Nutrition Is So Important And We Don’t Get What We Need

I have really been thinking about how far I have come in the last year. In March of 2016 I was ready to break. I was miserable, in pain all of the time, and I was not a happy person. When you live with chronic pain, autoimmune issues, mental health issues and attempting to keep it all together it is hard to look at a glass that is partially filled and see it as half full. 

I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be healthy. I wanted to be positive. I wanted to look at that glass and see it as half full. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to play with my children. I wanted to stop crying. I wanted to be able to stop feeling like a failure to others. 

A friend posted on Facebook about her son’s journey since starting the daily dosing of fruits and veggies to boost his immune system. This is what she wrote: 

I live in a constant state of gratitude 💕because of how the portrait of my family’s health keeps improving but there are some things that make my jaw drop and I just have to share. 💥
Buckle up. 🚗 This is going to be a long and vulnerable post but it’s too significant to put into just a few words. So read on if you feel so inclined. ☺️
Our first born child has had it pretty rough. From experiencing painful silent reflux from birth that took us 5.5 months to get under control, undergoing a lip and tongue tie frenectomy at 3 days old, suffering from MSPI (Milk Soy Protein Intolerance), and a diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder at 18 months old. His infancy was miserable and his toddlerhood was isolating and worrisome. I’ve always kept proper perspective that in the grand scheme of things he is otherwise healthy, it’s just that a lot of the time it’s seemed like life just keeps “kicking him when he’s down”. Another kick to the shins came around 9 months when he contracted his first cold sore. Not a big deal you would think, but we knew these run in the family and now that he had one it meant this virus was in his body forever. 
For those who don’t know, a cold sore “fever blister” is classified as HSV-1 (Herpes Simplex Type 1). It is a virus that travels to a single nerve and lays dormant until something awakens it. Most commonly, stress, fever, illness, excessive sunlight, or poor diet. A weakened immune system is the perfect environment for this virus to spring to life a few times a year however around 10% of people who HSV-1 have 6+ outbreaks a year. 🔶G* had 8 or 9 last year alone🔶
His pediatrician began to express concern by the age of 2 and we had blood drawn to discuss the likelihood of him needing to undergo suppressive therapy for how aggressive his case was. He has contracted several unidentifiable bacterial infections that have placed him in the hospital over the past 2 years. It became so commonplace that if we went anywhere with a high concentration of germs such a kids play area or the grocery store he would wake up with a cold sore in about 4 days. No matter how diligent I was with making sure he didn’t put his hands in his mouth or disinfecting his pacifiers, etc. I couldn’t prevent them…only treat them over a slow process of applying powerful amounts of essential oils which DID speed up the healing time but couldn’t prevent them because what made him so susceptible was his poor diet and weakened immune system. And these were the case because of his severe food aversions that made improving his diet and immune system by extension, impossible. Rock.🗻Hard place.
✨✨Enter fruits, veggies and berries. ✨✨Yep, here I go. 😆 We started G* on the soft chewables in the beginning of March. Ever since then his body has been flooded with a WIDE range and HIGH number of fruits and vegetables (that he would never touch in a million years) on a DAILY basis. The nutrients that he’s been getting have been doing a hard reset on his immune system and the changes that we’ve seen cannot be explained any other way. 
Now remember earlier when I told you how frequent his outbreaks were..I would average it at every 5-6 weeks he would wake up with that tell tale blister and lingering fever. Keep in the mind that the typical healing time for a cold sore is 2-3 weeks so do the math..his outbreaks were cyclical. Since adding gummies into his diet, G* has had ZERO outbreaks in 4 MONTHS.🙌😄👏🕺🎉 That’s the longest period of time he hasn’t had one since before he contracted the virus to begin with. 
So what happened? WHOLE. FOODS. 
🍎🍇🍊🥒🌶🍓🍐🥕🍆🍒🍍🍐

Foods that are high in vitamins, lysine, and arginine. Foods like apples, oranges, beets, broccoli, parsley, spinach, cabbage, kale, garlic, and whole grains. ALL of which and MORE are found in his simple little gummies. 

