13 Things People With Chronic Illness Wish You Understood

I was going to highlight just one...
Impossible.
This is so right on target, it's insanely freaky. Click to enjoy

Simple Salads for Optimal Health

This is a very simple to understand lesson about why some raw vegans experience tremendous issues with gas... love the simplicity of eating for Optimal Nutrition on a Calorie Restricted Diet

New Direction

Answer to the first question: Yes, I am still Mostly Raw.
Answer to the next question: I consider myself Vegan, solely because of my connection to living beings and my heartbreak over their current conditions of torture and slavery of this world.

 So, here we go... the ongoing journey to find Health.
 I am crazy Healthy ... My IBS/Crohn's(suspected not clinically diagnosed) is gone, I do not get colds, infections, I heal quickly. However, I still suffer from the pain and degeneration caused by Rheumatoid Arthritis, most recently reclassified as Psoriatic Arthritis.

Will I always suffer pain and degeneration of joints and connective tissue? I have no idea.
Do I believe there is a deeper, spiritual cause to this suffering that I have yet to understand? Absolutely.

And so that is why this is my Journey to Health and Wellness... not a path... not a ticket... and certainly not a science.

 I will begin by explaining that I am currently taking Western prescribed medication for my condition, because as of October 2015 my RA/PsA chose to wage a major war on the connective tissue in my ribs and my feet.
To be honest I thought I was merely suffering from a chronic case of Plantar Fasciitis, and partially, I was, but it was actually connective tissue damage caused by my RA/PsA, and after hearing my consistent dry, hacky cough my RA Specialist started asking a few questions: Did I have chest pain?     Well, the answer to that was:"Yes, comparable to a heart attack, dropping me to my knees, but I adjusted my Potasium, Magnesium, and Sodium levels and that seems to have quieted down a bit." (I admit, that at this point my doctor was thoroughly exasperated, or appeared to be, because even though he knows I have self treated every disease and illness I have faced in the last 30 years with diet and herbs and supplements...hearing what I do in practice just makes him shake his head)
  To his credit, he said nothing, and went on with his examination... meaning pinching, poking, and forcing joints that really don't want to work the way they're supposed to... to move... creating a chorus of eeks and ouches and "That's quite enough"
  He then asked: "How important is walking to you?" "Obviously, very, I'm up to a 5-6 mile hike since you last saw me." (I was pretty proud since the last time I saw him I couldn't hobble a mile without a knee brace and a cane. "And breathing on your own? That's good too?"
  "I'm a bright girl, doc, what exactly are you trying to say?"
  "Obviously you have made progress... but the disease is not eliminated... it has been smoldering... and now it is bursting through you, burning through your connective tissues, and onve those are destroyed, no surgery and no medicine in the world can fix that."
  Okay, I've heard the horror stories before...
  I was about to discount everything he'd just said... when he said, "If you do not do exactly what I tell you to do, I cannot help you, and the next time I see you, there may be no hope."
  And I knew he was right. In my gut. Intellectually I wanted to argue ...

  I took about a month to decide what to do. I thought about all my options, researched the hell out of the new information I had been given, and talked to other medical professionals, both Eastern and Western...

 Thanksgiving weekend I started on a regiment of PDE4 inhibitors, NSAIDS, and muscle relaxers in an attempt to stay on my feet, hiking and dancing, as long as possible. And felt like a failure. It's really hard emotionally and spiritually to accept the burden and birthright to believe in the body's innate power to self-heal. Through the holidays, I partied like a rock star... I ate foods I hadn't eaten since I was a teenager... I drank way too much. By New Years Eve I was hobbling with a knee brace and cane... my cough was worse... and my IBS/Crohn's was back with a vengeance. Of course there was yelling and screaming... Why is this happening? The Fucking medicine is supposed to fix me!

 ... and acceptance... I'd been healing myself all along, I hadn't failed, and I needed to get my shit together, stop feeling sorry for myself, and Journey on...

 Life is a Sacred Journey... I know that,and I accept that... Life is about Trials and Lessons Learned.
 I was obviously still learning "something"...

 I looped back and started over...
Raw food first... which meant weeks of detoxifying all the junk I'd consumed with weeks of Juice Fasting... while sticking to my Rx regiment. And then really looking at what worked and what wasn't working with my diet.

 The cane is back on the shelf...
I'm exercising daily...
I'm still not belly dancing because the feet are still very plagued by constant Plantar Fasciitis and Cramps. But I feel healthier and stronger than I've ever felt.

