S2 E7 Q + A #4 – Friends and family, Epstein-Barr virus, white rice, and additional sensitivities

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Welcome to The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast Season 2! We’ve created this podcast as a free resource to accompany our book, The Autoimmune Wellness Handbook: A DIY Guide to Living Well with Chronic Illness.

Season 2 Episode 7 is our final Q + A episode of the season! This week, Mickey and Angie are focusing on questions about food sensitivities beyond the AIP, and how to tweak the protocol to address unusual symptoms such as protein cravings. They also touch on how to handle discussions about AIP with coworkers, friends and family.

Plus, they start by chatting about how they’ve been managing stress recently, and their personal batch cooking neuroses. Scroll down for the full episode transcript!

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Full Transcript:

Mickey Trescott: Welcome to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, a complimentary resource for those on the road to recovery. I’m Mickey Trescott, a nutritional therapy practitioner living well with autoimmune disease in Oregon. I’ve got both Hashimoto’s and Celiac disease.

Angie Alt: And I’m Angie Alt, a certified health coach and nutritional therapy consultant, also living well with autoimmune disease in Maryland. I have endometriosis, lichen sclerosis, and celiac disease. After recovering our health by combining the best of conventional medicine with effective and natural dietary and lifestyle interventions, Mickey and I started blogging at www.Autimmune-Paleo.com, where our collective mission is seeking wellness and building community.

Mickey Trescott: This podcast is sponsored by The Autoimmune Wellness Handbook; our co-authored guide to living well with chronic illness. We saw the need for a comprehensive resource that goes beyond nutrition to connect savvy patients, just like you, to the resources they need to achieve vibrant health. Through the use of self assessments, checklists, handy guides and templates, you get to experience the joy of discovery; finding out which areas to prioritize on your healing journey. Pick up a copy wherever books are sold.

Angie Alt: A quick disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended as general information only, and is not to be substituted for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. On to the podcast!

Topics:

1. Mickey and Angie: Question of the week [2:39]

2. Suggesting AIP to friends and family [5:31]

3. Comments about diet and illness from coworkers [10:07]

4. Intolerance to foods on AIP [16:32]

5. Additional food sensitivities on AIP [20:30]

6. White rice after reintroduction [24:44]

7. Epstein-Barr and Hashimoto’s [27:05]

8. Intense protein cravings [34:46]

Mickey Trescott: Hey everybody! Mickey here, and welcome back to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast season 2. Today is our last round of question and answer for this season. Dun, dun, dunnn! How are you doing this week, Angie?

Angie Alt: I’m doing good. It’s been a little crazy. We’ve both been busy with conferences and other work travel and stuff. But it’s good. What about you? How are you doing?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. Just trying to get control over the schedule and the cooking and the sleeping and the stress managing, and the texting. {laughs}

Angie Alt: {laughs} Yeah. So appropriate.

Mickey Trescott: It’s a lot. It’s a lot.

Angie Alt: Yeah, it’s been a lot. Yesterday; excuse me. Two days ago I cooked all the things. I was like, “oh my god, I have to get on top of the cooking!” and I cooked so much food and now I have too much food. {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: Well that’s not a big problem. Because you can always freeze it!

Angie Alt: Yeah, that’s true.

Mickey Trescott: That’s what I do. But yeah, the first thing I do when things start to get a little crazy is I start batch cooking. It’s like obsessive.

Angie Alt: Mm-hmm. I hear you.

1. Mickey and Angie: Question of the week [2:39]

Mickey Trescott: So, before we get onto our regular scheduled listener questions, we’re going to ask each other a question like we’ve been doing this whole series. I know Angie is ready to be done with this format, because she doesn’t like the random questions.

Angie Alt: {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: But Angie, my question for you this week, is what aspect of personal healing are you working your hardest on right now?

Angie Alt: Oh boy. Mickey. You and the can of worms all the time. I would have to say honestly that I am probably in a period where I’m trying to be ok with things being the way they are. I’m trying to kind of let go of focusing a lot on healing, and just let things be kind of crazy, kind of hairy, kind of up and down. And just allow myself to kind of go with the flow. And sometimes the flow isn’t the direction you would hope for. But I’m just trying to be a little Zen about it at the moment. I think that’s where I’m really working, if I’m honest. What about you, Mick. What you do you have going on?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. You know, the meditation thing. It’s a little in the same vein; just kind of trying to accept the situation that I’m in. The stressors and the physical stuff. I feel like there are a lot of things I don’t have control over right now, so meditation has been very helpful. And I made a goal to meditate every day, and I was on a 68-day streak using the Calm app. Which, you know, you shared that with me and I got super into it. Of course, I’m an Upholder.

