What are some of the strangest things I do to manage my autoimmune disease?

As I turned the shower to freezing cold for 2 minutes this morning, it occurred to me that a lot of the things I now do in my daily life might seem strange to a lot of people.

It got me thinking about all the weird and wonderful things I do to manage my condition.

I’m going to talk about my experiences with ankylosing spondylitis, but even if you’re working with a different chronic condition, you may still find some of the things I discuss here useful.

As ever, this isn’t medical advice. This is what, to the best of my knowledge, currently works for me. I’m sharing this in case it gives you inspiration.

1. Making my own natural skin cream

If you’d said I’d be doing this a few years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Why go to the faff of making your own skin cream? Where do you even start?

It came about, in my case, because my autoimmune disease had started to really affect my skin.

This is relatively common. People with autoimmune issues often have other, related symptoms. For many that can include skin conditions.

Mine was never that bad but I did always have quite dry skin. I had bouts of eczema as a child but I’d always managed it and it didn’t really affect my life too much.

When my ankylosing spondylitis got really bad, prior to treating it, my skin went berserk.

It was like a switch had been flipped. It became super sensitive to everything.

One Christmas a friend bought me an expensive ‘natural’ face cream for my dry skin.

It smelled amazing but I noticed that every time I used it my whole face started fizzing. It felt like it was almost burning.

I dismissed it and assumed my face was overreacting, which in hindsight, is ridiculous. But
then slowly but surely I started to develop a really nasty rash under my left eye. Dark red, scratchy and itchy and really not very nice.

It was too blatant to ignore and so I immediately stopped using the cream.

The problem was I was still getting dry skin and needed to use something.

I took a look at the back of the packet of my face cream and noticed that as well as all the healthy, natural ingredients there were lots I didn’t recognise.

It was basically an ultra processed skin product.

So I decided to see if I could create my own.

The first stage was research. I looked up the types of ingredients that people used to reduce dry skin and that weren’t inflammatory.

People consistently rated Shea butter for skin and most didn’t react badly to it.

That was the first ingredient that I sourced and it was inexpensive to buy online in a tub.

I then looked to see if I could add anything else that would help. Initially I went down the path of olive oil because I knew that it had some anti-inflammatory properties.

However, when I tested it on my own skin (and this may be different for you) it didn’t seem to help. I started to get that slight fizzing sensation again.

I tried avocado oil instead and had much more success.

One of the benefits of having shea butter with avocado oil is that if you melt the shea butter first and mix in some avocado oil, it makes the consistency a bit better.

The shea butter on its own is quite buttery and quite thick and doesn’t feel that great on the face (almost as if there’s a sticky film on there).

The avocado oil is obviously a lot lighter and a lot thinner. So if you mix the two together, you get a much nicer consistency.

You really don’t have to use much to cover your face.

I ended up making this face cream by necessity but haven’t looked back.

It costs very little to make. The individual ingredients aren’t cheap to buy up front (and I do add a couple of other things as well) but they last for AGES.

As an added bonus I’ve been told that my skin looks a bit more vibrant since using it.

I even started using it on my hair. It only takes a tiny amount and it just smoothes it out.

Again, this is something I never imagined I would do, but it’s the best skin cream and hair treatment I’ve used.

Some of the ingredients I use to make the cream have lasted a couple of years, and it probably only takes about 10 – 15 minutes to make, once a month.

If you think about the time you might spend going to the shop, and paying for it, this has worked out surprisingly well.

It’s one of those silver linings you sometimes stumble across when you have a condition that requires you to problem solve.

On a related note, at the same time I experienced skin reactions on my face, I started getting problems under my arms with my deodorant.

I started testing a series of expensive natural products and to my surprise they ended up being even worse than the chemically ‘off the shelf’ options.

I couldn’t use any of them for more than a day or two without the skin getting itchy, red and painful. I think this was to do with one or two of the ingredients some of the natural products typically use.

I found that using one of the bigger brands (albeit one which claims to have a slightly more gentle list of ingredients) seemed to work best.

It’s worth keeping an open mind when testing. Sometimes the thing you least expect turns out absolutely fine.

The second ‘strange’ thing on my list is beef tallow soap.

2. Using beef tallow soap to stop skin irritation

Beef tallow is something I’d previously never even heard of and this one relates to the dry and sensitive skin issues.

I found, when my ankylosing spondylitis was at its peak, that using shower gels and shower products caused issues with my skin.

