I had to go through a lot to learn what to do to get rid of my skin disease, infections and other chronic symptoms and conditions that had been plaguing me for years. The solution is quite simple, but so difficult to find. I’m here to tell you that you what you can do to get rid of your chronic symptoms once and for all.
Getting out of 20 years of chronic disease
After struggling with chronic disease for two decades, it wasn´t until my own children were truly bothered by symptoms that I actually started searching deep for answers. It is so easy to believe what we are so often told. That our bodies attack itself, that it is all genetic, that there is nothing we can do about it. I believed that for years until I just could not accept it anymore. When my children got sick with chronic illness I had the feeling that this is not the way it was supposed to be. A feeling that children and young people are not supposed to be born sick and struggle to live their lives from the very beginning. There had to be a reason, there had to be a solution.
My own symptoms started when I was young. You can read more about my own symptoms of allergies, infections, acne and hair loss here.
Allergies and infections – Me, I´m not sick?
Before I was 15 more symptoms started showing. I got a few allergies, severe menstrual cramps that needed strong medication, and in the years to come I would get frequent infections. Urinary tract infections, bladder infections, ovarian cysts and the hospital removed my appendix due to a severe infection. A couple of years later I was diagnosed with asthma. Nevertheless I saw myself as very healthy, and I think everyone else did as well. Other than my “minor” symptoms, I was doing good. This is all quite normal, right?
Acne and hair loss
In my early teens I experienced massive hair loss and I also started getting alot of acne. It was persistent and would not go away. Still no one thought that my body might not be doing great or that I needed to improve my diet or lifestyle. The doctor prescribed topical antibiotics which I used daily for extended periods of time. It helped some, but did not make my skin clear or healthy at all. I remembered having this idea that I needed to drink more water to help clear the skin. My doctor told me no, it was actually “dangerous to drink too much water”. Knowing that I was far away from drinking too much, I started drinking 16 oz (0,5L) of lemon water first thing in the morning and lots of water during the day. I also stopped eating candy and chips, and ate lots of fruits instead. After about a month my skin started to clear. (I´m not saying that it is always possible to get rid of acne this quick. I did not have cystic acne which takes a lot longer to get rid of. But it shows what is possible when you give your body some of the tools it needs to fight off whatever is making trouble). Still, however, I was struggling with hair loss and several other symptoms. And after my acne had cleared I went back to my old eating habits. I spent so much money on skin treatments to keep the skin fairly in check, and I was still struggling with minor acne, dry and/or oily skin for years.
Psoriasis – more red warning signs
In my early twenties, after a 6-month long, severe throat infection, I noticed the red, dry spot I had had on my leg as long as I could remember getting bigger. Similar spots started appearing on my face, neck, arms and after a while on my entire body. My scalp had been red and dry for years as well. Like so many others, I didn’t think twice about it. But the new dry, red spots were itching and they were covering a lot of my upper body. I went to the doctor and got the diagnosis of psoriasis. The doctor also told me I had melasma (another skin disease), and that the diagnosis of psoriasis unfortunately also gave me an increased risk of developing cancer. I was in my early twenties. There was not really anything to do, said the doctor, except for applying cortisone lotions from top to toe (including the scalp) twice a day to keep the rash in check as much as possible. The spots cleared, but once I stopped the treatment they all came back the same or worse. It went on like this for years. I spent a small fortune on lotions and skin treatment and saw no permanent improvement.
Better now, but more seriously ill in the future?
After a while I was also recommended to try light therapy (stepping into what looked like a solarium and standing there for a certain amount of minutes). It didn’t really give me any good results, so I asked if I could try the treatment even more frequently (I was doing it three times a week). I was told no, because “there was cancer risk associated with the treatment”. I was puzzled: Am I supposed to expose myself to this light-box to get rid of psoriasis, but it will contribute to me getting the same disease in the future that both my parents died from? This was all so strange. It reminded me nothing of “health” treatment. It felt strange to know that I had to apply lotions that harm the liver and thinning the skin. Regardless, and without much second thought, I continued down that path. I accepted that I had this incurable disease and that I had to spend a lot of money on medical treatment to keep the disease at bay.
Family of cancer and skin disease
My grandmother died from cancer, and so did both my parents. I did not like the turn my life had taken when the doctor told me there was a correlation between the diagnosis of psoriasis that I had just gotten, and cancer later in life. My dad was struggling a lot with his skin decades before he got cancer. All the time applying lotions, wearing gloves, staying away from water, cold etc. Dry, red and itchy spots that would not go away.
My own legs and skin had been dry as long as I could remember, just like I remember my dads hands, feet, legs and arms. This all “ran in the family”.
