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  • Thyroid Support – My Newest Cherry on my GAPS Cake

    Thyroid Support – My Newest Cherry on my GAPS Cake

    I’ve been “baking my GAPS cake” for over three years now. Along the way I’ve tried some of the various “cherries” which Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride has talked about.

    Another cherry for me has been having my amalgams removed. I have felt for a while that the mercury has been hindering my progress to move forward in my quest for more energy and I have wished to be able to get the fillings replaced for a few years now. Finally I was able to do that, and I am so grateful and feel so blessed for the chance to have them removed. I almost feel a little guilty because I have been able to do this while others have not. I hope one day to be able to fulfill my dream to create a non-profit organization that will allow me to help people have their amalgams removed safely, get blood tests done for various conditions, for example I really feel like the MTHFR genetic mutation plays a huge part in health. I believe one day it will be a very small piece to my health puzzle, but at the moment I think it is something that needs to be taken into consideration and addressed to the best of my ability.

    So after the first amalgam removal by my holistic dentist I felt better. That night I slept more peacefully than I have in a while, and woke up without that constant feeling of stress and anxiety. I felt so much better that I was actually looking forward to getting the last six removed.

    Unfortunately during the second amalgam removal I began to feel anxious. Along with other symptoms, the anxiety continued and grew worse. One of the symptoms which worried me the most was my inability to focus and my lack of desire to do anything – which was growing worse by the day. One of my friends pointed out that maybe I’m just burned out and need a break. Well, that could be, but this was different.

    I had been eating a few too many carbohydrates again, so I reined in my consumption but I continued to feel poorly. I didn’t want to work on our income taxes (although the 15th was just days away – I ended up filing an extension), I didn’t want to pay bills or manage our finances, I didn’t feel like being on the computer. At work, I felt like I could care less about completing my tasks. They are never ending and always there, I can’t seem to ever get caught up so why bother.

    A very dangerous attitude for the person who does the company billing. No bills go out, no money comes in. No good. Very bad.

    I started to read Amalgam Illness by Andrew Cutler and also joined a list which discusses chelating protocols and I started to learn that it is fairly common to feel worse after removal, even when done safely and correctly. I also learned that the thyroid and adrenals are further stressed (which makes sense). I’ve got my adrenals covered. I did consider that maybe I needed to increase my adrenal support but the fact of the matter remains that I have hypothyroid symptoms which I’ve had for decades. The adrenals and thyroid work together as a team (along with other bodily systems). One team member (thyroid) has been sitting on the sidelines for too long. I realized the symptoms I was experiencing can be attributed to mercury poisoning, but also to low thyroid function. It apparently goes without saying that I have some degree of mercury poisoning since I’ve had amalgams for  34 years (my first two were installed when I was 16). But it appears that the removal kicked my thyroid down a notch.

    On Tuesday, April 17th, I felt so miserable I just impulsively decided I was going for it. I’d had a particularly bad night and depressed weekend, so I opened that bottle. I have had the prescription from my naturopathic physician since December 2011.

    When I say impulsive, I don’t mean that I just started willy-nilly. I did recently have blood work done, and I specifically tested for the things I know to be important components to tolerating T3. One is that  iron levels must be at a certain point, and one’s adrenals must be supported. I’ve got my adrenals covered, and here are my iron results. According to (this is an Amazon affiliate link) Stop the Thyroid Madness: a Patient Revolution Against Decades of Inferior Treatment my iron levels are good for tolerating the thyroid medication.

    Iron Test Results

    My thyroid numbers come back within range, but I have the reverse T3 problem. The ratio between the reverse T3 number and Free T3 should be at least 20 to feel well. Mine has been as low as 12 and recently my tests came back showing I was at 15. Better, but still low. You can see in the image below how my tests have been for the past 18 months. Everything within the range, except my reverse T3 is high every time.

    Dr. Jack Kruse says the Leptin Reset should fix reverse T3 but it didn’t cure my reverse T3 problem. Reverse T3 can be caused by a number of problems, one of those being stress and I have my fair share of that. Not to mention low thyroid function can be a source of stress. I have considered trying the T3 only protocol to address my reverse T3 problem but had been extremely resistant to moving forward.

    Thyroid Test Results

    In spite of the fact that I was sleep deprived I felt better within hours of taking my first very tiny dose. Each successive day I have felt better. The haunting depression is gone. The anxiety is gone. My poor husband, I have been such a basket case lately!! My sleep seems to be getting better – on the night of the fourth day, I slept through the night without waking up once. Okay, granted I got to sleep around midnight but I was stunned when I woke up to find that it was 5:30. I have not slept that many hours without waking at least once to pee in I don’t know how long. I hope I have more nights like that.

    There’s one more thing that may have helped tip me over the edge toward thinking maybe it would be okay for me to support my thyroid. I am extremely opposed to taking medication and maybe I’ll explore that in another post. I was reading an older book on thyroid care. I am not sure if someone gave it to me, or if I picked it up from a thrift store. My apologies if you sent it to me. The book is called (this is an Amazon affiliate link)The Thyroid Solution: A Mind-Body Program for Beating Depression and Regaining Your Emotional and Phys ical Health and it is written by Dr. Ridha Arem. This passage stuck in my mind:

    Biopsychiatrists often say that the first drugs shown to alleviate depression by altering brain chemistry were lithium and imipramine, the first tricyclic antidepressant. (Developed in the mid-1950s, tricyclics were hailed for being able to “normalize” mood without causing euphoria.) In a way, however, thyroid hormone pills are one of the oldest medications known to treat depression.

    In 1890, Spanish doctors implanted a sheep’s thyroid gland beneath the skin of a thirty-six year old woman suffering from severe hypothyroidism. They noted an immediate improvement in her symptoms and appearance. This experiment inspired Dr. George Murray to extract a fluid from sheep thyroid glands the following year. He achieved spectacular results by injecting this fluid into a severely hypothyroid patient.

    The discovery that extracts of animal thyroid could reverse the physical and mental effects of an underactive thyroid was the first major breakthrough in the history of thyroid disease. Patients who had been institutionalized due to extreme symptoms, such as a form of madness from severe hypothyroidism, regained their sanity when they took the extracts. Suddenly, underactive thyroid – once a fatal condition – became controllable, allowing afflicted people to live normal lives.

