The History

This blog is directed to people who already know or have this condition.  If you are curious as to what happens, please visit this site WebMD to read more about it.

In 2003 I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis after having blood and mucous in my stool.  After my colonoscopy I was given Asacol and told that I would be on this medication for the rest of my life.  Once I started taking it, I soon went into remission and shortly thereafter, within a year, I stopped using it. 

Fast-forward 7 years later to 2010.  This entire time I was just fine with no symptoms, but while working overseas I had a traumatic event happen and I think the emotional pain I felt took its toll on my body.  I started to flare probably in March or April.  I can’t remember to be exact, but since I hadn’t flared in so long I didn’t think it was a big deal.  By the end of June I was a zombie.  This condition sneaks up on you little by little and eventually I was so sick I was sleeping during all my breaks at work and I was freezing cold all the time.  Finally a colleague said we have a doctor’s office on property for a reason, maybe you should go.  I did and immediately they sent me to the emergency room. 

That was the start of a three-month ordeal of trying to overcome the worst flare of my life.  The first stay in the hospital was 5 days and upon discharge they put me on hospitalization leave (which thankfully by law where I am is 60 days).  By the beginning of August I was still not feeling better…in fact I had gotten worse.  I was going to the bathroom countless times a day and what prompted me to go back into the hospital again was the fact that I started vomiting.  I was in so much pain and my body was in such disarray from all the medication including steroids.  At this point my Dr said that I needed to be on a higher dose of steroids because what I was on just wasn’t strong enough to combat all the inflammation and so I got an IV of 100mg steroids/day for the duration of my stay.  I asked if there was anything I could do on my own to help and they insisted that diet had nothing to do with my condition. 

Looking back I just shake my head that people can be so blind and such sheep to completely ignore something so obvious: health begins in the gut…I have a sickness of the gut…something I am putting into my gut is causing this.

NOTHING in this UNIVERSE comes from nothing. 

We may not understand where something comes from, but it doesn’t spontaneously manifest itself as doctors would have you believe. I can't tell you how many times I've been told we don't know what causes this.

So anyway, I received a blood transfusion and stayed in the hospital again for 7 days until my flare was “under control” and off they sent me home again with another slew of drugs and the instructions that if I didn’t feel better in a week to come back immediately.  This hospital stay was one of the lowest points of this whole ordeal because while I was there my Grandmother passed and although I hadn’t seen her in quite some time and she had been sick for a while, it was still hard to be alone in another country having to deal with my own issues plus the loss of the only grandparent I had ever known.

Three days after I got home my legs and feet started to swell up.  My body wasn’t processing protein properly and cells need protein to function properly.  My cells were leaking water…so much that if you pressed onto my skin the indentation would stay for about 30 seconds.  This time I stayed in for just 2 days.  Enough time for them to give me an albumin transfusion to jump start my protein and off they sent me again. 

I eventually went back to work the beginning of October, still on steroids, which was so difficult for me because I am a performer and how I look is my livelihood.  It’s not just a vanity thing for me I was so scared that my job would fire me for not looking 100%, but they were supportive and even renewed my contract while I was in the hospital (and also I had an amazing company manager who took great care of me). 

And thus started my steroid yo-yo.  Every time I would come off of steroids I would flare quicker and quicker.  Still nobody ever really talked to me about diet.  They said the obvious things like don’t eat greasy, spicy food or dairy, but the science behind a diet change was still not communicated.

In 2012, I decided that after being in Asia for 5 years I needed a break to go home, see my family, and work on the house I just purchased (it is 100 years old and in the process of being renovated).  I took enough medication home with me to last for a couple months until I got settled.  My steroids ended the second week in December.  One month later I was full on flaring again and being that I didn’t have medical insurance I decided that I needed to do my own research and find a way to naturally heal myself.  I love reading work by Dr. Wayne Dyer and I had heard several times by him that there is nothing that your body can’t heal itself from given the right circumstances.  If you’re sick and you can’t heal, 90% of the time it’s the choices we are making of what to put into our bodies.  So thus began my journey to heal naturally.