How I Manage Symptoms of Four Autoimmune Diseases
I never imagined that this would become my message to share, disease symptom management. I’m not a doctor, so my story that I share is not meant to treat or diagnose, I just want to share my story in case it will be helpful.
Feeling empowered and led by God to give back what I am given, freedom from disease symptoms, I wanted to share with you on a friend-to-friend basis what I did to achieve this. The best proof of this is my word. I have went to doctors for follow ups, when they see my tests results are normal; unfortunately they do not agree that the symptoms are gone because of the current believed nature of autoimmune diseases. They tell me the symptoms will return, and they were right, some returned and went away again. Some symptoms, I suppose you could say I’m still waiting for their return. But for my piece of mind, I no longer expect those unwanted symptoms to return.
What is an autoimmune disease?
If you have been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, you need to understand what that means. According to research and many medical doctors, an autoimmune disease is a negative response by your body’s immune system when it mistakenly attacks you. Your immune system attacks it’s own cells and tissue.
But between you and I, I don’t believe that is an accurate observation.
You can’t convince me that my own body is going to attack itself. Why would it do that when the divine purpose is to create and sustain life? During the peak of my negative autoimmune disease symptoms I felt like there was a foreign invader attacking me and if I wanted to keep living and make it passed 40 years old, I needed to figure out what I was doing wrong. I knew in my heart that God had given me a perfect body. Over a many years time, I experienced a worsening of my health that I didn’t understand, and between the year 2007-2010 the rate was rapidly increasing. I had reached a point of needing to change, and figured the degrade of my quality of health was more likely a case of operator problems than it was a miss-wired genetic deficiency. If it was genetics, then I believe I should have had all of these diseases from birth, not just the arthritis from age four.
What I have learned from my healing journey is that genetics load the gun and environment pulls the trigger. It was a genetic predisposition to develop the diseases that I had, but it was my environment and lifestyle choices that made the diseases progress. The book “The Disease Delusion: Conquering the Causes of Chronic Illness for a Healthier, Longer, and Happier Life” by Jeffrey S. Bland helped me put all of the lessons I was learning into one tangible written resource. Dr. Bland is a leader in Functional Medicine, which is an approach that doesn’t only treat the symptoms of chronic disease; rather, it targets the cause of the disease and seeks to correct that.
Nearly anything that is reasonably suggested to try for autoimmune disease management, gut health, and cellular health I have tried. I have turned myself into a human guinea pig. Initially I visited with a naturopathic doctor, and I suggest you do as well. Once I felt comfortable and found a rhythm to my new daily habits I felt confident in my actions towards improved health.
The Curing Vision Mission
You may have asked, what does Curing Vision mean? I began my health journey to understand why I had to take a medication for thyroid function for the remainder of my life. I was told by several doctors that my thyroid was broken, but I didn’t understand why. I felt it necessary to give myself the gift of at least knowing why I needed this drug if I was going to sign up for a lifetime of taking it once per day.
I began in the library with the book “Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests Are Normal: a Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Hashimoto’s Disease and Hypothyroidism” by Dr. Datis Kharrazian. A really long book title, but life’s path altering book for me. For more books that I read, I saved them here on my Pinterest page. Self-education helped me discover that food held a key to correcting the imbalance I had created within. I knew that God gave me a healthy body and it must be a case of operator problems for why it wasn’t working as well as it used to.
As I made more steps towards a better quality of health, my vision also began improving. I have worn glasses or contacts from fourth grade until now. I always believed there was nothing that could be done to improve my vision, at least that was what I was told. Except for the one day I learned in elementary class that carrots are good for your eye health, so when I got home I sat myself in front of a bag of carrots and began eating. About two carrots in, my distaste for them took over and I felt overwhelmed by how many carrots it would probably take for me to get out of glasses. If only I had known about juicing and how easy it becomes to eat five pounds of carrots in one meal. Then there was also the time as a teen that I was very frustrated with having to wear glasses, even though I could remember seeing clearly as a small child and seemingly overnight my vision blurred. God spoke very directly to me in prayer in this moment. He told me that one day I would be able to see again, but there were many things for me to learn first. Imagine my shock when this actually started to become true just a few weeks into eating foods according to the alkaline diet principles. I had given up on that dream, I had allowed myself to become convinced it wasn’t possible, and I was now being shown that it is possible. Without making any effort to improve my actual seeing eye vision, it was becoming clearer to the point of making it difficult to wear my then current prescription.
This is how Curing Vision came into reality, as I was curing my vision of what true health is, my actual eye vision was clearing. From this life experience and the desire to share my message, the mission of Curing Vision is to become a resource of nutrition and health support to Cure our Vision of What True Health is Together.
To Begin Healing, Eat Better and Discover Your Root Causes.
As I went along this journey of better health discovery I found out what my root causes were. Too much of the bad stuff and not nearly enough of the good stuff.