    First Edition, June 1999. Chapter 6, page 105.

    People were actually institutionalized in the past – because they had severe hypothyroidism.  Wow.

    I guess in reading Dr. Hal Huggins book I had hoped my thyroid would just miraculously kick in and begin working wonderfully… maybe for some, but apparently not for me. That’s okay, I’m going to figure this out eventually.

    Next on my cherries list: chelation. I am planning to begin Andrew Cutler’s protocol on Friday the 26th. Interestingly, I feel no internal resistance to this protocol. And it is actually one of the reasons I decided to begin the thyroid medication because I did not feel that I would be able to tolerate it without thyroid support.

    It is my hope that once I go through chelation (which could take 6 months to 2 years or longer), I will be able to wean myself off both thyroid medication and adrenal support. I’m pretty sure it will happen, but time will tell.

    For more information on the topics I’ve mentioned in this post, please visit these links:

    My previous posts:

    Thanks for reading through and I hope you’ll consider leaving a comment to let me know you stopped by.

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

  • Coconut Yogurt – How to Make it Thick, Creamy and Delicious

    Coconut Yogurt – How to Make it Thick, Creamy and Delicious

    Coconut Milk Yogurt
    Coconut Milk [affiliate link] Yogurt sprinkled with freeze-dried mango, banana, pineapple and strawberries

    Before I started on GAPS I ate yogurt but not because I loved or craved it. I ate it more out of convenience – something relatively healthy plus quick to eat – and my favorite was FAGE (pronounced “fa-yeh”). It is thick and delicious. Of course now I probably wouldn’t eat it since I would want to avoid pasteurized milk.

    Yogurt is allowed on GAPS, but I do not tolerate dairy products well. Respiratory symptoms return when I have attempted to reintroduce. Since we no longer have our dairy goats and getting raw milk would be a challenge, I have just decided to stay off dairy for the time being. Dr. Datis Kharrazian also suggests that dairy should be avoided for those who have the autoimmune disease Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis:

    Many clinicians find removing casein, the protein molecule in all forms of dairy, is also integral to thyroid health. There is not as much research on casein intolerance as there is on gluten intolerance, however anecdotal evidence strongly suggests a diet that is not only gluten-free but also dairy-free promises the best results in managing Hashimoto’s. (p. 32). Morgan James Publishing. Kindle Edition.

    And Dr. Ben Lynch also suggests a dairy-free diet if you have the MTHFR genetic mutation, although in my interview with Dr. Lynch he did suggest “… that raw milk should come from cows that are A2, or raw goat milk, and camel milk is also A2.”

    Since I have both the genetic mutation and Hashimoto’s antibodies, it is probably best that I stay off dairy products.

    I’ve been missing yogurt though, and I have been slacking on getting plenty of probiotic foods in my diet. I bought a bottle of non-dairy yogurt starter in April 2011 and have not used very much of it. The site says you can freeze the product for up to one year, but I have had mine refrigerated and then frozen for two years. The good news is it is still making great yogurt for me!

    It has been such a treat to have yogurt again!

    I have made several batches and as is common with yogurt the longer it cultures the more sour. I cultured one batch 15 hours and it still had a sweet taste to it, while the 24 hour batch is much more sour and hardly sweet at all. It is delicious and I have been limiting myself to one cup a day.

    I recently got a new yogurt maker through a Groupon deal and I happened to have $20 in Groupon credits, so I was able to get my new yogurt maker for only $5. I have another yogurt maker that makes one quart at a time, but I wanted to try the little jars method to see how that would work out for me.

    I searched for a recipe that I could use, and found that Cultures for Health has a coconut milk yogurt recipe on their site.They have some suggested variations and this is how I made my coconut milk yogurt:

    1. Place coconut milk in a pan and heat until warm enough that the milk is smooth. Natural Value has no guar gum or preservatives and it is pretty clumpy straight from the can. This one that I linked to is also organic, and in a BPA-free can. I link to Amazon so you can see what kind I use, but I order from Azure Standard for a better price.
    2. In a small bowl add 1/2 cup of the warm coconut milk and 2 teaspoons to 2 tablespoons of powdered gelatin [affiliate link]. I linked to the brand I use, but it in capsule form. My bottle is powder, no capsules.
    3. Mix well.
    4. In a small bowl place 1/8 teaspoon yogurt starter and a teaspoon of coconut milk.
    5. Mix well. I use the back of the spoon to mash and mix as the starter clumps.
    6. Mix gelatin, yogurt starter and coconut milk together in a bowl.
    7. Separate into individual jars, or place in your quart yogurt maker.
    8. Once the mixture is heated after a few hours, I stir to make sure everything is mixed together well.
    9. Let the yogurt culture from 15 to 24 hours.
    10. Remove from the yogurt maker and stir before placing in the refrigerator. It will separate with thicker yogurt at the top and water at the bottom. Mix while it is still warm and it will hold together once refrigerated.
    11. For the super thick yogurt I blended it with my hand mixer so that it would have a creamy texture.

    If you use 2 teaspoons, it will be fairly thin, while with two tablespoons it will be super thick.

    For the photo, I garnished the super thick yogurt with Whole Foods brand 365 Everyday Value Freeze Dried Tropical Fruit Blend which contains mango, banana, strawberry and pineapple.

    Yogurt makers I have used:

    I use a yogurt maker that I bought at least two decades ago and looks similar to this one (clicking on the image takes you to the product; this is my Amazon affiliate link). I like making one quart in the same container.

    This is the yogurt maker I got through Groupon, the brand name is Dash(clicking on the image takes you to the product; this is my Amazon affiliate link). Sometimes I’ll use this product but I tend to lose either jars or lids so I like the quart container better.

    I would love to hear from you in the comments on whether you have tried coconut milk yogurt, or if you are planning to try it.

