Winning the Fight Against Autoimmune Disease: My Journey to Successful Natural Healing and Everyday Wellness

By Grace Elizabeth

After eight years of struggling through symptoms of autoimmune disease, it was time to start taking matters into her own hands.

Grace Elizabeth felt she was fighting a losing battle. She was:

 

•  Tired of the regular visits to her doctor and other health care professionals,
•  Living in pain with intense fatigue daily,
•  Done with years of taking over-the-counter pain killers, anti-inflammatory pills, antibiotics, and
•  Faithfully eating an anti-inflammatory diet that just wasn't working.

 

She wasn't getting answers. Nothing was working until finally...

 

In 2020, she made a steadfast commitment to get to the root of it and start winning this battle. Quickly, she switched gears, began eating differently, and avoiding foods that were like poison to her body. Finally, Grace started healing rapidly and naturally without the need for painkillers and prescriptions. The pain, inflammation, and strange symptoms quickly disappeared. The intent was just to rid her body of pain, but surprisingly she was able to tap into new found strength, vitality, and unlimited energy.

 

Join Grace Elizabeth on her winning battle against autoimmune disease.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gold River Publishing
• Release date: Apr 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781777636104

Book preview

PREFACE

I don’t know why we let ourselves devolve into a state of such terrible health. Perhaps it’s skewed expectations; we hold ourselves to a standard of unwavering resilience. Growing up with fictional superheroes like Wonder Woman and Superman, maybe we came to believe we could embody these characters. Or, perhaps society conditioned us to do it. When something challenging happens, we get up, brush ourselves off, and continue on. We don’t stop to question the long-term consequences of our daily actions. Everyone else appears to be going about life in the same way. What harm could our actions be to us in the long run?

We are hardwired for survival, enjoyment of life, and to live a long life first and foremost but we put our enjoyment of food choices ahead of what is most important. We are also hardwired to have freedom from fear, pain and danger but we tend to perpetuate these very things. We want to live comfortably, be better, be on the winning side, keep up with those around us, care and protect our loved ones, and be approved socially BUT we don’t make the conscious changes to do so.

Society has also conditioned us to have full trust in food choices and conventional medicine. We are bombarded by external media that says ‘this food is packed with nutrition, you should eat it,’ to later discover that it may also contain elements that are harmful for a large cross-section of society. But we consume these things anyway because we have grabbed onto the marketing ‘hook’ to later find out we are left floundering and in poor health. Companies make a lot of money selling benefits while ignoring the negatives; if they list the negatives, they may lose customers. Or, most notably for medication, they breeze over the negatives REALLY fast so we can’t catch them; our brains automatic response is to say ‘it’s too fast to take in, it must not be THAT BAD for me.’ You will find out more about this in the following pages.

We also take in the classic narrative of ‘listen to your doctor’ or ‘your doctor knows best.’ Doctors are incredible people, they have the most amounts of education and knowledge when it comes to medical science than any other professional; and so we should listen to our doctors. But when we are rushed in and rushed out during a consultation and swiftly given a ‘quick fix’, it does not get to the root of the problem. During my diagnosis and healing journey, I was often left feeling that there must be a better way. Over the past year, I have discovered that there is another way, a healthier way that REALLY gets to the root of the problem.

It seems like only a few medical professionals are breaking the barrier with discoveries in autoimmune disease, the human body, and nutrition. This book endeavors to seek out and share the most current science and findings in autoimmune disease from leaders in the field of medicine, nutrition, and real healing.

I am not a writer or a doctor—just a person who has healed successfully from autoimmune disease. The disease will always be there, but through diet and exercise, I have removed the triggers, eliminated the pain, gained renewed strength, and tapped into unlimited energy and I hope this can ring true for you –YOU TOTALLY DESERVE IT!

This book follows my healing journey in chronological order, as it made the most sense to me. It was easiest for me to write this way, putting pen to paper as things happened. I have added recipes along the way that I tried out from the beginning of my journey in 2020 to the present. I felt this would be a great way for you to take the healing journey similarly but hopefully avoid the ‘accidents’ that I made along the way.

Writing this book has been quite a journey. My favorite part was researching all of the health and science content; my past career as an analyst served me well here. Finding out what certain vitamins and minerals do to the body and how they can heal, decrease inflammation and pain, promote positive body function, and tissue regeneration. And discovering what foods had the most important vitamins and minerals for autoimmune disease. There were great moments of discovery that gave me insight into things we overlook every day. A few discoveries of importance I did not cover in the book are:

1. Cashews are related to the poison ivy family. I knew cashews contain lectin but their shells are so toxic that workers shelling them have to wear protective gear. If they cannot afford the protective gear, they succumb to horrible burns all over their hands and limbs.

2. Mangos are related to the poison ivy family too. I had been having mango smoothies for years. I have now decided not to have them anymore.

3. Children are becoming prone to autoimmune disease at an early age and this trend is growing at a rapid pace. I endeavor to study this further and share my insight with you at a later date.

