Avoiding Something I Should Be Doing (or Scared Of What I’ll Find Out)

Usually, if I know something is going to help me or be good for me, I don’t hesitate to do it. There are a few exceptions, but I don’t normally waiver on the idea that something is going to better me. For example, even though I knew going off hormonal birth control would likely be an issue for me, staying on it was going to make my liver tumors continue to grow. I stopped the pill without a second thought. When I knew that I needed to add different supplements to my life to help with recurring medical conditions, I went to the store and bought them after leaving my doctor appointment. Even getting the non-wart/actual tumor off my face was something I didn’t go back and forth on once I found a doctor willing to do it.

But lately, I’ve been avoiding doing something that I know I probably should do. I have a few different autoimmune conditions and for one of them I deal with it flaring up. When I have flares, it causes very painful bumps on my skin and it can affect so many aspects of my life. There’s no cure for it and most treatments have a lot of negative side effects. And my condition is not nearly as bad as it is for many people so a lot of treatment options aren’t even options for me yet since they are for people with much more severe cases.

But something that I could do would be to find what my triggers are for my flares. Most people find that there are certain foods or categories of foods that trigger flares and you can stay almost flare-free if you avoid those foods. And the easiest way to figure out what foods cause flares is to do something called the AIP diet (which stands for autoimmune protocol diet). It’s like an elimination diet where you don’t eat foods that are common triggers for a period of time and then you slowly add the foods back in one by one. That way, when eat something that causes a flare you will know what it is so you can make sure you don’t eat it. This isn’t a diet that is meant to be long-term. You only follow the protocol until you know what your triggers are and then you go back to normal and just avoid the foods you need to.

I’ve known about this diet for a long time, but it was only recently when I decided to do it because I noticed I was having flares more often than normal. I originally planned on doing it after I had my trip last month, but then I got sick. There was no way I could follow the rules while sick and I knew my food habits would be weird then so I had to wait until I was better. And once I was better, I was dealing with pain and nausea so I decided to wait.

But this is just sounding like one excuse after another. And I had to think about why I have been acting like this. It took a few days of me doing some real soul-searching and thinking, but I think I finally realized what it came down to.

I’m terrified of what I will or won’t find out by doing this diet.

First, I’m scared I will find out I can’t eat foods that I love anymore without having flares. I would hate it if I couldn’t have dairy, eggs, or certain fruits and vegetables anymore. But I know that this is very likely because something is most likely one of the triggers for my flares. I don’t want to have to worry about every single thing I eat and if it has something in it that I won’t be able to eat. I’m scared that it will make eating at a restaurant difficult or that I will find it hard to adjust if something I love has to be out of my diet.

But I’m also scared that I won’t find out that any foods are causing flares. If I can’t find something that triggers them, that means I can’t do anything to help myself for now. I either have to see if I can do a treatment option that may be too harsh for me right now or I might have to wait to see if things advance to a more severe stage.

I don’t know which of those two terrify me more. They both sound horrible and I would be upset if they happened. But at the same time, doing nothing isn’t a good option either. I know I want to see if I can do something to help my autoimmune condition so that I don’t have to stress out about when a new flare will happen. I am lucky that the condition I have does tend to have food triggers because not all conditions have that. I have options I can try before I go to medications with lots of side effects and I owe it to myself to try those.

This is something that isn’t just something I should do for myself but what I need to do for myself. I do still need to do a bit more research on the plan so I can do it successfully, but I have a feeling I’ll be doing it soon so that I can try to find out some answers.

You Might Also Like

Blogging Led To A Breakthrough (or I Need To Believe I’m Worthy) Still Figuring Out Meal Planning (or Will Food Ever Be Easy For Me?) Finding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time) I Guess This Made My Life A Bit Interesting (or An Outing To Urgent Care) Cheating With Pie (or Trying To Splurge The Right Way) What Will Happen In A Week (or Why I’m Excited And Scared To Go Home)