Auto-immuni(me).3

“Your body is a museum of natural disasters,

can you grasp how stunning that is?”

- poet Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey, page 173

I am no longer at the beginning of my journey. I am full of awareness of my body’s signals. Something amazing happened recently, which was that my chronic inflammation went into remission. I did not have pain, even when I ate something potentially inflammatory. The biggest difference at this time of my life was that I was on a very long walk of 98 kilometers through Galicia, the most northeastern autonomous state of Spain, and I believe this degree of consistent low-exertion physical activity sent my autoimmune symptoms into remission. In other words, auto-immuni(me) fell in love with the exercise.

I have learned so much since that dark day (pacific northwest daylight savings time, no thank you!) in November when my naturopath called with the first warning sign, that some “autoimmune stuff” had “come up” in my bloodwork. Tracing the truths that have been discovered about autoimmunity and sifting through the spectrum of thousands of professional opinions on the matter is akin to taking a deep-dive into a foreign language that no one in my immediate circle knows how to speak. Except that the fine details of this language are playing out their functions within the very real battlefield that is my body. For several weeks I have felt the inflammation began ebbing and flowing again, exactly in tandem with a medley of variables known to impact autoimmunity symptoms including sunlight exposure, getting enough sleep, stress, diet, and exercise.

As I write this I have been navigating the world of the autoimmune protocol diet and learning to cultivate health in the still-new reality of auto-immuni(me) for six months and 2 weeks. Resources and wisdom from other women who have trailblazed this path before me, like Thriving Autoimmune, give me strength and hope because they prove that a pain-free life is possible. I experience new sensations whose affiliations with autoimmunity or absence thereof I do not know. I do know that most of the confusing new realities I experienced in my body for a long time ended up to all be part of auto-immuni(me). Some days I am able to distinguish, based on observation of sensation (a sensation often labelled as pain- type, intensity, location, temporality) if the inflammation I experience at any given moment is from too much sun-exposure, insufficient sleep, sudden onset of stress, or from something else. Stress pain is sudden, intense, and sharp and arrives in immediacy with whatever stressor (situational or otherwise) has induced it. Insufficient-sleep pain is subtler and more prolonged and comes with known fatigue signs like brain fog (inflammation of fluid around the brain) and yawning. Sunlight pain is usually obvious as it comes not long after I have spent more time in the sun than any rheumatologist would like to hear about. I never imagined the possibility of being able to distinguish between these types of sensations in my body; even less so did I ever imagine needing to have to do so.

I have been on one in regards to the fascinating science of the gut-microbiome. I do not know too much and do not need to to realize that this is blossoming field of science has the power to bring a revolution to the way humans take care of themselves. What if that rippled into us taking better care of our societies and environment and other beings? We are on the verge of a groundbreaking understanding that is either totally unknown or has been long-forgotten. Below this post I have linked several resources that may provide a crash-course-equivalent to educate yourself on the wonders of our gut. This is especially pertinent for anyone who struggles with autoimmunity or chronic illness, but really is immensely applicable to anyone with a human body who wants to live their best life.

As I learn more about the gut-microbiome and autoimmunity, some basic lifestyle points I try to practice are having a diet as varied and nutrient-dense as possible, walking, sleeping at least 8 hours a night (9+ is ideal), and trying not to carry stress. I try to integrate as many fruits and vegetables in my diet as possible and consistently drink all kinds of tea (caffeinated and herbal) and probiotics. My homemade pineapple tepache has been a steady source of delicious probiotic burst for me. I cultivate it with local honey and it is ready to drink every 2-3 days. Once the base has been fermenting awhile, it can give enough to be drank daily as long as you continue adding honey and water. Find my recipe here to try it out for yourself. Gracias a diosa I am now able to drink small amounts of coffee somedays without pain (moderation, folks!) and have successfully reintroduced corn, eggs, rice, and oats. I have also found that other foods that are reputed to be highly inflammatory like alcohol, sugar, and gluten do not cause me pain when I consume them in small amounts, infrequently, if all my other auto-immuni(me) boxes are checked (lots of sleep & exercise, little sun, no stress).

What I would say to anyone embarking on or in the throes of their own autoimmune journey (or dare I say adventure?) is that it is completely okay to not feel 100% go-getter about it all the time. I started my auto-immuni(me) undertaking in a blaze of glory, motivated to reclaim my health and driven by the fact that there was finally a direction to go in that could allow me to do so. Six months later, I have had my fair share of days where I just feel annoyed and pissed off that I have to deal with this (see more in Auto-immuni(me) 2.2!). It is okay to feel this too! Lo bueno and the cold hard truth is that our feelings about things are passing, amoebic patterns of thought and emotion in constant flux. You will not always feel like taking all the plethora of precautions involved in having to cater to your autoimmune disease. But you also won’t always feel discouraged or at your rope’s end. As we learned from S.N. Goenka in my post “What is Vipassana?”, we must learn to see things as they are. The next step is to accept them without judgement. The next, next step would be to see ourselves as we are and accept ourselves without judgement, autoimmunity and all.

I encourage you, regardless of your relationship to chronic inflammation, to keep taking the best care of yourself that you possibly can and remember that everything, including pain, is primally impermanent. The idea is to listen to your body as acutely as possible, for our bodies are incapable of lying to us, and when you do experience pain and are intentional in considering its cause(s), know that you are doing the hard brunt work of gathering information.

I am proud of you and me and us for being human beings in this modern mess of chronic illness and stress-culture. If you are reading this it means you are interested in being well and that assures me that I am not alone on my journey. Comment below with your own wellness tips and wisdom and feel free to share my Auto-immuni(me) series with someone you know who may benefit from a reminder that health is a process entirely worth fighting for.