06/20/2021
01/17/2019
a skin story part i
German Roots
If you’ve ever had a German style breakfast before, you know that it looks a little bit like this: pretzels, rye bread, kaiser buns, all the good cheeses and cold cut meats, jams, pickles, eggs, and a fluffy full fat pillow of butter.
For me growing up, you could find this on our table for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
My grandparents on both my mother and fathers side immigrated to Canada in the 50’s with my parents and a few pieces of luggage in tow.
Leaving Germany and all the family they knew wasn’t an easy decision, but Canada soon became home. The food on the other hand, remained very much German.
My paternal grandfather was a butcher. His basement, while also home to the legendary ‘kühl keller’ which was always stocked with all the goodies you’d ever need for card night, movie night, baking marathons or preparing meals with enough food to feed an army, was where the sausage making magic happened.
Intermittently, it was also home to the chicken roaster.
One of my grandmothers specialties (in the meat department I must specify, as her cooking skills were vastly diverse and deserve a post of their own – ever heard of a seven layer cake?!) was goulash…my favourite, made with oh so much love.
Suffice it to say, I grew up eating a lot of meat, dairy and gluten.
Food was always home cooked and meals were shared together at tastefully decorated dining or kitchen tables. It’s no secret, we loved our food then, and we love our food now.
Cold Turkey
Fast forward many satisfying meals later washed down with beer and wine, also staples on the German table, I made the life altering (or so it felt like) decision to cut it all out – cold turkey – in the name of psoriasis, and trying to fix my skin.
Sure, I’d known for years the recommended diet for people who have auto-immune issues. No dairy, no gluten, no spicy food, no nightshades, no caffeine, no alcohol, no smoking, no stress (ha!), no fried food or food high in acidity.
But over the years I had committed to this as consistently as I committed to working out at 5 am before work in the morning. So I lived for years in a state of half ass following what was supposed to make my skin better.
My wardrobe choices revolved around covering my arms and legs. Out of necessity I made bold fashion statements like wearing long black velvet gloves to graduations and events. Clothing protected me from the looks, the questions and my own insecurities.
Would it have been best to accept and own what my skin looked like and not worry about what others thought?
Sure, but that ain’t easy at 35 let alone for a 16 year old girl. I wasn’t equipped with the confidence or social skills to deal with my issue. But with time I’ve learned, I’ve grown and I’ve become stronger, but it’s still not an easy issue for me.
Living It Up
I wasn’t committing to changing my lifestyle because I didn’t want to miss out. Miss out on dinners, parties, social events, comfort eating, and I couldn’t fathom at the time giving up what had become my unhealthy coping mechanisms of drinking and smoking.
I was diagnosed with guttate psoriasis at the tender and rebellious age of 14 after a painful bout with strep throat. It started as one single red spot in the middle of my shin.
So began the visits to the dermatologist office which is initially how we started to treat the issue. Over the years I tried all kinds of steroid and tar creams, gels and sprays, and even light therapy. Nothing consistently helped.
This wasn’t yet the age of instagram, self-love and vegan restaurants popping up left right and centre but I was lucky enough to have a mother who had long been into wholistic and Ayurvedic health practices.
So she had always encouraged natural healing and treatments before it was a way I knew I needed and wanted to treat myself.
I saw different natural paths, took oils, brewed Chinese herbs. But I was still a teenager and we ate things like teen burgers from A&W, and when I moved to Australia after my 18th birthday focusing on gut health and mindfulness wasn’t at the top of my priority list – I wanted to live it up!
So there I was, refusing to accept accountability for my actions, knowing what I should be doing yet only dabbling in doing so, and constantly feeling guilty about it.
Stress is the number one cause of psoriasis and it’s flare ups; I was stuck in this vicious cycle of being stressed out about my skin getting worse from my unhealthy decisions, therefore, making it even worse.
This went on for years, and I suffered through ups and downs with my skin never having concrete explanations for why it got worse or better when it did.
In an attempt to narrow down the do-not-eat or do-not-do list I took a food allergy test. Because what if only one of the 10 bad decisions was really the only bad one? If I knew the one particular thing, or five, that made the spots come or go, maybe I’d be able to stick to eliminating that one or handful of things.
But when there’s a list of 10 or more things that could be an issue, that’s when I find wiggle room to waver and excuse one bad thing for another eight good things.
So there I was, armed with the results of the allergy test confirming that foods I had grown up eating my entire life were now potential culprits in making my skin worse. Foods like eggs, bananas, almonds, chocolate, dairy, chicken, turkey.
I was devastated and confused because when I ate the majority of the things on this list I didn’t feel anything bad, and I didn’t see immediate reactions with my skin.
But, for some reason, I stuck to avoiding the things on this list. This list seemed achievable, I could avoid these foods. And I did, for two whole years, but I still suffered with skin I couldn’t bear to show the world.
Elimination Diet
This was when I decided to try a proper elimination diet. My first quasi attempt at veganism.
It was great fun; I was sick for weeks with headaches and nausea and was super fatigued.
I finally called the doctor to see if this was normal. A girlfriend of mine was living with me at the time and was all up close and personal with my food adventures; she and I still laugh to this day about how that phone call went down.
I explained my symptoms to a nurse and after about 20 minutes of answering questions about the situation she said very matter of factly, “My dear, you’re not getting enough calories.” And that was that.
I was just eating veggies and gluten free grains and sometimes fish and I thought I was eating a lot, but my body was metabolizing the good food so fast without any crap to cause inflammation and slow down my digestion that I simply needed more food!
So I stayed eating this way, but still didn’t give up on my other vices and sadly my skin really didn’t change much.
At this point, I hadn’t used the topical steroid creams prescribed by the dermatologist in years.
But it was summer and I was frustrated and looking for a quick fix so I broke down and decided to give them another try to clear up my skin.
Just for the summer, why not. The cream ate at my skin like paint thinner, and made it more irritated. I finally threw them all out again, and continued to cover my body through the summer days, doing my best with diet and continued with my regular fitness regimes.
The Breakthrough
It wasn’t until a year later when my sister in law (who suffers from Chrones Disease and who had been experimenting on her own with vegan eating to address her issue), pointed me in the direction of a woman named Hanna Sillitoe, that I finally felt ready to commit and follow all the rules.
Hanna had cleared her entire body of psoriasis through diet and lifestyle and I was so impacted by her story and clearly desperate for something to cling onto, that I reached out to her on Facebook….
Read Part II (link below) when I connect with Hanna and decide to finally commit to myself and my health once and for all.
Your Psoria Sista xox
Click here to read “A Skin Story – Part II”
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Love!! looking forward to reading part 2 now!
Ready and waiting for you my dear Gloria 😉 xo