Earlier onset of disease
What made me think twice was that the generation before me had all gotten these symptoms so much later in life. Why was I getting it earlier than the generation before me? My great grand aunt had psoriasis, but she was in her 80’s. My dad was in his 40 and 50 when he really started the struggle with his skin. But why did I get psoriasis already in my 20s? To me it seemed that, yes, our family was obviously more prone to getting this disease. But were we doing something wrong, more than in the past, that made the onset of disease earlier and earlier?
Rashes on our brand new baby
When I had my first child I was so happy to have a healthy baby. He seemed fine, and I almost didn’t see that his skin was not in great condition at birth. A new baby looks perfect in his mothers eyes. But looking back, I see that he had trouble with his skin from his first second outside the womb. Which probably meant he also had it before he was even born. Why?
Still rashes on a baby are quite normal these days. We applied lotions and took care of his skin in the best way we knew. His problems did not impair his life greatly at that point, not until a few years later.
Tears on a tiny face
At age three he had severe rashes that made him cry almost daily. It was itching and painful. Some of the rashes were open wounds that would not heal by itself. We went to several dermatologists and my son was first diagnosed with eczema. We got several cortisone lotions to use. Some of the doctors said the lotions he needed to make the wounds heal were too hard on a tiny body, but others said we just had to use it anyway. I was confused and scared. We pushed him into letting us put the creams on him, and he was in tears every night because it was so stinging and painful. We tried to comfort him “it will help” “it will make the rashes go away”. But it didn´t. The open wounds closed up, but his skin still slowly worsened.
There is nothing you can do
The doctors told us it was a chronic condition, and that we had to come to terms with the fact that he would have to live with this for the rest of his life. He would have to bring with him special cortisone creams wherever he went, and we had to make sure he was “not too cold, not to hot, not sweaty, keep away from water and harsh weather, no wool clothes directly on the skin (we live in Norway and wool is the only way to keep kids warm in the winter), keep the skin moist with lotion 4 times a day” etc etc. I thought that this condition was keeping him away from being a child. A child should be able to run around and not have to worry about his skin.
Diet will not change anything
My second child was born with eczema that needed treatment right away. Now both my two children had skin disease. Why? I asked the skin doctors if diet could have an impact. I asked if we should try to eliminate milk, gluten or something else for a while to see if it had any effect. They all looked at me like that was kind of a stupid question, and “assured” me that diet had nothing to do with the skin. This was a SKIN condition, and it had to be treated on the skin with cortisone creams.
I still kept the belief that what we put in our bodies several times a day must have some impact on how the body handles itself.
In addition to eczema my oldest slowly developed psoriasis as well. I could not come to terms with this. Why did my family get this disease earlier and earlier in life?
Date night with Google
Alone in a hotel room in Barcelona, after hosting a day- long event for a big client, I just could not sleep. Having the first night away from my then two children in a couple of years, I got some much needed perspective. With the night to myself without anyone interrupting me, I decided that I would not rest until I got to the bottom of this. I simply could not sleep until I found some answers. Google was not willing to offer me much in the beginning. All I could find was articles telling me that “psoriasis and eczema were chronic conditions and there was no cure”. No diet could fix it. But the further I went down the search list, I started finding some sites that linked food to inflammation and skin disease. They were all pretty alternative in my eyes and I didn’t find them reliable. After many hours I finally found a Harvard University article about anti-inflammatory foods. And how inflammation was linked to auto-immune disease, psoriasis and eczema. I saw the list of anti-inflammatory foods. Vegetables, fruits, berries and greens. Sure enough, we were not getting a lot of these in our diet.
A flame was lit
The next morning I met the rest of the group I was traveling with in the hotel lobby for breakfast. Inspired by everything I had read about health and diet the previous night I went through the buffet looking for anti-inflammatory foods. There was not a lot and I ended up with an apple and some cut up fruit and salad. Not a breakfast in my eyes, but I had to try this out. I remember my group’s faces when they saw my plate. This was not what most people eat for breakfast. It did not look like food to me, nor to my traveling companions. But a flame was lit. And slowly, I started implementing the anti inflammatory foods into our family’s diet. We all ate a lot of “normal” food the next couple of weeks and months as well. But we saw it as our mission to get the boys to eat more fruit and vegetables. We started making smoothies and cutting up fruit daily. We increased the amount of vegetables and leafy greens. And we reduced the amounts we bought and ate of processed foods and gluten. We still kept our favorites, but started to gear our grocery shopping towards healthier options wherever we felt comfortable. The results were nothing but amazing.
Decrease inflammation and see what happens
I will never forget the next couple of weeks. Our boys had been struggling with rashes for years and continually needed medical treatment. And suddenly our boy’s rashes went from “angry”, swollen, red and itchy (needing treatment daily) – to calm and quiet in two weeks. It was just like the skin was not as upset anymore. It was not screaming. It had calmed down. Two more weeks down the line our boys did not need the cortisone creams anymore. The rashes cooled down week by week. The skin got healthier and over the course of 6 weeks, the rashes that had been bothering them their whole life – was 80% gone. What was left were small red, dry spots that did not itch, hurt, bleed or flake. The kids’ lives were changed in a matter of weeks.
