New Discoveries and Set Backs

Before I start today's post, I just want to say that I make no claims that this blog is anything but self-indulgent ramblings of the issues with my health. So, bear with me as I get some things off my chest- I don't own a journal, never have, and this is closest I have to it. :)

This week sucks. Mere hours after my last blog post I had my first gallbladder attack in the two and half weeks since my last flush. To say I was upset about it, would be an understatement. I was torn apart by it.

Full. Blown. Meltdown.

I'm not even joking when I say I had a meltdown. It was horrible. During the attack I just went in to my usual regime of supplements and waiting to see what works and for the pain to subside. It started at about 3:30am and I finally crawled back in to bed around 5:00am, though it took me another 30 minutes to finally get to sleep. When I woke up several hours later my body felt like a dead weight and I had no desire to move. I made a breakfast of juiced cucumber, apple, and ginger and then decided I should do a castor oil pack to help things heal.

Now, I know I never talked about castor oil packs like I was suppose to and let me tell you why. They didn't help me much, in fact, they just made my liver and gallbladder feel like they got punched when I was done with them. I even tried reducing the amount of time I kept the castor oil and heat on my GB and it still caused pain and tenderness. So, I abandoned the concept. Well, thought that after the attack was a good time to bring them back out.

What happened after the castor oil pack was a very quick unraveling of my mental and emotional state. I jumped in the shower to clean the castor oil off (it's sticky) and within minutes of the warm water hitting my back I began the meltdown. Uncontrollable sobbing- the really ugly kind- began and I was overcome with the sensation of wanting to scream and kick. Despite being alone in the house I was still strangely self-conscious about it, but my body just needed to let (whatever it was) out. I cried (nee Sobbed) through the whole shower and while I was getting dressed. I went to make my lunch for the day- salad with grated beets- and my need to go in to a primal rage of screaming and kicking went in to a full blown state of emergency.

Something had to get out.

I decided whatever emotion/anger needed to come out was not coming out properly with the sobbing and I needed to give in my overwhelming desire to punch, kick, and scream. Not wanting to break any holes in walls, I opted for a pillow. Thankfully, the pillow survived my attack, but had I not run out of energy it might have been a different story. Collapsing on to the pillow after the screaming and punching was done, I knew that something intense was going on in my body. Some deep anger that was stuffed in my liver was working it's way out and I had done my best to allow that process to happen.

The rest of the day was spent quietly. I went to work for an hour before, received acupuncture treatment on my liver/GB, and was sent home to finish recovering. There wasn't a lot of protesting to do on being sent home, I was a wreck and knew it. I started crying the moment I walked in the door.

Sadly, I don't feel like I got everything out. While retelling the story during my therapy session today I felt my body tense and react quiet violently, and hours later the tension has not gone away. It's as though my body has gone in to a severe "fight or flight" mode in reaction to my emotional detox and the detox does not yet feel complete. There is still a lot of pent up anger that hasn't worked out and I don't feel well as a result. I tried to go out to dinner with a friend tonight, but felt sick the whole time. Even now, I'm not sure I'm going to get much restful sleep tonight because my liver/gb area are quite tender to the touch which tells me there might be another attack on the way.

Sigh. This sucks.

On the bright side, I discovered something today. Wanting to know why my gb is still torturing me after TWO liver flushes I had a phone consultation with the gallbladderattack.com lady, Debbie. She and I had a great conversation and she suggested that there is a good possibility that I have an underlying thyroid issue that is causing the continued flare-ups. She gave me great suggestions on a diet program to follow and some supplements to help get things back in balance. I will need to do some blood work to confirm the suspicion, but somewhere deep in my heart I have thought for a while now that I might have something wrong with my thyroid. My first giveaway was that my hands and feet are always cold and I sleep with thick socks and blankets even in the summer.

The good thing is that the diet she is recommended is essentially the diet I followed two years ago- fish and veggies. Not a problem, I can do that. And I so want to be well that I don't think cupcakes will even tempt me anymore. Over two years ice cream free, I'm pretty sure I can make that happen for cupcakes too.