Update on diet

Well Ive been following the Plant paradox diet for almost 2 months now, with one 3 day break where I thought I would try introducing a few foods again then by my 3rd day I really regretted this decision to promptly reverted back to following the diet strictly. Ive been sticking to stage 2 of the plan and my brain fog is definately  reduced a lot, although its not completely gone - I definately still get it worse  post activity, so mostly M.E related connected to post exertional malaise. My cognitive functioning has improved a good bit too although Im still experiencing difficulty  with  tasks such as learning how to work something new or  problem solving. My memory remains poor and this doesnt seem to have changed. Overall I would say my cognitive functioning has improved maybe 20-30% some days, but unchanged other days and brain fog has improved by between 20% and 60% some days,  however this is extremely variable and some days it remains the same as it was. It is hard to say  if other factors may be affecting this such as poor sleep or PEM , or if it is diet related. Personally I feel it is down to a mixture of these and the diet has reduced these symptoms  helping me to function mentally a bit better than I was on some days.

My pain levels have definately improved since starting this diet, they increased substantially when I added foods back in for 3 days and reduced when changing back.  Although on trying to be more active I still get high levels of pain in the days afterwards regardless of diet or whether activity is paced and minimal or  increased a lot (for me - this could simply be having a shower, drying my hair and attempting to cook an easy meal in one day, doing an hours photography sat in the garden). But on days where I pace and keep my activity levels at  my regular normal amount then pain can be reduced by up to 75%( with the odd day of very little pain), on days where I do a little more it is probably still reduced by 30%, and active or post active days it remains pretty much as it has been. I did actually have two weeks of much lower levels of pain and  reduced my pain killers to almost stopping them, but then it increased again - partly because I was  being more active - it gets frustrating doing so little and it can be worth being in pain just to keep myself occupied or have a feeling that I have achieved something.

My sleep has improved a lot overall, apart from a couple of weeks and the odd night I have slept much better most of the time ( ? 70% of the time sleeping well) My fatigue levels dont feel any different to me and my energy levels  dont feel noticeably different, although my partner has stated that on observing me it appears as if I have a bit more energy and I appear to be managing a bit better. I cannot say that I feel a great deal different with both of these. I still struggle having a shower a have to sit on the side of the bath to dry myself and have just put on a dressing gown to absorb the water when too exhausted to dry myself. Im am still struggling to dry my hair most of the time. I have had a little bit more stamina walking around home some days, but this is not consistent, my legs still get wobbly, weak, jumpy and feel like Im walking on the moon at times.

I have noticed that Ive felt the cold less and my hands and feet have not been so cold as much - whether this is because  of warmer weather/higher temperatures or maybe Im better at preventing my hands and feet getting cold, or a combination of both. Plus due to the restrictions on leaving home due to the current pandemic Ive only actually been out on my scooter once in about 6/7 weeks or so - just a local exploration. So Ive not been outdoors as much as usual, which is where I feel the cold most, but I have been in our garden  probably about 3-4 days a week for up to an hour at a time.

My partner and I have decided to try phase three of the diet, but only introducing one food at a time. I will be trying tomatoes first - fresh, peeled, deseeded and pressure cooked to reduce lectins. This one food could make a big difference to my food options.  I have unfortunately been unable to buy pasture raised chicken and eggs, the pandemic situation has made it even more difficult to obtain many specialist foods, so I have settled for free range eggs and normal chicken - I suspect these have slightly negatively affected my brain fog again - Im going to monitor this over the next few weeks and if I think it is then I will just stop having chicken and try to get omega 3 eggs again ( there is only one place selling these and its miles away - we arent supposed to travel unless for essential reasons such as food, medical reasons etc and I doubt my reason of getting brain fog from normal eggs would be accepted as the shop selling them is a good ten miles or so away). But if lockdown is going to be for many months then I guess one trip a month should be out of the question given how limited my diet is. ( limited veg, wild fish, limited types of nut, extremely limited fruit and very little else)

