Endo & Nutrition Part 2: Healing Foods

Artificial hormones (like the long term birth control pills they prescribe for us endo girls) disrupt the balance of friendly intestinal bacteria (Fun fact! The human body should have about 4 pounds.) So you should take a probiotic to ensure that your intestines are operating at an optimal level. You can find these in the refrigerator section of your health food store. You should make sure it contains at least 4 million live bacteria including: Lactobacillus acidophilus, & Bifidobacterium bifidum and make sure it is dairy free. Yogurt is also a good source of this, but you would want goat yogurt, either unpasteurized or with the active cultures added after pasteurization (Trader Joe's has a great one). This will also help boost your immune system. Much more on this topic in the Candida section

Speaking of digestion, you want to make sure your digestive track is working properly. First, make sure you're digesting in the correct time frame: 12-24 hours after eating. The easiest way to assess this is to eat corn and see how long it takes to eliminate it in stool (editor's note: this is fucking gross). If it is under 12 hours you are not getting all the nutrients you need, over 12 hours and the waste builds in your body. Second, take your probiotics. Third, you want to make sure your liver is functioning properly since the liver breaks down all the dangerous substances in your body. It needs lots of vitamins and amino acids to do this. Foods that are beneficial for the liver: lemons, carrots, beets, dark leafy greens, cucumber, tomato, artichoke, celery, parsley, radish, leeks, onions, cold pressed olive oil, apricots, and grapefruits. Finally, you need to eat fiber to excrete toxins.

I mentioned in an earlier posts about type 2 prostaglandins, the ones that cause inflammation and can be found in cow products. Well, there are also type 1 & 3 prostaglandins which decrease inflammation and are good for you. The body cannot make these so it is necessary to get them from outside sources. NOTE: taking an anti-inflammatory drug like advil/ibuprofen stops them ALL from working. Prostaglandins are lipid, or oil based hormones and can be obtained from essential fatty acids which your body converts into more acids and eventually into prostaglandins.

Type 1 prostaglandins are derived from vegetable oils including: safflower, sunflower, hemp, soy bean, walnut, pumpkin seed, sesame seed, and flax oil. These cis-linoleic acids turn into gamma-linoleic acid (GLA) in the body, to skip this process, take evening primrose oil which is a GLA.

Type 3 prostaglandins come from alpha-linolenic acids (ALA) which can be found in: flax seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, dark green leafy vegetables, soy bean, walnuts and fish oil. An increase in both 1 & 3 will help immune and nerve function as well being anti-inflammatory.

Enzymes are required for these conversion processes so you will need to make sure you get adequate amounts of zinc, B6, magnesium, vitamin D, C, calcium and digestive enzymes if necessary.

All of this information in much more detail can be found in the book the by Dian Shepperson Mills, Endometriosis: A key to Healing through Nutrition

She also recommends the following supplements to take for at least 2-3 months to get your nutrition back on track. I took them my entire ‘lost year’ (summers ’06- ’07). All should be yeast, sugar, wheat, and dairy free
- multivitamin/mineral
- Vitamin C with bioflavanoids
- Evening Primrose and fish oils (combined)
- probiotics
- Magnesium taurate or malate
- chelated zinc
- digestive enzymes with each meal
- B-complex
- Selenium and vitamins A, C, D3 & E

This is probably information overload and will change your lifestyle but it WILL help you feel better. Even though I no longer suffer from the pain caused by endometriosis, I still follow nutritional protocol for a healthy pain free existence. This is especially important for anyone still feeling pain after excision surgery.