“And I said to my body, softly, ‘I want to be your friend.’ It took a long breath and replied, ‘I have been waiting my whole life for this.'”
Nayyirah Waheed
Years ago, I had developed a chronic antibiotic-resistant urinary tract infection (UTI), which I battled for almost a year. At first the infections were months apart, then weeks apart, then days apart, until the pain became nonstop and the incessant rounds of antibiotics stopped giving me relief.
Every doctor told me the same thing: Some women just have this condition. You will need to take an antibiotic every single day of your life as “preventative” medicine.
“It’s okay, I have to do that, too,” I remember one well-meaning doctor telling me. I gazed past her, horrified. Pretty sure I didn’t need a medical degree to know that that sounded like the perfect storm for creating the ultimate antibiotic-resistant infection, which was already beginning to take root in my body. I walked away feeling like the medical establishment had failed me, and I sank into a deep depression as the chronic pain took hold.
I spent most of my time curled up in the fetal position with my pelvic floor muscles permanently contracted, feeling as though my yoni would actually fall out. I carried plastic bags in the car with me, since I had become incapable of holding my urine and would need to pull over and pee into a bag in the back seat when the sense of urgency struck. I had been taking over-the-counter urinary pain relief medication for many weeks, though the packaging said not to exceed two days. It gave me some temporary relief, unlike the antibiotics I continuously fed my body. Still, I felt absolutely miserable and would daydream about being put into a medically induced coma or getting into a fatal car crash, just so the pain would end.
I became very angry and resentful towards my body. Why me? Why my body? I had seemed relatively healthy before this whole debacle. What was causing all this?
The answer came to me one day in a flash of insight. It seemed as though a voice from elsewhere, clear as a bell, stated, “It’s your sugar addiction that’s causing this. Your sugar addiction is killing you.” I felt the truth of the statement immediately.
I had not completely admitted my addiction to sugar, but it was obvious. I craved sugar constantly and would have sweet treats throughout the day, every day. Some days, I’d have elaborate gorging rituals where I’d eat two molten chocolate lava cakes and a pint of ice cream in one sitting. I couldn’t eat just one donut–one turned into two turned into five. I would go out of my to satisfy my craving, sometimes driving to the market at 1 a.m. or leaving social events and returning only after I got my fix.
Sugar was the last thing I wanted to let go of, but I knew I needed to let it go if I wanted to heal. The same day I received my insight, I swore to eliminate sugar from my diet and to stop taking any and all medications.
I researched natural ways to heal UTIs and acquired various herbal supplements and tinctures, which I took almost every hour, on the hour–olive leaf extract, cranberry extract, D-mannose, vitamin C, camu camu powder, uva ursi leaf, usnea lichen, grindelia herb, cleavers aerials, horsetail aerials, corn silk, shepherd’s purse aerials; my box of supplements came with me everywhere. I drank multiple gallons of water every day in an attempt to keep my urinary tract clear. My belly would ache from so much water, but if I stopped drinking, the unbearable pain would return. So I drank. And drank. Consequently, I peed about every 15 minutes, so most of my life was spent in the bathroom.
I had eliminated all added sugars from my diet. No packaged foods, no restaurant meals (pretty much every sauce used in a restaurant, I discovered, has sugar added, so I even had to refrain from savory dishes). I minimized naturally occurring sugars as much as possible, not eating any grains or most fruits. I occasionally allowed myself the lowest sugar-content fruits: strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. So basically, I ate home-cooked meals of vegetables and meat, with nuts as snacks. I felt ravenous all the time.
The sugar withdrawal nearly drove me mad. As the microorganisms that thrived off sugar began to die off in my gut, my sugar craving intensified to manic proportions, in their last ditch effort to survive. I avoided most areas of the grocery store, only sticking to the produce and meat sections. I grew angry at the candies left not-so-innocently by the cash registers. I couldn’t walk past ice cream shops or bakeries. As a neuroscientist, I knew that any cues associated with sugar would trigger my hijacked dopamine reward circuit, and I needed to avoid cues as much as possible if I wished to succeed in kicking my habit. I enlisted my boyfriend at the time to physically remove sweet treats from my hands if they ever found their way there. He did in fact have to pry a donut from my hands that a roommate had left home. I cried. Eventually, I thanked him.
About two weeks into my regime, I imagined needing to do all this for the rest of my life. And I resented my body even more for that. I thought I’d need to carry my box of supplements with me forever. That the UTI would never go away. That I’d officially broken myself. Worse, I’d never be able to eat sweets again. This was my new life. Ugh.
Then, something began to shift inside me. I noticed that all the cravings, all the pain, all the hunger, all the constant checking in about how many supplements I’d taken when…well, I’d become hyper-aware of my body. I was in constant dialogue with my body. “Okay body, what supplement do you feel like taking now? D-mannose. Ok, how much? Teaspoon. Sounds good. You have to pee? Let’s go do that. Oh, you’re still hungry? Let’s make you more food.” I felt more like life happened inside my body rather than outside my body. I was constantly tuned inward.
I felt suddenly like a mother who’d stumbled upon a hurt baby animal, looking at it with the utmost compassion and wanting nothing more than to nurse it back to health. I looked down at my body and cried. As the tears streamed down my face, I placed my hands over my womb and apologized for all the anger and resentment I’d held towards my body. I suddenly came to peace with the idea that this might be my new life. I whispered aloud to my body, “I promise to nurture you. I will do anything and everything you need me to do. If this is our new life, that’s fine. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
After that day, I moved through my regime with peace.
A week later–a full month after my new life regime–I peed for the first time with no pain. The constant clenching of my pelvic floor muscles suddenly released. I sobbed, right there on the toilet, because I’d forgotten what no-pain felt like. It was ecstasy.
I knew in that moment that my body would fully heal.
Over the next couple weeks, I noticed my body wished to ingest fewer and fewer herbal supplements, until we stopped taking them altogether. I maintained my ultra strict diet for about six months. My acne, which had plagued me for 14 years, completely cleared. My body became lean and muscular. My mind became lucid. I felt high on life.
Over the following year, I began to very slowly introduce sugars back into my diet. This reintroduction involved a delicate dance, in which I had to stay very present with myself in order to not slip back into sugar addiction. Now, an additional two years later, most sweet treats are too sweet for me. Traditional desserts make me feel sick. I only crave sweets occasionally and need very little to satiate those cravings…a morsel of 85% dark chocolate, a strawberry, a spoonful of chai-spiced chia pudding (with no sweetener added).
I never got another UTI again, and I haven’t needed antibiotics since. In fact, I haven’t gotten sick with any illness for the last three years. I feel healthier than ever. My body and I have an amazing relationship.
Dealing with chronic illness and facing my sugar addiction was hands down one of the most difficult things I had to do. It was also the most rewarding. The experience gave me radical presence with my body. Through that sustained presence, my body and I cultivated a loving relationship. I love my body and my body loves me back. What a joy, to nurture and be nurtured by that vessel which holds my Spirit.
With all my love,
Gaia Sophia
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