Nine months ago I sat down and made a list of health concerns, however small they seemed.
The main thing that concerned me was a pain in my hip. I’ve written here about going to the osteopath for that and getting relief from it. He said it was caused by misalignment, and I noticed it happened whenever I was very busy. So I would rest more often. Then it started happening more often. To compensate, when standing I would shift my weight to my other leg.
As a result of my compensation, I began getting discomfort in my left knee, which then travelled to the bottom of the left foot and manifested as a tightness of the muscles. When the osteopath worked on my foot, he said something about the plantar fascia, and then I realized it was the beginning of plantar fasciitis. Oy.
I asked him what I was supposed to do to stay in alignment, but I was doing everything suggested and I still needed regular appointments (about every 4 – 6 weeks). Then I heard an interview with a doctor who was asked how she chose her specialty of endocrinology, and she said she had been an osteopath and began noticing how many of her patients in their forties and fifties were coming for weekly appointments because their bodies couldn’t hold the alignment. She wanted to study hormones to help women stay in good health.
I don’t remember what she said after that, but realizing that me not being able to stay in alignment was something others in my age range were experiencing was a jolt and got me thinking.
(I also felt stiffness when standing up after sitting for a while, and mild soreness in the joints of my hands periodically. It seemed minor but I included this in my list. )
It occurred to me that the pain I was having might be caused by internal inflammation rather than the localized muscle discomfort I was assuming it to be. If so, I was making a mistake by treating the symptoms of pain rather than addressing the underlying cause.
Along with my thoughts about the possible physical causes, I reflected on my expectations of what it means to get older. I didn’t want to internalize the societal belief that getting older means more pain and less mobility, and I was ready to actively challenge that belief. I wanted to create a new expectation for myself, that as I get older I will be active and energetic, flexible and healthy.
Once I was honest with myself about what I was feeling, I resolved to do something different. If it was possible my hip pain was caused by inflammation, then I needed to reduce the inflammation. How could I do that?
By changing my diet.
I resisted this for a long time because my diet was pretty good; most people would say it was very good. But once I was willing to be honest with myself, I knew I needed to make some changes.
I eliminated every possible source of inflammation, and soon began feeling more energy. I began losing some of the weight I put on after the car accident that had left me completely sedentary. But the hip pain didn’t go away as quickly as I expected.
In the first three weeks the plantar fasciitis disappeared, then the pain in my left knee, but I still had some periodic discomfort in my right hip. But I began noticing my overall movement became much more comfortable and fluid; I easily and quickly shifted from sitting or laying down to standing up. I got up and down from the floor without thinking about it. My hands never felt any soreness.
The pain in my hip faded and I don’t know when it completely disappeared because I stopped being aware of it. It might have been a month or even six weeks until it was completely gone.
One day my husband and I took the kids for a walk and he lagged behind me with one of them. When he caught up to me, he asked me if I was aware that I was walking differently. Again, changes happen over time and he hadn’t noticed my gait had changed as a result of the pain until he saw me walking without pain. He commented on it again a week later, marvelling and saying the difference was miraculous, that I walk with the same fluidity I had in my twenties.
Recently over the two weeks of holidays, I ate some foods I don’t usually eat – things you would call ‘healthy’. I had some moussaka – with eggplant, ground beef, homemade tomato sauce and a coconut cream ‘cheese’ topping. I ate some halva ice cream – made with dates, coconut cream and tahini. I had some fresh fruit and some compote, some slices of cheese, three small pieces of potato. These were the only changes to my usual way of eating, all seemingly small quantities over a two week period.
The homemade ice cream was clearly a sugar overload for me – I napped afterward as if I had taken a sleeping pill. As far as the other foods, my digestion wasn’t as perfect as it usually is.
What took a little longer was for my hip to begin hurting again.
It didn’t happen immediately after I ate a peach or a slice of cheese. But the pain is a powerful reminder of what I used to feel and I’m so glad for the reminder. It’s remarkably easy to forget the negatives when they’re no longer part of your life and to take good health for granted. I didn’t intend this to be a test of what I’m sensitive to, but that’s what it’s been.
I have been blessed for many months now to consistently feel very good physically and emotionally, and have taken that for granted. Now it’s easy for me to see when something I eat detracts from that, and I’m glad for the motivating nudge to recommit to giving my body the fuel it needs to feel its best.
Avivah
Hi Avivah,
May you and all of Am Israel be blessed with good health. Can you share what “clean eating” is to you?
It was great seeing you at Bezalel’s wedding. I can’t wait to catch up!
Love,
Sara Etka
Amen, and please take me up on my invitation to come for Shabbos!
I’ll post about the specifics.
So what kind of a diet are you following to feel your best? I am very curious, because I have been having some intractable inflammation issues.
Me too! Would love to hear more
Will share soon, Keren!
I’m so happy to hear about all of the healing that has occurred for you! You healed your brain from the car accident through meditation, now your joint pain through diet! Wow!
