Full Transcript. Episode 13
Michelle: Hey, guys. My name is Lindsey. And you’re listening to nurse verse
Michelle: Hey, everyone. My name is Michelle.
Lindsay: And I’m Lindsey. And you’re listening to nurse verse.
Michelle: Hey, guys.
Today we are talking about Lindsey’s health journey thus far
So today we’re gonna try something a little bit different. We are gonna be talking about Lindsey’s health journey thus far.
Lindsay: Yeah, let’s take a journey together.
Michelle: Yeah. So Lindsay’s had a very unique health history growing up as a kid and has had these allergies kind of develop over time. And, they might be unique, but also common for a good portion of the population. I know a lot of people are developing allergies as they get older and occurring other ailments and finding themselves going to the doctor and the doctor not knowing what it is and just kind of giving you a I, ah, guess you’ll have to deal with it. This is just, you know, your life now kind of prognosis. So we want to discuss Lindsay’s health journey, because we are going out of our ways to try all different types of diets and lifestyle changes and different things to figure out one. What was the first domino that originally caused all of her, strange ailments, and how can we reverse it? Because, she was once without all of these things, and they developed over time. So we have a firm belief that she can get back to that level of equilibrium, and that’s the goal with her health journey. and so today we want to talk about. We just want to do, like, a little introduction to her health history. I’m going to ask her a bunch of questions, and then, we’ll discuss all of the things that have worked, haven’t worked, and what we have planned for the future here.
Why don’t you first discuss how, like, your overall health history began
Why don’t you first discuss how, like, your overall health history as a child, if you don’t mind, in chronological order.
Lindsay: Okay, I’ll do my best. Because memory is not a strong state of mind anymore. It once was. So, from what I can recollect. Here we go. As a kid, I was a pretty normal kid. Ate cereal, you know, went to McDonald’s after a doctor’s appointment as a treat.
Michelle: Grew up in the nineties.
Lindsay: Grew up in the nineties. I didn’t have any. Had, ah, no food allergies when I was little. Not that I could remember. But, to do a brief overall health history, let’s journey back. I, had chicken pox at the age of five.
Michelle: Normal, normal occurrence.
Lindsay: I had frequent sore throats and strep, starting. Starting when I was probably around, like, seven, eight, because then I got my tonsils out when I was nine, I think between ten and 20 I developed a banana allergy at the age of 14, and then I had randomly. I had shingles when I was 14 as well. And do you remember which one came.
Michelle: First, the banana allergy or the shingles?
Lindsay: all I remember is being in biology when I got my banana allergy first. I ate a banana in biology, and I was like.
Michelle: That was the last one.
Lindsay: No, I did not stop there. I did try and error. I tried many a banana. I’m like, maybe it’s that one banana. No, maybe it was that day. No, that week. No, that month. I really tried because I really liked bananas.
Michelle: Yeah. Yeah.
Lindsay: And I think I also had mono in junior high or high school.
Michelle: That’s early.
Lindsay: Yeah. Everybody was getting mono.
Michelle: Wow.
Lindsay: Everybody.
Michelle: Wow.
Lindsay: Yeah. If you didn’t have mono, you weren’t cool.
Michelle: Yeah. That means you were not making out with anybody.
Lindsay: But I didn’t. I don’t know how I got it. Must have shared a soda or chapstick with somebody. Yeah, exactly. And then I think I was. I just put on birth control when I was, like, 19. and then between 20 and 30, I developed a gluten allergy, which stemmed from a chronic stomach ache similar to the banana. What happens when I eat bananas? there’s nothing you could do but sit in fetal position and cry. the gluten allergy kind of made me feel like I was going through menopause, like, what I imagined menopause would feel like. I had hot flashes, I was nauseous, I was clammy all over. That was the whole reason how I discovered that I had a gluten allergy was I was living on malto meal for, like, three months.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: Went to the doctor and they said, try eliminating gluten from your diet and come back in two weeks if that doesn’t work. And I did not go back. and then I stopped taking, like, birth control between 20 and 30, and that helped a lot.
