Here we are! Day 1... All about me

Hello! So, I'm kinda new to this whole blogging thing.... BUT my cousin (the awesome lady over at Leaky Gut Detective ) has started a blog about all of her food allergies these days, and since I am having a lot of problems too, some similar, I figured we could collaborate. One of these days we are going to write a cookbook. It's going to be amazing.

Anyways. So this is my story. I am a 22 (almost 23) year old female, living in Montana, loving life even though it is crazy busy. I work 2 jobs, graduated from school in May but am planning on going back again in the Fall, I love reading and cooking and talking about food all day every day. I love to learn about nutrition and I have a college degree in exercise so I know a lot about that, but definitely struggle with putting into practice what I know. It's a lot easier to tell other people how to live than tell yourself how to live. UGH. But it's something I'm working on!

About my health, I was diagnosed with Hidratenitis Supparativa (probably spelled that wrong) about 2 1/2 years ago. If anyone is wondering what that is, it is this wonderful (by which I mean rather horrible) little skin disease that is very similar to acne except that it affects areas where you sweat, so your sweat glands rather than you oil glands. Also the pimples are about 20 times larger. And sometimes don't like to go away for about 5 months. Which is when my doctor comes in with a big scary knife and cuts them away so then the healthy tissue underneath can regrow up to the surface. Like I said, it's super fun.

Ok, as you can probably tell I am a rather sarcastic person! But really this disease is not fun at all, but from reading other people's problems with it on the internet, I can tell that I don't have it too bad. Mine mostly sits in my armpits, and some on my chest and in between my boobs. Thankfully it has stayed away from my groin! YIKES! As far as medication, I take birth control and am supposed to take Minocycline every day for it, but I'm really bad about doing that. Partly because I'm terrible at making habits and partly because I hate the idea of popping pills every day. Even taking birth control every day isn't fun. Um I'm a single lady, there is nothing going on in my life which would require me taking birth control! Other than, ya know, the funky armpits. Seriously, when I was growing up I never thought I would hit a point in my life where I am jealous of other women's armpits. But I am. Sometimes I'm like omg look at how smooth and pretty that person's are! But anyways, I digress.

So about a year and a half ago I decided that I was sick of the medication every day and wanted to take a more holistic approach to this disease. However, I was a poor college student and could not afford a naturopath. So I went to Google. And found that a lot of people were feeling better if they cut gluten out of the picture. So I thought hey, why not try it. So I did, and literally felt better within a day. My armpits weren't as sore, there weren't any new sores, it was great. Seriously, before I cut out gluten I was in pain every day, there were days when I didn't want to get out of bed because my armpits hurt so bad, I couldn't life my arms over my head, which sucks when you love to swim like I do. It was horrible. So cutting out the gluten helped a ton! And for a while I was happy.

However, after a while I started to realize that this disease wasn't going away. I still was getting sores, I was still needing surgery. The pain levels were way down, but the disease was still very present. And I've heard that there is no cure for this disease, but I wish there was a way I could manage it better. It's amazing to not be in pain, but I still go to the dermatologist at least on a monthly basis. I have had 4 armpit surgeries total, 3 of which have been since I stopped eating gluten. I want something that will make it go away, maybe no more surgeries, maybe no more sores, that would be awesome! I don't know that that will ever happen but I am willing to try!

So here goes experiment number 2. My cousin is both gluten and corn intolerant, which is something I hadn't considered. I just do the gluten. So I'm going to try to cut out corn for 3 weeks, and document how I'm feeling, see if it makes any difference. However, this is going to be very hard for me, because I am a bit of a sugar addict. Ok, a lot bit of a sugar addict. I try to be healthy, but then I ruin it with the desert. This is hard for me to admit, but I easily eat candy every other day or every day. I spend way too much money that I don't need to on junk food that I shouldn't be eating. Also I'm not one of those people who can just have a little bit. Like when people are like oh I'm craving something, I'll just have a bite. Nope, that doesn't work for me. If there's an open package of junk food around me, I will eat it all. So that's a major reason no corn will be hard... no corn syrup. But I'm thinking this will be good for me, because maybe I can finally kick the junk food habit and really eat healthy like I want to and should.

So this blog will be documenting these things:
1. My fight against HS
2. My fight against sugar addiction
3. Any other life lessons or funny moments that happen along the way :)
4. Any exciting recipes I make up or find that are things I can actually eat!

So thank you for reading this ridiculously long post and I hope you join me on my journey!