Angie Alt: Calm is awesome. Calm is my spirit animal.

Mickey Trescott: It’s the best. And I got really hooked in because I like having a perfect record, and so when it reminded me every day, it’s time to meditate, I would do a little meditation every day. And this week, it just fell off the rails, and I forgot one day. And I kid you not, I woke up at 3 in the morning, and the first thing I thought was, “Oh my gosh, I forgot to meditate yesterday!” And I was so sad I almost cried.

Angie Alt: {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: I was like, “I was on a streak!” And you know what I wanted to do was to do it for a whole year. But I’ll get back on the wagon and keep going.

Angie Alt: Yeah, you’re doing great. You know what. You guys, this is a reason why you know Calm is really, really awesome. Mickey has the Upholder tendency. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, check out Gretchen Rubin and the Four Tendencies. So Mickey has the Upholder tendency, and she feels like she is going to do that internally and externally. She wants the reward of doing that. I am not the Upholder personality, but I still have had a similar experience where I woke up in the middle of the night and was like, “Oh no! I messed up my Calm streak!” That’s how great Calm is.

Mickey Trescott: It gets into your subconscious, and it’s just like, “Meditate. Meditate. Meditate.”

Angie Alt: It works for all tendencies.

2. Suggesting AIP to friends and family [5:31]

Mickey Trescott: It’s great. So that was fun. So let’s get onto tackling some of our specific questions. I did another call out on Instagram. We always get so many questions; way more than we could answer in a series, or in a podcast. But today we actually had some people asking some pretty similar questions, and actually upvoting other people’s questions. So we’ve got some topics that I think will apply to a lot of you guys today.

The first question, actually the first two questions are about friends, family, and the workplace. And HS; yeah I don’t know how to say that. Hutsau says, “How to approach friends and family who have autoimmune disorders, and think high power prescription drugs is the only reasonable treatment, or should you even go there?”

Angie Alt: Yeah. Wow. This is, I think probably for those of us who know that there are other approaches, or that combinations of approaches can really be the most effective and maintain the highest quality of life, it can be so disheartening and frustrating, and even maybe a little sad or scary to see friends and family choose this other route. And you feel like you have this information that could benefit them so much, and you’re so worried about the impact of the choice they’ve made. It can be hard to know what to do.

But, here’s the honest to goodness truth; you’re better off to not go there. You’re better off to just be a powerful example. People are changed not by your words, but by your actions. So just be a really strong example in your own life of healing, and how you’re able to either choose the completely natural route, which is awesome if you can do that. Or, combine, which a lot of us have to do. If you can just sort of give that example to your friends and family, that’s probably the best way to go. In time, when they are ready for that message, they’ll come to you.

I think in my life it started out like, “This is kind of crazy. Angie’s doing this fringe whatever thing.” And now, honestly, I almost have to beg my friends and family not to ask me questions about it, and ask for my help on it. Because they see, powerfully, that I followed through and I’m a lot healthier than I was before. So that would probably be my best advice. What would you say, Mickey?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. I would just add that the biggest reason for that is because it’s almost, you can’t force them to change. What we’re asking people to do; changing their diet, and changing their lifestyle, and advocating for themselves is a lot of work. And it’s pretty intense. And if you’re doing this yourself, and then you tell someone else; “Oh, you need to do this too.” And maybe they don’t; I think there’s a lot of judgement that could come with that. People in your family could avoid you, or not want to talk to you about it. And that’s not what you want in that situation. You don’t want to see, “Ha. I know all of this and you don’t. And you don’t have the time to do it. And it’s too overwhelming.” You maybe leading by example sets you up as the person to comes to when they’re ready. And then it kind of takes out all of that judgement that people could perceive there. So I think that’s why it’s really important not to go there. And let people come to you when they’re ready.

Like you said Angie; I’ve had so many people in my life. Like, really surprising, surprising people that I never would have thought would be asking me for help, and reach out. And I think it’s because I haven’t been pushy about telling everyone what they should do. You know?

Angie Alt: Right. Right. Exactly. Considering the level of commitment that healing through diet and lifestyle takes, it’s best that each person arrives there themselves.

