Interview Transcript: Digestive Disorders Sam
The following interview with Sam [pseudonym] was conducted in April 2013 by Cody Goulder, a graduate student researching people with digestive disorders. Sam is in his early 30s and the transcription is as verbatim as possible.
As a coding and analysis exercise, review the transcript several times to become acquainted with the contents. Make jottings about passages that strike you and pre-code your initial work. Then separate the extended interview transcript into stanzas. Determine the most appropriate coding method(s) for the transcript to help examine the general research questions:
· What are the experiences of people with digestive disorders?
· How do people with digestive disorders cope with them?
Also consider comparing or combining the analysis of this transcript with Brenda, the other case interview on digestive disorders.
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I: How old were you when you first realized you had something, celiac or, I should clarify: do you have celiac or is it a variation?
S: And Ill clarify, too.
I: Yeah, absolutely.
S: A few things: I do energy healing and, um, as well as like, um, counseling of people like with diseases of these natures. So, because of that I also go to medical doctors or energy healers and nutritionists or people more off, off the beaten path, acupuncturists, things like that. And because of that, these doctors are hesitant to specifically name anything, because once you put a label on it, you give it power. You give it a consciousness and the more you, the more that consciousness is spread out, spread around like ADHD and all of that first came out. It gives it a negative connotation, so I was never told celiac. I was never told, the only thing I was ever told was, in the early stages was candida and parasites. And candida is a form of a parasite. Um, and other than that, they dont address it to me and I dont really ask. Ive, Ive asked, slipped up and asked, in the past, um, the doctors just like dont worry about it. Because then, Ill start to research it and buy into the symptoms.
I: Why do you think that is? Aside from not wanting to promote, for lack of a better term, hysteria, why do you think doctors are so reluctant to label
S: Um, I think medical doctors is because of the lawsuits. Per-, perhaps, and the liability. They dont wanna, um, but, but the alternative doctors I go to, which are, I mean theyre also chiropractors, so they are doctors. Um, [pause] for one of the reasons I just mentioned so that my consciousness doesnt buy into it and I create more of the disease, within my own body, which I, we all kinda tend to do anyway.
I: For the record, and certainly help clarify because, through this project, weve talked to other people were interviewing and weve heard different labels for it. So, can you help explain the variations?
S: If you went through my symptoms, you would say, you would say celiac. You would say theres a lot of stuff. And I just saw something on Facebook, um, a medical doctor, I dont know, I was trying to find it for you. I dont know whose page it was, cause I have so many fan pages. It was a medical doctor that said, What I used to, when I was practicing medicine, my patients would come to me and they had all these symptoms, which is fatigue, chronic fatigue, like all the, um, diarrhea, chronic diarrhea. Ive, you know, chronic stomach pains, intestinal pain, and things like that, um. Vision problems like floaters, um, I forgot what else she said in the list, but its like, Oh, thats all me. Theres, theres no name for that. But, she said, When I finally would ask my patients what their body needs, because they went through all the protocols and all the testing and nothing would ever change. When I finally asked my patients what their body needs, some would say, you know, this medication or whatever. Thats a small percentage of what this host said. The rest of the people, 98% would say I need to quit my job. I need to go do something that makes me happy. My body needs this. My body needs, you know, and it wasnt related to anything that, food-wise or medical-wise, it was related to lifestyle choices. And, as a healer myself, thats what Ive learned as well and, you know, knowing this I should be able to heal myself and slowly, slowly, gradually I am. But, its, its easier said than done. Especially when youre dealing with something thats so emotionally tied into your, your system and your psyche. Does that make sense?
I: Yeah, it does.
S: And that kinda follows through with what, when Ive started reading into the candida years ago, I was first diagnosed.
I: Can you explain a little more about candida?
S: Candida is a yeast infection. And, when I first heard that, Im thinking Oh, which chick did I get it from? [laughs] And so, I started like, after a while, after about a week, Im like, you know, Im gonna google this, and what it is is, we all have this natural yeast that occurs in our bodies. And, what happens over, it could be a traumatic issue. A traumatic occurrence or a thing like that, um, that happens in our lives and that yeast will, will, like, say we have X amount of yeast in our system. Lets just, naturally good yeast. Quote unquote, good yeast.
I: On par with, say, the good bacteria living in our stomach.
