Welcome to a supportive space to feel heard and seen in your autoimmune mom story. You are never alone on this journey. - Katie, founder living with Hashimoto's & Muca-Habermann
Are your choices creating a legacy of disease or a legacy of health? Good habits today may lead us toward disease prevention for future generations. As both an autoimmune mom and grandma I, like many of you, conquer obstacles through self-care strategies.
Given that it’s my job to investigate how to be healthy, you might think that I’ve come across a single magical key to finding balance, harmony, health, and longevity. And I’d love to tell you that after a blissful nine-hour sleep each and every night, I rise with the morning chorus of birds to perform an hour of yoga, followed by an hour of meditation.
When I was feeling strong, I could actually raise my arms above my shoulders, or lift my head off a pillow—Definitely not the standard I was used to. My mouth was affected more than anything else, and it was years before I smiled fully again (but I did)!
I faced the first of what was to be many conundrums as a parent with a chronic illness: do I do what is best for me, or my child? What if what is best for him is actually worse for the family unit as it entails such a negative impact on me that I cannot care for him to the extent I otherwise could?
While the answers to your woes may not come from your doctor or your thyroid hormone medication, you can still liberate yourself from the confines of standard prescription and regain influence on your Hashimoto's health care.
Once I got over my fear that if I really put my health and self-care first there wouldn't be time left in the day for any other activities and I would end up homeless and starving, I got down to business. As I’ve been exploring making changes in my life to answer the above questions, here’s what I’ve learned about what it takes to make self-care a priority.
Well, I’ve certainly learned a few things having fallen down the rabbit hole…and I’d like to share how to pop up on the other side with fewest brain cell defections as possible.
Nakazawa, an award-winning science journalist, was fascinated when her doctor went on to describe adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), a scientific breakthrough that demonstrates that kids who had experienced traumatic events in childhood often have lifelong recriminations from those traumas, including serious and chronic health disorders that can surface many years later.
Sure enough, he had Celiac Disease. He also had reflux, several ulcers, and was a complete digestive mess. It was no wonder he was angry! If my insides were this inflamed and awful, I would have been a bit crabby and unproductive too! This came right before his 7th birthday.
I believe that my son and daughter saved my life. During this difficult period of my life, all I wanted to do was go home and be a mother to my children. Knowing how much they needed me, strengthened my resolve to claw my way back to them.
Back in what seems like another life, I was a busy single chick immersed in Manhattan's social scene. It was such a hectic lifestyle that when I woke up one morning with weakness in my legs and tingling in my hands, I initially figured it was a result of all the the long days and late nights and not MS.
My pity party didn’t last very long because walking and using my hands were not optional for me, as I was a full-time mother of two young daughters. I began to look at rheumatoid arthritis differently by accepting it as just one part of me rather than letting it define the sum of me.