Michelle: you started that at 19 and then stopped in your mid twenties.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Michelle: Okay.
Lindsay: Stopped in my mid to late twenties, and then that helped a lot.
Michelle: With what?
Lindsay: With, like, my moods and stuff and. Yeah, I had, like, crazy mood swings and headaches all the time and was just feeling not in my body, not myself, and went crazy and was a little over emotional and stuff like that. Yeah.
Michelle: You’d be pumped with hormones.
Lindsay: Yeah. And then, I think it was in high school when I started getting raynauds, where you lose circulation in your hands and feet. And I grew up in California, so it wasn’t very cold, so it just came on randomly. It’s called a phenomenon. Between, like, 30 and 36, I would get my, gluten allergy kind of changed a bit. It went from the menopause symptoms to getting hives all up and down my legs.
Michelle: Yeah. And also in between there you found gluten cutter. So you weren’t eating gluten for a while and then found the gluten cutter pills.
Lindsay: Yes. Actually, you helped me find those in DC so I could eat an ice cream cone.
Michelle: Well, because I looked at it as. Okay, is this, something that your body is unable to break down, like, lactose intolerance? And there’s lactate pills that you can take for that. So there were ones for gluten. I was curious if that would have the same effect where you could still have the food. And it’s now you’re. You’re consuming with a supplement, the enzyme that’s going to help you break down that gluten. And it did work for a while.
Lindsay: It worked for, like, a year and a half.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: I had amazing gluten filled foods.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: And then I could. That I obviously took pictures of and I could look back at.
Michelle: Yeah.
Food allergies can cause severe pain and inflammation in the body
Lindsay: Like, remember I could eat that.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Michelle: But definitely made the allergy worse.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Michelle: In the long run.
Lindsay: And then I also developed a quinoa allergy where, like, my, lips start to peel from the inside out and kind of do a Kylie Jenner thing. Like, they’re all swollen and it’s just not cute.
Michelle: Yeah. And you get that with random food sometimes, too, where it’s like, the outside of your lip is swollen. It almost, like, looks like you have some lip liner on, but it’s really.
Lindsay: Swallowed in geo edema.
Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. Randomly.
Lindsay: Randomly.
Michelle: I feel like it was with spicy foods, too.
Lindsay: Yeah. Or particularly hot foods.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: Maybe not so spicy. But one time I had a really bad, like, I don’t even know what happened, but I was at work. I had eaten lunch on an empty stomach, and I started not being able to breathe and talk, and I had back pain and chest pain. And, it was crazy. I went to the ER, got the million dollar workup, and it turned out just to be gerd. Yeah. That happened.
Michelle: Yep.
Lindsay: Yeah, I went through it.
Michelle: Yeah. But it was real. The pain was real. I’ve never seen you that pale and diaphoretic. And it was real, real pain. But it goes to show, too, like, that food allergies are no joke and really can create excruciating levels of pain and inflammation in the body. And those things can set off a domino effect of other issues.
Lindsey has a mild food allergy that causes hives sometimes
And I think because you have a lot of unique ailments, like Raynauds, is autoimmune for you up until now, basically, what are all the things that you’ve tried to remedy, these ailments and what’s worked and what hasn’t worked?
Lindsay: avoiding bananas completely at all times.
Michelle: Just cutting these foods out.
Lindsay: Just. Yeah, eliminating bananas from everything. When I worked at Trader Joe’s, I tried so hard to hold my breath when I’d have to stack them and unbox them until finally I was there long enough. I went to the manager, and I was like, please, can I not be put with the bananas? I have an allergy, and they’re like, lindsey, why don’t you ask us sooner? I’m like, I didn’t want you guys to fire me, seriously. But obviously, they wouldn’t do that. Sure.
Michelle: That didn’t help.
Lindsay: But, let’s see what else. I have stayed away from Quinoa completely. I don’t really eat gluten. I try to ask, like, when we go to restaurants and stuff, I announce, or you announce for me, that I have a gluten allergy.
Michelle: So.
Lindsay: A lot of times, it’s easy to avoid. Other times when I forget it’s. It’s in. It’s present in the food, and I suffer. But, yeah, it’s only. It’s only mild. It’s just hives.
