There are a lot of other cagey NSD vets on this forum who can offer sage advice. Here are my two cents.
1. Keep a food diary. Document pain scores, and any symptoms daily. Record everything you eat. Document any time you start a new supplement. This will help you track down any triggering event.
2. It's a pain, but an elimination fast (diet?) is helpful. Eliminate everything, and add only one thing a day. This is a miserable way to live for awhile, but it sure as heck made things easier to identify what set things off for me. This is very inconvenient, so you may want to see how a more cavalier approach works in the short term.
3. Feel free to share with us what you eat. Many of the NSD buffs will gladly review your list for any offending foods. There's going to be some variability in everyone's responses since everyone's individual situation is a little different. Take it with a grain of salt and pick what you think is best for you.
4. Use the search function to hunt down previous posts. Some of the people who have had success with the NSD have spent a lot of time documenting the details of the diet on their blogs or website. It never hurts to draw on others experiences and decide whether or not it makes sense for you.
5. Patience. It's a war, not a battle. It can be very frustrating at times. I found it to be a very gradual progress. Also, in my experience, as you get better you become more sensitive to starches. So... There's a constant evaluation of the stuff you eat over time. I ended up getting more and more strict over time as I realized the benefit of the diet. A small amount of starch can set me off.
6. Sneaky starches. These are killer. Numerous times along the path, I didn't realize I was ingesting starches, but I was. I found it safest (not easiest) to eliminate all processed foods. Processed foods are loaded with preservatives and additives, of which many are starchy. They slay me. Even though some supplements say starch free - test them.
7. Oregano oil should be very safe. I'm unaware of the purported benefits of peppermint oil, but if they are pure and free of any additives, they should be A-OK. Some people subscribe to healing reactions (Herx reactions). I'm still deciding what my thoughts on it are, but if you have something like candida and take some oregano oil (which is a strong anti-fungal), some people assert you will feel worse because your body is flooded with toxins from all the dying candida. Again, I'm not advocating that theory, just wanted to provide you with a certain perspective that's out there.
The NSD and this forum was a god-send for me, but I found some other helpful information elsewhere too. As I progressed, I noticed that my progress plateaued. Then, I would revisit my diet / supplements and tweak again. Over time, I found that by adopting the intersection of the NSD and Bee's protocol, that ended up serving as a very effective route for me. I've included a link to her website below. There's information overload on it, so take your time digesting it.
http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/Everyone will have different experiences. Hang in there, and I hope things will get better for you!
Good luck! (Sorry for the long reply, it was a lot more than I think you asked for!)
