It all started as a 20 year old in 2007 when I was in my second year of tech school. For three months straight I couldn’t seem to get over a nasty cold. For three months my doctor kept giving me an antibiotic Z pack over the counter. (At that time I knew nothing about health and nutrition) I would feel better for a couple of weeks and then would come down with another cold so in three months I went through three antibiotic Z packs to no avail.
Spring was fast approaching and I was nearly done with school but noticed I had steadily been losing weight. I had always loved working out and trying to stay fit and bulked up so losing weight wasn’t something I wanted to admit. Being the bull-headed young man I was, I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t feel good nor that I was losing weight so I chose to not say anything about it and just get over it on my own.
I graduated from tech school and moved back home to begin my custom fencing business. But as the days went on I could tell something wasn’t quite right, I had consistent stabbing abdominal pain and diarrhea. I agreed to see a Dr after my parents began telling me I didn’t look well, and also the blood that started showing up in my stools scared me enough. They did a colonoscopy and sent the results to Mayo Clinic to be tested by their labs but the results were inconclusive. They couldn’t seem to figure out what would be causing my sickness.
They did lots of lab work to find out that I had an intestinal infection called Clostridium Difficile as well as Epstein Barr Virus (Mono), which would explain why my immune system was so run down and couldn’t get over the cold and flu a few months before. The docs put me on a couple of different medications to try to clear up the clostridium, but unfortunately, it did not do the trick, the combination of the meds only made me react and get extremely stiff and sore all over.
The doctors thought that I had spinal meningitis but after doing a spinal tap they concluded that I thankfully did not have spinal meningitis! However, that spinal tap made me have severe migraine headaches for a couple of weeks. It was at this point my folks made me an appointment at the Mayo Clinic. But I was going to have to wait 1 1/2 months.
During that time my body began reacting to everything from the sun to the thermometer that I put under my tongue to take my temp! I was reacting to everything! For the next three weeks, I kept getting worse. I had to stay on the couch because anything that required me to be up and around for very long would bring on a migraine and cause me to get nauseous and most times vomit.
During that time on the couch I spent a lot of time in prayer and in the Bible, I started seeing things that I felt like God was speaking to my heart. Things like forgiving one another because Christ had forgiven me. I had some unresolved issues with my Dad that I needed to make right, and also just the thought of surrendering my heart to Jesus and resting in what He says in His word.
Amazingly after three weeks of being couch ridden, Mayo had a spot open up and I was able to get in a month earlier! I was so thankful and couldn’t help but feel like The Lord wanted me to be still and learn what he wanted to show me during that time. I think if I had been going about life at my normal speed I probably would have missed what He was wanting to show me through His word, praying, and growing closer to Him!
I went to Mayo and they found that I still had the clostridium and during another colonoscopy, my small intestine had abrasions that are consistent with Crohn’s disease. They got me on a regimen and a very high strength antibiotic that cleared up the clostridium and started the treatment for my Crohn’s which was an IV every eight weeks. I am so thankful because this got me on a path to feeling better.
However, three years later after a routine blood test to check my liver enzymes to make sure that the medication was not damaging my liver they noticed that my liver enzymes were beginning to climb. I felt good so they decided just to keep an eye on it. That winter I went to see a liver doctor at Mayo where they did an MRI of my liver and diagnosed me with a liver disease called PSC which stands for Primary Sclerosing Colangitis.
This disease is basically inflammation of the liver and my bile ducts were narrowing from scar tissue which hindered my bile from not draining properly. At the time there was no treatment for it so they said we will just keep monitoring it. I never felt sick from the PSC until the fall of 2012. I was very sick this time with the Crohn’s and could tell there was something else wrong too.
They scheduled an appointment for my yearly check back at Mayo and got me in quickly. When I got there my liver enzymes and total bilirubin was off the charts. So they scheduled me for an ERCP procedure where they went in and brushed open my bile ducts. That procedure was an extreme success! I felt so much better!
At that time they also doubled the amount of medicine in my IV and shortened up my time in between IVs to six weeks at this time each IV treatment was nearly $18,000 thankfully covered by insurance. I was healthy for another couple years other than the occasional up-and-down.
In 2014 I could tell my body was growing immune to the medicine. My Doctor had told me right when I started the treatments that it only lasts for 10 years max before we have to switch meds.
