Big Changes

Well, I've decided I've had enough. I spent a lot of time over the past few days doing a lot of online research. I have had psoriasis for years and as of late it's really been getting on my nerves. In the past it has actually been bad enough to land me in the hospital with an infected sebaceous cyst. This is basically a sweat gland that gets blocked, in my case because of my skin problems, and gets infected. I ended up out of work for a month while healing from it. I have come to the decision, based on what I've read over the last several days, to go with a gluten free diet. It is going to majorly stink, but if it works, its well worth it. Friendly's was not fun this weekend LOL. It's been a couple of days now and I have noticed some improvement. The way I look at it, I need to lose weight anyway (an added benefit), so it's a pretty much win/win situation. Upon some further reading today, I may make some further changes to my diet as well. I had read that Cayce (no comments!) suffered from psoriasis for years, and had prescribed a diet which worked for a lot of people, and was very similar. He suggests also giving up sugar, red meat, fried foods, any high fat foods, chemical additives, tomatoes, tobacco, eggplant, peppers, white potatoes, and paprika. Raw and cooked veggies are a must which I love. The tabacco will probably be the last, although I know it should be the first. Also I don't know if I'm ready to make the committment to tomatoes, pepper and white potato! He does say yam and sweet potatoes are okay so that's a maybe. He also suggests drinking 6 to 8 glasses of water daily which I already do. A message board I was on this morning said to also try American Saffron tea and ground elm bark. That I will try but probably order online. I've been getting horrible stomach pains every time I've had anything fried lately, so I welcome that one. After buttered popcorn at the movies this weekend, I thought I was going to die. Same thing after having french fries and steak recently....so this will be a good change. All I can say is thank goodness a Wegmans just opened near me and they carry tons of Amy's brand meals. I already eat that brand but they have a rice flour pizza and vegetarian lasagna with rice flour (lunch today). They have a mac & cheese but I'm not willing to waste 400 calories on mac and cheese (yet). I loaded up on brown & regular rice flour for cooking as well as some pastas made from either a potato/soy/rice conbo and found cornmeal spaghetti (mmm). Oh and cornmeal cornflakes. I think dinner is going to be a big bowl of asparagus marinated in garlic and olive oil. I've been thinking a lot lately about the healthy organic diet I used to follow and missing it. You know, sometimes we need a wakeup call..I think my body sent me one and I have decided to listen. Mind, body, spirit balance here I come!