Help Solve the Pharma Mystery! page 7

[primal-jake]

I do fear that they'll test her for celiac and it will come back negative (which it does quite often), and then she'll figure it's not an issue and she can eat as much as she wants.

Wheatbelly said that 40% of the population carry a gene that makes us intolerant to wheat. Maybe you could test for the gene on yourself, and if you have it, it is likely your mom does too. It might be expensive, but it would be good information for yourself to know, and it might help convince your mom.

[RitaRose]

I would, but I don't think that would sway her anyway. I honestly think she doesn't want to know because there isn't a pill for it.

On the bright side, her gastroenterologist called yesterday and said he had found a bacterial infection in her stomach. He gave her a prescription (what's new...) and hopefully that will help some. But I think that's what she had a little more than 4 years ago, so I'm not as optimistic as she is. I'm pretending to be, though!

[RitaRose]

Seriously, I am totally kicking ass… in other people’s lives!

(Yes, my own is fine too - I’m holding steady at a little higher weight than I would like, about 12 or 15 pounds, but it’s pretty much what I was expecting for the next few months until the head injuries heal completely).

Anyway…

My mom had seen a bunch of doctors that had done almost nothing (though they all seemed to be pretty good at writing prescriptions - argh!), but despite all of that, she was finally diagnosed with multiple ulcers due to a recurrance of h.pylori, the same problem she had 4 or 5 years ago. She finally got that out of her system, and has been eating again, putting on a little weight that she needed, and exercising again.

She told me a few weeks ago that she had switched docs, and the new one showed some real promise.

I talked to her this morning and...I THINK I LOVE HER NEW DOCTOR!!! She saw him Friday, and he had the results of all of the tests he had ordered. Everything was good, so he took her off of EVERYTHING! No statins, no blood pressure meds, no ANYTHING!

The only thing he had an issue with was her bone density, so he wanted her to take a calcium supplement. Okay, one little “argh!” for that. She has trouble taking large pills, so she wasn’t thrilled with it anyway. I told her that eating grains blocks a lot of calcium absorption, so cutting those out would help a lot and keep the supplement from getting into her arteries. Plus, calcium from natural sources like milk, cheese and greens is absorbed better than calcium from supplements anyway. So she would be better off not taking the pills, ditching the grains and adding greens and milk. She can even get raw milk where she lives - I’m totally jealous - along with insanely good quality meat. She has family farms all around her.

I told her that I knew Primal Body, Primal Mind was a bit much for someone new to all of this, so I would be sending her Practical Paleo, so I hoped she wouldn’t be mad at me for harassing her. She said that was fine, that she knew I only sent her books because I was trying to fix her up and keep her healthy.

All in all, a pretty awesome day!

[KerryK]

Wow, awesome is the right word! I can't believe she's now off all meds! This is really exciting for you (and your Mom!)