The civilian science experiment continues.

I have been on my own for a month between check-ins, and progress is being made. I am a continual shifting picture, a screen image of transmutation. In this last week I introduced heavy probiotics, which should help replace up to a third of the missing colonies in my gut. I also added Rhodiola rosea, a natural root extract, to help regulate the adrenal squeeze I feel as I come down from Prednisone—a process which continues to remind me that I am not done riding the choppy waves.

While discussing the ins-and-outs of probiotic culture with the informed owner of Nature’s Best, I was introduced to the term “healing crisis”, also known as the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction. The concept was "new" to me, but then again not… It refers to the temporary worsening of symptoms as the body expels toxins during healing. Not to be feared, it’s a sign of deep cleansing, observed by both civilians and scientists. It can affect any body system, and with this potential in mind, I started the 80 billion strain from Renew Life--beginning 2 days before a 5mg reduction in Prednisone. I was aware that I was compounding “crisis” potential, but unwilling to wait any longer for effective healing. 

The first sign I noticed from the probiotics, taken just before sleep, was an effervescent feeling, a 2-inch circle at my navel. Over the course of 4-5 hours this turned into a more general belly-wide sensation, keeping sleep somewhat fitful and eventually waking me—but on each night since the beginning, I have fallen into a more solid “second” sleep than I can remember ever having experienced. This sleep feels heavy, earthy and unshaken, somehow less stressful and disturbed.

I appreciate sleep on so many levels. As an artist, I’m fascinated with its rich symbolism and dream states. As an athlete, I witness its profound affect on my performance. As an on-and-off disturbed sleeper, as much as I've sought to control it, it has remained illusive... I have, however, taken the opportunity to mine what I can from it—I’ve kept a dream log for over 6 years, and it led me to produce a book, which ties to this next story about guts and healing, and how I came to be writing and art-ing about this journey. 

>> From inside out to outside in <<

When I began this process a year ago, I’d arrived in the physical therapy office with sharp pain in my hip, a significant body spiral, all-over joint pain, chronic inflammation tied to GI issues, and gnarly surgical scar tissue trauma to my lower abdomen. (*If this is your first time reading, you can trace back the story in What I am Learning About Crohn’s, culture, food and healing). Over 6 months, my PT and I used a combination of functional dry needle therapy and systematic re-training to get my body to release stress responses and mis-used strength patterns, rewiring connections that held my posture out of place. This was a time of great pain and great revelation, and as I felt the re-surfacing of body trauma and trigger points as they headed out, I also recovered memories and emotional states that had been frozen into my tissues.

As I sought to heal on multiple levels, I used the tools of my dream log and artistic logic to connect my body and mind, scripting the narrative of my history, acknowledging and releasing dis-functional patterns in relationship with the world. I titled the book Spring FREEZE to reference the well-known pathways of stress response in nature and psychology, flight, flight, or freeze. Unearthed through this perpetual, unfolding "healing crisis", the project allowed me to shed layers of false-self and pain, and to creatively construct through deep layers of transformation, both inner and outer.

In terms of the more recent leg of this journey, notable in a different dimension since the start of probiotics, I am experiencing mental steadiness that I had not known before—a better ability to focus in everything from conversations, to work projects, to my gaze. Having lived with over 10 years of gut disturbance, which at times produced everything from “brain fog” to black-out, this is a level of attention and ease that I never knew I never knew. So as the process continues, I am quite curious to keep recording the changes in sleep, body, and mind by multiple means. 

I want to end this post by sharing a Ted Talk from a researcher at the ABC Microbiome Institute in Ireland, one of the lead research facilities in this field. He speaks of how the gut is both physically and bio-chemically connected to the mind, and how the healthy landscape of the microbiome is essential for the immune system, our neurotransmitters, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.

Peace, love, and happy belly's everyone. 