The University of Maryland Medical Center said, “Vitamin C assists in skin and wound healing, which can decrease the healing time needed to remove any trace of a cold sore.” (Source linked in comments)
Vitamin C is a POWERFUL antioxidant that BOOSTS immunity and is an antiviral. Through it the the body is cleansed of toxins so that the immune system is able to function at its best. 💪
It’s probably clear now why I attached these pictures of G*. In each one you can see a blister or the shadow of one on his face in the same spots. That’s because the virus stays on that nerve and doesn’t travel. It may seem superficial but I usually airbrush them out before posting pictures of him because I don’t want him to grow up and see those blisters on every single picture of him as a young child. I haven’t ever wanted it to be a source of insecurity for him so in a sense I’ve tried to “erase” it for him. Of course we’ve also had to keep him from affecting other children, which I imagine makes him feel like a leper and has hurt my momma heart so much. 💔 He does have seemingly permanent marks where the outbreaks occur and I’m working on getting those to fade since now he hasn’t had one in so long and I don’t expect him to ever again. 😝
To some of you reading this it might not have impressed you. That’s ok. That’s not why I wrote it. I wrote it to share a piece of our journey. A piece of our life, because truly G* having this has been a norm that we didn’t have hopes of it ever changing. It’s known as an incurable virus. No matter how “minor” a virus may be it doesn’t make it minor for the person dealing with it. So that’s why it brings me unbelievable joy that we’ve actually been able to DO something to help our child not to have this be a constant burden in his life. We have found something that keeps that incurable virus at bay and to me that is a victory that we helped win for our son. 🏆
What greater feeling is there than to win a battle in your child’s health? I’m passionate about this…and I’m passionate about helping you win battles in your child’s health too. Will you let me go to war with you? I’ve got some serious ammunition. ❤
So if you read to this point, thank you. It’s sometimes hard to be so open about the struggles that we face but in doing so we find boldness in ourselves and community with those who link arms with us and we all walk forward together. It is my hope that in sharing this you find the courage to not be ok with the “norms” of your health and you make a move to change your sick story into a health story. ❤
#missiondrivenmomma #thepowerofproduce

Now here is the amazing thing. After reading her post and thinking about it, it started to sink in, I have been outbreak free from a cold sore since July 2016. My last cold sore was at the end of June last year! I am coming up on a whole year of no cold sores! The silly thing is, while they are annoying, painful, slow to heal (until I learned a few tricks about 3 years ago), and always reoccurring they were the least of my problems! 

Yes they bothered me and I hated going out in public with them. Which of course caused more stress, more flare, and I could be finishing one when another one would start up. Still with all of my health issue and concerns, it wasn’t at the top of my list to try and make better or less reoccurring! 

So here I am and it has almost been a year since my last outbreak. I never knew it was possible to live so free of them! It has almost been a year since my last cold sore! A year is unheard of when you have them. I used everything from prevention to abreva to essential oils. They would heal faster but I always had them! I am truly in awe of the power of whole food based nutrition!

I do not know your story but I would love to help! I hear so often how healthy the diet is or how they already eat healthy and guess what? So did I. Yes I had my down times but I have always love fruits and veggies and berries! We are lacking the nutrition in our food though for so many reasons. I responded so well because of the fact that they are harvested when they are perfectly ripe and full of nutrition and vitamins. The foods they use in these capsules are not like going to the store and getting a salad because that lettuce was picked 3 or more weeks ahead of time to it being perfect. They can’t pick our food when it is ripe because by the time it gets packaged and shipped and on the shelves it would be bad. 

Foods get the majority of their nutrition in the last few days of it turning ripe. Yes, I was eating healthy but yes, my body was still missing a lot of nutrition I needed. I have done vitamins and supplements. I urinated most of it out and it didn’t change a thing.

And here I am now doing so much better because my body is using the nutrition it is getting, that it was lacking, that it needed from actual whole food based nutrition! 

How can I give you hope?