Got a Gut Feeling

It's been a month since I started the gluten-free diet. It hasn't been going too well.

I'm not sure if going gluten-free is to blame, but I've been extremely depressed lately. And extremely angry. In fact, it's possible I've never been so depressed and angry. It's bad.

The other night, I was taking a walk and there was such a dark cloud over me. I was at a recreational park with a bunch of baseball fields and soccer fields and such. While I was walking through the parking lot to this place, there was a car-full of kids making a ton of noise while they waited for their dad to stop talking to another group of parents. I found the noise rather annoying. I had this strong urge to look over to the dad and say, "You really ought to tell your kids to shut the fuck up." I didn't say it, but I wanted to, really, really bad. I felt a vile venom inside of me. It was nasty.

It didn't hit me until much later that, shit, dude...they were just kids on summer vacation, man. They were probably just being goofy, yet my extremely negative mental state saw it as annoying. That wasn't me. That's not the kind of person I am. It has honestly been like something has been possessing me. 

Is it the Lyme? No, I don't think that's quite it, though it might be. Lyme has been known to corkscrew itself into the brain, kind of like syphilis and, also like syphilis, can make you somewhat mental.

Am I just feeling depressed about my current state of affairs? Maybe. I certainly don't like the fact that it's been over a year now since I was diagnosed with Lyme and I still can't walk more than about a half a mile at a time. Admittedly, I also don't like that I can't drink (even a little) beer (read about why in my previous post). Also, I've been feeling so isolated and lonely. Most friends have kind of moved on with their own lives, and I lack the ambition to make new friends. I also don't know whether I should be dating given my current physical state and whom I should be dating and how I should "break the news" of my condition to them and all that shit. It's literally like I have to start my life over completely. But that's not easy to do at 36 years old and when you're only halfway healthy.

Or???

Maybe my depression is actually physiological but not necessarily because of the Lyme. My theory is that toxins could be to blame. Some of these toxins are neurotoxins from Lyme die-off that still haven't been flushed from my body. But I also think many of these toxins are from candida die-off, which has been exponentially greater lately due to my gluten-free diet.

Candida lives off gluten. If you eliminate the gluten, candida can no longer survive and you get a die-off. When die-off occurs, nasty endotoxins like aldehyde, ethanol and ammonia get released from the candida carcasses and these endotoxins can be nasty (source). My theory right now is my depression/anger has been intensified by a larger presence of endotoxins due to going gluten-free.

But, yes, depression and anger are perhaps my biggest symptoms right now. And, oh, my gut issues (read about these in my previous blog), which, by the way, are likely linked with one another. According to articles I found while browsing the web, if your gut is in bad shape, your mood is in bad shape and vice versa. The gut is responsible for absorption of neurotransmitters and if your gut flora is all out of whack, then your neurotransmitters will be out of whack, thus making your mood all out of whack, too. 

Also, according to another article I found, "Gut microbiota influences serotonin and dopamine production. In, fact, 90% of the body's serotonin is found in the gut" (source). Serotonin is the "feel good" neurotransmitter that is largely responsible for happiness. It's also responsible for regulating gastrointestinal motility, or "peristalsis" is the more technical term, the movement of food materials through the digestive tract. So, if serotonin is lacking, both your mood is horrible and your gut is dysfunctional (source).

Indeed, the key to my mood issues probably lies in my gut "microbiota", also known as flora, which for whatever reason is abnormal right now. Is it abnormal because of candida, or is it due to some other issue? Right now I'm thinking candida, but that's still up in the air. 

Then again, maybe my gut is only off because of anxiety, depression and other mood-related issues. You know, it's the chicken or the egg dilemma. Did the mood mess up the gut or did the gut mess up the mood? Yeesh. More confusion. More complexity.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/magazine/can-the-bacteria-in-your-gut-explain-your-mood.html

https://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/link-between-depression-anxiety-and-gut-health/

https://rawlsmd.com/health-articles/the-leaky-gut-epidemic-modern-causes-natural-solutions?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=leaky-gut&utm_content=gut-health-interest-vp-rmd

http://blog.probacto.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-herxheimer-candida-die-off/

I Read a Book!

Okay, so my last few blogs haven't been as "positive" as some of my other ones, but, hey, recovering from Lyme disease is not always easy and I would be a phony (and kind of annoying) if I were super-positive in all of these blogs. Lyme rage has been a significant problem and I needed to write about it as truthfully as possible. My stomach has also been a problem, way more sensitive than usual, and being unable to have a beer and/or eat Chipotle has been very depressing to me. Hence my need to write "darker" blogs where I sound like Mr. Whiny-Pants.

This blog, however, will be much more positive because I've had a bit of a breakthrough. Last week, I decided to pick up a book I've been meaning to read, one that I've kept on renewing from the local library, and I figured I would at least try to read a few pages before I finally returned it. I expected I would only be able to read a couple pages here and there because my eyes have been uncooperative when it comes to reading print (i.e. non-digital) books. My right eye gets all dry and itchy and stingy and sometimes even feels like there's a fregging Dyson vacuum cleaner sucking it out of the socket. For these reasons, I can usually only read a few pages of a print book at a time.

So, I picked up the book, read a couple pages and then something weird happened. I suddenly realized my eye didn't feel so bad and I could probably read some more. And some more. And some more? What the frig-newton?!

This is the book I read.

Indeed, my eyes felt much more comfortable reading the book. I was practically reading like a normal human being, a feeling I hadn't felt in so long and it was great! Within a few days, I completed the 280-page book. It was the first print book I was able to read in more than a year!

What happened? What changed?

Well, I have two different theories:

The first theory is that the Artemisia I've been taking has killed off more of the parasites that have been messing with my eyes. I've been taking the parasite-killing herb for about four months now (read my parasite/Artemisia blog HERE) so it's very possible the results are finally starting to show.

The second theory is that my recent change of diet had something to do with it. Basically, I've gone gluten-free or, to be more accurate, I'm about 98% gluten-free. I had been wanting to go gluten-free for quite some time but kept procrastinating because I didn't think it would make that huge of a difference. However, I finally decided to bite the bullet when my stomach started giving me problems (see last blog). I figured my belly issues were the writing on the wall and I needed to finally take the gluten-free plunge.

See, gluten -- along with other carbs and sugar -- feeds both Lyme and the parasites (including candida) that usually come along with Lyme. If you remove gluten from your diet, it's much more difficult for Lyme and parasites to thrive inside of your body.

Also, Lymies are, for whatever reason, much more intolerant to gluten than the average person, kind of like they have celiac disease but they usually don't test positive for celiac (I didn't). In fact, gluten is essentially a toxin for people with Lyme so, if you remove gluten from your body, you're consequently much less toxic, you experience much less inflammation and your immune system is all the stronger.

Now, if you're like me, you're thinking that wheat should be one of the most simple and harmless foods out there. After all, what do you learn about in grade school but the five basic food groups and grains are on the top of the list. Wheat is a staple, for crying out loud, so you would think it would agree with most people! But it's changed over the years because of hybridization; today, there is 8-10 times the gluten in one kernel of grain than there was when hunter and gatherers started to farm 10,000 years ago. This explains the human family's growing gluten intolerance. (Source)

So, for me, gluten is out of the equation for now and reading print books is back in the equation, which I'm happy about. So many books at the local library. And now I can finally read some of them!