Growing up in Greenville, Michigan, I thought I had the ideal childhood. I had loving and supportive parents. I enjoyed learning. I enjoyed spending time in nature and playing with my siblings and friends. I enjoyed music lessons and art classes. However, my diet was not optimal which led to a host of problems that I still deal with to this day.
The Standard American Diet (SAD) is not an ideal diet for health. Like your average American, I was raised on such a diet during my childhood years. My Mom made plenty of delicious homemade meals. However, they were meals that contained many ingredients that are harmful to health such as wheat flour, dairy, and sugar. I remember getting the stomach flu or having digestive issues quite regularly and dealing with severe acne as a teenager. I also developed thyroid and hormonal issues during my teenage years and half of my thyroid was removed surgically.
A desire to live a healthy life was one I developed during my teenage years, and I sought to eat healthy foods and exercise. However, the information related to health at that time was limited (at least in my realm). I tried many different diets during that time with little success in improving my health and well-being. Before the age of twenty, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease (autoimmune hepatitis) that affected my liver. I was immediately put on Prednisone and Imuran which led to weight gain but was the only way my doctors knew how to help me. My gastroenterologist felt that I would be on medication for the rest of my life and that there was no hope in healing my liver.
Throughout my twenties and early thirties, I struggled with energy and diet. I knew I needed to eat healthy and take care of myself, but the busyness I experienced throughout college and my subsequent job as a teacher (by this time I had moved to the Southwest) often led me to rely on the diet of my childhood. Through medication, my liver enzymes returned to normal levels, and I was finally taken off of the Prednisone in my early thirties. As a result, some of the extra weight I had gained came off. However, I continued to experience low energy and struggled with eating healthy and self-care. I desperately wanted to eat well and take care of myself but was unable to put it into actionable steps.
Just as I was told by my gastroenterologist when I was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis, I had times when my liver enzymes were normal and times when they weren’t (flare-ups). I experienced a major flare-up which led to jaundice around the age of 34. After a recommendation from my Mom, I started to take milk thistle and my jaundice disappeared after a month and my liver enzymes returned to normal. Surprisingly, my gastroenterologist did not approve of me taking the milk thistle even though I had experienced great results from doing so. At the time, I didn’t understand why my gastroenterologist would discourage me from taking something that worked. I continued to take the milk thistle for awhile longer because I knew it worked and that my body needed it for healing.
After this experience, I was able to sustain a somewhat healthier diet and incorporate more self-care for several years afterwards. During this time, I experienced more energy, lost more weight, and kept my liver enzymes close to a normal range.
After this time, I became overwhelmingly busy with work and starting a new life in Phoenix, Arizona after getting married at the age of 36. I developed habits that did not sustain a healthy diet and did not incorporate self-care. This led to the deterioration of my health even more. My liver enzymes were no longer within the healthy range, my platelet count decreased, and I had little energy. I also experienced a lot of stress during this time as well. I knew that I needed to eat healthy and incorporate self-care in my life but found little motivation to do so due to the bad habits I had developed (emotional eating, not taking time for myself, etc.), the stress I experienced, and the busyness of my daily life.
I began seeing an integrative doctor at the age of 38. (I finally could afford to go to one because I was no longer surviving on just my teacher’s salary.) With his advice, I started taking supplements that strategically were meant to help my liver heal and also started a diet regimen (low FODMAP diet). My integrative doctor helped me in many ways. I learned how to take care of myself more, and I started to see better lab results with my liver enzymes. When I stuck with the diet, I had more energy and incorporated more self-care. I was not consistent with the diet, though, due to my busy lifestyle and the tiredness I experienced. I also had experiences that were detrimental. My integrative doctor blamed me for my struggles with consistency in eating a healthy diet. Also, the supplements caused my body to detox faster than it could handle, and I broke out in painful boils on my legs. My integrative doctor wasn’t concerned about this, but I knew it wasn’t good for my body. Because of this, I stopped seeing my integrative doctor.
Without seeing the integrative doctor, I had to stop my supplement regimen. I started eating more fast food with the continued busyness in my life and did not take time for self-care. My autoimmune disease continued to worsen during this time. By this time in my life, I knew a lot about health and wellness but struggled to incorporate it in my own life even though it was something I highly valued and desperately wanted to incorporate in my life. I had a lot of knowledge but was unable to take the steps to consistently make it a part of my life. During the summer of 2021, I signed up to take a course that would allow me to become an integrative nutrition health coach through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. With the ill-health I was experiencing and the desire I had to become healthy and heal myself from my autoimmune condition, I was determined to gain what I needed to become successful in making changes in my own life and to help others as well because of what I personally had gone through. I started the course enthusiastically and started making small changes in diet, lifestyle, and self-care. I knew that it would take me awhile to become consistent in changing my lifestyle. However, I was determined that I would succeed.
Because I had let my health go for so long, I experienced an unforeseen health crisis in December 2021. I developed esophageal varices and started vomiting blood unexpectedly. I ended up in the hospital and an endoscopy had to be done with bands put on the esophageal varices. My liver showed signs of end stage liver disease and cirrhosis. My bilirubin skyrocketed and I experienced jaundice again. I ended up back in the hospital two more times, once in January and once in February 2022, to deal with issues that developed because of this. This crisis completely changed my world. I knew that I needed to take my health seriously and that if I didn’t make changes my disease would only worsen even more leading to a liver transplant or complete organ failure. I found a naturopathic doctor to work with in helping to reverse my disease. I started taking a range of supplements again as a result. This time, however, I have not experienced any adverse affects, and I have started to see my body heal naturally through this regimen. I also started to take care of myself more and incorporate self-care during this time despite the demands of my work and pulled back from extra activities in order to give my body rest.
At the beginning of June 2022, even though I had seen great results from working with my naturopathic doctor, I was put on the liver transplant list. During the last year and a half, I have continued to work with my naturopathic doctor and continued taking a range of supplements. In December 2023, I was taken off of the liver transplant list due to reaching stability even though there are still many areas that have not reached a normal range yet. I know the journey ahead will not be easy, but I am determined to see my autoimmune hepatitis go into remission and heal my body. I also desire to seek health and wellness in all aspects of my life. Now that I have seen great results through supplementation and self-care, I am ready to make lifestyle changes in my diet and in other areas of my life. This blog is my journey in seeking natural healing in my body and incorporating health and wellness in all areas of my life by developing good habits one step at a time. Despite the struggles I have faced with my autoimmune condition, I am determined to thrive with it and to enjoy life one day at a time, living moment by moment.