Fight or Flight? Why pick one when you can do both?

This humble blog post is for my fellow autoimmune warriors that are fighting a battle that isn’t always recognizable on the surface.

In 2010 I started my uphill battle with Ulcerative Colitis. Life decided to give me a strong plot twist in 2014; which caused a severe health shift. After I changed to a new GI physician, Dr. Adler of Norton Healthcare, he diagnosed me with Crohn’s Colitis, Hashimoto’s, and most recently with polyps. I went to the Cleveland Clinic for a second opinion with a holistic approach.

To start my internal transformation to heal my body with holistic medications with the hopes of getting off of Humira or chemo, I choose to fight and flight. The flight or fight response, also called the “acute stress response” was first described by Walter Cannon in the 1920s as a theory that animals react to threats with a general discharge of the sympathetic nervous system.

I will fight my diseases with the medications and supplements that my doctors are recommending. I will take flight and flip the script on the experiences I’m having because of my diseases; seeing them as experiences to fuel my persistence to live a graceful and purposeful life.

Below are the supplants I’ve been prescribed from my dream team at the Cleveland Clinic’s Functional Health team:

Glutagenics (Metagenics)
Sig: Mix one teaspoon (4.33 g) with water three times daily (1 teaspoon = 3.5 grams L-glut)

Lactobac2-Bifido1-Strep therm. (VSL#3) 450 billion cell pwpk
Sig: Use 1 packet
Dispense: 30 Packet

Magnesium Glycinate 120mg (Pure Encapsulations)
Sig: Take 4 capsules daily

Neuromins (DHA) (Pure Encapsulations)
Sig: Take 1 capsule by mouth daily with food.

PureGenomics Multivitamin (Pure Encapsulations)
Sig: Take 1 capsule by mouth daily with food.

Vitamin D3 5000 U (Pure Encapsulations)
Sig: Take 1 capsule by mouth daily with food.

I hope you’ll follow along and share your health challenges with me. Support is a fundamental part of recovery for every disease. Don’t fight alone. If you’re timid to reach out to a stranger, ask a friend to be your cheerleader and cheerlead for them in return. Take a tip from my life: Be so busy cheering on others that you forget your own problems.