The Hopelessness of Infertility

Life just sucks sometimes.

This pregnancy that I announced in November was fatefully doomed.

I received confirmation of the miscarriage via ultrasound and blood work two days ago, after I started bleeding (like period bleeding) and my midwife couldn't find the heartbeat with the Doppler. I was to be 11 weeks along yesterday, and the baby wasn't even measuring 8 weeks.  They said that the baby likely passed within just a couple days after the last sonogram, shown below, where the heart beat was happily at 174bpm and the baby was just starting to move.  This is the final picture of my child while living.

Down the tubes goes my hopes and dreams for this little one... to wait for the next little soul to grace us with its presence, hopefully more permanently.

No more thinking about the anatomy scan that was going to be coming up soon... no more starting to think about a baby shower since this is my first.  No more daydreaming about summer birthdays since this one was due in the middle of summer.  No more dreaming about a baby girl wearing the pink tutu dress with the big bright cheeky smile inherited from her daddy.  No more dreaming about an artistic baby boy who likes to draw and play baseball.  No more thinking about this upcoming Halloween and what we would dress the baby up as.

I cry... but more on the inside than out.  The tears fall within, borne from pain of 2 years of infertility, health issues, hard research, and death.

My soul cries, knowing that this was all planned for me to experience in this life time... and yet with all the advances in medical science, we are unable to tell why women miscarry and what the exact reason was.

So now... I sit back and wait, while my body expels the tissue naturally... knowing that I created this, and I also killed it.  This is where infertility hurts the most.

Infertility strikes any woman to the core; making us feel less womanly.

The power within the woman is amazing... we have the power to create from within... and the power to kill from within.

I seek to find peace from within... and balance.  I am sad, while I sit here, bleeding both from my body and from my soul, but it won't last. I will return to the strength I once was... and to know that something so small can tear down my rock solid emotional defenses...

... is heart warming and I can't wait to try again.

Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) and Celiac Disease

I recently went to the doctor, explaining to them that I'm still not pregnant, after almost 2 years now of actively trying, and that I wanted a vitamin panel done.  I was also concerned about my adrenals, stating that it must be the cortisol (the stress hormone) issue that's preventing me from losing weight and fully calming down.

So they ran a million tests... and ran a micro-nutrient test with SpectraCell Laboratory.

I fully expected to have some deficiencies, but I knew I would generally be okay, considering I do supplement.

Since I am Celiac, I'm not surprised to find deficiencies, although your average person could always have vitamin deficiencies, like vitamin D3.

I was really blown away to find out I am very deficient in vitamin B5, also known as pantothenic acid.

Pantothenic acid is found in EVERYTHING that mammals (including humans) eat. It is a very very important  vitamin that helps the co-enzyme A function properly, the adrenals keep up to their best, and help your brain function a bit better.  If your adrenals don't function properly, you don't function properly and your body goes into distress mode.  My TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) was sky high, after decreasing after going gluten free, shocking the hell out of me.  My DHEA-S and testosterone levels were well above where they should be, indicating there's a heavy duty adrenal issue happening.  Not to mention my infertility... which is directly related to B5 deficiency as well.

But here's the problem and why I never even CONSIDERED that I could have a deficiency:

Pantothenic acid is literally found in EVERYTHING, like I mentioned earlier.  To find someone with a B5 deficiency means they have either been literally starving, or they are an alcoholic. (which I am neither)

But.

Back in the day, they used to treat Celiac Disease with pantothenic acid, to help the patient feel better.  Because of the drastic gastrointestinal issues and malabsorption that is so common among Celiacs, those B vitamins are up for rejection in the Celiac system, which does include B5.  It is also noted, in that article I linked to, that a vitamin B5 deficiency does cause atrophy of the villi in the intestines. If a subject does not feel completely better, nor return to complete normalcy, or only half way responds to a gluten free diet, try B5.

After 5 days of having taken at least 1000mg a day of pantothenic acid, I can truly say that I have experienced an upswing in my mood and most importantly, my ability to focus.  My intelligence is huge to me, and to lose that in the last couple years because I was unable to focus properly was very hard on my self esteem.

