Can you stomach it?

The last few weeks have been life altering and very focused on our general health. What began as an annoying: "teenage fatique, surely-the-boy-is-faking-being-tired-all-the-time-syndrome", (Hunter sleeping 16-18 hours every day), has turned into major medical testing, accupuncture and practically becoming Jamie Oliver in the kitchen. We thought we were fit as fiddles, exercising regularly, eating healthy - especially after Aric's heart attack a year ago. But apparently it's not how healthy you eat; it's what you eat and how your body breaks it down, as well as how intolerant you are to certain things.

An article in the newspaper (which we now get regularly every morning again after the thief in the night was arrested) had me ponder on just what we actually fill ourselves with and how it may affect our mood and wellness. Simple things in your daily diet can make life miserable for you! Turns out that we made Hunter sick every day by feeding him toast, cereal, milk, smoothie with pineapple, followed by dinners including kidney beans and wheat pasta. The boy is in fact intolerant to wheat, pineapple, casein (in dairy and cheese) beans, and about 130 other strange foods and ingredients. So his body reacted by producing more and more adrenaline to deal with the "stressful" situations of having to breakdown the "poisons" - and in the end, the adrenal glands couldn't keep up, resulting in severe fatigue and weightloss, anemia and headaches. Poor kid!

We went to see the MD who was featured in the article, - Dr. Heather Eade - and who specializes in homeopathy, Chinese Medicine, acupunture and nutrition. She had Hunter pegged within 10 minutes by looking at him and asking lots of questions. A bloodtest ($250) later, and we had the verdict! Off the 'poisons' for 3-4 months to give the body ample rest and time to build up new immunes to these foods.

We were so shocked that Aric and I scheduled appointments too. Aric's results were a spitting image of Hunter's, plus he tested intolerant to Brewers Yeast (so off the beer and wine for 3 months). My results were more optimistic, I'm only intolerant to flax and spelt; Redwine and Cocoa....I nearly went into convulsions when I saw that result!! 6 weeks without my dark chocolate and Pinot!!??!! In addition, the Canoodian from Toronto, sticks sharp needles 1/2 inch into our body twice weekly to clear Aric's chronic sinus infections and my under-performing adrenal glands, plus a few age related hormonal imbalances! Maybe I can avoid going PMS on everyone!

Hunter has improved drastically in the first 1-2 weeks; he is sleeping normal 7-8 hours at night and is able to get out of bed and stay alert and energetic every day in school. I feel super healthy and energetic too...haven't had a drop of alcohol in 5 weeks now; wonder if she can do something about my gray hair showing up? and Aric is sticking to Gin and Tonic when we go out, so he is seeing great results too. We are on all sorts of natural supplements and I can highly recommend going for a thorough check-up to see if you might be intolerant to your food. It's worth it before it turns into a full fledged allergy for life.

So I enjoy and look forward to this quirky lady checking my liver and kidney "meridian" every week, getting my Yin Yang in balance :)

Should you want to know more....
http://www.acupuncture-online.com/tradition3.htm