Michelle: Yeah. But I have a whole new level of empathy for anybody that has food allergies, because it is so difficult to go out to eat and to just, like, live a normal life. And. And it’s always like, you feel like you’re such. Like, you get mad sometimes when I, like, am, obnoxious with the server about the m allergy.
Lindsay: But I just get embarrassed, and I’m like, yeah.
Michelle: Cause you feel like you’re inconveniencing them. But this is, like, a medical thing. This is not a. Like, I’m not eating it. Cause I’m on a diet. No, like, lifestyle. Yeah. Like, I’ll break out in hives. I will be in a lot of pain. I’ll be uncomfortable for a long period of time. Could you please go out of your way? Since I’m going out of my way to come to this restaurant to eat, to just ensure that there is nothing that contains gluten in that meal. and I think people are so much better with it.
Lindsay: They’re way better.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: Nowadays, and the food tastes so much better. Everything tastes like cardboard.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: Back in the day.
Michelle: Exactly. Yeah. So, but it is no joke. It is no joke. And I think this is just my personal opinion, but I feel that anybody depending, on how your food allergies developed, I feel the fact that this was a slow, like, accumulation of things over time for you, which leads me to feel or believe that this is an accumulation of inflammation and toxins in your body over time that are now manifesting in all of these different ailments because your body is getting overloaded. Like you’re, you’re not able to keep up with excreting or removing the toxins from your body as fast as they’re coming in or something is impeding you. Impeding your body or stopping your body from being able to manage or handle those toxins, or levels of inflammation, because our bodies are so incredibly good at it. Like, we, we can consume toxins and we can excrete them, but, you know, only it’s so much at a time. It’s like our bodies can only do so much and same thing with inflammation. So that’s just what it seems like, because the only, it seems like the only thing that’s worked, other than the temporary fix of the gluten cutter, the only thing that’s worked is completely cutting things out.
Lindsay: It’s just wiping it out.
Michelle: Yeah. And that’s the only time you really feel relief.
Lindsay: Yes. But then, but, as some, ah, of you guys know, we did the free diet and.
Michelle: Yeah, well, we’ve done so many and we’ve done different diets.
Lindsay: We did whole 30. We did eating only lentils and something.
Michelle: Else, doing like, different types of cleanses.
Lindsay: Some sort of cleanse.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: But, it’s like, it’s so hard to stick to any diet because you’re put in a box with what you can eat, what you can’t eat, what’s available. When you go out with friends or go over to a family member’s house, it’s very hard.
Michelle: Yeah, it is a huge challenge, especially if you travel. This is, I think, one of the most difficult places for people with any type of food related ailment, allergy, anything. The airport is the worst place to eat in the world.
Lindsay: The absolute worst. There’s nothing for you. There’s gluten intolerant people to eat. But, like, I don’t even know if the fries are gluten free.
Michelle: Yeah, no, there’s just everything is. It’s. If it’s not gluten free, it’s contaminated with some other type of oil or chemical that also is going to cause, like, an equal amount of inflammatory reaction for you. It’s like it, To me, it feels like your system is sensitive because it’s overloaded. It’s overloaded with inflammation or toxins or whatever it might be that we’re trying to figure out right now. And so it’s like any little thing. It’s almost like the straw that broke the camel’s back. But anyways, yeah, every time I travel, I’m always, like, just curious, like, if somebody had these allergies, like, it’s very, very hard to find anything. And then if you do find a salad, you’re very questionable of the lettuce. Like, do I want to give myself E. Coli so I can eat, or should I just starve to death? And if you have a long day of travel, it’s so messed up.
Lindsay: And, like, you could only get by with bars for so long.
Michelle: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Lindsay: So your stomach’s like, ouch and ew.
Michelle: Yeah, 100%.
Lindsey’s grandmother does not make exceptions to her cooking for anyone
And then, like you said, then, you know, if we’re traveling and visiting, then it is an ordeal to have to coordinate what you’re going to eat and make sure that there are options for you.
