Part of The Food Mystery Potentially Solved? C. difficile

So like I wrote in this blog post, I have been searching for the underlying cause of what my and my father’s problems are. Why we can’t eat anything except for meat without having serious autoimmune and mood problems. I haven’t gotten less sensitive on this diet so it’s not purely a gut healing problem.

Guess what I tested positive for? C. Difficile. I tested for Lyme (waiting for results), and some other things, but I also tested for C. Diff because my digestion is SO sensitive. I don’t even really have the symptoms of C. Diff but I tested positive anyway for the toxins that C. Diff releases. Take in this has been the BEST year of my life and this is life with an apparent BACTERIAL INFECTION. Dad is going to get tested but he doesn’t have any symptoms so it’s hard to believe he has it too. I would assume I just have it as well as other problems..

What is C. Difficile? It’s basically a bacteria in your gut (not everyone’s gut) that can cause bloating, diarrhea, nausea, cramping, fever, etc. It can kill people when it gets really bad. It’s more common in people with suppressed immune systems and it’s getting more and more common after antibiotic use or stays in hospitals or nursing homes. Gross. Antibiotics are NOT a good idea unless you’re literally about to die. DO NOT casually take them. We have no idea how dangerous they really are but I’m going to take a stab at it and say pretty frickin bad. Obviously not as bad as dying from an infection, but if you can avoid them, don’t take them. I am not surprised in the least that I have C. Diff and actually a bit relieved. This probably explains why my digestion has been so funky off and on for the last year. Possibly why I had such a rough time transitioning into this diet. Maybe this is also part of the reason I’m so sensitive? I don’t really understand it because I didn’t have any symptoms of C. Diff until I started the all beef diet, and then my digestion has been iffy since then (although it got better after the first 6 weeks), but I never felt like I caught something… So how is that explained? I got C. Diff sometime in the past year, but have stayed asymptomatic autoimmune wise. Or I had it before and had no symptoms? No idea.

In June 2018 I got “food poisoning” which I think was actually this C. Diff. acting up… I had bloating, cramping, fever, and diarrhea for 2 days. It was unpleasant. Then the same “food poisoning” like thing occurred again about 3 weeks ago, I literally couldn’t drink any water for about 24 hours, and then it calmed down. My digestion is normally pretty good but if I do anything wrong it’s messed up. Hell, I even had to ditch salt because of my digestion. I bet that’s the C. Diff because I should be able to eat salt AT LEAST.

This could easily explain that part of the food mystery.

So what to do? Well, I’m sure as hell not taking antibiotics to fix a problem that was probably caused by antibiotics in the first place. That seems super stupid. That’s usually the first way this is treated. I’m NOT doing that. So I’m going to do a gut flora transplant from the Taymount Clinic and will keep everyone posted.

What is a gut flora transplant?

Also known as a fecal matter transplant or stool transplant.

Short and sweet: The Taymount Clinic does gut flora transplants like this:

1. Poop from “healthy” donors is taken, and screened for disease. They’re super picky about who can donate. No mental issues, cancer, autoimmune disorders, obesity, gut problems, etc. Basically super healthy people that haven’t taken antibiotics in a long time.
2. The microbiome (bacteria) in it is isolated and shipped from the UK to the other clinics around the world.
3. That microbiome is stuck up someone else’s butt. Soon to be mine. Sigh.
4. They do it over a period of 5-10 days (5 to cure C. Diff, 10 for autoimmune problems so I’m just going to do 10 to give it a real shot). They use a different donor for each transplant so you get as much diversity as you can. 10 different donors worth of bacteria. Wooooo

Worst case scenario I only get rid of the C. Diff., which would be awesome. Best case scenario some of my sensitivities go away. Who knows how much of this sensitivity issue is literally just a microbiome problem. Time will tell.

Those of you who have followed me for a while know I was 100 percent asymptomatic on this diet with some apples and pears, originally. Then I got bronchitis which turned into pneumonia so I took antibiotics, then I took antibiotics again stupidly, then I got pregnant. I think my microbiome got more damaged again back then (2016) and that led me to needing this all beef diet. Which has totally worked to get rid of my autoimmune symptoms and depression… So I guess we’ll see. I’m going to do the GFT in February 2018. I have to get ankle surgery in January 2018 (which means more frickin antibiotics), so I’ll do it after that. I will write a much more in-depth post following that procedure.

Never a slow moment man.

Newest theory that will probably be updated repeatedly:

Maybe your microbiome modulates your immune system so you can tolerate plant toxins. If you’re super depleted in your microbiome diversity because of the way you were born, or the way you eat, or antibiotic use, and you have some sort of gut dysbiosis going on (C. Diff definitely does not help), then maybe you’re missing the bacteria that calm down your immune system when you ingest plant matter. Maybe the reason the all beef diet works is because you’re not triggering your immune system with plant toxins, but if you had the right microbiome you’d be able to tolerate more? Guess we’ll find out this year!