I Am Finally on the Right Path to Optimum Health and Happiness
It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!
Mark,
Whenever someone asks me about my history with Ulcerative Colitis I respond with something along the lines of, “It feels like a bad dream that will forever be imprinted in the back of my mind.” It was 2006, my senior year of high school, everything was going fairly well. I was a healthy (or so I thought) 6’3″, 180 lb. 18 year old about to graduate high school and head into the next stage of my life: college. However, life had different plans in store for me. Around my second semester I began to feel consistently nauseous. It felt like anything I ate (S.A.D. mind you) would just pass right through me as though I hadn’t absorbed any energy/nutrients. I figured it was a relatively normal side effect from consistent partying that year, though it persisted. Bouts of nausea would come and go, as would horrible abdominal pains that would make even the toughest man curl into the fetal position. I decided it was time to get checked out. I had my first colonoscopy done within weeks of my first symptoms.
“You have Ulcerative Colitis,” the doctor said. I remember my mother and I looking at each other absolutely confused. Neither of us had heard of this illness before. He proceeded to inform us that Ulcerative Colitis is a form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which is an inflammation of the colon. I remember pondering for a moment about what all of this could mean. I finally looked up and asked, “So what do I do?” He responded with, “Well, we can treat it with different medications depending on which one you is most beneficial to you.” “Treat?,” I thought. “You mean I have to live like this for the rest of my life?” I remember the doctor’s face vividly…it was an expression of reservation, confusion, and sadness, as if he were trying to formulate the wisest, yet least alarming way possible. “Not necessarily. A lot of people go into full remission with the right medication.” I carefully considered his response and asked, “How is this disease caused?” He looked back at me regretfully, “Unfortunately we don’t really know.” I didn’t know what to say to that. Still completely shocked and puzzled at what I was told, I continued through the next few months now under the supervision of a gastroenterologist and given several medications to take daily.
Sadly, things only got worse from there, I missed my college SAT tests on three different occasions due to having virtually no energy, constant joint and abdominal pains, as well as never-ceasing nausea. My friends and family would wonder where I was, why I wasn’t answering their phone calls, and why I would never leave the house anymore. My attempts to eat were pitiful, and as a result I was losing weight fast. Fast-forward two years later…After several failed medications and treatments from pharmaceutical to alternative, I ended up at a emaciated weight of 127 lbs only sleeping perhaps 2-4 hours per night.
I’ll never forget the feeling I had during this period of my life. It was as if I was on the brink of life and death, a sort of limbo. Nothing seemed real anymore. After stubbornly refusing to go to a doctor (due to my strong distaste for the medical field at that point), my father more or less forced me to our family clinic. My family doctor looked me over with noticeable concern, checking my blood pressure/pulse three separate times. He looked up at me and said, “You need to go to the hospital immediately.” My dad quickly rushed me to the E.R. and within an hour or so I was wheeled into a room and pumped full of pain-killers and fluids. I remember my father telling me what the doctor had told him, which is something I’ll never forget, “If you would have brought him in any later, he could have died.”
The good news is I stabilized, albeit only temporarily. Through the following months my weight shifted like crazy, the medications stopped working, and I was back at square one. All of the false hope I was getting from each new medication I would try and ultimately fail was taking its toll on me not only physically but mentally as well. My only other option to consider was surgery, in which I finally agreed to. My doctor recommended a three-step surgery. My first surgery was a total colectomy (removal of the entire large intestine) resulting in my need to wear a colostomy bag for nine months while my surgery site healed. My second step was to construct a “J-pouch,” which is basically the conversion of part of your small intestine into a a “J” shape to form a make-shift colon. Step two lasted a few months to let the J-pouch heal up while I still used the colostomy bag. My third and final step was to reconnect the plumbing, so to speak. This was one of the best decisions I have ever made and I don’t regret it for a minute.