     

     

     

     

    Save Print
    Coconut Yogurt – How to Make it Thick, Creamy and Delicious
    Author: 
     
    Coconut milk yogurt, rich and creamy.
    Ingredients
    • 2 cans Natural Value Organic Coconut Milk, 13.5-Ounce Cans
    • 2 teaspoons to 2 tablespoons of Bernard Jensen Gelatin
    • ⅛ teaspoon GI ProStart
    Instructions
    1. cans Natural Value Organic Coconut Milk, 13.5-Ounce Cans (Pack of 12) (this is an Amazon associates link*)
    2. teaspoons to 2 tablespoons of Bernard Jensen Gelatin (this is an Amazon associates link*)
    3. /8 teaspoon GI ProStart(this is an Amazon associates link*)
    4. Place coconut milk in a pan and heat until warm enough that the milk is smooth. Natural Value has no guar gum or preservatives and it is pretty clumpy straight from the can. This one that I linked to is also organic, and in a BPA-free can. I link to Amazon so you can see what kind I use, but I order from Azure Standard for a better price.
    5. In a small bowl add ½ cup of the warm coconut milk and 2 teaspoons to 2 tablespoons of powdered gelatin. I linked to the brand I use, but it in capsule form. My bottle is powder, no capsules.
    6. Mix well.
    7. In a small bowl place ⅛ teaspoon yogurt starter and a teaspoon of coconut milk.
    8. Mix well. I use the back of the spoon to mash and mix as the starter clumps.
    9. Mix gelatin, yogurt starter and coconut milk together in a bowl.
    10. Separate into individual jars, or place in your quart yogurt maker.
    11. Once the mixture is heated after a few hours, I stir to make sure everything is mixed together well.
    12. Let the yogurt culture from 15 to 24 hours.
    13. Remove from the yogurt maker and stir before placing in the refrigerator. It will separate with thicker yogurt at the top and water at the bottom. Mix while it is still warm and it will hold together once refrigerated.
    14. For the super thick yogurt I blended it with my hand mixer so that it would have a creamy texture.
    15. If you use 2 teaspoons, it will be fairly thin, while with two tablespoons it will be super thick.
    16. For the photo, I garnished the super thick yogurt with Whole Foods brand 365 Everyday Value Freeze Dried Tropical Fruit Blend which contains mango, banana, strawberry and pineapple.
    Wordpress Recipe Plugin by EasyRecipe
    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

  • Nursing Your Baby is One of the Best Things You Can Do

    Nursing Your Baby is One of the Best Things You Can Do

    My 2 year old nursling
    I’m 5 months pregnant here. Matthew is actually sucking his thumb because my milk has already dried up. But he still loved snuggling with mommy, touching my eyelashes. 🙂 He began nursing again regularly once his baby brother was born and my milk came back in.

    It was 1970, I was 9 years old and my mother married my stepfather. A year later their first child was born. One thing I will never forget is seeing the look of love and pure adoration on my baby sister’s face as she peered up at my mother, her little mouth attached to my mother’s breast. Sometimes she would pull off and break out in this huge milky grin looking right at my mom. I knew that I wanted to experience that when I had my own children.

    My mother nursed me but did so on a very rigid schedule. She tells me how she would sit in her room and cry and cry while I laid in my crib screaming. The doctor told her that she must only nurse me for ten minutes on each side and then every four hours. He said that I must be allowed to cry to strengthen my lungs. As a young mother attending La Leche League I learned about foremilk and hindmilk, and that lungs did not need to be strengthened by crying. It is likely I rarely had hindmilk due to the way I was nursed. My mother weaned me at six months, onto powdered skimmed milk because regular milk caused me to projectile vomit. I think I probably spent the first year of my life starving.

    When I was 22 months old my baby sister was born. My father told my mom she could not nurse their newest child. Mom was ten pounds overweight and my father wanted her to drop those pounds as soon as possible. I learned in La Leche League that nursing mothers need a few extra pounds – nature has provided that weight for a reason. And since nursing uses extra calories, moms quite often naturally lose those extra pounds.

    My mom nursed all of her children, except for my one sister. And it just so happens my mom has always had a terrible time with resentment towards my sister. Mom used to go to prayer meetings and ask for special prayer, so that she could love her daughter and not feel so resentful toward her. My sister and I were determined to nurse our children, for we did not want to risk not bonding as it appeared happened with our mother. I was scared out of my wits to have a second child! I was so scared I would not love my second born child. My mom has six children. She is close to five of them, but the one she clashes with and has resentment towards, she did not nurse. Of all the children she should have nursed, it certainly should have been my sister, I believe she would have been able to overcome the feelings of resentment.

    When my first child was born in 1986, my plan was to nurse him for at least six months, because that’s what my mother had done. Matthew and I had a rough time of it immediately after he was born. First of all, because he had Down Syndrome he had low muscle tone, and he was a very sleepy baby. I feel fortunate that the hospital encouraged me to keep him in the hospital bed with me  and they were very pro-breastfeeding. Matthew was 24 hours old before I was able to successfully nurse him with the aid of the hospital’s lactation consultant.

    I had to return to work when Matthew was nine weeks old, and I thought my heart would break. I was so glad I was nursing him, so that we had that special closeness. We would have a nursing session just before I left for work, and the minute I walked in the door at the end of the day. His father was the stay at home dad.

    My job was not too encouraging when it came to nursing. Both of my supervisors kept telling me to feed cereal to my infant to “fill him up”. They told me my milk would dry up around four months of age because that is when their milk dried up. Later attending LLL I learned that two things happen around the time a baby reaches four months of age: baby has a growth spurt and the breasts finally get in the groove of making milk. I learned the baby has to spend a good deal of time at the breast to increase supply. It can be frightening to a new mom to have empty sagging breasts with a baby that only wants to nurse, nurse, nurse and nurse some more! Without the proper information, one might think the baby is starving. But the baby is only doing what he or she has been programmed to do. Nurse, nurse and nurse some more to build up the milk supply!

    When I first went back to work I pumped at lunch time. Sadly the only place for me to express my milk was in a restroom stall. And for the icing on the cake, I only had half an hour lunch so I had to express my milk and eat lunch sitting on a toilet. “Good times,” as Matt would say. As it turns out, Matthew refused to drink from a bottle and eventually I stopped gathering milk for him at noon. Matthew made his own schedule. Thank goodness we practiced the family bed! He nursed most of each night, and thankfully I slept through most of the night. I basically turned from one side to the next, latching him from one breast the other throughout the night. On weekends we had marathon nursing sessions and by Monday lunch I was painfully engorged. But eventually my body settled into the routine.

