One reason of many

I was knee-deep in cold water near Granger, Texas. The day was hot, a typical mid-afternoon in August. Donald and I were fishing in the San Gabriel River; our kids were with their grand-dad for the day, giving us a chance to escape into one of our favorite pastimes. The fish weren't biting although we could see gar, channel cats and trout grouped in the shady spots. I reeled my line in a few clicks to keep the tension and direct my lure toward a particular area under a large, overhanging tree.

My right hand felt like it was on fire. All day I had been plagued with a strange itch along the insides of my index and middle fingers. My first reaction was typical: scratch it and make a wry comment about my body rebelling because I hadn't used my favorite hand gesture all day. I glanced downstream to see if Donald was busy fighting anything on his line. He smiled and waved, looking as happily bored as I felt. I motioned that I was going back up to the sandbar. Our time was almost up and the fish weren't cooperating.

Just then I felt what can only be described as a painful tear of the skin on my hand, right where it had itched. I looked down at it and gasped. There was! What I had thought was a callous from weeks of dragging fishing line through my fingers had ripped open. It was a short tear, but very, very deep. It didn't bleed, but it felt like I'd been stabbed. I finished my retreat to the scattered tackle boxes and gear we'd left on the bar of sand and washed rock, grabbed a bottle of water we'd brought down, and rinsed the wound.

After eight years of remission I realized that once again I was up against one of the most frustrating conditions I've ever had. Psoriasis. What I had believed were callouses were actually plaque, a thickening and scaling of the skin. I'd never had an attack on my hands before, so I didn't recognize the condition. I'd been letting it go untreated for nearly eight weeks instead of running for my bottles and tubes of corticosteroids. I had three or four kinds, all of them in differing strengths, that I kept the prescriptions up on. Tears welled in my eyes and dripped down my face. I wasn't sure I could go through all of this again. I had thought I had it beaten.

The following months were filled with my old routine: soak the affected area to soften the skin, abrade whatever I could from the surface, then coat with medicine. The problem this time is that the outbreak was on my hands. How could  I keep from smearing steroids on everything I touched? I had to wear a surgical glove on my right hand for at least four hours a day. I did this when Donald and the children weren't home. The rest of the time, I rubbed medicine on the outbreak and washed it off within 30 minutes. I spent a lot of time leaning against my bathroom counter, playing word games on my phone and waiting for the alarm to go off so I could wash my hands again and wipe my phone down.

The good news was that things healed relatively quickly. Within three months, the outbreak was controlled and I'd regained function of my right hand. The bad news was that every joint in my right hand ached. Arthritis  often goes, pardon this, hand-in-hand with psoriasis. I had been proud that in over 15 years I had only needed Donald to open four jars or bottles for me. I had a strong grip in the past, but with the latest outbreak that grip was weakened. My usual 95 WPM typing speed slowed, and my error rate went from non-existent to 5%. My fingers could no longer bend quickly enough to keep up with my mind as I wrote.

I began once again to do research on auto-immune diseases. I didn't want this to happen again. I didn't want anything worse to happen to me, either. I'm not generally a fatalist, but I had a very strong belief that if I didn't find a way to stop the deterioration of my body from psoriasis, I was leaving myself open to future various, crippling diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes (over and above what my weight would cause).

In December, Jen Wojcik (@thejenATX on Twitter) posted a tweet about something she called the Paleo diet. I was intrigued because I'm chubby, the foods she posted about sounded interesting, and I knew "paleo" meant "ancient." I began reading websites about the diet, and the more I read the more excited about it I got.

And then I hit the material that starts talking about how a modern, non-Paleo diet can lead to severe inflammation of joints and auto-immune diseases. It could help control pre-diabetic issues. It could help with cardiovascular issues.

Say what? And I'll probably lose weight?

I bought Robb Wolf's book The Paleo Solution on Kindle because the excerpts challenged me and I liked his sense of humor. I told Donald that I was considering giving this a try. He had been searching for a way to increase his health, as he's now involved in kung fu and Brazilian jiu jitsu at least five times a week. He was interested in the Paleo diet as well, so we bought a hardcopy of Loren Cordain's The Paleo Diet Cookbook to help us get started on meal preparation.

And that's when things got really weird.