Yet... I continue on... hopefully in a few months I can get pregnant as my body regulates.

Celiac and Infertility - How It All Came About

Celiac affects so many people (they estimate 1 in 133 people and even more are just gluten intolerant, not Celiac) yet it's almost never diagnosed, so I'm happy to spread the word.

I'm going to give you a couple links, otherwise I'll end up typing out a whole book for you to read. lol

www.celiaccentral.org/Celiac-Diseas...

www.livestrong.com/article/420766-m...

These are good starters.

Basically what causes the infertility is not the Celiac disease itself, it's the malnutrition. Celiac damages your intestinal lining, making it so that you don't absorb the proper vitamins to be able to carry a child. 

I did not always know I had Celiac... all I knew is that when I was young, I was put in the hospital due to a huge lymph node infection in my neck (it was huge enough where you couldn't see my jaw line, and I have a square face with a strong jaw) and after that hospital visit, I started getting these random rashes. Doctors could never figure out what the rash was, and it would come and go throughout my life. I didn't have the major digestive issues until I was about 28... when I started drinking beer. Before that, I had been a rum drinker, if I drank, which is gluten free, and I also tended to avoid wheat products because of how I just generally felt yucky after eating them and they made me gain weight very quickly. My rash reappeared as I drank beer and ate wheat things I shouldn't be eating... I ended up gaining some 70lbs within a year. It was RIDICULOUS. 

So, about 6 months after my first miscarriage in 2010, I started feeling terrible. I had been suffering from depression since 2009, and my health started failing, even though I had normally been very healthy and rarely got sick. I went to the doc, and they found my TSH levels were elevated, so they checked my thyroid, checked me for PCOS.... and everything came out normal and healthy except my very high TSH. I kept thinking "NO WAY am I healthy! I feel like crap!" My cycles were all over the place, I was skipping, and they were getting lighter suddenly.

I have a friend who has Celiacs... so she educated me on it a bit, because I was curious. 

One day I put it together that I had my digestive issues after having beer ALWAYS. My skin issue flared up massively after having beer and I had never put it together.

So... I did my research and got tested... I have something called Dermatitis Herpetiformis (not herpes, even though the name looks like it. lol Trust me, I freaked when I saw that) which is directly related to Celiacs. Because I have that, I have Celiacs. 

I went gluten free in December 2011, and my skin issue has since disappeared and never come back. My digestive functions are all normal now... and truly, with a little bit of humor here... I can't tell you how nice it is to not have to race to the bathroom. haha

ANYWAYS. Since going gluten free... I have found I have some major issues. Systemic Candida (yeast) tore me up considerably, and I'm still fighting it with enzymes and heavy duty probiotics. That same Candida is likely why I still haven't been able to hold a pregnancy because 9 months gluten free, I should be able to get pregnant. I have read other women are likely to get pregnant within 6 months of going gluten free, assuming there are no other issues. My cycles have finally "somewhat" regulated... but I have a theory that my lining is no good and won't hold the embryo so I believe I miscarry within a couple days.

So... for you, this is what I would suggest from all my research I have done with malnutrition and hormonal issues created from it:

Have your vitamin D checked. Mine was insanely low and I have discovered in my research that the majority of the American population is very low in vitamin D. Take a daily supplement of 10,000iu for 3 months, and it'll bring you back up. You may feel even better... just then maintain it at 5000iu. See this link for you... www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-cond...

Take your vitamin E and Vitamin A. 

Have your B vitamin levels checked. Once I went gluten free, my B vitamins leveled out on their own. I don't even have to supplement. 

Also, if you can, have Zinc levels checked, or you can check if you have these symptoms of a deficiency: (this link is great... has a ton of symptoms in there that a lot of women I know have...) www.womenshairlossproject.com/hair-...
If you decide to start supplementing with zinc, take no more than 100mg a day, otherwise it may make you nauseous. I take a 50mg supplement with my multivitamin.