My symptoms decreased to a manageable level, allowing me to eventually become independent, living and working on my own. Though the actual Colitis was at a stand-still, I was constantly bloated and sick, and my J-pouch would develop chronic pouchitis (infection of the pouch) which would be temporarily resolved by very powerful antibiotics such as Flagyl and Ciprofloxacin, but would eventually reappear. All of these chronic infections I was getting didn’t make sense. I was cured right? This shouldn’t be happening.
Well that’s when I really began analyzing my diet, which eventually brought me to your book, The Primal Blueprint.
When I finally ditched the SAD diet and started living primally, (eliminating processed foods and most importantly, GRAINS and adding more healthy fats, plants, and animals) I noticed the pain had been reduced to a minimum, my weight stabilized, and I had no more bloating which would usually appear after a good carb/grain-dense meal. This seemed to be working for me, so I stuck with it. After several months of living primally, at the age of 24, a stable weight of 182 lbs, and a height 6’4″ I can safely say that I am in the best shape of my life and feel better than I ever did pre-Colitis. My energy levels are stable. In fact, I hardly ever get mid-day crashes unless I eat something I shouldn’t (which only reminds me that I’m moving on a path towards the dark-side and I better recalibrate.) I lost over 30 lbs. of fat and gained a significant amount of lean muscle mass, but most importantly, is that I feel healthy. While I may never be “normal” again, I know that I am finally on the right path to optimum health and a life full of happiness. Thank you Mark for the selfless wisdom that you have imparted to myself and many others that have conquered their trials and tribulations via The Primal Blueprint.
From the bottom of my heart. Thank you.
Kyel
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
@Luke DePron
Nope no one had addressed anything related to diet as a cause for concern.
I also remember my second gastroenterologist asking me himself if I had thought diet had anything to do with my illness. This floored me.
Thanks so much for the kind words everyone. My hopes are that anyone that is currently suffering from this disease may find hope in the primal blueprint. Give it 100% of your efforts and I can confidently say it will be 100% worth it.
All the best,
Kyel
All i can say is you look wonderful now and congratulations on new found health!
I think this is the most intense success story so far. What an astonishing transformation, and a vivid example of the disconnect in medicine, that doctors don’t look to diet when there is a problem with intestinal disease. Thank you for sharing, Kyel, and congratulations!
Congratulations! I really like how your story doesn’t dwell on “what could have been”.
Kyel,
I dealt with UC for 4 years and then finally underwent the same exact 3 part surgery that you did. It’s tough for people to understand how difficult it is to live with UC especially trying to maintain a social life. Looking for a bathroom the second you go anywhere just in case is brutal. The colostomy bag in itself was an adventure changing it, keeping it concealed, and then emptying in public.
Like you, I lost a substantial amount of weight going from 230 to around 160 and had my family and friends frightened.
Since having the surgeries completed, I found this site and been implementing the nutrition into my life and things have been great as you described. Weight is staying the same, energy is a contstant, and actually sleeping through the night is a blessing.
Congratulations on your transformation and success Kyel and keep it up!
So sad to read about your illness, so angry to read about what your doctors did and didn’t do for you.
I believe there is an epidemic of digestive system illnesses in our culture right now, and no one is noticing it. I have a couple of friends going through similar illnesses now, one just had her appendix and gall bladder removed and is being treated with chemotherapy for autoimmune disorder. She refuses to believe diet could cure her and instead relies on the doctors. She is scared and confused. So sad.
Finally I am so happy you found the Primal Blueprint. You saved your own life.
What an amazing transformation! I hope you can share your knowledge with other UC patients! Have you considered online forums or patient support groups? You could give a lecture or motivational talk your transformation is so inspirational!
It makes me sad when the comments turn to doctor-bashing though. There’s medicine, and there’s nutrition, and while there may be overlap, there are limits to both. Furthermore, it is only with a sound knowledge of both that you would be qualified to comment on which disease processes are curable by diet alone that are not curable by medicine.