    We didn’t learn that Matthew had Down Syndrome until he was three months old which was a terrible shock. It felt like the world went black for about three days. We were told it was in a sense as if our baby had died. But I’ll never forget the wonderful woman who told me that Matthew would always be more normal than not. I hung onto that for dear life.

    We took Matthew for therapy at Easter Seals from the time he was about six months old, and our speech therapist was very happy that I was nursing. She encouraged me to nurse Matthew for as long as I could. She said it was “hands down, THE BEST speech therapy that a child could have” because of the mechanics involved for the tongue and mouth in breastfeeding.

    My bosses were wrong. My baby thrived on my breast milk alone (until he was 13 months old). And I was a well rested mama, even though my baby nursed only at night. I had two coworkers with young babies who were nodding off at their computer terminals because they were bottle feeding and of course that meant several night feedings. I was so thankful that I was nursing my baby.

    I didn’t think much about my diet. I felt I was eating healthy since I didn’t eat a lot of candy and soda, plus I cooked a lot of meals from scratch. But sad to say, my diet was definitely Standard American at the time with plenty of sugar, white flour, pasta and margarine, etc.

    We were on a tight budget and I didn’t make a ton of money, I was only 23 years old with no college education or degree, I barely had a GED. As I mentioned earlier, my husband stayed at home with our child. We could not have afforded formula of any kind, store bought or homemade.

    I found a La Leche League group that met in the evening for working moms. I learned so much about the wonderful benefits of nursing my child. Not only did I have that wonderful closeness, but my breastmilk was protecting my child. One of the things I learned that blew my mind was that the breast manufactures antibodies to anything the child has been exposed to, and I still find myself in awe at the miraculous business of breastfeeding.

    When Matthew was 2 and a half years old, his little brother was born. I had of course learned about tandem nursing and planned to nurse my toddler and my newborn.

    Matthew nursed one time at the hospital while I was in the labor and my not so nice labor nurse complained that he was drinking up all the colostrum. I knew that was not true, and thankfully my doctor at the time agreed, and set the nurse straight.

    I can tell you one thing, there were no engorgement problems the second time around because my toddler was a very happy little boy to discover there was plenty of mommy milk again. I went on to tandem nurse for the next 2.5 years and Matthew weaned when he was around 5 years old.

    Fast forward to 2003. We bought our first milking goat. In the process of learning about dairy goats, milking, and the wonders of raw milk, I learned about the Weston A. Price Foundation. It took me some time to get a copy of Nourishing Traditions because I had done the low fat diet in my early 30s and was completely against any kind of diet. “Diet” to me meant restriction, and restriction meant deprivation and cravings. When I finally got around to reading Nourishing Traditions, I was surprised to find that the book and WAPF did not seem to promote breastfeeding as strongly as I would have thought. I knew how important breast milk was for baby humans, and I was acutely aware of the importance for facial development and for speech therapy.

    Here is a snippet from the article I linked to earlier from Katy who writes at Aligned and Well where she describes how it works:

    The milking baby has to use the muscles in the tongue to create and maintain a U shape, cradling the nipple. {For those of you think you genetically cannot U, read this (click).} Then the tongue has to do a crazy amount of work (as in W=F x d) that changes based on where their tongue is on the nipple, but never decreasing to the point of losing a muscular vacuum. Which is why you need calculus to model the forces of breast feeding. It’s hugely complicated. And FYI, so it eating. I mean, eating is easy. But the muscular forces involved in getting food to your mouth, chewing it and then swallowing are numerous. Which is why they have you get a Master’s Degree to do oral/swallow/speech therapy (or any physical therapy). It’s not as simple as a month-long (or a year-long) course makes it appear.

    Bottle nipples differ (mechanically speaking) from human nipples in that you don’t milk them, you suck on them. And the synthetic nipple does not deform as the breastfeeding nipple does, nor does an artificial nipple adapt to the growing mouth of the growing child. Meaning, the baby’s mouth sets the geometry of the breast’s nipple, and not the other way around.

    During the years that we had our goats I was approached by a woman who wanted to purchase our goat’s milk for the purpose of making baby formula ala Weston A. Price Foundation. I was surprised to learn that this mama had been weighing her baby before and after each nursing session and was convinced she was not making enough milk and so she wanted to make her own homemade formula with part of that recipe being our raw goat’s milk.

    I can’t help but wonder if she had had more support, would she have been able to nurse her child with only her breastmilk?

    I believe that nursing one’s baby is extremely important, even vitally important to the healthy development of one’s child. Breastfeeding comes easy to some mothers, while for others it is more difficult. Even if your diet is not perfect, I believe the child still benefits hugely. There are components to breast milk that can never be recreated with an artificial or homemade formula. I realize that there are situations where a mother absolutely cannot nurse her child, but I think if there are too many easy solutions available it is easier to not take the time, or put in the effort. For example, we learned in La Leche League that moms who had hospital births should refuse the samples of formula to avoid temptation. In the cases where a woman truly cannot nurse her child, I think the best solution is as Dr. Natasha suggests, to find human breast milk. But I truly think these cases are far and few between, and education is vitally important. There are problems that can be addressed and fixed, like tongue tie or lip tie (a condition common to those with MTHFR genetic mutations), improper latching, thrush, just to name a few. Or maybe you have low supply but something as simple as drinking more water would increase your supply. Nutrition certainly factors in as well, some new mothers are obsessed with losing those last pounds of “baby fat” not realizing it is normal and will eventually resolve itself. Believe it or not I learned a whole other side to “breastfeeding” when we had our goats. Little things as I mentioned above like not drinking enough water affecting supply. Our goats thought rain was poison and would stay in the barn all day long if it was raining. It never failed the next day everyone’s milk production was down, even though we’d placed water in the barn for them.

    Since learning about GAPS, I am even more convinced of the importance of breastfeeding. If the mother (and the father) have gut dysbiosis (each generation seems to have worse gut dysbiosis than the last), the child will have gut dysbiosis. There are many cases of children becoming autistic soon after being weaned and this is because the mother’s milk was providing protection to the child against his abnormal gut flora. There are telltale signs of gut dysbiosis, click here to learn the conditions which stem from it listed at Dr. Natasha’s blog.