I also am an advocate for magnesium supplementing as well. Even as little as 100mg supplement can help your adrenals handle your stress and cortisol levels. Cortisol signals your body is in a stressful situation, and won't get pregnant if you are that stressed, in order for nature to survive. :)

I have also very recently found out that vitamin C helps with estrogen levels so you can help make good lining. :)

And... last, but likely the most important: probiotics ESPECIALLY if you have ever been on antibiotics before. Your internal bacterial flora is important to your health, and antibiotics kill the good and the bad. Get a probiotic that as many cultures and as many strains of bacteria as possible. A normal healthy person has 100 trillion bacteria colonies within their system. I take a probiotic right now that has 35billion cultures in each pill with 33 different strains of bacteria, twice a day. If you take a probiotic and it causes a general "flu-like" feeling or diarrhea, it's working. That feeling will go away in 1-3 weeks as your body resets itself. If it's too uncomfortable, skip a day of probiotic dose to give your body a break and ease into them slowly.

Well, I still wrote you a book... hahaha

My infertility hasn't resolved itself yet... but I'm working on it. If I can figure it out, I hope I can share the knowledge with others. Allopathic (what we practice here in America with our regular doctors) medicine doesn't recognize the power of nutrition a lot, so my doctor hasn't been much help. lol But I have been told that since my Celiac was likely activated when I had that major lymph node infection when I was 7, there is probably a lot of damage to reverse and it may take my body years to get to normal. But that is just my own situation.

If you have any questions... any, no matter how TMI (I am a self proclaimed "poop" expert... because truly, your poop says a lot about a person's health)... please feel free to ask. I love it when people ask so I can share what I have learned.

Best of luck... Jess

Fasting Versus HCG Diet

(Note: I found this in my computer today... I wrote it on 1/5/2010, before Celiac diagnosis in 2011 and notice of Candida issue)

In the past ten years, I continually gained weight, lost it, and then regained it over and over again. I tried everything… I tried pills, I tried exercise programs, I tried joining the gym and going every day, I tried Atkins, Zone diet, South Beach… everything. It was all getting quite ridiculous, so I found some information on Dr. Joel Fuhrman, who promotes fasting.

fast²    [fast, fahst]

verb (used without object) 

1. to abstain from all food. 

2. to eat only sparingly or of certain kinds of food, especially as a religious observance.

verb (used with object)

3. to cause to abstain entirely from or limit food; put on a fast: to fast a patient for a day before surgery.

noun

4. an abstinence from food, or a limiting of one's food, especially when voluntary and as a religious observance; fasting.

5. a day or period of fasting.

Fasting is something the human body is made to do to survive famine and hard times. Someone with a decent muscle mass can do this without harm for about 40 days, according to Dr. Fuhrman’s book "Fasting and Eating for Health".

Just watch those people on the show Survivor; they are eating maybe 500 calories a day. MAYBE. And they are surviving… but they are miserable and hungry.

So, I tried it.

I was miserable… I was weak and a little mentally loopy and stopped after three days. It was so stressful on my body, it took a two weeks to recover fully to be able to go back to exercise.

In the meantime, yes, I had lost 7 pounds in those three days… but guess what. I gained them back in that time of recovery, and that’s even sticking with the diets in Dr. Fuhrman’s “Eat for Life” book.

Look at those people on Survivor. They lose all that weight during the show, then at the finale, you see how they all gained that weight right back.

I was resigned to just being 50lbs overweight for the rest of my life, and possibly more in the future.

Then a friend of mine at work tried the Dr. Simeon HCG Diet protocol. Truly… I thought she was insane, remembering my experience with fasting, but I was curious… it was something I hadn’t tried yet.

I researched the HCG diet up and down… I wasn’t about to inject just anything in me.

Yes… there are risks involved… but they are the same risks as the same people who use the HCG for a different issue (like fertility) with higher dosages that IS approved by the FDA. The FDA approved those same risks, so what’s the problem with this?

"Oh, but of COURSE you'll lose weight at 500 calories, without the HCG" is the argument I get all the time. Oh yeah? Of COURSE you would. Would you be happy? NO.  Would you be losing muscle mass? Likely yes.  Would you still have those dimply thighs because your body didn't pull from your abnormal fat storage? Yes.

