My autoimmune journey

So a little more about my journey. In November of 2016 I finally met my Functional Medicine Doc. I went in for a consultation and had his Neuro Integrative Brain testing done which basically told us what was NOT going on in my brain due to the autoimmunity and leaky gut I now had. I had issues with my left frontal lobe (which was where I had 2 concussions from 2 MVA back in 1998) and this also controls your immune system. I was also given a list of vitamins and supplements that my brain was not getting, even though I was taking just about all of it in a pill everyday! Talk about disheartening! Because of my leaky gut, all of those supplements I was spending tons of money on were not even making their way into my brain! Then my husband and I sat down with them to discuss finances. I was very nervous at this point because I believed that I could be helped and I really wanted to do this so badly. I had to take a deep breath when I heard the damages, my heart sunk and I thought my husband and I can’t afford this. But then we talked about it and he said that I need to do this for me. He was tired of me feeling like crap all the time and said just do it. I thought to myself, can you really put a price tag on your health? Then I began to think about how expensive it was going to be to take care of my sick ass in my 60’s and 70’s and Lord knows how many other issues I was going to face as I aged. We agreed that I would do this and immediately I felt the load of the world lifted off of me and I knew everything was going to be ok.

In December I had my first thermography done. After a week or so I had my brightly colored map of my body with LOTS of RED. Everywhere I looked there was RED. RED around my sinuses, around my lymph in just about every major junction in my body. Red around my neck and along my spine, all over my chest and in my gut was nothing but RED. I had so much congestion under my diaphragm and my armpits I didn’t know where it was all coming from! It also showed the lack of blood flow in my hands and feet as they were almost blue/black! I just kept thinking how did I ever let myself get this bad.

Then it was onto lots of blood work and food sensitivity testing. I had 3 pages of food I couldn’t eat and only 2 pages of food I could eat on my SIBO diet. I had so many food allergies I was stunned, it was way more that just gluten, dairy, corn and soy! I couldn’t even have spinach or mushrooms! My labs were just as bad as on paper, my thyroid looked fine but my antibodies were off the charts! My cholesterol was too low, my A1c was 5.6 (pre-diabetic), my thyroid antibodies were in the 1000’s, my WBC and leukocytes were high and my vitamin D was in the tank at 34. I had my work cut out for me. I was on a autoimmune paleo SIBO diet with eliminating food from my allergy list and was only allowed 1800-2000 cals a day with low sugar and limited protein(I had kidney issues show up in my labs too). I thought what the heck am I going to eat! It was challenging for me to transition and I had to get creative in the kitchen. I had many recipes that failed and lets not even discuss gluten free baking! I started oil pulling every morning which has helped tremendously and began searching for the best places to buy all my weird food. Going out to eat was impossible for the first 3-4 months as I felt most comfortable at home able to control what I was eating. Cutting out alcohol was the worst especially beer. My every Friday tradition of going the Heritage was done. I couldn’t eat any gluten, dairy, corn, soy, coffee, caffeine or eggs in addition to low protein, limited sugar, no alcohol and all the foods that I tested sensitive too. I was miserable at first, but then I noticed that I was feeling better, my skin changed, i dropped 10 pounds(most likely the fluid i had stuffed in me), my nails started to change and I just felt clearer. I didn’t have any sinus drainage, my anxiety disappeared, my brain fog wasn’t as bad and my vision felt clearer. It was as if I was looking through a clearer, sharper lens and was able to see colors more vividly than ever before! I had a ton of supplements that I took religiously and never missed a beat with anything. I did everything by the book and didn’t cheat AT ALL! In March of 2017, my gut was healed and it was finally time to start re introducing foods!