New lives
After a couple of months I threw the bag of cortisone creams and moisturizing lotions in the trash, knowing our boys would not need them anymore. Sure, they have had some flare ups, but never to the point that they needed medical treatment ever again. And as each 6 months pass, I see their skin is getting smoother and more flexible and robust. Capable of standing both sun, water and cold temperatures better and better each season. A life of special creams, pain, discomfort, shame and ‘I can’t do this’, ‘I can’t wear that’ was not destined for our children after all. Little did I know at that time that my life and health would change for the better as well.
Disbelief
I could not stop thinking about it. Could there really be such a ‘simple’ solution to my children’s struggles? All the years they had been dealing with the skin issues, and it almost all went away in a couple of months eating a healthier diet? Surely, this is not the case (at least not this fast) for everyone, but if it even helps some people, why did no one tell me about it? Why was I told the opposite? Getting the word out became my mission. And getting to the bottom of what actually pulls people out of chronic illness, and what does not. We were obviously doing something right, but I was in no way sure that I had all the pieces of the puzzle. Actually, I was sure that I just had gotten a small glimpse of what was actually the truth. So excited about everything I learned I kept on exploring and reading.
Feels like age reversal
A couple of months into our new eating habits I suddenly realized that my own psoriasis was calming down. I was completely shocked and did not in my wildest imagination even anticipate this. This was my chronic disease that had been in my family for generations. It was not supposed to be affected by diet. About six months in, I no longer needed my treatments. Still to this day several years later, I do not need medical treatment for my skin. I have long periods of completely clear and smooth skin, and I have small flare ups that disappear after a while with no treatment needed. Overall my skin is so much more healthy than before. And it can stand sun, water, cold etc like I could never imagine.
And my skin was only the beginning. After about one year I had gotten rid of such a long list of symptoms and diseases that I had been struggling with for decades. Urinary tract infections, bladder infections, throat infections, menstrual cramps, allergies, asthma, eczema, dry skin, sunburns, cold feet, restless legs. The list goes on and on. Our family’s immune system got so much stronger, we rarely got any infections or colds. My body feels better close to 40 years old, than in my 20s.
Diving deeper
Over the course of the next months and years I continued to read every book I could find on health and food. From every possible angle, I wanted to know it all. I devoured book after book night after night. No doubt, there were lots of people and institutions that made the connection that food and health were closely linked. But many of them said different things. Some were complete opposites. Staying clear of the trend diets (although I also read a few of those books just to have an overview of it) I read mostly books by researchers, doctors, nutritionists and other medical practitioners. I looked at the studies behind the books and the funding behind the studies. Some things became quite clear after a couple of years into the literature.
So many gurus say they have the only answer
Almost all health advice is geared towards selling you a product. And so much of our strong opinions about what is ‘healthy’ and not is actually not from tradition, doctors or nutritionists, but from industry commercials.
There are so many trend diets and so many “health gurus” marketing their way of eating. And almost all of them give some (at least short term) positive results to some people. Maybe because all of them have in common that they cut out a majority of processed foods. That will always help the body deal with inflammation it seems. It is easy to get persuaded into a belief system from a guru or health trend. But I needed to know more. With the mindset that they all probably did something right and something wrong I continued to research.
Common denominator of more fruits and vegetables
Other than eliminating or reducing highly processed foods, the other, and maybe even more important, common denominator of all the literature I had been going through was eating more fruits, berries, vegetables and greens. Study after study shows that this has an enormous impact on all aspects of our health. Both our immune system, skin, digestion, cardiovascular system and so much more. Still, when we have an issue with our health, few of us look to the kitchen counter for long term relief.
Factors like exercise, stress relief and exposure to toxins also play a role of course. But to get rid of auto immune and other chronic diseases, changes in diet seems to be the fastest way to real relief.
You can get rid of disease too
My story is not unique. Not at all. So many others have had so much more heartbreaking stories with more severe, devastating and life threatening illness. And many more than we know of have managed to get out of it. What is the common factor for all these people? What part of the lifestyle- or diet change yields the greatest results? What are the other differences to take into account? Age, symptoms, other lifestyle factors and so on. I needed to find out. That is why I started interviewing people who got rid of chronic disease. To see what they have in common. And that is why I am sharing all of this with you in my blog. To strengthen your belief in your own body’s ability to get rid of disease with the right tools. And to show you the tools that so many others have used. The tools that can give you a better future.
Lots of love,
Mie
