Denouement

I think progress is settling in. I'm happy for you, now if this could just go on forever....

Michelle I find having a diagnosis and a treatment quite fascinating and mind-boggling, and is it really right? Finally? An answer? I truly hope so for what you are going through. Anything I say is not meant for doctrine but from medical and my own experience since, at its severity, 2003. I went from joint pain and muscle aches etc.... headache every day for over a year. Different diagnoses. Had brain surgery for a malformation even. But try as I might the joint aches, muscle pains resumed unless I avoided many different chemicals. I first noticed a reaction to perfume years before but it got worse so much that one side of my body went numb quite often and I had the "probable Multiple Sclerosis" diagnosis then possibly Lyme Disease (I am from NH and had many a tick removed from my scalp). Why am I sharing this with you? Basically because I want to give you hope, to hang in there even if the diagnosis at first doesn't fit or ends up not being it and that you can return to running. You will have to make adjustments to recovery and watch carefully your load, eat nutritiously, sleep eight hours (a hard one) and a lot of confident talk to yourself. I ate a strict diet of no yeast and refined sugar, except in fruits after a week and took a no additive multivitamin and probiotics to build up a healthy gut so that foods I ate that were wholesome could be processed correctly. I still think that the stress reaction was there and your immunity was down and your weak leak was possibly the AS gene. Now you got to fight that gene, put it in remission so to speak. I hope I make sense and that I don't sound overly full of advice but to tell you in plain truth, I was living a nightmare. I was truly sad that running was taken from me for a while...and then I gradually got back out there stronger and stronger. And you still, unfortunately, hear about my ridiculous strong reaction to perfumes...some days are better than others but I am determined to run that marathon everyday...cause at times it sures feels just like that. You sound so good in your reports, stay positive. We all can't wait to see you at your best again!!!!

Eric, thanks man.

Julie, I didn't mean to ignore your post. I read it, but I am pro-processed foods personally, being a working/running mom, during tax season its usually from a box, a frozen bag, or its some type of breakfast food. I'll try meds before cutting to a basic diet. I guess I am just lazy and you can only try one thing at a time (diet changes one at a time, like can't combine cutting out processed foods and grains, can't try out a new drug and cut dairy at the same time), so I'll try drugs. They are usually the only thing put through rigorous scientific study (regardless of the reason, they are). I appreciate you sharing your experience, but it's just not the first route I am going to try. Perhaps I'll eat crow in four years (not literally!).