How to Heal Autoimmune Disease Naturally

How did I heal my autoimmune disease naturally? That is what we are going to talk about here today. Many if not all doctors will say it cannot be done. That autoimmune disorders are something a person must live with and manage for the rest of their life. But that simply is not so!

One in five women has hypothyroidism! Half of them are undiagnosed.

One in five women in the US have thyroid issues, and more than half of them are undiagnosed. Yep. It is estimated that one-third that are tested and diagnosed are not being properly treated. That means there are thousands if not millions of women suffering from a laundry list of elements because they dismiss them. Thinking the issues were just part of life.

Once I knew there was a problem my next question was how do I fix it?

My doctor read the blood work, called in medication, and called it a day. Uh? What caused this issue? What can I do to heal it? What else could be going on that I don’t know about? My body is after all connected so if one part is having problems isn’t there a good chance others are in effect?

Healing the Autoimmune System

As I shared in my story (here). I think we can learn a lot from other people’s stories. I have often found in hearing others’ stories how they got from where they were to where they are now full of tips, tricks, encouragement.

I hope my story can provide some of that too.

The journey to healing my thyroid naturally started a couple of years after our youngest son was born. Doctors, specialists, and a lot of tests later came up empty. They all said the same thing. “Just stay on the medication and your good to go.”

This was simply an unacceptable answer.

I refused the idea of being on medication my entire life, or feeling and looking the way I did as a by-product of my autoimmune system struggling. The blood test may have been saying everything was “normal”. My body on the other hand was flashing the BIG RED check engine light!

Our bodies communicate much as our cars do.

When something is wrong under the hood we see a light pop on the dashboard.

Well, when something is wrong under the hood in our bodies we see the outer effects. Dry skin, breakouts, hair loss, weight gain, fatigue, emotional instability (extreme mood swings), borderline depression were just a few of my check engine lights.

Despite my blood work saying things were ‘normal, my body was saying, “nope”.

Healing has to start in the mind

Disclaimer I am not a physician. Despite my ten-plus years now of self-education to heal my own autoimmune disorder, I hold no degree.

My moto is our heal is our own responsibility. I hope you find direction and wisdom through hearing my story, your journey to find healing is your journey and may end up looking completely different than mine.

That is ok.

We, I can only speak for American culture, are taught to not complain. The good ol’ suck it up buttercup way of life was how Texans, where I was raised, do things. Going to the doctor is something done only when it is no longer bearable.

Why?

Why do we do this to ourselves and our bodies? Not only do we suffer long and slow but often we let whatever the issue is causing the suffering to get so much worse!

This idea of if I ignore it then it will just pass. Wrong.

Growing up I was a very competitive basketball player. My mom spent God knows how much money on these competitive travel leagues. Not to mention the time in driving 45 minutes one way every day in the summer for practice.

Our team was playing for the championship in Colorado Springs. We were going into our freshmen year of High School and there were college scouts watching this game. We thought we were pretty big sh#% lol. I am about 5 ft 6 at the time, well at this time too. I had one big growth spurt and that was it.

The girl I was guarding was a whopping 6 ft 3 already. I was hoping we could get birth certificates proving these girls were not 13-14 years olds they were giants. Their point guard was 6 ft for goodness sake.

Long story short.

This giant I was guarding swung an elbow around and being so much shorter than her she got me right in the nose. I flew backward then hit my head on the wall. Everything went black.

I would open my eyes and see nothing then open again as see fine. This went on for what felt like forever. I am sure it was only a few minutes. When I noticed the blood pouring out of my nose.

I looked down and I was covered in blood. My coach was picking me up and taking me to the restroom to clean up. My mom was already in waiting toilet paper in hand. She told my coach to get back to the game she’d take it from there.

Still seeing stars I told her, “mom I think I broke my nose”. I will never forget what she said. As she was ruffly wiping my nose (ouch) and trying to clean the blood off my clothes so I could get back in the game. She looked at me and said, “K’Lee, we did not spend all this time and money to get you here for you to quit now. Suck it up and get back out there or I will just take you off this team!”

What?!?!

I am not mad at my mom. This was a behavior she was taught, and she was only doing what she was taught to do.

We wonder why when our bodies are trying to tell us something we don’t listen.

That my friend is a taught behavior.

Two years later as I was going in to have my tonsils removed the doctor doing the exam looks up my nose and said, “oh wow when did you break your nose?” I glared at my mom for her lack of compassion. Even after the game, which we won by the way with a last-minute 3 pointer.

Thought our little team of David vs Goliath looked like we had just been in a gang fight. By the looks of us, you would not have thought we would have won either! I had toilet paper plugging my nose while I was playing for most of the third quarter, and was only allowed back in because we had a backup jersey that wasn’t covered in my blood.

My point in sharing this fun childhood memory (haha) is that I am grateful that despite this deeply rooted “suck it up” belief system I was taught. I ignored it and started asking questions.

I wanted these problems solved!

Healing Means Getting to the Root of the Problems

Now that we have gotten our mindset right. We have determined healing is possible and that we will not stop until we find it. It is time to start the direction process.

Traditional medicine (western medicine) looks at one issue as an isolated issue. For example, in the US there are specialists for EVERYTHING. In the case of autoimmune disorders, it would be an Endocronigest. They deal with the Endocrine system.

Unfortunately, this is not the way it works in our bodies. This method of medicine is backward. We are starting from the outside is not the inside out.

