Whole30 with Valley Fever

[carny326]

Hello,

 

I'm starting this thread because there didn't seem to be one like it on here and I was feeling like a bit of a lone wolf. So I figured I start it in case anyone else is looking for support. 

 

Valley Fever is a very regional disease, found mostly in SW America and Mexico. It is a fungal spore that lives in the soil, and if inhaled while airborne (yay dust storms) can infect your lungs and give you a long lasting difficult to diagnose and treat disease. According to my doctor it can take a year or more from the time of contraction for your immune system to get on top of it, and while it does you are left with little energy, a terrible cough, and other symptoms (if your of the lucky 40% that manifests issues anyways). 

 

I started the whole30 to see if it would help with my fatigue issues and other VF stuff, and figured I would document it here incase anyone else was looking for a resource on this fairly uncommon for most people situation.  And to give other people a place to document their experiences. As a note I've been sick for about 9 months now so should be on the upswing of recovery if you are earlier in your diagnosis it may be different for you.

 

I'm 4 days into my first Whole30. The first 3 days the fatigue, groggy, foggy headed unfocusedness that is typical of the program was not much worst than what I've been going through with the VF. It has felt more like it did in the earlier days needing 10-12 hours of sleep having a hard time lasting the day, but otherwise my symptoms remain par for the course. 

 

Day 4 has shown worsening symptoms, my cough (which has been fairly minimal in the last couple of weeks) was ramped up pretty high today. Not my worst as far as the coughing goes but definitely worst than it has been in a while. I've also am achy in just about every joint (but I also deal with chronic pain and inflammation separate from the VF so that may be more related to that). 

 

I'm hoping this is just in line with the it gets worst before it gets better that other's seem to go through with their (more common) ailments. 

[carny326]

Days 5 and 6: 

 

Were relatively symptom free, I had more energy this weekend than I've had in a LONG time. I started having a middlingly severe coughing attack when I tried to go to bed tonight so I'm up filling in my forum posts. Saturday my appetite wasn't great (an issue I've been having on and off since I took the medicine they gave me when first diagnosed even though it's been months since I've stopped taking it due to the severe side affect of lost appetite), but I forced myself to eat because I could feel my blood sugar dropping. Otherwise, good. Not sure if it was just a good day health wise (doctor said I'd start to see the scale tip towards having more good days than bad as I got closer to getting better), or if this is Whole30 related. According to the book, I should be feeling like killing all the things and the need for some serious sleep, but I had that more during days 2-4. So we'll see how week 2 pans out. Keep you posted!

[carny326]

Days 7-9:

Day 7 was great, energy continued from the weekend even worked 7.5 hours at work, without fatigue or issue. But I probably shouldn't have pushed it because come evening, my coughing ramped up and would not quit, keeping me up all night

 

Day 8 exhausted and foggy due to no sleep, worked from home for only a few hours. Persistent coughing continued all day long, managed to get a full night sleep though

 

Day 9 still tired inspite of full night sleep. Going to try and work my shorter 6.5 hour day (seems to be what I can manage on good days w/o issue). Cough is persisting but not as bad as previous day and a half

[carny326]

Days 10-14:
 

Sorry for the lack of posting, was not great on the VF front the last few days. Really low on energy, difficulty sleeping, and a cough that won't quit have basically made up my week and made the motivation to come on here and write low. Not much else to report, keep on keeping on and hope that the Tiger Blood days show some sort of improvement. 

[carny326]

Days 15-21:

 

No improvement on energy and sleep has been rough for most of the time, last couple of nights have been alright. Cough has gone back to not being substantial. And I will say that I haven't fallen ill with any secondary infections since I started the program.. which is nice since prior I was getting sick with other stuff every 2-3  weeks. But I'm not 100% sure if that can be attributed to the program or if its a result of me going down to part-time work so that I can get the amount of rest that I need..

[praxisproject]

Sleep/rest is not to be underestimated in healing. There are certain types of functions the body only replenishes with proper rest and it's easy to miss out when you're not well and not sleeping well. DHEA can drop very low and it impacts energy directly, making you feel very lethargic. Don't worry too much about the timeline numbers when you're already unwell, the stages are generally in a similar order, but the days don't always line up.

 

Check with your doctor before altering any supplements but you could find you do better with more Vitamin C, zinc, magnesium, B vitamins, omega 3, vitamin D3. When we're recovering/healing we can be using far more nutrients than well people.

 

So glad you haven't had any secondaries! I'd call that a NSV!

 

Does the spore live inside your lungs, is that how it works?

I've had some serious sinus problems and one treatment that was recommended to me which I couldn't do was salt therapy, where you inhale salt as a fine powder and it kills off some of the bugs (in a mild manner, you have to do it ongoing for some time). I'd not been able to find it in Australia back then, but noticed it seems to be more widely available now. Not sure if it would work with spores, your doctor might know.