@Tapsticks – Someone’s doctor-bashing is someone else’s thoughtful criticism and genuine frustration.
Good health and nutrition completely and utterly overlap. Some strong constitutions can ignore it for awhile but time always reveals diet issues.
The issue is not personal to Docs, but a systematic training failure. The designated “caretakers” of health should be trained in nutrition first, drugs next, and surgery last. Currently the opposite is true: everyone is trained in anatomy and drug interactions and nutrition is left to another field altogether.
There is a lot of room for improvement.
Have to agree.
I am a doctor, and I have to say that it feels a lot like doctor-bashing! :S
I completely agree with you that
there is a lack of training in nutrition for doctors. This may be why some hesitate to comment about the ability of nutrition to fight disease.
As a doctor you can’t give advice on things that are out of your field of expertise. You also can’t really suggest that patients try a treatment that is not proven in clinical trials to be effective. In the UK we are bound by best practice guidelines to treat medical conditions. If I stepped outside these guidelines to give advice based on blogs and anecdotes, I would be a dangerous doctor.
Don’t get me wrong, I will suggest my patients try good nutrition and lifestyle change, but as an adjunct to a proven treatment not instead.
I have personally used nutrition and lifestyle change successfully to treat depression, as I thought I better take a long hard look at my lifestyle and fix what was wrong before resorting to medication. HOWEVER if a patient came to me with severe depression, I wouldn’t dare recommend that they ditch proven and tested medicines and try to treat this with diet and exercise alone. What if it failed and they committed suicide? It is a gamble I would be unwilling to take.
“What if it failed and they committed suicide? It is a gamble I would be unwilling to take.”
What if you gave them a proven medication, but ignored the “gosh, try you can try this but it won’t work” diet advise and the symptoms got worse, and they committed suicide anyway?
I know of stories about depressed teenagers who committed suicide right after starting therapy because the drugs made the symptoms worse before they got better.
Life doesn’t present any easy choices, especially in the field of medicine. There are society approved choices, in so much society doesn’t punish them directly if you offer them. But that does not make them 100% safe.
There probably are clinical trials surrounding diet and almost every imaginable topic. However, because of the endless factors surrounding diet (and the lack of drug money), they will almost never be definitive. The “rock solid” evidence you’re looking for regarding diet choices does not and will probably never exist. It’s much, much easier to design tests for 1 drug for 1 condition and then let those results be known.
And yet, proof exists. You own one of these things call the human body. Although total body reactions do vary somewhat, science tells us that results of chemical reactions do not vary. Too high of a carbohydrate load is problematic for every mammal, including the ones that files tax returns.
At any rate, most people, in my opinion, are going to look you in the eye and say “I can’t give up bread” and take the drugs anyway.
But what of the others? Will you not give them the choice of trying to clean up diet first that you made for yourself? If they clearly understand the risks then trying a diet change before trying drugs *is* the safe option. No drug therapy is without risk.
And honestly, I consider nutrition to be completely inside your area of expertise if you are a Primary Doc. “I’m not an expert in that” is a cop out if you are making a living healing people.
Phew! I guess I’m saying all this because I think if you strive to be the absolute best Doc you can be, then the “Doc bashing” won’t worry you. You know you’re doing your best an imperfect world. You’ll have the patient smiles and thank yous to prove it.
@Tapsticks Oh don’t get me wrong, I appreciate everything the doctors have done for me, and I don’t regret the surgeries at all. I blame the lack of education in nutrition these doctors get which is very minimal. I know in the most personal sense, these doctors were doing their best, and I appreciate that more than words can describe.
@Kyle it sounds like we went through some very similar trials. I am glad you are feeling better as well. Keep it up!
I didn’t think you were doctor bashing, I rather meant the comments!
You’re right about the minimal part- a handful of lectures in 1st year med school is about all we get…
Wishing you all the best, your story is truly inspirational.
