Being the empowered patient
The story I'm about to tell is not about me. It's not about anybody on LJ. It's about somebody I know, who I'll call L to protect her privacy.
L is a fit, outdoorsy person. She's out walking every day with her dogs and with a relative's dogs (not at the same time, due to canine conflicts). She's in her middle years so it made no sense when she started to get out of breath on every walk. She'd get home and collapse exhausted.
This started well over a year ago. Since then, L has done the rounds of the GP, the hospitals, the consultants, the tests. They've examined every organ of her body and they keep saying all's well. But still, she's exhausted.
Somebody - perhaps me, perhaps somebody else - suggested that L could have a food intolerance. So she looked at her diet and wondered whether soya might be the problem. After a few soya-free, or at least low-soya days, she has some of her energy back! Not all of it, but I think that might be because she's lost some of her fitness while being too weak to exercise. The low-soya diet seems to be working for her.
All of this without any advice from a healthcare professional. They seem to have looked at everything but food intolerance.
L is a fit, outdoorsy person. She's out walking every day with her dogs and with a relative's dogs (not at the same time, due to canine conflicts). She's in her middle years so it made no sense when she started to get out of breath on every walk. She'd get home and collapse exhausted.
This started well over a year ago. Since then, L has done the rounds of the GP, the hospitals, the consultants, the tests. They've examined every organ of her body and they keep saying all's well. But still, she's exhausted.
Somebody - perhaps me, perhaps somebody else - suggested that L could have a food intolerance. So she looked at her diet and wondered whether soya might be the problem. After a few soya-free, or at least low-soya days, she has some of her energy back! Not all of it, but I think that might be because she's lost some of her fitness while being too weak to exercise. The low-soya diet seems to be working for her.
All of this without any advice from a healthcare professional. They seem to have looked at everything but food intolerance.