Life with Chronic Pain and how the Paleo Diet Changed Everything

My Brother and I at the pool. I was probably 12 or 13.

I’d had pain for as long as I can remember. At first it was just in the morning, trying to hold a pencil to do school or practicing piano hurt my hands and my fingers felt weak. As I got older, it turned into anytime of day if I had to maintain tight grip on an object, such as a scrub brush or trying to squeeze a bottle. No big deal, right? If something made my hands hurt, I just stopped doing it or it was just temporary.

 In college, the pain began to get worse. I’d find myself unable to hold my music book in rehearsals and have to place it in a chair in front of me. I started getting pain in other areas like elbows and knees. It was easy enough to ignore during the day when I stayed busy but sleeping at night was becoming difficult. By this point, I’d already decided I wanted to be a Naturopathic Doctor and was already in pre-med courses. I figured I probably had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and the standard treatment for that would be biologic drugs which I wasn’t going to take. So, why even go to a doctor? As usual, I just silently grinned and beared it. A few close friends knew what I was going through, but to most of the world I was just a normal college student with an amazing life to look forward to.

Medical school is where it all came to a head. I went from 18-20 class hour semesters to 32 class hour semesters. On top of that there were no fun liberal arts classes, every class hour was hard science besides a philosophy class, which was a welcome reprieve. On top of THAT there were a lot of things going on in my personal life that I was having to deal with on top of it. I was incredibly stressed. My hair started falling out in clumps on top of pain going from the 4/10 it was before to 8-9/10 on the regular. There was a new type of pain as well. Before, it was just an intense ache. Now, the only way I could describe it was if someone had taken a knife, heated it till it was red hot and then tried to separate my muscle from my bones. Usually radiating from elbow to wrist but could be knee to ankle or other areas. I would sit in class trying not to cry as I literally could not hold a pencil to take notes and could barely type. I’d be in agonizing pain trying to do normal everyday activities like washing my hair or brushing it. I’d scream into my pillow at night and sleep was almost impossible. As usual, I confided in a few friends, but most people had no idea what I was going through. The classmates that knew were incredibly supportive, but I still felt alone. I’d learn later that this silent suffering is all too common for those suffering from chronic pain, especially young people. Its not supposed to happen to us, right? I mean… I was 22 years old!

After a couple months of this, I was over it. I knew I had to do something, but I still wasn’t interested in conventional treatment. Worse, I noticed some nodules developing on my finger joints, which is a tell-tale sign of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Was I going to be crippled by 30? It was then I thought, well, you are studying to be a Naturopathic Doctor and you are finally in a state that licenses them, so get it together and do something about it. I thought “What would a Naturopathic Doctor tell me to do that I can start doing now?” Well, clear as a bell I heard, “Go gluten free.”

Well as luck had it, I was a bridesmaid in a wedding coming up. As many women do, I had been between sizes at the fittings and stupidly ordered the smaller size. Welp, tried it on and guess what… it didn’t fit. I was mortified. I couldn’t be the one to ruin this wedding since there was no time to order another dress! I decided to take this opportunity to make a drastic diet change for myself and to lose some weight for this wedding. I decided to try the paleo diet for the month and a half before the wedding and did some high intensity interval workouts for 20 minutes a day since I didn’t have much spare time. I picked the paleo diet since it was closest to the blood type diet for type O I’d been learning in school and felt easier to remember. I’ll talk more about the details of the paleo diet in another blog, but the basics are this: no dairy, no grains, no beans, no white potatoes, no sugarcane.

The results were astounding. I had been on diets off and since I was a kid and I’d never seen these kinds of results. I dropped 15lbs in a month and not one pain flare up the entire time. When the wedding was over, I decided to gradually add food back in with gluten containing grain being last. As I added things back, my flare ups stayed behind me until I was just down to gluten. I decided to stay gluten free for a while to help my gut and body heal. In the meantime, I visited our school Naturopathic clinic where I had tests run, which to my surprise came back with nothing. I didn’t have a positive RA test… I didn’t have a positive ANA… I didn’t even have thyroid antibodies. Now, this could have been because I had controlled my inflammation with diet, but more likely I was one of the thousands of women who come to the medical system with chronic pain struggling through years of complex testing to get a diagnosis, which would probably be the typical “waste basket” diagnosis of fibromyalgia. I decided that merry-go-round was not for me, especially since I was now pain free. Crazily enough, those nodule I noticed went away and 3 years later I added wheat back into my diet. I now eat a typical well balanced Mediterranean style diet.

Today, I still live with a little hand weakness and more importantly without a diagnosis. One thing that being a Naturopathic doctor has shown me since then, is that I wasn’t alone. This story rings true for so many people, especially women. I love sitting across from someone in pain and being able to relate to them, but more importantly, be someone to listen to them and help them navigate the process of getting answers as easily as possible. Maybe one day I’ll be willing to put myself through that journey, but for now I’m happy to live pain free according to my Naturopathic principles and see where life takes me.