Sunday, August 15, 2010
A Little About Me
My name is Kathi and my husband and I live in the heart of West Virginia. My husband is the pastor of a small Presbyterian church located in a mining community. I am a mother of three rowdy boys and love to read and spend time with my family. While keeping my house running I also home school our boys and run my own book business through Usborne Books and More, a fantastic children's book company. I wanted to start this blog to record my journey to better health and to provide a resource to those who may have struggled as I have, with health issues that didn't seem to have any answers. I hope you will find this blog a blessing and a help.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
My Gluten-Free Journey Part 1
My gluten-free journey began in February 2010 after struggling for more than 20 years with many health issues. I had been a relatively healthy kid, until 1988, when I went on a mission trip to Indonesia. While there, I managed to pick up a parasite that wasn't diagnosed until a year later. As a result of this friendly invader I developed IBS, which made for an interesting first year of college.
Four years later I spent two years in Peru as a missionary teacher. I spent the first year struggling with lots of intestinal issues that, thankfully calmed down the following year. Fast forward three years, marriage and two children later, I turned 30 and I had a difficult time getting a handle on my health problems. My IBS seemed to get worse and I struggled from time to time with anemia and fatigue, more than seemed normal for a young mother. Two years later I got pregnant with baby number three and all was well until the last month of pregnancy. Anemia became a big problem and no amount of iron pills seemed to help. I delivered this heafty fella by C-section and took several months to regain my strength.
Two years later, in November 2004, I had my gallbladder removed with hopes that it would resolve some of my problems. Not only was recovery from this surgery slow and challenging but it seemed that my IBS only got worse. My doctor started me on Bentyl to keep the spasms and pain tolerable.
Well, we were a happy family but decided that we'd give it one more try to have another baby. The following October I became pregnant but I knew instantly that this pregnancy was nothing like my other three. I couldn't eat or drink anything without feeling awful, my body felt tingly and my IBS became uncontrollable, bloating and gas was awful, I had chills all the time, I developed several UTI's, and just getting up each day was a chore. Seven weeks later, I experienced my first miscarriage and my strange symptoms vanished. I felt guilty, not only for losing this precious life, but for the relief I felt at feeling so much better.
Two years later we moved to West Virginia from South Carolina, and much to our joy I was able to conceive again. Unfortunately, all of my weird symptoms returned. I kept thinking my pregnancies were like this because I was getting older and my body was changing. I carried my baby boy for 17 weeks until I went in for a routine check up and they couldn't find a heartbeat. This miscarriage was even more difficult for our family, since I was further along and we had just recently told our boys we would have a new family member.
Later that year I had two more miscarriages. The final one landed me in the ER with excessive bleeding, so they had to give me a blood transfusion. As soon as they started the line, my heart started racing, my blood pressure shot up, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Everyone thought I was merely upset and nervous so they gave me Benadryl and continued the transfusion. After this final miscarriage my OB/Gyn finally did some bloodwork and discovered that I had one indicator of MTHFR factor, a bleeding problem that didn't allow my pregnancies to go to term. Thankfully I had been able to carry my other three to term without this being an issue but it looked like this had kicked into gear and that if I ever did get pregnant again I would have to use blood thinning shots.
So, two years later we made another move after my husband became pastor of our current church. Everything was going well. I still had problems with IBS from time to time but nothing that couldn't be controlled. Then, my monthly cycle started changing and I kept getting sick. In August 2009, while on a long weekend trip to see family, I lost the hearing in my right ear. It turned out that no one had any answers as to why this happened. There had been no trauma, although I had been ill earlier that week, so my ENT guessed that a virus was the cause.
Four years later I spent two years in Peru as a missionary teacher. I spent the first year struggling with lots of intestinal issues that, thankfully calmed down the following year. Fast forward three years, marriage and two children later, I turned 30 and I had a difficult time getting a handle on my health problems. My IBS seemed to get worse and I struggled from time to time with anemia and fatigue, more than seemed normal for a young mother. Two years later I got pregnant with baby number three and all was well until the last month of pregnancy. Anemia became a big problem and no amount of iron pills seemed to help. I delivered this heafty fella by C-section and took several months to regain my strength.
Two years later, in November 2004, I had my gallbladder removed with hopes that it would resolve some of my problems. Not only was recovery from this surgery slow and challenging but it seemed that my IBS only got worse. My doctor started me on Bentyl to keep the spasms and pain tolerable.
Well, we were a happy family but decided that we'd give it one more try to have another baby. The following October I became pregnant but I knew instantly that this pregnancy was nothing like my other three. I couldn't eat or drink anything without feeling awful, my body felt tingly and my IBS became uncontrollable, bloating and gas was awful, I had chills all the time, I developed several UTI's, and just getting up each day was a chore. Seven weeks later, I experienced my first miscarriage and my strange symptoms vanished. I felt guilty, not only for losing this precious life, but for the relief I felt at feeling so much better.
Two years later we moved to West Virginia from South Carolina, and much to our joy I was able to conceive again. Unfortunately, all of my weird symptoms returned. I kept thinking my pregnancies were like this because I was getting older and my body was changing. I carried my baby boy for 17 weeks until I went in for a routine check up and they couldn't find a heartbeat. This miscarriage was even more difficult for our family, since I was further along and we had just recently told our boys we would have a new family member.
Later that year I had two more miscarriages. The final one landed me in the ER with excessive bleeding, so they had to give me a blood transfusion. As soon as they started the line, my heart started racing, my blood pressure shot up, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Everyone thought I was merely upset and nervous so they gave me Benadryl and continued the transfusion. After this final miscarriage my OB/Gyn finally did some bloodwork and discovered that I had one indicator of MTHFR factor, a bleeding problem that didn't allow my pregnancies to go to term. Thankfully I had been able to carry my other three to term without this being an issue but it looked like this had kicked into gear and that if I ever did get pregnant again I would have to use blood thinning shots.
So, two years later we made another move after my husband became pastor of our current church. Everything was going well. I still had problems with IBS from time to time but nothing that couldn't be controlled. Then, my monthly cycle started changing and I kept getting sick. In August 2009, while on a long weekend trip to see family, I lost the hearing in my right ear. It turned out that no one had any answers as to why this happened. There had been no trauma, although I had been ill earlier that week, so my ENT guessed that a virus was the cause.
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