”>). During the worst of times, I’d swear that whatever ended up ‘fixing’ me would be explained in detail on the very first page of the book that I would write to help others with my problem. That very first page is this website.
Health Experience? Quite a Bit
Over the years I have filled 40+ journals and countless Word docs chronicling what’s helped and what’s not. I have either dabbled or full-throttled in the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, biofeedback, colonics, liver flushes, homeopathy, EMDR, the Body Ecology Diet, meditation, heavy metal chelation, acupuncture, Bikram yoga, EFT, apple cider vinegar, the Egoscue Method, oil pulling, iodine supplementation, vegetable juice fasting, distilled water, castor oil packs, coconut oil, Primal Defense, fermented foods, kombucha, Chinese herbs, hydrogen peroxide therapy, the Special Foods Diet, infrared saunas, inversion board therapy, Pathwork, and many others that I can’t think of right now!
After all the trials and tribulations I have learned that attaining vibrant health is more about putting energy and healing into your body with some of the things I’ve mentioned on this site rather than study every bite of food or supplement that enters your mouth (although diet is very important – more on that later). I read through my journals from prior years and I can hear a woman who was searching her heart out. So being where I am on my path now feels great. I am so grateful to be able to know now what really helps. I know that deep breathing, attentive time in nature, Spring Forest Qigong (and other types of qigong), and rebounding can help you too.
Deep Breathing and You’re on Your Way
If you can’t manage them all, start with deep breathing for ten minutes twice a day. This practice will spill over to all of your daily breaths as time goes on, bringing an uplifted mood and more calm. Then spring for the Earthing sheet and/or Earthing pad, since those are effortless. Then get out into Nature! A barefoot walk in the park or the beach does wonders. Look at the trees, the grass, the clouds. Such beauty is there, waiting for you, for free. It beats a gym in my book any day. And if you are so inclined, fit the rest of these activities into your busy day as best as you can. If you add even one or two of these practices I know you will feel better. I do know of course that there are many other healing methods. Perhaps you’d like to share what works for you. I would love to hear from you.
My blog is where I continually post health articles, if you’d like to check it out.
Thank you so much for visiting my site. I wish you all the best in your health journey.
Love,
Amanda
Hi Amanda,
Saw your post regarding our breathing webinar. Thank you so much for posting it!
Love your blog and site. Thanks for the great work you are doing! Let us know if there is some way we can best cross promote you as well!
All the best,
Al
Thanks Al, I sure will! Unfortunately I will be in England for the breathing webinar and the time difference won’t work, but I will surely attend the next one!
You poor girl. So sorry for all you’ve been though. I have struggled with a very serious and rare systemic candida problem as well and have almost died from it a few times. This last year, I’ve learned some things that have really helped me. The things that have mostly helped me are 1) Diet: consisting only of raw cultured veggies, raw coconut kefir, raw grass-fed cow kefir, fermented cod-liver oil from greenpasture.org, raw bison liver and some marrow (I get mine at http://www.northstarbison.com), a few other things, but those are the essentials and definitely eliminate food that is bad or junk; I like a modified bodyecology and GAPS diet as well that is pretty strict. 2) Supplements: for immune support and cleansing from candida I do (he shou wu, ant essence, eternal jing, gynostemma tea from dragonherbs.com), medicinal mushrooms from mushroomscience.com, especially reshi and chaga, and “my community host defense” from fungi.com. (I’ve learned these medicinal mushrooms are anti-candida, anti-cancer, anti-biotic but I had to start slow and start with one, then work my way up, cuz they can have a potent die off effect.) To chelate and detox, alkaine, & mineralize (fulvic ionic minerals, zeolite, shilajit MSM with turmeric all from omicaorganics.com/, Adya Clarity,) I also had to go slow and work my way up with these. (As far as chelation goes from heavy metals contributing to candida, it seem like a main issue for you could be the rod unfortunately.) I also do Probiotics. The best is CP1 from customprobiotics.com, Dr. Ohhira’s probiotics @ drohhiraprobiotics.com, Probioplus DDS @ http://www.uaslabs.com, Allflora from newchapter.com. (I also had to start slow with the probiotics and start with one at a time, or even 1/4 of a capsule at a time, like once a week, then work my way up to 1 a day, then eventually more cuz these can be pretty potent too.) I also do raw elk velvet, RAW colostrum, pine pollen extract and spring or well water from findaspring.com, also this: http://files.meetup.com/844266/sits2008.pdf
This can seem like a lot and overwhelming, but even if you can add a little bit of these, they would help.
I hope something in here was helpful to someone.
I can also find discounts on some of these things.
If you have any questions, please email me. I am learning new things all the time.
