Nutrition for Fibromyalgia - overview - what to eat, what to avoid

Episode 18 - Nutrition for Fibromyalgia - overview - what to eat, what to avoid
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This episode continues education on self-management of fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions. Food and nutrition are an essential part of your well-being. Proper nutrition is also essential if you have autoimmune diseases, like lupus or RA, or other chronic disorders.

This episode continues to discuss how the nervous system and gut influence each other. It explains why it is hard for many patients with fibromyalgia to be consistent with diets. How trauma and stress affect your gut, what foods are good to eat if you want to improve your pain and other fibro symptoms, and which ones to avoid, and we will discuss water intake.
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Transcript

Well welcome back to mind your fiber Podcast. Today we continue a discussion on nutrition info my algen. Now this is a new type of episode for me because I'm recording both for the podcast as well as YouTube channel, you can find the YouTube channel information in the show notes. This is a global snapshot of what I think about nutrition for fibromyalgia. Now, our society is inundated with different diets. We hear about new diet coming up almost yearly, we'll have popular diets like keto or low carb or Atkins or Weight Watchers, in yet. patients that I see in my clinic struggle with their nutrition. Patients who started the diet and quit a diet they they always ask me questions about what they should be eating or not eating. So I want you to adapt a mentality that's not a diet mentality. I think of a diet as a as a rulebook what you can or cannot eat. And it's not a simple for patients who have chronic pain because it diets don't tell you what to do when you have a flare in diets also add to stress and fear, which is already a problem in patients who have fibromyalgia also diets like compassion and self love. The Add to shame and blame in diets are not self care. If you followed a diet in the past, you may feel frustrated that you keep falling off the diets wagon you will also feel tired of diets but you still need to lose weight. You also may feel that IBS or irritable bowel syndrome controls your life. You may have bloating, gas, abdominal pain, constipation or diarrhea, but no amount of data restrictions health but we know that healthy and consistent nutrition is one of the most powerful and strategic ways to make an impact on your health, in symptoms, as well as your overall health, weight and quality of life. And this is why I'm talking about nutrition. In the next several episodes, the nervous system responsible to keep you safe. The sympathetic nervous system or fight flight or freeze response is often on in patients for my algea it may be frequent or constant in your nervous system is dysregulated. In stuck in over protective mode. digestion, though happens during the relaxation time. It is driven by the parasympathetic nervous system that is responsible for rest and relaxation. Your gut is part of the enteric nervous system. It has over 100 million nerve cells and this is why we call it second brain. The first brain has direct effect on the stomach and the intestines, or the second brain. The gastrointestinal tract is sensitive to emotions as well as pain, pain and feelings such as anger, anxiety, sadness, or happiness. All of these feelings in many others in pain can trigger symptoms in the gut. Also, gut microbiota or gut microbiome also is an essential part of your health. It is a trillions of bacteria that reside within the gastrointestinal tract. And it has effect on the immune system metabolism doesn't just lung disorders, brain disorders, behavior disorders, etc. God produces over 90% of neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine, GABA and others. chemical messengers that let nerves communicate with each other, keep brain functioning, in effect the mood to understand the effect of nutrition. We also have to review how trauma and stress and Fibro are connected. This is a tale checklist, trauma in life events checklist. This checklist includes a list of common traumatic and stressful life events. So you can use this checklist to see if you had events in your life. Recent or childhood that was qualified as a traumatic event. Some of the events listed are exported to war either as a military service serviceman or woman or as a civilian loss or permanent separation from someone close to you, like a parent or caregiver a sudden or unexpected move or change in circumstances, like moving schools or loss of a home. We see that often in military families who have to relocate a lot. Also bullying or harassment in schools, work or on the street, or discrimination at the work or school also humiliation physical violence And or aggressive behaviors towards you with the sink, physical violence at home, or aggression, but also feeling unloved, unsafe, or unimportant during childhood, going hungry or thirsty in not having clean clothes, or safe place to stay during childhood. Also sexual abuse or sexual contact that was unwelcome. As you can tell this is a very comprehensive list of different circumstances that might happen to someone in life that can be traumatic. I also want to go over some of the less thought of traumatic events such as medical trauma. I think medical trauma is often unrecognized and appreciated when we talk about stressful events or traumatic triggers. But medical trauma is very frequently seen in patients who have myology them. It's not only traumatic events that happen to you as a child, it may be a serious injury or life threatening or sudden, it can be the treatment that was dramatic, like being on a ventilator. It can also be loss of control, or shock from the diagnosis, life threatening complications, unexpected medical intervention, like a C section, emergency surgery and also being in the hospital for some time can be dramatic, whatever think of being in the hospital