Curing the Incurable

'Believe you can and you’re halfway there' - Theodore Roosevelt

When I was on my own healing journey, it was the stories of people overcoming what I thought was impossible which sparked the most powerful sense of inner belief and hope within me. In sharing my story, I wish to inspire the same hope and belief in others, to be a voice that says you can overcome the impossible and live a healthy, happy and fulfilling life!

I want to start with a little snapshot of my life before now as I have been unwell for the past seven years, but I didn’t know to what extent. At the age 16 I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). A number of other conditions developed at the same time including anxiety, perennial allergic rhinitis (a fancy term which just means experiencing hay fever all year round), chronic joint pain and eczema. Thinking back now my body was sending me SOS warning signs every single day through these symptoms, but I ignored them all and just treated the symptoms instead of the root cause. I am not surprised that in time I got very sick, and I feel that it was the only thing that made me truly value my health.

At the start of 2020 I knew something wasn’t right with my health, so my GP sent me to a Gastroenterologist. With my condition declining I went into hospital. Waking up in that hospital bed is still crystal clear in my mind and the one hour wait to see the doctor felt like days. When he finally came to my bedside, he told me that I had severe Crohn’s disease and I needed to start medication urgently. I had absolutely no idea what this condition was or what this meant for my health or life, I felt an utter sense of helplessness in that moment. Being the person that I am, I started reading every single bit of mainstream medical information there was on Crohn’s disease, otherwise known as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and classed as a form of autoimmune disease. The first sentence which pops up on google is this… ‘Crohn's disease can sometimes cause life-threatening complications’ followed up by ‘Crohn's disease cannot be cured’. Needless to say, my heart sunk when I read this, all the things that I wanted to do, the person I wanted to be and the life that I wanted to lead, I felt was ripped from me in that moment.

I was prescribed strong steroid tablets plus a cocktail of other medications to so call ‘treat’ my symptoms. Steroids have some of the worst long term side effects of any drug. Being told that I would have my condition for life and the only way to medically control it was through steroids, this was, as they say, a very hard pill to swallow. When my symptoms finally settled down, I weaned myself off the steroids, but it wasn’t long until the symptoms came back again, and I was back to square one. Losing hope each time this happened was one of the hardest things to mentally deal with. The specialist told me that the next step was to start me on immune suppressant medication. The name says it all, the medication literally stops your immune system from being able to detect and fight infection. It did not make sense to me that taking medication was my only solution left to regain my health and preventing the life threating complications of the disease. I have never felt so scared, defeated, and desperate in my life, I had no idea what I was going to do, but I had to do something.

They say that in the darkness we find our light well, that’s exactly what happened to me. I decided that I was not going to accept the situation I was in, I believed I could heal myself and I would stop at nothing to regain my health and quality of life. Making this very decision was the most pivotal part of my journey and when I look at my life so far it is the choice that I am most proud of. So, it began with another google search but this time I searched ‘how to heal from inflammatory bowel disease’. I saw the word naturopath come up a few times and when I delved deeper into this profession, it was exactly what I was looking for. Naturopathy uses natural remedies to treat the underlying cause of illness and disease. This gave me a new sense of hope and inspiration when I needed it the most. I made an appointment with a local Naturopath, and little did I know it was going to change my life in more ways than I ever could have imagined.

I do believe that everyone comes into your life for a reason and my naturopath is and always will be my guiding light. I remember sitting in her office for the first time as if it was yesterday. She taught me to look at the body as a holistic and interconnected being, where symptoms, disease and illness are just signs that the body is not functioning properly, and changes need to be made. The word disease literally means that there is a dis-ease in the body. She broke healing down into three steps. One, detoxify the body, two, promote the body’s natural ability to heal and three, put in the good stuff! The body wants to heal and be healthy we just need to support it in the best way possible. This change in mind set was such a turning point for me, I felt for the first time that I had control over my own health and healing. I also worked with a health coach, she gave me the confidence to believe in my ability to heal and supported me physically and mentally though some of the most challenging parts of my journey.

There is no express lane when it comes to healing, it takes time and it’s not always easy. No matter how difficult things got for me I held onto the below quote and it’s never left me;

‘Believe you can and you’re halfway there’

During the first few months of seeing my naturopath and treating my body naturally I rapidly saw improvements in every aspect of my life and after four months I was completely symptom free. All my other symptoms that I’ve struggled with over the past 7 years gradually improved as well. Perfectly quoted by Charlotte Gerson, a pioneer of natural medicine, said that ‘you can't keep one disease and heal two others, when the body heals, it heals everything’. There was a light at the end of the tunnel for me and I am now living the life I had dreamed about. Every single day I wake up grateful to be symptom free and I am still working on not seeing myself as a sick person anymore. The fear of going back to that place does haunt me at times but having experienced firsthand the power of healing I know that I will never go back to the same place I was in.

Natural healing, preventative health and holistic wellbeing is my entire life now. It is the conscious decisions that we make every day that create a healthy, happy and fulfilling life. I can now say that I have been 12 months and counting symptom free from a disease that was labelled incurable. My experience has uncovered my passion in helping others with their own health journeys and ignited a love for natural health that I want to share with the world. I am now a certified health and wellness coach as well as a yoga and meditation teacher, this is only the start of all the limitless things that I want to do now. I thought I was going to lose my life because of my disease but actually it has given me a better one than I ever could have imagined!

24/01/2022