Its been a very strange couple of months where life has changed for people around the whole world due to the Corona virus pandemic, in a way it has affected me a lot less than people living a normal life without an illness, as I have little choice but to spend pretty much most of my life at home. Whilst I would say I am mostly adjusted to this way of life, I was used to getting out for a drive most weeks with Michael and going for a ride on my scooter anywhere between twice a month and twice a week. Now I find myself in the strange position of worrying about being stopped if I go out for essential exercise as an able bodied person might not appreciate that I used a lot of muscles in using my scooter - especially as I generally use it in nature reserves on rough ground, this means it can sometimes be difficult just to stay on it!

 I use muscles in my back, my legs when I am going up and down slopes, my arms for steering and generally keeping the steering from veering the wrong way etc. Now to anyone who is fit and healthy this may be hard to imagine, but my muscles are wasted and weak, using my scooter for up to an hour can actually leave me exhausted for the next couple of days. Not just using it but there is the getting ready to go out, the walking to the car and back, the few steps I takes as I am exploring where I get off to look at a plant, insect or view etc. All this keeps my muscles from completely wasting - can I do this my moving round at home - not really. I cannot use the same muscles and dont intend to lose the level of functioning that I have as it can take months on end building any level of fitness back up with M.E. - Im still working on  rebuilding the level of activeness I used to have before my major crash over 20 months ago!  So I will be starting to attempt going out on my scooter locally (in the local streets and nature reserve one mile away) providing I can keep the social distance  from people- unfortunately there are many selfish and ignorant people who do not care if they pass the virus on and will walk right next to you - its not easy to get out of peoples way on a street path with a kerb on a scooter, so the wider paths on certain roads nearby or parts of the nature reserve will work best for me.

 I have been experimenting at home and in our garden with a cheap old Helios 44/2 lens which Michael kindly modified for me - I love the effect it has given( see the dreamy look above and below this paragraph) This is more pronounced when shooting at a shallow depth of field, but only a tiny area is in focus and this is tricky to achieve with manual exposure and other difficulties affecting peak exposure, but its been fun and I will continue to use it for floral work. I have a couple of magazines interested in publishing some of the resulting images.

I have also been producing more background images using this lens and have added these to my texture collection which I have decided to sell. I still need to work out how best to go about selling them as I have had some interest, but not sure its enough interest to make it worth while paying for a digital downloads shop online. Something for me to sort over the coming months.

Another reason it has been a strange month is birthdays -it has not only been my birthday, my partner Michaels birthday but my daughters 21st birthday - all in the middle of lockdown without being able to see anyone. Now I am used to this - Ive had many birthdays where Ive been unable to go out due to M.E - but I usually made it out within a few weeks but its hard for a young lady celebrating her 21st alone - literally seeing nobody, but we tried to make the best of it. In the weeks running up to her birthday I managed to get about 15 short videos from her friends and family especially for her birthday. The singer from one of her favourite bands agreed to create a video specially for her and sang two songs in it - this really made her smile. Then she had a long video chat with me followed by video chats with friends.

I actually had a birthday drink about a week or so following my birthday - my first alcoholic drink since New years day! I stopped trying to drink any alcohol after having reactions to it almost every time I tried - one or two mouthfuls of wine or ale would make me feel breathless with a racing heart and as if poison had been poured into my veins. It would settle and usually I could have a couple of pints after an hour or two but it wasnt enjoyable and was not worth it so I stopped drinking alcohol - not that I drank often, probably a couple of times a month. I decided to try a glass of mead and had no bad reaction at all so ended up having two glasses. I am allowed a glass of red wine on this diet so figured a small amount of mead occassionally cant be too bad - im pretty sure it doesnt have lectins, although the sugar content may be high, but I am allowed a spoonful of honey now and then, so its not that far from my diet.

