Rheumatoid Arthritis and Managing Symptoms w/ Diet | Natalie Jill

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Hi, guys. Natalie, Jill, thanks for joining me today on Unprocess, your diet. Today we're talking about autoimmune, mainly rheumatoid arthritis and the question of can you help alleviate symptoms with your diet and actually with any autoimmune disease? Now, I'm certainly not a doctor. I'm a licensed sports nutritionist, and I want to share information what's worked with my clients, what's worked with my friends, not to replace your doctor's advice. So you always want to check with your doctor on anything. But I want to share an experience I had. And I've got. I've got my guest here, Ashlyn, and Ashlyn works with me, and she actually has rheumatoid arthritis. And I want to take you through her journey and her experience. Experience with changing her diet and switching to an unprocessed food diet. I have my guest here with me, Ashlyn, who works with me. But the reason I wanted to interview her and have you meet her is not just because she works with me and she's amazing, which she is, but because of her experience at a young age being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and then celiac, another autoimmune disease, and what changed with her through her diet. So thank you, Ashlyn.

Thanks for having me.

She sure. So take me through a little bit more about what happened. How did you even find out you had rheumatoid arthritis? And that's something close to me, I think. I've told you. My aunt actually passed away from complications with it over years and years. But talk about your experience. How did you even know you had that?

I was 18 years old, and I was having all kinds of joint inflammation, and I was like, what's going on? I'm 18. I'm active. I'm healthy. And. And, like, I was feeling crippled, and one night I just woke up and in extreme pain. I couldn't walk. It was kind of a dramatic scene, to be honest. But I went to the emergency room. Nobody could figure out what was going on. All I knew was that I had inflammation in my joints.

Now, when you said you couldn't walk, because it was. You literally couldn't walk, or is it just. It was so painful.

It was so painful. So I still had motion in my joints, but it was just. I literally couldn't even put my foot on the ground. I was. It was bad.

No. Was that the first time that that had happened, or did you have ongoing symptoms before that?

Yeah, it was the first time that it Got so extreme. I always had joint pain, but I just chalked it up as, you know, I'm an athlete, that happens to athletes, whatever. And, you know, I would have constant stomach aches, but I just thought that's how you feel after you eat. And I never really knew what it was to feel normal after I ate or what it was to feel normal in my joints, because it's all I knew.

And you thought you were eating pretty healthy, right? You follow just what you thought you knew to stay thin.

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, you know, bagels was my favorite food. I did have a heavy bread diet, so those were. I just stuck to what my favorite foods were. Of course, like, still trying to maintain a healthy diet, but by no means knew that I had any form of, you know, intolerance or celiac to gluten.

Sure.

So.

So I wanted to address the joint pain because a lot of people have different joint pain, and somebody might say, well, gosh, I have joint pain. How do I know? I think with rheumatoid arthritis, I've heard that you could have it on the same side. You have a pain in your elbow. It's on both elbows. Is that what you experienced?

Yeah. I mean, I know there was different joints that were definitely more severe than others, but some joints did match each other. It was weird because it would just be the simple, like my left pointer finger and then, you know, my right wrist. But at that point, it was starting to be everywhere in every joint.

Okay.

So it was. It was different. Different joints at different times. But when that onset happened, it was all of my joints.

So that night at the hospital, you went to the emergency room. Did they diagnose you? Right there. And what happened?

They had no idea what was going on. They thought maybe I had lupus or. Or, geez, I got bit by a spider, something. They were just trying to rule everything out. I did tons of blood tests, but in the end, they, you know, at that initial point, they had no idea. And so they then thought, you know, maybe you have rheumatoid arthritis. I'm going to refer you to a professional rheumatoid arthritis specialist.

So at the er, they came up with this. And so take us through your journey then. How did you alleviate that pain right then and there?

So at that point, they just were like, here's pain meds. This is what you're gonna have to go through. Just take these whenever it hurts and just kind of slapped a mandate over it.

Sure.

So for a while, you know, waiting to get into the rheumatoid arthritis specialist. It was just pain medication after pain medication and just really uncomfortable trying to figure out what. What actually was wrong. And so by the time I got to the rheumatoid arthritis specialist, she tested my blood again, and I had no factor rheumatoid arthritis. So she. It wasn't factor in my blood, but I had all of the symptoms of it. So I was just really confused. And they put me on steroids at that point to treat it, and a couple of shots that I had to do every day. And it was just making me feel, you know, I was on medication and I didn't like the feeling at all.

So it was medication to mask one problem, but you're getting other problems. So when did they officially figure out it was rheumatoid arthritis and what was the course of action from there?

So at the doctor's office, at the rheumatoid arthritis specialist, she said, even though this isn't in your blood, this is what you have. So I was confused. But at that point, they diagnosed me with that, and then they went forward with steroids and shots that I took every day. And then I'd have to go in every four months to check up and make sure there wasn't any more joint damage and so on and so forth. And at a certain point, I just felt like not myself, all these medications, what's going on? And I didn't even necessarily know if it was helping.

