How fixing my gut healed my autoimmune illness

I always had a gut feeling that my gut was to blame for my autoimmune condition. The big clue was that I was born with coeliac disease, which damages the gut lining. So when I was felled by a chronic fatigue syndrome some years ago, my kinesiology brain knew that I needed to look closely at my gut.

However, my diet was excellent. (Or so I thought).

The most challenging symptoms of my illness were extreme fatigue, coupled with brain fog. Not only was it extremely challenging to get out of bed every morning, but I couldn't think clearly, and my short-term memory was so weak that it was seriously impacting my daily life. I was fussy headed and over-sensitive. Conventional wisdom would have it that my digestion was, therefore, not an issue.

And yet..

These were all clues that my gut microbiome was not in good shape - despite my seemingly excellent diet.

What I discovered was that I had to change my diet to restore my gut microbiome. To achieve optimum health I had to remove all inflammatory foods - which for me simply required removing dried fruits and the odd glass of wine. My diet was otherwise very good.

The result of removing just these few foods astonished me. Incredibly, just bringing these few sugars into my system was enabling an inflammatory response in my gut.

Inflammation is an immune reaction that starts in the gut or microbiome, which then travels to the brain, and the thyroid. Inflammation is therefore a central component to brain fog, depression or anxiety, and causes a whole range of disfunction from weight gain, acne, fatigue to autoimmune conditions and cancer.

As Hippocrates said 2000 years ago: "All disease begins in the gut."

And thereby it seems fair to say that all healing begins in the gut.

There are three key factors involved in the development of autoimmune disease: genetic predisposition, intestinal permeability (or 'leaky gut') and environmental triggers. The causes of 'leaky gut' are usually gut dysbiosis (bacterial imbalance), gluten, stress or toxins. Equally the environmental trigger can be caused by the same factors.

My belief is that the traumatic incident I experienced (which I mentioned in a previous post) coupled with my already compromised gut lining created enough stress to trigger an autoimmune response and initiate my dis-ease..

If we can address and manage stress, release emotional trauma and heal 'leaky gut', we can heal autoimmunity conditions.

Even those who are not suffering with obvious gut symptoms may be experiencing intestinal permeability, and for anyone with an autoimmune disease, addressing gut function is the best place to start to bring healing to the body.

What we now understand is that our microbiome, our gut bacteria, enable us to digest our food, cope with stress, maintain our immune system, and help optimise our brain function, so we can think clearly, process our emotions, learn well and remember accurately.

The benefits of rebalancing our microbiome are digestive health, weight loss, improved sleep, skin (excema, psoriasis, acne) and mood; a decrease in anxiety, disease prevention and hormonal balance.

We really are what we eat and we are what we absorb. And if our microbiome is not great then we're not absorbing all the nutrients.

As I've said in an earlier post, my chronic fatigue symptoms disappeared completely once I started a microbiome purify programme. And they never came back.

But it's not just that my symptoms disappeared: I regained my vitality, clarity of mind and joy.

And I'm not alone. Many of my clients have also recovered their health and zest for life after languishing in chronic illness. They have also lost the weight they were desperate to lose, their skin conditions have improved, they have reconnected with their passions and creative pursuits, they feel like they "finally feel more like me again", and "I had honestly forgotten what it is like to feel this well."