S: Right. Well, when that good yeast expands to like double X or triple X or however, Im just, Im not, um, when it expands, that level, then it starts to become bad yeast. And it starts to take over and, its not, its only bad because its too much of it. And that yeast will affect your ability, and then the more sugar you have, the more you feed the yeast. The more gluten you have, the more wheat, the more things that, you know, have gluten in them, the more youre gonna feed it. Um, and so forth until you get to the point where its like, you can, and Ive read the diets and the diets, you cant even, its almost impossible. They say its almost impossible to do. You have to do this diet to, to cut out all the yeast, you cant even have carrots.
I: Really?
S: Cause of the sugar. But, then they say carrots are iffy because carrots also help kill the bacteria. Its like theres so much unknown about this, but its said its all, but the consensus that, I googled of all these websites that talked about candida is, its all emotional in origin. Hippocrates said the same thing. Hes the father of, you know, modern Western medicine. He said all disease is emotional in origin. As a healer, I know this. Because, even cancer starts as an emotion. And the more that emotion manifests, you get a tumor or something negative. Um, and I full-heartedly understand how that works. Because, especially in dealing with patients and myself, its like as soon as you get rid of that emotional counterpart, the disease goes away. Even if its cancer, Ive seen it happen. They say its pretty amazing. Um, so, Im sorry, what was your question?
I: What was candida?
S: Yeah, so, thats what candida is in a nutshell. And so, thats what my doctor started treating me for. My doctor, my healer, doctor, chiropractor started treating me for. And, and she told me to cut out all of, and this was probably about in oh-five [2005], it was about a year after I graduated [from university], getting my masters. Um, it was, she treated me, she said no sugar, no caffeine, no dairy, I couldnt do dairy either and no gluten, obviously. And, gradually I slowly weaned myself off, cause she was a vegetarian at the time, I slowly started weaning myself off of meat and stuff. I did eggs for protein. And what ended up and, I believe this was still, this was less than a year, about a year after my moms death, which was devastating for me, and I think
I: What did she die of?
S: Oh, I can tell you the whole story. Can I?
I: Absolutely, well circle back.
S. Yeah, um, and I believe thats what started this manifestation in my stomach and my, my intestines cause I can tell the difference now. After a bowel moment I can, Im just worn out. Um, so it was a year after my mom died and I went off all these things. Did the eggs for protein for about two months. I lost 40 pounds of muscle. And fat, but mostly muscle. So, I went from a size extra large shirts to mediums.
I: Wow.
S: It was bad. It wasnt, and I was also in depression and thats why I want to preface that because I believe that depression plays a part in this all. Is that, whether we know it or not, you know?
I: Theres different levels of depression, period.
S: Exactly. And, theres, and then theres the fears that I constantly face like, within myself, and I think that contributed to it. I notice that when, like this HOA [Home Owners Association] thing and I think, I thought it was perfect that it was coming up. I hate the HOA, just like you were saying. And I was, I dont know why I was having such anxiety over this meeting, cause once I had the meeting, it wasnt a big deal. But like, there are certain people that I thought were going to be there, and that werent there, that I was like, I dont wanna deal with these assholes, right? So, that, and that, and I was paying attention to what was happening, having anxiety this past week and it was going, it was going right to my gut. And, Im like, well thats not good for me. What am I doing to myself? But, like I can intellectualize it. But its, but until I like either do meditation or just like breathe and just get it through my system or just face it, which is what I did today, I, thats why I went to the meeting, um, until you face that fear, you cant, its almost impossible to get rid of it. Because once you face your vulnerability, thats when, thats when you empower yourself. But, most people are used to running away from their vulnerabilities. Does that make sense?
I: Absolutely.
S: So, OK, you wanted to go back to my mom or, I kinda jump around so keep me
I: No, its fine, I like to jump around. Um, so how does, lets backtrack a bit to candida, trying to get a scope of these disorders?
S: I can tell you how candida manifested into other things if you
I: Absolutely. Oh totally. Yes, so how does it differ from, say, someone who has celiac or has a general gluten or lactose or ?
S: I think people that have celiac I, dont quote me on this, but I, well, you can quote me on this.
I: I dont have to use it.
S: I, Im pretty sure people who have celi-, celiac also have candida issues. Im pretty sure and, you know, chronic fatigue plays into all of that. Im pretty sure that people who have gluten intolerances have the celiac, whether they were tested for it or not. Im not sure that most medical doctors, some of them do cause Ive been to a few that do, will test for celiac. Theres a spit test you can do. Theres all these other tests you can do that are, that dont cost money. But how does it come, go into play?
