Guest Post: My Journey Back to Health

This post is written by Kathryn Rothman. YES! Thanks for the testimony! Glad you’re getting your life under control!

“I am a 34-year-old female who has been experiencing a whole slew of seemingly unrelated issues for over 10 years. It started with fibromyalgia type symptoms and numbness in my fingers especially when I would try to go to sleep. It hurt when people touched me. Even the slightest pressure was excruciating not to mention waking up at night if I could even get to sleep in the first place with horrible pain because my hands were numb for hours or as I tried to go to sleep, I could feel them going numb. Over the years I also started getting headaches, which I almost never had until my 20s, and backaches so bad I had to adjust my back 4 to 5 times a day to get minutes if relief. I was on the verge of giving up. I couldn’t imagine what 60 would feel like if 30 felt this bad.

I remained pretty active for someone in that amount if pain all the time. I exercised almost daily, held a full time job, tried to be the best mom and wife I could, and take care of my house and yard. I tried to eat pretty well, but loved carbs. I didn’t really think much of food allergies or autoimmune disorders for years until a friend of mine bought me a wooden necklace, which I still cannot wear it because I break out into a poison ivy type rash. This was years after the fibromyalgia type pain, numbness, and headaches started. After that incident, every time I ate tomatoes I would get itchy. It was the weirdest thing to me, but it got me looking into things. Here I am learning that people have allergies to food I eat all the time. I heard of gluten intolerance before but I just thought “Sucks for them. I can’t imagine life without bread.” It still wasn’t enough for me to make changes. I went on another year before I quit smoking (tobacco is a nightshade), and about another year before I start listening to all these people talk about food allergies. I did enough research by this time that I was convinced I had an autoimmune disorder. I had all the symptoms, but I kept reading it was almost pointless to see a doctor since most autoimmune symptoms look like other disorders most doctors don’t diagnose them properly.

As of about a month ago, I was in pain all the time. Headaches, back aches, inflammation, my sciatic nerve bothering me all the time, pain in my skin when I was touched. I had anxiety, mood swings, and I was always tired. I was taking Excedrin, Aleve, or sometimes prescription strength pain relievers pretty much daily if not several times a day. My son is an active 7-year-old, and I couldn’t be the mom I wanted to be. I couldn’t be the wife I wanted to be either. I mentioned to my husband I may need to see a doctor because I was so concerned about how often I was hurting.

I heard Jordan Peterson talk about him and his daughter’s journey with autoimmune disorders and changing their diet, then I started hearing so many other people talking about just how sick our food was making us. I finally reached a point where I was doing almost everything else right, meditating, exercising, eating fairly well, and I still wasn’t happy because I was in pain and tired. Up until a month ago, I didn’t know how I could ever give up so much food I love, but I had a choice to make. Either I could give this a shot or I could make an appointment with the doctor. I figured changing my eating was a cheaper route and if it didn’t work I could assess the situation then. I got the list of autoimmune protocol “do and don’t” foods and cut out most of the don’t’s. Nothing with gluten, no tomatoes, no potatoes, no bell peppers, no nuts, no soy. In 2 days I saw almost a 180 degree turn around. For the first time in over 10 years I was almost entirely pain free. Over the past month its only gotten better and better. When I’m stressed out, it’s still hard. The bad foods were my comfort foods, but not being in pain is the greatest gift I could ask for. I try to tell other people I know about my transformation. I mean, who knows how many people are essentially poisoning themselves and don’t even know. I have my whole life ahead of me now. I’m even considering a switch in careers to farming just so I can share my story and good food with others. I can’t express enough appreciation for those I heard talk about this, especially Dr. Peterson telling his daughter’s story.”