Traveling with Supplements

As promised, I'm going to write a couple of blog posts regarding traveling tips for those with conditions like costochondritis that require special dietary needs and/or pain management needs. This post is solely dedicated to traveling with supplements.

I'm a bit nervous about my upcoming travels. Things that increase my pain are sitting for extended periods, impact to the ribs and aerobic impact, and stress. I'm still ruling out certain foods and other factors as triggers.

To get to Iceland we are taking a red-eye flight that is about 5 hours and then driving by car for 6 hours to our first destination. During our first three days we are exploring, hiking, horseback riding and whale watching. We have a trip planned to the Blue Lagoon after this to help me recover!

My rhemotologist suggested I take my prescribed NSAID, diclofenac, twice a day during the whole trip to reduce inflammation and pain from the get go. While I'm someone who resorts to medicine as a last resort, I have dealt with costo for long enough now (10+ months) to know that staying on top of the pain and inflammation before it gets too bad is crucial. So because the first leg of our trip involves lots of sitting and being bounced around I will heed this advice.

Meanwhile, I have packed all my necessary nutrition and supplement products to keep me as healthy and pain free as possible.

Below are the products I am taking with me for myself and my family for a 10 day trip. All of the items have links if you would like to purchase. Hope this helps anyone who is considering traveling.

Shaklee Performance 

Shaklee Performance is a sports hydration drink that has more electrolytes that the leading brands. It has a unique blend that helps maintain blood-glucose levels while providing instant and sustained energy. And of course it contains no artificial flavors, sweeteners or added preservatives. 

My kids love the flavor and it will help to keep us all hydrated while we are exploring Iceland. 

In order to save room in our suitcase I measured the serving size we usually use into little ziplock bags and then placed all those baggies into a freezer bag. So when we are getting ready in the morning we will just toss a serving into our water bottles with some energizing tea from Shaklee and be on our way!

To get yours please click on this link. 

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Water Bottles

While this is not a supplement, I added it here as it is essential for me to have water as part of my nutrition. I drink at least 6-8 glasses of water a day not because that is "what we should be doing" but because my body requires it. I get dehydrated easily and don't feel good if I'm not drinking enough water. 

Lugging big water bottles around though would have been difficult. So I found and purchased this 4 pack of BPA free, collapsible water bottles at a great price (was $24.77 when I ordered) that I can toss in our carry-on luggage and fill as needed. They come with color-coded clips so we can attach them to our backpacks or belt loops when exploring.

To get yours, click here. 

Shaklee Energizing Tea

These are my favorite teas. They are a blend of green, white and red teas that provide a natural energy boost without a "caffeine high." They contain taurine to help alertness and energy levels while aiding in muscle development and weight loss. 

They taste delicious and come in two flavors: Green Matcha and and Pomegranate. We love mixing them with Shaklee Performance in our water bottles to create a "natural red bull drink." 

To pack them, I simply tossed 20 (to get 2 servings a day during our trip) into a sandwich-size plastic bag. 

To get yours, click here!

Shaklee Energy Chews

To round out the energy supplements I am bringing, I tossed a whole bag of Shaklee Energy Chews into the suitcase!

These are amazing! They taste like candy and just two chews wakes me up more than a whole cup of coffee. They are made of natural green tea extract, L-tyrosine, L-theanine, B vitamins and vitamin D and of course contain no artificial flavors, sweeteners or preservatives!

To get yours, click here!

Shaklee Life Energizing Shake

Since going gluten free and dairy free two things have happened: 1) I have to plan my meals carefully so that I'm not hungry with no healthy food choices available and 2) my daily calcium intake has dropped.

Shaklee Life Energizing Shakes has taken care of both of those problems. The two-scoop serving contains 35% of daily calcium needs (as well as 16g of protein!) without including the calcium from the coconut almond milk I mix it with! One shake is all I need to fuel my day.

Plus it a convenient meal or snack replacement throughout the day. I can take it with me and blend or shake it with my non-dairy milk and some fruit or almond butter and I am full and don't need to worry about eating out somewhere and not having dairy-free options.

