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A Day Trip To London

London In Springtime & Some Updates If you follow me on Instagram (@LornaRaindrops) then you will know that I took a trip to London on Tuesday 17th with Adam for a very important reason. I’ve mentioned briefly in some posts that I’ve been waiting to see a specialist called Dr. Alan Hakim and his waiting list was extremely long due to his popularity in his field, so I waited patiently for the day to arrive, but I was also filled with nerves. The night before was just a bundle of anxiety and preparation for me, and then once we were actually on the train and travelling, I settled down a lot more. We had to go to the Hospital of St. Mary and Elizabeth for my appointment at 2pm, so we had a little time beforehand to walk around and take in the sights before getting a taxi. I don’t go to London that often and when I used to it was always for business trips and rushing around so I haven’t done a whole lot of exploring the architecture before. I only managed to take a couple of snaps as I was extremely preoccupied, but I think they turned out really pretty and I wanted to share them with you. Anyway, the trip was a complete success (in more ways than one) as I now finally have a diagnoses of what’s wrong with me and why I am suffering so many symptoms. It’s only taken 30 years! I plan on writing a big health blog post all about this on the 26th, so I need a few days to…

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Lorna

10 Years Of Love

I wanted to write this blog post not just because it’s around Valentine’s Day and I’m all for celebrating love, but also because 2018 holds a very big milestone (well 2 actually since I also turn 30 this year!) for Adam and I. We officially got together in April 2008 so in two months time, we will have been together 10 years! I can’t believe a whole decade has gone by as it feels like everything has just whizzed along, but at the same time when I look back, it feels like it’s been forever and there wasn’t a time when Adam wasn’t in my life. It’s hard to get my head around the fact that I’ve known him for almost half of my life now! I couldn’t be more happier if I tried though and when I look back at these photos from our engagement shoot, I just smile as I can really see the love and fondness shared between us both. I do consider myself extremely lucky and blessed to have Adam as my partner, which is why I wanted to dedicate this blog post to him. So many changes have happened over the 10 years, not just within myself and my anxiety and how much I have managed to change and grow over time with the support of Adam (and my mum and dad) but I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for him. He’s been nothing but patient, caring, respectful and understanding in every way when it comes to my issues and having that support has really encouraged me to progress and do…

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Lorna

My Thoughts On The Power Of Social Media & Ignorance

I wanted to write something on how much everything has changed since I was younger. I know that makes me sound so old (by fashion blogger standards, 29 sort of is), but there’s so much out there now that creates a social experience online instead of having to go out. I know I’ve mentioned before that the online world managed to open up doors and create a career for me, since I was too ill to have a physical job, so I owe everything to it. But what I have noticed is how things are changing constantly for good and bad. If you’re a reader of my blog, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have at least one social profile, most likely Facebook. But since there’s everything else now from Instagram and Twitter to YouTube and Pinterest and Snapchat, with so much more in-between, it’s a challenge to try and keep grounded. Our social media lives are mixed in with our real lives because it is an extension of the real world. It opens up pathways for us to communicate with everyone else without having to be there in person. However, with so much exposure and interaction, it can have negative effects as well as positive. Often I have found myself distressed and upset from social media because of seeing things on my timeline that make me sad. I purposely don’t watch the TV news or read newspapers because it’s only the bad in the world that’s reported, but social media is like one giant news outlet too. I’ve often been extremely hurt and not wanted to go back on social…

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Lorna

It’s A Struggle

I know it’s been a little while since I did a health or life update, pretty much 2 months to be exact, and to tell the truth, I wasn’t going to do one as I always thought sharing this stuff was boring and you’d probably get tired of it by now, plus I didn’t want to sound like I needed people to feel sorry for me or that I was moaning about life. I know there are people out there that are much worse off than I am, as well as people who are full of health, but I also know that there’s no competition when it comes to health as we’re all entirely different and we experience things in our own way, so while one thing might seem trivial to someone else, it could be a mountain for another to climb. I’ve asked on my IG stories (it’s easy to use the 24 hour poll there) twice now about these types of posts and the last poll won by a landslide when asked if you wanted more health updates (it was around 80% yes), so that’s what I’m doing for you now. If you do want to read my previous health posts, click here. As I’m always open and honest with all of you, I’m not going to lie. These last few months have been a struggle. Often at times I feel like I’m failing and I’m going to have to quit blogging because I can’t give it the dedication it needs as it’s 24/7 (gosh knows how I would live then), but when I was watching one of…

