I have a lazy liver. At least, that's what my naturopath told me in May of last year when I went to see him for the first time. I have trouble digesting things. I don't know what things in particular (because of my physical not-in-tuneness? Possibly....) but a lot of things. My doctor did an ultrasound on my gall bladder a year ago and settled on the catch-all diagnosis of IBS but that didn't help me solve the problem. I even relented and went on her IBS medication for a while, even though I am very anti-medication, but it didn't work. Ha!
My mom recommended this naturopath she and some of her friends had gone to with apparently great results so I thought I would give it a try. Not much to lose at that point but bloatedness and gas. Yummy. (As an aside, I went to see a naturopath when I was in high school for different digestive-related issues. He was a quack. Or whatever the naturopath equivalent is. I was assured this guy was different.)
As it turns out, I really like my naturopath a lot. He is also a doctor of Chinese medicine and so has a different take on the body and healing than western-style doctors, but at the same time isn't flying around in Never Never Land. I like that. I wanted an alternative solution but, if we're being honest, I get uncomfortable with straying too far from my everyday comfort zone. I mostly think it's form without substance, and that, too, won't help me solve my problems. He started my treatment by testing my pulses. There are twelve for different organs and they are measured on a scale of one to ten. At the beginning my liver was a 1 or 2. Not good. In fact, he said he wished he had some new naturopathic students around since I was such a classic case of dysfunctional liver that even they would be able to feel it. Awesome.
So we started on a path of liver support and stimulation to get it back on track, with a sidebar into stimulating stomach acid production to allow me to actually absorb the medication and food in general. Worked like a charm. Not quickly, mind you, but things were never so acute that I had to do something immediately. If it was going to work, I could wait.
Unfortunately, I'm having a relapse. I had about 4 months of general relief and then in the middle of January the symptoms began to return and if anything they're getting worse. I've played around a bit with my doses of stomach acid pills to see if I could get things under control but no dice. It's very frustrating since (a) I was really feeling better, and (b) (and the relevance to this blog) I wanted to fix these digestion issues before any babies, thinking I should get my systems in tip top shape before throwing them to the dogs, or the fetus as the case may be. I may have to revisit that plan. I go back to the naturopath on March 3. Hopefully he has some solutions. Stupid body. Marvelous, but stupid.
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