I was doing really well for a week or so.
Then I got a cold.
Not a few sniffles and a runny nose and oh I better stay home with some tea for a day or two so I don't get all my coworkers sick.
Nope, I lost two weeks of my life. For the first ten days, it just got worse every day. Then suddenly I was mostly better. I finally went back to work today and even made it through the day, although I am still feeling pretty sick. I just couldn't keep taking sick time that I don't have.
So now I'm not going to yoga or exercising on my own or going to meditation class because I can't breathe. And I kept forgetting to take all my supplements when I was sick. I think this is the first day in two weeks that I remembered to take both doses.
Before I got sick, I was doing a little better, I think. The lactation was really bad for a while before I started the supplements, but recently it's been much better and when I was sick it actually stopped. My period has been known to be lighter, shorter, or skip a month altogether when I'm sick so it doesn't surprise me that other hormonal body functions were also affected. I'm back to "normal" in that department now, though, which is a little unfortunate but it's motivating me to get back into the routine of living well because I really do think that it helped lower my prolactin levels and reduce lactation. I was also eating a lot of the good foods on my cheat sheet (just realized I never blogged about this - I'll come back to it in a minute) but since I've been sick I haven't been able to taste anything and have been eating less.
On the subject of my cheat sheet, I have been reading a lot about how diet can affect prolactin. I've been hearing a lot about three categories of food being particularly good for limiting prolactin levels or for dealing with prolactinomas - antioxidant, alkaline, and what I call "dopamine friendly" foods. This last category is mainly foods high in tyrosine, which is necessary for the production of dopamine and norepinephrine.
I skipped over all the foods I don't like (sorry, beans!) but this is what I got as a general outline of good things to eat:
Then I got a cold.
Not a few sniffles and a runny nose and oh I better stay home with some tea for a day or two so I don't get all my coworkers sick.
Nope, I lost two weeks of my life. For the first ten days, it just got worse every day. Then suddenly I was mostly better. I finally went back to work today and even made it through the day, although I am still feeling pretty sick. I just couldn't keep taking sick time that I don't have.
So now I'm not going to yoga or exercising on my own or going to meditation class because I can't breathe. And I kept forgetting to take all my supplements when I was sick. I think this is the first day in two weeks that I remembered to take both doses.
Before I got sick, I was doing a little better, I think. The lactation was really bad for a while before I started the supplements, but recently it's been much better and when I was sick it actually stopped. My period has been known to be lighter, shorter, or skip a month altogether when I'm sick so it doesn't surprise me that other hormonal body functions were also affected. I'm back to "normal" in that department now, though, which is a little unfortunate but it's motivating me to get back into the routine of living well because I really do think that it helped lower my prolactin levels and reduce lactation. I was also eating a lot of the good foods on my cheat sheet (just realized I never blogged about this - I'll come back to it in a minute) but since I've been sick I haven't been able to taste anything and have been eating less.
On the subject of my cheat sheet, I have been reading a lot about how diet can affect prolactin. I've been hearing a lot about three categories of food being particularly good for limiting prolactin levels or for dealing with prolactinomas - antioxidant, alkaline, and what I call "dopamine friendly" foods. This last category is mainly foods high in tyrosine, which is necessary for the production of dopamine and norepinephrine.
I skipped over all the foods I don't like (sorry, beans!) but this is what I got as a general outline of good things to eat:
Now, I'm not going to go around eating tons of all of this. Some of it is still a bad idea to eat. For instance, oatmeal exacerbates lactation. But I left that on there to remind me to eat some oatmeal when I'm on my period (because I stop lactating then for some reason). But the point is that I wanted something to help me look at my food options so I could choose to eat meals that include at least one thing on this chart.
I realize that's not going to have a radical effect on my health, but it's a baby step towards more drastic dietary changes that I know have helped a lot of people. This way, if I decide one day that I want to try cutting out gluten or eating raw or going vegetarian for a few months, I already have experience making deliberate decisions on what to eat, and I know of at least a few healthy things that I like.
So for right now, I want to get back on track with the supplements and exercise, and I want to start making every meal I eat contain at least one thing on that chart because it shouldn't be too hard. And someday I'll bump it up to two, or three. Or I'll assign each item points based on how many circles it's in and challenge myself to get a certain number of points in a day or a week. And maybe someday I'll actually be able to put myself on a healthful diet because I'll be used to thinking about what I eat.
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