Too much:
- antibiotics & synthetic hormones
- mold exposure
- stress and negativity
- processed foods
- factory meats
- refined sugar
Not enough:
- raw plant foods
- attention to gut health
- pure water
- herbal and essential oil supplements
- positive attitude
- belief in God to maintain balance
How? What did you do to reverse autoimmune disease symptoms?
This is the most common question that I get from others who have autoimmune disease symptoms. How did you reverse it?! The hard part is that there wasn’t a step 1, step 2, step 3 approach. I tried everything and these are the things that mattered most and I keep repeating. If you implement these six ideas into your daily habits in a way that works best for you, then I would be willing to bet you will see positive results that you are wishing for. I have guided many people and I never suggest anything unless I try it myself first, this gives me a first hand experience with what I am talking about. This six step outline always works. The mind boggling part is how simple and easy it is to follow – food cravings aside. You may at some point wonder if there is more to it, yes and no. Yes, if you feel like something is missing; but no, because these are the basics of rebalancing your health. There is no other hidden secret, it’s very simple to maintain health balance so long as you put in the work.
Step One.
I do what is listed above in the Six Easy to Follow Alkaline Diet Guideline Principles. I eat alkaline forming foods to support a balanced inner terrain. I realized that I had been giving my body foods that were contributing not just bigger hips, but also to the dis-ease. Specific foods have the power to improve and maintain better health. [1] I created an easy 10-day meal plan for you to use with getting started. Mainly out of necessity, I needed to see an easy road map to success. You can use this meal plan to your benefit, eat just one meal per day, or stack them to have a full day of alkaline forming meals.
Step Two.
I focus more on what I am eating in reference to how it will protect my gut health. Before I eat a food, I ask myself if it will contribute to the repair and rebuilding of my digestive gut health. I share on Instagram meals like avocado coleslaw (the recipe is in the meal plan), which will be a tasty start for gut health meal support.
Step Three.
I drink more pure water. You’d think this would have been a no-brainer for me since I grew up with spring water as my source of drinking water. As the cycle of life goes it can take you away from what’s most important to relearn how important it truly is. Having pure and clean alkaline forming water is essential to improving your quality of health.
Step Four.
I stopped eating processed foods. If you want to jump in, and eat all of the right foods from the start, then make it simple for yourself and only eat what you prepare yourself. No health snack bars, no salad dressings, no cereal, no bread or wraps, just eat what you can make yourself in your own kitchen. Then as you become more comfortable with your overall goal, you will be able to more quickly recognize if a food is something to eat or skip. You can take an all or nothing approach and then add back what is important like I did. I like this style of dietary shift because it helps you highlight and recognize what is most valuable and important to you and your specific health goals.
Step Five.
Herbs, essential oils, and supplements are going to be the glue that holds this all together. You can get through it without them, some of the initial progress that I made was without the added benefit of supplements. It’s a bit harder to do it this way, and why would you since these incredible healing tools are available? Some supplements can help you overcome ravishingly intense food cravings so you don’t have to white knuckle through it as if it’s your penance to pay for past mistakes. I tried for months to starve out an imbalanced gut that lead to yeast and fungal imbalances from too many antibiotics; but one slip of the wrong food and my symptoms would come raging back. That was until I discovered the benefits that essential oils have to offer for re-balancing your health and wellness. Supplements help you rebuild what was once broken, they support and supplement areas that are missing the building stones. I use essential oils and supplements to support and assist natural cellular repair and restore my quality of health. I think of them as little software restorations to the computer – my body and health.
Step Six.
Holding tight to the trust and faith that everything will work out and you will regain better health is the foundation of everything that you will do. When ever you are at a point of confusion and misunderstanding, always use prayer and guidance from God to carry you through. I’m not immune to this, just a few days ago I was crying out of frustration for the shear amount of patience it takes to correct imbalanced gut health. I wouldn’t be the person and in better health like I am today if I had not given my urge to control to prayer. Everything that I know and have discovered is all thanks to my trust that God is going to guide me into the place that I need to be. It’s not always easy, and does take patience, but reminding myself of this truth is my secret to success. Belief, positive affirmations, and holding on to that little voice telling you what you know to be true.
10 Ways for Creating Successful Dietary Habits
If you need a little more guidance for how to start eating more healthfully using the principles of the Alkaline Diet, I break it down into ten easy to follow steps for more clarity. Instead of trying to learn completely new tricks that leads to frustration and disappointment when they don’t stick, observe your own daily habits. Think about what can you trade or adjust to make the life you already live better balanced. If you only make one simple change, that is one more step closer to your goal. This is a marathon, not a sprint, enjoy the journey.
Let’s connect!
I’d love to get to know you more and hear how this information is helping you. You can reach me on Instagram or Facebook, and to order essential oils.