Lindsay: and then even I, like, when I first started, like, dating you and all that, like, going over to your family’s house and them having to cook different pasta for me.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: Like, they had just met me, and they have to cook different for me. Like, I felt like I was putting them out.
Michelle: No, but my grandmother’s very, My grandmother does not make exceptions to her cooking for anyone except for Lindsey. And she always. Yeah. And she’s always, if my grandmother would say, like, if it’s your choice, then she’d be like, oh, forget it. I’m not going to cook six meals just because you don’t want to eat this. No, you’re going to eat what I make, or you’re not going to eat it. Versus for Lindsay, she understands this is not a choice. Like, Lindsey would love to eat her pasta and her bread and everything that she makes that has gluten in it, but it’s just not an option. And so because she is somebody that loves food and understands how important food is in our lives, practically an italian now. She wants to ensure that you still feel that same experience that everybody else at the table gets to experience, because, that’s one thing Italians do well, is we make sure everybody’s fed and happy.
Lindsay: Yeah, I’m grateful with their food. Grateful for Nana, and your parents for always, like, welcoming me with open arms and also with a gluten free option.
Michelle: So just to put that out there, anybody, like, just have some empathy for anybody that, you know, friends or family that have, like, food allergy related issues. It’s not easy.
Lindsay: and I can’t imagine ever having a peanut allergy, so, like, my heart goes out to anybody with a peanut allergy. Best friend Allie has that.
Michelle: yeah, yeah, it’s stressful, managing. Just, like, just always worrying about, oh, my gosh, what if there’s something in this food? Like, I kind of, like, I see it now. But with this health journey, we are hopeful that we will find some things other than just cutting stuff out of the diethouse. Like, the goal is that we want to be able to, like, pick up those dominoes, figure out where her inflammation or where this is all coming from, to bring her back to equilibrium. So that. Not to say that we’re just going to go. We’re getting you back to the point where you can eat gluten again, and we’re just going to go on a binge and have donuts and baked goods every single day. Like, that’s not the goal, but that’s not the goal. The goal is so that, like, you can get at least closer to equilibrium so that you’re not going to have such a severe reaction to these foods that, like, 90, 80% to 90% of the time, you’re going to be still maintaining that diet that works best for you and you feel the best on, which we are actively working on figuring out what exactly that diet looks like, but giving you that freedom and flexibility so you don’t have to be so stressed when you go out to restaurants and that, you know, have to have such severe reactions all the time.
Lindsay: Yeah. So what’s up next is getting a bunch of lab work done.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: And finding out what are the markers that I have that are causing these reactions. Yeah, yeah, they’re extensive, labs.
Michelle: Extensive.
Lindsay: Yeah. I’m going to a natural medicine doctor. Functional, functional medicine doctor.
Michelle: Yeah. So he’s going to be doing tons of. He is the author of the book the Free Diet. And so we did the free diethyde. And it’s basically, an exclusionary diet. You cut out so much, you are able to eat, like, in the first phase, which is the first 28 to 30 days, it’s very minimal what you’re actually allowed to eat. And the whole point of it is, like, cutting out anything that could possibly cause inflammation. Absolutely anything that could cause inflammation. And the whole point is that, and I think we’re guilty of this at time, at times in other diets, is that you really have to be committed for 28 days. Like, we’ve done other diets and we weren’t fully committed. Like, we maybe cheated here and there and then. I don’t think that that did that diet or that food change justice because we didn’t really give it a chance. And I think anybody that doesn’t fully commit when you are really dealing with something serious, like serious ailments like this, not like just trying to lose weight, you have to go all in to do that diet justice or to do that change justice to make sure, like, it, it really didn’t work. Like, I hear all the time, people are like, I tried everything, and then, I’m like, well, did you, did you really stay committed for like the full 30 days or two months or three months, whatever it is? And they’re like, well, I did this and this and this. I’m like, all right, well, then you can’t say that that didn’t work because you didn’t, like, follow through all the way. but I’m talking more so in regards to when you are trying to resolve an ailment, whether it’s a hormone imbalance or insulin insensitivity or abnormal blood sugar levels or food allergies and things like that, I’m not talking about just like trying to lose weight. This is more using food as medicine to help the body heal. That’s the whole, point of these and I think is the whole point, too, of the free diet, is what he’s trying to do, is use food as medicine. Those 1st 28 days, you’re reducing that inflammation or trying to reduce the inflammatory response in the body to give the body the time it needs to heal on its own. But if you keep cheating or like, breaking it, you never give your body that rest. You never give your gut that rest. And that ability to, like, reset itself.