I: Is it sort of like
S: I think it was, for me, I think it was the first stages. Um, at least as far as a diagnosis goes and my doctor slowly started treating me for celiac. Once she got that under control, then we started treating me for, like, if I have gluten Im bleeding out my, you know, out my ass because, and I didnt know thats what celiac did. Because, my friend works, hes a higher up at [a restaurant] and he works in the kitchen and hes like, hes like its very serious. In like, really, cause he, everyone calls it celiac cause its more widespread as a diagnosis and thats what we label it.
I: Right.
S: In all intents and purposes, you could say I have that, but I dont like to use that label.
I: Is that because you feel that, as a medical term, celiac is an easy way to create an umbrella over these conditions?
S: Absolutely. Its, its just like, back when they used to say ADD and ADHD they would come up with all these initials for that. You remember those, when that happened?
I: Yes.
S: And Im just like, that was us growing up. I was an A student, but it was still, we were, my little brother was way even more hyper. My mom didnt know what to do with that. But she didnt drug him because she didnt want to deal with him. She just dealt with it. And now we call it something so we can put someone on drugs. But it doesnt help them. You know what Im saying, its like toxic to those kid that grew up, and now theyre adults, a functioning, and theyre like, that was the worst thing you can do to a kid is put them on the drugs, because they cant access, access their creativity.
I: What are your feelings when you see gluten-free diets, everythings being marketed as gluten-free this, gluten-free menus when you are in a restaurant?
S: I actually, honestly, I appreciate it. I dont think of it as, as a bad thing. Like, what is it, on Picassos Pizza, Pan Gustos Pizza, which is one of the old Picassos, theyre, almost all organic and all gluten-free. Organic, I think, fits into it. If youre gluten-free youve got to watch the pesticides youre putting into your body. Um, and diet, were learning more slowly as a society that diet is the best, is a better medicine than actual drugs. Um, its what you put into your body, not just the preventative, but um, as a way, that when you do have something, as a way to get out, get yourself out of it. Um, and
I: Because food is something that you need and you cannot operate without it.
S: Right, right. And if youre eating stuff that is attributing and continuing exacerbating the issues that you have, whether its emotional or not, I mean theres still, theres something in your system thats exacerbating the problem, then how, how is it that any amount of medicine or anything else going to help you? But if you eat stuff that promotes the good stuff to occur and helps you, help you feel better, helps you to feel more energetic and have energy to exercise, that alone and just a better outlook can push away most diseases in anyones body, whether thats gluten or anything else.
I: Yeah, absolutely.
S: Um, theres so much more I was gonna say because, like, as Im talking, Im having all these thoughts.
I: If it comes up to you, just throw it out there.
S: I can send you some stuff from like, I see this happening on my pages every day. Like Socrates or Plato or like all these people or Doctor Freud.
I: That would be amazing if you were
S: Its some amazing stuff that, like these are all on my feeds that I hit Like on. But, it talks about like, all this stuff in different ways. And they, its just
I: Are they posted on your Facebook page?
S: No, its just my feed.
I: OK.
S: Various feeds. And so, you know, as it comes, Ill just forward it to you.
I: Absolutely. Id love to see these.
S: OK. And, some of them I save and some of them I dont. If I have any on my computer, Ill just, yeah, because, and Ill, itll help your, I think itll help your [research].
I: I think it will help this project a lot. Um, and just having information too, to know more about
S: I mean, and you could hear me say, as a healer, like, when you hear other people that are famous, its almost kinda almost
I: Well, its refreshing, I mean, its refreshing to get it from your perspective because, as you described it, a doctor is going to tell me something that I
S: And I was at a doctor, um. OK, theres something I wanna say and its all coming out at once, I was
I: Take your time, were in no rush.
