Rash, Health & Food Diary

I was going to do another recipe today, and I still might in another post, and I was also going to talk about stuff that I'll get to anyway. But this came up and I thought I might as well blog about it. I was writing in another blog I have going earlier today and I felt an itch on my cheek. I scratched the irritation. I thought it might be a spot or something and took no notice until I was going to apply sudocreme. When I looked in the mirror I noticed that it was like a big red rash on my cheek. It looked much worse than it felt and looks worse than it is in the picture. I put sudocreme on it anyway. That stuff is great for helping the skin to heal. I don't know exactly what the rash is or what caused it. I suspect it might be an autoimmune flare up of some sort. I ate out for lunch on Monday but I didn't feel any ill effects from that so I doubt it's that but you never know. I was also eating gluten free and dairy free fruit flavoured ice pops for dessert last week. My sugars were a bit higher than usual because of them. I didn't think to link them to the rash because it was last week and I thought it'd be a more immediate flare if it was them. Again, you never know! I've heard of people with autoimmune diseases having all sorts of skin flare ups anyway. No point in going to a doctor because I'm not sick, there's a possibility he'd put me on antibiotics if a creamy pus developed and I don't like taking antibiotics, and, he'd probably prescribe a cream which would do the exact same thing sudocreme is already doing - helping it heal. I'd like it if general practitioners took a more open and holistic approach to healing and treating illness instead of just treating the symptoms with drugs until something is way more serious than just applying a cream or taking medicine.
That got me thinking. I was watching "The Zoo" on television the other day and they were dealing with sick and healthy animals. I don't know if I touched on this before but I'll mention it anyway. When an animal is sick they go by behaviour, energy levels and diet. I sometimes wish I could be examined and treated with a vet-like approach. It looks more natural. The animal is treated in a way that they live their life as normal with treatment in the least invasive way possible. When we humans go to a doctor we're not asked about diet unless we have an ailment or illness that specifically affects our digestive system. I saw a post on instagram recently about a woman who is autoimmune and following AIP. Her husband and children are not restricted in their diet. The woman managed to avoid getting the flu when the rest of her family got it. A lot of AIP posts cover the link between gut, brain, immune system and mental health. I don't have the luxury of someone to help me get started or coach me through AIP so it's hard to get the drive to start. I see a dietitian because of diabetes and coeliac disese but that's once every six months and I'm just another patient in that scenario. Very little in the way of a personal approach. It'd be nice to afford a personal approach to my diet and health with the help of a nutritionist and AIP or lifestyle coach. I think that I'll just have to try and learn to be a substitute for those things for myself.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I'm keeping a food and wellness diary. I started this week and am doing it as a practice run for the new year. I have a 2019 diary that I hardly wrote in that I'm now using for the practice run. I also bought a 2020 diary for the real run. The hope is to be able to link certain foods with certain dietary problems and eliminate them, to link certain eating patterns with mental health issues and alter them accordingly and to log my blood sugars and insulin intake to be able to show a dietitian without having to print off the readings from my glucometer. The diabetic nurse can link my glucometer to her computer and print off the data so I don't need any visual eveidence for her. But the dietitian can't do that as easily so keeping them with a food diary will make life easier for her, I hope.
All in all the hope is to take a more proactive and positive approach to how my diet and lifestyle affects my overall well being.