I’d heard that just using a natural bar of soap was a good idea. I also came across some people in forums and a few wellness gurus talking about beef tallow as a soap.

My initial reaction was that I’d prefer to avoid using more animal products to manage my autoimmune disease, but beef tallow is frequently a by-product used to make candles or as an ingredient in balms so this didn’t feel wasteful.

I found some on Etsy, where there are lots of good homemade soap makers, and I haven’t looked back since.

I love that you can get unscented bars and that it feels good on the skin. I have also tried one which contains birch sap which added a really nice scent. Again, this is completely natural and you can also use it in your hair.

Beef tallow was something I’d never heard of before, but have found really beneficial.

It’s a natural soap product with only one or potentially two ingredients, compared to most shower gel packets which might contain a dozen or so, half of which are chemicals you’ve probably never heard of.

Two small, inexpensive (in fact cheaper) alternatives which have massively improved my skin. This is something I’ve only discovered on my journey managing AS so there really are silver linings.

The third ‘strange’ thing I do in my day to day has to do with diet…

3. Following a no-starch, no-dairy diet

At the time of writing, I avoid starch and dairy.

Quick disclaimer, this is just what works for me, at the moment, with my particular condition.

The ankylosing spondylitis diet or no starch diet is a protocol that some people with ankylosing spondylitis follow.

It typically means no starch and no cow dairy but most of us also try to follow a few other rules too and these are things I’d feel comfortable to recommend to most people, namely:

Avoid refined sugar and UPFs (also known as ultra processed foods).

Many people have discovered that changes to diet can have a huge impact on autoimmune symptoms.

Though the link between diet and wellbeing is becoming better understood, it still feels like a strange thing to get your head around when you’re first trying it.

Prior to finding out I had AS, a big part of my diet was rice, crisps, chips and other convenience foods that I thought I loved.

At times I was having pasta twice a day because it was so easy to make and I loved the taste with some people.

That initial moment where I discovered that potentially removing starch from my diet could help with my condition was a strange one.

The first thing I thought was, what on earth is starch?

When I’d heard the word starch previously, I thought it was something you put in your collars to keep them rigid. Where on earth is that in food?!

It turns out it’s in a lot of foods. Typically, but not always, in carbohydrates.

The best known ones are potatoes, wheat, rice, pasta, and certain vegetables.

A quick rule of thumb for vegetables is that if the vegetable grows above ground (i.e. the bit you eat) it is likely to be a non-starchy vegetable.
This includes things like broccoli, cauliflower and so on. Of course there are some exceptions but it’s a helpful guide.

Diet is a really quite unusual part of my daily life, which I now totally take for granted and I never feel like I’m missing out.

To a lot of people it must seem absolutely bonkers that starch, one of the biggest food types available on the planet today, is something I haven’t eaten for years.

Again, this is just me and my condition. I definitely wouldn’t recommend my specific diet to someone who doesn’t have AS and tolerates starch well.

I’m sure there will be more research to come and more fine tuning. But certainly for me and many others, following a diet that focuses on finding healthy foods that don’t trigger pain is a game changer.

It’s one strange thing I’ve added to my life, which I definitely don’t regret.

As ever, it’s something to do your own research on. Always talk to a doctor if you’re making a big dietary change.

4. Switching to specific oils for cooking: olive oil and avocado oil

Number four in the list of strange things is oils.

I’ll start with olive oil. I did a lot of research into olive oil, because it’s often touted as a superfood, super high in polyphenols.

One study which I hung onto quite early in my diagnosis, suggested that a couple of large tablespoons of olive oil a day was the equivalent to taking one 200 milligram ibuprofen tablet for lowering inflammation.

That was a lovely thing to read at the time when hope was in short supply and it was an easy thing to try.

I started having one or two large spoonfuls just before bed every night. At the time I really felt like I noticed some relief from it but I do think there was an element of placebo effect.

I was desperate for something I could do which wasn’t going to be ‘bad’ for me so I’m sure that gave me a mental lift. Either way, less pain was less pain.

It was strange. The olive oil had a cool, peppery, buttery aftertaste to it. Rather than a spoon I started to use a mini whisky glass and would drink around 50 ml of olive oil out of that after lunch each day.

I’m doing a run at the moment where I’m removing almost all supplements from my diet in order to do a bit of a reset and see how things are going. The aim is to try reintroducing them again later.