For packing, I just placed the serving size I normally use in little baggies and tossed those in a freezer-size plastic bag. I'm so excited that I can take this with me and not take up too much room in my suitcase.

To get yours, click here.

Natural Vitality Natural Calm Magnesium 

In addition to taking Shaklee's Chewable CalMag Plus daily, I also take Natural Vitality's Magnesium powdered drink every 2-3 days for an extra boost. It is vegan, organic, all natural, non-GMO and gluten free.

This is a highly absorbable blend of magnesium that helps me sleep, decreases my restless leg syndrome, reduces stress levels and helps my tummy. To drink I just scoop a serving size into water, mix and drink. It taste's like bubbly lemonade.

To pack, I also just scooped the serving size into plastic bags and tossed them in a bigger bag.

To get yours, click here.

 Essential supplements

Some of the supplements in the picture below are ones I take daily and some are as needed. I am under the care of a doctor, a rheumatologist, and a nutritionist and my blood is tested regularly. I am going to list the supplements I take with links but please talk to your medical professional before starting supplements other than a multi-vitamin. 

Daily supplements:

• Shaklee Vita D-3
• Shaklee Vita-Lea
• Shaklee Chewable CalMag Plus
• Shaklee Iron plus C complex
• Shaklee Advanced Joint Health Complex
• Shaklee Optiflora pre- and pro-biotic complex
• Jarrow Formulas B12

As needed supplements:

• Shaklee Nutriferon
• Shaklee Vitalized Immunity
• Shaklee Stomach Soothing Complex
• Shaklee Stress Relief Complex
• Shaklee Pain Relief Complex
• Source Naturals Melatonin 1mg

To pack I was able to put everything I needed into my vitamin organizer and toss in the Vitalizer, prebiotic and Stomach soother into a freezer-size bag. In a snap I have everything I need to optimize my health. 

And for the finale....all of the supplements I described in this blog fit into one, yes one, freezer sized plastic bag. I can easily take this bag out, put it in our kitchens at our Air BnB rental homes, find what I need, and easily pack it back up again.

And I am ready for Iceland!! Can't wait to share more with you all!



Comment below or message me with questions or comments. Be on the look out for the next blog post.

*Note: As you can see most of my supplements are from Shaklee. The reason being is that I trust the safety and quality of Shaklee products. The company has been in business for over 60 years and the founder, Dr. Shaklee, invented the first ever multivitamin in 1915! Shaklee does not allow fillers in their supplements, tests for 250+ contaminants, conducts over 100,000 quality tests per year, and will not sell anything that does not meet their strict requirements. Shaklee has over 70 patents on their products and are backed by over 120 published scientific papers and presentations. In addition, Shaklee was the first company in the world to be certified climate neutral and many Olympic althetes take Shaklee supplements. For more info about Shaklee's company and safety click here.

*Disclaimer: I am a Shaklee distributor.

Five things I have learned about having costochondritis

Well, here I am, almost 10 months after receiving a diagnosis of costochondritis and five weeks into my more intensive health care journey that I named, "Operation Me." My intention on this journey was to devote time, energy and resources into healing from costochondritis in order to be ready to travel to Iceland in August with my husband and children.

Along the way I have learned a lot, some that I will share here in this post. While writing is therapeutic for me, my goal is to help others suffering from costochondritis (as it is a relatively rare condition) as well as other chronic pain or health conditions.

Beaches are my stress relief

First and foremost: I have learned that this journey will continue well past August. I had two thoughts when I started this project. The first one was that I would maybe, just maybe, be fully healed from costo by now. Sadly, this is not the case at all. The second thought is that this project would be too difficult to maintain while traveling and even more impossible once I'm back to work.

I have decided that the above is not the case. With the help of some of my medical providers as well as my own experiences drawn from this journey, I now know I can continue on this path of healing while traveling and while returning to a crazy schedule in the fall. I would like to continue to share how this journey unravels while traveling in a few weeks. I am hoping this may inspire others with pain to not be afraid to travel with a little extra planning.