is potentially trauma inducing. But sometimes being alone in the hospital room with frequent checks and lab work and procedures can be traumatic for somebody, especially if they have a really dysregulated nervous system also perceived or actual mistreatment by medical providers such as forced to receive unwanted intervention, receiving intervention that was poorly understood by the patient. So why is this all important? Because where there is a mental distress, there's digestive distress, this distress is bi directional. If you have distress in the GI tract, it will affect your mental health. If you have mental distress, it will affect your gut intestinal tract. I want to show you that this diagram which I think is very important to see, as an overview of a psychology of trauma, many of my patients tell me that symptoms of fibromyalgia or chronic pain developed over time. Usually it's a gradual accumulation of symptoms, and some patients will have years prior to Vermell to diagnosis when they felt unhealthy, or they had pain will often have some triggering event
that could trigger Fibromyalgia such as in a car accident or stressful event at work or hospitalization, or infection. Often, we start feeling anxious often anxiety starts as a first symptom, followed by depression in depression may have a gradual onset or can be rather dramatic. The anxiety and depression often leads to insomnia. In poor sleep. Patients often tell me that prior to diagnosis or manager that had years of poor sleep, they tossed in turns they had bad dreams, they could not fall asleep or stay asleep and over time, they also developed pain. I often don't see pain as initial symptom pharmacology, but as a continuum after a stressful event. Now some patients may start having pain as initial symptom, but also see pain is a continuum of the symptom accumulation of the half pain coupled with poor sleep in depression, anxiety, they start having poor self care. So self care diminishes. Patients stopped caring as much about their routines or their healthy habits, they start eating poorly, they might start drinking alcohol, the self care becomes poor or non existent. Once that care diminishes, also comes up a lot of shame and often self blame. I see patients blaming themselves for worsening of the symptoms because not eating right they're not exercising, they feel ashamed for feeling so much pain or discomfort. They may feel shame towards having self blame about their habits or self care in then often it leads to numbing or buffering numbing may present with overeating or stress eating or drinking alcohol or using other substances to try to cope with the discomfort. So diminished self care leads to shame, blame in numbing. And when we experience all these negative emotions, it's very hard to eat healthy. When we have shame and blame it leads to numbing. It's hard to choose healthy foods like blueberries and avocados because it's not the foods that we tend to eat from we're trying to numb our negative emotions or feelings. Usually when we start numbing our feelings, we tend to choose foods that we know that are not as healthy, but the serve as an emotional buffer. It may be soft drinks, it may be lots of sugar or fried foods or junk food. But we often think of these types of food as comfort foods, because they do temporarily produce a dopamine increase, as well as satisfaction sense of comfort. So let's talk about numbing or buffering numbing is when you trying to replace negative emotions, or feelings or pain through something external, like food, television, social media, shopping, sex work or alcohol. numbing is also called buffering, because we're using external things to change how we feel. So numbing in shame leads to self blame. self blame, leads to diminished self care, often diminished self care leads to more pain and flavors because of poor nutrition or maybe medication was stopped or exercise routine was changed, and that leads to increase in symptoms. And then also those symptoms. And again, this blame and shame leads back to the stress and trauma triggers. Stress is a feeling of emotional and physical tension. Is that discussed in the previous episodes on the podcast, it can come up from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry or nervous stresses your body's reaction to a challenge or demand, something that you're unable to cope with. Here's an example of stressors we often think of physical environment, traffic work, pandemic, social relational circumstances, family dating, caring for the kids or parents stressful relationships with our friends. financial burdens can be stressor, bills, cost of health care, disability, cost of the vacations or holidays, organizational stressors due to your work, government, etc. Life Events can also be stressful, such as divorce, but also happy events like family gatherings, weddings, parenting, I will also point out the lifestyle choices. A new diet is also a stressor it is something new is something that can be hard to cope with. It also adds changes to your routines and also puts a lot of pressure on you to perform and to. To continue with it in lifestyle choices. We also have stress from alcohol drug abuse. Also psychological or physiological stressors can be fiber flavors. This is flavors infections, so your challenge or demand for your dietary change can also be viewed as a stressor. Dr. Uma Naidu who wrote a book on this as you breathe on food, she is a psychiatrist and nutritionist wrote all the takes is two hours worth of psychological stress to completely change the bacteria in your gut. In other words, attends family Christmas dinner or unusually bad traffic can be enough to upset the balance of your microbiome. So if you couple history of trauma, with additional stress, or a new diet or anything else new, you may get negative results in impaired digestion, such as worsening IBS symptoms so let's go over foundation of fiber contrition So when will have diminished self care, in which you may feel shame blame in you numb with substances, those circumstances and the conditions of