Karen’s Autoimmune Story

MEET KAREN

I am a wife and mother of 3 grown Children. I work at an elementary school teaching Health and Physical Education classes to K-5 grade.
Which requires a lot of energy!

I love God and put him in the center of my life. He gives me strength when I feel weak. I recently became a grand-parent yippee!

He fills my heart. I have two autoimmune diseases: Hashimoto’s and Lupus.
God never intended for us to live with these diseases.

 DIAGNOSIS

When I was young, my mom was always in and out of the hospital. I remember praying that I would never have to live like that. I remember one thanksgiving that my mom was brought home by ambulance and private nurses. She laid in a stretcher in our living room. As I grew older, I found out that the doctors never expected her to live beyond the holiday. I never knew what happened, but that day they had to leave very quickly. The ambulance drove off with their sirens on. My mom has lupus. They took her spleen out back then thinking that would put her lupus into remission. She was in high doses of steroids almost all her life. She was so large that she could barely move.

After I had my first child, my brother-in-law told my twin sister that she should talk to me about going to the doctor. I got very thin, a lot of pain and tired. But I just thought it was because I was now a mother taking care of an infant. The fatigue became unbearable that even after resting I had no energy. I was then diagnosed with thyroid disease.

Looking back to my mom’s life, I refused to go on meds.

One morning years later I woke up with a horrible butterfly rash in my face. It was so scabby that I thought my face would scar. The fatigue, pain stiffness got bad. Again refused to get on the med path like my mom. I researched and researched and found out a lot about the gut brain connection .

 LIFE CHANGE

Being an elementary Physical Ed teacher requires a lot of movement and energy, two things my disease depleted me of. I found myself having to take naps during the day during my lunch and planning time. My hands made it next to impossible to catch balls when demonstrating and found myself hanging out in my class rather than being actively involved with my students.

 HEALING

I was blessed with a lady (now friend) who approached me about a gut -brain protocol. I started the protocol several months ago and I am so blessed . No pain, fatigue and feel like my old self again.

 STRUGGLE

Since I have started the gut- brain protocol I am on no struggles. I still need to eat well and make sure I do to overload and run myself down. But I am happy and feel like I am finally moving in the right direction.

INSPIRATION

Life can be up and down especially living with auto immune diseases in among this crazy world. When I get down or try to tackle the world on my own… knowing god is my strength he is in control allows me to simply say “This one is for you God” and it makes everything seem possible.

Find Karen | @kkrulock