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Lorna

Discussing Fear With Lindsey McKeon & Chris Evans

If you’ve been a long time reader of Raindrops of Sapphire (thank you if you have!), you might remember an interview I did with the hugely intelligent and wonderful, Lindsey McKeon, back in 2015 about her experiences in life, being comfortable with who she is, health and more. If you missed it, you can check it out here. I’m lucky enough to have kept in touch with Lindsey since we first met a couple of years ago and consider her a beautiful friend, one who has helped me in so many ways, so I’m honoured to be sharing this new blog post with you. So, what’s it about? Lindsey and Chris Evans have been friends since they were 16 and have the same spiritual connection and view of the world, which is something they have journeyed on independently, but together at the same time. If you haven’t seen her previous video with Chris, you can check that out here as it’s very in depth and inspirational. But for this blog post, they’re touching on a different subject – fear. Do you let your past dictate your future? Who we are when we’re growing up often defines who we become for the rest of our lives. We are shaped by our individual insecurities and our desperate need to fit in. Allowing our fear to run us, most of us get stuck in this cycle for the entirety of our lives. To cover this subject in more depth, Lindsey and Chris sat down together to discuss it in a series of YouTube videos which will be released over the coming weeks. This…

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Lorna

My Experience With Symprove

A Review On Taking Symprove For 12 Weeks I have mentioned briefly a few times within my posts about starting Symprove around 14 weeks ago. Once my 12 week course was complete, I said that I would update you and do a full blog post on my experience with it and how I found it, so here you go! You know that I recently found out about my food intolerance’s and then I went on to find out that I also have Leaky Gut Syndrome, so my digestive system has been a complete nightmare recently and pro-biotics have been a must have for me. So for those of you who aren’t familiar with Symprove and haven’t heard of it before, it’s a water-based multi-strain supplement that contains 4 unique strains of live activated bacteria. Included in it are: L. rhamnosus, E. faecium, L. acidophilus, and L. plantarum. It’s basically a water based pro-biotic that’s designed specifically for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (which I also have). Normally a healthy gut would already contain all four of these gut bacteria, however when it doesn’t, it can soon become unbalanced and cause a lot of problems, as I’ve definitely found out from my unbalanced flora. When I first found out about Symprove, I did wonder what makes it so different to all the others on the market. The difference is that the bacteria within it is alive and active in the bottle, which is why it needs to be kept refrigerated, and most importantly, because it’s water based, it doesn’t trigger digestion which means all of the good bacteria survive the stomach…

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Lorna

I Found Out That I Have Leaky Gut Syndrome

I’ve spoken to you all about the numerous stomach and digestive issues that I have had for years now, giving me all sorts of stomach problems and the issues I have had with my health in general, like living with M.E that I was diagnosed with when I was 14. I’ve never really had an answer to all my problems. The symptoms I have suffered over the years have gotten worse and worse, to the point now that I can’t eat most foods, I suffer if I do, and my skin is just looking terrible and I’m constantly tired. After I found out about my food intolerance’s and the impact they are now having on my digestive system, because I was extremely intolerant to yeast, I thought I would finally test and see if I had Leaky Gut Syndrome (medically known as intestinal permeability) and see if I had a yeast overgrowth. I spoke with Verisana which is a lab in Germany, to see about doing a test (I wont go into the details as it’s a stool sample and nobody needs to know about that). I sent it off and within 2 weeks after it was cultured, I got my results to see my bacteria levels and gut flora, along with what issues might be going on. I found out that the PH level of my digestive system is very alkaline, but I believe that’s to do with the antacid I have to take every morning because of the gastritis. I then found out that my levels of ecoli are extremely high when they shouldn’t be, which causes me…

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Lorna

A Letter To The World

When I was watching Eurovision a little while ago, it really hit me how everyone can actually get on. 26 or more countries can come together in one place and have fun, enjoy music, get on with each other and enjoy each others company. The same thing happens at festivals. There’s no hate. Acceptance, love and happiness is all that’s needed. We are all one of the same and I honestly can never understand why there has to be so much hate and badness in the world. This is my letter to the world, or whoever wishes to read it, and I hope that even if it touches just one person in a positive way, I’ve done what I intended. Terrible things happen every second of every day and the fact that the statement ‘That’s Life’ is accepted and used as a reason is just not ok. Why do we want to hurt each other? Why are we jealous of one another instead of happy and proud of one another? Why do we want to take what is not ours and cause hurt to other people? And especially as an extremely important point for me, why do we insist on destroying nature? I say ‘we’ as a collective in general as our species can be absolutely awful, but I in no way associate myself with such behaviour and more often than not, I am ashamed to be a part of the human race itself. Sometimes, if I am honest, I look around and feel completely disconnected to the earth in general, like I don’t belong here because I don’t have…

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