I have two new Preying mantids now a Rain forest mantid and a Malaysian blue mantid which I was able to order with my regular live food delivery for my other pets. Theyre super cute - expect to see lots of photos over coming months.

The best made plans

Well I made it to my 5th week on the Plant Paradox diet before my plans of sticking to it became more difficult due to the most unusual and sad changes affecting the whole world now - Covid 19 - a new Corona virus which has spread round the world in a matter of months, resulting in thousands dying and life changing in ways that we in Britain haven't seen since world war 2. Due to the need for the majority of people being ordered to stay home by our government, to stop the spread of disease ( quite rightly so) there have been knock on effects in how we obtain shopping. If you are healthy you can take a trip to shops as infrequently as possibly to buy food or medication, but if you have an existing illness or are over 70 it is advised that you stay home, isolate and shield.  So this is what I am doing, and we are trying to avoid my partner going shopping as well. It has been incredibly difficult to get a full shopping list online - many items that are impossible to buy - such as the dairy free, sugar free, soy free coconut yoghurt that I get or omega 3/pasture raised eggs - which without I end up just eating fish and vegetables - not easy weeks on end! So I decided to stop following the diet during our current crisis and try again when things settle down.

However, after 3 days, on my 3rd day eating half Plant paradox diet, half normal food my symptoms really started getting worse again. In the month of following the diet my pain levels reduced around 75% most days - I think I only had about 5 days in a month where my pain levels were as they have been prior to this diet and now my pain has increased again. I think I had been a blase apart having pain again - but right now I want to stick to the Plant paradox diet again even though it means eating pretty much nothing other than restricted vegetables ( without lectins - so no tomatoes/peppers/potatoes etc), wild caught fish if we can still get it delivered, restricted nuts ( no peanuts or cashews), certain oils such as coconut/avocado or olive oil, coconut milk.  I think I will just have to try using free range eggs and hope for the best that my symptoms settle down again.

Symptoms helped by 4 weeks of the diet -
pain mostly reduced, also less stiff on moving around
 brain fog and actually being able to use my brain a bit - certainly not back to normal levels but definately much improved - although 3 days into stopping Im struggling to think again!
Sore throats - normally I have sore throats anywhere from 2-6 days a week - by week 3-4 on the plant paradox diet my sore throats only occurred once or twice a week ( it can literally last just a matter of hours)

Off the diet - by my third day off the diet and having lectins again, not only has my pain increase in amount/intensity but with frequency and in so many areas of my body. But I also noticed that the little jumpy, sort of electric shock/twitchy feelings I get in my muscles have suddenly increased and my body feels on high alert again. Writing this is incredibly difficult - I can hardly think of the words that I need - I am literally stopping every sentence or two - forgetting things, searching for my words and feeling mildly muddled/confused - I was not feeling this so much on the diet - it was not cured but I was able to think properly more frequently.

I cant write any more just now as my brain simply wont function, but Im going to try really hard to get the foods I need to stick to this diet - whilst I felt improvements werent massive and energy levels had not improved at all, ending up feeling in pain again with a sore throat every day and my brain not working, my muscles twitching away  is enough to make me get back to it. Although I need to get more inventive on recipes for fish and vegetables as it gets tedious. I want to write more - including stuff about our current situation but feeling too muddled and cant explain just how hard it has been just doing this much - I keep completely forgetting what I was writing and getting confused - stopping and coming back to it. Even struggling to add the images. I have some things I want to write about that I feel are important but I will just have to do it at a later date when my brain will work. How bloody frustrating this is - I had agreed to write an article for a magazine whilst my brain was working a bit better - hoping  it will function better back on the diet again.

On a plus side - I just got awarded 2 golds and 2 highly commended from the SWPP  which made my smile. I feel super lucky that I live somewhere with a garden where I can enjoy watching the flowers, insects and birds during this awful time.
Hoping everyone stays well and safe, thinking of all my lovely friends and family and sending love to you all.