I love reading success stories of autoimmune warriors on the AIP diet. Their very first steps, the challenges they overcame, all the way to the transformation they experienced. Such stories are encouraging, inspiring, and provide us with the motivation to continue on our own healing journey. It is my privilege to collect and share those stories on the blog. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! To submit your AIP success story, click here. To read more AIP success stories like this one, click here.
Jennifer had been battling Ulcerative Colitis and Clostridium Difficile bacterial infection for many years when she dove headfirst into the Autoimmune Protocol in 2015. She got her life back is and now able to live a normal life without constantly knowing where the nearest bathroom is!
Diagnosis and Symptoms
- Autoimmune diagnosis: Ulcerative Colitis 2016, Hashimoto’s 2016, Celiac 2016, CIRS (from toxic mold exposure) 2018, SIBO, carbohydrate malabsorption, neurological symptoms, food sensitivities, low stomach acid, low hormones, and miscarriages.
- Symptoms: My Hashimoto’s is in remission nowadays. The only residual symptoms I deal with now are related to Ulcerative Colitis. I’ve had C. diff infections twice in the past two years. I’ve been hospitalized once, for twelve days. I’m currently trying to repair my microbiome and put all gut symptoms at bay.
- How did your symptoms make you feel? How did they impact your life? Ulcerative Colitis is a serious life-altering condition. This past year, I was bed-bound (and toilet-bound) for a month and a half while I fought C. diff. I lost so much weight, I was down to 89 lbs. When flaring, UC interrupts every social gathering, every family event, even things like going to the grocery store. I gained my life back by being very careful and deliberate with my food choices. Since April this year, I’ve gained back 13 lbs. and restored my health so that I can leave the house, take my son to play with friends, and do all the “normal” things I want to do without constantly knowing where the nearest bathroom might be.
AIP journey
- AIP start date: June 2015. Today, I still follow most AIP “rules.” with some reintroductions. I have added in organic, gluten-free steel-cut oats, eggs, sweet peppers, chocolate, and a few other odds and ends. I currently follow IBD AID “rules” as that diet is divided into three phases by texture. It has helped me to know which of my tolerable foods are the safest as I’ve worked to regain my ability to eat. (I wasn’t able to eat anything for more than two weeks in March. All food caused terrible pain and increased my 20+ trips to the bathroom each day.)
- How did you find out about AIP? What did you think of it when you first learned about it? Did you doubt that it would help you feel better? I learned about AIP in the Facebook group Hashimoto’s 411. The day I learned about it, I asked my husband if he would do it with me because I did not have the energy to cook separate meals. He said, “Will it work?” and I said, “I don’t know.” But together, we decided to try it, because, at that point, I was so sick that I could not take care of my son. When I began AIP, I used to lay on the floor in front of my stove while my toddler crawled all over me because I did not have enough energy to stand up while cooking a meal. I wasn’t convinced entirely but jumped in because I’d run out of other options.
- At what point did you decide to commit to AIP? What made you take the plunge? What was the turning point for you? I was desperate for anything to work and doctors weren’t helping me much at the time. As I began AIP, I saw results fairly quickly. After feeling like I had the flu for a few days, my brain fog began to lift. My energy began to come back. After 2-3 weeks in, I knew it was working, and that made me commit even more.
- What were you thinking / feeling when you made the decision to change and start the AIP diet? I was so sick. So sad. So desperate. I was missing out on life. I wasn’t able to play with my son or even take care of him the way I wanted to. I changed my diet with very little knowledge of “why” it might work. I just jumped in. I followed the lists, and as I began to see improvements in my symptoms, I did the work to learn the “why.”
First steps into AIP and challenges
- What were the first steps you took? I cleaned junk food out of my cabinets. Threw things away from my refrigerator. I paired down to just what I might need to survive a simple AIP. I wasn’t jumping into arrowroot and cassava and stuff like that. My pantry wasn’t expanding, not yet. My first steps weren’t about eating pretty food or fancy food. My goal was just to eat vegetables and protein with fruit. Because we’d also been pretty simple with vegetables before AIP, I also made the goal to introduce one new vegetable into our diet each time I went to the store.
- What were the challenges you encountered when starting AIP and how did you overcome them? I was so fatigued, I literally could not stand long enough to cook a meal. That was the hardest phase. But I just kept going. Not because I believed it would work, but because I had no other options. There was nothing else within my control that I could do. Doctors belittled me and dismissed me. I knew I was sick, but at that point, I didn’t even know why. I suspected Hashimoto’s because every woman in my family has it, but no doctor would diagnose it because I was subclinical at the time.
The transformation
- What transformation have you experienced on AIP? Have your symptoms improved? My Hashimoto’s is in remission with the help of AIP and LDN. The majority of my symptoms are gone. I live a normal life each day when my UC isn’t flaring. I’m an avid reader and writer. When I was very sick, I was so ill that I could not read. I would look at a sentence and “read” it over and over with no comprehension. For years, my novel sat in a drawer because I could not pull it together. Since AIP, and especially since removing myself from mold, I have been able to read and write again. I can think with clarity. This might be the biggest thing for me. It is a sad, scary thing to feel like you’re losing your mind, your intelligence, and your ability to relate to other people when you are only 35 years old.
- What can you do now that you were not able to do before? Read. Write. Take care of my son. Laugh. Enjoy life. Enjoy my husband.
- What would have happened if you had continued to eat/live like before? I honestly think I would have died. We unknowingly lived in a toxic mold environment for five years. It was a beautiful 96-year-old craftsman bungalow, with no visual signs of mold. But that house was killing me slowly. I truly believe that the only reason I was able to function for all those years is that I changed my diet away from a standard American diet.
Bigger impact on family and work-life
So at first, I was most concerned with changing MY diet. My family still ate conventional yogurt and Cheeze-its and sugary cereal. The more I learned about AIP and why it mattered, the more I learned about the relationship between food and health in general. Slowly, I made changes in my home. I looked for “better than” options and kept doing that, moving my family along the sliding scale of nutrition. Now, they are paleo. My husband lost almost 40 lbs during this process and has kept it off without effort. I have been especially concerned about my son’s nutrition since he was born into a toxic mold environment and shares my genes. It is very important to me that he lives a healthy life and (hopefully) avoid some of the pitfalls I have stumbled into. We also discovered that my husband has a dairy allergy. He had been diagnosed with “psoriasis” about ten years before AIP. He did AIP with me and then went through reintroductions. During AIP, his “psoriasis” completely went away. And at his first reintroduction of dairy, it came back. This also led us to realize that my son also has a dairy allergy. We had been dealing with a rash on his face since his first birthday. His pediatrician had me smearing steroid cream on it every night. When my husband’s issue became evident, I said, “Aha! I think it’s the dairy!” Sure enough, I removed dairy from my son’s diet and his face rash went away too. AIP has changed the life of everyone in my family.
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