    I’ll end with a quote from Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride from her New Baby page at her website:

    I cannot emphasize strongly enough, how important it is to breastfeed your baby! Particularly in those first few days, when colostrum is produced.

    If you cannot do it yourself, try to find a wet nurse or a breast milk donor: a good place to start looking for one is in your maternity ward before giving birth (if you arrived to the hospital in a planned fashion) or straight after giving birth. In order to insure good supply of breast milk for your baby, it is practical to look for 2-4 wet nurses or breast milk donors. Look for healthy women who live not too far away from you. Even in the case of formula feeding supplementing your baby’s diet with some breast milk (even occasional) will do wonders for your baby’s development and overall health. No commercial formula will ever get close to the quality of breast milk!

    If you are looking for support in nursing your baby, please contact La Leche League International. They are a wonderful organization who can help you be successful at nursing your baby. I learned so much from my La Leche League group and will be forever grateful to the wonderful women who were there to teach me and support me to be the best mother I could be for my children. I believe I learned to parent my own inner child at the same time. Thanks for reading!

    This post is included at the Breastfeeding Support Blog Party. Visit Hybrid Rasta Mama’s site to read more powerful posts in support of breastfeeding.

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

  • Second Amalgam Removal – No More Silver Fillings

    Second Amalgam Removal – No More Silver Fillings

    b4-after-amalgams1

    My dentist is so awesome. I told him that I’m blogging about my amalgam removal experience and about twenty minutes into my appointment he asked me if I would like for him to take some before, during and after photos with his pen camera.  Oh yes, please! That would be awesome, I told him. I won’t show you the during photos here. Okay, if you really want to see the during photos you can click here. But be forewarned, that middle tooth looks to be half gone and it turns my stomach just seeing it. Eventually I should probably consider having some crowns done but at least for now the mercury is gone.

    My appointment was on Tuesday. This time I was much less nervous, since I had been through the first removal 20 days ago. In Dr. Hal Huggins’ book, It’s All in Your Head: The Link Between Mercury Amalgams and Illness, he says that we should try to have the removal done in two visits (so that we don’t cross the midline – for example, do the teeth on the right side, top and bottom, then the left), and also try to have the removals done within 21 days, if possible. And, don’t have the second removal done on the 7th, 14th, or 21st day because of the body’s healing cycle.

    My appointment was at 3pm this time, which was at a better time for me in regards to my adrenal support. The only little problem is that my cell phone alarm goes off at 4pm and although there is a sign at the front door as you come in that says PLEASE TURN OFF CELL PHONES I completely forgot to do this, and it went off in the middle of my appointment. The dental dam was in my mouth, I was laid back in the dental chair unable to do anything. Here you can see me in the photo below with my protective goggles, oxygen on my nose, dental dam in my mouth, and the dentist and dental assistant wearing respiratory masks. The white thing in front of me is “Mr. Snuffy” the machine they use to suck the mercury dust out of the air.

    Protection from Mercury Exposure

    I attempted to communicate with the doctor and dental assistant about my phone. They finally understood what I was pantomiming but at that point I couldn’t really get up and do anything about it. I was also unable to warn them that unless someone dismissed the alarm it would get progressively louder and would not stop chiming until the phone battery goes dead. I have to admit that did make me feel extremely uncomfortable and nervous. I know how obnoxious that phone can get. Eventually my dentist realized it was an alarm but he was soon going to be drilling so that pretty much drowned out the sound for awhile. He then sat me up and went over and brought my purse to me so I could turn it off. That was embarrassing.

    Another thing that really bothered me was that my dentist found a brand new cavity. I felt very distressed about that because I feel like I’m eating a healthy diet and why do I have a new cavity? My initial treatment plan with the examination and x-rays was done back in January 2012. The new cavity was already “surface 2”. My dentist said that the new cavity was not part of my treatment plan, and how did I want to proceed. By now the dental dam was out of my mouth so I was able to speak and told him to go ahead and fix it.

    Much, much later I realized that this would have been a perfect chance to try and heal the cavity. This is being done: Cure Tooth Decay: Heal and Prevent Cavities with Nutrition, 2nd Edition.

    I have also had more of a reaction this time. For the first removal I had slept well for several days and the night prior. This time I did not sleep well in the previous days. My husband made me soup again, like he did the last time. Cream of Asparagus (with no dairy, I’ve got to get him to give me the recipe, it was heavenly).

    The last time one thing I noticed was my lack of anxiety. Now here’s the thing – my anxiety is so much less than before I started GAPS that I didn’t even notice I was feeling anxious. But I realized the morning after the first removal that I had awoke during the night and had not felt anxious. Coincidence? There’s no way to know if the removal of the cracked amalgam had an impact.

    This time I am experiencing more anxiety and looping thoughts. I am also having trouble sleeping. When I’m sleep deprived I have to be very careful with my reactions. I find myself getting suspicious and angry at people. Add a stressful situation (going to the dentist, period) and that exacerbates everything. I had trouble sleeping the night after the removal. You know, it just occurred to me that I did go to the float spa after my first removal. Maybe that helped with detoxing more than I realized. I actually did not feel it was very helpful, as I was unable to relax and experience the euphoric feeling I did with my first float. I was so out of it at work the next day that I had to leave after being there for only four hours. I did feel better on Thursday and was able to remain at work the whole day.

    I did take an Epsom salts bath Tuesday night. My head kind of ached and I thought to oil pull. The oil pulling did seem to help me feel better. The oil turned to an odd texture but maybe that’s normal. I used coconut oil [affiliate link] and I’ve only oil pulled a few other times. It’s always so hard to know if we are truly experiencing a difference from doing one thing or another because there’s no easy way to recreate the situation a second or third time to precisely test the theory.

    I mentioned in my first removal post that my bite was off. The fillings were slightly high and I was having to be super careful with chewing my food. In fact I ended up not chewing hardly at all on the left side in between visits. Dr. Meyer did get the first side filed down properly and now my bite is great on the left side. The right side feels pretty close. I think I can live with it, I’ll have to see how it goes in the next few days. He did say to not wait to come back in if I needed any adjustments, and I won’t.