 Honestly, I'm still evolving, still figuring it out... To be honest, I'm toying with my diet, discovering what makes me feel optimal... what doesn't... because of the medication I am on, fully raw is not an option (that is an entirely different post), and as soon as I figure out what my diet has evolved to... I'll write that post...

 Until then... Journey On...
 If you can learn and use anything from this blog to guide your own journey, I wish you well... There's a lot of good stuff tucked into many pages...

And if you are on your own Journey of Discovery and Healing, don't be too hard on yourself because figuring out the optimal diet to defeat disease has to evolve and isn't the same for everyone...
Trust your gut.

Light, Love, and Peace
Re

Loren Lockman's Advice

Optimal Diet, part 1: Every Body Has Different Needs...or Do They?
Optimal Diet, Part 2: Mono Meals, Food Quantity, and Protein and Mineral. Optimal Diet, Part 3: Breaking it all down Optimal Diet, Part 4: What Doesn't Belong...and a little more about what...

The 7 Keys to Optimal Health

I Will Not Stand By- POWERFUL Slam Poetry! | Gary Yourofsky

If you are squeamish, you may have to close your eyes because this video is graphic ... but it's what animals suffer every day ... while everyone else in the world is slathering their faces and bodies with animal tested goo before going out for their corpse burgers ... Go Vegan ... give a damn. Be the voice.

FATIGUE...

If you have found this blog... you are seeking answers... and I hope you will find what you are seeking or at least are inspired enough by the research, trial, and error I have endured.

And please do not be discouraged by this particular post because while I could easily go off on a rant... Debilitating Fatigue makes a rough start to the day... I am going to do my best to not rant...

Today sucks. Again, Fatigue doesn't bring out my inner sunny cheerleader...

Now yesterday, yesterday was fabulous--Seventy-five degrees F and sunny after months of gloom, cold, rain, sleet, snow--and I was able to get outside for some gardening, but I didn't I overdo it, even though I was tempted to. I ate mostly raw. I slept as well as I sleep any given night--eight hours interrupted by 3-5 trips to pee; so all in all WHY DID I WAKE UP FEELING LIKE I WAS HIT BY A TRUCK?

This is the never ending mystery of ever autoimmune illness... Flares, whether fatigue, pain, or brain fog... unpredictable fucking flares...

I could blame the drastic weather change (it's back to forty degrees F) and yes, maybe that has something to do with it, but there have been weather shifts off and on all winter. And they haven't each resulted in a flare...

Is it any wonder that the people looking in on my life are confused? how can they not be if my good days/bad days carrousel leaves me so confused.

This check-list illustration designed by the website www.survivingchronicpain.com reminds me that I am not alone, basically every single friend I have with an autoimmune disease wakes up feeling exactly as I do ...

And feel as helpless trying to explain to our loved ones, friends, and co-workers why we have to cancel plans or accomplish exactly nothing...

And try to wrap our beads around just why saying "I have an autoimmune disease" is not enough explanation...

To keep people from thinking "it's just an excuse"

To keep people from making judgments such as "lazy"

To keep people from saying "you don't look sick."

Days like this remind me why I am determined to educate as many people as I can about autoimmune disease. No one wants to have disease as an excuse for not living each moment fully. Seriously

Days like this I want to talk about the benefits of raw food, unprocessed food. And meditation. And yoga. Because I so firmly believe in the results, especially today when the memory of how horrid and helpless and depressed I was four years ago when the doctors had no answers that would help me take my life back. So I empowered myself by firing the lot of them and took full responsibility for my own health and disease.

Days like this remind me exactly why I so drastically changed my diet... To ensure I have fewer days like today. 

And today, as I lay on the sofa, babying myself a little, I think about my bigger journey. There is no time to feel sorry for myself or question why my higher consciousness chose this particular path ...

I am Focused on my own healing.

I am healthier, stronger, and less affected by my disease than I was four years ago.

I am winning.

Now... if you have made it to the end of this post, you are either really desperate for your own healing to which I would say "don't give up! You have the power within You to heal!" Or you kept reading because you love me and you honestly care how I am doing, "Thank you. I love you too" 

Or maybe you kept reading because you are curious or skeptical about raw food, autoimmune disease, and self healing in which case "Peace to you and I hope your mind is more open from experiencing what this blog has to offer."