SOOOO happy to hear this Kyel. As someone who suffered with UC for YEARS I can totally relate. Although my weight loss/malnutrition wasn’t as severe as yours (I never got surgery), the abdominal cramps and diarrhea were so bad I was often in the bathroom (and numerous times on the floor) around 20x a day, missed work all the time and found myself isolating at home for fear of being out and needing a bathroom (missed a few times…always so hot as an adult to pooped yourself!!!).
I went through allopathic medicine, naturopathy, acupuncture etc but the only thing that helped were the Specific Carb Diet and a great book called “Listen to your Gut”. Now i’m a recent convert to primal…it just clicked.
There is no gift like being able to live your life. I am thankful every day that I consider myself “normal” now (well physically anyway). Thanks for submitting this!!
Nice work, man. Glad you found MDA. Keep it up!
@Melissa
Thanks for the comments! Yeah, it’s not the most attractive thing when you are sprinting to the nearest toilet for fear of soiling yourself, I remember those days well. Looking on the brightside…at least I got my sprints in, yeah? Haha.
I really enjoyed reading Elaine’s book the specific carb diet. I refer to it from time to time when I need to. I am so glad to hear you are feeling better. It really is a shame that more focus is put on masking symptoms as opposed to treating them. Take care!
All the best,
Kyel
My 16 year old niece has UC.
She’s been to every “medical expert” in the field.
A few years later she’s at square one and it’s pretty bad.
But when you say…read Mark’s book, or try being grain-free…they all scoff at you.
They won’t even try.
Why is the medical community so thick headed ?
They can’t all be corrupted.
Peace.
In fairness to the “average” medical practioner, I think it would be very tough after dedicating a decade of your life to training and then spending 2 or 3 more decades in practice to discover that you’ve prescribed years of useless, ineffective medication or surgery. Actually, the thought is horrifying if you care at all about your patients.
It does not excuse it, but I don’t think the impulse to push away information about diet comes some inant evil or stupidity.
Amy, I know one doctor and one nurse who have adopted and are recommending PD to their patients at Kaiser, and they’re subject to all sorts of criticism and derision from their compatriots. It would be helpful if the average medical practitioner just had a more open, inquiring mind, but most seem to absorb what they’ve been taught with no room for improvement. I see old doctors still stuck on what they were taught, conflicting with younger doctors who were taught more recently, and neither will give an inch. Meanwhile we patients are left to sort it out ourselves.
Man, I got all teared up reading this. It’s always great to hear how the Primal life has helped us lose weight and feel better but when I read a story about someone who suffered through a terrible disease and now has their life back, in part or wholly, due to living Primally it really makes my day. I wish you all the best and continued good health. It is incredible the difference in the pics and I am so happy for you.
WOW! What a great story unfortunately I am at work and can’t see the pictures that will be on my to do list when I get home!!! I also don’t have one of those high tech phones either to look at them! I am in the medical field and it is such a shame we don’t see the big picture. I know doctors receive very little education on nutrition in medical school but it wouldn’t matter anyway because they are taught the SAD crap. I also find it amazing how we can figure out that cars run on gasoline and if you put something else in them they don’t work why haven’t we figured this out about our own bodies. i don’t mean to doctor bash either but some of them truly walk around with blinders on. it is ashame you did not receive answers to your questions.
Semi-related, we all need to put pressure on Congress to pass the Free Speech About Science Act. The FDA and FTC are trying to put the clamp on food labeling and health supplements and not in a good way.
Example: The FDA sent a warning letter to Diamond Food for making truthful, scientifically backed health claims about the health benefits of omega-3 fats in walnuts. Because the research cited health claims that omega-3 fats in walnuts may prevent or protect against disease, the FDA said walnuts would be considered “new drugs” and as such would require a new drug application to become FDA-approved.
Read more about it on the Alliance for Natural Health website under the Campaigns tab (where you can also sign the petition). Also, on Dr. Mercola’s website.
You look great, and I am so glad to hear of your success. Thanks for sharing this, I am sure that hearing your story will change lives.