Olive oil will be one I definitely reintroduce. It tends to be healthy for most people (and particularly good for cardiovascular health) but there are a few people who react to it so obviously please be mindful of that.

There has also been a lot of research into seed oils.

A lot of people say that you should try and cut down on your seed oils because of the high levels of Omega-6. Omega-6 isn’t necessarily bad for you, but the idea is that you want to have a higher level of Omega-3 versus Omega-6.

That wasn’t a big lifestyle change for me so I just cut out all seed oils from my diet (rapeseed oil, that kind of thing) and now cook with either olive oil or avocado oil.

Avocado oil is something I’ve never even heard of before I started my diet, but now it’s a fairly regular staple. As I talked about before, it also goes in the face cream too, so I get maximum use out of that magic stuff.

5. Fasting for flare management and overall health

Number five on the list is fasting.

Going without food for a specific amount of time in order to manage my autoimmune disease and to give my general wellbeing a boost, definitely felt strange at first.

It’s something I didn’t dream I’d do in a million years.

I had a preconception it was a dangerous thing to do and had words like ‘blood sugar’ running around my head.

Even though I’d read people talking about it, including some fairly prominent scientists who practise things like intermittent fasting it wasn’t something that really landed for me.

But so many people in the ankylosing spondylitis forums that I’m in, talked about fasting as a way of stopping or mitigating flares.

I had a lot of ups and downs in my first year on the diet and it just seemed like something that was worth a try.

I did a lot more research on it and this really gave me the confidence to try it. I quickly learned that not only is it safe for most people, it’s how humans have adapted.

Early, pre-agricultural revolution, humans fasted a lot of the time by necessity. Vegetables didn’t appear in camp every morning and animals didn’t wander into the cooking pot.

Sometimes we’d have to go without food for a couple of days. It’s part of what we’re evolved to deal with. Periods without food are a chance for the body, particularly the gut lining, to have a clear out.

Given that so many autoimmune diseases relate to the immune system and the bacteria within our microbiome, it makes sense that fasting could have a positive impact for some.

Of course people believe different things on this and there needs to be more research, but it was something I felt comfortable trying.

I started engaging in a number of fasting trials.

The first was intermittent fasting. By this I mean instead of having three meals a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner) I cut out a meal.

I ate the same amount of food in two meals. This meant I had a window of 16 hours or more where I wasn’t eating.

I typically ate at around 1pm, had dinner at 8pm and breakfast was no longer a thing.

This is something I did (accidentally) when I was younger. In hindsight I realise that when I started having breakfast again in my early thirties I felt considerably worse.

I felt more sluggish, I felt increased stiffness in my back and I definitely had more symptoms.

Of course, a lot of that could be the types of food I was having for breakfast (lots of processed carbs). But reintroducing intermittent fasting as a step for my AS was genuinely one of the most powerful things I’ve tried.

I have more energy, I feel less hungry (strange as it sounds!) and I think about food less.

I’m still getting the same amount of calories and I’m really enjoying my food even more. More importantly, the lower back stiffness in the morning has, over time, almost disappeared completely.

And it gets better…

So far I’ve talked about intermittent fasting but I also use it as a way to beat flares.

If I go into flare (which for me means a period of crippling back pain caused by my ankylosing spondylitis) I have an action plan that I put into place.

The most important element of this action plan is that I initiate an extended fast immediately. That means as soon as I feel a flare coming on I stop eating.

Rather than doing the intermittent fast, which might be 16 hours, I’m talking about between 48 and 72 hours.

Typically if I’m in flare, I will do a full 72 hours and wait until I feel myself coming out of flare until I stop.

During this time I only consume water, bone broth, magnesium and salt.

For me at least, it works like magic. Previously my flares would last upwards of 2 weeks and would involve lots of heat pads and painkillers.

Now, thanks to the success I’ve had with fasting, they typically last less than 5 days and involve no medication. There’s also a MASSIVE decrease in severity.

Obviously full disclaimers apply. If this is something you want to try, make sure it is safe for you to do so. As always, this isn’t medical advice.

For many people occasional periods of fasting will be fine, but obviously if you’ve got blood sugar issues, diabetes, and certainly if you have an eating disorder this won’t be for you.

But if it’s safe for you to do so, fasting can be an incredibly powerful weapon. It’s been so effective for me that I’ve introduced it as part of my monthly routine, even if I’m not in flare.

I now do a 48 hour fast once a month and call it my ‘reset’ fast.

