When I interviewed Dr. Natasha, she said we need to take responsibility for our own health – let me share from the interview exactly what she said:

Your health is your own responsibility, and it is your own power to look after yourself and don't give away that God given power to anybody else. Your own body heals you, not the doctor, not any other specialist. The doctor can only advise you and recommend what he or she knows and quite often that knowledge is limited. Your body is infinitely cleverer and wiser than any medical specialist, so listen to your own body and allow your body to heal itself.

That's what I wanted to do with the GAPS nutritional protocol, I want to put power into your own hands, into the hands of the patients and the parents in particular because it is in the hands of parents to heal their own children, not a doctor's.

I remember at one of the medical conferences, I said to the doctors, that I would like to put the power back to the patient's hands and one of the doctors turned around and said, “Well that's unacceptable to us,” so beware of that, do not give your power to anybody else, it is yours.

You're in charge of your own body, you're in charge of your own health and we live in a wonderful world of abundant information. We've got Internet, which the previous generations didn't have. So younger people now, before they go to any doctor or any specialist they scour the Internet first and they get all the information available and yes, there is a lot of different quality information on the Internet and there is different levels of information but if you do a thorough homework you will always decipher what's right for you and what's not right for you, but the information is there.

So take the healing into your own hands, it is your own responsibility and the people who have done that usually have achieved good results.

One of the callers asked for guidance, and here was Dr. Natasha's response:

You do need to work with a practioner because you have tests that need to be done. You may have an accumulation of heavy metals, or other toxins, what I say to a lot of people that before you start putting cherries on the cake you have to bake the cake itself and GAPS is the cake that you bake. The cherries then on top can be chelation, can be homeopathy, can be certain detoxification techniques, certain herbal products, certain supplements, certain various approaches which help people and in order to get the cherries on the cake you have to work with an experienced practitioner who can identify what your specific problem is. Everybody's different, GAPS is a basis, is a fundamental thing to do to start the healing process and I would say that for more than 80% of people that works out to be just enough, just the one thing that they have to do. But for that small percentage of people who are very ill, and have severe conditions and have had them for their whole lives, there are some other issues that have to be addressed.

In light of this advice from the good doctor, I have an appointment this week with a naturopath who I hope will partner with me in finding “cherries” for my GAPS cake.

I've been on GAPS for 21 months, and I need to move to the next step. I saw a lot of healing in the first six months, and was feeling pretty good up until December. That's when I got my hair cut. I did okay at fixing my hair but extraneous self care like fixing hair every day starts to fall by the wayside when I get tired. I'm still getting my hair cut, but now I'm just pushing it back with a hair band. I need to stop getting it cut, but I feel like the woman is now depending on me as one of her clients…

I've been feeling increasingly worn down this whole year. I have had a good day here and there but have been declining in my energy levels. The stress level rose for me significantly when my husband's business began to have some difficulty… in December. His response was to eliminate sleep… sometimes getting only 2 hours sleep, sometimes pulling all nighters… occasionally he'll get 8 hours… and every once in a while his body will revolt against his mind and he'll sleep twelve hours straight, he is like a walking zombie at times and it worries me half to death. He's lost so much weight that people are starting to wonder… I was able to tolerate this new schedule until about April, but then I started to wear down, and began to grow more weary and anxious and stressed. I finally had my adrenals tested and started on the bio-identical hormones. Something I'd sworn I would never do, is take bio-identical hormones… but I did it to help my adrenals. I started to feel better, but then the Attack of the Jalapeno Peppers (I like that so much better than the Jalapeno Incident, hehe) occurred and I believe this was a whopping hit to my adrenals, and I have not felt quite the same since then. I finally caved, went to Urgent Care and gladly accepted their steroids to get the swelling to go down.

Then I found out that the bio-identical hormone creams had ingredients which both raise and lower cortisol at the same time, so I stopped taking them. Only my energy level was almost non-existent. I had to do something. I cannot quit my job, although I would dearly love to, I cannot. So I ended up beginning a regimen of HC cream. I am still doing GAPS! I just need to figure out the cherries now.

I also have known for years that my thyroid is functioning low, in spite of what the test results say… most doctors don't know how to test correctly for thyroid issues and millions of people are suffering needlessly.

To top this all off, my youngest son came home with a cold which he's still coughing from. He passed it to his older brother, who has Down Syndrome and I almost keeled over from worrying about him and how he would handle the cold. Because he has been diagnosed with asthma, there is the potential for a cold to exacerbate the asthma and could also turn into pneumonia. You would have to know how frightened my son is of doctors, needles and hospitals to be able to understand how worried I was. Thank God, and I truly mean that, thank GOD, he did not become so ill that he needed to be seen. I had him keep up with breathing treatments, and he got through the cold without incident.

And then I myself came down with the cold. I had to go to work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday feeling exhausted and with a hoarse voice. Apparently this cold takes its sweet time… finally by Saturday my throat hurt so badly that I had to take Ibuprofen for the pain, and ended up staying in bed the entire day. Thankfully my youngest son decided to cook for his sick old mother. He woke me at 8:30am with bacon lettuce, tomato and avocado sandwiches, made with my homemade mayonnaise. No bread – he wrapped everything neatly into a lettuce leaf, oh, it was so delicious! 🙂  For dinner he made me butter fried chicken, tomato slices with Celtic salt sprinkled on top, steamed snap peas in the pod and faux-tatoes. I felt truly loved and cared for.

I'm better today… still low on energy, but I did manage to wash three sinks full of dishes, wipe the counters and stove, make breakfast, sweep and mop the floor and get my clothes into the washer and dryer. And today I've worked on our 2010 income taxes… another stressor that has been killing me knowing it is due in three short weeks.

Finally, my job has become even more stressful with deadlines than ever before. I thought it was bad before? It has gotten worse. I've asked my husband to please take two weeks off and just stay home and hold down the fort and cook. This will be a vacation to him and I need his support right now during this extra stressful period. I have been having to work overtime every single day and this leaves no time for cooking, if I want to try and get enough sleep. And my sleep has been awful. Just awful. Every Monday night I cannot sleep and go to work Tuesday morning exhausted. It is hard to function when that tired! Not to mention having to drive!

So I have to tell you Saturday is the nicest day I've had in months… my son loaned me his iPad and I read up on some blogs, I listened to a couple podcasts, I watched *three* movies off Netflix. It was like a wonderful mini-vacation. I should really consider staying in bed all day one day each week. I think it would help me to feel much better… although the awful thing is I get that much farther behind… agh…

Back to those cherries… as I said, I have an appointment with a naturopath who I hope will help me with the blood work and lab tests that I need to have. My insurance will not pay for the naturopath (but it will pay for the lab work and prescription medication), but I believe she will be a good fit, so I am willing to put out the money for the sake of my health. I cannot fathom the idea of fighting with a “regular” doctor trying to get them to agree to do the recommended labwork. I simply do not have the energy to even contemplate going through that kind of stress. I'm hoping and praying this doctor I have found will willingly prescribe the tests and then will help me with the necessary medications. I'm a little bit nervous because I don't know if she will want to take the reins and lead, or will be willing to be my trusted advisor.

If you think you have adrenal fatigue and low thyroid issues, here are some books you might want to look into, suggested to me by an awesome GAPS friend who is very good at figuring out this stuff:

• Stop the Thyroid Madness: a Patient Revolution Against Decades of Inferior Treatment
• Your Thyroid and How to Keep It Healthy
• Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome

I am honored you stayed with me to the end. Here's to the future and finding those cherries! 🙂