Who would do such a thing?
Going from a Keto diet to a Vegan diet? Polar opposites right. Well, we would. The Bama Bound 5 are an unusual bunch anyways, so why not be unusual with our food.
But, there is so much more than just being the weird plant people. If you are a reader of my blog you know that I have been struggling with an undiagnosed autoimmune disease. (Read here if you need to catch up.) This is where it get's good and the update you may have been wanting. Or, may not cause I don't know how exciting my health really is to those outside my house. None the less, an update you will get.
I was able to get into the Neurologist a week before my total hip replacement, which we will get to in a bit. Now, I went in thinking they would see what was going on and agree with the original doc and confirm the diagnosis of Young Onset Parkinson's Disease, often just called YOPD. That however was not the case. They looked at me, looked at my race, looked at my age and were pretty convinced I had Multiple Sclerosis.
This was kind of blow and it took a day or two to process. Once I had accepted that this could be it I went into straight on research mode. I am lucky enough that I also had some help from my nurse mom and NP step dad. This made it so I was not doctor googling myself into a diagnosis of death.
Within our research we came across Doctor Terry Wahls, She is not only a doctor but also an MS survivor. She went from chemotherapy treatments and a wheelchair to riding a bike and running in a marathon. How? She used functional medicine that she knew about and started consuming high amounts of plant based foods. She does not cut out meat completely but does cut out all dairy. This made me want to look a little more into this whole food is medicine thing.
The more I started reading, the more I found multiple stories of people slowing the progression of their disease by going plant based. I found youtubers, doctors, bloggers all over who had success by following the food is medicine idea. One google search and you will get the idea. Since we have been keto off and on for years and I never once had a remission of symptoms. I thought this was maybe the missing key.
So, a week before my surgery I switched to a plant based diet. What this means is that I don't consume meat or dairy. That brings us up to surgery day.
Surgery Day
On October 31st, yes Halloween day, I had a total hip replacement. The second one. I was freaking out. I do not have good and happy thoughts about the first one. I was on pain meds for months, took me months to walk and I needed constant care. I was so not looking forward to this. It was a get her in fast kind of day, and before I knew it I was awoken and not in pain, but sooo thirsty! I did however have a total block, so I wouldn't have felt anything anyhow. Those can take up to 24 hours to wear off. I was awake though and I was hungry and I was thirsty and I was aware. The next day when the block had wore off I was simply on a dilaudid push. I was asked to get up so the nurses could bathe me and move me to my chair to begin therapy. Oh was I nervous. I got up and actually STOOD up....like on my own. The nurses didn't totally approve of that and was told I still needed assistance and to use my walker and only get up if a nurse was in the room. I was a good girl and followed all the directions. Once in therapy I found that I was doing the exercises with ease. Yes I was younger than the other patients, but I was older myself than the last surgery and I was no way able to do that then. For me this was a huge deal! And look now I'm pretty close to what 1/3 titanium so I am the rocket woman! Check out my after x-ray!
I have had such an easy and remarkable recovery that sometimes I can not believe I had major surgery just 30 days ago! Today marks the one month since and am walking without any assistance! No walker, no cane and definitely no wheelchair! I know that having the surgery done a bit differently helped as well, but even my doctors will tell you that I have had this much success because of the plant based diet.
Now let's get back to that MS stuff. One week after surgery I had to go in and get 6 MRI's of my body done. This is to look for lesions in the brain to confirm MS. I also had to have multiple blood draws to check for other mimickers such as lupus, lyme etc... I want to mention that I was able to walk all across the hospital and get in and out of a truck with my walker only! That speaks volumes to how well I was recovering.
Now What?
Fast forward a week and Sam comes to me and said he would like to go plant based too, he sees how good mom felt that he wanted to give it a try, this inspired Tom and by default Delilah and Max. Everyone decided to make the switch to support mom. How cool and amazing is my family! I am very blessed. We all began the switch. Meanwhile, my MRI and blood work all came back. And they were ALL clean. No Lyme, no Lupus, not one single lesion. My entire MRI came back clean! So, back to the neurologist and we are right back where I thought we were in the first place. YOPD. There is no test that can confirm Parkinson's though, so it was very necessary to rule out every other possible cause first.
I explained to the Neurologist that we had switched over to a plant based "vegan" diet and she confirmed what my orthopedic surgeon did, and that by doing so I was doing the absolute best thing I could do for my health.
I since have discovered that the Vegan diet has also been shown to decrease the progression of Parkinson's, and studies are showing that animal fats are exactly what we should be avoiding. Now I say Vegan because it is a whole heck of a lot easier to say than Whole Food Plant Based and dairy free" when talking to a lay person or a restaurant. The key difference I would say would be the political side of things. We don't eat this way because we are all for animal rights, I come from a family of hunters and just last week Sam, Tom and Delilah butchered their first deer. While we won't be eating the meat, someone will surely enjoy it. We won't be throwing red paint on your fur coat either. (although we are not a complete fan of fur) We still wear leather and are only Vegan by food alone.
This study says "Three recent case-control studies conclude that diets high in animal fat or cholesterol are associated with a substantial increase in risk for Parkinson's disease (PD); in contrast, fat of plant origin does not appear to increase risk."
Dr. Gregor States "At its root, Parkinson’s is a dopamine deficiency disease due to a die-off of dopamine-generating cells in the brain. These cells make dopamine from L-dopa derived from an amino acid in our diet. Just like we saw with the serotonin story I described in my three-part series The Wrong Way to Boost Serotonin, A Better Way to Boost Serotonin, and The Best Way to Boost Serotonin, the consumption of animal products blocks the transport of L-dopa into the brain, crowding it out." and bonus he talks about coffee helping. um can we say #win there!
This video, Mic the Vegan breaks a lot of the study down and his way of explaining it was way better than I could do in this blog. He sites his resources and I reviewed them for accuracy as well :)
There is still some work to do and finding the right meds for me, but I have found my symptoms have all but cut 80%. I still get some small bouts of tremors and I struggle at night with the pulling and dystonia. All that said, I feel incredibly healthy. My skin has never looked better and I am able to leave the house without fear. I feel like I am approaching a good healthy mix of Medical and Natural care for my disease. I take the adaptogens and herbs along side both food and medicine. I eat to live now. Bonus, Tom has lost 20 lbs in the one month he started the plant based life. He says that he can not believe how good he feels. We are sleeping better, are all "regular" if you know what I mean poopsies. The kids have never eaten so many vegetables and actually liked them and go in for more. That is a huge plus. We all have a general feeling of lightness. Now, there are "vegan" junk foods out there, but we are trying to limit those and base our meals with plants first. It has been a fun and incredible month. I can't wait to see how it all unfolds!