Yes, I’ve got an autoimmune disease but I’m getting stronger all the time. I’m rebuilding my gut health, I’m doing all the right things, but this scheduled monthly fast gives me a little boost and also helps me get back to baseline.

I’ve found it really fantastic. I’m actually doing it now, as I write this.

My understanding of why it works is that it does two things.

1. It’s great for cleaning the gut lining or gut barrier. This is important because if you have a ‘leaky’ or impermeable gut, one of the big problems is bacteria going outside of the gut lining that shouldn’t be there.

We want our bodies to be able to clean this lining and keep it fortified. Fasting can be a great way of doing that.

2. Autophagy. You may have come across this word before. Fasting allows your body to remove and replace damaged cells.

There are real health benefits to this, whether or not you have an autoimmune disease.

As long as you’re doing it safely and in a controlled manner, fasting, as strange as it seems, can be really helpful.

Before we move onto the next point, there’s something I want to stress.

Fasting seems like the kind of thing that would be torturous.

In fact anything that deviates from the norm or involves not having something can sometimes be seemed as deprivation or cruel or unfair or like some type of medieval torture.

This is all to do with framing. I haven’t felt that in the slightest when fasting.

Maybe I have an advantage because my pain levels were so high when I first tried fasting that any kind of relief, even if it was initially uncomfortable, would have made me a massive convert, even if it had just been a 20% improvement.

So the magic of being able to fast and delete a flare 100% was just amazing. I can’t stress just how amazing that feels.

If you are going to try fasting, here are some tips:

Don’t surround yourself with really tempting food and don’t sit in the room while someone else is eating. Seeing and smelling food prepares your brain and body for eating. This doesn’t help anyone and will make the process ten times harder.

But if you tell yourself, I’m doing this fast for 48 hours, for example, you just do it. You actually stop thinking about food. It doesn’t become a horrible chore. It doesn’t feel like you’re being deprived.

And many people, myself included, will experience a silver lining.

When I fast I get a sharp degree of focus. In fact, I often get my best ideas while I’m on a fast. There’s a clarity of mind.

I actually look forward to the time in the month when I’ll experience this reset. I know I’ll feel really good afterwards, as if I’ve had a whole body transfusion.

Instead of thinking “I don’t want this”, it becomes a really interesting part of my routine. Something really positive.

6. Taking cold showers daily to beat inflammation

Number six on my list is freezing cold showers.

This is always the one that seems to make people squirm.

Almost everyone says, “I could never do that”, or “I’m not good in the cold.”

“Why would you force yourself to do something like that!?” and so on.

This is one which has had a ton of research to back it up.

Cold exposure, as well as sauna, is incredibly healthy or positive for most people. It’s so good for lowering inflammation.

All of the elite athletes, almost without exception, use ice baths. Whether it’s tennis players, football players, American football players, cyclists and certainly any high impact sport you can think of.

Top athletes who have to put their bodies through extremes and need peak performance – sometimes while working through injuries – use cold exposure.

They do it after training or important matches because it lowers inflammation and reduces muscle soreness.

When you’re battling autoimmune disease, inflammation is an integral part of day to day life for many.

While cold exposure sounds like it’d be really uncomfortable, it’s something that I now look forward to every single day.

On the occasional morning where I wake up feeling stiffness in my lower back (and this has reduced SO much in the last three years thanks to the things I’ve talked about here) it makes such an impact.

I typically have a nice warm shower to wash and then at the end I switch it to freezing cold for two minutes.

If you’re just starting out you won’t be able to do that straight away. Work your way up in 15 second increments.

For me, it helps melt away any inflammation and on top of that, you feel great.

You start the day wanting to hit the ground running because it gives you a burst of clean energy. Your brain is alert and you’re wide awake.

Rather than feeling like it’s a chore, even if it’s a bit uncomfortable at first, it becomes something you look forward to.

It wakes you up, it gives you energy. It helps beat out any low inflammation that you might have.

It’s also really good for you as a long-term health protocol. Cold temperature exposure activates something called brown fat.

Not a very nice term, but brown fat helps us break down blood sugar or glucose and fat molecules.

It’s a really positive thing to have, regardless of whether you’re trying to tackle an autoimmune disease, cold exposure is a really good thing to do and having a cold shower at home is the easiest way of doing this.

7. Using apple cider vinegar for gut health

The next one is – again – quite a strange one, but it might be something a lot of people have tried already… and that’s apple cider vinegar.

It’s sometimes touted as an urban myth or an old wives tale.

