From: Jeff and Sabrina (webwizard.vegsource.org)
Greeting: We love Joanne, too!
Date: October 07, 1999 at 08:13:12 PST

And we love reading the Veganism board when time permits.

Sabrina developed a rare auto-immune disease four years ago called
"relapsing polychondritis" (RP), and suffered with it for a year. RP is
a disease where the immune system starts attacking the cartilage in the
body. It started in her ears. It's an extremely painful, disfiguring,
and a very serious disease which can, over a long progression, lead to
death. She was having recurrences (usually lasting a few days) every
few months, and was seeing a rheumatologist monthly. The cause of the
disease is unknown, but it's in the lupus family.

We had always thought we were doing the diet thing well, having been
vegetarians for 7 years up to that point. One day after returning from
vacation where Sabrina had had a bad episode, she was upstairs reading
while I unpacked. Suddenly she came downstairs holding a copy of a
book by John McDougall, M.D., in which he mentioned auto-immune
diseases and talked about lupus. He said that dropping dairy could be
very helpful.

"We're vegans now," Sabrina told me. That was over three years ago. The
first month after switching to a vegan diet, Sabrina's bloodtest showed no antinuclear
antibodies associated with the RP, which meant the disease was not
active. After three months of clear blood tests, her doctor declared
her disease in remission.

Many people may not be aware, but those two little words "in
remission" can bring tears of joy, which was the effect in our lives.

Of course, the doctor was mistaken, she was not in remission -- she was
cured! (As long as she never touches dairy, probably.) Actually, to
give credit to Sabrina's rheumatologist, Dr. Rodney Bluestone, he had
recommended Sabrina give up dairy one of the first times he'd seen her,
but it went in one ear and out the other because, as I said, I guess we
weren't ready to accept that this could be as simple as being food
related. Dr. Bluestone says that with RP the body gets confused and sees
some of it's own tissue as 'foreign' and attacks it. Once dairy and eggs
were removed from her diet (along with meat), the body's intelligence
can get straighted out. Bluestone says he tells all his patients to
essentially eat vegan, but that most don't do it either because they
don't believe it would have any impact, or because it's "too difficult"
to do and they don't stick with it enough to get to the benefits.

Although we switched to a vegan diet for health reasons (Sabrina turned
vegetarian for compassion while I had become veg for health benefits --
both after reading "Diet for a New America"), one of the things we
discovered is that your perspective changes when you change your diet
and are no longer complicit with the killing of animals for food.
Somehow as a natural result you become more aware of the suffering of
animals, the interconnectedness and sanctity of all life. As a result for
us, we shifted toward the compassionate aspects of veganism as well.

Joanne is not only one of the very best resources on vegan living, she
is a wonderful human being. It is amazing to watch this community
blossom and grow around her radiance.

VegSource
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