It was at this point when I started to notice that the things I ate would make me feel better or worse, I started to see that nutrition had to be important. It was at this point that I started to wonder if I could possibly control this disease with diet.
So this started my process of becoming a health coach. When I did I felt an incredible passion for learning about health, nutrition, and holistic living. With each step that my wife and I took we could feel the difference.
In the fall of 2014 I finished up my schooling for becoming a health coach and it was at this time that I listened to a YouTube video that would change my life. In reading all I could about health I came across Jordan Rubin with a book called The Makers Diet. I read the book and subscribed to his newsletter in which he had promoted Dr. Josh Axe for a HIIT DVD workout that he had come out with. Well, I believed Jordan Rubin would only share things he truly believed in so I checked out draxe.com for the very first time.
At this point, I watched a YouTube video that Dr. Josh had put out about autoimmune diseases. In it, he said that autoimmune disease begins with toxicity, and laid out how our bodies get burdened down with toxins but also how our bodies can detoxify from them as well. It was then that I began reading about toxicity and how to detoxify my body. I learned so much information and it all started making so much sense!
I realized that when my body was at such a poor state I couldn’t fight anything off and I was reacting to everything because of my incredibly inflamed and burdened system. So I bought his plan called the 28-day secret detox. Meanwhile, I was still getting my IVs but knew that they weren’t doing anything for me anymore. So I wrote my Dr. at Mayo and told her that I didn’t feel like it was working anymore, but I never told her that I was going to do this detox as I did not think she was going to be for it. So she told me to take another IV treatment and we will wait the six weeks until I need another one and at that time do an antibody test to see if I am truly immune to the medicine.
That’s exactly what I did and I knew from the peace in my heart that I believe God had given me that this was going to be my last IV.
So I started the 28-day detox which consisted of drinking a cup of bone broth upon waking, drinking a veggie juice mid-morning, drinking a tonic of apple cider vinegar, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, cinnamon, ginger, and honey right before lunch, and for lunchtime having what was called the Budwig Protocol which is a high-fat meal made of cultured Raw dairy, Flax oil, coconut oil, 4 tablespoons of soaked Chia, turmeric and cinnamon. This protocol recharged my cells with healthy usable fat. Then mid-afternoon I would have a salad with lots of diverse veggies, and then in the evening, I would have my Protein (wild-caught salmon, pasture-raised chicken, or grass-fed steak) steamed veggies and healthy fat. I would do that every day for a month.
After I got done with the detox I went and got my antibody test. The test came back, and I have this email saved to this day. It said your test came back and your body shows very low levels of the medicine in your system but your antibody levels are extremely high so basically, my body built up an immunity to the medicine but also my blood showed the detox was extremely effective in getting rid of the toxic medicine.
She said so how are you feeling? Because your liver numbers are perfect for the first time in four years! She was confused:) I will never forget that feeling, I was truly ecstatic! I then went on to explain to her what I did throughout the detox. I asked her if she would support me going off medicine for even just six months. After a couple of emails of me trying to convince her, she said this is not a dictatorship it’s a partnership and she said if I would keep following my regimen and come back for my check-ups she would support me! She said the results speak for themselves!
When I went back for my colonoscopy that year she said the disease was in remission and did not look like much of any active disease. The following year the surgeon doing the colonoscopy had to call her during my procedure to ask if I was even the right patient because he could find no signs of anything! Not even scar tissue!
Since then I’ve had great reports each year with no meds and for that, I’m so thankful! I give the Lord all the glory and I am so thankful for His love, guidance, and faithfulness. We continue to do what I call the maintenance plan which is lots of bone broth whole foods low toxic load, specific raw dairy, very few grains and detoxify twice a year.
After coming through what we did, I realized that we weren’t raising anything that I could eat, beef or crops. So we began raising our own grass-fed beef and as I have learned that all health begins in the soil, we have started taking big steps in changing our farm operation from one of the conventional model to a regenerative one! I am so excited to head down this path of health!
Thank you, Roy, for sharing your empowering, inspiring story!
For more information on Roy and his grass-fed, grass-finished beef ranch click here. You can also find a recipe for Picadillo with Currents, Green Olives and Harrisa using his beef here.
Have an autoimmune healing story? If so I would love to hear from you and feature your story. Story’s are so powerful! Please send me an email.
In Love, Health + Gratitude.
Katie