The toughest part of my writing journey was structuring sections into a logical, rational format for you, the reader, to understand. I hope it all makes sense, and I hope you can find solace in the fact that we are all human. Many of us are going through similar circumstances and trying to heal the best way we can most healthfully. Join me on this journey –I wish you all the healing and blessings in the world.

Disclaimer: Before I move on, I need to remind you that I am not a doctor or healthcare professional. Following my journey from being extremely sick with debilitating symptoms to feeling alive and pain-free again and stronger than I remember being may or may not work for you. I hope it works for you too, but please remember that I am not an autoimmune disease expert. Rather, I was very sick, unable to sit, stand, or sleep, thought to have Lupus, and now feel 99.9% healed. Just before press, I was given my diagnosis; you will read about this at the end of the book. I dare not go back to the food or diet I used to eat for fear of having my body systematically shut down again.

WHAT’S GOING ON?

If you are going through hell, keep walking until you reach heaven.

—Matshona Dhliwayo

In January 2020, I hit an all-time low. Every day, I was tired, and my brain was foggy—it was an incredibly deep, dense fog. Every joint in my body was cracking, in pain, or felt incredibly inflamed. I could feel pain in every part of my bladder, the inflammation, and the intense throbbing pain from the very perimeter of this oblong organ through to the center and the other side. And yes, I had a urinary tract infection (UTI). My hips were in tremendous pain—to the point where the tops of my femurs and hip joints felt bruised. So much so, they would be a deep, dark reddish-purple if I were to imagine the color. My vision was a mess. Exposure to bright light or high contrast, such as a white document on my computer screen, would bring sharp stabbing pains piercing through my eyeballs. At times, bright light would cause intense nausea and dizzy spells. Afterimage would last for hours at a time; the white part of the contrast would leave an imprint on my vision for up to two hours.

I couldn’t understand why. All in all, I was healthy and athletic. Two health-conscious parents raised me. My mother regularly shopped at the local health food store. She gave my sister and me vitamins with breakfast every morning, including spoonfuls of cod liver oil (yuck!). She would use whole wheat flour in her baking and add wheat germ to her (not chocolate chip but) carob chip cookie recipe. I was in youth sports and spent much time outdoors. As a child, I drank lots of water and 100% orange juice every morning—often freshly squeezed. I took this trend of healthy eating and regular exercise or competitive sport with me into adulthood.

Then, when I hit my 40s, my body started to change. I had stomach pain once-in-awhile, sore hips here and there, and fatigue on and off, vision issues here and there, brain fog every so often. I would get a UTI for no known reason. At that point, I would experience a symptom for a few months, maybe six months, and then it would go away. I thought, great—I am on the mend; it was just a ‘one-off’ experience. I had heard of people ‘just living with chronic pain’ and ‘you just get used to it!’ I would also hear from friends, acquaintances, and older people: ‘once you hit middle age, your body just goes downhill from there.’ We hear all these comments, forcing us to push through because we see everyone else pushing through. We take Ibuprofen and go to the Chiropractor or Physiotherapist. We keep working, parenting, and doing. We just push through. Some days I would be in excruciating pain, and then one day, the pain would be gone; I somewhat settled into the fact that this might be my life from now on.

THE LEAD UP: Looking Back at the Symptoms & Pain

Life hands us storms so we can paint rainbows.

—Matshona Dhliwayo

NIGHT SWEATS

I can’t exactly remember when the night sweats started. My guess, it was about eight to ten years ago while I was in my mid-30s. Nearly, every night for about two years straight I would wake up with completely wet pajamas, my sheets, pillow cases, and pillows were wet, too. It was horrible. Honestly, I thought it was perimenopause so I did not go to see my doctor about it. I was also in complete denial –I did not want anything to be wrong with me and secretly hoped and prayed that these episodes would go away. After a few years, they did subside and I forgot all about them. In my mind, I had more important things to worry about.

CHRONIC URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS

The UTIs started around eight years ago. Sorry, this is gross, I know. But, it became a piece of the diagnosis puzzle. I would have one regularly, every year around February, in my opinion, for no known reason. I had heard that it was from having sex while your bladder’s full or partially full. This idea was just hearsay, but I latched onto any idea that would result in prevention –UTI’s are excruciating.

One trip to the emergency room for an unbearable UTI that I was trying to battle naturally sticks out in my mind. The doctor assessed me, handed me a prescription, sat down, and told me bluntly that I should stop having anal sex. My sexual activity had not even come up at any point ever during our emergency room consultation. Plus, she wasn’t my doctor, so she had no idea what my sexual history was. She just assumed that because I had a UTI, I must be having anal sex. Her presumption was wrong. I grabbed the prescription from her, smiled, walked out the sliding emergency room door, and hoped I would never see her again. There is no judgment here; I am not against the different sexual preferences people have. I was mad that she jumped to conclusions and started reprimanding me out of the blue. Plus, I now know that there was a deeper meaning to these horrible symptoms that relate to autoimmune disease.

From that day on, I thought, okay, maybe I need to shower immediately after having sex. So, this is what I did, and still do, every time. One year later, almost to the