My Journey & Why I Want to Help You!

I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune blistering disease called Mucous Membrane Pemphigoid (MMP) in 2020 at the age of 48 after a 4 year battle with severe dry eye, light sensitivity, and trichiasis which was causing severe irritation in my left eye. 

From that day forward my life would never be the same again. My right eye was already congenitally scarred and had never been functional, and now my one and only 'good' eye, was irreversibly scarred from the disease causing a shortened fornix, shruken conjunciva, and constant irritation from trichiasis.

I was started on powerful immunosuppressive therapy and still continue to attend hospital every month for treatment due to the risk posed with only having one functional eye. I was doing well until a flare in 2024 removed the graft I had inserted from my mouth to turn out the lower lid to prevent the eyelashes affecting my eye. 

Despite the treatment to manage my condition, I've continued to have inflammatory symptoms triggering ulcers, sores, hives, dryness, itching, and so on in other areas of my body over the last 8 or so years which haven't responded so well to medical treatment. 

Enough was enough; after a long conversation with my immunologist and being informed that my only option was to add another medication to the mix which had unpleasant side effects, it was time to take things into our own hands. 

Paul and I had already been whole food plant based eaters for some time and had been doing various fasting diets to try to eliminate the symptoms, yet still I couldn't shift the chronic inflammation that was causing my symptoms. It was necessary for me to take more drastic action and so I searched around and after extensive research, we embarked together on Dr Brooke Goldner's anti-inflammatory hyper-nutritious raw vegan autoimmune rapid recovery protocol to eliminate my inflammation and reverse my autoimmune symptoms!  

This was a diet like no other! We had never eaten a whole diet full of raw food and not been able to cook, and never been into drinking green smoothies consisting of kale and spinach for breakfast! We had to eliminate all our familiar foods of legumes, grains, nightshades, and alliums (the latter 2 of which are know to affect people with my disease in particular).

After just days on the diet my light sensitivity had significantly reduced, and my skin was feeling super soft and smooth, however, hormonally I wasn't doing too well; I started menstruating heaviliy which lasted over 2 weeks, lost quite a bit of weight, experienced immense appetite suppression where I just didn't feel like eating anything and felt a significant drop in mood. This continued for quite a few days until we decided to reintroduced the nightshade and aliums after 2 weeks in order to make the food more appealing and varied. 

After the first 2 weeks things started to get better. My appetite came back, we were enjoying drinking the green smothies and had gotten into a rhythm with what we liked to eat, whilst still trying new things. 

What significantly helped me was the intense support of my partner who was doing the diet with me, and buying Dr Goldner's recipe book which was unique to this diet. It gave us a starting point and from there we were able to get creative with our own recipes whilst still ensuring we were eliminating the required nutrients for the 28 days.

After doing the diet I realised that this is crucial for people like me with an autoimmune disease which is not responding well enough to treatment, and who after enduring  symptoms and treatment for years without satisfactory resolution had somewhere else to go!

There is no doubt this kind of diet is extreme and very challenging even for someone like us who were already whole food vegans, but it really does work if we have support and we persist and have the tenacity and resilience to stick with it! 
 

It's so common for people to report how diets don't work but the main reason anything doesn't work is typically because we give up too early and don't follow through with the whole process or regime once we hit challenges.

After having helped thousands of clients throughout the last 2 decades maintain a diet to generally lose weight and feel healthier, I've now made it my mission to help those with autoimmune conditions find heath and optimum health through plant based anti-inflammatory eating.

Whether you're struggling to stick to your anti-inflammatory autoimmune dietary pattern to complete the full course, or you're looking to enhance and optimise your health in other ways through lifestyle medicine, I am here to support you all the way!