Autoimmuni(me).5: The Magic of Lifestyle Medicine
Now that two and half years have passed since my doctor first identified autoimmunity in my blood work, I want to reflect on my journey so far and what I would recommend to anyone just figuring out that they may have any type of autoimmunity. My autoimmune symptoms started in September of 2022 but went undiagnosed until November of 2023. Since then, lifestyle medicine has helped me live life mostly pain-free.
Lifestyle medicine as a learning process
I have progressed light years in understanding how lifestyle medicine works and which aspects of it are particularly helpful to me in my body and mind. But knowing about these tools and that they work is a different thing than applying them. That is a practice in itself that I am some days better at than others.
I have learned so much about by body’s signals and needs, to the point that they are becoming increasingly second nature. But how do I live them out as if they are my first nature?
One thing about lifestyle medicine is that it is not like taking a regimented dose of pills and then being free to live as one did before until you get sick again. Lifestyle medicine is just that, a lifestyle, requiring maintenance, dedication, and consistency. The good news is our bodies are forgiving and adaptive, and our gut lining regenerates it’s holy single-cell-thick wall lining every four days.
Identifying the wins when it comes to our health
When it comes to our health, as with many things in life, we must take the small wins when we come to them. Or when they come to us. Recently I was able to get new lab work done and my doctor identified some thyroid stuff that was not there last year or two years ago. Instead of spiraling that there is something new and inknow emerging in my blood work, I choose to respond with gratitude for having more information. My doctor prescribed me a low dose thyroid medication to try for a few months before following up to retest the thyroid panel and see if the medication has made a difference.
Despite a handful of stressful and transitional circumstances that have kept me lately from being my best at all the routines that keep me charged, I believe the medicine is actually helping. The main way I have noticed it is in my hair, which I observe is slowly changing towards its former golden voluminous mass after having been rather straw like, thin, and depleted for the last year and a half or so.
As my diet has undergone drastic changes to accommodate avoiding inflammatory foods at all costs (and there are a lot of them!), my husband and closest friends quickly adapted to me, learning the list of my yeses and not yet’s, making me feel supported and seen, and not like a burden which one could easily feel with so many dietary restrictions amidst a community of eaters-of-everything.
Committment to our health is radical self-love
Overall, I continue choosing to be patient with myself and my body. I recognize that the commitments and adaptations I have implemented in my diet and lifestyle are me choosing myself. I also recognize that the moments of indulgence, weeks where I maybe have a couple coffees more than necessary or a cocktail with my friends, are also me choosing myself. I remain postured that navigating our health and living out our wellness are not linear endeavors.
Answers do not come in a straight line. I try to not let new emerging questions subtract from the successes of all the information I have collected. I continue living and listening to my self in this n=1 experiment experience. While I would choose this for myself or anyone, I love my autoimmunity in so much as it remains an ever present invitation to listen and care for myself more and more and more. Our health is our wealth after all.
For anyone living in the ripples of aftershock after a new autoimmune diagnosis or heightened antibody results, there are a few health interventions that could prove helpful to you at least in the beginning stages of learning to identify your symptoms and prevent their triggers*.
What do I mean by health interventions? The European Lifestyle Medicine Organization offers this definition of lifestyle medicine:
“Lifestyle medicine is a branch of medicine which has as goal to maintain optimal health and to prevent, treat and reverse chronic illness across all life stages. The health interventions used in lifestyle medicine include evidence based behavioural strategies, while considering equity and sustainability, to enhance self-management skills for optimizing nutrition, sleep hygiene, stress management, social connection, sexual health and fertility, physical activity and minimizing substance use and environmental exposures.”
Considering this definition, health interventions could also be understood as different habits and practices that can be implemented by anyone to help themselves feel better.
Some people practice lifestyle medicine supplementally to pharmaceutical medicine while others may strike a balance between the two or avoid one of them all together.
