I don’t talk about it much anymore, but I am a Behcet’s disease survivor. It is something I live with every day besides the loss of my limbs.
Tonight I was creeping around on some BD social network sites and I saw things that just made me ill thinking about what my fellow BD’ers are going through, and what they are putting themselves through.
BD is an auto-immune disorder, and it is one of the worst. It does things to your body that are hard to describe, and there is no one cure-all medication for what we have…
But there is a fix…
And no one seems to be using it! I read about these problems the BD patients were having, and then I go look at their personal pages and I see diet sodas and overly processed food in their photo albums, or I read about what they had for dinner or where they ate out at… Things we all talk about on places like facebook.
I can’t say this enough, if you have an auto-immune disorder and you are drinking soda pop and eating junk food, your symptoms will never go away! What you fuel your body with is what fuels your immune system, and if you put in too much junk, well junk is what you get back.
diet sodas are the worst, and any “sugar free” food.. 99% of the sugar free drinks, food, and snacks are sweetened with aspartame, and that is a huge trigger for me and my BD.
I love diet soda, but I don’t drink it. I switched from soda to tea, and got a sweetener that was “made with” stevia. I was still having problems with BD, getting mouth ulcers and pains in my guts.. So I looked up the high priced sweetener I was using for my tea, and sure enough it had a bit of stevia and a WHOLE lot of aspartame.
I can’t stress this enough, read and re-read your labels! It is better to drink a drink or eat a snack with plain old sugar than to eat a no-sugar or diet variety. Same goes for the “no fat” and “low fat” processed foods. If it is low fat, they had to use something else to make it taste good, and that is probably aspartame or sugar anyway. It is a lose-lose situation.
I finally found an all natural drink mix that I put in my water that uses ONLY the oils from citrus and 100% PURE STEVIA, no apspartame, and I have not had a mouth ulcer or intestinal problem since I made the switch, and that was several months ago.
I also decided to cut out margarine and other chemically processed additives, switching to real butter, real animal fat, and real vegetable fats whenever possible, and it has made a big difference in how I feel and how my body acts. I eat real beef, real bacon, and I am not ashamed of it. I avoid any label marked “Zero calories,” “Zero fat,” and “fat free.” Making those choices for my eating habits sounds like I should be making my cholesterol go through the roof, or raise my blood pressure, but it has not.
Making those changes has actually made me feel better, lose a bit of weight, and build muscle strength.
As a species we have survived for thousands of years eating red meat, the fat from that meat, simple grains, and foraged fruits and vegetables. That is what our bodies are meant to be fueled by, I ask anyone who begs to differ to explain why we have omnivore teeth? We are not herbivores, we are not meat-only predators, we are a combination of the two, and the way we eat directly affects how we feel and our bodies act.
It makes me so upset to see other BD sufferers immediatly tell another to “go to the doctor and ask for XXXXX medication” or “I am on YYY, XXXXX, and ZZZZZZ medications and I am almost under control with my symptom flares.” that is our answer now- meds, meds, and more meds.
I have had enough of seeing this sort of thing. If you want to be healthy — even with a debilitating auto-immune disease — start eating right! Start eating better! Stop eating junk that was created in a lab and processed as waste from a factory!
I can’t even chew gum anymore because I can’t find any that doesn’t have aspartame in it.
Read your labels people, and eat better to feel better. Get out of the “eat healthy” rut, because that is just a marketing catch phrase. Be informed about what you eat so you can eat better and stay healthy.
PS: I still eat junk I’m not supposed to, but I just don’t do it all the time, and I make sure I eat preservative free as often as possible.. So yea, I still eat potato chips, eat candy bars, and drink coffee. I just eat better stuff more often.
And never-ever eat aspartame products.
