3 lessons that helped me go from debilitating pain to happy and healthy

I was a new mama. My husband and I were on vacation with our friends and my daughter, who was just 6 months old. I woke up in the middle of the night with what felt like waves of menstrual cramps. Ugh. Then the waves got stronger. And stronger. Next thing I know, I’m screaming on the floor and my husband and our friends are calling 911. I hear my husband telling me the ambulance is on its way. Just six months after I’d produced a tiny human, my body still healing, and I had no idea what to think. But I was in pain, and I was scared.

Dealing with a vague diagnosis

When the medics arrived I heard my husband explaining to them “this is a woman who gave birth without pain medication. For her to be in this kind of pain, it’s got to be bad.” We left my baby girl with our friends and sped off. I remember laying in the back of the ambulance answering questions. We arrived at the ER at 2AM, cycled through a bunch of tests, and came back home at 5AM with very little information. 

The next day I started my research. I scoured the internet, talked to friends, and went to see my doctor. And then another doctor, a specialist. More tests. The answer was “probably something gallbladder related but we can’t see anything for sure” and the recommendation was to get my gallbladder removed. That felt like a pretty big step for something they weren’t sure about! I called more doctors to get more opinions. More test recommendations, and if I wasn’t going to get my gallbladder removed, I should follow the traditional low-fat gallbladder diet. Still breastfeeding around the clock and already below my pre-pregnancy weight, a low-fat diet didn’t really sound like a healthy approach either.

Finally I met with a doctor who’s line of thinking seemed reasonable. He looked at all my tests, said they wanted to remove what could be a perfectly good organ, and instead we could keep an eye on it. Ok… so what next?

Taking the nontraditional path 

Sure I would keep an eye on it, but I also wanted to get ahead of it.

Before you keep reading, I want to emphasize I am NOT a doctor, I am only able to comment on my personal experience and the journey I went on to try and find a solution. Good? Read on. 

I love western medicine. I grew up with a primary care physician for a father and a physician’s assistant for a stepmother. I get my kids vaccinated, I call my doctor when something’s wrong, and I stay up-to-date on my annual exams (yay). But in this case my gut was saying this was about food and nutrition, not about something physiologically wrong with an organ. I had found a couple of studies (solid meta-analysis here) showing that high fat diets in people undergoing weight loss could actually prevent gallstones. Being postpartum and breastfeeding, I was definitely in the weight-loss category even if I wasn’t dieting. Also, fat is what gets the gallbladder going – I’m skipping over the technical stuff but if it interests you, click here. So, if I stop eating fat, wouldn’t the stuff in my gallbladder just keep building up and causing more problems*?

So: given my gut, research, and logic, I started to work with a nutritionist. We cut out empty, processed carbs, most sugars, and increased my intake of veggies, high quality meat, healthy fats, and whole grains. “As close to nature as possible” was her recommendation. No pasta, no deli sandwiches. Lots of fish, avocados, salads, grass-fed meat, whole milk, kefir yogurt, quinoa, eggs… if I needed a quick, on-the-go meal, grocery story sushi was probably the most processed thing I ate. I started reading the labels of EVERYTHING I bought. The result?

 Almost three years later, ZERO issues.

The three lessons I took away from this experience

1. Trust yourself, ask questions, and experiment.

If I had taken the first opinion a doctor gave me, I would be down one perfectly good organ today. Instead, I did tons of my own research, got lots of opinions, and ultimately decided to run an experiment myself before doing something that couldn’t be undone. It took time, energy, and patience: three things that can be hard to come by as a mama, especially to a teensy-tiny baby. But I trusted myself. I challenged the traditional way of thinking and found a way to test – and prove – what I believed.  

2. Healthy eating really is a key to being healthy.

This is going to be the topic of future posts, so we’ll leave it at that.

And here’s the big one…

3. Knowing isn’t doing, doing is doing.

I grew up working in a health food store with my mom. Healthy eating was literally imprinted on me since I was six. I did tons of research into healthy eating for pregnancy. I could have written a book on nutrition! Just about everything my nutritionist told me wasn’t new information. But I wasn’t living what I knew. Sure, I would eat greens and buy organic berries, but then I would also gorge myself on junk food (hello, Velveeta cheese dip). Pasta was a good friend. I would grab a sandwich from a deli on fluffy white bread or a sub roll because my life was busy, and it was easy. I justified it by saying it was all about balance. And it is about balance, but I was kidding myself about where the balance was. I used to say that I was lucky that I had a fast metabolism, because it was really easy for me to look good no matter what I ate, and whether or not I exercised. I’m not so sure that’s lucky. I could rock an Instagram picture, but I wasn’t healthy. I wasn’t being good to myself, and this was the consequence.

So what?

Now I’ve made nutrition a habit. Was it quick and easy? No. I had a serious head start given my upbringing, and it was still very hard. Was it worth it? Yes! I feel better, I have more energy, and I know I’m healthy. I wish it didn’t take something scary to really motivate me. I’m sharing this story for any mamas who have something they know but they’re not doing it, in the hopes that this might inspire you to get ahead of it. If you’re struggling with diet and nutrition, I’ll write more about the what/when/how of this journey. If you’re struggling with something else, I’d love to hear your story, too.

*Important note for people reading this because they are experiencing gallbladder attacks: I didn’t have visible gallstones, so I wasn’t worried about passing a gallstone by increasing gallbladder activity. This may not be the best solution for everyone, and I would recommend you also do a lot of googling, research, and calling doctors to follow your own gut.