Dr. Simeon mentions in his "Pounds and Inches" text about how pregnant women in third world countries barely have anything to eat and they are skinny to the bone, yet they produce a healthy fat baby. Yes… anecdotal, but something to keep in the back of your mind.

Hcg is found where cancer is found, both in men and women.

Why do people say that HCG is the creator of cancer? Then why haven’t all the pregnant women in the world been diagnosed with cancer, since the pregnancy pee-on-a-stick test checks for HCG in the urine?   This is just too logical for me.

My own uneducated hypothesis about HCG is that HCG is one of the body’s own mechanisms for fighting cancer. My reason is this: the body’s primary goal is the make that baby survive, so it produces a hormone that not only makes all fats readily available for consumption in case of famine, but also kills tumors and cancers. Yes, sometimes the HCG will not succeed in defending the person from cancer… but I could say it would be an interesting study to see the effect of injected HCG into a cancer patient to see what happens.

So I did it… I figured, what have I got to lose? A few pounds? If I felt crappy, I would stop. I am healthy as a horse. The only thing I had a was a moderate case of fibrocystic breast disease (made your breasts very sore prior to menstral flow, and in severe cases, will create non-cancerous lumps in your breasts) which wasn’t treated… I just dealt with it.

It was great. My first 35 day round, I lost 23 pounds. I wasn’t miserable, I wasn’t hungry... Yes, I could not exercise, otherwise it was like my body would shut down. I gained a “glow” about me… my face filled out from being gaunt from other yo-yo dieting… it was incredible.

And… while my breasts were super sore for the first couple weeks on the diet, the soreness went away… and I haven’t had any trouble since. Maybe the HCG took it away?

So I did it again a couple months later. Lost another 15 pounds.

In total, I lost 27.25 inches. Went from a size 14 to a size 8.

As far as muscle loss… I have a muscular build… I’m a heavy girl with a slim frame. 5′8″ 150 pounds… size 8. I did not lose my muscle mass, or at least, not even an 1/8 of what I lost in those two weeks that I fasted.

Because of my own experience with fasting, (which 500 calories is considered fasting) one cannot convince me that the HCG diet does not help with going down to that very low calorie diet.

I’ve been there… and it sucks when you don’t have the HCG when fasting.

Anecdotal… but that is my experience, and people should know.

GF Review: Bob's Red Mill GF Homemade Wonderful Bread mix

So, I have been aching for some bread... specifically, sandwich bread.  I want an amazing sandwich.  Being gluten free, this is not so easy.

How do you get GF bread? Well, you can either make it, or you can buy it.  When you buy it from the store, it's frozen.  So your immediate need for an amazing sandwich MUST wait until it has thawed, which is usually overnight in the fridge.

Something bothers me about purchasing frozen sandwich bread... I can buy the frozen GF hot dog buns from Udi's and keep it in the fridge and wait.

Go here to get some... and check out the rest of their site!

 
... but I just haven't tried their bread yet for some reason.  I would rather bake it.

Go here to get some!

So... Bob's Red Mill is your classic natural ingredient company that offers many products that are both gluten free and gluten filled.

I picked up their bread mix and told Hubs that I was going to make him some bread.

So I did... we don't have a bread maker, so I used the conventional oven directions.  For the oil, I used olive oil, not butter.  I didn't happen to have any good butter to use in it at the time, so I knew it was going to be a slightly different taste and won't be sweet... better for oils and pepper; your typical taste for italian breads.

If you have never made your own bread at home, DO IT.  The smell itself is so worth it.

This bread was pretty good... excellent to eat on it's own, or with butter on it. Hubs had some with peanut butter on it and also used a couple pieces for french toast, which he says tasted amazing.  He also attempted to have the amazing sandwich, that I have been aching for, using this bread and the bread falls apart.

This appears to be a complaint that most GF'ers suffer from... the bread falls apart.  With no wheat gluten in there, the bread is just not as pliable as we want it to be, and how other $.99 cent bread at the store is.

