Sometimes I look back on my journey and I do wonder how I did it all. So many different diets and supplements, so many cleanse techniques with some scary after effects and yet I kept going. I kept trying new things. Whenever I read about something new to shift my experience with endometriosis, I would try it. It didn’t even matter how bizarre or unproven it sounded. I would just try it and test it for myself. I was relentless at finding relief and luckily I eventually did find it.

My motivation was clear: Get rid of the pain & symptoms and finally live a normal life. 

So, I thought I would start with some basic strategies you can use to shift some of your nasties, really quickly.

Nasty #1: Extreme Nausea

I was plagued by nausea for most of my life. I got so used to experiencing nausea that I learned how to mentally talk myself out of it, on many occasions. It used to be particularly bad on planes and in cars. I remember my mom having to clean up my puke on more than one road trip when I was young!

It was only later in life that I connected the dots on what made my nausea worse. I guess you learn the hard way on what your body rejects when you get sick far too often. The interesting thing is that my body started to speak more loudly on what it wanted me to eat and drink during those times of nausea and what I learned through years of study, is that the very foods that I craved during those times were also the foods that were more supportive of my liver health.

So what should you eat if you experience extreme nausea?

The key ones to avoid are rich fatty foods. Even if those fats are good fats, they still need to be processed by your liver and hence feeling the nausea. I can promise you that nothing makes you want to be sick than consuming too much rich fat!

The other major one is sugary foods. I remember many kids birthday parties, where I would consume far too many lollies and sweets and really bear the brunt on that, later in the day.

My recommendation, based on my own experience for feeling better: Stick with really bland foods. Nothing too spicy,  nothing to rich and stick with the basics. Fruit for breakfast, vegetables, home-made soups and salads for lunch and rice with steamed vegetables for dinner. Use a good salt on everything. Just try it for a week and see how you feel. The biggest alleviator of nausea would have be drinking bubbly water and putting a sprinkle of salt in the water. Salt definitely seems to help with nausea.

The other big alleviator is lemons. Lemons in water, lemons in your food and even having lemon oils infused into the air.

Nasty #2: The Dreaded Pain

When I first began my journey I wanted to believe that there was one remedy that could instantly alleviate my pain. I searched for years trying to find one miracle supplement or herb that could do just one job: alleviate pain. What I didn’t get at the time is that pain is not something you fix that easily. Pain is your body crying out for help on many levels and wanting you to pay attention to all of it – not just looking for a quick fix.

Over the years I tried all sorts of focal points: hormone imbalances, digestive issues, emotional imbalances, stress relief and doing cleanses like my Candida Challenge and more advanced ones like Liver Flushes.

I was hoping one of these would be the miracle fix but what I didn’t realise is that each aspect that I added was actually making up a series of puzzle pieces to overcome the imbalances of my whole body.

So, I wish I could tell you there was one thing that fixed the pain. I wish there was one dietary suggestion or one specific cleanse or one fabulous supplement but I simply don’t think there is just one thing. It is about layering up on things that help your body rebalance. It isn’t really just about targetting pain because pain is merely a symptom or a consequence of the imbalances going on in your body. What you really want to be focusing on is those imbalances and correcting them, one layer at a time.

However, in saying that I can give you some focal points to help you alleviate pain:

1. Avoid inflammatory foods like gluten, dairy and sugar. They really do make things worse.
2. Focus on foods which are high in anti-oxidants. Google high anti-oxidant foods and you will discover they go far beyond the simple blueberry 😉
3. Reduce the level of stress you have in your life as much as possible. This means paying attention to your thoughts, your environments and noticing when your heart-rate goes up and when you feel anxious, stressed or worried. Shifting our mindset and working on releasing negative past experiences is a huge help with all of this.
4. Get them bugs out of your body! There are many unwanted fungi, bacterial overgrowths and parasites that can cause huge imbalances in our body. To begin with, start with the Candida Challenge. Candida has been shown to be closely linked to women with endometriosis and there are even studies to prove that pain with endo can be alleviated with the elimination of Candida overgrowth in the body.

Nasty #3: The “Fall Over” Fatigue

It is just the worst feeling. You are just permanently tired. Even when you think you have gotten enough sleep, you still don’t wake up refreshed and energized. You struggle to get anything done because the energy to do it, just seems overwhelming. Your worst time of day is around 3pm, where you could easily just fall asleep at your desk!

There have been a few lessons I have learned over the years on things that made me feel more tired. What I worked out is that fatigue represented my body simply not coping or having “too much work to do”. Interesting how our body simply translates that into a mental feeling of overwhelm 😉

So, what could be making your body feel like it has “too much work to do”?

One of the key things is looking at your meal portion sizes. Cut back on how much you eat and you will feel a huge transformation on how tired you feel. A big meal is a huge amount of work for your body to get through. Break it into smaller portions throughout the day and eat more often and you will naturally feel lighter and more energized. Naturally, choosing the right kind of foods also play a part here 😉 Give your body the work at the right time. Eating a meal really late at night and then going to bed within 3 hrs after consuming it, is not ideal. If you are able to shift your dinner to lunch or eat your dinner super early – like 5pm, you will feel a shift there too. Give your body enough time to digest it all and break it down.

An obvious one is sleep. Many of us assume we can go to bed late and just sleep in. Nope. You want to be in bed and ready for sleep by 10pm. No later. Try it! You’ll be amazed at how much better you sleep and feel.

I have to go into your thoughts and patterns here too. Stop telling yourself that you are tired all the time. I totally did this and found myself repeating the phrase “I am so tired” all that time! This just creates the same result. The other thing that will really drag down your energy levels is repeated negative thoughts or feelings of overwhelm. Try to catch yourself thinking those and let them go or shift your thoughts that make you feel happy and light instead.

In Conclusion

I could go on for hours on all the different symptoms we experience with endo and there are a heap more to cover but these are some of the most common ones I get asked about all the time. If you have a symptom you would like help on, let me know and I can add it as a blog post.

The good news is that you can alleviate these symptoms and feel better. I know you can.