Below I will share a few lifestyle treatments that work well for me:
My adapted AIP diet (AIP diet + the foods I have successfully reintroduced over the past year and a half.
Moving! My favorite ways: daily yoga practice 10-15 minutes, long walks in nature, swimming, kayaking, sex!
Stress management: I have found stress to trigger pain in my joints most susceptible to inflammation (for me: left hip, left elbow, & hands). Intentionality about reducing stress in our lives may be harder than any dietary shift, but it is just as important. Our nervous systems are our bodies! “Thoughts are things”. My favorite ways to reduce stress: playing guitar and signing, getting a lot of sleep ( by a lot like 11-13 hours), going to an event or new environment/travel, movement, quality time, & of course, sex!
Sleep hygiene. I still cant say I am a pro at this one but I can attest that it is a life changing practice, especially for someone experiencing autoimmunity but really for all of us. (Many lifestyle practices recommended to autoimmune folks by functional medicine and naturopathic doctors are really recommendations that could make all of us healthier). With consistent nights of 9-10 hours of sleep, I feel super-heroic and can often apply slightly less of my other lifestyle practices and still get away pain-free. (i.e. having an extra coffee, indulging a bit in sugar and alcohol, skipping an exercise/movement habit)
For someone at the beginning of their journey, here are a few tips that may help you out:
Consider trying an elimination diet or modified elimination diet, at least for a period of two weeks. Talk to your doctor or health care provider before beginning this endeavor to make sure you are a good candidate and you do not have any preexisting health issues that could provoke issues upon embarking on an elimination diet. If you have any history of disordered eating, it may be better for you to avoid an elimination diet all together or to work with a certified AIP Coach or Nutritionist.
Instead of eliminating foods from your diet, consider adding extra nutritionally dense foods in. One way to think about this is to add an additional fruit or vegetable to your plate at every meal time. Adding in nutritionally dense foods helps us reframe our mindset towards caring for our bodies through diet in a different way than an elimination diet does.
get moving (add a walk or light movement activity to your daily routines. Some people do squats while waiting the four minutes for their french press to brew; others may park far away from the store to get a few more steps in from the car.)
reduce stress (animals, art, quality time)
reduce alcohol and sugar (this will be different for everyone. A classic approach is limiting alcohol and sugar consumption to weekends, or choosing a certain amount of time you want to refrain from these two and committing to it for you own well being. For this I recommend by starting off with two weeks-one month, as with this much time you will really start to feel the difference in your body from having a break from these two.)
start a journal. Journaling is a great way to be with yourself, check-in, and free writing stream of consciousness observations can help bring deeper ideas and issues to the surface. While journaling might not be the most precise way to track all our symptoms, it is still incredibly helpful both for maintaining mental and emotional well-being, and therefore physical as well.
We are all on our own journeys, together
Sobre todo, each experience of autoimmunity is different for everyone. Maybe you have not received an explicit diagnosis yet, or maybe you have recieved more than one. Maybe you know something is off in your body but your doctor’s aren’t listening to you yet. Keep fighting for you! You are worth it.
The Quercetin-C and Immunoglobulins recommended to me by a Functional Medicine Practitioner last year also helped but are quite difficult to find in Mexico. The point is to have as many tools as you can in your tool-belt with which you can protect yourself from experiencing the downsides of autoimmunity: joint-paint, brain fog, & fatigue, among many others.
The other point is to see the work of being with oneself in autoimmunity as process-based and non-linear. If we live in a mindset of “waiting to get better” or “waiting for it to go away” or even worse yet, waiting for the condition “to just fix itself”, we are increasing our probability of living with painful symptoms that we do not have to tolerate. Do your best for you and forgive yourself for the small indulgences along the way (this is still you choosing you). Do not give up on finding doctors that you trust and who will listen to you.
From lived experience I can tell you that there can be beauty in autoimmunity if we are able to see it as an immense invitation to care for ourselves to the utmost degree. I believe in you!