    I am definitely going to need to step up my studying on chelating and decide what I need to do. I should have been doing that already! It is just so confusing because you read one thing and then you read something else that says don’t do it. Sometimes in the very same post! I read one place that cilantro is very good to use but then in the comments someone said to only use cilantro after a good chelation program has been in place – like for 60 days.

    Thanks for reading through to the end. I am hoping that having these amalgams removed will have an impact on my health journey. I am very curious to see if my thyroid will work better.

    I would love to hear from you in the comments. Have you had your mercury amalgams removed? Did you do a chelation program afterwards?

     

     

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

  • Ordering Laboratory Tests On Your Own – No Doctor Required

    In my last post I mentioned that I had some lab work done. I’m fortunate to live in one of the states in the US that allows me to order my own tests. I ordered from Direct Labs and they include this at the bottom of their site: “Services not available in MA, MD, ND, SD, and VT. To place an order in NJ, NY or RI, visit DirectLabs.com/ACCESS”.

    One of my health issues is that my thyroid is not functioning properly. I have known this for years and I first discovered it when I took my basal temperature each morning for fertility awareness. It is normal for our temperature to fluctuate during the day, and common for it to be lower in the morning, but not as low as mine was. Looking back on my charts, the lowest was 96.1°F! I have several months where I calculated my waking temps average over the entire month which ranged from a low of 97.0°F to a “high” of 97.3°F.

    In studying Stop the Thyroid Madness: a Patient Revolution Against Decades of Inferior Treatment I learned taking one’s temperature three times a day for an average is the best way to assess thyroid function. You take your temperature at the same time each day, at least three hours after waking, and then 6 hours and 9 hours. As an example, I took my temperature at noon, 3pm and 6pm. For many months I charted my temperature three times a day (even while at work) and rarely did I have an average of 98.6°F.

    I read in Dr. Hal Huggins’ book It’s All in Your Head: The Link Between Mercury Amalgams and Illness that some people have found their body temperature returns to normal after having amalgams removed, and I think it can take several months for the mercury to completely leave one’s body (six months?). So it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months after all the mercury is removed.

    I also have the “Reverse T3 problem” and have for quite some time been contemplating the T3 Only Protocol to lower my reverse T3 levels. I thought I would kill two birds with one stone – get the necessary lab work done before the amalgams were gone so that I can retest later this year, and maybe if I’m still good to go, start the T3 Only Protocol.

    My husband tells me if things keep going the way they are headed, it may not be an option for us to pursue the health care that we want. I don’t like to think about it too much because it is stressful, but apparently if the “Affordable Care Act” (aka Obamacare) continues on like our president wishes, we will lose our ability to pick and choose our health care providers. But that is another blog post.

    That is another reason why I’m trying to push myself to make decisions in my health care, sooner than later. I feel I am doing *something* because I am avoiding many foods that cause problems, but there is more that I could implement. The “cherries on the cake” as Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride refers to them.

    But to get back to my topic – there are several laboratories online where you can order your own tests. I have known about this for quite some time, but until last month I had never tried it.

    I last had blood work done in January 2012. I was ready to try the T3 Only Protocol but my naturopathic physician talked me out of it – instead he wanted me to try his “super” Vitamin B protocol which ended up nearly becoming a disaster if not for my friend Patty from Loving Our Guts alerting me to the fact that the Vitamin B which he had sold me was the wrong kind for a person with the MTHFR genetic mutation.

    I lost steam after that and buried my head in the sand (except for continuing to eat full GAPS). But I know in order to start on T3 only, the people at Stop the Thyroid Madness have found that your adrenals have to be supported and your iron levels must be good, otherwise you will not be able to tolerate the T3. Also I was curious to know my Reverse T3 ratio so I needed at minimum Reverse T3 and Free T3.

    The laboratory I used was Direct Labs. It just so happened  they were running a special in January for their Complete Thyroid Panel. This test normally runs $189 but was on sale for $139. It includes the following:

    • Reverse T3
    • Free T3
    • Free T4
    • TSH
    • Total T3
    • T7
    • Total T4
    • T-3 Uptake

    According to the Stop the Thyroid Madness site, only the first three have value when assessing thyroid function. STTM says this about the TSH (which is what many doctors test you for when they are looking at thyroid problems), “ TSH: for diagnosis of hypopituitary, NOT to diagnose or dose your hypothyroidism. If you allow a doctor to diagnose or dose you by this lab test and range, you’ll still be hypothyroid.”

    I also ordered the Iron Panel, which is $69. This includes Ferritin, % Saturation, TIBC and serum iron (sometimes it will say Iron, or total iron). Ferritin is our storage iron and a high number can indicate inflammation (mine has historically been sky high – like more than twice as high as a large man should have).

    I paid for my tests and received a confirmation email at 10:07am.

    At 10:40am, I received a notification email that my requisition was ready. Wow! Fast!

    Any other time I’ve wanted to have blood work done it has taken literally weeks. First you have to call the doctor’s office and schedule an appointment. Then you go to the doctor and for me it has always been an extremely stressful situation because the doctor may or may not be willing to order the tests I want. I remember years ago going to a doctor and asking for a full thyroid panel test to be done and when I explained why, she ended up making fun of me saying in a sing song voice, “Someone’s been on the Internet too much.” So insulting. I have not been to a traditional doctor since that one.

    You do have to use Lab Corp. I had my blood drawn on Tuesday morning, February 26th and by Friday afternoon, March 1st (just three days later!!) I had my results.

    Now what usually happens? You go in and have your blood drawn, and then you finally hear back from your doctor’s staff that your test results are back and you schedule an appointment so that you can go sit with the doctor who can interpret your blood tests.

    Well, unfortunately most doctors are not too good at interpreting the results, at least they are not looking at the results in the same way as I am – which is according to the Stop the Thyroid Madness theory.

    This post is getting long, so I will share in another my test results.

    But one more thing – did you know that you can even do your own blood draw yourself? When I was having tests done more regularly in 2011, the lady who always drew my blood was very friendly and I had mentioned how scared my son Matthew is when it comes to needles. She asked me if I thought he would let me draw his blood. I had never thought about that, and I did used to draw our goat’s blood. Now granted it is different, but I think Matthew might be more likely to allow me or his father to draw blood than a stranger. She told me that Lab Corp will provide everything needed for the blood draw. You just bring in the requisition and they will put together a little packet with blood vials needed, gloves, needles, alcohol swabs, even a tourniquet. She says they do it all the time for people who have someone travel to their home to take their blood.

