Wholesomely Hannah

healing through food, SCD-based recipes

Let’s Talk: Functional Medicine, Grad School, Dating & More

Not to be cliche but life has been a whirlwind roller coaster lately. I’ve come to terms with being caught in the “figuring it out” phase, this is what 23 looks like for me…

Talking UC

Ulcerative colitis has been a piece of my story since 2020. It’s the reason I started this blog, but also the reason for broken relationships, work opportunities, and my toxic relationship with food that has crept up again. It was especially frustrating to have gotten into nearly a complete remission living at home during the Pandemic before slowly spiraling into more frequent “flares” after moving back to my Penn State campus apartment for grad school.

I was still eating according loosely to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet guidelines while also incorporating a few Paleo-based foods. I was still running moderately for 30-45 minutes 5 days per week with some strength training sprinkled in. I was still taking my daily probiotics, vitamin D, & bi-weekly Humira injections. Nothing supposedly changed much, yet everything was beginning to feel different.

Naturally, my traditional GI doctors kept telling me I was fine… even though I looked 6 months pregnant most days per week. Inflammatory markers were coming back as normal, even though I felt FAR from normal. The quality of my life felt like it was tanking in a way that was completely out of my control. 

It’s crazy how UC can strike in waves. I’m still learning how to navigate this diagnosis in parallel to other layers of conditions uncovered by functional medicine, but sharing my experience along the way feels right for some reason. Almost weirdly healing in a way. 

Talking Functional Medicine

Not to completely dismantle the structure of our medical system or our reactionary approach to disease, but something clearly wasn’t working for me. 

I’ve always been a functional medicine geek. Cleveland Clinic’s functional medicine institute has been on my radar for years through Dr. Mark Hyman’s podcast, even before I was ever diagnosed with my first autoimmune disease in 2020. I feel so privileged to have the Cleveland Clinic Functional Medicine campus 2 hours from home, especially knowing that this was probably my last hope to start feeling like myself again!

My first appointment in May 2022 revealed so many crazy answers to my frequent stomach issues, lack of appetite, bloating, and low energy:

Toxic mold exposure from my college apartment

Hoshimotos

Amenorrhea

Pituitary adenomas

Extreme gut dysbiosis

IBD (obviously)

And possibly more? ugh.

These might have all been under the surface of my diagnosis the whole time. Because all of these likely interconnect, it was hard to figure out which one to focus on first. It seems to be a glorified guess-and-check process, which is a little unnerving if I’m honest. In my case, we decided to start with a heavy-duty mold detox with charcoal and glutathione, resetting reproductive hormones through therapeutic doses of estradiol, and further hormone testing to see what the micro melanomas in my pituitary gland are blocking production of. Although I’m only just starting the healing process and have a long way to go, these are the 3 big lifestyle factors I’m prioritizing first: 

  1. Taking the right types of supplements. 
  2. Diet tweaks
    • Wild fatty fish & seafood at least 4 times per week
    • Reduce fiber intake
    • Eat more frequent, small meals
    • Eat slowly, chew well… obvious but goes a long way!
  3. Reduce strenuous exercise
    • Runs less than 30 minutes
    • More yoga, strength sessions
    • Slow walks for easy movement 

My *Current* Supplement Routine:

First thing in the morning, fasted: G.I. Detox, Liposomal glutathione, & pure ginger/lemon juice.

With breakfast: My 2 probiotics & thyroid-focused multivitamin.

With dinner: thyroid-focused multi, olive leaf extract, vitamin D, magnesium, omega-3.

Between meals: GI Revive & SBI Protect powders.

Before bed: Cortisol reducer

In addition to all of that, my functional med team has also recommended that I also incorporate “traditional” pharmaceutical treatments as well. Humira, Estradiol-based birth control, and Zofran are all still in the rotation out of necessity. I’m still very unsure about how I feel about this since I’m the typical young Gen Z girl that wants to do everything ~holistically~ but I’m trying to stay open minded about it all!

Talking Business

That’s rightttt she has a business! Entrepreneur life is still extremely, EXTREMELY new to me but Unbaked Flour Co., LLC was born out of passion and honestly selfish wants this past year. I’m excited, nervous, apprehensive, overwhelmed, but it’s all been so worth it! 

I was desperate to find convenient sweet snacks I could trust to take on the go for long lab days, teaching, and traveling. Not being able to grab a quick pre-packaged option at an airport or on campus got very frustrating very quickly. Even with the snacks marketed as “healthy”, there was still so much misinformation circulating our food system. Naturally, a Food Scientist with 12743 different chronic autoimmune issues and 5 years of probiotic research took this problem into her own hands by dragging in her smartest lab mates to create the most delicious synbiotic donut holes! 

Although we will not be launching until later this Fall, I’ve already learned so much about myself, the food industry, how to manage business finances, government regulations, the supply chain of our ingredients, how to pitch to investors, and so so much more. 

With that said, I’m also trying to learn how to juggle grad school, teaching, serving on committees, and keeping up this little blog of mine too. I’m very much so in the “we’ll see where this goes” mindset, but I’m cautiously optimistic! 

Talking Relationships

I’m closer than ever with my family and friends after the health updates, starting my second year of grad school, and my first true heartbreak in January. My inner circle is small, but so powerful. They have not only been my biggest support system, but they have also embodied the sensation of comfort for me the past few months.  

I still struggle letting new people in, though. It’s easy to feel like a liability of sorts in relationships when I feel like I’m always in a giant “work in progress” cycle. Opening up and having real genuine conversations with people takes a lot of effort, and I am 100% guilty of going through waves of motivation with it. 

On top of that, it’s still hard for me to trust new people in my life, too. Especially in this weird life phase of dating, meeting new co-workers, and living with new roommates, it’s hard to walk the fine line between oversharing and coming across as shallow or closed-off.  As I continue to learn how to trust myself, I’m really banking on a natural overflow of that trust into building genuine relationships too. Keeping it all to myself seems to always be the easier option when it comes to this stuff, but not necessarily the healthier one. I feel like having to explain myself and how I don’t even have control of feeling like “myself” some days sometimes requires more effort than what it’s worth. 

With that said, having vulnerable conversations is what has brought me closer to my inner-circle people. These conversations and receiving nothing but love and support from my family and friends have made me totally rethink how I even see myself. 

Maybe being beautiful is showing weakness. 

Maybe my value isn’t measured by how much I get done in a day. 

Maybe serving on 4 committees, managing an LLC, research, and finishing my Master’s degree 3 months earlier doesn’t matter as much as being physically healthy enough to be there for the people in my life?  

Not to go around taking cheesy lyrics from country songs, but I truly do feel like I’m still learning to be human. Although I have a looong way to go, sharing these steppingstones with a community of similar people who understand this deeply is so beautiful. I promise I don’t take it for granted. As always, my inbox is always open!

xoxo – hannah