In this Nutritional Therapy and Wellness Podcast episode, host Jamie Belz interviews Rachel Ballard, an RN who wasn’t willing to accept the prognosis of a slow, painful, premature death. Rachel is a Registered Nurse, farmer, and Food As Medicine teacher who is currently completing her Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP) certification. After battling back from a rare, paralyzing autoimmune disease, she’s helping individuals use food as a tool so they can fight back against chronic conditions and defy the odds. A lover of British television dramas, raising medicinal plants, and scratch cooking, Rachel lives on her Kentucky cattle farm with her husband of twenty-three years and two teenage children. In talking with Jamie, Rachel walks us through her declining health, eventual diagnosis of CIPD (Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy), and her long road to recovery. 04:50 – Symptoms and red flags leading up to diagnosis: Hashimoto’s, muscles in eye, limp leg, loss of strength, paralysis, felt like she was “on fire” 07:10 – CIPD Diagnosis with Central Nervous Symptom Overlap causing issues with vision, hearing, digestion, bowel and bladder control, and promoting cardiac arrhythmia 9:00 - IVIG (Intravenous Immunoglobulin) Treatment, Plasmapheresis, Stem Cell Transplant, slow decline 10:10 – Five years to live 11:02 – Subcutaneous IVIG Therapy Failed 13:02 – Hitting the point of desperation, looking at natural medicine for the first time, found the wrong natural medicine professionals for her preference and bio-individuality at the time 19:34 – Buying-in on the alternative approach 21:30 – Corruption in science, “follow the money” 22:30 – Working with an NTP, starting with digestion, making slow progress 27:53 – New hope, new career 30:31 – Bioindividuality 31:57 – TALKING ABOUT FOOD! Simple swaps, things to buy 40:17 - Mindset 42:04 – Car analogy 43:15 – Rachel’s list of reversed symptoms/conditions 44:21 – Last question As you’ll hear, taking the first steps into a more natural approach to wellness can be challenging, frustrating, expensive, and a little “weird.” Rachel shares how she didn’t find any luck or answers with the alternative medicine practitioners she initially saw.* Her story is fun, relatable, and inspirational for those suffering from illness, as well as those looking to peek over the fence from the world of conventional medicine. You can find Rachel’s food blog at www.feastandfarm.com. Please SUBSCRIBE and visit www.nutritionaltherapy.com/podcast to record a question for the show. *Not all practitioners of each title are created equally. Remember to give multiple practitioners under one umbrella a chance. This is true for both allopathic and alternative care. :)