When Life Throws You A Curve Ball

Helga Dalla is a photojournalist, author, entrepreneur, personal development junkie, property investor and passionate about health and all things natural.

I left behind a stressful corporate world for a life of fun, travel and adventure. After three years of travelling Australia I found my paradise on the Sunshine Coast. I began living my dreams and became a successful photojournalist, publishing five books. Life was fabulous.

Then on Christmas Eve 2014, my husband, Greg, had an emergency quadruple bypass. Waiting in intensive care, I felt a familiar wave of fear resurface. I lost my previous partner to cancer and I was scared that I would lose Greg too. Thankfully Greg survived.

A lot was going on in my life while he was in hospital and I was desperately trying to convince myself I was fine.  Who was I trying to kid, really, I was not coping.

One morning I woke to excruciating pain in my feet.  My bones were screaming at me when I walked. It felt like a bee sting with a burning sensation. I was scared and saw a doctor that day. I was sent to get blood tests, which revealed rheumatoid arthritis. My immune system was attacking the lining of my joints. Treatment is typically Methotrexate a chemotherapy drug.

No thanks, not an option for me, especially after seeing what my previous partner went though.

Over the next twelve months, after a detox, eliminating gluten, dairy, grains and nightshade foods from my diet and trying a multitude of anti-inflammatory supplements I saw no improvement. I struggled with the reality of my future life crippled with rheumatoid arthritis and suffering permanent excruciating pain. Severely depressed and defeated, I succumbed and began taking methotrexate.

It gave me brain fog, a nasty rash and I felt continually nauseas. I felt miserable and helpless, thinking this was how my life would be.

A friend told me about her husband who has Ankylosing Spondylitis, inflammatory arthritis of the spine.  She mentioned he was having positive results on ‘Nrf2’, an ‘activator’, which triggers a biochemical wakeup call at a cellular level repairing damaged cells and reducing pain in the body.  I tried it…call it gut instinct. ‘What if it works?’

I noticed gradual reduction in pain and within three weeks I stopped taking Nurofen and even slept through the night.  I continued yoga and meditation even if just to roll out the mat, lay in child’s pose and just be.  Without pain, I had more clarity and began to reflect on my situation.

It was during yoga nidra when I asked the universe for guidance; Where’s the lesson in this?’ ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

It was that moment, when I realised what I needed to do, trust my own intuition and not listen to everyone else. Accept the diagnosis and listen to what my fragile body was trying to tell me.

How ironic, I knew stress fed this disease but I was stressing out trying everything I could to control it. I stopped trying to ‘fix’ myself, and focused on having faith that by activating my body’s own immune system and mindfully surrendered to the healing process that my body was asking for.

I went from needing help showering, not being able to cut my food, pick up my camera or walk my pooch to be medication free sixteen months later. I have been able to get back to doing what I love, photojournalism, spending time with my family, I’ve even started back running slowly again and my general physical and mental health is bouncing back more each month.

I’m now helping people by sharing my storey about how natural remedies and nutrigenomics helped me. Miracles do happen when you practice PATIENCE and LISTEN to your own body.

If you would like to be added to our private FACEBOOK Group that shares many more articles and stories about Nutrigenomics and Nrf2 Activation CLICK here.