S: My, my chiropractor sent me to a doctor because shes like, I cant prescribe medication but I really think, to kick this out of your system, we want to prescribe this, and she told me that, what she wanted. So, she sends me to a person I know and a person that she knows and this doctor was just, she was a medical doctor but a quack. Im just like, You dont know anything. And, Im like, she was testing, which is fine, testing me for all these, testing my blood, testing my liver and all this. And, shes like, Well, I dont know what to do. Im like, What about that medication, you know, doctor- she suggested? Well, I could put you on that and I think thats the best thing, but I just dont know whats going on with you. And, Im like, its all like going back to the medieval days for me. Its like, Im like, I spent time with my doctor and weve been treating this and we want results to just kick it. But, shes all, doctors have that ego. Like, Im God, I know better than anyone. And its like, so I took the drugs. Literally, it happened Friday night until Sunday evening, I was in-, I was incapacitated. Ive, Ive never been, I cant call it sick, I think I was in a coma. I could, the only thing I could do was get up to pee, I couldnt even get water. It was, and what happened was, what I researched and what my chiropractor kind of already knew, shes pretty intuitive, is it killed a parasite in my liver and it caused that reaction. Now had I known in ad-, had I actually known this in advance, and in hindsight, theres a tea you can drink thatll counter that and I would have been fine. But, you only know this stuff through experience. Its whos, and this is funny cause my mom was the same way. She would educate the doctors. And all my, all my uncles are doctors. Um, so my mom had, she, she was gluten-free later on in life, um, because of her, she had rheumatoid arthritis. But, mostly she, she got on a healthy diet because of the arthritis. She would educate my uncles in treating their patients. Shes like, they would argue with her, This, this is not what we were, the medical books say this. And, finally, like after, I was, I was a little kid going to [city], thats where my cousins are. And that one year, they just switched. My mom was just so beside herself, Ive been saying this until Im blue in the face, what made you see the light? Theyre like, Our patients are demanding it from me. And so I had to study it and learn that food is more important than medicine in a lot of cases. You know, youll never get them. Theyre my uncles and I love, they, but theyll never say that out loud. Because thats just, its their careers and the, its the insurance companies. And Im, Im doing all of this out of pocket because my insurance company wont pay for what I had. I got rid of my insurance. They wouldnt pay for it.
I: Why wouldnt the insurance company cover that?
S: They wont pay for a chiropractor, they wont pay for a nutritionist. Theyre just something society doesnt deem as important. Some insurance companies will. I have Blue Cross. And after, after several years of, after paying my, you know, paying my doctors out of pocket, Im just, why have insurance? You know, and so my dad would get back because hes an attorney, he was an attorney. And he would just, so he would pay it for me. And when he died, I was, just would, my dad, he cancel. [slight laugh] Because he had, but thats because, how he was raised. They were taught growing up, is, you know, from grandparents and aunts and uncles that grew up in the Depression. You need insurance. You need this. You need that. And, this is how you live. You live in fear of the what-ifs.
I: Thats going to happen, you may need this.
S: And I, and what helped me change that attitude, because thats how I was raised by these people. My dad, my grandfather, what changed, my mom wasnt like that. She was the artist. She did a lot of coppers, but she did a lot of painting as well. But, um, thats what she did later on in life. Artistic career. And then she became a realtor in the 80s. And thats what she did until she, and then she kind of retired after all that, when they moved to [a new location]. But, um, so thats what she did. Where was I going? I forgot what I was talking about.
I: We were discussing, where did we, we started with celiac umbrella term, and, last little blurb. Insurance. Why did you need insurance?
S: And so, I guess we were on a, a track. I was just saying that, you know, we train our society to grow up in these fear modes. I feel that the fear that you have like, that creates the fear of the what-ifs creates more of that happening. Like, what if my house flooded or what if theres a tornado? Well, those are the people that attract that most to them. And Ive known, just from my own experience that if you were to ask me this 10 years ago.
I: Is there a specific experience that jumps out to you?
S: Of me creating my own situation?
I: Or seeing it in someone else?
S: In my dad, yeah. He would create these fears and they would happen. Just like, if I didnt have insurance then Ill, then you look at someone like me who grew up in the same family, and I dont have insurance, and even my doctor, my chiropractor, she doesnt need. Shes like, Sam, if I could live like you, I would. But, I still have that fear of society. And if you can let that go, if something happens, it happens. But, if not, its, I, its like ever since I saw the movie, and I dont, Im just gonna throw this at you. I saw that movie, this is as I was going to join [a university degree program] and I, I didnt want to bring up the girlfriend. She was a [student in the degree program]. Um, but she, she and I were going through a, insane shit. I wont go into it, but if we
I: I want you to know that this is a safe place, so if you want to go on a tangent, throw something out there, go for it.
S: Yeah, you could write my life story later, but I, this will [laughs], her and I were going through a, um, emotional upheaval that were told, um, cause we didnt know what to do. I mean like, shit was, shit was flying around the room. It was like that kind of, like a, um, looking back was an emotional thing. It manifested itself in, theres so much we dont know. [laughs] Thats another conversation.