    And in fact, I found this to be true as I also ordered blood tests for my mother when I ordered my own blood tests, and when I went in to have my blood drawn I presented my mother’s requisition and the lady (a different lady than the one from 2011) gathered up everything I needed and gave it to me in a little plastic bag.

    Did you know you can order your own tests? Do you think you would ever draw your own blood or have someone draw it for you other than the laboratory?

     

     

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.

  • Amalgams Removal with my Holistic Dentist

    Amalgams Removal with my Holistic Dentist

    Yay! Five Less Amalgams!
    Yay! Five Less Amalgams!

    It’s still amazing to me that I’m finally getting this work done.

    First I want to offer a huge and heartfelt thank you to those of you who have offered supported by purchasing my e-book Beyond Grain & Dairy, or have used one of my affiliate links – because to be completely honest with you –  it is the only way I have been able to begin the process of getting these amalgams removed properly. THANK YOU so very much.

    Wednesday last week was D-Day. Dentist Day. Originally I scheduled my appointment for the last Wednesday in January and I was only going to have the cracked amalgam replaced, and one other amalgam. Then my friend Patty from Loving Our Guts told me she had read in Dr. Hal Huggins’ book that we should get all the amalgams removed from one side first, then all the amalgams from the other side. In two visits. Preferably within 21 days. Ai-yi-yi.

    I had been listening to the speakers in the HealThy Mouth World Summit and had also ordered It’s All in Your Head: The Link Between Mercury Amalgams and Illness for myself (this is the book by Dr. Hal Huggins) so information was flowing into my head from all over the place. One thing I felt completely reassured about was my dentist. From everything I was hearing and reading, he was doing things the right away. So that was a great relief to not have to worry about that.

    Dr. Huggins recommends a whole list of tests that should be done prior to having amalgams removed, mostly so that one has some way of tracking progress. For example, you can find out how much mercury is in your body with a urine test and hair analysis. It is very expensive to have the amalgams removed and replaced properly as it is. I talked with another friend, Kristina from No Junque Living and she said that she wouldn’t let the tests keep me from moving forward. I did decide to invest in the dental sensitivities testing, that was $275 plus $50 shipping. Anyone can order that test, you don’t need to go through a dentist. Now whether your dentist will take care to not use any ingredients to which you are highly sensitive is another story.

    I’m really glad I ended up postponing my January appointment, because as it turns out I was pretty stressed that weekend before the original appointment. I was kind of freaked out by the decision I’d made, to spend so much money all at once on FIVE amalgams. Because who knows if this will make a difference in my health? I think it will, but what if it doesn’t? Or, what is something goes wrong? What if one of the fillings is just so deep that I have to get a crown, or have it removed altogether? More expense for which I did not have the money.

    I had heard it was a good idea to get either a high dose of Vitamin C intravenously or to get glutathione intravenously. I’d also heard about Liposomal Vitamin C. In order to get the Vitamin C IV, I would have had to pay $150 to become a new patient of the doctor, and then $120 for the IV. I decided to try making the Liposomal C. Actually, I had my husband make it. I plan to post on this soon, but for the time being you can check out the video we followed here: How to Make Homemade Liposomal Vitamin C.

    Okay, so now I will tell you about my appointment.

    Historically I have had trouble becoming numb, so I told the dental receptionist about this and we agreed that I would come in 30 minutes earlier, just in case.

    Supporting My Adrenals

    You may or may not be aware that my adrenals crashed in August 2011 when I had an accident involving jalapeno peppers. After three weeks I finally gave in and went to Urgent Care and was put on steroids to relieve the constant itching and swelling. After that I started on hydrocortisone (HC) support for my adrenals with the consent of my naturopathic doctor. I mention this because I am still supporting my adrenals and this complicates everything because in fact, my adrenals are currently suppressed due to the dosage which I administer daily. I have to be keenly aware of how I feel and give myself what is referred to as a “stress dose” otherwise I could go into shock. This is not thrilling to me to be dependent like this, but it is where I am in my healing journey. In a nutshell, I view this treatment as giving my adrenals a complete rest so that they can heal. If I had a broken leg, I’d have a cast and I look at this in the same way. I have mentioned this on occasion here on the blog, but I don’t talk about it a lot. At any rate, with this information, I’ll continue to tell you about my appointment.

    Thankfully, I had slept well the night before, and for the previous few nights. I think that made all the difference because I was not sleep deprived. My appointment was at 1pm. I drove over to the dentist’s office from work. It felt surreal. The sun was really bright and my stomach was churning a little because I felt anxious. I’d administered my regular noon dose of “10” HC, and I’d asked on the list I’m about stress dosing for dental appointments. I was told I may need an extra “5” before going into the appointment. Since I was feeling so nervous, I administered that dose.

    I also had a homeopathic remedy I was planning to use called Body Mend from a local holistic doctor. I took the recommended amount.

    When I got into the dentist’s office, I realized I was still quite nervous, so I gave myself another small dose of HC. It is so tricky trying to figure out how much my body needs, but I have gotten pretty confident in my ability to judge what I need. After the numbing gel was applied and the numbing medicine injected, I found myself in tears, not sure if I could make it through. The dental assistant was explaining the process and I felt so weepy. That was an indication that I needed more adrenal support. This time I decided to give myself a regular dose “10”. Within seconds I felt calm. I was relieved, because I knew once the dentist started working in my mouth I wasn’t going to have much control.

    Making Light of the Moment

    The dental assistant was showing me this contraption they were going to put into my mouth, which was going to protect all of my teeth except for the ones being worked on. It was blue and looked like a diaphragm. I mentioned that, and the woman giggled, agreeing that it did look like one. We both admitted we’d never used one, but know what they look like. Then she explained they would spread a chelation gel into the diaphragm, she then giggled again as we both thought about the similarities to the diaphragm. Then when I pulled out my earbuds and pulled them up under my shirt so they would not get in the dentist’s way, she pointed out that they looked like fallopian tubes. Heehee. By then I was starting to feel a lot more comfortable.

