Gut management
Like lots of people, before I went paleo I had a number of physical symptoms that I considered just part of living in my body. I became more aware of them when they quickly went away as I changed my eating patterns. A few weeks ago, some of them started coming back. The big one was gassiness and bloating. Others included gum swelling and pain, as well as aches in some of my joints—especially the right knee.
I don’t know why this happened, but it was not fun. I’m not aware of any particular changes in diet. I don’t eat the same things all the time; sometimes I eat very low carb, sometimes not. Eating veggies and fruits in season means that those shift over time.
The first thing I tried was eliminating dairy. I normally have some full fat dairy multiple times per week. That’s usually in the form of unsweetened Greek yogurt and cream in tea (I’ve never developed a taste for coffee).
Didn’t work. If anything, the symptoms got worse. I started to feel as bad as I did before paleo. Blech. Then I hypothesized that this was a gut flora problem. That would explain the gas, of course. it could also explain the joint issues if my gut had become more leaky and that was causing some autoimmune problems. If so, the removal of yogurt might have exacerbated the problem. So I went back to yogurt and began eating sauerkraut a couple of times a day. I also drank down some kombucha from the local health food store.
Within a couple of days, the symptoms had resolved. Was it a gut flora issue? I don’t know. Maybe it would have gotten better at the same time without attending to gut flora issues. One data point proves nothing. For now, I’m happy that things are better and will take this as a point of information for later reference.
