Publisher: Loving Our Guts

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In 2001 I had an experience that changed my life. I had always been interested in a complementary medicine. I used some herbs and supplements in a limited manner but I also used conventional medicine for any major issues and considered alternative therapies to be weaker than alternative therapies. In November of that year I was diagnosed with endometriosis (I had been suffering with the symptoms for many years but didn’t know that it wasn’t normal till that year.) A month later I had surgery to excise (remove) my endometriosis. The surgery was a great success but I did not recover from it well at all. I had to take a leave of absence from my job and seek answers to my chronic pain. My Dr and the Dr I saw for a second opinion had no idea what was wrong. All they could offer me was pain killers. It got to the point that I needed to use a wheel chair when I went out in public if there was much walking involved. For grocery shopping I used those motorized carts. Finally, in desperation, I went to see a chiropracter that a friend recommended and within 24 hours of my first appointment I no longer needed the oxycodone that I relied on to manage my pain. Thus began my exploration of and respect for the power of alternative approaches to health recovery. A couple of years later I had my first child. She was a challenge from day one. This began my quest to find answers and heal whatever was wrong with her. It has been a long journey that included many missteps and tears along the way. 4 years after the first another daughter was added to our family with a different set of issues and sensitivities. Finally in the fall of 2009 I reached a crossroads. Along the way I had incorporated many restrictions in my diet both for my own sake and for my nursing children. That fall I faced my youngest in a health crisis and made a decision to jump into GAPS with both feet. 3 months later my own health crashed and I once again had difficulty caring for basic needs, yet I now had 2 young children in my care as well as myself. Slowly, slowly, with the help of GAPS and alternative therapies I am crawling out of that hole that I dug for myself over many years of not taking care of my health and not replenishing my stores. This blog is a labor of love. A way to share what I have learned and hopefully help others. It is my hope and my prayer that the information that I have learned over the past 10 years will benefit others as it has me. I am not a health professional. I am just driven to learn and apply what I have learned and find the healing that conventional medicine doesn’t seem to offer my family. Life has been very hard at times and I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. If you can learn from my mistakes and avoid this complete breakdown of your health I will feel like my blog is a success. If it can help you or your children recover from illness every bit of energy put into it will be worth it. Patty Member of the Nourished Living NetworkYou can contact me at PattyLA (at) LovingOurGuts (dot) com