Functional medicine doctors (known most commonly in Eastern / Chinese Medicine) take the opposite approach. Viewing the body as a whole. One unit. Knowing that the symptoms the person came in with are the “fruit” they are looking for the “root”.

It is only by taking this kind of approach can we heal the problems.

The Westen medicine approach is to medicate the symptoms. What I call the “band-aid” approach to medicine. If a patient comes in with a rash on their skin. The doctor prescribed a steroid cream to treat the rash and is on with their day.

But what caused the rash?

What good is treatment topically when the rash itself was our body “check engine light” coming on to make us aware that something “under the hood” is wrong?

Hints the “band-aid” approach to medicine – cover it up.

Check out this interview with two functional medicine doctors who have both healed autoimmune disorders in a holistic way vs the western medicine way they were taught.

They started with ways they were taught in medical school but those approaches did not work.

Food – Food is Medicine or Food is Poison

Where do we start once we identified there is in fact a problem and have the mindset that we will fix it? Based on my six-plus years of research it ALL starts in the gut. And what is affecting our gut health?

Food!

If you live in America, or any first-world country, odds are good you are eating the Standard American Diet – SAD.

Yes, the acronym for how Americans eat is actually SAD. Oh, the irony.

I will say it was not just the food alone that healed my autoimmune system. There were many, many other things that I have done since starting the keto diet completely changing the food I was eating that contributed to my success in finding natural healing for my autoimmune system.

A big one was removing toxins from my home, beauty products, and personal hygiene products. Click here for the full blog post on How to Identify Toxins in your Everyday Life (with a free printable checklist).

Food was where I started and it played a huge role in my healing journey. As it did in both Dr. Hyman & Dr. Li’s healing journies.

Our food system is broken. around the 1940s Industrial Farming entered the sense in the US. When we take a look back in farming practices we will find answers to why death rates from chronic illness in the US skyrocketed.

My self-healing journey started years before this interview, or I had ever heard of Dr. Mark Hyman. Who I now follow religiously to stay educated. My health is my responsibility. Thus, educating myself is as well.

Dr. Hyman, Dr. Li, and I all eliminated three things when we discovered food has a medicinal or toxic effect on our health:

1. Gluten
2. Dairy
3. Sugar

I know. I know. “But K’Lee, if I take those out what the heck will I eat?!?!” I thought the same thing when I started. But these highly inflammatory foods are either the cause of the autoimmune issues you are having or they are contributing to them in massive ways….. either way they have to go first!

Clean Keto is a great place to start. Don’t whip out a scale and get crazy here. Just print off what you CAN eat (very important to focus on cans, not can’t). Have a bulletproof coffee for breakfast and a clean whole foods lunch and dinner. This one step eliminates inflammatory foods and processed foods you will look and feel amazing!

Click here to download and print a clean foods checklist to heal autoimmune disease

After about 90 days on clean keto I would move on to Dr. Hyman’s approach in his book titled “Food. What the Heck Should I Eat” which is educational in explaining the what and whys. Then there is the “Food. What the Heck Should I Cook” cookbook too! I read and loved them both!

More on Food and healing the gut in a bit. First, healing of any kind has to start in the mind!

The first step to finding healing of our autoimmune system starts in our head.

Mindset and beliefs are very powerful things. Don’t believe me? Thinking that’s to “woo woo”? There is actually a lot of science to back it up.

Take the Placebo effect for example.

Doctors wanted to see in studies was it the medication was helping or the belief that the medication was helping? So they would have a “double-blind study”. This is where they would take two groups of people with illnesses. Let us say cancer. One group would get the latest and greatest medication to test. While the other group would get a sugar pill.

In order to have a fair test, the doctors do not know who is getting the real medication and who is getting the sugar pills until the test period is complete.

Hints the blind study.

The book “You Are the Placebo” by Dr. Joe Dispensa packed story after story with medically documented stories of people who both healed them selfs and killed themselves solely based on what they believed to be true.

I read the book about 5-6 years ago now and it is still on my top 5 best books of all times list!

Grab a copy it will 100% be worth the investment!

Believing our bodies can heal themselves is the first step to finding the healing.

A word of caution from my own experiences. Every doctor and specialist I saw told me weening off of my thyroid medication was ill-advised. That they had yet to ever see anyone do it. And in their opinion, it was dangerous to even try.

Scary right?

This is why getting your mindset and beliefs aligned first in regards to self-healing is so important.

Without me starting to educate myself giving me a foundation of what was possible there is no way I would have had the courage to do what I have done!

My health is my responsibility.

Just as your health is your responsibility. This is a bit scary at first. It would be much more comfortable to let a doctor or someone else handle it. To just take a pill to fix all of our problems.

But that pill is just a band-aid covering it up.

If it were healing the problem then there would be no need to continue taking it forever right? Healing it takes time. It takes patience. It requires being committed to the process and educating yourself.

I and many others have journeyed this road to healing and found it worth it!

Conclustion

It all starts in our minds. If we believe we can heal or we believe we cannot heal we are right. I believed healing was possible. I held on tight to the thought that if at least one person could heal their autoimmune system and get off the medication we are told is for the rest of our lives, so could I!

So can you!

The books mentioned above are amazing starting points in the journey to healing your autoimmune disease / autoimmune disorder. Start there. Print off the list of foods that will be medicine to your body eliminating the ones causing more harm. Dr. Hyman also has a great book called “10-Day Detox Diet” which is great if a more guided approach to foods that affect our hormones is needed.

Let me know in the comments below. Which book are you starting with? I would be so excited to hear back your results after completing any of the books or eliminating of foods had for you!