The second thing I have learned is to not give up. We know our own bodies best and while many of the medical providers I have encountered have been extraordinarily helpful to me on this discovery, some have been completely baffled and a small minority have been close-minded. From chatting online with other costochondritis sufferers around the globe, I have heard horror stories of doctors ignoring symptoms or believing the symptoms are psychological and not physical.

Having experienced unhelpful providers in the past, I was ready to put up a fight with providers if they tried to go down this path, but luckily that really didn't come up much this time around. But in the meantime I listened to my body, didn't try anything that didn't feel right for me, kept a detailed health journal of my symptoms, and did my best to explain myself to providers.

Help is out there, if you have not found the right people who are willing to listen and who really hear what you have to see, keep searching. Don't give up. Reach out to others who may be able to point you in the right direction. Social media outlets can be helpful in finding resources. Facebook has some well-established closed (aka private) costochondritis groups where members vent and receive support and share tips and resources.

Thing three that I learned (re-learned is a better word) is that family is everything. It is easy to get stuck in your own head during this windy road - this very long windy road. Being hyper-focused on my health sometimes was a barrier to living in the moment and focusing on what's important in my life.

I knew this already but it was hard some days because I was in so much pain and that pain hindered everything. Luckily, I have an amazing family and have truly won the "lottery of life." My family is the reason I have something to look forward to every day, my motivation to get up and push through the pain, and the reason I laugh every day (even though laughing hurts sometimes!). Whether family is your pet, your spouse, your kids, your parents, your siblings, or your best friend: cherish them, laugh with them, talk with them; you won't regret it. (Balance this time with rest and recovery if needed. Going out somewhere with family often meant laying down after with heat, pain creams, and medicine.)

The fourth thing I learned is that everything we have been taught to eat since we were kids (at least in America) is wrong, wrong, wrong. I am going to save most of this information for a future blog where I will list resources and research so you don't think I'm just blowing steam. But I thought that I ate relatively healthy (on my good days) but I really wasn't. Some of the finer details of nutrition will be different for everyone because our bodies are different, however we need much more vegetables (especially the green varieties) than we think and much less grains and protein than we think we should be having. I am still working on my nutrition and it takes a long time to heal all those years of unhealthy eating, but I am happy with the changes I am making. More to come later!

Life changing book:

The fifth major thing I have discovered is how important physical activity is. Again, I knew this and I enjoyed fitness before costo. I loved zumba, walking, yoga, light weight lifting, P90X and more. I always felt better when moving. But I also love learning and could spend hours researching, taking classes, writing, etc. I had symptoms of costo years before I was diagnosed, but costo finally kicked my butt in October after working two jobs for a few months trying to advance my career. Both jobs are stressful and sedentary. There wasn't any time for exercise, plus it hurt.

After the diagnosis I spent months trying to balance pain and physical fitness. My fitness tracker became my number one enemy. Everytime it vibrated, telling me to get up and walk around, I would feel worse and worse about my predicament, but I was afraid to move and be in more pain. There were more days than I would like to count that I needed help putting on or taking off shirts, lifting clean dishes to the cabinets, bending over to tie my shoes, and opening doors. Who wants to work out when they are in that much pain?!

One of the many symptoms of costo is shortness of breath. I had this even while lying still. Trying to exercise (even walk) was tough at the beginning of this journey (just over a month ago)and being out of shape only made physical fitness more difficult. I was hard on myself, wondering if I would ever be fit again. I am not very patient, especially with myself, so learning how to slowly (and I mean slowly) build up endurance and strength was not easy for me. I had to learn how small the increments of change and progress would be.

Looking back now, though, it wasn't all that long. It may not sound like much but when I started this project I couldn't do much more than 10-15 minutes of walking or the elliptical machine but now I can do up to 45 without more pain (I still can't swing my arms yet or use the arm poles on the elliptical). In the beginning I couldn't really do any arm exercises and now I can usually do three sets of 6-8 reps of a few traditional arm/shoulder exercises every other day without too much discomfort. I still don't have any strength in my pecs/chest and can't do more than 5 wall pushups without pain that lasts 2-3 days. But I'll get there! Most importantly I can walk 2 miles outside comfortably - Iceland here I come!!