BH, though the medical model had no answers for either of these things, there are other options we can use to help ourselves.
Hi Aviva, i’m happy to hear that your pain has been eliminated by your changing nutrition! I have also noticed that when I decrease sugar significantly and eliminate gluten, mostly, my hip pain goes away. I am in the same age group as you and apparently as Estrogn decreases joint pain increases. Please share what nutritional changes you’ve made.
Interesting about the estrogen decrease leading to an increase in joint pain – I didn’t know that! It would seem to be in menopause, wouldn’t it? I’ll share in a post about what I’m doing dietarily.
Estrogen and progesterone get wonky in perimenopause, which can happen 5 to 10 years before menopause. Hence the joint pain among other lovely things that happen as estrogen is wonky. I found that diet and lifestyle modifications really helped me in perimenopause and menopause.
Thank you for sharing that, it’s good to know!
this does not relate to your last blog but i would appreciate your help. on rosh hashana my granson gave birth to a baby with down”s syndrome. i remember you writing in the past about various supplements that you used to improve function and i would appreciate it if you could send me those recommendations. to wilenskydavid7@gmail.com thanks, david
Mazel tov, David! I wrote extensively about this topic and others relating to Down syndrome when my twelve year old was an infant, so my archives from about eleven years ago in the Trisomy 21 category are a good resource for those interested in learning more. You can also look up Nutrivene – https://www.nutrivene.com/ and read there about what they have and why it’s helpful.
Breastfeeding is very, very important – this is where I would put the first focus for a mother, before therapies or supplements or anything else. The better the mother’s diet is, the better the quality of the milk for the baby and this is what is going to build his brain and body for the rest of his life.
I’m glad that you found a way to improve your health by cutting problematic foods out of your diet. I’m also on a limited diet (basically Paleo – no carbs, no dairy), and it’s definitely critical for my physical and emotional welbeing.
However, like you, I’ve become one of these people who can’t eat “normal” food (and I’m not talking about white flour junk, I’m talking about whole grains, kitniyos, goat milk yogurt, etc.).
So am I actually healthier, or do I still have a health problem – I’m just walking on eggshells around it? How do I fix my issues (insulin resistance, hormones going wonky, blood sugar level regulation issues, food sensitivities, etc.) so that I can eat normal food?! When I was single I ate just a bit better than SAD, and while I wasn’t healthy, I could eat a bowl of cereal with milk for breakfast without ruining my day (or week…)
I feel like I’m not healing my underlying issues, I’m just avoiding them – and possibly making them worse.
Any thoughts?
At least I can still eat moussaka though. Can and do : )
Oh, Shira, I can so, so much relate to and understand your question. It sounds like we eat similarly.
Seemingly I wasn’t a person who was sensitive to anything I ate. I was fine with everything.
Now I can quickly feel if something isn’t good for me. When I ate a quarter cup of cashews on Shabbos one week, I had severe stomach pain for two days. I wondered the same thing as you: if I’m getting healthier, why am I getting more sensitive to things I previously didn’t have an issue with? (By the way, I wonder if those cashews were mold contaminated or something like that because I tried cashews from a different batch a couple of months later with no issues.)
I have so, so much to say about this but I’ll try to sum up a few thoughts here. If your body is under assault from various inputs, it may not visibly show the signs. Or it may show the signs and the signs aren’t recognized as connected to food. For example, I had this hip pain that seemed like a mechanical issue, but really was a hormone imbalance issue that improved with upgraded
nutrition. I had other things that improved that I didn’t even realize were issues. I’m unquestionably healthier now and am grateful that my body gives me clear signals that I recognize, and I can make adjustments accordingly.
I find it helpful to reframe this question and ask myself, how do I feel? Do I believe if I eat foods that are nutritionally deficient I’ll be healthier? A lot of what we consider normal or even healthy foods are not optimal, and while we consider it normal to eat them, that doesn’t make them good for us. They are good for giving us calories but not for nutritionally building our health. Whole grains and legumes are in that category. This goes into another huge topic of the corrupted nutritional guidelines built around paid for studies that recommend these foods as a staple to our diets.
I see that people can often integrate more foods into their diets as they heal internally. How long that takes is individual. Some people want to continue eating a limited diet because they feel great and don’t want to mess with that. Others want more variety and appreciate being able to add more things in.
For me, I don’t feel trapped by what might look restrictive to others. I look at my nutritional guidelines as giving me freedom to have mental clarity, physical flexibility, emotional calm and stability and energy to do so much more than I could do before. I might seem to be going off topic here. What I’m saying is, stay in the moment and focus on how you’re feeling right now. You sound to me like you’re in the healing process.
What is unquestionable to me is that, most of humanity is metabolically unhealthy and regardless of if they are cognizant of the internal issues it’s causing, if they’re sensitive to what they’re eating or like me, can eat anything without feeling it, it’s going to cause significant health issues for them. So I’m choosing to go in the direction that will give me the quality of life results that I’d like to see.
Thanks for taking the time to write a detailed reply. Very interesting!