Tracy's Tiny Clicks

I can’t just pinpoint the why I am doing the elimination diet to one reason.  There are a culmination of reasons that play a factor into the why.

REASON #1:

I am surrounded by so many support systems; my husband, family, friends, co-workers.  All who I am so lucky to have in my life that care about me.  I can’t even begin to count how many times my mom or dad would find an article about how food can play a role in rheumatoid arthritis.  I can recall my dad cutting out newspaper articles and giving them to me.  My mom texting and emailing me articles.  I would read them, think about doing it, but never follow through.  My husband persistently pushed me to try one to the point where he said, “You do it, I will do it right there with you.”  I had friends and colleagues do the gluten free diet and would share their success stories.  It was not until my mom shared with me that Michael Symon on the television show, “The Chew”, was doing an Elimination diet because he too wanted to try an anti-inflammatory diet.

REASON #2:

My husband and I hope to be blessed one day with a family.  After speaking with my rheumatologist, I decided that it was safest to stop my medication.  I have been on medicine for RA for 15 years.  I was currently taking Simponi, which was working effectively.  I had my share of flare ups here and there, especially during season changes, but I was able to manage them.  However, within just three months of stopping my medicine, all the symptoms came rushing back.  Joints were becoming more inflamed with morning stiffness that was lasting longer than normal, chronic fatigue, and new nodules being left on my joints.  The “normal, active me” started to question how can I allow this to continue to go on?

REASON #3:

With stopping my medicine, I started to become more active with the Rheumatoid Arthritis and other auto immune disease community.  I joined My RA Team, a social networking site for those with RA.  Here I started to learn how others feel and their daily struggles and wins.  This made me want be more pro-active, so I did more research and got involved with The National Arthritis Research Foundation.

REASON 1 + REASON 2 + REASON 3 = My Elimination Diet Why

I had to bring in my love for math!

I have the constant mindset that I am stronger than the disease and I will never let it dictate how I live my life despite it’s ugly symptoms.  Ultimately, with not being on medication I want to see if there are other avenues I can explore to help #SlayRA.

So next up is the planning phase and putting the elimination diet to the test. (Yup, a teacher reference 🙂 )