I had an appointment with my doctor on this past Monday, and the news is mostly good.  I’m going to be finishing out the antibiotics I have on hand, which is about a month’s worth (a little less for one of them, and a little more for the other), and then I will be stopping the antibiotics and moving on to the recovery faze of my treatment. There is no way to predict how long that will take, or how complete the recovery will be. It may be a couple years, or it may be a great many. No telling.

My blood test was completely within normal range for liver function, despite worrisome numbers last month, which was awesome. Instead she focused on the numbers that indicate I am still B-12 deficient. This isn’t really anything new. I’ve been B-12 deficient since my first blood tests with her this time last year, and the numbers have slowly been getting worse, even though I am on massive (and I mean MASSIVE) doses of injected B-12 and have been since last May. However, since we will be going into the recovery faze shortly, this is now a critical issue to correct, and it is probably related to my digestive problems since my body is not absorbing the plentiful B-12 available through the injections.

I’m quite disappointing to find out that my digestive symptoms are not nearly as under control as I had thought. I have had increasing heartburn and indigestion the past few weeks, but I had assumed it was due to the antibiotics, not my symptoms. Frankly, it can be damned hard to tell which is which since my symptoms are so systemic.

So, my doctor wants me to go on a diet of organic baby food so my body can more easily and quickly digest all the nutrients it needs to be able to absorb the B-12 (and I’m sure other lovely things as well which are not so pointedly trackable). Frankly, we can’t afford for me to eat all-organic anyway, and baby food is sick expensive even when it’s NOT organic. There is no way in hell we can afford to buy enough organic baby food to feed a grown, adult woman who does not and never has eaten a small amount, even with my currently nearly non-existent activity level. I’d probably need to eat nine to thirteen little jars for each meal!

Instead, Diana and I spent a good chunk of today shopping for foodstuffs. We STILL spent a ridiculous amount of money, but we needed to change the proportions of ingredients at my disposal so they would be better suited to the new diet restrictions, and she bought me a Nutri-Bullet machine so I can turn all my meals into blended smoothie/soup/pate concoctions. The green smoothies are going to be fairly easy. I just to need to make sure I’m keeping it closer to a 75%/25% veg/fruit proportion, instead of the more common 40%/60% or 50%/50%. However, I also need to keep my protein intake very high (I eat a a significant source of protein at least two meals a day), so we picked up some hemp protein (the whey protein all had soy in it, so that was out) and I have nuts and can add things like quinoa to the green smoothies, and I will pair that with eggs (she specifically wanted me to up my egg intake, because it has lots of stuff that help with B-12 absorption). In the next few days I’m planning to look up baby food and pate recipes so I can hopeful figure out some blended meals involving meat that are not repulsive. I’m figuring anything I could make as a soup will work, but I’m not totally confident of that.

My doctor is also ordering another blood test that I frankly don’t understand.  My mind shut down completely while she was trying to explain it, but I think it will help her to more definitively sort out why my body is failing to absorb B-12.

I’ll most likely post another update in about a month when I’ve had another appointment and am off the antibiotics.