    The Procedure

    The first thing I had to do was rinse my mouth with a chelation rinse which was supposed to function as a way to hang onto any mercury that might somehow slip through the cracks of my protective dental dam.

    Since I was completely numb on the upper and lower left side of my mouth, it was a challenge to swish. I ended up dripping all over my paper bib. 🙂   She got me a clean one. Then the dental dam was stuffed into my mouth. Literally.

    Two things. First, it was really great to not have the pieces of mercury falling down into the back of my throat and getting stuck in my over-sized tonsils. Two… I tried not to think about the fact that I could not say anything because there was no way to talk with that contraption in my mouth.

    The dentist used floss to push the dental dam down into the spaces in between my teeth. The chelation gel was applied to the inside of the dental dam. I believe the dental assistant said the mercury dust sticks to it.

    I had my Kindle with me, and had planned to listen to the book I’m currently reading, but I hadn’t figured out how to turn up the volume and the sound of drilling in my head completely overwhelmed the sound of my Kindle reading to me.

    In addition to the dental dam, I was fitted with a pair of safety glasses, and another contraption was fitted snugly over my nose to protect me from the mercury dust and administer oxygen. There was a big hose looking thing that was loud and sucked the mercury dust into it while the dentist worked.

    The dentist and his assistant both wore industrial-type breathing apparatus to protect themselves from the mercury dust.

    The drilling was so loud in my head, but I felt nothing. Only the pressure of the drill. They removed the three amalgam fillings from the bottom first.

    That was when I remembered that I had wanted to have the negative/positive charge testing done. Oops. Too late. In Dr. Huggins’ book he talked about how he always does the charge testing because he’s had people end up in the emergency room with erratic heart beats after removal of amalgams in the wrong order. Well, at that point I could only dismiss the thought from my mind. I would have to be okay. Or I’d have to go to the ER. It would be okay, I told myself.

    After the bottom  fillings were gone they removed the dental dam and I had to do another chelation rinse. Again it was a challenge to swish and I ended up spewing the liquid onto my arm and floor. Embarrassing!

    Then another dental dam was installed into my mouth. More chelation gel. More pressing firmly with floss to secure the dental dam between my teeth.

    More drilling. You know the drill. During this time the dentist told me, “This tooth has a very large hole in it, young lady. Starlene. This tooth could blow up on you at any time.”

    Uh. Hmmm… thanks, doc. I couldn’t say a word. I just laid there, thinking about this. Wondering exactly what this meant.

    After the dental dam was removed, I had to do my final chelation rinse. This time I managed to keep the liquid in my mouth instead of all over myself or the floor.

    Now it was time for the dentist to replace my fillings. He had to do a tiny bit more drilling, to remove some decay that had been under the amalgam fillings. He told me 100% of the time there is decay under amalgams. I guess that makes since as they probably cannot see decay under the silver fillings in the x-rays.

    Then it was time to adjust my bite.

    I hate that part because it is hard to figure out sometimes. I told the dentist that there was too much filling blocking me from closing my mouth properly, but when he put that paper into the right side of my mouth I was able to hold onto it between my teeth so he called it done. It is still not right, so I will see how it goes in the next few days. Maybe it will wear down on its own. If not, I will be calling him to get it corrected.

    Finally we were done. I asked the dentist what he meant by saying my tooth was going to blow up. He said that I could begin having trouble with the tooth any time but he thought it would surely cause me trouble within two years. I asked him how to preempt the problem, and asked about having the tooth pulled. He said that was a solution.

    We also talked about my only crowned tooth which has a cavity under the gum line. At my last appointment with this dentist, he told me about the cavity and he told me I should go back to my traditional dentist and have him take care of it. So I did that. My traditional dentist told me there is no cavity.

    My dentist took some instrument and lightly poked the cavity which made me jump. He said, “That’s the cavity that I was talking about.” I told him I know something isn’t right because… and he said, “Your tooth has been talking to you?” That is exactly right. I have felt something going on, not pain, but a feeling that something is not right.

    That tooth also has to be repaired.

    But first, the other six need to be removed.

    I was kind of disoriented after the appointment was through. I asked the receptionist if I could write a check and she told me that I could, and I would receive a 5% discount! Awesome! I am so glad I was able to save the money to have this procedure done. I had trouble writing the check – it was like my brain was not functioning. I had to void two checks before I got it correct.

    After the Appointment

    After the appointment I took my dose of Body Mend, and I called the floatation spa. I bought a float there for $10 some time ago with Groupon and I thought it would be the perfect way to relax after the dental work. I had called the day before but they were booked solid. So I told them I would just try calling after my appointment to see if they had a cancellation.

    I was out of the dentist office in less than 2 hours, and when I called the floatation spa, they had had a cancellation and the appointment was available in one hour. That gave me enough time to drive there and I tried their oxygen bar.

    The float wasn’t as relaxing as my first float. I couldn’t completely relax, but I did almost fall asleep about four times because my body did that weird shaking where you jerk when you are almost falling to sleep.

    I finally got home and drank my Liposomal C. Later I found that my husband forgot to put it into the ultrasonic machine. Oops!

    Reaction to the Removal

    I have been being careful to not chew on that side, giving my mouth a chance to recover from the work done there.

    Right after the removal, I did seem to feel better. Lighter. I don’t know if it was my imagination.

    The first thing I noticed was I slept very peacefully that night. I usually wake up several times in the night with a panicked feeling. It is mostly about my job because there is too much work for one person to complete and I am always running behind, never able to get caught up. It makes me feel horrid but I don’t know what else to do but keep trying to get caught up.

    I have not had any detox reactions that I know of.

    I am glad to have the mercury out of my mouth.

    OH, I forgot one more thing that I will try to blog about in a few days. I had some blood work done, and my results came back looking pretty good. Better than last year around this same time. I wanted to get blood drawn before the amalgams were removed to see if my body will correct itself after the mercury is no longer swirling around in my body. Dr. Hal Huggins says that some people’s temperatures have become normal after their amalgams were removed.

    Thank you for reading through this extremely long post. I would love to hear from you in the comments if you have any questions, or if you have been through this yourself.

     

     

     

     

    GAPS DIET JOURNEY is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. GAPS DIET JOURNEY is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. Therefore, this post may contain affiliate links.