your inner thoughts are not helpful if you want to choose nutritious foods, because our thoughts feelings and actions and results are connected. Your thoughts influence your feelings that lead into actions that produce results. Your diet or modification of your nutrition really starts in your thoughts. So changing your thoughts will result in better nutrition. So when we talk about fibromyalgia nutrition or nutrition in general, I want to it's hard to suggest a specific diet that will fit everybody that will serve everybody. Bio individuality is the idea that there is no one size fits all approach to health and nutrition. Because we are all unique in our biological makeup and requirements. So each person has their own specific dietary and health needs, as well as routines, practices and preferences that work for them. Also, remember that we're culturally different. We all come from different cultures and have different diets. preferences based on our cultural upbringing as well as our preferences. So in that not counting allergies and other nutritional requirements, so your fiber diet will be different from your friends fiber diet, or your Facebook group friends fiber diet, your brain has different requirements than somebody else's brain. You got How will have different microbiome than somebody else's got your tastebuds your preferences, what you like what you don't like your allergies will be different. Someone may benefit from carnivore diet, someone will have a vegetarian diet, someone has to avoid all nuts or dairy. So building your diet protocol will be individual based on your preferences and needs. But let's talk in general, what are the good better and best foods for fiber. If you look at the power foods that you should eat if you have homology, they should include all vegetables, plants are essential for well being as well as as well as gut microbiome. Vegetables should be the main foods of your protocol. Some may have sensitivities to nightshade or potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant but often, but that's not as often all fruit especially berries are good to eat. If you're not vegetarian or vegan, all meats and eggs, our body needs protein to repair and to heal. So meats and eggs provide excellent sources of protein. Also nuts and seeds or healthy, healthy fats and fermented vegetables at the foods that you should avoid or should include. MSG or monosodium glutamate is a common additive to many foods also sugar artificial sweeteners. I will have a special lecture on the sugar and sweeteners also food that you have a sensitivity or allergy to also refined in processed foods.
When I talk about nutrition I always start with elimination part of when patients ask me often what should they eat, I would start with what you should not eat highly processed foods and sugars have the biggest impact on your health. As well as your fibrous symptoms. Most patients will benefit from elimination of sugar and flour in this can be flour such as wheat flour, or any green flour as well as almond flour. Eating this concentrated and easily digested sugar and flour or refined carbohydrates are poisoning for brain tissue and nerves. They're also known to worsen depression cause mood swings, and also worsen fatigue. When we'll look at the sugar content of our foods. Notice that the foods that are nature made such as fruit or vegetables have natural sugars. But in a limited amount, an apple will have fewer natural sugars than a banana because banana is more starchy. But if you look at the foods such as doughnuts or pastries, they are loaded with sugar in eliminating that types of foods will be most helpful after you eliminate all the junk and sugars. The next step will be to improve is to add more green vegetables. The other question people asked me How Much Water Should You Drink, heart failure or kidney disease and you are on fluid restriction diet it is recommended to drink about half of your body weight in ounces of water. Patients asked me will I start drinking water in start urinating frequently I can't run to the bathroom all the time. It is a very common problem and I can tell you so often I see patients being chronically dehydrated, they may drink a cup of water in the morning they may have a glass of iced tea or something sweet. With lunch in the have another drink or two in the evening. Crying dehydration can cause worsening pain as well as stiffness in the joints creates all kinds of health problems. I like to share the analogy of a dry soil if we didn't have any rain for a long time and the ground is dry. The next time the rain comes most of the water will run off to a judge because the ground is too dry to absorb all the water and the water comes too fast. If the rain was coming regularly, the water saturated the ground and more water absorbed the same thing with our water intake. If you chronically dehydrated and you start flooding yourself with water, most of the water will run off through urination. But if you gradually increase your water intake, your body will adjust in over time. urination in your intake will bounce out. If you don't drink water regularly in you feel dehydrated. This will be a sign of if your urine is dark colored if it has a strong smell increasing water gradually, maybe by half a cup at a time every few hours keeping track of your intake and not go from zero to 100 miles an hour quickly, will help you attain most of the water and not produced excessive urination. So putting it all together if you think of triggering events for myalgia that lead to anxiety depression, poor sleep chronic pain, diminished self care, shame, self blame. numbing or buffering plus common trigger foods that worsen symptoms like gluten, alcohol or dairy and coupled with poor nutrition, malnutrition, low vitamin levels, no wonder patients don't feel good. So over the next few episodes, we'll discuss how you can develop your own dietary protocol based on your preferences and needs. So you don't have to be overwhelmed and you have an option to follow your own roadmap. I'll talk to you next week.