However, if you’ve ever read about fermentation and the benefits that you can get from fermented products, you’re probably aware of this one.

Fermented foods are definitely not right for everyone. Two people close to me avoid them like the plague.

However, for many they can help with various issues, including a number of digestive problems.

Apple cider vinegar helps stimulate the hydrochloric acid in your stomach and this can relieve bloating. It can also help regulate bowel movements which is why many people with IBS or IBD swear by it.

If you want to try it, take a small amount and work your way up. Maybe start with a teaspoonful of apple cider vinegar, diluted in water at first then work your way up to 1 – 2 tablespoons a day.

Do make sure you dilute it because it will corrode your teeth otherwise.

I’m not doing it at the moment, because as I mentioned earlier, I’m pausing most supplements for the time being so that I can do a reset.

However, when it has been part of my daily routine I have found it really helpful.

I can definitely attest to the fact that it goes straight to your gut (and can wreak absolute merry havoc in there in the first day or two!)

It’s not painful or anything like that, but it gets to work straight away. You may be visiting the bathroom pretty quickly within an hour or so, but then your body quickly adapts and then within a few days you are totally back to normal.

It’s an interesting one for people that would do well with fermented foods. Again this is not medical advice and do test it, but it can be something that helps people with digestive issues.

Early in my autoimmune journey I remember reading a blog by someone with ankylosing spondylitis who only used apple cider vinegar as their treatment.

I was so intrigued by their story that I decided to give a go. It didn’t have the same impact on my AS but it did give me an incremental net benefit.

What should you look for in apple cider vinegar?

Off the shelf stuff is fine and inexpensive.

You just need to ensure that it contains something called ‘the mother’. This signifies it has the bacteria you’re after.

They always label it on the bottle, so it’s easy to spot.

8. Supplementing with magnesium

Number eight is magnesium.

Magnesium is one of those supplements which I never even heard of prior to managing my autoimmune disease.

I knew it was an element, but I didn’t know how important it was or that we needed it in our diets.

I certainly hadn’t realised that there was a chronic magnesium deficiency in the global population.

This is because our diets and farming practices have changed dramatically over the millenia. Factors like poor soil quality is a major one.

As a result, typically we get far less magnesium in our diets than our hunter gatherer ancestors. This deficiency is important because it can affect nerve health, muscles, mood, sleep and more.

If you’re deficient in magnesium, your body still has to get it from somewhere.

Eventually that means leaching it from your bones, a somewhat graphic and horrifying thought. Over time this can lead to and exacerbate osteoporosis.

That’s why it’s so important that you keep up your magnesium levels.

Ideally you get this from food (avocado, for example, is an excellent source) but for many of us, even doing the hard work, you might need a booster.

There’s lots of different types of magnesium and people disagree about what’s best.

Personally I like magnesium malate powder (pure magnesium malate). I have it mixed in some water, with some salt and fresh lemon (to add electrolytes) and sip it throughout the day.

Magnesium malate is the form that is most easily absorbed by the body. It’s also the one that after testing seems to work best for me.

However, please do your own testing. People do well on different types. Once again, we’re all different.

The relief I’ve had from supplementing with magnesium is off the charts. When the ankylosing spondylitis was ruling my life, I was barely sleeping.

I was waking up a minimum of 15 or 20 times a night and sleep was a series of horrible 10 – 15 minute bursts.

As well as the AS pain, I was getting crippling cramps and the whole thing was a horrendous mess.

I was constantly shifting from side to side to relieve the cramp which in turn would exacerbate the sharp pain in the sacroiliac joints.

It wasn’t until I did the research that I discovered that magnesium deficiency is often a big part of autoimmune disease.

If you’re someone who is dealing with one you need to make sure that you’re on top of this.

No doctor or rheumatologist has so much as mentioned magnesium to me but it’s been one of the single most important interventions and there are plenty of papers online (just jump onto Google Scholar) that delve into the science.

Obviously take the recommended daily amount to begin with, unless you’re talking to your doctor and it’s safe to go over.

I take more than the RDA (safely and under advisement). It has completely stopped the night cramps, which feels like winning the lottery.

I’m over three years on the diet now and take less and less and now take much closer to the recommended daily amount.

This is brilliant, because it shows that my body’s getting stronger and my gut is getting stronger.

My diet works well for my body, but I do still need that little additional bump from magnesium malate.

Incidentally, I have a very high confidence rating that placebo effect has little or no impact here.

