At 54 I was a healthy, active, average sized female that loved to travel, hike and cook healthy meals for my family. Suddenly, my health declined without explanation. It was September of 2012 when I experienced debilitating joint pain, first in my shoulders followed by wrist swelling and hand pain. I was unable to lift my arms or use my swollen stiff hands. I was unable to do the things I loved anymore. My husband graciously became my caregiver. He helped me to dress and undress, helped to prepare meals, drove to me to work and picked me up every day. I was a middle school computer technology teacher that was not ready to retire.
These were the same symptoms my mother had developed 10 years previous. She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and then with Lupus and connective tissue disorder. I had done a lot of research on those things because I desperately wanted to understand and help her. She was prescribed Plaquenil and it took a year before she finally had some relief, but it was temporary. Her pains returned and she suffered the side effects of the medicines as well. I decided if I had the same thing she had I would not take that route. I began to search for answers. I wanted to know why this was happening to me and if there was something I could do about it nutritionally. Over and over, I would experience horrible pain and swelling in various parts of my body, my jaw, my feet and even my back at times. Sometimes the pain would vanish and I would think it was over, but it always returned with a vengeance. Sometimes I felt such intense pain I’d take aspirin or ibuprofen even though I knew these were toxic to the liver and didn’t reduce the pain very much. Through prayer, God led me on a journey of discovery and finally, total healing.
When my back pain became unbearable and unrelenting, I thought it was possibly an injury, so I went to see a chiropractor. The first thing he did was an x-ray. At the consultation he pulled up my x-ray and we stood there looking at it. He seemed to be at a loss for words. I was also looking at the small white spots showing on the x-ray. They were around my shoulders, sprinkled all over my ribs and down my back. I was thinking about how very odd looking that was and I guess he was too. These turned out to be calcium oxalate deposits. I had no idea why I had calcium deposits and neither did he. Soon as I was home, I began to do the research. I studied everything I could find on PubMed about calcium deposits, which led me to study kidney stones because calcium oxalate stones are most common in the kidneys. I learned that they also can form in virtually any other tissue in the body, including the brain. I spent months trying to find the explanation of why this was happening to me.
When I found an article in The Weston A. Price Foundation titled “The Role of Oxalates in Autism and Chronic Disorders” by William Shaw; I began to see the connection. He explained the properties of oxalates and connected oxalates to fibromyalgia and pain. I didn’t see the big connection until he said that people who are vegetarians really have to be aware of all of the oxalates they take in. I was shaken by that statement. I had been vegan but had recently changed my diet by adding back a small amount of meat. Oxalate foods became a constant search engine topic. I realized that the highest oxalate foods were the foods I consumed the most. In fact, these were also my mother’s favorite foods. She passed away weeks before I was able to pass this information on to her.
I started the low oxalate diet in October 2012. I made sure I kept my oxalate intake between 40 and 50 mg per day as recommended by the Kidney Foundation. I added back dairy and meats and kept a food diary to make sure I was getting the daily amount of every vitamin and mineral recommended. The only mineral I was lacking from food sources was magnesium, so I supplemented with magnesium citrate. In a week I felt great pain relief. I was so amazed that simply dropping high oxalate foods would have such an effect. I was pain free for the next 4 months and able to function again.
At the end of February 2013, I started having strange painful events that would last a few days or weeks and then disappear. I couldn’t eat without pain radiating down my neck. The doctor diagnosed me with a blocked saliva gland. I could see the lump inside my mouth. One day I pressed my cheek and I felt the release in my mouth. As I examined it, I wondered if it was a calcium oxalate stone because it was rock hard. Another time I had what seemed like glass shards coming out of the palms of my hands. There were periods of aches and pains in my hands, my shoulders and especially my feet. Many times, I thought there was a rock in my shoe. I also experienced severe bladder pain with very cloudy urine that sent me to the ER. They found no reason for my pain and sent me home. Weeks later I developed a large black floater in my eye that my eye doctor said would disappear or my eyes would learn to adjust and I wouldn’t notice it. Another day I had to leave work and rush to the eye doctor to have something in my eye removed. He said it looked like a grain of sand and he gave me a steroid eye drop because it had scratched my eye up so bad. I then learned about how the body transitions over to releasing stored oxalates when the oxalate intake is lowered for a period of time. I later learned there’s a name for that. It’s called “dumping”.
After several months of this dumping, I was finally pain free by 2014. Some dumping started back in 2015-2016 but it was not intense or debilitating. By 2017, I became pain free and totally well. I felt amazing. I thought it was over. That lasted 2 wonderful years. I actually began to add back some of my old favorite higher oxalate foods. Nuts and potato chips. My body seemed to be handling it well. I had no idea at the time that I was saturating my body with oxalates again. Late August 2019, I was in pain again. Severe pain. My back and hips hurt making it hard to walk. My feet swelled and hurt so bad I quit walking unless necessary. My hands were so painful and swollen I couldn’t even hold a pen to write anything down. I couldn’t bend my fingers. My shoulders froze again. My husband became my caregiver again. I couldn’t believe I was back where I started from. I retired from my teaching job because I just didn’t have the strength to keep going. I developed a hatred towards oxalate foods. During this time, I dropped my oxalate intake to less than 10 mg per day. I didn’t want to eat anything that had oxalates, but I knew if you don’t feed your oxalate degrading bacteria it starves and dies off leaving you with the inability to consume any oxalates permanently. I liked variety in my diet. I needed the nutrients in low oxalate foods which are much more important and more natural than supplements.
In 2021, I began to get days of relief. I could move my fingers more and walk a little better. Gradually over the next 2 years things changed. When my feet were well again, I started walking on the treadmill. I barley had the strength, so my start was really slow. I kept my walks short until I felt strong enough then I’d add a few more minutes. This continued until I was able to walk 30 minutes each day on the treadmill. I added some exercises to strengthen my hands and move them better. I soon added yoga. In time I was able to do the things I’d always enjoyed. In 2022, dumping began and I had it occasionally throughout that year. It was always bearable but frustrating. I knew that if only I would have not added back oxalate rich nuts and potato chips in 2017, I wouldn’t be going through it all over again. I would have found complete wellness and kept it.
It’s 2023, and I only have one finger now that will not go down to form a fist. My shoulders are well. There’s no more pain anywhere. My vision has actually improved and the large dark floater that was in my eye has gotten smaller and lighter. I can almost see through it. I’m able to do anything I want to do these days and life is good. I will never go back to eating anything different than my healthy ultra low oxalate diet. If you suffer from any kind of joint pain, have bladder or kidney pain, or inflammation diagnosed as fibromyalgia or autoimmune disease, I highly recommend you purchase my books and give the low oxalate diet a try.
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Melinda Keen
Melinda Keen 