My mother birthed me at the age of 42. When she was a child they doused her with antibiotics continually for ten years in order to prevent a recurrence of Scarlet Fever. That was how they handled it back then, because if it came back, the person died. This was before there was any notion of Candida or any of the negative effects of taking antibiotics.
My mother never ate much fermented food, or took extensive probiotics.
She has suffered from Candida her entire life. A baby gets there healthy intestinal flora from their mother. Because my mother didn't have very balanced flora, I was born without one.
I ended up taking antibiotics as just a newborn to boot, because I had rheumatic fever.
At the age of three or four I bit a glass thermometer and got a nasty dose of mercury poisoning. I had to have the glass picked from my teeth and the mercury pumped from my stomach. That incident could have easily been fatal.
With that rough sketch of a background, the statistics of my life are as follows.
Note that these changes that occur are with a consistent sedentary lifestyle. I did not become more active until the age of 21 when being active stopped being painful.
Under the age of 21:
Habitual canker sores of the mouth, starting before I can remember (irritated by sugar and acid)
Bleeding gums, every time I brushed, and sometimes while eating
No endurance, couldn't walk a mile without severe stitches in the side, gas pains, feet aches, etc
Extremely flaky scalp
Burning lungs whenever I attempted to run, preventing me from running more than a few steps
At least one ear infection for every two years in my life
Extreme sensitivity to cigarette smoke, incense and other smokes, often causing migraines
Extreme sensitivity to heat. Anything over 80 degrees was unbearable and immobilizing.
Under the age of 17:
Strep throat 1 to 4 times a year
Absolutely no energy, no interest in gym, recess, sports, or being outside
Habitual painful constipation, especially under the age of 9 and from age 14 to 16.
Extremely itchy legs when standing in one place due to poor circulation.
Continual urge to "pop" my knuckles (also known as "cracking" one's knuckles)
Continual urge to rotate my ankles until they "popped"
Woke up with a sore throat 1 out of 4 days in the year
Woke up with random fevers that doctors were mystified about regularly
Ages 9 to 17:
Constant depression, habitual suicidal thoughts and activities
Habitual stye around the eye
Frequent breakouts, almost constant acne
Hormonal problems (beyond what is normal for this age)
Violent thoughts and actions
Mood swings, and patches of complete apathy
Extremely sore and knotted back, constantly stiff and aching (Age 9 to 21)
Severe Candida and all Candida symptoms, including raging yeast infections 1 to 5 times yearly
Frequently bloated, especially from age 15 to 17. My entire abdominal area would ache, burn and gurgle for days at a time.
Frequent muscle cramps. If I got them in my legs I couldn't walk.
Inability to fall asleep, often awake at 3am despite going to bed at 9pm.
Extreme food cravings, especially from age 10 to 16. I especially craved dairy, meats, sweets, salt and breads.
Frequent bouts of dizziness, inability to balance, concentrate or breath evenly
Anxiety attacks
Continual burping starting abruptly at age 16. Took me a full year to rid myself of them.
Severe immobilizing stomach aches, especially from age 15 to 17
Migraine headaches, 8 to 40 a year during this age bracket
Lock-jaw (inability to open my mouth fully), started at age 14 and got worse through age 16
Severe PMS, menstrual cramps and heavy-flow periods
Periodic chest pains that have never been explained
Abominable memory
Age 17 to 20:
Mild Candida symptoms
Frequent mild bloating, sometimes severe and painful bloating
Often I would take 2 hours to fall asleep.
Age 21 and 22:
Occasional mild anxiety (perhaps twice a month).
Occasional mild sleeping difficulty (takes me 5 to 45 minutes to fall asleep usually).
Rare mild headache (once a month perhaps, lasting for around 15 minutes).
Occasional skin irregularities, usually following excessive sweating, stress or eating of desserts.