Mickey Trescott: Well, it’s almost, to an addiction analogy. I have a lot of addiction history in my family. And there have been times where it would have been really easy to just force someone to go to rehab, or force them to confront their problem. But those are never the times when that person is able to make a sustainable change that actually changes their life. It’s painful for the people that know better, around them, and that’s the only thing I can maybe liken it to. That feeling of being someone that could help, but not being able to because the person isn’t ready yet. And that’s not in your control.

3. Comments about diet and illness from coworkers [10:07]

Angie Alt: Yep. Exactly. Ok, let’s see. Moving on to another kind of friends, family, workplace question. Pick Perfect Love says, “How to deal with working when you have an autoimmune disease? I’m a teacher, and my peers and principal tends to make comments about my diet, which is AIP, and I’m ‘always’ sick or not feeling well. I have to give 110% as a teacher, but there are some days when I am just not feeling well.” Mickey, what would you say to her?

Mickey Trescott: You know, this is definitely a situation where I would say these people are definitely not being supportive of your journey. And I think you might need to have a conversation about how what you’re doing is something that’s really difficult. You’re doing it for yourself, and these comments will not be tolerated in a work situation.

I would say that this kind of discussion might come up in families, because families are so much more complicated, and you’re related by blood. But I really don’t think that your coworkers and your boss have any right to comment on the food that you’re eating, and if you’re always sick or not feeling well.

Now, as it relates to your work, they have some say there. And that’s where it becomes tricky. Being an autoimmune patient and having a full-time career is no easy task. And I was confronted with this when I got really sick and had to go back to work. I wasn’t able to do my previous career. I got fired because I kept going into work sick, and tired, and I wasn’t able to keep up. And that’s how I got fired. And you know, that’s a dramatic situation, and it was very unpleasant and unhappy in the situation. But it actually made me realize that I needed to seek out a situation that was compatible with my illness.

So, not saying that you can’t be a teacher. Obviously, it sounds like you love your job and you really want to make it work. And I think trying to bridge that gap between your coworkers and your boss’ perception about your illness without maybe oversharing and trying to make them feel bad for you. But also being very strong and saying, “This is what I’m doing for my body, and it’s working. I shouldn’t be getting any judgement from you.” Because that’s not really their place. Wouldn’t you say, Angie?

Angie Alt: Yeah. One thing that I might kind of bring into your own awareness that sometimes folks; especially folks that want to comment on your food or what they see you bringing in to work to eat each day. Sometimes they’re doing that out of a place of feeling maybe a little insecure about their own food choices. They might feel like maybe your plate is a little bit of a judgement on their plate. Which it’s obviously not. You know you’re doing it just because you want to heal, but sometimes, oddly enough, we in this situation have to do the job of reaffirming the other people who are making the comments. I know this sounds backwards, but it might help if you say, “Whatever you’re eating, cool. This is what I’m eating today because it makes me feel better. No big deal.” Sometimes saying that one little sentence changes the whole dynamic and people feel a little more calm and less worried.

Mickey Trescott: And Angie, you have a great thing that you say about this, “Don’t be weird.” And you know, if you’re kind of treating yourself as special, and you have this special food, and you make a big deal about it when people ask you about it. You’re like, “Oh my god, it’s really complicated, and it’s because I’m really sick.” You’re kind of weird about it, people are going to pick that up, and they’re going to be like, “Oh. That’s weird.” But if you’re just like; “Oh, this is what I eat because this is what makes me feel good,” and that’s all; no story to it. People might be like, “Oh, ok. She knows what she’s doing and I’ll move on to something else.” You know?

Angie Alt: Right. If you act with a lot of confidence; this is where my little phrase, “Don’t be weird” comes from. If you act out of a lot of confidence, and just like, “This is my day to day, no commentary necessary.” The people around you will come to respect it.

Mickey Trescott: Yep. Do you have any advice maybe, Angie, about how to work; I know a lot of people have had this question. How to find an autoimmune friendly career? Do you think it’s specifically a career; or do you think it’s the people you work with?

Angie Alt: Yeah. You know, it could probably be either or. I think there are careers out there that are probably more autoimmune friendly than others. And if you have an aptitude for those areas, then it might be a good idea to go for them if there’s a fit there to be had. For instance, you and I kind of forged these careers that allow us to take down time if we need to. That said, we’re always working like crazy people {laughing} because we’re too passionate for our own good, probably. But you know, we have the understanding of each other and there’s room there. If they can find similar...