My second week of steroids was similar to the first but with a bit less energy and a few more sleeps. As the dosage tapers, so does my energy and a return to the nanna naps was required to enjoy the days, including a beautiful Australia Day socialising, eating and playing cards until late.
Towards the end of the week, I was feeling a little bloated and resolved to get my diet back on track. I try to follow the principles of the Swank diet (www.swankmsdiet.org) as enhanced by Professor George Jelinek (www.overcomingmultiplesclerosis.org), however I am not as strict as perhaps I should be. My aim was to really concentrate on fresh fruit and veg, give up the Nescafe caramel lattes I had become partial to (up to three a day with two sugars!) and to do away with bread. I started to feel a little better after just a few days, so my ears pricked up when I overheard a man talking with great enthusiasm about his recipe for yeast-free bread. I ended up having a lengthy conversation with him about healthy eating and learned that he holds yeast and candida responsible for most modern medical complaints and diseases. He freely admitted that this has earned him the moniker Dr Fungus. He spoke with great passion about everything, from his vegetable garden grown with heritage seeds he has been collecting for forty years to ergotism and its possible connection to the Salem witch trials! I probably would have dismissed him as completely bonkers were it not for the fact that he is seventy years old, on no medication and actually looks really healthy. My interest was piqued enough to do a little research when I got home, including a search on 'ergotism' which is a condition resulting from eating rye or other grains infected with ergot fungus.
This all led me to the candida diet (www.thecandidadiet.com) and yet another resolve: to give up sugar, including foods with high sugar content such as fruit. Considering how much of a sweet tooth I have, this is extreme but I figured after giving up chocolate years ago, anything else would surely be easy. It is not easy! I have found a sugar substitute called stevia which I will be ordering soon. I will be interested to see if it lives up to the claim of being 300 times sweeter than sugar. It also has no calories and doesn't seem to affect blood glucose levels so it is often used by diabetics.
I am going to give all this new diet stuff a trial for two weeks as Dr Fungus assured me that I would notice a difference in that time. Most of the principles are healthy anyway so I figure it can't do me any harm. The candida diet followers avoid alcohol too as it's high in sugar that can feed the growth of candida yeast. I fell off that wagon well and truly last night but hey, I'm not actually suffering from candida infection so I don't have to be as strict others. And it might just be the red wine that is keeping me sane after all the other things I'm now doing without!
Towards the end of the week, I was feeling a little bloated and resolved to get my diet back on track. I try to follow the principles of the Swank diet (www.swankmsdiet.org) as enhanced by Professor George Jelinek (www.overcomingmultiplesclerosis.org), however I am not as strict as perhaps I should be. My aim was to really concentrate on fresh fruit and veg, give up the Nescafe caramel lattes I had become partial to (up to three a day with two sugars!) and to do away with bread. I started to feel a little better after just a few days, so my ears pricked up when I overheard a man talking with great enthusiasm about his recipe for yeast-free bread. I ended up having a lengthy conversation with him about healthy eating and learned that he holds yeast and candida responsible for most modern medical complaints and diseases. He freely admitted that this has earned him the moniker Dr Fungus. He spoke with great passion about everything, from his vegetable garden grown with heritage seeds he has been collecting for forty years to ergotism and its possible connection to the Salem witch trials! I probably would have dismissed him as completely bonkers were it not for the fact that he is seventy years old, on no medication and actually looks really healthy. My interest was piqued enough to do a little research when I got home, including a search on 'ergotism' which is a condition resulting from eating rye or other grains infected with ergot fungus.
This all led me to the candida diet (www.thecandidadiet.com) and yet another resolve: to give up sugar, including foods with high sugar content such as fruit. Considering how much of a sweet tooth I have, this is extreme but I figured after giving up chocolate years ago, anything else would surely be easy. It is not easy! I have found a sugar substitute called stevia which I will be ordering soon. I will be interested to see if it lives up to the claim of being 300 times sweeter than sugar. It also has no calories and doesn't seem to affect blood glucose levels so it is often used by diabetics.
I am going to give all this new diet stuff a trial for two weeks as Dr Fungus assured me that I would notice a difference in that time. Most of the principles are healthy anyway so I figure it can't do me any harm. The candida diet followers avoid alcohol too as it's high in sugar that can feed the growth of candida yeast. I fell off that wagon well and truly last night but hey, I'm not actually suffering from candida infection so I don't have to be as strict others. And it might just be the red wine that is keeping me sane after all the other things I'm now doing without!