I’m gonna start by saying that week 2 of the glutamine experiment didn’t go quite as planned. I was looking forward to more impressive results but the bad side of my Lyme and UC reared its ugly head and sent me into a spell of chills, sweats, aches, bleeding, and very frequent bathroom trips. Luckily my wife was there to provide me with a break from parenting, hydration and blankets so recovery was mostly achieved over a 48 hour period. However, the lingering effects of a flare up can last for some time and I was not able to see clear results from week 2 due to the residual inflammation and symptoms from the flare up.
With that said… I promised to keep the sanctity of the experiment pure by leaving out additional supplements, vitamins, etc that are considered to be abnormal for my routine. But, given the circumstances of the flare up I had to act fast and get some soothing components into my diet and supplements. So rather than a full recap on progress and improvements for week two I am going to reflect mostly on how I got the L-glutamine doses in. If you are interested in any of the methods I used to quickly calm the flare up, check out my Flare Survival Guide. I’ll give some perspective on the pre-flare progress but it’s going to be a light update to say the least.
Here we go, week 2! To get my doses of L-glutamine this week I went with a bit of a different approach. A fruit smoothie (frozen ripe bananas and blueberries with almond milk and choice of added fats) was my go to vehicle for this and was very calming digestively. In addition to the L-glutamine powder I added some powdered psyllium husk fiber (to help bulk up stool since I was basically passing water during my flare up) and Great Lakes Collagen Hydrolysate (for added protein and tissue repair). My body handled this combination pretty well and I got to experiment a little bit on taste and ratios for the recipe (my favorite so far is adding some canned coconut milk to make it extra creamy). Overall I think my initial progress (pre-flare up) was stable from the previous week I am anticipating positive results from week 3 as I will be tightening my diet and getting rid of some excess sugar or “junk” food choices I had available during week 2 (spoiler, I over indulged ice cream and other treats).
Although this experiment was intended to measure success of L-glutamine with as few outside factors and variables as possible, the hard reality of autoimmune disease (and many other chronic illnesses) is that you don’t get to choose how your day or week goes all the time. We have to play the hand we are dealt until we can find a better way to move forward. So this week was just that… 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. However, I am not going to let it discourage me because I learned a lot from week 1 and 2 and I am still hopeful that the L-glutamine will continue to progress my healing.
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