*This post is not medical advice, only opinion.*
Growing up in America, in the allopathic medicine model, we learned to go to the experts – the doctors – whenever we had an illness or issue. Allopathic medicine treats the individual symptom with a pill, a cream, surgery or a therapy like chemotherapy for cancer. It doesn’t tend to look below the surface at the root cause of any issue. This was the only system I knew and the one I easily embraced when I became a parent. I had no reason to distrust it until I did.
When my son, Raleigh, got sick in his first year of life we went the Western Medicine route to address his issues. He reacted to a walnut, clearly he had food allergies. We had him tested and started down the path of challenging food allergies. He developed severe eczema. We treated it allopathically with corticosteroids, bleach baths, and wet wrapping. He eventually developed asthma and edema and I began to question the system I had trusted for thirty years of my life.
I have been in this natural medicine, natural remedy “space” for more than a decade at this point. I have found that the majority of people who find themselves here do so from rock-bottom illness. I have met very few people who made the leap from allopathic and western medicine ways of thinking out of choice or wisdom. Most people end up here because they’ve tried everything else and allopathic medicine failed them. My story is the same.
If you’re interested in that story – in Raleigh’s journey on GAPS and healing from eczema – you can read all about it on my blog. Start here.
Raleigh’s journey taught me a great many things, one of the biggest was how to approach illness. The process of the GAPS diet taught me to go to the root of the issue first. It taught me that western medicine was only acting as a band aid for his eczema, his asthma, and couldn’t touch his food allergies.
Western Medicine is top notch for acute care. If you get into a car crash, they can save your life. It is beyond compare when you break a bone – which Raleigh did not that long ago – and deserves a proper shout-out for this expertise. But when it comes to chronic issues, allopathic medicine is fumbling around in the dark.
So when I say food first and pharma last I am speaking to chronic health issues like autoimmune diseases, asthma, seasonal and food allergies – these types of things. These are health issues where food has the power to change and heal the body. These are the health issues where pharma’s band-aid approach to quieting symptoms fails.
Clients often ask me if I think GAPS can fully heal their condition. I think food is supremely powerful as medicine but it isn’t always 100% of what is needed. Sometimes other modalities are necessary to fill the gap. Sometimes you may need to utilize herbal medicine with Chinese medicine technique, parasite or heavy metal detoxes or seek other types of Eastern medicine to fill the gap. This is where working with a GAPS practitioner can be extremely beneficial. You can find one here.
In my work with clients these last six years I have seen food be anywhere from 90-100% of the cure. Raleigh needed the help of some Chinese medicine and a parasite protocol – which you can read here. I have worked with many clients whose young children fully healed their eczema 100% utilizing the GAPS diet. Each case is individual.
I believe there is a time and place for pharma. When Raleigh broke his wrist in 2024 I was beyond thankful for Western Medicine and the exceptional care he received. When we first began the GAPS diet in 2017 he still needed an antihistamine to be able to sleep through the night. I was able to get him a compounded version without the dyes and sugar to align as best as possible with GAPS standards. He needed that, though. He took that for about the first six months of GAPS until he had healed enough to no longer need it. I was thankful he had it as an option. It allowed him to sleep and heal. I worked with a GAPS practitioner regarding the compounded benadryl so I would recommend finding one if you find yourself in the same situation.
This long journey has taught me to trust that the body has the ability to heal and it can if you give it the proper tools. Food are the proper tools. Food truly is medicine.
So when we find ourselves sick now I always reach for food as medicine first. I make meat stock, we take garlic and cod liver oil to support our bodies in healing. If other issues pop up I try to address the root – which is typically the gut. Is it out of whack? Do we need a bit of healing? Seasonal allergies are a great indicator that the gut has some damage and needs some restoration.
Our bodies use symptoms to show us something is out of whack. Symptoms shouldn’t be silenced with drugs but heeded as a warning that something is off center. Food can help us find center and heal. The gut has been called the second brain.
I’m thankful we have Western Medicine when it is really needed. I’m more thankful I was led down this unpaved path where food is medicine. This journey changed my life. It gave my son a chance at a life without chronic illness. It gave me confidence in the body’s ability to heal.
In a world of chronically ill people, we need to hear the message that there is something we can do. We can change the narrative a bit or completely. We were never meant to find our identity in our illness but to heal.
Really it comes down to choosing your hard. It is hard to live with a chronic illness. It is hard to stick to a gut-healing protocol like GAPS. Everything in life is difficult. Which is more difficult to live with?
If you are on a GAPS journey and need coaching please reach out. I am taking new clients.
If you need some full GAPS recipes inspiration please check out my FREE 7-recipe download and my full GAPS meal plans here on my storefront.