Chris
Thank you Chris. You sure know your stuff – I can tell you’ve been around the health block. I’ve not even heard of raw elk velvet but I will look into it. Thanks for sending the northstarbison link. I am going to embark on the GAPS diet soon and bison marrow/liver will fit in nicely. How are you doing with the diet? I didn’t see the stocks/broths mentioned, are you doing those? Thanks so much for your recommendations. My chiro likes zeolite as well.
Wow, Amanda!!! I am so glad I stumbled upon your site. It is so reassuring to remember that we are not alone in these struggles. With that said, I was on the BED about 2 years ago. I felt like I was back and forth between bloated and starving the whole time. So I let myself go back on more grains, including gluten. This was after listening to a practitioner say Candida wasn’t my problem, it was copper. :( So I started just eating whole organic nutrient rich foods. I drank beer and indulged in sweets, not a lot, but enough that deep down I knew what I was doing. I recently started having very noticeable problems again and I recently went to an allergist. They did the standard skin test and he said, “Hmmmm, thats odd, do get a lot of yeast infections?” He of course didnt think much of it at all. Now I’m thinking, oh great!!! If its showing up on a standard test, I must be screwed. So tired and can hardly imagine myself going back to the non stop work and dedication of a BED diet. Praying that a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner can help me more than just trying to figure this out on my own. It was very trying and my husband can hardly believe he has to eat more quinoa again…. I will definitely be following your posts, thank you and keep up the work. You are inspiring!!!
Hi Elaine,
It meant a lot to read supportive words from a co-health-seeker such as yourself when I was in the middle of a pile of doctor bills, wondering how I’m going to pay the credit card people! As we know well, practitioners we choose to go to (because they’re good or because they’ve been recommended) are often not covered by insurance. So thanks for the strength to keep going.
As for your Body Ecology experience, maybe your body is ready to try that kind of diet again? I say this because I am doing well on the GAPS diet, which is similar to BED, but no grains are allowed. I basically eat fruits (but not too many), vegetables, meats, homemade cultured foods like sauerkraut and young coconut kefir, coconut smoothies, nuts and nut butter, bone broths, black tea with raw honey, organic green jasmine tea which is absolutely beautiful…and I am doing fine. I like that my fingers don’t feel swollen when I eat like this. But I do think that in my case, and perhaps in yours, there is an underlying reason as to why we need to eat like this. I look at it as the healthiest diet for me right now, but after I deal with the main issue (for me it might be a hidden dental infection, or an allergy to my spinal rod’s metals…I am in the process of finding out), I am sure I will be able to open up the diet to include grains (but not gluten, no thanks!) when I feel like having them, and some raw milk ice cream etc.
I think it’s great you’re working with a TCM doctor. If you feel good about him/her, go with it! I’ve learned so much from almost everyone I’ve been to. Actually, the best I felt at one time years ago was when I was eating how a great Chinese acupuncurist was instructing me to eat(and he said no wheat, no coffee, no tea). Maybe look at the GAPS diet? I know lots of people don’t do well on even quinoa.
But I am sure you will overcome if you keep at it and keep laughing! Let us know how you do.
Hey have you ever tried juicing or using a juicer? If so could you recommend a brand or model to purchase? Looks interesting. Juice fasting…
Hi Andrew,
My juicer is a few years old but still quite functional. It’s a Breville Juice Fountain Plus. You can see it here. I bought this for under $150 after I read Natalia Rose’s book about detoxing and vegetable juicing – Detox 4 Women. She gives recipes for green smoothies, which are very good, especially if you like lemon, which is very alkalizing.
Here is her recipe for Green Lemonade:
1 head romaine lettuce or celery
5-6 stalks kale
1-2 packets of stevia
1 whole organic lemon (don’t have to peel it)
1-2 tbps. fresh ginger (optional)
The lemon cuts the green taste. It’s delicious. Don’t drink it all down at once though; savor it over 10 or so minutes.
As for juice fasting, I’ve done that twice in my life – three days each time. It definitely is a great way to detox. I would recommend taking it slowly though. The vitamins and minerals will increase your body’s cleansing abilities and you want to have your channels of elimination as open as possible so a backlog of toxins don’t make you feel yucky.
Take a half day to consume nothing except water and two homemade vegetable juices spread out. Then a few days later do it again. Then a few days later try for a whole day. Build up incrementally like that until you can do three days in a row. At that point, you will be quite pleased with an increase in energy, I can assure you. The energy that your body was using on digestion is now being put towards making you cleaner and healthier inside.
Good luck with your juicing – it’s an amazing way to get the nutrients from vegetables. You will see an improvement in your skin as one of the first noticed benefits. And thanks for making me get my juicing book out! It has inspired me to fire up the Breville.