About twelve years ago I injured myself racing up the manitou incline and tore my calf muscle. Upon a routine blood work test while treating my calf, the blood tests revealed that my antibodies in my blood were abnormal. This lead me into the world of rheumatology and autoimmune diseases. Eventually over a few years of monitoring, I diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder. In time I came to learn more about it and unfortunately, the symptoms and features of the disease began to show up in my body.

At the time, I was eating fairly healthy with a balanced diet of grains, meats and veggies. I came across some books about gut health and inflammation and began to learn that grains and dairy can be triggers for inflammation and pain in the body.

I eliminated grains and dairy and watched in amazement as not only did the last extra pounds go away, but my body felt better…in fact it felt amazing. About six months after I started eating this way, my routine rheumatology lab work was done and I was called back into the office because the results were so “normal” my doctor felt that there was an error. My inflammatory indicators were in the normal range for the first time in years.

Another key component to my diet was that I started eating lots of probiotics—kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut and more. I also started taking a pre/probiotics everyday.

What I have come to learn is that most inflammation (if not all) starts in your gut. When we clean up our diets by eliminating processed foods, eating whole and fresh foods and compliment that with plenty of probiotics, our bodies have less inflammation, less pain, less brain fog, less sickness and less stress.

I know that if I eat grains, specifically quinoa and wheat, I will hurt the next day. I am not as strict as I used to be about it, and I know that is an area I should look closer at. My blood work still shows an abnormal “something” and I still do battle chronic pain in my body, BUT I know that eating right and gut health is key. I can only imagine how much pain I would be in if I was still heavy, eating crackers and processed snacks and not taking probiotics.

Check out the study below about then learn about the probiotics I choose to take in addition to kombucha and other food based probiotics.

Study: http://www.arthritis.org/living-with-arthritis/arthritis-diet/healthy-eating/guide-to-probiotics.php