Other than that, it kept wonderfully in my fridge.  I didn't have a bread case or anything like that, so I wrapped it in plastic wrap and shoved it in the fridge.  We ate the last of it 5 days later... and it was still very good.  It was starting to get a little dry at that point.

This was an excellent beginner homemade bread.  The mix was easy.

HCG Diet and Cycle Time

I now have proof that the HCG diet can regulate your menstrual cycle.

A little (okay, a lot) of my cycle recent history...

After 2 years of menstrual issues, likely due to my pending Celiac diagnosis and the related malabsorption, my cycles were anywhere between 45 and 70 days.  Even after going gluten free in December 2011, my cycle continued to be wonky.

Since my husband and I are trying to conceive and have been since December 2010, I have been really paying attention to my cycles and what is creating my infertility.

I have a Fertile Focus Microscope which only uses your saliva to check the hormone levels that are in your saliva to see if you could consider yourself fertile.  If your saliva shows a fern pattern (which is the crystalization of whatever hormone it looks for) then you are likely fertile.

Image from getting-pregnant-tips.com

 
Ferning = Fertile = should get preggers easily... easy enough, right?

Wrong, in my case.

So in my ridiculously long cycles, I started checking the 'scope daily to see when it actually said I was fertile.

Funny enough... I was ALWAYS fertile on right around cycle day 14... which is when I'm SUPPOSED to be.  Of course, my flow doesn't show up 14 days later like it should, so I continued checking the 'scope daily to see what it did.

I have the blessing to be able to tell when I actually ovulate; it causes me pain.  It's a brief pain, but definitely different than any other pain I have ever had, so I can tell.  I've learned over the years that it means I'm ovulating.  Exactly 14 days after that pain occurs, my flow shows up.

On those days that I know I'm ovulating, I checked the 'scope... and nothing.  Doesn't say I'm fertile at all. Yet I'm ovulating??? That doesn't make any sense.

So of course, my theory came forth that my hormones and body goes through the motions of my cycle on the proper days, but my ovaries are late to the party... by like a month.  By the time I actually do ovulate, my hormones are not in the right spot, likely my uterine lining is no longer hospitable for a bouncing baby to start, therefore anything that actually does connect with the ovum, falls right through.

So... the key was to get my ovaries to show up at the right time to the party.

My HCG diet did that for me.  My last cycle date was May 13.  I got my cycle yesterday.  A 30 day cycle!!! I almost flipped.  I had started the HCG Rx Injections on May 27, which is the day I was supposed to ovulate, but I just ovulated 2 days later! I am just so thrilled with it... when I did my past rounds of the HCG injections for weight loss, my cycle always stayed at 35 days.  This is, of course, before I was diagnosed with Celiac. Ever since I have been old enough to bleed, my cycles were at 35 days if I wasn't on the pill.

So this is the first time that my body did it by itself! (kinda)

I'm just so thrilled with it, I can't wait to see what happens for next month.

You Are What You Eat

I'll have to remind myself to see a nutritionist, after this diet, regarding what I should avoid eating to keep my body from blowing up like a whale whenever I have a meal from inflammation.

Speaking of nutritionists... the past few months I have been trying to determine what vitamins I am missing. There is a reason why I gained all this weight in a short amount of time... and yes, that's Celiac, but Celiac creates a vitamin insufficiency, but sometimes the blood tests don't tell you which vitamin it is.

For me, it's not Folate or B12... the blood tests indicated a really low level of vitamin D, which may be due to my age and also because of my weight, so I don't solely blame Celiac on that.  The doc didn't run any other tests, so I'm just testing items that just can't hurt if I take a little extra.

So in my research... Zinc is a huge player in metabolism and the immune system.  See this article by Dr. Barbara that I ran across a couple months ago... Celiac Brain: When you are gluten sensitive, you may be zinc deficient!  She explains in her article that zinc is the most popular mineral that is used by our enzymes, which if you are not absorbing it properly, you're basically going to have some serious issues.