Okay, so bring us through from that point to when you then now realize you had celiac on top of it. And it's very common when somebody has one autoimmune disease. If you're not treating that, especially through diet, you could experience another one that is very common. So celiac tends to go along with a lot of other autoimmune diseases.

Yes. And that was just. I decided for myself I was going to go more homeopathic route and just try and see if I could talk to somebody who maybe knew the reason so I could hit this problem at the source instead of just, like you said, masking it. So I went to a homeopathic doctor and he was like, I'm going to run your test, see if you're intolerant to gluten, to see what's going on there. And he got, you know, my blood test bathroom was just like, you are, you know, across the board, you're a celiac. Like, you can't have any of this. This is what's causing your autoimmune disease. But he just kind of gave me a couple handouts and sent me on my way and was just what was in the handout? It was just like, don't eat, you know, a list of things to not eat. And then, you know, a couple of websites to check out.

So what happened from there?

So at that point I was just, I was so frustrated. I looked on the website, I was so confused and I had so many questions. I got so frustrated to the point where I was like, maybe I just, you know, all of this stuff is a lie. What doctor do I believe I'm going to still eat what I want to eat because I don't have like a clear path or solution at that point.

So take us through when you switched to ultimately an unprocessed food diet.

Okay, so I have told you so many times by fate, I came across working for you and I started to read into like your programs and all of these things that were, you know, you were celiac, you had gluten free programs. And as I be, you know, as I started working for you, I really had to research your programs because I was helping you with the behind the scenes stuff. And I thought if, you know, Natalie's a celiac and she's changed her life because of the way that she eats, maybe I can try this too. And all of that information, what you provide in your programs was insane. Across, across the charts, just something that I had never even known before. And so I was like, I'm gonna hop on this right now, obviously. And I started with the four week jumpstart. And literally within that month, like no pain in my joints. And I know I've told you multiple times, you know, thank you and everything because it really did change the way I looked at just health. And then as far as longevity in my body, how much I really need to take care of it and how I need to be eating. Sure.

Yeah.

So.

So joint pain is minimal or gone at this point.

It's gone. And sometimes I'll. If I do eat out and I accidentally come across like a sauce or something that I didn't know had gluten in it or whatever. I can feel it. Like I can literally feel it in my. Okay, maybe it's kind of like, you know how like people with arthritis know it's going to rain.

Sure.

Or whatever. But like I can really feel in my joint like, okay, that that was probably not gluten free.

So it's interesting. It goes to your joints before your stomach or anything even.

I can tell my Stomach that it hurts. You know what I mean? But, like, I can. I. It definitely shows up in my joints as well.

Sure.

Yeah.

Interesting. So now. And talk about the meds. Are you anything anymore? Zero.

Yeah.

That's great news.

Yeah. Just because, you know, I. I really, really believe after, you know, working with you and stuff, it's. It's all about your diet. It's all about what you put in your body. And, you know, what I was eating before didn't help me, obviously. And so now that I've made the commitment to really taking care of my body, I don't have sick medication at all.

And I don't know if you feel this way, but even aside from autoimmune diseases, when you realize the impact food has on even those, it makes you rethink everything, because food really can make or break your entire life.

Yes. And every single time somebody has some sort of health problem, I'm always like, you gotta check out Natalie's programs. I swear, like, it helped me, you know, if it's something that is, I feel like can be prevented by the way you eat, I'm always like, just change the way you eat.

So what advice would you give other than my programs, which. Thank you. This wasn't supposed to be a commercial, but thank you. Thank you.

I'm being honest.

I love it. But what advice would you give somebody? What would. If somebody says, I think I have rheumatoid arthritis or I'm sensitive to foods, what would be the first step you would suggest?

I really, you know, besides Natalie's programs, I really think just researching as much as you can about finding out the effects gluten really does have on you. If you are celiac and making that commitment to the longevity of your body and really just your nutrition being on point and at the end of the day, what you put in your body really does affect the way it works. I guess the one thing that helped me was your program. So that's what I can recommend at this point. But I feel like just educating yourself on that and really making the commitment to yourself. It's a serious thing. And just by what you eat, you can change the longevity of your body.

And what I love about Ashlyn, and I'm going to let you know how you can read her blog and reach her. But what I love about her, and I think you'll be relatable to a lot of people, is you are a typical young person that had no idea about nutrition, thought you were doing a lot of the right things and never made that connection between health and nutrition, and now her early 20s, she's made that connection, and it's totally changed. So Ashlyn's got an amazing blog about her journeys and includes this journey.

Yes, it does.

Okay.

It's theashlynreport.com so www.theashlandreport.com. i have tons of motivational blogs and stuff, and this story is included as well.

And you can check out also link to the programs that she did. So you can ask her questions, too, right?

Yes. Yes. Love it.

Thank you, everyone.