Colitis Ulcerosa – Another kind of story about recovery from bowl disease

“I think it is the best for you to go and see a parasite specialist. I know as much about parasites as a pig knows about windmills.” When your own mother, who is a doctor, tells you to go and see a specialist, a girl doesn’t have a choise but to obey. Because of my busy life style, I ended up seeing a doctor outside my own city. First interaction with a doctor was good even thought it lead to further check ups.

This is my personal story about autoimmune disease and its healing process. I believe that others can benefit from my experience.

It was spring 2014. One year earlier I had come back from Africa where I was doing voluntary work. I was living a busy life. I was balancing between work, masters in osteopathy studies and personal life. I was tired but it was logical. All my days were very full from work and a lot of my weekends I spend doing post graduate studies or my masters in Gothenburg. During this spring I started having worrysome symptoms when my bowl started to bleed. As mentioned, my lovely mother is a doctor and she ordered me to go and see gastroenterologist specialist. That started a long journey,

My first encounter with a specialist was good. He was an amazing personality, his examination very professional and comments were light. There were jokes about pigs and windmills and I got a discount since “we were working on the same field”. He ordered me to a semi-acute colonoscopy. Due to my own busy schedule I ended up seeing more specialist and got my blood tests done in autumn 2014. Based on the blood tests and colonoscopy I was diagnosed with colitis ulcerosa. I was explained that it is a autoimmune disease where my own bowl has attacked against itself and was full of cuts and severely infected. Calprotectine (that shows the inflammation state of the bowl) was very high 2000, when a normal value for it would be under 100. Doctors said that immunosuppressive medicine was my only option. I asked a lot about how the medicine works and when would I be allowes to quit it if the symptoms releaved. I was told that discontinuing the medicine was not recommended since it had been shown that quitting the medication often brought back the symptoms, more severe. This was not something that fit along with my osteopathic understanding about Health and body as a whole. If my whole immunesystem would be suppressed with medication, what would happen to its reaction to other things that were threatning my system from outside?

I started looking for a solution elsewhere and contacted Antioksidant Clinic in Helsinki. I wanted to see a functional doctor so that we could clarify why was my body reacting the way it was. I wanted to find out whether there would be a way to understand what had caused my situation and how to support my system so that my body could treat itself, just like osteopathic principles teach us it can do. I was able to get myself a time within 2 weeks since my situation was quite critical. Doctors were pushing me to start the medication straight away and I did not want to do that. I also looked around information from the internet about autoimmune diseases. I found out about autoimmune-paleo-diet. This diet was based on cutting out foods that cause silent infection in your body. Milkproduct, all grains, eggs, solanaceous plants (potato, tomato, bell pepper), pulses (lentels etc) and sugar was to be avoided.

I started following this diet immediately. 3 weeks after the diet I took control blood tests and the inflammation state of my bowl (calprotectine) had dropped from 2000 to 50. 3 weeks earlier a doctor had said to me “some say that their symptoms releave from diet but it will not have any effect on the iflammation on your bowl”. When the doctor was calling me about the new results he said “I see you started the medicine after all”. I replied that that wasn’t the cause and told him about the diet. He was quiet on the phone and then questioned the original diagnose. After a while he realised he had been the one doing the examination and the diagnose and was confirmed that the original diagnose had been correct from the start.

I was also treated by the functional doctor in antioksidant clinic in Helsinki. The way I was reseaved here was absolutely amazing. This doctor had time for me, he listened to everything I had to say and he was empathetic. He saw me as the person that I really am. I am still very grateful for him for that. I was grately releaved when describing my symptoms the doctor said “ I believe the diagnose you have reseaved is right, but there must be a reason for your bodys reaction.”This was exactly what I was thinking myself! There must have been a reason for the imbalance in my body. When we started to study this, oh ´boy did we find those reasons. I had multiple chronic infections (in my lungs), multiple parasites and most of the vitamines, antioksidants and minerals in my body were imbalanced. I got recepies for a high amount of different vitamins and instructions to continue the good diet that I had already started before.

At the same time I was taken care by my osteopathic collegues every second week. My immunesystem was enhanced by balancing my nervous system, activating my lymphatic flow, treating the omentum major (this was before this area was annouced to be an organ of its own by medical science, it’s a tissue that has been treated as an important sturcture since the end of 1800 by osteopaths thanks to our founder Andrew Taylor Still who saw its importance).

I realised that my whole body was inflammated and stressed. Therefore I did everything I could to decrease the stress that was effecting my body and my mind. I decreased the amount of rough exercise, changed that into long walks ad meditation in the woods and in the beach. I got rid off all the schedules possible. My lovely friends took such a good care for me. They invated me for a dinner when I didn’t have any energy to cook. They made a special cake for me when they had a party so that I didn’t have to challenge my diet. I will be forever grateful for them.

I followed the diet and the vitamin intructions very carefully. After 9 months all my bowl symptoms were gone! One year after my original diagnose I had a control colonoscopy, where they noticed that the bowl had completely healed! The doctor who did the colonscopy was amazed. He said he had never seen that before in his career. Uncurable disease had cured.
After this experience I had realised that many of the foods that I used to eat do not suit me. These include grains, milkproducts and sugar. I still avoid them in my diet but since I am so much more balanced I can make exceptions. It doesn’t ruin my overall wellbeing. I listen to my body and if I notice imbalance, I see my osteopathic collegue or my functional doctor and listen to their advices on how to restore my health. Any sever bowl symptoms I haven’t had since I got healthy papers en of 2015. I healthier and more energetic than ever in my life. How lovely is that!