I’ve done multiple tests (accidental) where I’ve not taken magnesium.

For example if I’m on holiday or staying with friends and I’ve forgotten to bring it with me. Within two days I started to get night cramps. It’s nothing like as bad as I used to get, but enough to wake me up throughout the night.

If you are struggling with cramp or other issues around energy, blood sugar or even mood, do look into magnesium.

9. Experimenting with a “Bed of Nails” for back pain relief

I’m going to finish up, on number nine, with the Bed of Nails!

When I describe this one to people, they always burst out laughing and I can understand why.

It’s such a bizarre and peculiar thing.

My sister got me in Secret Santa one year and bought it for me as part of my present. She had read that it was something I could potentially use to help manage my AS.

So what is it?

It’s a kind of foam pad with white plastic nails or spikes all over the pad.

You lay it down on the floor and then you lower yourself onto the ‘bed of nails’ covering your lower back (around the tailbone) up to your upper back.

I like to use a pillow to support my head. At first you’ll have your knees bent, and then if you can, you want to try to lower your knees over time. Don’t worry if you can’t do this immediately.

It’s a very strange thing because your brain tells you that you’re lying on a medieval torture device and there is an element of discomfort as you’re lying on it.

With that said, it’s not overtly painful, it’s not a ‘scream out with pain’ kind of feeling, it’s just unusual.

And then something really odd happens at around 10 minutes into a 30 minute session. You start to feel really calm.

Even though you’re lying on this bed of nails, you suddenly stop thinking about it. You stop realising that you’re lying on the spikes.

It feels like it gives you a deep tissue massage because the spikes go quite deep into your back.

Science-wise there’s not a great deal out there and there definitely needs to be more research.

There definitely could be an expectation or placebo effect around it because you are doing something quite visceral and jarring that seems like it should do something. Either way it seems to work.

It’s one of those things that I don’t do all the time. I might use it for six weeks then leave it for a while, but it’s a great thing to have in your toolkit.

I found it particularly helpful in the early days of the diet towards the end of year one and year two. I was getting such good results but sometimes I was getting the odd niggle and this really helped just before bed.

Again, it’s strange and unusual, but I know a lot of people who struggle with back problems have found it helpful.

It’s also a really inexpensive thing to buy. Don’t worry about getting one of the branded ones. They all look pretty much identical and do the same thing.

Summary

So those are the top nine strangest things that I do to manage my ankylosing spondylitis.

I’ve really enjoyed doing this one. It’s interesting to look back on all the things you’re doing, through fresh eyes and think “yes, that is really quite odd, but it works!”

I love doing them, and they don’t feel like a chore.

Some of the things I’ve discussed I did more of earlier on in my diagnosis, because they really helped when I had more frequent pain, but I still use all of them.

Cold showers, intermittent fasting and magnesium and the three I try to never miss and can’t imagine living without.

I think a lot of these things feel or get labelled as strange because we live in a world which is so perpetually orientated around comfort.

The narrative or the expectation is that we should never feel anything other than the perfect temperature. We’re told we should feel hungry. We’re told feeling different or anything less than baseline is ‘bad’ or wrong.

This state of constant, artificial comfort is the antithesis of what we humans, over millions of years, have evolved to cope with.

The body needs the occasional break from food so that it can clean the gut lining. It needs to experience cold and hot because that’s what it’s evolved to do.

I think this is all part of the complicated, shifting equation.

By always striving for perfect comfort, we may actually end up exacerbating or even triggering chronic health conditions.

As strange as some of the things we’ve talked about above might seem, they are actually just ways of baking in some of the things humans would experience naturally before all of our amazing (and sometimes terrible) technology took over.

One thing I really want to stress is that success comes through incremental gains.

That’s the one big thing I would impart to anyone who’s trying to manage their autoimmune disease or health.

Try not to look for a magic button or a single fix.

In my case diet is a huge part of managing my AS, but it’s not the only thing.

It’s also managing stress levels. It’s also staying on top of magnesium.

It’s all these little percentage gains added to everyday life so they don’t feel like work. Put them together and over time you feel 20%… 30% or even 50%+ better.

That’s where the magic really starts happening. It’s all about discovering the things that work best for you and incorporating them into your daily routine.

I really hope some of these have given you inspiration to do some more research or try yourself.

I would love to hear if there’s any strange, weird and wonderful things that you’re trying to manage your autoimmune disease or health. Please do leave a comment below.