Wow, you look awesome. Great job!
Kyel– Rock on– Grok on– Never look back!
I had the exact same initial conversation with my doctor when I was diagnosed with UC. Today, I am convinced that changing to a primal diet has cured it. All I can get out of my doctor is… “well, if it works for you then keep doing it.” I want to scream at them that this will work for more people than just me and they should tell all their patients! All my GI doctors have told me that since there are no studies on diet and UC then they really don’t know. It is such BS. I am 4 years+ in full remission. They shrug me off each time I go in for my yearly checkup when I tell them that my UC is gone forever. I still take a low dose daily medication but even with that, I feel better now eating primal than before my UC symptoms ever started. Kyel, I’m glad you got your life back just like I did switching to primal 4 years ago. Great story and good luck with continued success!
Many (most?) Docs are not well versed in either troubleshooting or the tricky task of applying the scientific method to medicine. The ones who do it best tend to have started life wanting to be engineers. (Take a look sometime at the bios of low carb/Paleo Docs. Their similarity is amazing.)
Anyway, sadly, the “almost engineers” seem to be the only ones either skilled or confident enough to apply science in clinical settings. The rest give the shoulder shrugs you experience.
I also suspect the “almost engineers” are much more results oriented type personalities, willing to move on much more quickly when something isn’t working. The current medical system does not reward results in chronic disease, unfortunately, unless a provider takes that on themselves.
I feel similarly, but I would characterize the typical doctor as a technician. He/she graduates from medical school with a standardized “bag of tricks,” learned approaches that are applied depending on what issue presents itself. If a nail presents itself, I’ll apply a hammer. If the hammer doesn’t work, I’ll try a mallet. Very, very few doctors in my experience step back and ask themselves WHY something might be happening, because they then might have to rethink their whole approach, and perhaps find out that their bag of tricks is not up to meeting the challenge at hand. And, to be fair, the speed at which the modern medical system pushes patients through appointments doesn’t leave a lot of time for pondering or creative experimentation. I think that’s also behind the over-reliance on drugs or surgery. They are both fast.
Kyel – Just wow! Your story is a testament to the human body to heal and the power of eating correctly. I’m just floored at the improvement, despite surgeons taking out a 1/3(ish) of your digestive system. You look great.
Congratulations on feeling so much better! I’ve been reading about fecal transplants for UC. It seems pretty amazing the results of cure rate. I wonder how people would do with a fecal transplant & then primal living. Transform lives.
Amazing Story…Congrats on getting your life back!
Thanks for sharing.
You look like a completely different person. Amazin job. Reading these stories on Friday help me to keep going, and not give up. You inspired me, Kyel!
Wow
It’s stories like this that make me LOVE Fridays! I am so happy for your triumph over illness – you are a true inspiration to us all!
PHENOMENAL story. How you managed to grow one more inch after all that just astounds me. WOWIE!
Great Story!
Thank you for sharing your story!
I have a friend who’s 17 year old daughter was just diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and I’m going to send this on to her. It will be good for her to see that a young person can successfully navigate a bowel disorder using diet.
Thank you for sharing
Kyel – Congratulations!I know all too well what you were going through and how bad it can get. I’ve had Crohn’s Disease (very similar to Colitis)for 7 years and it ruined my last year of college. I actually found the Primal Blueprint through other friends with the disease and it has made the last 2 years with Crohn’s, feel bearable and allowed me off of half the medications I was taking before for it.
I highly recommend going to http://www.crohnology.com. It’s like Facebook for Crohn’s and Colitis and helps users share information about treatments, diets, etc. Please join so you can share your success story!
Thanks for that link! My 31-year-old son was diagnosed with Crohn’s a couple of years ago and has been only semi-successful in dealing with it re changes in his diet (not paleo/primal, though) and medication. I was with him (he lives far away now) when he had an attack once and it was not something I’d want anyone to go through!