Lindsay: Pretty much the only thing that’s helped. Yeah, just changing. M changing, our diet.
Michelle: Yeah. And I think once you. Once you can do it long enough, too, and you actually start to feel better, when you start to go back into your old habits, you feel terrible and then you all of a sudden, like, don’t want that anymore. Like, at least for me, I was traveling a bunch and I had to eat in airports and restaurants all the time. And I had a, like, just constant stomach ache. It was off. Like, I didn’t, I didn’t want to eat out. I didn’t want to eat at the airport. Like, I didn’t want any of these foods. Like, I wanted our, like, boring home cooked meals. They’re not boring, though, I think. I don’t. For some people, they’re probably boring, but for us, they’re not boring.
Lindsay: No, they’re not boring. We did delicious. Yeah, you have nailed it.
Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. But, like. And then when you feel better, you want to eat that. You crave that because you crave not having a stomach ache.
Lindsay: Yeah. And not feeling bad.
Michelle: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lindsay: So this is just part one.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: This is part one of my journey. But,
Michelle: Oh, but also,
Lindsay is embarking on a long health journey with Tom Rafrano
So what we are doing next is doctor, Rafrano. Tom Rafrano, actually. His clinic is around the corner from our house. House. And so we went to go see him. And, the goal is that we are going to pick up the dominoes for her. But the first thing we have to do is figure out, what each of those dominoes is. And so the. Hence all of the extensive blood work that’s going to be done. That is very expensive. and then we’ll have to do with that diet change and potentially supplementation of any nutrients you might be deficient in, et cetera.
Lindsay: And I’ll tell you guys everything. I’ll share with you the nitty gritty.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: Even, when you probably don’t want to know.
Michelle: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Lindsay: I’ll read you guys everything and share.
Michelle: Yeah, yeah. And another reason, too, why we wanted to share this specifically in, like, this episode is because I feel like so many people don’t want to go on these long health journeys because they’re laborious. It’s exhausting. It’s a lot of work. It takes a lot of mental effort, and it takes a lot of money. And so especially. Especially for somebody that has kids or their job is just, like, crazy hours and they don’t have the time or the energy to do so. I’m hoping that we’re almost, like, we can trial through it, share what’s working, what’s not working, and so that, people can see if maybe this would be a good fit for them before investing the money or having a little bit more confidence when they go to invest the money and kind of just sharing our experience so that people can see, you know, is this a good idea for them or not?
Lindsay: Yeah. But I’ll be your guinea pig.
Michelle: Yeah.
Lindsay: Come with me.
Michelle: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Seriously.
Lindsay: Okay. Thank you guys so much for listening.
Michelle: Yes.
Lindsay: We hope that this helps at least one person other than myself.
Michelle: Yeah. If anybody has a similar health journey as or health history as Lindsay and is kind of dealing with the same thing, like, especially anybody that feels like they’ve gone to the doctor and the doctor’s like, I don’t know what it is.
Lindsay: Yeah, let us know.
Michelle: Yeah, let us know in the comments.
Lindsay: Leave us a comment.
Michelle: Yeah. Super fascinated by it.
Lindsay: Thank you guys so much.
Michelle: Okay, thanks. Bye bye.
Lindsay: And.
Michelle: The dog fart.
Lindsay: Oh, my God. Yes.
Michelle: Monster. Oh, shit.
Lindsay: It’s so bad. I could not. It went in my mouth.
Michelle: She’s looking back at it. I wish the camera could. Could see her face. Months.
Lindsay: right here, right next to me.
Michelle: So disgusting. All right, wait.
Lindsay: Okay.
Michelle: Yeah, you could probably start from the beginning.