wvguy's blog

Venous Stasis and going Vegan

I wasn’t going to post this here but I had a member reach out to me asking me about my venous insufficiency and venous stasis.

I suffer from Venous Insufficiency and Venous Stasis which means my heart cannot pull the fluid back to the bladder for it to release. This is because of obstructed and collapsed veins. Think, if you will, of sucking on the end of a straw and then pinching the other end of it. The straw collapses and gets flat. This is what is wrong with most of the veins in my legs. It came as a result of experimental medications taken as a child. This was something I could not help at the time and HIPPA Laws were not in effect in the 1970’s so doctors were more free to do what they wanted. I took injections for asthma and allergies for 13 years and those injections contained theophylline along with an anabolic steroid. I was part of a study with 5 other patients. All of us have the same conditions now and two have died. Most of the others are missing limbs, I still have mine after fighting with the surgeon. I have had 1 heart attack already from it and two blood clots with a third forming now as I write this.

Now about 6 months ago, I decided to go vegan. It wasn’t out of helping animals or the environment. It was purely out of health choice. I wanted to see if the meat that I was eating was contributing to my swelling or not and the dairy. Getting rid of both were fairly easy as I just stopped cold turkey on all of it and went to sources on the internet for vegan recipes and started reading books on the subject.

I am happy to report that eliminating both has actually reduced my swelling to the point I was able to greatly reduce my medications that I have been taking. I was taking Bumex for fluid 3 pills a day (which is dangerous) and now I am down to 1 pill every other day. I was taking Linzess for IBS and Constipation at 2 capsules per day and now it is down to 1 per day. I am on lifetime blood thinner but sometimes it isn’t enough to stop a DVT which is what I have going on now. It isn’t bad yet, so if I up the dosage, which I think that is what my doctor will do, the clot will start to dissolve.

Being vegan has been more fun than anything else. I have discovered new foods and ways to cook that actually has helped my weight loss. For example, using vegetable broth instead of oils to fry. I still lift when I can, but I haven’t had an energy drain or anything bad happen yet. I do take a Vitamin B12 along with my Animal Pak multivitamins per day.

Hope this helps. Is going vegan right everyone? Probably not, unless you want to try it. I am not saying everyone should do it. I am saying it does work for me and the meal prep is really quite fun.