I: Thats another conversation for another project.
S: A major conversation. Um, its a major conversation. Not because it was personal but because um, but that kind of tied into it as far as, um, her and I saw this movie. I think it was separately because we were breaking up at the time.
I: What was the title?
S: Its a famous movie. Youll know it when I tell you it. It came, I cant think of it. Not The Secret, the one before? [pause] But, anyway, its this movie, before Ill, Ill get it to you.
I: Well figure it out after
S: If I IMDBed [Internet Movie Data Base] it, Id find it. Its a documentary. And once I saw that documentary, after this documentary, Im like, this is stuff I knew in high school. But I would never say it because people thought I was, would think I was crazy. These were scientists that came up with all this stuff. Not gluten people, right? Um, and in the second half of the movie, it was just like, it was more story with Marlene [sic] Matlin in it. And, you know with, the deaf one. And you see her like taking all the drugs in her medicine cabinet and throwing them out because it was, it was her realizing that power not to need that. And I used to take Advil all the time for headaches or whatever. Especially going through [university], you understand how that is. Im just like, you know what, I had such a rush of, after watching that movie, I took, I even threw out my Advils, and Ive never needed them since. And so, thats kind of, thats an example of where I dont need that insurance, I dont have to go buy it. And, if I ever do have a headache, which is probably like three times in that eight-year, nine-year period, very minor.
I: Lets tie it back to the food issue, because one of the theories running around out there is because so much of the food we consume is this genetically altered
S: Monsanto.
I: Monsanto. Theres, corn is completely different, the amount of steroids and things they put into beer and chicken. Even the treatment of animals is a hot topic issue. Its all over the place. How much of that do you think ties into these fears that we have? What I put into my body?
S: I think a lot of it does. The people who are against Monsanto and the pro-organic, whenever youre against something you create a fear. So if Im saying Im against, um, non-organic food or Im against GMOs, well then, you create that fear that these things are bad. Im not saying theyre bad or good because I dont know. We havent done enough tests on Monsanto. But by creating that fear even we, itll even get in my head that its, well, Ive got to be careful I dont buy GMO. Then, the more I create that myself, I limit the foods I cant eat. You know, at least in my mind. In reality, could I eat Monsanto and probably be fine? Probably. But, if I knew it was and I was eating it, that would exacerbate the food. I mean, that would exacerbate the food Im putting into my system. And, Ive noticed within myself, if Im focusing on negativity, if Im pissed off at someone or in a situation where Im pissed off and not eating, its just, Im gonna, Im gonna have diarrhea that night. It wont be the next day, itll just go right through me because Im eating with anger. Doesnt that make sense?
I: Yeah, it does.
S: I mean, Im not sure how much youre into this.
I: No, this is all good, I mean, well cycle back in and through.
S: And these are all things Ive learned since, it was either taught to me sometimes or either, but mostly, the way Ive learned is, and Ive always thought this was odd, especially going through [university], I would have a revelation or an epiphany or I would have the experience, learn that way. And then, maybe like a week, a month, a year later or two years later, I would have the validation. I mean like, why is that happening? But, I realized because the, it comes from a book, it doesnt have as much power as coming from me having the experience first. And then Id have the validation later. Because, I think, Ive grown up very skeptical of all this shit, trust me. Even though my mom was very into health food, you know, tried to instill that into her children, it was still kinda feel like, oh, thats just mom. Thats how we are with our parents. So, but because of my own experience, Ive been able to develop my own ways of doing things, whereas if someone tells me something, then Im just kind of like a puppet. Being pushed around and the, with the food industry, with Monsanto, people saying pros and cons. And as much as I try to stay out of that, you still see it on Facebook. Its because of the places that I hit Like on.
I: Getting back to the experiences, I wanna circle back into your background, um, how old were you when you first
S: Had stomach stuff?
I: Yes.
S: [pause] Heres where it gets interesting. I believe it was, if I could trace back all the symptoms, I believe it was probably like, when I was, um, probably in my 20s, maybe 21, 22. I remember talking to a friend on the phone, going and asking like, Dont you just feel like wiped out after you go to the bathroom? You know have a, have a bowel movement? And hes like, No. Cause I used to work out a lot back then and Im like, and that happens to me now where Id have a bowel movement and Id just, Id just be exhausted. Id have to take a nap. I mean, literally, take a nap. Um, and, but no one, whos to know back then? No one talked about any of this stuff so I wasnt aware thats whats going on.
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