Autoimmune Disease Has Reared Its Ugly Head For Me Once Again!  AIP Coach To The Rescue!

As I have mentioned, this month I will officially be an AIP Coach.  I cannot tell you how important this particular diet is for those with Autoimmune Disease.
 
A little back story of interest.  I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis when I was 18 (I am almost 53 now).  At the time, it was only in my ankles.  Sometime in my mid 30’s the Rheumatoid Factor test was negative, and I was no longer getting red swollen joints with pain.   I chalked it up to a miracle.  In retrospect, I realize now that I had eliminated dairy at that time, thinking it may be causing all of my stomach issues.  After about a year off dairy, I realized it was not the dairy causing my stomach issues, but gluten.  I excitedly incorporated dairy back into my life and removed gluten.  No problems at all until a couple of months ago.  Oh, the irony?!  Here I was studying daily to become an AIP Coach!  My fingers kept swelling (one at a time, red, swollen, excruciating pain), my wrists as well.  The first month or two, I thought this was due to our dog Sequoia pulling on the leash!  Spraining my hand seemed likely, as she is strong and willful!  I actually stopped her puppy training classes, as it seemed it was happening a day or 2 after each class.  I literally could not use the hand affected at all each time.  It always seems the practitioner is the last to know when it is THEM with the issue!!!  I am MUCH less observant of me than I am with clients and loved ones!

Just before Easter a lightbulb went off!  This was not the dog spraining my hand, this was Rheumatoid Arthritis coming back and in a different way than before.  I have it in my feet as well as both wrists and all fingers so far.  (I had labs done and confirmed, my Rheumatoid Factor is over 120 with 14.9 being the TOP of the range.  Through all of this, I am also dealing with issues in my shoulder for just over 2 years, unrelated, and getting ready (as I write this) to have surgery on it after exhausting all the natural ways I could help it.  I stopped dairy for 2 weeks and went ahead with the meal I had planned for our Easter celebration, which contained dairy.  I flared up BAD!  Dairy is a known trigger of Rheumatoid Arthritis, the protein that escapes the leaky gut and causes the autoimmune reaction.  I went back off dairy.  However, I suspect there may be other things causing inflammation in my body, so my plan is to do the full AIP diet once I am healed from surgery.
 
To help you understand the AIP diet, and how it works I have put this together, it is most definitely something that people with Autoimmune Disease should consider.  It has potential to lower antibodies, but it has incredible results in reducing symptoms, and in some, removing them completely. AIP is NOT meant to be followed for life!  It is an elimination and reintroduction diet.  We need variety in our foods!
 
The foods removed in AIP are removed for their known impairment in digestion, especially in people with autoimmune disease.  It also removes inflammatory foods, foods that are known to cause intestinal permeability, worsen dysbiosis and activate the immune system.   

​​Now, this may seem very restrictive when you are looking at the list of foods to avoid but looking at the list of foods to include should make you feel better!!!  Again, AIP is NOT meant to be followed for life!  The elimination is done and held for 30-90 days, until most symptoms have been relieved.  Then begins the reintroductions to see if there is a reaction of any kind.  This is done in stages with very specific food groupings and in small amounts.  The reintroductions are set up so that you are reintroducing the most nutrient dense foods first and the most inflammatory foods last.  Do not be dismayed, a reaction to a food does not mean it is out forever, it means it is out for now, as more healing has to happen!

​For me, I never thought I could give up the dairy or my morning cup of coffee.  The rest I was mostly fine with.  The pain that I was in with the Rheumatoid Arthritis, and the knowledge that dairy proteins can be the key to Rheumatoid Arthritis, was enough for me to quit cold turkey, with very little problems (I DO sometimes look longingly at the cheese drawer in the fridge!)  I have not given up the coffee yet but ordered roasted chicory root and roasted dandelion root to make a coffee substitute that is AIP friendly!  AS I said, I am doing the FULL AIP once my shoulder is healed from surgery.  I have to be able to track symptoms and removal of symptoms daily, and fear that surgery pain and healing may interfere with my ability to track Rheumatoid Arthritis symptoms.
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Dairy and coffee were the two I thought I could not live without (often a clue somebody has a sensitivity to a food!)  I am doing fine dairy free, which tells me I can make it through the coffee elimination too!  So, I am going to do AIP (and I told all of you, so now that has to happen!!)  I will not only reap the benefits for my own AI diseases, but I will have firsthand experiences of going through AIP for my clients going through it.