Also, in my obsessive search for an answer, I found magnesium tends to be an issue with EVERYBODY... not just Celiacs or gluten sensitive people.  Magnesium has a major effect on weight loss and also inhibits inflammation.  See this for the full article: Magnesium Can Help Fight Obesity

When I read those items, I started taking 50mg a day zinc supplements as well as 400mg of magnesium along with my normal supplements of 5000iu of D3 (for my low D levels), 400iu of Vitamin E, and my food based multivitamin, and I don't know if this was just the placebo effect, but seriously, I started feeling better.  I had more energy... I just felt brighter.

I know that since I went gluten free 6 months ago, my hair started growing properly and my skin cleared up, but I still had some thinning hair issues (and I'm only 30... so I'm going to avoid that as much as possible!!) but since adding the zinc component to my supplements, I can't help but notice that my hair "behaves". Note that zinc is a major ingredient in shampoos like Head and Shoulders and Selsun Blue.

For the rest of my life I'm just going to keep in mind that I am what I eat... so if I eat crap... I'm going to feel like crap.

HCG Diet Journey... with a discovery of Celiac Disease

Let me tell you about the HCG Diet.

Me before the HCG Diet at around 190 taken December 2008:

I have completed 6 rounds of this diet... all in all, I lost a total of some 70lbs.  I went from 190 down to 140lbs in 3 rounds.

Me after the initial rounds at 140lbs taken December 2009:

Huge change right??? I felt so great after it too... I started exercising, P90X, playing volleyball, and Ultimate Frisbee... because I felt awesome.

I then gained 20lbs within 4 months, did another round and lost 10, gained another 20in 4 months, did another round and lost another 15.  I waited 5 months this time and had gained some 30 lbs, which I lost 25, then I gained it all back in 2 months. 

I was like... WHAT THE HELL.

I'm not a ridiculous eater.  I am very very strict with my diet as I have always struggled with my weight. This diet was perfect for me because I hated eating... it just made me fat.  Didn't matter what I ate it seemed.  I was exercising at the time when I gained the 20lbs, but the last round where I gained 30, I had gotten so heavy that exercise was difficult and I was exhausted.

This is what I looked like at the end of the last round, which was April 2011. I was at 186lbs here. I still look better than my original photo where I was about the same weight... you can see where the HCG had readjusted where my fat deposits were.

Not bad right?  You can see my abdomen isn't swollen... from my lack of taking in anything that caused it to inflame.

So... here I am today... at 225 lbs... a year later.

The above photo was taken in February 2012, Super Bowl. HUGE change from just the year before.  After the round in April 2011, I was thinking there was something wrong... so I went to the doctor.  They had found issues with my Thyroid Stimulating Hormone and that my testosterone levels were on the edge of being high, but other than that, I was perfectly healthy.  I couldn't figure out what was going on... I didn't feel good.  I suffered from depression and had a miscarriage in December 2010. 

Finally... December 2011... I figured it out. I got tested... and BAM. I have Celiac Disease.  This is a genetically inherited disease where basically your body reacts to gluten as if it were poison.  In the process, it kills your intestinal lining... yeah, the part that helps you actually gain nutrients.  So basically, I was malnourished, yet the rest of me was healthy, so it was taking in as much as it could get and storing it because it was starving for nutrients.

So... I went gluten free in December 2011 and haven't gone back.  I haven't struggled with it either... I have tended to avoid gluten anyway, knowing that it creates a weight gain for me, but there were other items that I loved (like beer) that brought the Celiac symptoms right to the forefront.  My weight has decreased to about 220 (in the last month) after a brief increase in weight (likely due to actually getting nutrients) but it has started to slowly drop off.

My goal now is to do another 3 rounds of HCG to bring myself back to where I was at... 140lbs.  I should be able to stay there since gluten is no longer welcome in my life.

So... I got my HCG in today... I am doing injections... and doing it purely Dr. Simeon's style.

I'll be tracking my weight and measurements on here... I will start with my measurements tomorrow... when I do my first injection.

I have 3 things of HCG to go.  I am hoping, since my diet is so limited anyway and I don't really care about eating, that I can go with the full 40 day cycles on each one.  My goal for this round is to lose 40lbs.  Not sure if I'll make it that far, but at least 30 and I'll be happy.