I want to start this post with a win. I have not had coffee in 25 days, and I have (so far) not killed anyone over it.​

I have noticed improvements in my skin and overall energy, as well as the shakiness of my body—though I am still not eating enough, and it comes back on days that I fall behind. I attribute this mostly to the types of restrictions I am on—the overall inconvenience of food-timing, and my still-learning self just needing a lot of help these days.

Shakiness aside, at this point I’d like to mention just how special my network is. I have many relatives and friends who are going out of their way, feeding me, housing me, reaching out for favors, buying me medicine, advising me in health matters, and helping me to construct a life-plan in which I can continue to prioritize my physical and emotional well being. Ha, this has been especially hard for those who are actually AROUND me, with the mental chaos and depression I’m experiencing from Prednisone. Thank you for your patience, I am truly thankful for all of you.

Moving on, I want to share a bit of what I’m going through fitness-wise, as I’ve had a pretty interesting journey and the physical feedback I’m getting in response to triggers, training, and treatment is something I think can help other people.

My body is a bit of an anomaly in an interesting way in that, despite serious chronic conditions, I’ve been a focused athlete training 5-6 days/week essentially since childhood. In the last decade this became even more disciplined and alignment-focused as I developed a deep yoga practice. But all this time, working “oh-so-hard” to have a balanced body, I have fallen short for several reasons: 1.) An gnarly, uneven scar across my lower abdomen from a decade-old GI surgery, and 2.) intermittent inflammation in the small intestine, which connects to the SI joint. Depending on the day and triggers, this creates a “heavy” sick feeling in the bowl of the pelvis, and quite a lot of pain in my lower back—echoing out into hips and spine and everything from my toes to my fingertips.

My PT Jodi laughs at this dichotomy, but it’s quite strange that I have managed to find a way to intricately climb ropes and trapeze, but yet have trouble standing straight on one leg. My grounding became uneven as my inner hips and certain pelvic floor muscles weakened. My hip flexor muscles took over responsibility for my swollen and scarred lower-core, and lack of hip and spine stability. In the thread between psychology and the body, this has meant quite a lot of fear and fight-or-flight response, which is easily triggered and I would say constant on a low level in my body, breathe, and mind.

Over the last 10 months I have re-built these areas with a variety of accessible standing and floor exercises based in yoga and PT, and have found interesting ways to challenge myself as I seek to stabilize the weak threads in my body back to “acrobat strength”. I have a lot of restrictions still that center at my navel and lower belly, but the recent reduction in inflammation and acupuncture from Xiaolan treatment has been giving me an edge in unraveling these immoveable areas that effectively sliced my body in half. I believe the Chinese meridian work is what’s helping me root more effectively from base to crown—though I am still a re-construction zone since there are lines of energy that have been blocked and shut down for many years.

As far as practical advice goes, what I know is true is that it’s uber important for anyone dealing with chronic belly inflammation to focus on building and mobilizing their core and pelvis. The strength of those muscles are what’s going to support the organs that are housed there, and twisting and lengthening keeps tissues and organs building and moving in a tangible, manual way. It is easy to want to close down, to soften and fold to the pain and lack of energy that something like IBD creates. But to do so is to invite instability to set in over time, and let’s face it—none of us needs any more pain than we already have. It's not hard, it just takes commitment to yourself and your health!

My own alignment-heavy conditioning involves simple resistance bands, my favorite balance-buddy the BOSU (which hammers roots and midline), hand-balancing exercises, and a balance ball. This is combined with yoga-based flexibility work, which in my case and the case of anyone who’s had a small-intestine resection, C-section, or other abdominal surgery, needs to be extremely carefully focused with props and modifications to consider the particular nature of scar tissue, as well as anything that might be actively inflamed. I will also mention that since I work out at the YMCA, I end most days in the sauna, which is a great relief to my often-aching joints that have been out of alignment for many years, and this body that has a hard time staying warm. It’s my intention over time to put together a simple program that I can pass on to help others manage and come back from current and past traumas in this area of the body.