My weight:
120lbs at age 12,
130lbs at age 13,
140lbs at age 15,
153lbs at age 16,
123lbs at age 17 (with hardly any muscle and much fat),
128lbs at age 20 (with hardly any muscle and much fat),
123lbs at age 22 (with much more muscle and less fat than at age 17 or 20)
My diet as a toddler:
Mustard on white bread with a slice of American's singles cheese
Yogurt
Oatmeal
Lima beans (cooked for over an hour and slathered in butter)
White-skinned conventional potatoes, without skins (cooked for over an hour and slathered in butter)
Dumplings
Hard-boiled eggs
My diet from age 5 through age 9:
French Fries (especially from Burger King)
Lima beans (cooked for an hour and slathered in butter)
French Fries (especially from Wendy's)
Pizza
French Fries (baked at home in the oven with olive oil)
Steak Fries (deep fried on the stove in olive oil)
Steak (slathered in A1 sauce)
Baked Potatoes (Filled with butter)
Curly Fries
Various sweetened yogurts (including Cream Savors)
Sunny-side up eggs with bread to dip in the yoke
French Fries (from McDonalds)
Beef
Hamburgers on white buns with mustard, onion and a slice of conventional tomato
Cheerios (plain or honey-coated with whole milk)
Shredded Wheat (plain or frosted, often mixed with whole milk)
French Fries (with lots and lots of salt!)
My diet from age 9 through age 16:
Fast food, especially french fries and Chinese food
Ramon noodles with chicken flavoring
Pizza with cheese and pepperoni
Buttered noodles, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese
Granola, grain-based cereals, swimming in conventional whole cow's milk
White rice
Toast with peanut-butter
Boiled chicken, fried chicken, home-made, family-made and KFC
Potato chips of all kinds, generally one bag a day
Store-bought juice of many kinds
Popcorn soaked in seasoned butter, home-popped (rarely microwaved)
Frozen microwave dinners on occasion
Tater-tots, hashbrowns, fishsticks, 'sweet and sour chicken' and other tan-colored 'foods'
Occasional apple, orange or kiwi (like once a week)
My diet from age 17 to age 20 (that I went on after much research and reading):
Organic long-grain brown rice cooked in vegetable broth (daily)
Organic corn chips and organic potato chips (without trans fats or added sugars, daily)
Iceburg lettuce with cherry tomatoes, home-made croutons, and home-made vinaigrette (3 times a week)
Rice crisps and rice cakes (unsweetened snacks made from plain brown rice)
Grapefruits (plain, usually eaten one half at a time), watermelon, and berries (each weekly-ish)
Bell peppers (plain, eaten in small slices throughout the day)
Apples (one or two a day)
Kiwis (several a week)
Rice milk over unsweetened granola (4 to 7 times a week)
Boiled organic red-skin potatoes eaten with the skin, eaten with butter (3 to 6 times weekly)
Boiled carrots and onions cooked with the potatoes, eaten with butter (1 to 3 times weekly)
(Vegan diet with the exception of butter.)
My diet starting at age 21:
Banana smoothies (banana + water + other fruit + powders/superfoods/spices)
Dehydrated vegetable and seed crackers (dehydrated at 110 degrees or less)
Spinach, lettuce, avocado, tomato, bell pepper, etc, salads
Nori wraps containing the above salad ingredients and more
Sprouts, fresh home-made vegetable and fruit juices
Desserts that are not-cooked/baked, but made from dried/fresh fruits, nuts and seeds
Occasional nut-milks
Home-made guacamole, salsa, chard-wraps, raw vegan pizza (made in the dehydrator)
Raw kelp noodles, seaweeds, organic seasonings
Notice the correlation between the changes in my diet and changes in my life experience. The two major changes were at age 17 and age 21. To get started eating the type of food that freed me from a lifetime of misery, check out my recipes here.
And because photos speak thousands of words... The follow photo stream starts at age 14 and goes through age 22. Notice the changes in my weight, skin, demeanor, facial expressions, hair, scenery choices, and in my eyes.
Raederle Phoenix, born 1989
Written September 1st 2011
Write me with a question: raederle at gmx dot com
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